What is Social Media?By ADAM Larter

Contents

• Introduction to What is Social Media?• ‘What is Social Media?’• Break for lunch.• ‘What is Social Media?’ . . . Conclusions

I’m Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I’ll be popping up all over the place to

help you out with useful facts.

History

Historians don’t really know when social media first started but they think that it might have been before.

Official records of social media have been found to be mostly true. It’s because of this we such things that Romans once would comment and that freemasons were the first to invent the username password protocol we now use today.

FACT:DID CAVEMEN

HAVE LINKEDIN??

WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

Social media in the modern world.

• In today’s society almost everything is social media. – Computer– Facebook– Newspapers– Electronic dogs– Drum circles

But how will we know when we have gone too far???

Origins of Social Media ONLINE

• When the Internet was founded in 2007 social media was introduced to hold all the other pages together.

• It had no official use, it was a bit like cement between bricks – that’s just how the internet works.

• The 4 founding social medias were: Myspace, Bebo, Facebook and Danny Dyer’s Twitter feed.

• People found that if they were viewing these websites then they’d have to have less time on other websites. And so it was the cement began to outgrow the bricks. Social media was entering a new age. <hyperlink hilarious video about bricks >

A new age. Social media ‘Online’

Now with social media all over the place it was growing increasingly online. By 2008 1 in 4 houses in Chelsea had a home computer and 1 in 9 of those people were using it for the internet or ‘onlining’.

The social media craze was so big that in 2009 a young teenager from Manchester was having live tattoos of his twitter feed. A tattoo artist would follow him around wherever he went and anytime he tweeted he applied those 140 characters straight to his body with permanent ink. Ouch!

FACT: Scientists believe that by 2016 we’ll be

able to eat social media

Most popular forms of social media

Robot Animated Gif

Sarcastic Comment

Badly worded Amazon review

Talking Dangerous love making

The Future

But, how the heck do I use it?

Setting up a profile

Here’s a useful guide to setting up a profile or as we call it online ‘setting up a profile’.

Name: Many social media sites will ask to take your ‘name’ often its advisable to use your name so that people can find you. People have different names so that they can be differentiated from each other and they know who everyone is – it’s a confusing system but I’m sure you’ll get used to it!

Password: You’ll be asked for this when you ‘login’ so make it something really easy to remember – the best password is probably ‘password’ or if you want to be secure use a ‘code’ – for example I use 1234.

Picture: This is where you really get to express your personality by which I mean ‘show off to the babes. There are so many different hilarious things you can do. Photo-shopping is a term invented by people who use Microsoft paint to make some pictures look like other pictures for example I photo-shopped my profile picture so it looked like I was shopping in Lidl – hahaha what are the chances?!?!

Social Media Story 1. Mark.

When I started using social media I was very scared. I didn’t enjoy talking to people in real life – how was I to know if I would enjoy this within some kind of social space. To my great relief I found that no-one wanted to add me as a virtual friend either.

I set up profiles on all the major social media sites and still have not a single interaction to my name – even the fraudsters manage to keep away from me – fantastic! I still keep all the profiles up to date though with almost minutely updates. I find a great tranquility in being able to update myself so regularly, that way I definitely know where I am all of the time. I am like a clock.

There’s a great collection of photographs of me photo-shopped next to all of the great landmarks around the world. I took them down in the end, I found it disrespectful for all the animals that are likely to be extinct over the coming years – you can never be respectful enough for these animals.

Interacting Online

Making friends: The best kinds of friends to have on social media are those who you don’t know in real life. This friends are easy to find. Just follow my 3 step friend finding plan. 1. Go somewhere with a lot of people e.g. chess.com2. Spark up a controversial conversation e.g. all you guys are

dickhead losers3. Show people they can trust you e.g. give out all of your

bank details in the public forums. If you follow this 3 steps you’ll have hundreds of friends before you know it!

Keeping friends: The golden rule of social media is ‘keep posting’. You need to post at least once every two minutes so that people remember you. Even if you have nothing good or interesting or nice to say just keep on posting. Anything can be a post – what you’ve just eaten, who you hate, which part of you is itchy, why you cry at night – ANYTHING. Share share share!!

FACT: If someone doesn’t

respond to a message

online. They could be your future killer.

Leaving a comment. Part 1. Being funny.

The best reason for leaving a comment is to show everyone how very very very funny you are. The problem is, people aren’t going to come and find you and ask you to be funny – you have to hunt out those situations and let the hilarity take them by surprise. Types of funny comment. That’s what she said. Status: Great news my article on modern feminism has been accepted by the Guardian. Comment: That’s what she saidPop Culture referenceStatus: Hey is anyone free for drinks tonight?Comment: Wassuuuuuuuuppppp?!!? Or Feeenton! Feenton! In-JokeStatus: My cat Samantha died today, it’s been tough but thanks for all of your support. Comment: I bet Samantha died eating a Frey Bentos pie – am I right LOL!?!

Leaving a comment. Part 2. Flirting

So. Hashtag awkward. ‘You’re at that stage’ with someone where you and they need to impress each other. Don’t worry – social media can help you. Below are the top tips and you’ll be doing it all night long before you know it! Post them some cool recommendations.Youtube is full of amazing stuff so show them that you know all the best things – send them your way and it’ll be a great substitute for actually being creative yourself. Try some cool songs like Len’s ‘Steal my Sunshine’, ‘Return of the Mac’ and Afroman’s hilarious ‘because I got high’. Invite them to some ‘suggestive events’. Be clever with this make the title of the event ‘Fun on Friday’ make the start time 1am and end time 1:15am and put the location ‘my bed’. Note: you might want to make this event private . . . Sometimes things spread. Trust me. Ward off other potential courters. So you don’t want to commit to ‘in a relationship’ status just yet – or you’ve realised that people who do that are probably psychpaths. Either way you want the world to know that you guys have a certain something. The easiest way to do this is to post ALL THE TIME. Just keep posting ‘thinking of you’ every minute – then people will back off, far off. That’s what copy and paste is for

Leaving a comment. Part 3. Life-coaching

Have you noticed that your friends aren’t quite as successful / interesting / fulfilled as you? I know I have! Now is the time to start turning their life around with some great social media.

Tweet only life affirming thoughts. People need to hear about smiling, rainbows, children, not realising how great your mother is and the rewardingness of helping old people – or they’ll forget how great that life can be. Pictures definitely necessary.

Wow – look at this guy. Sometimes there’s a really great story of a homeless person who didn’t have any teeth or any face or any money or any friends or family but still he ended up becoming a millionaire by having an amazing skill for dance or inventing the tractor or writing Harry Potter or something – this story probably isn’t true but its definitely still worth sharing so that you can maybe inspire someone else to achieve this same level of success.

Make sure you include ‘share this or you’ll go to hell’. People need to know that they neeeeed to share.

Leaving a comment. Part 4. Advice for parents.

It’s not strange to create a profile under a different name so that your children will want to be friends with you online. A quick Google and you can find a picture of a child their age – add a few of their friends so they think you’re legitimate and you’re away!

Now is your chance to tell them where they are going wrong in their social life, what is inappropriate and how ‘worryingly slim they look in this picture’.

You can also help point them in the direction of good and bad romantic relationships – some comments like ‘I don’t think you should let him stick his penis in you’ or just be cheeky and set up an event called ‘marriage?’ and invite the two young lovers into the group.

Also use the gift of being connected to them in 1,000 different ways by prodding them to respond on the various text messages / emails you’ve send them that they haven’t replied to. Just find a popular post like ‘just got a new job’ and comment under it ‘you haven’t let me know how that visit to the doctors went’ – they’ll be responding back in no time. If your child’s confidence is getting too much just Google ‘ugly children’ and tag them in these pictures with things like ‘we thought you’d always look this way’. They’ll try to deny it which will make things look worse for them.

NOW we’re talking!!!

Leaving a comment. Part 5. Using someone else's login.

Oh no. You’ve gone over to turn down the contrast on your friends screen while they’ve gone to the toilet (because you care about saving energy and the environment) but you can’t help but notice they’ve left their Facebook logged in. Here’s a chance to win 100 friend points with them and entertain everyone in your joint network.

Here are the top 5 best things to post when logged into someone else’s Facebook.

5. ‘I’m sorry everyone but I’ve died – I’ve gone and got a disease and I’ve bloody died all over the place – sorry about that but I really am dead.’ 4. ‘Thanks for all the support, it’s been a tough week.’ 3. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that my bum has completely recovered – thank god for sellotape!’ 2. ‘Everyone's too scared to say what they think about racism, but I say we better do something now because only one race can win’. 1. ‘Does anyone know how you get into accounting, is it really that difficult?’

What about my privacy?

Since the Cold War privacy in Social Media has taken on great importance so if you want to keep the communists out of your life there are some very simple ways to do so. 1. Add the privatization of the state to your interests. 2. Write a good review for the Communist Manifesto on Amazon. 3. Kill the Capitalist scum4. Storm parliament with guns and explosives5. Hang the monarchy in a public demonstration6. Strap bombs around your chest and run into Parliament with a boombox playing

the solo from the end of Fleetwood Mac’s the Chain.

FACT: If you give your bank details to

everyone online you’ll have more people to help you catch any

fraudsters!

Advertising on social media

With more than 1,000 people on social media* it’s a great place to sell whatever fantastic product it is you sell. If it’s not selling on the shelf you’re just not pushing it in people’s faces enough.

Make people love your brand. The easiest way to do this is make sure it is everywhere. When someone is trying to contact their friend – make sure your brand pops up. When someone is trying to post a funny video – your brand should be interupting that video. Whenever anyone tries to switch their computer off – make sure your brand stops them. With this kind of constant harrassment people will have no choice but to definitely definitely love your brand.

Use hip kid speak to communicate with young people. Kids love it when brands are trying to pretend to understand them when talking to them. There are some easy shortcuts if you can’t be bothered to learn what kids really like. Make sure you use some graffiti style fonts, shorten all words to acronyms and have a cartoon spokes person in a baseball cap with a skateboard – cowabunga marketing kids!

What is a Facebook?

Facebook was actually the second website ever created after Napster and it owes a lot of its popularity to this.

The sole purpose of Facebook is to get people’s mobile phone numbers when you’ve lost them. You create an event called ‘Brian has lost his phone’ upload a sad picture of a kitten and you’ll have those numbers back before you know it.

Some people have started to use Facebook beyond getting mobile phone numbers back and its now a popular method of sharing profile pictures.

Before Facebook was invented people barely knew what to do with their pictures of them jumping into the sunset from their summer holidays. Thank flip for Facebook right?

Facebook is best experienced in extremities. If you limit yourself to only signing in you’re not doing it right. Ideally you should be signed in at ALL times. If people aren’t responding to your messages give them other things to respond to – image comments, Farmville requests, Scrabulous and highly aggressive tagging.I have my Facebook projected onto my ceiling so that I’m still taking it in, even in my sleep (not that I sleep :p ).

What is a Twitter?

Twitter is amazing because you can talk to celebrities. It’s like someone has rounded up all the celebrities and put them in the zoo and allowed you to prod them 140 characters at a time – fantastic! Try getting them to promote an event of yours. Try getting a celebrity to answer a question they’ve always managed to avoid answering in the press. You can always type things in a way that makes it look like a celebrity has said something but they haven’t like making Alan Sugar say that he’s appointed you as his new apprentice or making John Bishop say something funny . . . though it should be something slightly believable. A hashtag is a way of making something innane look like it has a connection to the wider world. E.g. ‘I have just had breakfast’ looks irrelevant and attention seeking. Add a hashtag and then suddenly its current affairs ‘ I have just had breakfast #northkorea ‘

FACT: If you want to swear on Twitter – you must ask

Stephen Fry for permission

first!

What is a Youtube?

If you’re not a natural Shakespeare or JK Rowling or (Note to Adam, put the name of another author here before you put this on the internet) then maybe video if for you. Video used to just be for the TV but now its for the internet too. Its simple technology which works by using time-travel. A video is just a small time travel screen which shows something that has happened or will happen. But how do you use a video to be social??

Top video ideas. A video diary.Share your life with the world. If you can’t be bothered to edit – DON’T. Someone can watch what you do every second of the day. I even upload outtakes of me uploading video diaries – every second counts right. That’s why they invented broadband! Lip-sync to a popular music video. Have you ever thought ‘ I could do better than MTV’ you probably could. Live the life of a rock-star by lip-synching over the top of your favourite chart-smash. Don’t forget the wacky dress-sense and crazy rock and roll eyes!!ViralIf you want to make lots of money make a viral video. They are really really easy. Just think of your top 10 or so funniest ideas and put them all into one video. I had an idea about a cat on a skateboard wearing a rasta wig. Might play some reggae over the top. If you can help me film please get in touch. . .

Social media story 2. SusanI found myself in a peculiar situation where I kept getting banned from social media.

Twitter deleted my account for no apparent reason and Youtube deleted every single video I uploaded. It turns out that my profiles – which I created ALL BY MYSELF – were infringing on the copyright of a performer called Britney Spears. Looking back I think that they may have had a point.

Yes, I did make my username Official Britney Spears on everything that I registered and yes I did upload only photography of the popular singer Britney Spears and yes, I did go to very extensive lengths to make people believe that I was the official profile for Britney Spears so I can see how some people may have not approved 100% with some of the things that I did during this time.

If I had the chance to do it all again I certainly would. I made a lot of friends and I really understood what Britney goes through on a daily basis now – she has a lot of nutters on her back. I’m just glad that I managed to make all of that money and organised a fake worldwide tour across all the major arenas in every city of the globe, selling upwards of 400,000 tickets – that was quite a lot of fun!

MyspaceWhen the internet was created it made a lot of mess. Like in child-birth there is an afterbirth the same is true of technology. The internet’s afterbirth was a little robot boy called Tom. The internet’s founding statesmen banished him from the sacred lands of the internet Like the city of Pompeii which is a perfect historical document of a roman city Myspace is an untouched document of 2006 – exactly the way it appeared at the time. Just instead of a volcano it was Facebook that came and destroyed this society. Marvel at:People getting to grips with linking pictures for each other – if you wanted a picture comment you had to upload it somewhere else first. The great music: The Kooks, Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Arctic Monkeys – things really were a simpler time then. To think that this was the first time

many radio stations began playing what we now call rock and roll! Pictures in a mirror. In a very clever attempt to ban vampires from Myspace all profile pictures required the user to photograph themselves in a mirror. Listing out all of your music, favourite films, tv etc. OTHERWISE HOW WOULD WE KNOW. FILL IN LENGTHY QUIZZES THAT YOU’RE ASKING YOURSELF.

DRUGSDRUGSDRUGSDRUGSDRUGSDRUGSDRUGSDRUGSDRUGS

LinkedInIt’s 2010 and the business world worked out that it should start using the internet – afterall there could be money to be made there – am I right Bill Gates? In strolls LinkedIn to give social media that whole new angle – yes I am talking about business – mind your own business ho ho ho!!Here are our top tips to getting a job by using LinkedIn. LieIt’s sooooo easy to say that you’ve worked somewhere else. On my LinkedIn I say that I created Google, Apple and Virgin – how will they ever find that out?Add everyoneHe who knocks first catches the early worm as Alan Sugar would say. Be controversial in the forums. Business is all about balls, join every marketing forum and tell them that you don’t want their stinking product – they’ll be knocking down the door to hire you. Show them how rich you are. My LinkedIn picture is me in a bath of money – people will know that if they want to hire me, they gotta pay top dollar.

In Summary• Always share your bank account details. • If you’re not sure who to add as a friend, add someone you don’t know. • Keep posting. Social media is all about quantity, not quality. • People want to know your deepest darkest secrets – if you find it difficult

to tell your close friends – it’s probably a good idea to tell everyone that secret all in one go.

• Be controversial – even if its not necessarily your opinion you can get yourself a lot of attention by saying something which a lot of people will hate.

• Want the dragon. BE THE DRAGON. • Freedom for Cornwall!!

P.S.H.

For more information about Phillip Seymour Hoffman please email him.

PhillipSHoffman@lycos.co.uk