Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with socialmedia

Is there an easy way to find who you follow on IG on Twitter?

Megami — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:01:33 -0800

Yes, I could go through every account I follow on Instagram and see if their name matches an account on Twitter. But is there an integration that will do something like this for me? You may think Twitter is a hellscape, but I actually don’t mind it. And I have decided to stop using IG (again). I have already discovered a few people I follow on IG on Twitter more by luck than design and would like to check if there are more.

Suggestions wanted for promoting a research journal on LinkedIn

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 13:44:06 -0800

I'm at a bit of a loss. I need to promote an industry' association's research journal on social media and increase the journal's followers from essentially zero to some positive number (double digits would be great, triple digits would be fabulous). Due to complicating factors, I'm unsure of the best approach. The complicating factors are:

1. the contents of the journal are restricted from view unless you're a paid-up member of the industry association or you have a subscription to one of the online academic publishing platforms (Taylor and Francis if it matters)

2. the industry covers a broad range of activities, so there is no one easy definition (or hashtag) that applies to it -- i.e. if I were to use a food-based example like "soup to nuts and everything in between" the everything would include finding where the nuts are growing, harvesting nuts, developing recipes for the soup, cooking the soup, plus baking cookies, butchering sides of beef, refining salt, you name it

3. I, personally have no academic/research credentials in this industry

4. the industry association is a national one, so most of the members come from one country (that isn't the U.S. or even the U.K.),

5. I have no budget for advertising

6. I only have marketing responsibility for the journal's LinkedIn status and all other marketing and promotional activities are handled by other people

What I was hoping to do was to join (as the journal's LI page) a bunch of LinkedIn industry research groups, and (mildly) promote the publication there. (Something like, "hey, our new issue is out and we're featuring papers on optimal soup cooking temperatures and new research into where nut trees grow best). The catch is, a page can't join a group, only an individual can. While I'm not thrilled with joining these groups personally (as I can't really contribute to the conversations), I will do it.

The journal has a sister page, which has a decent (all things considered) and growing number of followers, and I do promote the journal on that page, but that sister page (another arm of the industry association) isn't driving enough traffic to the journal page.

So how do I attract people to the page and get them to follow?

Social media team for activist group

NotLost — Sat, 01 May 2021 22:46:32 -0800

A social media team is formally forming for my activist group. It is meeting soon. Help me get it off the ground. I am the communications chair for a statewide activist group. I rarely do anything with social media myself. We have a couple of people who have been doing our Facebook page for years. But I haven’t been paying attention to it. I don’t even know whether I can access my own Facebook page. (Time is short.)

I don’t foresee making any changes with our Facebook page. Those people have been operating on their own for a while and seem like they are doing fine, as far as I can tell. I don’t think they would take well to supervision at this point.

We have three other people who are active on their own social media accounts and want to help make a presence for our group on other channels, such as Twitter and Instagram. In case it matters, two of these three are people of color, and two of them are younger than many of us in the activist group.

The social media team is having our first meeting soon, but I am not sure what we should tackle and how. One goal is to somehow have the Facebook people and the new people on the same page. One of the new people has asked for guidelines. I am unsure where to start to develop those.

There is one of the new people that I am thinking of putting in charge of the team. He is the only one of the new people without other volunteer duties in the group.

Do you have any tips or concise resources for me or us?

How to best manage our CEO's LinkedIn page?

Arch1 — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 09:17:09 -0800

I'm not new to LinkedIn, but we're being asked to set up and curate the LinkedIn profiles for our top executives. Do you have tips to share? We will have direct access to the account(s). Great company, great products, not so much on the social media. We have a great general practice on LinkedIn by our sellers, and now our CEO and two other execs are willing to be present on LinkedIn. I have a solid account and a small content team, so I know we can post and share great content from our company-- what are the tips you may have on settings, approaches, or other tips to get a better experience for the execs and return for the efforts? Hoping the hive mind has some ideas....

Seeking Instagram recommendations for life in rural Korea or Japan

Rora — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 10:21:08 -0800

I'm looking for Instagram* accounts that feature glimpses of life in either rural South Korea or Japan. Relevant hashtags would be helpful as well. *Instagram is preferred but Twitter would be ok as well, but really looking for visuals.

Deleting contacts of people who have passed away?

Dip Flash — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 09:06:03 -0800

When (if ever) do you delete contacts of people who have passed away? This is probably not a question with a right or wrong answer; this is a "help me understand how people think about this" question so I can better figure out my own thinking on the subject.

This has been a hard year for everyone. Like many people, I've had a number of family members, friends, and social/work contacts pass away this year (and without the possibility of traditional funerals or memorials). Compared to the actual losses it is a small thing, but now I find myself stuck on the question of when (or even if) to delete their contacts on my phone, on Facebook, etc. On the one hand, it is jarring and unpleasant to be scrolling and see the contact or get one of those automatic reminders of someone's birthday. But it also feels so final to delete the contact, like that is the last thing I have of that person.

Like I said, I am not expecting this to have a definitive right/wrong answer, but I am very interested in how others have thought about this.

Website to compile/display favorite tweets, pins, YouTube vids, etc.?

NorthCoastRiver — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 12:18:50 -0800

I'd like to compile a bunch of media from different websites - tweets, YouTube vids, Pinterest pics, Instagram posts - and display my "collection" so I can show it to others. Like, "here's all this cool stuff I found from across the web on ". Does something like this exist, where I could basically embed and display them in an easy way?

I can't believe I'm going to ask a Clubhouse invite question.

frumiousb — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 18:36:57 -0800

I have a friend who is repeatedly trying to send me an invite for Clubhouse. I have an iPhone. I never receive an invitation text via any channel when she tries to invite me. I am based in Indonesia with a Hong Kong phone number. I have searched online as to whether there is an international restriction, but have not gotten any answers. Any ideas? Anyone experienced something similar?

Reading alt text within Tweetdeck scheduled tweets?

theatro — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 10:23:40 -0800

Previously, I was put in charge of a twitter feed for work, scheduling tweets in advance using Tweetdeck. My tweets are required to include images. I add alt text to images for tweets I schedule, but is there a way for me to check whether images in upcoming tweets scheduled by others actually include alt text? There are a bunch of tweets scheduled in our Tweetdeck that were handled by someone else no longer here. And since in Tweetdeck you can't edit tweets that have images (ugh), in order to be sure that these scheduled tweets have proper alt text, I would have to copy/download, delete, redo, and reschedule all of them.

Is there a way to save myself all that work? I've been poking around at scheduled tweets that I myself wrote/scheduled, that I know have alt text, to see if there's a way for me to view the alt text within Tweetdeck. No luck so far, but then I know very little about it.

Things I have tried:

* Hovering over and clicking on the images inside Tweetdeck. Result: nothing.

* Installing "Image Alt Text Viewer" extension in Chrome. Result: little colored boxes come up in various fields, but none of them show the alt text I know is in there, and in fact a couple of the ones placed over an image that definitely has alt text, say things like "Empty alt attribute" and "Missing alt attribute".

* Installing Adrian Roselli's bookmarklet for displaying tweet image alt text. Result: it works for images in tweets already tweeted that I'm looking at through twitter's own site, but I haven't been able to make it work inside Tweetdeck.

* "Inspect Element" within my browser. I might not be looking in the right place, because this is complicated, but I've looked around as best I can.

* Entirely turned off image display for my browser. Result: things like our account's Twitter avatar show the alt text '[ourname's] avatar', but the scheduled tweet images with alt text don't display anything at all, either within the context of the tweet, or when clicked through. They're just black space, no alt text.

That's the best I can do so far, just flailing around. What all am I missing?

What's the best of the alt-social-media?

sibilatorix — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 11:12:15 -0800

There's Mastodon, Scuttlebutt, Briar, and various others that seem like they might be up-and-coming. Have you tried some of them? What's your impression? I'm particularly interested in things that would work well for a Buy Nothing group, which is traditionally a Facebook group.

The ones I know about that seem like potential candidates include:
- Mastodon (seems more like Twitter than FB; may not be suitable for BuyNothing)
- Scuttlebutt
- Briar (android only)
- Mobilizon
- Mesh (mobile app only)
- Geneva (requires a phone #, which I think is weird)

Priorities:
- Easy for any random neighbor to sign up and use
- Some kind of moderation system
- Cross-platform, ideally with both a browser interface and mobile apps
- Under active development & maintenance

I like the idea of P2P/mesh network/protocol-not-platform projects, but recognize that such projects are usually lacking in at least one of the above priorities.

What's your favorite? What seems like the best for this purpose? Am I missing any?

social media platform question

kevinbelt — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 10:48:45 -0800

I had an idea for a project, but I'm not sure what platform would work best as its home. The project is going to be a bunch of short videos with commentary. If the platform I eventually choose also supports photos or GIFs, I'd probably take advantage of that, but it's not a requirement. Ideally one post per day, but more likely 2-3 a week. The videos could be as short as ten seconds; most will probably be in the 30-60 second range, and I could see doing a handful of "compilation" videos that run a little longer. The commentary is going to be me explaining what's happening in the video, usually around 200-400 words or 1000-2000 characters.

My default inclination, because I was on the internet in the early 2000s, is to write a blog. Blogs are kind of perfect: I can include whatever media as I'd like, format my commentary however I'd like, and it would all be public so everyone can find it and read it. But of course, nobody reads blogs anymore haha. I'm not sure a blog would generate buzz the way a social media account would. And I'm not sure what social media account I should use. Facebook is the only social media I'm currently on, but this isn't the kind of thing Facebook does well. Twitter maybe, especially because other people who do this kind of thing have a Twitter presence, so I could do some stuff with mentions and existing hashtags to build an audience. But I see a couple drawbacks with Twitter, too. Pretty much every post would exceed the character limit, so I'd had to thread it, and I feel like that would diminish the... I don't know, integrity? of the text. Also, I'd prefer more of a post/comment model where follow-up interactions don't appear on the main timeline, so as not to distract from the main content. Instagram seems like it might be promising, but I know almost nothing about how it works and, more importantly, how people use it, so it would be a lot harder to get started. I'm also not sure how much of my target audience (dudes in their 30s and 40s) is on Instagram. I know even less about TikTok. There are some real positives to Youtube, because I could tie the commentary directly to the video. But I don't like my voice, so I'd prefer the commentary to be text rather than speech, and it wouldn't work either as captions in the video or as a description. I'm also not very good at video editing, and I'd probably need to invest in a microphone, so there are some barriers to entry. Tumblr, from what I remember of it, would work pretty much how I'd like, but is Tumblr still a thing? Does anyone still use it? My target audience probably doesn't. The network effects would be pretty strong. Are there other platforms I'm not thinking of?

Despite not using a lot of social media personally, I'm pretty familiar with how to use it for marketing. So like, even if Twitter isn't my home platform, I'd still start a Twitter account to tweet links and interact with other people and stuff. But the question is really about where the content should live, the system of record, so to speak.

So tell me your thoughts on various platforms. What do you think would work well, and what do you think would not? The topic, if it matters, is American football.

Can I block this person on FB?

mermaidcafe — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 16:15:50 -0800

My mom's next door neighbor is snooping on my FB but doesn't have a profile I can block. I grew up next to this woman, and she's always been nasty to me, even while being nice to my family. So I don't like that she's snooping, considering she doesn't ever talk to me about anything, and also even sometimes calls my mom to ask her if she's heard this or that.

Most of my content is private. However, I do use my page to share things I've published, so I don't want everything to be private.

I've searched neighbor by name, phone number, and email. I was thinking she has some sort of account (she told me she set one up so she could look at menus) but she may not.

I realize I could email her about this, but I'd rather just keep her out.

I'm happy to PM any of this info to someone who may have suggestions for how to block her.

How do I reorganize this social media database for work?

miltthetank — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 13:54:51 -0800

Are there any good out-of-the-box solutions (ideally web apps) that will help me organize our backlog of Instagram content? Not looking for a scheduling app like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck—more like a fusion of Dropbox/Google Sheets/Todoist—or at least that's how I'm imagining it. I have:

A Dropbox drive with a few hundred social media images. Very inconsistently named and organized: some are IMG_XXXX.png, some are HEIC, some are named thematically, some are meant to be posted as a carousel all at once (some of these are in folders, some we indicate this with the filename).
A Google Sheet with photos listed in rough order of upload date, based on filename and/or description. Many but not all of these photos have captions listed alongside them. Some of the entries are links to folders on the aforementioned Dropbox drive. There's also a column to the left that I mark when I've "posted" something—i.e., I've added it to...
A Google Doc with the actual schedule on it. This moves around, gets updated pretty frequently. I take everything here and post it using Hootsuite or directly.

I look at this, and I think to myself, there has to be a better way!

What solutions can you think of to keep track of all this stuff? Some of it is clearly process-based (e.g. the erratic file naming conventions). But I'm wondering if there's a Dropbox-type solution that lets me incorporate the info from the Google Sheet and Google Doc, all with one app. Or maybe extensions that help everything play nicely with each other.

Twitter tutors?

theatro — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 11:06:46 -0800

I was just put in charge of tweeting for my office (part of a larger library/archive). I got the official rules & regs from the boss, but I don't know much about etiquette, best practices, etc., and I don't use or enjoy Twitter much in my personal life. Can you recommend readings, tutorials, articles, etc., and/or give your own thoughts and advice on professional tweeting? I wish this task could have landed on someone who tweets for fun, or otherwise does it off the clock, but alas. So I have a lot of ground to make up, sooner rather than later.

The stated approach is generally supposed to be chatty bits of information about items in our collections, that sort of thing. Although apparently it's not out of the question that at some point I could do a "thread"--which is something I have literally no idea how to do.

Anyway, your own advice, and pointers to other info/training, would be so helpful! (Be as basic as you like; I won't get offended. But if it helps to know, I've written simple tweets for my boss for a year or so--I've just never done the posting or made any of the decisions.)

What are you Tik Tok-ing right now?

mecran01 — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:52:58 -0800

My daughter is into "cottagecore" tik tok. I'm learning how to repair drywall. What useful or fascinating niches or subcultures have you discovered on Tik Tok?

How far does the First Amendment go?

matkline — Sat, 21 Nov 2020 03:04:34 -0800

I know a person who has schizophrenic tendencies and also a number of restraining orders/stalking charges. He has been prohibited by court order from making any mention of the persons who have requested these orders on social media or his website. I'm curious about the legal basis for this. While I sympathize with the victims, I wonder about the implications for the first amendment. Obviously, YANHL.

Where and how should my Thai friend promote her silk business online?

snarfois — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 13:23:47 -0800

I’m asking on behalf of a friend, based in Bangkok. She sells beautiful handwoven silk and cotton cloth in the Mudmee style, sourced from artisans in Isan, Northeast Thailand. Currently she mainly sells locally, but would like to attract more international custom. I would love to hear your suggestions for where she should be selling and any tips for marketing her business online. She has recently created accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which should give you an idea. How can they be improved?

If you’ve bought this sort of product directly from producers or small-scale resellers overseas, what questions would you be asking? What information would you require? How would you discover these pages in the first place?

Are there other websites on which she should be selling? Should she be on Etsy, Shopify or eBay? If so, how easy would that be to set up and maintain, for someone who isn’t very technical or English-speaking?

While she doesn’t produce the fabrics herself (although her family used to weave silk in the past), she cares passionately about supporting traditional crafts in rural Thailand, where these industries are in danger of disappearing. I’m wondering if she should aim to tell more of this story in her marketing – eg. through photos of the workshops and villages she sources from. Would this be worth the extra effort?

Best social media manager 2020 edition

Violet Hour — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:05:03 -0800

I'm looking for social media schedulers that will allow me to schedule tweets and Instagram posts WITH TAGGING. Free is great but would pay for the right app. Bonus points for something where authentication for Instagram actually works. Buffer, TweetDeck , and Hootsuite don’t seem to have tagging available in the free versions, and I cannot get Hootsuite to authenticate Instagram and actually post. What say you?

How to get a painful failed relationship off my mind?

switcheroo — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 23:50:44 -0800

I had a tumultuous relationship for several years with someone who was emotionally and verbally abusive, and in which I was dishonest and cheated. It’s over and I’m glad, but I still can’t stop thinking about it. Some background information:

Initially, we dated and then were friends for a year and a half. Since almost the beginning I was afraid of her anger, verbal abuse, and manipulation. After much dishonesty on my part regarding what I was doing with another person, we eventually had a huge falling out and didn’t speak for a year. In the two years since the falling out, we hung out for a summer until I lied again and she ghosted me, and met once more after that, at my request, for an ambiguous maybe closure/maybe carrying-on talk.

It has now been 7 months since our last contact. As of our last meeting, she continued to lash out and behave in manipulative ways, which she saw as acceptable and justified because she’s still hurt by my past actions. We talked about continuing to hang out as friends and she said effectively that I would have to accept whatever anger and verbal abuse she had towards me until she got it out of her system because I deserve it. This time I was able to say no. I’m starting to accept that she isn’t willing to change her abusive behavior, and that I’m still afraid of her and act in shady ways as a result.

Since then, there have been brief periods of time when I haven’t thought about her, but she’s still very often on my mind, usually every day. I’ve made some serious progress letting this relationship go, but I can’t seem to get it out of my head. I’m still hurting deeply. I’m not sure if it’s the unresolvable nature of it or the fact that I can’t fix my mistakes or just can’t make this thing work even though we would both prefer it. It’s also difficult that I have learned a lot from the mistakes I made with her and have been a much better friend and partner to others since, but can’t redeem myself in this relationship.

This whole situation has been a big downer, but social media has contributed a lot. For a while I blocked her profiles so that I wouldn’t look at them, but I got curious and reversed it, even though I know I feel worse every time I see something of hers. It feels like a kind of addiction, both checking on her and sometimes missing the rollercoaster abusive highs and lows. Recently I started a counter of how many days I’ve avoided looking at anything of hers online, which is going well but is incredibly hard and doesn’t feel that satisfying.

Looking for advice and any kind words you have to offer. How do I get past this and move on?

Asking ex partner to unfriend me?

ftm — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 13:34:13 -0800

I’m sure I’m not the first person to go through this... I’m to the point where I need to ask my ex wife to unfriend me so she doesn’t have to be subject to seeing me be happy about a new relationship. Blocking seems shitty. Is there a script for this? Apologies if I worded anything wrong here. I’m trying to be kind.

Long-term Twitter Deactivation

10ch — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:10:08 -0800

If I want to deactivate Twitter for more than 30 days, would it work to (1) deactivate my account, (2) reactivate at day 20-something, and (3) immediately deactivate for another 30 days? And just keep doing this over and over again? As I understand it, Twitter has a 30-day deactivation period before it deletes your account. In this 30-day time period, you can reactivate it. After 30 days, you cannot. If I went in every 20-some days and reactivated/deactivated, could I "quit" Twitter the way one "quits" Facebook, returning from time to time (like annually) and still retain my data and connections?

in search of active, topic-focused online social places

hungrytiger — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 14:36:16 -0800

Due to mental health I have to step away from the news and Twitter/Instagram/etc. (Even the grey and blue here are a bit angsty for my current state.) However because of lockdown I am socially deprived, and crave social places to "hang out." So I'm looking for topic focused forums, blogs, etc, that are fun and that rarely mention the election, weather disasters, riots, pandemics, etc. I'd be interested in book clubs and in other lively places where people are talking about cooking/food, exercise, art/crafts, comics, music, movies, gardening/nature, parenting, psychology, history, urban planning, ecology, neuroscience, tinkering/Arduino, the microbiome. Honestly, the sense of lively community probably matters a lot more than the topic.

I know that any part of the internet will sometimes discuss the pandemic and other disasters. I just want to find places that are so topic-centered that people primarily stick to talking about frosting or weightlifting or whatever.

Social media time tracker

shadygrove — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 06:51:26 -0800

I want an app that will tell me how much time I've spent today on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I want it to sync across laptop and Android phone. I don't need annoying reminders or a general screentime tracker, nor to have a program block websites or lock my device to save me from myself. Just a time tracker for these specific sites/apps. Hope me?

Name this bookish video series!

bookmammal — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 15:10:36 -0800

I’m helping to spearhead a regular social media video series at my library where staff members will take turns videotaping short book talks (3-4 min tops) promoting a single fiction or nonfiction title of their choice. The audience will be adult patrons. We need a catchy name for the series! Any ideas? Book Buzz is already taken, but I like the alliteration and crispness of that name. (I know this isn’t as much fun as naming new pets, but ...)

Am I using Twitter advanced search incorrectly?

zeusianfog — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:12:45 -0800

Help me figure out how to use Twitter advanced search to find all that sweet #content I missed out on while I was taking a break. I took a break from Twitter for most of July and now I want to catch up. One of my fave follows is a very prolific tweeter, and TIL that Twitter only displays the last 200 tweets on any given user's feed. I want to see the ones I missed, so I went to advanced search. My understanding is that if I search with the username and the date range I should be able to see those missed tweets. However, when I try this the only result I get is the user's account under "People"--I don't see any actual tweets. This happens even when I search for a date range that includes recent tweets that are visible as normal on their profile. This also happens when I search other users, so I must be doing something wrong here. Help me, Metafilter!