Social media can be a tricky thing. Finding and publishing content that a business’s audience will both enjoy and interact with can be challenging. And as Facebook exposure for business pages is increasingly diminishing, businesses are more dependent on audience engagement than ever for those elusive likes, shares and comments. The type of content posted is highly important as there is a line that can be crossed and turn public perception against you. Sometimes, what may have been a sincere piece of content can be perceived as simply self-promotional.
 

The reality is that behind every piece of content produced by a business there is a person. Whether that’s one person or a team, ultimately, it can be difficult for marketers to separate personal feelings from their social media content. Take for example the viral campaign to raise awareness and money for the ALS Association named “The Ice Bucket Challenge.” It’s fantastic that individuals are raising money for the ALS Association and are spreading awareness for this awful disease. Everyone from the average man on the street, to celebrities, to business executives and their staff have filmed themselves dumping ice water on their heads in the name of a good cause. As a result donations to the ALS Association have hit record numbers. One company, however, may have crossed the line in its participation.

Samsung Mobile UK posted a YouTube video with the Galaxy S5 getting dunked in icy water and challenged the iPhone 5S, and other phones, to the same treatment. The video does not mention if Samsung also supported the charity campaign with a donation.
 

The Galaxy S5 is waterproof and that feature is highlighted in the video which has the phone getting splashed with icy water and challenging its rivals.
 

The public’s comments about the video show anger as some consumers were left with the impression that the company was cashing in on a charity campaign that has so far raised $88.5 million.
 

The first comment on the video sums up many people’s reaction:
 

“Did you seriously just (expletive) use a way of supporting charity to market your (expletive) phone?”
 

“The whole point of the ALS ice bucket challenge is to spread awareness and raise support for the research of a cure and you just used that support and awareness as a way to make money? It’s like some guy going to a funeral to market his coffins. Wow Samsung. Just wow.”
 

Some people are already skeptical of the legitimacy of the ice bucket challenge. I’ve seen comments on Facebook from people claiming that they feel that people are participating simply to publicize themselves and that it is not being done in the true spirit of the challenge. Opponents to this view would disprove this based on the record donations and awareness this campaign has generated.

Perhaps it was not the best idea for Samsung to choose to create a message that is very clearly marketing and then piggyback it on a viral awareness campaign for a horrible disease. What may have been intended as cute sure did backfire. While Samsung did indeed make a donation to a charity which researches ALS along with other motor neuron diseases, this did not placate all consumers. Sentiment on social media regarding Samsung’s gimmick has been decidedly negative.

As a business it’s important to put yourself in the shoes of the public when attempting to piggyback marketing on trending topics. While this tactic can pay huge dividends, (a la Oreo and its now famous “Dunk In the Dark” tweet when the lights went out in the Super Bowl), it is important to ensure that you aren’t crossing a line that can turn your marketing into mocketing.

Things change. There’s no getting around that. The most effective marketing strategy in the world can be rendered ineffective in a day by an algorithm change. Or your thriving Facebook page could become a ghost town due to the monetization of Facebook. The only constant in the world is people’s desire for content. Content comes in many forms. In fact, everything you put out into the world as a business is your content – from advertisements, to press releases, blog articles and webinars – all of these are meant to be consumed and shape who you are as a business.

Google recognizes this. That is why it has begun to place more value on relevant content than anything else. Most businesses recognize that they need content and every day more are jumping onto the content marketing bandwagon. The problem is that many marketers don’t understand why they are producing content and what the end game really is. The easy answer to that question is: to increase sales through exposure. While at its very basic level that has a bit of truth to it, unless there’s an understanding of how to do it, this content production is doomed.

An effective content marketing strategy should not be tailored towards the instant sale. Content marketing is designed to increase exposure over time. It’s a soft sell approach to engaging your audience and building relationships. The largest benefactor of content marketing is your business. Rich, fresh and relevant content builds value in your website. It increases your digital footprint through SEO. If your content is well written and relevant, people will read it. Other sources may even begin to syndicate it and share it with their audience. Great content can transform your business’s executives into thought leaders. Producing that content consistently can achieve anticipation and familiarity. All of this increases the chances that the prospect you wish to attract, who may not yet be ready for your solution, remembers you when the time is right.

While there are many types of content you can produce, here are some ideas to get you started:

1)    First, ensure that you have foundational content. This type of content serves to identify your businesses core values and beliefs. It defines who you are and assists in creating your business identity. An easy way to understand what this content would be is to decide what you want every customer who visits your blog to see when they visit.

2)    The next type of content to consider is topical and/or industry-related articles. With the death of Google reader, it has become more difficult for people to find and keep up with information. This type of content serves to provide a valuable source of information for your audience and the opportunity to provide related insight.

3)    Last, but certainly not least, thought-provoking content can engage audiences and start conversations. Any content that makes your audience think about what you wrote also serves to further connect them to you and solidify that connection.

While this is certainly not a list of all of the types of content you could be producing, it should certainly help get you well on your way to developing a solid content marketing strategy. A good mixture of these types of articles will help your audience get to know you as a business, position you as a source of relevant information and build relationships by making your audience think.

As a PR professional, my primary goal is to assist my clients in achieving the most exposure possible and build top-of-mind brand awareness among their potential customers. To help better understand how to best position my clients for success, I did a little research on how dealers perceive vendors and their practices.

I reached out to Bobbie Herron, Digital Sales and Marketing Manager for the Garber Automotive Group. Herron was recently named to Automotive News’ “Retail 40 under 40” list and she was kind enough to share a few things with me that vendors do to irritate her, causing them to potentially lose her business.

Herron responded with what irritates her, along with some best practice tips on how vendors can better approach dealers as follows:

1. “I’m a very progressive person and willing to try new solutions if I feel that they will benefit the stores in my group. One of the things that irritates me is when a vendor asks me to participate in a beta test of their product and then wants to charge me for it. In my opinion, I’m doing them a favor. They are getting access to my data and getting feedback from me as a user, which assists them in fine-tuning their product. This is very valuable data for them to have and for them to try and charge me for it is ridiculous.”
2. “When a vendor reaches out to me trying to solicit their product or service, my first piece of advice is to back off with the constant calling and e-mailing. Most vendors don’t provide me with any useful information in these communications. I either get a generic voicemail or an obvious e-mail template that offers me no reason to return their call. The best way for a vendor to earn my business is to learn about me and my stores before they contact me. Give me a reason why their product is a good fit, with examples and data specific to my group. Most of the time, it is obvious that I’m simply on a list and have been placed on a CRM cycle. That drives me nuts. If a vendor doesn’t care enough to take time to learn about me, and can’t provide me with a thoughtful and logical argument for why their service will help my group, then they won’t get my attention.”
3. “Vendors who approach me with over-the-top claims and promises might as well stop. I know this business very well. If you think you will earn my business by making outlandish claims that are impossible to achieve, you’re wrong.”
4. “When I get calls from vendors that actually do get through to me, have managed to get my attention, then cannot answer my questions, they’re done. If you’re going to try and sell me something, at least know your product and enough about the automotive industry to give me practical examples.”
5. “The fastest death sentence a vendor can achieve is by overstepping a hierarchy. I understand that the obvious assumption most vendors make is that they need to contact either the General Manager or Dealer to speak with a decision maker. The fact is that there are many stores in which an Internet Director, e-Commerce Director, or Digital Marketing Manager are the actual decision makers. Make an effort to know who the decision makers are. There’s nothing I hate more than being called into one of my General Manager’s offices to be confronted with a vendor who managed to skip over me. They’re only going to throw the vendor back to me. Even worse is when I walk into a meeting in which a vendor proceeds to criticize and blast all of the things we’re already doing in an effort to prove how much their product or service will improve our existing marketing.”

Herron didn’t stop there, however. She also had some valuable advice for her existing vendors as to the three things they do that make her question their partnership:

1. “One of my biggest pet peeves is a vendor who never reaches out to me. I feel like once they got my business, they stopped caring. They should be reaching out to me regularly; if only to check in with me and see if I have any questions. Many vendors don’t do this very simple thing and then wonder why the dealer cancels their service. Maybe if they had ensured that the dealer knew how to use their product properly, and were using it to its fullest potential, they wouldn’t have lost a client.”
2. “Many vendors, especially at the start of the relationship, will automatically advise me to change my process to whatever process their best clients are using, without taking the time to learn my existing process. Rather than trying to transform everything we do immediately, they should take the time to see how their product or service can fit in with what we are already doing. I’m not opposed to changing processes if they will help my stores sell more vehicles, but don’t come in with guns blazing and shoot down everything we’re already doing before even knowing what those things are.”
3. “Last, but not least; when one of our existing vendors makes additions or changes to products or services we are already using without notifying me. One of the first things I do at each conference I attend is visit the booth of every vendor we use. I have them give me a product demo as if I were a prospect, rather than an existing customer. By doing this, there have been many times where I have learned of new features or services that I already had, but didn’t know about.”

Taking the time to listen to feedback from a dealer can help all of us vendors better evaluate practices so as to offer our clients a first class experience; from prospecting to customer service. Dealers share stories about companies and products in the same ways that consumers do about dealerships. Every employee and customer touch point shapes a company’s personality. Knowing what irritates potential and existing clients is the first step to earning and keeping business. To your success!

When writing content – whether that content is a short, social media post or blog article, or a full-length feature article – form is just as important as the content itself. Proper spelling and grammar can dictate whether your content is received well or not. It’s not uncommon for readers to start reading an article or social media post that initially grabbed their attention but change their mind upon encountering spelling and grammar errors. It’s very easy for a reader’s attention to get transferred away from the content and towards the errors. There are entire websites devoted to unfortunate spelling errors. All of a sudden the content you created with the goal of engaging your audience is engaging them in a completely different way than originally intended.

Imagine the impression you leave on prospects when a sales sheet or brochure contains these mistakes. That person who was interested in your product or service could very easily rule you out as a solution. If you don’t care enough to make sure your own marketing material, social media post or content is professional looking, then how can you expect your customer to think it is?

Writing isn’t for everyone. Some people can write very good content but aren’t great at spelling and grammar. Then there are people who aren’t necessarily great writers but have the ability to edit well. Identifying these people within your organization and teaming them up is a step in the right direction. If you don’t have the resources available to accomplish this, one solution would be to outsource your content marketing or, at the very least, hire a professional proofreader or editor. This ensures that your content portrays you in the very best light to your audience.

For those without the support team or budget to use either of the services I mentioned, here are two tips that may help you improve the impression your writing leaves upon your readers:

1. Spelling: Most programs have spellcheck functionality. You can’t rely only on this to correct your spelling. “Their” and “there” are both correctly spelled, but I’m sure that you’re aware that they are not interchangeable. Some programs have grammar checks as well. While those are helpful, they’re not perfect. The easiest way to spell and to grammar check any content is to read it through carefully, multiple times, aloud. Once satisfied that it is correct, have someone else read it. A second set of eyes can typically catch mistakes that you may have made.
2. Grammar – Good grammar and sentence structure are just as important as spelling. Content that reads well and transitions properly between paragraphs and thoughts is important to keep your readers’ interest. What makes sense to you may confuse your reader. Keep your sentences short and to the point. Don’t try to be William Faulkner and create a 1,287-word, run-on sentence. There aren’t very many writers that can pull that off effectively without English teachers around the world cringing. Make your content flow and easy to read. You’ll find that more readers will stick around.

Publishing content riddled with spelling and grammar errors is counter-productive. Your content is a reflection of you and your company. Potential readers may bypass your article entirely, or cease reading it, if they encounter too many mistakes. This then defeats the purpose of the content as it can hurt the effectiveness of any campaign and even your overall professional image. 

Last week, Tesla Motor’s CEO, Elon Musk, announced via the Tesla Blog that Telsa would be making its technology available to any car manufacturer that wants to use it.

Elon Musk explained his decision very eloquently when he said:

“Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.”

Tesla is in a tenuous position as it finds itself mired in court battles fighting for its right to sell vehicles using the business model it has chosen. Due to its direct-to-consumer model, dealers have continuously challenged Tesla’s position in the automotive industry through state automotive dealer associations. At the same time, consumer sentiment and support for the automaker has gotten increasingly more vocal.

While Tesla may have just thrown any future licensing revenue out the window, what it stands to gain could possibly prove more valuable in the end.

Tesla considers itself a technology leader in the electric vehicle field and in his blog, Elon Musk criticized large automakers for producing electric vehicles with limited range in limited volume. He also criticized those OEMs that produce no zero emission cars at all. Perhaps Tesla has grown weary of the large automakers efforts to prevent it selling vehicles and has resorted to the most powerful resources that they have… the public?

I’d be interested to know what others think about this issue. Is Tesla’s open sourcing of its EV technology a true gesture of philanthropy. Or simply a ruse to get attention?

Just like any business, I have potential clients that I reach out to in an effort to see whether my services are a good fit. Recently, a potential client, who I had been talking to but hadn’t heard from in a little bit, suddenly “liked” one of my posts on my personal Facebook profile. While this does happen occasionally, I have always used LinkedIn as my primary method of connecting with people on a business level. Consequently, this Facebook interaction caught my attention and sparked my thought process for this blog.

Experts have advised for years that employers use social media to screen applicants and factor in a person’s online presence when considering whether to hire them. This also applies in the B-to-B world; business executives are increasingly utilizing social media as a tool to screen companies they plan to partner with.

Potential business clients expect a company to portray itself in the best possible light. As executives are the public front of any company, the fact is that their personal social media profiles are now also game. They are just as likely to be viewed as the business profile.

What you personally choose to post on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn may say more about your business than your website and PR efforts. Just as social media is used to screen applicants to help provide valuable insight into individuals, it can also be used to provide insight into the lives and personalities of company executives. This can then be projected upon the business. Executives would be wise to carefully consider the types of content they are sharing on these social networks. Some people choose to maintain multiple personal profiles – one of which is truly personal and includes a network limited to family and true friends -- while the other acts as their online business persona.

As I discussed in my last blog article, “Perception Matters”, companies must instill in their executives the importance of careful consideration when it comes to what personal content is shared online, especially when that content is shared publicly. If you are the executive charged with protecting your brand, consider that, in the eyes of prospective partners, the individuals that work for your company ARE your company. The higher a person is in a company hierarchy, the more likely it is that a potential client will review that person’s personal social media accounts when considering whether or not to do business with you.

On LinkedIn, you can see who has viewed your profile. Most members tend to be more business-like, just by the very nature of the network. Facebook, Twitter and other networks, however, tend to be more personal in nature. If you’re an executive at a B2B company, take time to review your personal social media profiles and honestly ask yourself whether you would do business with yourself.

Since most social media networks don’t allow you to view who is looking at your social media profile, you’d be wise to operate under the assumption that every potential client is. Otherwise you may end up losing business without even realizing it. 

In a heartbreaking video titled “The Importance of Appearances,” a social experiment unfolds that sets up the same scenario with two very different people. In the first scenario, we see a person dressed as a homeless man collapse in the middle of a busy sidewalk, as if he were ill, and begin to cry for help. The pedestrians look curiously, but continue to walk by the man as he lies there for over 5 minutes with no assistance. The second scenario shows the same incident, but the person is dressed in a suit. Passersby immediately come to his aid, without him having to issue any cry for help. The intent of the video is to show that we’re all human and deserve to be treated as such. The video was released on May 12 and already has over 1.3 million views. Watch it for yourself:

One of the most fundamental jobs of any public relations professional when dealing with clients is to present them to the world in the best possible light. In many cases, PR is only a piece of a larger puzzle that includes marketing, advertising, social media, and content publishing. At times, different departments handle all these pieces with no brand manager overseeing the continuity of the message. This can cause confusion in the eye of the customer, and create obstacles for PR agencies.

Think about all of the brand disasters that have occurred through social media. Many times, individuals or companies without any oversight posted this content. Brand protection is imperative and it is the job of any good PR agency to assist in that effort. The smallest things, however, can create a certain perception and challenges, that with better coordination, oversight and planning, could have been avoided.

Here are a few tips to help you always have your brand well groomed in the eyes of your customers:

1. Content Checking – Always make sure that any content you publish – no matter what kind – has a second set of eyes on it before you publish it. Typos and grammatical errors are easier to avoid when more than one person looks at it before it goes public. Publishing misspelled content is like going into the world with your zipper undone. You’ll get attention that you don’t want, and oftentimes nobody will tell you.
2. Consistency – In a perfect world, every company would have a brand manager whose job is to ensure that all output is aligned with the message and image you want projected. Of course, that’s not always possible. At the very least, make sure that your departments are communicating and working towards the same goal. Identify your brand positioning and the appearance you want your brand to communicate. Then ensure that everyone is working to strengthen it.
3. Process – In our world of instantaneous response and reaction, it is tempting to communicate instantly when customer issues are encountered. Every company should have a process for engaging upset customers or negative statements. Avoid reactionary engagement, as that can transform an issue that very possibly could have been defused, into a public relations disaster.

As the above video sadly illustrates, if you’re perceived as unworthy of attention, you might end up with none. On the other hand, if you are always projecting your best possible image, people will pay attention when you need help and come to your aid. And nothing can diffuse a situation better than a customer who cares about your company and helps you when you need it.

Last Thursday, Facebook launched Facebook Newswire. In partnership with Storyful, a social media content verifier and aggregator, Facebook has entered the business of delivering news to its community. This service is designed to identify hot news topics and articles. It does this based on social media interaction through publicly shared content on Facebook that is then verified by Storyful. The service is also designed as a resource for journalists to help them identify newsworthy stories on which to report.

While not many small businesses generate stories that create enough interaction to be deemed newsworthy, this service does offer the possibility of brand exposure through strategically written blog articles and commentary on trending news. Keep in mind that a user who clicks on a “Trending topic” doesn’t just see one article pertaining to that topic; but rather an aggregation of articles. This opens up opportunities for clever brands to leverage industry-relevant topics that are already being shared and/or trending.

As the program is in its infancy, it’s too early to tell if it will impact public relations or content marketing as a whole. However, PRNewswire offered some tips on how PR professionals and brands can increase the chances of their content being included.

The primary advice that they give is; “if you want pickup on FB Newswire, social interactions are an outcome your PR content MUST generate.” To accomplish this, they suggest that you analyze the content that most resonates with your fans through scrutinizing your Facebook Insights and then creating content designed to interest your fans. PRNewswire adds that “Doing this will ensure the content you post on Facebook is more aligned with your fans’ interests, and increase the likelihood that they will start a cycle of sharing and interaction that will increase the message visibility and traction on social networks.”

They warn against the straight posting of press releases, although there is some opportunity for their exposure when related to a newsworthy article included in the FB Newswire. Public relations professionals and brands can leverage this by following these tips:

• Act fast! When creating unique content or commentary on industry-related events, the sooner you can produce and post it, the better the odds that your article will be included in FB Newswire.
• You don’t have to be writing the news. Many companies and brands aren’t in a position to break stories. You can, however, be on top of what’s going on and be ready to share articles with commentary from an industry point-of-view. Being first to market as far as content sharing is concerned is critical to engagement. Facebook users are more likely to interact with content that relays a news story for the first time, than they are by the time they’ve seen it multiple times.
• PR Newswire suggests the use of public relations techniques in crafting and posting your content including compelling headlines, bullet points and bold fonts, multiple visual images and embedded social sharing buttons.

The basics best practices of both public relations and content marketing obviously still stand. However, this opens up a whole new world of additional chances to gain exposure and position your company as experts in your industry. 

It’s been widely reported by social media experts that organic reach for Facebook pages has plummeted in the past 6 months; from as high as 15%, to the current 1-2%.  As a public company, Facebook has a need to appease its shareholders by monetizing its platform as much as possible. Facebook knows that there is a fine line between delivering relevant content that users want to see, and paid ads.

Many brands are obviously upset with these changes. One in particular has had enough. Last month, Eat24, a popular food site with 70,000 Facebook likes, wrote a public letter to Facebook. The letter accused Facebook of luring brands into using their platform, then slowly reducing these brand’s exposure to fans and making it a ‘pay-to-play’ model. Eat24 argued that their fans want to see their content. And that by withholding content, Facebook is forcing brands to pay for the additional reach. Eat24 then boldly said goodbye and stated that they would be shutting down their Facebook page.

In an unusual move, Facebook’s director of global communications/monetization, Brandon McCormick, went to Eat24’s Facebook page and chose to make a public statement as follows:

“Hey Eat24, this is Brandon over at Facebook. I was bummed to read your letter. The world is much more complicated than when we first met – it has changed. And we used to love your jokes about tacquitos (sp?) and 420 but now they don’t seem so funny. There is some serious stuff happening in the world and one of my best friends just had a baby and another one just took the best photo of his homemade cupcakes and what we have come to realize is people care about those things more than sushi porn (but if we are in the mood for it, we know where to find it Eat24!). So we are sorry that we have to part this way because we think we could still be friends – really we do. But we totally respect you if you need some space.” 

Seeing as the comments have since been deleted, chances are Facebook’s PR team went into red alert. Basically, Facebook’s director of global communications/monetization told a very active Facebook page with over 70,000 likes that their content is irrelevant. And also that their fans don’t really want to see it anyways. If this person really is in charge of monetization of the platform, as his title implies, you’d think that a tad more tact could have been used.

The sad thing is, this could be the general sentiment of Facebook’s view of what users chose to have delivered into their newsfeed. That theory is certainly supported by the reduction in page exposure to almost nil over the past 6 months. The companies this impacts the most are undoubtedly small, local businesses that may have minimal likes. Typically, those likes were built organically by actual customers and supports within their local community. As an example, a page with 500 fans is now reaching 5-10 fans per post. This detracts from the ability to communicate and engage with existing fans, and also decreases the opportunity to acquire new customers. Of course, there is a simple solution to this reduced reach – give Facebook your money.

Facebook is definitely a desirable place in which to interact with your customers and deliver your message through consistent and engaging content. While larger brands will no doubt continue utilizing Facebook’s platform and include paid ads in the mix, smaller businesses may begin to find it’s simply not worth the effort anymore.

That’s exactly what Eat24 did. It has deleted its Facebook page as promised. If you take Mr. McCormick’s response at face value, Facebook doesn’t care about companies and brands that won’t open up their wallets. And that’s certainly not a message that you want your customers to get. Maybe Mr. McCormick reached out to Eat24 personally. Neither party has said. Either way, Eat24 would have been the perfect conquest and prospect. All someone needed to do was put a salesperson’s hat one, but they chose not to. 

Unless you’ve been living in a box for the past couple weeks, you’d undoubtedly heard about the now infamous selfie taken by Ellen DeGeneres during the 2014 Academy Awards. Ellen DeGeneres, who hosted the show, took a moment to compose a selfie in the audience with the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie, amongst others. She then proceeded to ask viewers to retweet it. The results were astounding.

The tweet, taken March 2, has since been retweeted almost 3.5 million times with almost 2 million favorites. It shattered the record for retweets of 780,000 times, which was previously held by President Barak Obama when he tweeted a photo of himself and his wife embracing after being re-elected.

While those numbers are certainly impressive, the bigger story is exactly what that means in terms of exposure. Twitter posted a blog article 3 days after the show detailing the anatomy of a tweet. On March 5, when the article was written, the tweet had only received 2.4 million retweets. That tweet was embedded 13,711 times into websites. Blog and news articles were written about it and 8.1 million people saw the actual tweet itself. In terms of social reach, as of March 5, that single tweet had been viewed a total of 32.8 million times. It has now been retweeted 3.4 million times which, using some simple math, would increase that reach to a whopping 46.4 million times. To put that into perspective, according to the Washington Post, only 43 million people actually watched the Oscars. You must also keep in mind that this social reach only accounts for social reach on Twitter. Who knows how much larger this figure would be when you factor in shares across other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. My guess is that the actual figures are staggering and easily in the hundred of millions.

There were three big winners that night. First, and foremost, Ellen DeGeneres and her show (which is the Twitter account under which she tweeted the selfie) made out like bandits. Second was Samsung. Samsung, a sponsor of the Oscars, denies that Ellen’s use of the Samsung Galaxy S5 was part of their sponsorship agreement. In their statement reported by CNBC, Samsung said, “While we were a sponsor of the Oscars and had an integration with ABC, we were delighted to see Ellen organically incorporate the device into the selfie moment that had everyone talking.” They were so happy, in fact, that they decided to donate $3 million to St. Jude’s and the Humane Society; both of which are supported by DeGeneres. However, due to the fact that, according to CBS News, Ellen was tweeting the whole night from her Apple iPhone, there are some conspiracy theorists who don’t quite believe that her use of the Samsung phone was organic. The final winner was Twitter itself. In a time when they are seeking to monetize their platform through Promoted Accounts and Tweets, there is no better example of the potential for exposure that their platform presents to business.

While most businesses won’t be able to take a selfie as glamorous, or tweet it from an account with so many followers, this most certainly should prove to businesses that social media should have a place in their marketing and public relations strategies. My guess is that record will stand for quite a long time.