Social Media Challenge

This past weekend I participated in the Instagram Social Media Challenge and gained a lot of insight into how often social media is used in our everyday lives. I thought I was going to have some difficulty finding certain items from the list because I'm staying at home and trying to avoid venturing out around town. However, I was surprised at how many things I was able to find at home and online. I ended up being able to find all 11 scavenger hunt items as well as the two bonuses from the Social Media Challenge.

No. 1: Business card with social media contact info.

I went to Lucky Goat on Saturday and checked out the bulletin board they have for advertising in the back. There were quite a few business cards on the board but only two had social media contact info. Since social media is so widely used, I think more businesses would benefit from including social media contact info on their business cards.

No. 2: Book with social media contact info for authors

I never considered that authors would advertise their social media contact info in their books but I found Instagram and Facebook information for Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing, after I went searching. Most of my books are older and didn't include social media contact info but I bought this book last year and the contact info was on the back sleeve.

No. 3: QR code that leads to a social media channel

This is one item that I thought would be difficult to find. I was pleasantly surprised when I found this QR code on the bulletin board at Lucky Goat. I thought it was interesting that it didn't advertise what the QR code was for before scanning the code. After I scanned it with my phone it lead to a Facebook group called Cake and Bake Makeup Society.

No. 4: Tweets or a YouTube video incorporated into a news story

I see articles with embedded tweets all the time so this one wasn't difficult to find. I found an article about the recent news with Trump and his tweet that was hidden by Twitter. His original tweet was incorporated into the news story.

No. 5: A business that prominently displays their social media channels

I thought this would be difficult to find at first since I'm avoiding going out to businesses as much as possible. However, I remembered taking a picture of my neighbor's food truck when they were open a few weeks ago. On the side of their truck they prominently display Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. I see this often with restaurants or businesses in bigger cities, but I haven't seen much social media advertisement outside businesses here in Tallahassee.

No. 6: A hashtag on tv/online commercials

I remember when hashtags became popular and I often saw them in tv commercials. There were often commercials where people spoke about hashtags, too. I haven't seen much of these lately and had to look up older commercials to find one. I ended up finding an Esurance commercial that used the hashtag #EsuranceSave30 to encourage people to tweet and have a chance to win $1.5 million.

No. 7: A government service/agency that is sharing its social media channels

Most government agencies I looked up had some sort of social media advertising on their homepage. Here's an example I found for the Department of Agriculture.

No. 8: A public space where social media is being used to promote access to educational materials

This is an item that I see pretty often. I'm involved in many educational groups on social media and see different groups promoting educational materials. I found this tweet promoting ivy league classes for free during the pandemic.

No. 9: A place where you think social media should be involved, but isn't

There's a new pizza place in town called Munchies Pizza and I'm pretty sure they're the only place in town that makes deep dish pizzas. I searched their Facebook page and didn't find any advertising for social media channels. I think they would benefit from promoting social media such as Instagram because people would take pictures of their deep dish pizzas and tag Munchies in their posts. This would help with advertising and get the word out about their new business.

No. 10: An overt encouragement to post to social media from/about a specific location

A couple weekends ago I went blueberry picking at Jubilee Orchards. I've been following them on Facebook and noticed they were encouraging people to take photos from their location and tag them on Instagram for a chance to be featured on their account. I see this often with popular businesses on Facebook and Instagram.

No. 11: An unexpected social media channel

I tried to think of businesses that I thought would be interesting if they had a social media account. For some reason I thought of how unexpected it would be if AARP had a TikTok or a Snapchat. I decided to look for them on Instagram and was surprised they had an account. They even had more than 30K followers!

Bonus No. 1: An innovative use of social media seen in a physical environment

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this item was Pokemon Go. This app allows people to connect with each other while exploring outside for different Pokemon. When I searched Pokemon Go, I found that they have a festival coming up this July. People from around the world can get out in their physical environment wherever they are located and use this form of social media to connect.

Bonus No. 2: A scenario in which a social media channel other than Insta, Snap, Twitter, YouTube or Facebook is being promoted

I thought this one might be difficult to find since Insta, Snap, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are some of the most popular social media channels used. While I was at Lucky Goat checking out their bulletin board, I was surprised to find a business card that was advertising LinkedIn.

Overall, I thought this was a very informative activity and I enjoyed searching for all the different items on the scavenger hunt list. I look forward to participating in the next class challenge!