BeReal: The Newest App Capturing The Attention of Gen Z’s… But Why??

Recently an app has caught the attention of people across the world, becoming one of Instagram’s biggest rivals amongst Gen Z’s, Zillennials and even Millennials now.

The app, BeReal sends a notification to its users once a day, each day at a different time, urging its users to capture whatever they are doing at that moment.

“Time to BeReal”

Users are then encouraged to take a photo within 2 minutes of when they receive the notification. An image is captured on both the front facing camera and on the main camera, depicting you and whatever you’re looking at. Once you’re happy with the images they are uploaded to the feed with the option to add a caption. After the 2 minute notification, any photos that are posted, are described as ‘Late’. You also cannot see what your friends have posted until you have posted.

What makes the app different from any other platform, is that you cannot edit, photoshop or filter the photos before posting. Everyone that contributes to the app is showing their day to day lives in real time.

As a Zillenial who grew up with Instagram and Snapchat, editing and filtering an image before posting it, would go without a thought, so you can imagine my shock at the lack of options when I tested out BeReal. However, within the first week, I had noticed benefits to the app.

Typically on Sundays, I will scroll through my Instagram feed, envious of those away on a weekend trip, out on hikes, or at bottomless brunches, but when that notification hit for BeReal,

I noticed the majority of my friends having a lazy day, some hungover, some in their pyjamas at 4pm, being a couch potato. I was weirdly comforted by it as I no longer felt guilty for also having a day of doing nothing. Followed by the Monday where everyone posted their workday, each sitting at their desks on a gorgeous, sunny day. I wasn’t missing out on anything, or feeling the pressure to be living an exciting life, like what we see on social media.

There’s no room for influencers, or opportunities to make careers out of the platform. It is such a simple concept that is breaking down the strive for perfection that social media has curated over the years. BeReal is a breath of fresh air that promotes realness in the social media sphere. Something that I assume many young people have not experienced before.

Niamh

Niamh Lawlor is a Senior Account Executive with Fuzion Communications, a full service PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork.

Body Image: The Covid-19 edition

At the start of Lockdown I set myself loads of goals including trying to lose ten pounds in two weeks and dropping a dress size in one month.

When these inevitably didn’t work I challenged myself to drink 4 litres of water everyday and I got into a really bad habit of weighing myself everyday, hoping the scales would shift the tiniest bit to fuel my ego.

With so much idle time at home with nowhere to go and nobody to see, the only thing that seemed worth focusing on was bettering myself, and by that I mean my exterior, safe to say I wasn’t trying to improve my mindset!

All this extra time amounted to excess screen time. Endless scrolling through false realities, “Lockdown Glowups”, home workouts and low calorie meals was so damaging to thousands of girls/boys/women/men exactly like me.

TikTok was spitting out exercise videos at me as well as “two week transformations” with amazing results.

As Lockdown was such an isolating experience for everybody, we spent quite a lot of time with our thoughts: What you might have thought about yourself for a split second in February just got heightened by 1000% in April. Suddenly MyFitnessPal felt like my only pal.

To pass the day I spent my time entering the bowl of fruit I ate for breakfast into a calorie calculating app that constantly notified me that I didn’t weigh myself this morning and to “Jump On The Scales!”. The constant restrict-binge cycle was exhausting, but it was okay because my favourite “influencers” said it happens to them all the time (sarcasm intended!).

So as if people weren’t going through enough hardship with a global pandemic and all the frills that come with that, we were given mixed messages regarding health and fitness advice every day; There was – work from home, but don’t sit down all day, get out and exercise – but make sure it’s in your 5km radius and you should have no contact with others.

While at the same time we were bombarded with banana bread recipes, homemade cocktail ingredients and of course that thing that happened in the middle of all this that nobody seems to remember, Easter and those delicious yet deadly hollow brown eggs!!

After a few months had passed and the “new normal” had set in, the calorie counting stopped.

Safe to say at least 100 of the accounts I used to follow online have gotten a big unfollow from me, because they weren’t there for me when I slipped up -They were still drinking kale smoothies and getting their ten thousand steps everyday, while I faced my second serving of carbs that morning.

I asked myself, why would you follow someone who makes you feel bad about yourself?

I’ve learned that you can be healthy without weighing out your spinach, and I’ve learned that I don’t need to look like those girls we see all over our feeds, because that’s how they make their living and I just want to focus on living.

Be careful with who and what you follow..

Heather

Heather Lordan is a PR intern with Fuzion Communications, a full service PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in both Dublin and Cork.

Facebook algorithms and posts not quite reaching your audience anymore

Algorithms, algorithms…. It’s the buzzword when it comes to social media these days but do the people talking about it even know what an algorithm is?

It’s not used just by people in the digital world now.

Your annoying Aunt Mary who posts her whole life to Facebook and thinks that when people post they’re sending it directly to her, is now sharing posts telling people to comment on her feed because Facebook will hide you away forever, otherwise!

This is slightly dramatic and not what the new Facebook algorithm is about…. Mark Zuckerberg actually wants you to see what your friends are up to.

In his announcement on January 11^th MZ said that Facebook had changed the news feed algorithm to prioritise content from “friends, family and groups.”

[Check out the episode of the Fuzion Win Happy Podcast “Frustrated about Facebook“ where Greg Canty and Alma Brosnan from our digital team chat about this issue]

Since last June, he has placed a huge push on Facebook groups and using those to build communities.

The algorithm is just another one of those changes to (theoretically at least) help users see content they want to see (however, you may not want to see an album of Aunt Mary’s holiday pictures!) and interact meaningfully with their friends and family.

The only users being negatively impacted by these changes are Business Pages who have already built a solid audience through organic reach and engagement.

Facebook are now saying that Business Pages will still be able to reach customers through “meaningful interaction”.

What is meaningful interaction to you and your business page?

• To some businesses, it’s posting special offers for their followers
• To others, it can be rewarding followers with a competition and prize giveaway

Both of these types of posts are affected by the new algorithm.

Facebook have said using “engagement-bait” (deliberate content to get people engaging) to encourage users to comment or share is not a meaningful interaction and these posts will be demoted in the News Feed of users (eg – they won’t see these posts!!).

Examples of “engagement-bait” include:

• React baiting: Asking people to react to the post (includes like, love, haha, wow, sad, and angry)
• Comment baiting: Asking people to comment with specific answers (words, numbers, phrases, or emojis)
• Share baiting: Asking people to share the post with their friends
• Tag baiting: Asking people to tag their friends

So, all those competitions that pages ran asking people to “like, comment & share” are exactly what Facebook don’t want to see anymore.

(ironically most of these tactics were being used to “beat” the previous algorithms!)

How can Business Pages get around this?

You should follow what Facebook wants from you, and post relevant content that they believe your followers want to see.

Begin by creating quality content (in our view this should always be your number one priority, regardless of social media platform) that you believe will start a conversation on your page (ideally this will be a conversation between fans of your page).

Highlight the personality of the business and use that voice and tone consistently throughout your posts.

Include questions in your posts that will generate interesting answers in the comments so that you can then interact with your audience.

What we seem to have forgotten in all of this is that the point of creating a Business Page was to interact and promote your offerings to customers.

We all just got too caught up in counting the number of followers and wondering who those three people from Malaysia looking at your page were!!

It’s time to bring it back to basics and start building relationships with the followers on your Pages again.

Or if all else fails…. Just turn to Facebook Advertising!  

Is this the real agenda of Mark Zucherberg?

Alma

Alma Brosnan is part of the Social Media Consultancy team at Fuzion Communications who have offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Social media is easy, right?

Social media is hard!

There I said it. I reckon this is what most people think but no one wants to admit.

Social media is meant to be the easy part of marketing. It’s free so it must be simple! No-one counts the time that has to go into creating, posting and monitoring the content that will represent you or your business on social media.

This is what scares a lot of business people away from using social media. They dip their toe in and then realise how much time is involved and step back. And when they decide to give it a second chance everything has changed!

But it doesn’t have to be that hard – I promise.

Here are my top tips for keeping on top of your social media platforms:

1. Create a social media marketing plan before you begin

Just like you would with a normal business plan you should create a social media marketing plan. This will help you set goals and decide which platforms you want a presence on. Doing this will set you up for success, and will allow you to avoid any social media mistakes.

2. Create a social media content calendar

I swear by this.

It makes everything so much easier and helps you to stay organised and on track with your plan. By using a social media content calendar you’re able to figure out a social media content schedule that works for you. You can see and control how often you post and make sure you’re posting suitable content to the right platform.

3. Engagement!

You must be willing to engage with people online. The main point of social media is to be social!

If people are asking questions about your business or your products, you need to respond to them. Even if it’s bad. Acknowledgement of an issue goes a long way and could stand to you in future.

4. Know when to outsource your social media management

If you’re getting stuck with ideas for content or you just don’t have the time to properly monitor your activity, it might be a good idea to seek some outside help.

Whether it’s training or getting someone to take over your accounts, sometimes an outside perspective can be very beneficial. By working with an agency you get access to their knowledge and expertise about social media marketing which you can apply to your business.

Greg, our social media guru (he’ll hate me saying that!) is a huge advocate for not outsourcing your social media but even he will admit that outsourcing to well-briefed professionals is much better than doing it badly or not at all.

If this is you then give us a call!

Alma

Alma Brosnan is part of the Social Media Consultancy team at Fuzion Communications who have offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

The Mechanic’s Car and Using Your Voice!

It’s my own fault.  I threw down the gauntlet to our Fuzion team to put our keyboards where our mouths are and get blogging!  And I volunteered to be the first one on our new rota that Ann-Marie is going to manage!

We have seen it work so well for our business, attracting attention to Fuzion and what we believe in and the activity definitely makes us stand out from the crowd.  Seth Godin and his Cow would be glowing with purple pride I like to think!!

Everyone knows we talk about social media a lot at Fuzion and that we truly believe in the value of these new tools to promote our businesses – as well as that we can back it up with solid numbers on our various social media pages; we have regular and varied activity and we have one of the most prolific social media bloggers in the country working with us @gregcantyfuzion.

Unlike some of our competitors, the fact that we can back it up has won us solid business, it has helped us thrive and attract great clients and great people working with us.

Most of us in the team though, bar Greg (and poor @JLM_cork – who has about a million tweets and not really a corresponding number of followers – sorry JLM we’ll have to remedy that!!) don’t do enough with the tools that are right at our finger tips.  I think it’s a case of the mechanics car – last one to get fixed.

The Mechanics Car!

Hands up I am the worst offender.  I have 1,391 followers on twitter and for the life of me I honestly don’t know why they follow me, as I don’t connect with them as often as I should.  I honestly believe that most follow me because Greg mentions me on tweets so much that his followers think that I must have something interesting to say!  (I don’t but I’m working on it!!!)

Don’t get me started on LinkedIn – I have a million invites waiting to accept – so many I think Greg would divorce me if he realised just how neglectful I was of the platform!!!   And in my shame I think this is about my 4^th blog (although my 3^rd was on the global Lean-In blog that was reprinted in regional and national papers and I got a radio interview out of it!!)

I’m trying to engage more with the various platforms as I know it wins us business, new contacts and even some good friends – and I want more of all of these!!!

I want to engage more, I need to write more blogs, manage our on-line reputation and not leave it up to @gregcantyfuzion and @JLM_cork to fly the Fuzion flag.

I think one of the things that puts me off a little is that I’m not as brave as @gregcantyfuzion and I think sometimes with social media you need to be.  He really puts it out there.  He is honest, open and shows very much what we as a business stand for – and in his own personal blog what he stands for (and sometimes won’t stand for!!).  I am being honest myself when I say that I couldn’t be that honest!!!

Use Your Voice

The odd time Greg’s blogs and tweets get a negative reaction from some people.  But if he is going to be that prolific – sometimes he is going to have people disagreeing with him.  Greg welcomes that – he never writes something that he hasn’t researched and is prepared to back up his opinions and enjoys creating debate around something that he has a strong opinion about.

He also gets himself in to trouble the odd time, but he is happy to fight the fight, as he never writes something just for the sake of it and relishes the debate/battle.

Of course I am proud of him, but some of the blogs I wouldn’t publish – but you know what.. unless I flag the Fuzion flag more on-line, Greg’s is the only Fuzion voice that will be heard.  So I shouldn’t really complain!!

tweet @gregcantyfuzion if this reminds you of anyone!!!

Person to Person

We keep on saying to our clients – “Your clients don’t want to deal with brands they want to deal with people”. Social media gives us a really unique opportunity to engage with our clients person to person.  So we should all be using it more!  And that’s not just for business owners – the whole team should take ownership and use every opportunity they can to use their voice to promote the business that they work for – everyone can be a winner.

Now I just need to knuckle down and get my voice heard out there more and I hope that this encourages more people out there who are lurking, reading the blogs, to get their fingers to keyboards and get blogging, tweeting and for god sake start accepting all those LinkedIn connections.

You can start by commenting on this blog if you like it – or comment even if you don’t – I swear all comments are welcome – and that’s the truth – honestly 😉 xx

Deirdre Waldron is a partner of Fuzion

No breakfast before 9 on Achill Island !

Ten past eight and I’m still lying in the hotel bed in Achill Island contemplating the day ahead.

My alarm went off over two hours ago – Yep, 6am is the first alarm setting and I have a second one set for 6:15, which is when I normally get up. The very odd time I might allow myself the luxury of another 15 minutes and then get up ..busy, busy!

That’s just the way it is these days – Monday to Friday I work my socks off , including most evenings and there is always some work to be done at the weekend. The joys of self employment!

Ten past eight ..I’m not here on holidays, I’m on Achill Island to deliver three days of social media training to the local business people, most of whom are involved in the tourism sector.

I have loads to do but the wifi only works in the reception area and my modem doesn’t have sufficient coverage to get any work done.

Breakfast isn’t served in the hotel until 9am – I’m not kidding!

There is plenty of time to do everything including taking in the most spectacular scenery you have ever seen in your whole life.

The sign at reception used say breakfast is served between 8:30 and 10 am but this was changed with a temporary sign changing the 8:30 till 9am. Yesterday morning I thought I would pop down and just grab some cereal but the dining area was all locked up – nothing for it but back to bed.

I give the course at the local IT centre from 10am – things don’t start too early around here.

Today is my last day and I’m starting to get to know some of the group quite well. The group is made up of born and bred locals, Julien the kite surfer (Pure Magic)from France, Ute from Germany, Padraig who jumped out of the rat race in Dublin and a bunch of other immigrants from all over Ireland.

During one of our numerous tea breaks (with gorgeous homemade scones) one of the immigrants explains to me how the place “gets a hold of you” and you just don’t want to leave.

Besides being very relaxed and friendly it helps when the suggestion of a visit to Lynotts pub (the greatest little pub ever) is accepted warmly.

I was expecting one or two to turn up for a pint but a good few came with their friends – the guitar was produced and we had songs in English and French ..well done Julien and Liam.

Dee is just after coming over to me as I am typing this “You’d get used to the pace of life here”.

I tend to agree ..

What can I say …come to Achill Island!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Newspapers and Social Media – Parallel Media?

Saturday morning and I’ve just read through the newspaper, The Irish Examiner, which we have delivered with the milk on a Saturday!

From the age of 13 till 21 I delivered enough of them when I had my own newspaper round ..

To be honest I often never get to read it. I pop it on the kitchen table, with every intention of having a peep at it later and often this never happens and it stays there unread.

Today I read it cover to cover including the supplements and it really showed me what I am missing, why we need newspapers so badly, even in a world where we can get news instantly via our social media channels.

I’m a self confessed lover of Twitter and I tell people at my social media courses and our clients how powerful the platform is – even if you never decide to tweet you can follow your favourite newspapers, radio stations, journalists, celebrities, sports stars, friends and other interesting folk.

Fire it up anytime and you will see a constant stream of updates from everyone you are following. You can use the powerful “search” function and track anyone that is tweeting about a subject.

That sounds pretty incredible – it is.

Why would you bother with a newspaper?

Reading the paper today it showed me some really valuable things that Twitter or any of the other social media platform could not bring me:

Emphasis – The editor and the team will decide the stories that are bigger and the ones that are smaller, those that deserve more space and the ones that deserve to be closer to the front of the paper. Twitter will be delivered to me in messages of 140 characters or less, regardless of how important each tweet is. The skill involved in organising and prioritising all of this is so valuable.

Organisation – The newspaper is organised into a particular sequence, which makes it really easy to find the topics that you are interested in. I can organise the twitter accounts I am following into subject matter lists but this still misses the skill delivered by the newspaper team.

Investigation – We badly need teams of journalists who will investigate topics of interest. We need teams of journalists with a great “nose” investigating issues that may not yet be of interest but they have an instinct that something is wrong. Social media definitely helps with all of us having a voice to highlight issues that we feel are important – we need great journalists using their skills to pick up on these.

News – With so much information hitting us via all the various channels it is really important to pick up the newspaper and glance through all of those headlines so that we don’t miss the “important news”. I learnt a lot today quickly by flicking through the paper.

New Stuff – Reading through the paper today I discovered bucket loads of really interesting “stuff” that I would never have stumbled upon. I wouldn’t have been looking for it online so I would not have found it. The team at the newspaper carefully pick through the world of information, new books and new music and deliver what they feel will be of interest to their readers. I also discover new things every day via social media that is equally of interest.

Skill – We need the skills of the journalists, the writers and the editors to deliver us news and stories in a way that grabs our attention and engages with us. We would be lost without these skills.

Look and Feel – While I love my technology and my gadgetry, my iPhone and my iPad there is something very special about the printed material, the paper, the pictures and the layouts. It’s an enjoyable experience to pick up a newspaper with a cuppa and digest all the news and information that’s on offer. Using an App like Flipboard on the iPad to flick through news and information is convenient and enjoyable but it can’t replace the newspaper experience.

While many feel new media will replace traditional media I’m not that sure – both are valuable in quite different ways and we will benefit from both, we need both.

It’s not either or ..it’s Parallel Media.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer social media training and consultancy from our offices in Cork and Dublin

Game Changing Interviews

Just before the New Year we decided to publicise a vacancy for a Senior PR post in our Dublin office.

We deliberately wanted to leave the job description open so that it would invite interest from  a wide range of people leaving us with the opportunity of shaping the role around the successful “right” candidate instead of letting everything be dictated by a very specific role ..it has been an interesting journey with some really good learnings!

1. The job vacancy posted on our website and the use of social media alone was enough to generate a huge number of responses and enough quality candidates
2. From the minute we tweeted and posted the link for the vacancy we could see huge traffic hitting our website
3. People are really happy to retweet and share news about job vacancies
4. So many people apply for jobs without reading what the job is about!! – I would say about 40% of the enquiries were totally irrelevant
5. The role attracted a lot of attention because of the way we described it – avoid cliches (dynamic person…)!
6. People in really good roles are now prepared to move to new jobs – is that recession fear easing off?
7. Some people are caught in “fur lined” mouse traps – they are getting no satisfaction from their jobs but are stuck because their packages are too good to leave. We met a few of these!
8. Many people have taken roles in the recession because they needed the money – most are really unfulfilled now, which is bad for them and their employers.
9. There are a lot of really talented, hard working people out there – the quality of the people we met was amazing
10. Employment agencies – I can’t see us ever having to use one..

After just one week of searching we found more than one ideal candidate for the role but we also met a number of quite diverse people all with something unique to offer who we know we will stay in touch with and work together in some way on various projects..

The game of recruiting is changing, the game of looking for a job is changing and hopefully this simple interview process could turn out to be a valuable “game changer” for us.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Twitter – are you covered?

Ok, our graphic team didn’t do this !!

First Facebook now Twitter– cover pages are becoming a significant feature of your social media presence.

The recent introduction of these cover images by Twitter are allowing users to give greater prominence to photographs and imagery. By allowing users to feature one image as a large banner at the top of their profile, you can make a bigger visual impact with your Twitter presence.

This new design feature gives your visual profile a similar opportunity to that available on your Facebook page.

This new cover page feature on Twitter won’t just be seen on your computer, but will also be visible on mobile Apps, including Twitter’s all-new, totally rebuilt iPad App.

Your profile pic is no longer tucked in the corner, but will display front and centre of your cover page in a business card type of layout. This change gives you the chance to be creative and get yourself or your business out there with a more visual impact.

Eventually, all users will have to switch over to the new look. It won’t be enforced immediately, however, I do recommend just embracing the change, getting ahead of your competition before the inevitable change of profile format takes place in the coming months.

To make the change grab a visual (Max 1200 x 600 pixels: We always recommend that you get your graphic designer to do this – I did my own!) and upload from the Design Menu in your profile settings.

Are you covered?

Jean Martin is a PR Consultant with Fuzion 

13 Tips about Blogging and making some noise!

Blogging is a great way to demonstrate your expertise and get your message out there and I find more and more we are encouraging our clients to jump in and let the world hear what they have to say ….make some noise!

Once your blog post is written it makes great raw material to feed your social media activity or even to pitch to the media if it is in relation to some issue that is quite topical. Interested readers (hopefully some of these are potential customers) can subscribe to your blog and will then get automatic updates whenever you post something new.

This all sounds fabulous and it really is once you are up and running but the tough part is starting!

Often I find a client will put a week’s thought, deliberation and work into a single blog post and the monumental effort will ensure that it will be their first and last – writing isn’t easy, it is a skill that needs to be practised the same as anything else and I guess it comes easier to some than to others.

What I can promise is that once you are up and running it will get easier and easier, but you have to allow yourself  a learning curve and you will soon discover a style that you are comfortable with.

Get it right and not only will you enjoy it, but it will help to bring you and your business visibility, which should help to bring you business.

I have put together a few tips about blogging that might help you along the way!

1. Keep the blog post as short as possible (just enough to make your point)
2. Try to write in the “first person” if possible
3. Avoid using technical/industry jargon (unless it is for a very technical audience)
4. Keep it topical (where possible try making your point using some issue that is current)
5. If the blog post is taking more than half an hour to write then you are probably thinking about it too much!
6. Always try to include a relevant visual – people love pictures!
7. Blog as frequently as possible (at least once a week is a good target)
8. Mix your topics and don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through
9. Keep a note book (your smart phone might help) to jot down ideas for blog posts – they will come to you at the strangest of times, believe me!
10. Optimise your keywords – if you want your blog post to be found try to work the important keywords (the ones that a typical user might use if they were searching on the topic) into the blog heading, the first paragraph and your keyword tags. Make sure you categorise and tag your blog post once it is done.
11. Include hyperlinks (simply the web addresses of other relevant content) – links to your website, links to the writers LinkedIn Account, links to other resources on the web.
12. Blogging is just the start – make sure you push it out through your social media channels to get value for all of your hard work
13. Unlucky for some but not for you – Go on …..www.wordpress.com , what are you waiting for?

Looking forward to reading what you have to say

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training in Dublin and Cork