From that other article I wrote, here’s the definition of the term second screen:

“The use of second screens is no fad though, it’s a major player in today’s media game.  Social TV, more time spent browsing, multitasking, and active viewing are all parts of second screen.

The term is literal, a second screen is just that.  A laptop, computer, tablet, smart phone – any device that’s wed-capable can be a second screen.  The first screen refers to a TV.  Some people watch with three or four screens going in their living room at any given time.”

The second screen is the web-browsing device you’re using while the TV is on.  Promoters of TV shows and the commercials that air during them hope that viewers utilize their “second screens” to engage in “social TV.”  Using hashtags relevant to specific TV shows, joining live chats, posting to a show’s, character’s or actor’s Facebook page, etc.

Some live shows even ask fans to use social media to send in questions or comments to be read on-air as part of the program (example: Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live” asks celebrities questions from Twitter and Facebook; Cable news networks also use social media responses to air viewer comments).

…

Image Source [also contains some stats about second screen use in the U.K.]: (“Advanced Tevelevision,” 2012).

Social media managers, marketing, advertising, and communications professionals, and other industry experts will be in attendance to hear Keith speak at this event in Zurich.   By using the social hub, industry professionals can network and connect; at events like Social Hub an opportunity for both education and networking is offered to those who attend.

Keith will deliver a presentation called “Mastering the 3 Ms of Social Media,” all about moderation, monitoring and management – the pillars of sound social strategy, the basic equipment for a successful presence on social networks.  Other than the 3 Ms, Keith will also talk about how ICUC was started, what moderation actually is and what it consists of, and he’ll also discuss crisis management on social networks.

Check out more details about the event on the Swiss Online Publishing site for Social Hub:

The Program will start with coffee and croissants at 8:00am. From 8:35 to 9:15am, Keith will give his presentation, and then 9:15 to 10:00am is open for networking.

Social Hub is a project of the Swiss Online Publishing Ltd., and features a free of charge monthly event in Zurich.  Every month features a different key note speaker.  From the website, “The monthly technical meeting “Social Hub” will be held every first Thursday of every month at the Zurich hub in the viaduct in Zurich-West. For more information on the Zurich hub found on www.hubzurich.org ,” (Swiss Online Publishing, 2012).

To get in touch with Keith before the event – reach out to him on Twitter at @keithbilous or see his about.me profile for his other social media points of contact.   Email him at keith@icucmoderation.com with questions or comments about this appearance or to have him speak at your upcoming seminar or conference.

According to Twiiter itself, “The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.”

If you use a hashtag before a word or phrase, it allows that grouping to become known as a “hashtag” (the whole phrase with # + the word(s) is collectively known as “a hashtag” as well as the symbol itself).  A hashtag becomes identifiable throughout Twitter, allowing tweets using the same hashtags to be easily identified together, searchable, and easier to find.

When many many tweets all use the same hashtag, it can create a trending topic – a specific topic of tweets that’s very popular at any given time.

During TV shows, for example, oftentimes a hashtag for the show will appear on the bottom corner of the TV screen.  If viewers were to tweet about the show and include the hashtag – all of the tweets on the show would be electronically routed together on Twitter – and thus the entire conversation is easy to track and follow.  (You can just use the same hashtag then to see what others are tweeting about the show).

People often invent silly or funny hashtags to describe a situation, even though they may be one of the only people using it.  It’s sort of a Twitter inside joke to try and make a hashtag out of an expression or phrase.

Some commonly used hashtags are very well-known, like “#FF” for example, which means “Follow Friday.”  On “Follow Friday” people use the #FF hashtag and then tag other Twitter users they follow.  It’s a fun way to give shout outs to your friends, or to let someone know you’re following his or her Twitter account.  It can help followers feel appreciated and gain recognition.  It’s just a fun thing to do.

The Twitter Help Center has an entire section on hashtags that’s quite helpful – so for more information or for help in the future, make sure to check that out.

Image Source.

Every month we feature an interview with a different ICUC Employee in our company newsletter, which we also publish here on our company blog, Snoo.ws.  This month we’ve selected the peppy and jazzy Sabrina Zirakzadeh.

Sabrina is a Moderation Specialist here at ICUC – so read this edition of The Inside Scoop and meet a mod!

Sabrina is from Boulder, CO, from a family of Guatemalan and Iranian immigrants, Native Americans, and generic European ancestry. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Colorado Denver and a Master’s from the University of Scotland (both with honors).  She’s been working with ICUC as a Moderation Specialist since March 2011.

She’s soon moving to Japan where she’ll be teaching in addition to her work here with ICUC.  Sabrina is an exciting character, a world traveler, and a jack of all trades.  Read on to learn more about one of ICUC’s most interesting assets!

Rose:  What were you doing before coming to ICUC that helped you gain experience as a moderator?

Sabrina:  Before working at ICUC, I’d pretty much just worked the usual customer service jobs; retail, barista work, teaching private lessons, basic data entry, the works. That gave me a pretty good background in dealing with troubled clients and problem solving, which I think comes in handy responding to customers on the accounts I’ve worked on. In addition, I’ve been a volunteer Municipal Liaison (basically the regional organizer) for National Novel Writing Month since 2006, which includes monitoring the NaNoWriMo.org and local forums in an almost identical manner to the way ICUC moderates social media sites. I did some volunteer moderating on fan communities on the Internet as well, but I think NaNoWriMo really gave me the background I needed for this job. Being such a popular event means there are a lot of issues that pop up in the forums and it really helped me to learn when to engage and how to do so, when to just let things go, and when things just had to be shut down.

Rose:  How many languages do you speak?  Do you write them as well?

Sabrina: I speak six languages if you include English; I grew up speaking English and Spanish, am fluent in written and spoken Japanese, and am pretty well-versed in written and spoken Farsi as well. I’ve been learning Mandarin Chinese and Russian for a few years now, though just spoken. Russian is really difficult for me, for some reason!

Rose:  That’s incredible, so impressive! Does being multilingual help you in your work at ICUC?  How so?

Sabrina: Being multilingual definitely helps me with my work here! Since I’ve mostly worked in the monitoring divisions, sometimes with unusual hours, I come across posts from all around the globe. It saves a lot of time being able to translate directly, which means I can moderate and respond more efficiently than if I had to go through another person to find out what was being said. Also, because I’ve studied so many languages, even in the cases of those I don’t speak myself, there are times when I can extrapolate what is being said, and then determine if it needs a response before bothering the rest of our busy team! The Internet is too expansive to just focus on one language, and the most our clients work with international marketing.

Rose:  You seem to be the kind of person who has a ton of things going on at once, you’re juggling lots of passions and interests.  Outside of working at ICUC, what else do you have going on?

Sabrina: I’ve been working towards being a professional musician my whole life, so most of my non-ICUC activities tie directly into that. I only work ICUC part-time, so my other job is teaching private music lessons on voice, flute, guitar, piano, and lately ukulele; consequently, a lot of my remaining free time goes into practicing, keeping up with repertoire selections on instruments, and working on my own music. I’ve just finished recording my first full-length album of original music, due out this summer! I also perform with local theater groups, take various dance classes, and compete in ballroom competitions, though I’m taking the summer off from those before moving to Japan to work on furthering my music career abroad. In the tiny bit of time I’m not working on performance-related things, I love to travel (especially back to Scotland to visit my long-term partner there), watch movies, read, and drink lots and lots of tea!

Rose: Does being such a multitasker help you out in the world of social media?  Does it make you a better mod?  

Sabrina: I think it very much helps! For example, one client my team has right now has us utilizing three social media platforms to engage and work with their audience. Each platform has different capabilities regarding hiding posts, deletions, banning users, searching for relevant topics, and so on, and each has its own set of guidelines to follow regarding content. Add in the fact that this is just one client of many during each shift, and we really have very little time to get through everything that needs to be done. Being able to keep part of my mind on each social media platform and its set of rules even while checking another platform or escalating an issue from a different client, makes me both faster in terms of reporting problems and also more efficient with my time in case something unusual comes up that may need my attention later.

Rose:  You’re a world traveler.  Do you have a favorite place that you’ve been?  A dream destination?

Sabrina: The places I’ve been the most are Guatemala, Japan, and Scotland, and all three of them are among my favorites, but surprisingly I think the place that I would want to go back to the most was Iceland. Guatemala will always be special because of my family but it’s not for everyone; Japan would be my next favorite, just because it’s the only place I’ve been where the sky is as blue as it is here at home. As for dream destinations, I’d love to go to Taiwan or Singapore; I’ve heard they are both beautiful, fun, and, since I’m partial to heights, the Singapore Flyer and Taipei 101 are sights I would love to see!

Rose:  Where do you see yourself going with your career?  Any goals you’d like to share?  

Sabrina: For ICUC, I’d love to try my hand at analyzing trends and advising clients some day. It’s a skill I’ll need for my music career, since I do my own marketing, and in addition, going through trends for monthly reports and whatnot is actually quite fun. It’s like a puzzle; why were customers happy or upset about this compared to last time, and what made things better or worse when we responded? I’d love to work more with those sorts of things, and thinking of how to use that information in the future. And of course, I’ll be continuing with music. I’m hoping to open up my own teaching studio in Japan eventually and keep my evenings and weekends open for performing my own music until I get someone’s attention and get swept off to fame, infamy, and sparkly things!

A big thanks to Sabrina for sharing her passion and fun with us!  Having a co-worker like Sabrina is a treat for all of us – not only is she a great source of happiness and positive energy, she’s awesomely trained and experienced in such a variety of skills, from her musical career to her multilingual capabilities.  Sabrina, we appreciate your time and wish you luck with all your endeavors – both within ICUC and in your other side projects!

The hilarious webisodes have followed celerities such as Moby, Bill Murray and Dave Navarro – but the shape shifting story of James Franco is my favourite so far, as we discover that the man who seems to do it all, really does do it all.

The episode, directed by Fact Checkers Unit creator Dan Beers, has been proving popular online. With over 150,000 views since it was launched last week, the episode has been widely talked about online and is no doubt getting plenty of publicity for the Samsung Galaxy Note.

We’d give you the play-by-play, but so many funny things are packed into this episode that you’re probably better off just watching it yourself.

Having a handle can help to differentiate users with similar names, names that sound alike (like Ryan and Brian for example – on the poor quality of a radio transmission, it may be hard to hear the difference).  If users have unique and often colorful, fun, silly, or eccentric handles – identification becomes much easier.

Thus, the names used on Twitter are called handles and serve much a similar purpose.  Twitter handles help identify users, and allow users to add in a bit of personal expression or association that one doesn’t get when just using your given name.

For example, if I made up the handle @SocialMediaRose or @ICUCRose – you would instantly know more about me than if I merely went by @RoseDuggan.  (I happen to go by @RadRoseDuggan for now, a combination of my legal name and “Rad,” which is based off a user name I carried with me for years and years on Internet Forums, to help unify my online identity and establish more Internet transparency).

I’ve gone into depth of explaining my own handle, because there are many reasons why someone may choose a particular name to use on Twitter.  To identify with a professional entity, like the company one works for or to attach your name to a commonly-known nickname that many of your friends (both real and virtual/online) will know to associate with your identity.   Oftentimes, new/ lesser-known TV stars (especially from the reality sector) will include the name of their show in their handle so fans can better find them.

Whatever it is you want to go by on Twitter is up to you!

Handles are always predisposed by the “@” symbol – it’s how Twitter’s mechanism allows users to speak to each other, and tag one another in posts.  It’s also how you can search for someone by handle.  The “at symbol” turns a handle from just a word into a live coded function that actively links to that person’s account.

If you make a Tweet that says “Hey RadRoseDuggan, how are you?” – I may not readily find the tweet, I may never see it.  If you say “Hey @RadRoseDuggan, how are you?” – now you’ve actively tagged me, and through Twitter’s system I’ll be alerted to your message, and the handle in your tweet will act as a hyperlink to my account.

Just try it out, and you’ll see for yourself how the use of the “@” turns a handle from plain text into rich text that’s clickable.

Pretty rad, huh?

According to the event’s website, Social Media Camp is “Brought to you by presenting sponsor Intertainment Media Inc., SMC brings together the brightest social media minds in North America for 2-days of social media exploration, sharing & teaching, with a large dash of networking. Join 800+ people for Canada’s social media event of the year featuring New York Times Bestselling author Chris Brogan.”

ICUC’s Jan Reischek will be speaking Saturday during one of the Power Sessions:
“New to Social Media Camp 2012 are Power Sessions. These are smaller, focused presentations and group discussions around a more niche topic, such as a particular product or industry.”

Jan’s presentation will be on Mastering the 3 M’s of Social Media: Moderation, Monitoring, and Management.  On Saturday, June 9th from 2:20pm to 3:20pm in the Sidney Room.  Check out the Power Sessions Schedule, here.

On Jan Reischek:

Jan Reischek is a deeply driven, creative professional with a successful 8-year track record in the social media industry and is a highly respected, and enthusiastic leader with proven ability to develop and implement business development, sales, marketing and management strategies as the vice president of client services for ICUC, an iProspect company.

Jan is relied upon by some of the largest brands in the world to provide moderation, monitoring and community management services to protect and develop online communities; The 3 Ms of social strategy: Moderation, Monitoring, and Management.

Jan’s experience in areas such as industry analysis, communication planning, project management, social media and new business development provide her clients with the best-in-class knowledge and tools to achieve success and navigate the social media space today. Jan is a strategic thinker and hard worker and is relied upon to acquire new customers, retain existing accounts and lead a large team successfully.

Jan currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her husband Justin and dog Lucky, is an avid sports enthusiast and is currently attending Athabasca University to obtain her Master of Business Administration, with her degree expected in June 2013.

Register for the Event:

You can’t see Jan’s Presentation without first registering for the event.  Social Media Camp is one not to miss!

Register online and use the ICUC discount code “ICUC50” to save $50 off your total ticket price.  Just visit the Registration Page for the event and follow instructions there.  Tickets are selling fast, so hurry up and make sure to get one before the event is totally sold out.

Meet up / Tweet up with ICUC and SMC:

ICUC will be at Social Media Camp – Jan (of course) will be there all weekend, as well as our very own Rob Baral.  Want to meet up with Jan or Rob at the event?  Make sure to hit them up on Twitter @JReischek (Jan) and @robertbaral (Rob), before and/or during the event.  Of course, you can always contact ICUC using our company handle, @ICUC .

Prefer email?  Contact Jan at jan@icucmoderation.com and Rob at robb@icucmoderation.com.

Let us know if you’ll be attending – we’d love to hear from you, meet up, and say hi!  The best part about social media events are putting faces to names, so please reach out.

More on Social Media Camp:

From the event page:
“Social Media Camp Victoria started when Chris Burdge and Paul Holmes decided that Vancouver Island deserved to have a top notch event where people with an enthusiasm for social media could both learn to leverage it effectively as well as talk about its effect on mainstream media, business and society as a whole.
After extremely successful events in 2010 and 2011, SMC has evolved into the premier social media event in Canada, attracting attendees from all across Canada and the USA and from as far away as Mexico and Thailand.”

To find out even more, check out the event main page or the FAQ section.

API

B2B

DM / PM 

ROI 

P2P 

SMO 

Splog

Tweep

UCG 

Vlog

What is The ICUC Glossary? 

The ICUC Glossary is a live, working document that aims to serve as a resource and catalogue of Internet slang and terminology.  In an industry as quickly evolving and developing as online culture is – the language is just as fast to change, grow, modify.  Keeping up with terms, slang, and jargon is both essential and challenging.  New acronyms and abbreviations seem to be in use daily.

Next time you come across an acronym or a word that you’re unfamiliar with – check in here at  The ICUC Glossary to see if we have a definition for it.  If it’s not here, fear not; as we expand The ICUC Glossary, we’ll be trying to define as many of these terms as possible.   To help us, help you, please feel free to suggest any term you’d like to see in The Glossary  (email me, Rose, at rosed@icucmoderation.com).

Since it’s a work in progress – we’ve started out with just a single entry and over time will add more and more.  Keep checking back in, or just subscribe to The Snoo.ws blog to see the newest terms we add on in (the definitions of the terms are each posted to our blog as individual posts).

In this clever ad we see two colleagues discussing how MiO makes their water much more interesting. Set in an office space, we see that each time the camera pans back to each character they have changed slightly, like an outfit, or changing drastically, like into a little old lady.

Earning over 26,000 views and appearing on websites and in blogs, you can’t get enough of this commercial – and I’m anticipating some hilarious spinoffs in the very near future.

Here’s another mash-up word, or a portmanteau (that’s the formal literary term for a “mash up”) that I so love to define.

These are just crap blogs either built by spam bots or generated out of meaningless garble to try and attract visits for the purpose of selling ads, gaining link exposure to affiliated entities, trying to increase linkability or search engine ranking – or some other bogus money-making reason or information modulating reason that doesn’t line up with the criteria of a legit blog.

A legit blog being one that actually writes for the sake of engaging with readers, providing useful information and so forth.  Splogs, on the other hand, usually contain garbage posts with false or made up information – sometimes with totally fake articles, sometimes they’re just smattered with ads, links, and other promotional links to lure you in.

What’s most frustrating about a splog is that usually there’s some reason you’ve been lured there – when searching you see something in the search results that seems to provide the real information you’re seeking, or you’ve clicked on a link from another legit site expecting to go to a real blog.  When you land on a splog it’s annoying and a bummer, and sometimes a barrage of pop-ups will also accompany your landing on the page.

The worst kind of splog is a phishing site – designed to look like a legitimate blog or sales site that ends up tricking visitors into submitting personal information.  You may try to buy something or supply other data about yourself (address, banking info, password, email, etc) that can then be used to steal from you, spam you with more ads, or even worse – attack you with malware, spyware, keystroke software that’s able to track what you type in.

This is all rather alarmist though – so don’t get too panicked just reading this.  Most splogs are just crazy fake blogs trying to generate money as you click on the different links and ads posted.  It’s mostly a nuisance and a hassle.  (Isn’t it always a nuisance when spam strikes again?!?!).

To try and avoid splogs, be wary of the web address or where you’ve found the link.  And once you’ve realized you’ve landed on a splog – leave asap, and report the site to whatever browser you’re using, to any protective software you’ve installed on your computer (like an anti-virus program or what have you), or the host blog if it happens to be on a real hosting platform like Blogger or WordPress, etc.

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Image source: Small Time