Goodbye My Lover

Breaking up is hard to do.

I remember the days when I used to break up with my junior high school boyfriends via notes in class. Then it evolved to text messages and voice mails (yes I've done that, don't judge). Now, breaking up with someone can be even more fun! With a ton of social networking sites, there are endless possibilities to tell your lover "we are no longer dating".

Facebook. The easiest of the relationship ender - a click of a button and Shari has gone from "in a relationship" to "single" without having to say a word to the poor guy. And now with FB integration, you can declare singledom in multiple ways. You can "read" an article about how to find Mr. Right. You can mupload a picture of GIRLS NIGHT OUT where you and some rando you found at the bar are making out. AND you can tell everyone: Shari listened to the spotify playlist "Ridin Solo" (yes I have this playlist IRL, it's genius.)

Twitter. Oh so many tweeting opportunities... some examples below.

• hey @boyorgirlimdating - it's not you, it's me #sorryimnotsorry
• HMU me and @mynewex are over. #movingon #callme
• newly singly and nowhere to go tonight #singlegirlproblems
• @lyingdouchebag i found out you cheated on me and i can't believe you thought you'd never get caught. i thought you were different. i thought what we had was real. you're an asshole and i hate your guts and i want the whole twitterverse to know #getoutofmylife

ok well that last one is over the 140 limit but you get my drift..

Google+. Abraham Manichevitz is now in your circle "exes". Allowed access to view only your pictures. Done.

Pinterest. This would be great if you and your significant other allowed each other access to post on each other's boards. For example, Shari & Josh's Love Board - full of pictures of puppies, home decor, cute love sayings, and a complete vom fest. Wanna end it? Start pinning things like "Keep Calm and Break Up" with caption "sorry babe, not working for me anymore". Or maybe pin a picture of the diamond bracelet he bought you with caption "come pick this up later with a box of all your other shit". OR if you're a guy, pin a picture of yourself with a huge grin saying "finally happy because I realized I no longer want your nagging ass in my life. later bitch". Pinning possibilities are endless.

Foursquare. Check into a bar. Declare you've met your soul mate on the dance floor. When your sig. other comments on your check-in telling you to stop drinking and come home you respond with "hell no. and never call me again". Clearly, the classiest route to a break-up.

Youtube. Make one of those "Shit Single Girls Say" Videos but with a personalized twist. Pretty much use it as a way to vent about all the things you hated about your soon-to-be-ex. Make it go viral by sharing it with all 800 of your facebook friends, post it on your blog, and tweet it to the world. You better believe him and all his friends and family will see your video and you will be single and ready to mingle. Be prepared for lots of controversial comments in that comment box.

What social networks did I miss? How would you use social media to break up with your significant other? Comment below!

#Earthquake

As we all know, Monday's earthquake turned out to be kinda a big deal for us East-Coast-ers. I was ironically scheduling tweets on Hootsuite for a client when the earthquake shook our 15th floor office, the entire building, and numerous cities on the East Coast. I say that was ironic because twitter ended up being our main source of news for the next hour. Initially, the thought of another terrorist attack flooded my brain as I ran down 15 fights of stairs in record time (in flip flops, no less!) Within seconds of re-gaining service outside, my co-workers were on twitter- telling us that #earthquake was trending and announcing updates on how high it ranked on the scale, who else felt the quake, and what was happening around us.

According to twitter's twitter (hah): "Within a minute of today's #earthquake, there were more than 40,000 earthquake-related Tweets. And, we hit about 5,500 Tweets per second (TPS). For context, this TPS is more than Osama Bin Laden's death & on par w/ the Japanese quake."

It's crazy how crucial this social media tool was in our panic. I can only imagine what people would have been tweeting on 9/11 if twitter had been around. What would have been trending? Would people's last words from the towers been tweets? I guess that's something we will never know..

One of the highlights of the day was coming back into the office looking at brands' twitters to see if they were taking advantage of the trending topic. Some did, tastefully, wishing everyone to safety. Others, not so much, using it to promote their brand in the wrong way. My favorite being from Elizabeth Arden spa who promoted their massage for those who were stressed about the events. Too soon? Perhapskis.

What were you doing during the EarthquakeApocolypse? Did you check twitter for updates? Facebook? TV? What were your favorite #earthquake tweets and status updates? Share below!

#Likeable Contests

I have been interning at Likeable Media now for 3 weeks & I absolutely love it! My team, 1800Ballers, is amazing and everyone in the office is fun and outgoing and it's nice to be around people who love social media as much as I do.

One of the perks for being a BuzzBuilder is the weekly contests. Once a week we attend a little training session and are then challenged to go out on our own and apply what we learned. Our first contest was a twitter contest - who can get the most followers in a week. Everyone was going twitter crazy! I maybe gained 50 followers this week, which isn't a lot compared to the 2,000 the winners gained (go Rinda & Alyssa!) but I was really happy about my progress. I now have people following me that are leaders in the social media field and also who are fellow BeachBody Coaches. My biggest accomplishment was finding Alee. Alee is one of the girls in the Turbofire workouts (which I have been obsessively doing everyday for 3 weeks now for those who don't know). She is one of the main girls on the stage to watch at all times for modified moves. She is SO outrageously fit and it's cool to see someone on twitter who you see everyday on your TV. So anyway, I followed her and was happily surprised to see she followed back. As if that wasn't cool enough, I tweeted at her and got a reply! Here's the screenshot:








That was so exciting for me! She's the closest to a celeb I have following me/tweeting with me. So even though I lost that contest, I am proud of the outcome

The other contest that just ended was a Facebook contest - who can write the most engaging status. After the loss of the first contest, I was all fired up to win this one. I immediately got to writing my status and ended up with 62 likes and 26 comments. Here's that screen shot (can you tell I finally learned how to take screenshots? lol)
















I ended up winning most likes! And tied the contest with two awesome other Buzzies - Tyler & Sam. It was a lot of fun and a great learning experience on what it takes to engage your audience. Tyler did an excellent job of offering an incentive - a free meal - to whoever liked and commented their favorite food..and Sam did a sweet poll: Kanye vs. TSwift (who could resist commenting on that?!). As for me, I decided to use "surprise & delight" and randomly chose one "like-er" to get a prize. My friend Christina won and I will be sending her a fabulous prize :)

Does your internship do any fun contests or events? What kind of facebook status would you have posted to engage your friends? Comment below!

Why are Hashtags Important

When I first joined twitter, I used it just as I used my Facebook status updates. I put no effort into them and tweeted maybe once a week. But when I did sign in, I would see people ending their tweets with the “pound” (#) sign followed by a random word or phrase and didn’t really understand it. What was the point? Now a year later, I am a hashtag fanatic. But it wasn’t until this past week that I fully understood the power of hashtags. Here are the main reasons I’ve learned as to why and how hashtags are used.

1. To join a conversation

Recently, I was invited by Dave Kerpen to join the #blogchat conversation. I had never heard of it before and as a newbie blogger I decided to check it out. I typed #blogchat into the search bar and literally hundreds of tweets popped up. People were asking questions, sharing ideas, giving tips…. it was NONSTOP! This was my first time experiencing the power of the hashtag. People were re-tweeting each other and making connections with people who they would have never had the chance to talk to if not for #blogchat. It was a bit overwhelming, but a great learning experience both about blogs and about how twitter hashtags bring people together.

2. To start a trending topic

June 8-9 was the Likeable U Summer 2011 Summit (which was awesome but that’s another story). I was in charge of registration and was told to tell everyone who came in to tweet along with the conference using #likeable. Within the first few hours of the Summit, #likeable became a NYC trending topic on twitter!!

This shows just how influential the Summit was – that enough people were talking about the sessions and sharing their favorite moments to make an impact on the twitter-verse.

3. For Fun!

I use hashtags with almost every tweet I send – just because. I love when people hashtag random phrases to add humor to an ordinary tweet. It’s a great way to be creative and make your tweet unique and memorable.

What’s the best, funniest, most memorable hashtag you have used or have seen? What’s your main reason for using hashtags? Have you met any people after joining a hashtag twitter convo? Comment below!