The Streisand Effect

The Streisand Effect

If you too have been living in a box since 2003, you won’t have known what the Streisand Effect was. I’m going to outline it in this article along with a few other juicy stories that have been named after it.

When trying to hide, it just makes it worse.

This is what happened when superstar Barbara Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman for sharing images featuring her mansion in Malibu. We already know that it’s common knowledge if you make a big deal over something, it’s going to draw more attention to it. Barbara must not have considered this when she sued him for $50 million for showing people how to gain access to her residence. At this point, the picture had only been viewed 6 times. Obviously, the news was reported and before long the photo had over a million views and had been reprinted numerous times. Unfortunately for Streisand, as well as achieving the opposite of what she had wanted, she also had to cover the photographer’s huge legal fees!

So, there you have it: The Streisand Effect. There’s been other interesting stories where this Effect has also taken place…

Beyonce:

In 2013, superstar Beyonce performed at the Super Bowl (just one of the biggest sporting events, ever! No biggie.) BuzzFeed posted images of Beyonce’s performance which were shortly followed by her publicist’s email asking them to be removed. The email itemised the photos which were to be taken down as they were ‘unflattering’. Rather than removing them, Buzzfeed posted another article called ‘The Unflattering Photos Beyonce’s Publicist Doesn’t Want You To See’. The post included the email and the selected photos! You can see them here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedceleb/the-unflattering-photos-beyonces-publicist-doesnt-want-you-t 

Uber:

Another interesting one was in June 2014. Taxi drivers congregated on the streets of London to declare their concern towards Uber, an app that uses a smartphone’s GPS system to connect you to a driver. At this time, the app was only just becoming popular. After the protest Uber reported that it had received an 859% increase in downloads compared to the previous week! Now look at them go!

The Pirate Bay:

In June 2011, The Pirate Bay (a website who displayed copyright music) were asked to remove torrent links. They refused, forcing them to go to court. The High Court ordered five major internet service providers to block access to the site. This only proved to increase The Pirate Bay’s popularity, allowing 12 million visitors to visit in just that day. Right after the block was set up, the torrent site gave users easy ways to access other sites linked by them. Easy!

Samsung:

Youtuber ghostlyrich uploaded a video showing his Samsung Galaxy S4 catching fire for no apparent reason. He made an official complaint and was offered a deal to replace the phone as long as he removed the video from his channel and not upload similar material. Instead of accepting the deal, he decided to upload a second video that earned more than a million views. In the video he expressed his concern about how Samsung deals with major safety concerns and how they don’t follow warranty procedures. Since then, several stories about Samsung smartphones catching fire have been reported. One man from Hong Kong lost his house due to a fire that was allegedly started by his Samsung Galaxy S4!

Do you know of any more Streisand Effect stories? Maybe you have your own? 

Let us know! contact@fellowsfinance.com 

 

What's your 2019 social media strategy?

Our 2019 Social Media Strategy

While thinking about this article, I came across another article which started with ‘it’s the right time now to start planning your social media marketing strategy for 2019.’ I was going to write advice for you, the reader, about how you could increase your social media presence. But I quickly realised that I could use this advice myself.

You may or may not know, I’m pretty new to my current job in recruitment. We started Fellows Finance in September so that’s when I began building the social media pages. I had lots of ideas and didn’t really know how to run with them, I had read in numerous places that you should choose just one platform rather than trying to utilise all of them. I decided to ignore this. Obviously, I knew how important social media could be to mar0ket a brand and really wanted this to be a selling point of our company so I created my own LinkedIn page, a company LinkedIn page, a Facebook page, an Instagram page and a Twitter page. However, now that my actual job is underway, I struggle to post as much as I’d like to stay relevant on each page and as the new year loomed, I had been wondering about what to do next.

I received an email from a guy who was doing free social media audits with no strings attached. Why not? I thought. I’ve had quite a few emails from people trying to sell their services to me this past few months actually. They’ll say that they can help us to gain more followers or gain a wider audience, I tend to ignore those ones. I wanted to figure it out for myself. I am at a point now though where this audit has actually sparked a little of bit of interest with me and I realise that maybe I do need a little guidance.

Advice from another article I found while writing this was; ‘it’s good to review your existing social media marketing strategy to find what works and what can be improved’. So that’s what I’m going to do in this article. Hopefully then, in a few months’ time I’ll be able to write another article about my success!

I’m going to start with the Instagram page. This is my favourite social media platform. I spent a lot of time in September finding accountants and accountancy firms on Instagram and following them. The problem with that was, most people on this platform don’t specify their job title. After a while I found a hack to finding relevant people via Google, although I know that there are probably a million other accountants out there on Instagram who I can’t find. I post 2/3 times a week onto the Instagram page and have added some story highlights too. The page now has 91 followers however, I find that most of the people who like the posts are not actually relevant to us. We do receive likes and follows from accountancy firms which is great, but we do seem to be short on engagement from potential candidates. As a frequent Instagram user myself, this doesn’t really surprise me. I would never follow a business page back unless I knew that they had super engaging content that related to me. The problem with this is, how can content be relevant and interesting to every accountant or accountancy firm out there? Everyone has different opinions about what they are looking for on an Instagram page, if I post only to appeal to a certain audience, I would be ignoring the other potential audience that we could gain.

One piece of advice that I have read is that Instagram favours interaction and storytelling. Maybe posting success stories with an explanation is something I might try. I’ve found that a lot of companies and brands have created and maintained large communities of followers who they share their successes and news with. Again though, this is not going to necessarily find me a relevant audience for recruiting finance specialists. Engaging with followers is high up on the agenda for an interesting page. Visual content and engaging stories are a fun way to appeal to audiences so I am going to consider what I’m posting and who it is appealing to. I’m also going to actively engage with other accountants and accountancy firms in the hope that we can gain some more relevant followers to our page!

Now onto the Twitter page. I wont lie, I don’t really use twitter that much on my personal account other than to moan about TV shows. There’s a very high chance that our company Twitter page doesn’t do as well as our Instagram page because it’s not my preference. So, that’s the first critique for myself regarding Twitter. Post more frequently and interact more with followers. Twitter trends are key for interacting with different people and joining in on debates and opinions, I definitely need to do more of this to create a bigger Twitter presence. I’ve found it even more difficult on Twitter to find accountants though. Again, we have some accounting firms following us but many potential candidates are hidden away with nothing written in their bio. If you are reading this and have some tips for finding candidates, I’d love to hear them! One of the main tips that pops up for Twitter is relationships with customers, this is something that we need to push. Tweets should relate and engage with the correct audience. I found a page where it explains how to complete a ‘follower audit’, this allows you to see your followers’ interests and how they interact with Twitter which will give a general idea of the kind of content that they are more receptive to. I’m going to give this a go!

This next paragraph is going to be a short one. I’m not even going to do my research. My opinion on Facebook is that it does not work for a business like ours. I created a page but how am I supposed to get followers? If on the off chance I come across any accountants on Facebook, it’s difficult to ask them to follow my page without being friends with them on my personal account. To be quite honest, I think promoting ourselves on Facebook is a waste, I’m not going to invest any more time into it.

Onto LinkedIn. Now this one is not a waste of time. Before September I didn’t have an account, I’ve spent a substantial amount of time growing my network since then and now have more than 2000 followers. I’m pretty pleased with that, only about 30 of them are not relevant to me but that’s an article for another day. I have connected with many people and have started to build relationships with some candidates while also having connected with clients on there too. I’ve found that my approach is subtler than competitors and I have even been thanked for my message for it not being the usual recruiter type message. In terms of connections, I think I’m using LinkedIn successfully. I need to think more about my content now. The posts that receive the most traction on this platform seem to be opinionated posts or success stories, it seems that lots of people on LinkedIn are willing to congratulate and be happy for others’ successes. I like that. Other most like posts seem to be humorous videos or subtle sales videos. Last week I saw a great example which really inspired me to think about how I could approach recruitment. It was a guy who recreated a scene of ‘The Holiday’ while selling a job that he needed to recruit for. It was pure genius actually.

Obviously, the good thing about LinkedIn is I know who my audience are, 99% of people who I am connected to work in finance. When I post finance related posts I get some attention from my connections but not as much as I’d like. To be critical of myself, I think it’s probably because I don’t give an opinion. I’m not leaving anyone a reason to comment on my post which would then allow other people to see it. Number 1 tip to myself: be more opinionated. Number 2: Post creative content. Number 3: Post more often.

So, there you have it. An article which intended to give you advice about how to market your social media platforms in 2019 but which actually ended up being an audit of the Fellows Finance social media page. If nothing else, I hope this has made you think about doing an audit of your own social media sites. If you have any tips for me, I’d love to hear them!
rebecca.wood@fellowsfinance.com 

 

My opinions on future technology

What I think about future technology

---> What a great idea!

As I write this, I’m trying to think of a time I can remember without the Internet. Nope, can’t think. Technology is literally everywhere, it’s so funny to watch people crumble when the wi-fi goes down or when something technical stops working. In my case, this is ALL of the time (obviously I don’t find it funny when the joke is on me). I’m not really sure what happens but I seem to have the worst luck when it comes to gadgets, my MacBook and iPhone are always having problems (my colleague Pete would tell me that I need an Android) and I am constantly resetting passwords for every website that I’ve ever used. This is mostly because each website wants something different; must use a capital letter, must use a semi colon, must use a semi colon with 5 non-consecutive numbers and a unicorn symbol. I’m sure you can relate to this. We don’t have too much luck here in the office either, the internet will drop off and we will all look at each other in despair. “What shall we do now?” “When will it be back on?” “Everything on my list of to-dos involves the internet.”

Anyway, this exact scenario is how I’ve come to write this article. I got thinking about how much we depend on the internet to get through our daily lives. The amount that it has changed over the years is obviously remarkable; I remember the times when we had to wait for the Internet to dial up but I remember nothing before that. Everyone else in the office can remember DOS based email and paper files or CD ROMS to gather information. I’m what you would call, a millennial.

Although I feel quite up to speed with the technology hype (minus the password thing), I am quite interested in what the future holds for us on the gadget front. I wonder if us millennials will be able to keep up in 50 years or whether I’ll be sat here telling the future generation how it was different back in my day. So, with this in mind I decided to research what people believe our future holds in regards to technology. Here’s what I found…

Your brain print as a password
Well, how convenient that this is the first one I found! Brainwaves may be able to function as computer passwords. In an experiment, each person tested reacted differently as they read a list of acronyms. The system was able to predict which person was reading the list because of this, meaning that in the future, a PC may be able to verify who is sitting at it. I can’t wait for this one!

Delivery drones
Now I actually think this is pretty cool. And it doesn’t sound like it’s really that far away. I was sat wondering how the drone would ever make it to the correct house since Google Maps are forever giving me the wrong directions but after a little research, it seems that a landing pad would be provided to the customer. This would have the card details stored in it and when the drone lands to drop the package, the card details match up and the package is released. Amazon has already been trialling this. I wonder how large the packages have to be?!

Self-driving cars
It is said that numerous manufacturers are already implementing new technology into their vehicles. It’s only a matter of time before self-driving cars are the norm, safety features are expected to surpass any human driver’s skills with sensors always being active. A human behind the wheel is optional… Can you imagine seeing a car drive by with no one in it? That would be weird.

Eat all you want without getting fat
Sorry but this one sounds ridiculous. Apparently, there will be a drug that allows you to eat whatever you want without gaining weight. Scientists have already re-engineered a gene that controls obesity in rats and they might be able to manipulate our genes to do the same! It’s a no from me.

Your clothes will clean themselves
I enjoy this one. Engineers in China have developed a titanium dioxide coating that helps cotton shed stains. To relieve the stains, you just need to step in the sun!

Nurses will be robots
By 2045, robots will supposedly be moving you into different hospital beds and pushing food carts. This is also a big no thank you from me!

I actually enjoyed finding out what the future might hold for us. Although I’m not sure that some of these things are going to go ahead. What do you think the next 50 years has in store for us?

Email me: rebecca.wood@fellowsfinance.com