Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Starbucks' Red Cups

There's been so many posts on Facebook lately about Starbucks and the fact that many people are upset that their cups this Christmas season are plain red instead of Christmas themed. According to these articles there have been many Christians that are upset about Starbucks not using Christmas themed cups and see it as an attack on Christianity and Christmas. Individuals who don't celebrate Christmas may see this as a way that Starbucks is including them, or they may not care.

I have no idea if these articles are accurate or if they're exaggerating the information. In my opinion the red cups fit into Christmas just fine. I also think that doing a generic winter cup with snowflakes or snowmen would have worked as well. Snowflakes and snowmen aren't going to offend any normal person.

Society is really being offended by everything lately. It's just getting annoying. I appreciate not wanting to discriminate but no one is trying to personally attack you or your beliefs with a red, disposable coffee cup.


Starbucks Holiday Cups.
New Starbucks holiday cups that will make everyone happy.
Posted by Internet Action Force on Monday, November 9, 2015

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Google Alerts

Measure What Matters Chapter 6

Google Alerts is a great way to keep track of what people are saying about you brand as well as measure the public response to what you are doing. Setting up a Google Alert is super easy but sorting through all the alerts and posts can be a lot harder. Not only do you have to sort through all of the alerts to make sure that they are all actually about your company but you also have to make sure that your alerts are set up to give you the maximum amount of information.

After you sift through the alerts and have them set up correctly you need to take the information and organize it in such a way that allows you to utilize it to demonstrate what you're doing well and to figure out what you need to improve on.

Social media and the Internet can be hard to keep track of and it's very easy to miss information, Setting up Google Alerts is a great way to have information on the Internet organized and sent directly to your email or phone.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Yik Yak

Yik Yak is a social media app very much like Twitter but instead of having a username the entire app is anonymous. I first started using Yik Yak at the beginning of last year. It was just starting to become popular. About the only features were you could post short messages, down or up vote messages, and reply anonymously. I've watched the app slowly be updated and I'm really impressed with how they've improved.

One of the first things the app did was add icons to replies. Now if you respond to a yak multiple times your icon will be the same each time so people can tell it's still you. I thought this was a great idea as sometimes it would get confusing reading a long string of responses. I'm not sure if they're doing this for any other holidays but for Halloween they made the icons themed with clowns, bats, witch's hats, etc.

The app also added the ability to add pictures. Not many people do add pictures but it's a nice addition and I'm glad there is the opportunity. It could be used for anything from posting pictures of lost pets or phones to advertising an event on campus. When my boyfriend lost his phone I went on Yik Yak and posted what kind of phone it was and what it looked like. I got several replies about different phones. I also saw several yaks with pictures of phones that had been found on campus. I've also seen someone post a picture of a dog they had found. Anyone can see something on Yik Yak so it's a convenient way to reach out to the whole campus. Things like Facebook and Twitter are great but for those you have to have people choosing to follow or friend you. For Yik Yak it's visible to everyone and allows you to reach a much broader audience.

As Yik Yak continues to develop I'm interested to see how it does. From what I can tell so far it seems to go through phases where it's really popular and phases where it's not super popular. There also tends to be a wide range of topics posted so some people just avoid it entirely. I think it could be a really good tool to get the word out about campus wide activities and I'm hoping in the future there will be new updates that continue to make it a really cool and useful social media platform.