Social Media's Hottest Dress of the Season!

Since it is the end of awards season, you would think it is the end of dresses being the top hit on Twitter. 

But last night, Twitter was overtaken with a new dress that caused a huge controversy.

Dubbed #TheDress, this color optical illusion basically divided the internet into two camps, #TeamBlackAndBlue and #TeamWhiteAndGold.

To explain a bit, depending on your brain's perception of color, viewers can see an image of the same dress as either black and blue striped, or gold and white striped.  The concept is fascinating, but since this isn't a brain function blog, I'll let you read about the science elsewhere.  If interested, I think WIRED's recap of it is the best.

Another fascinating aspect, though, is just how quickly this sensation swamped our newsfeeds!  #TheDress was first posted to Tumblr on Wednesday.  Apparently, as Washington Post reported, the dress was intended to be worn in a wedding.  And when the mother of the bride snapped a picture of it to send to members of the wedding party, they all saw the dress as different colors!  To settle the debate, they posed the question to social media and BAM.  

Tens of millions of tweets siding on either end of the debate led to trending hashtags #TheDress, #whiteandgold, #blackandblue.  Even celebrities from Taylor Swift to Mindy Kaling to Julianne Moore chimed in about #TheDress.

When I first saw it, I thought people were pranking me!  It was clearly white and gold.  But now, a few images that I've seen actually do look blue and black!  We are clearly going mad!

What colors do you see?  

Super Bowl Sunday: Pick A Side!

Football fans across the nation are getting their TVs ready, their refrigerators stocked and their favorite team's jersey out in preparation for Super Bowl Sunday!  Let's add to that list this year and get the computers and mobile phones out because social media "Super Bowl style" is already in action.

An interesting trend is developing in social media this week as we lead up to the big game.   

Usually all the Twitter-sphere is focused on is how excited we are about the commercials!  Sure, maybe you get an occasional "GO TEAM" or "BEAT THE OTHER TEAM", but that's about it.  This year, even the potential postponement of the Super Bowl (yeah, yeah, this is being talked about but I'll believe it when I see it!) is being dwarfed by something even BIGGER.  Ever since Richard Sherman gave a heated rant about his game-winning play and deep-seated rivalry with Michael Crabtree last week, social media has been abuzz with harsh criticisms, witty memes and heartfelt defenses of Sherman.  This is feeding the pre-game social media chatter to be more and more about the actual game and its players!!

So this Super Bowl Sunday, you need to pick a side!  No, I don't mean about who wins.  I mean about social media's biggest debate: Richard Sherman, love him or leave him!  Your time to pick a side is dwindling, so to help you out, I've found you quick links to the most popular arguments on both sides.  Check them out below, and let us know your vote in the comments!

LOVE HIM  OR   LEAVE HIM

Death By Twitter: KitchenAid Edition

 You don't make fun of someone's mom.
That's a given. And I'd argue the same goes for Grandmothers and other caregivers.

Well, KitchenAid broke that rule on a national scale when it tweeted an offensive statement towards President Obama during the Presidential Debate Wednesday night.

As Obama was relaying a story about his late grandmother, KitchenAid's 2400 followers were tweeted the following:
@KitchenAidUSA: "Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! 'She died 3 days b4 he became president."

Ouch. That's wrong no matter what your political view. Of course, KitchenAid has already issued an apology for this "irresponsible tweet", asthe company should. But it begs the continuing question of HOW things like this are still happening!?

According to Cynthia Soledad, head of KitchenAid, the tweet was posted by a member of its Twitter team who mistakenly used the KitchenAid handle instead of a personal handle. Big mistake.

Two main takeaways for everyone watching this gaffe unfold:
If You Tweet For A Company: DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING! Even triple check every tweet's handle before you post. Better yet, use different devices for different Twitter handles. These types of mix-ups happen frequently and, on this big of a scale, no mistake goes unseen.

If You Have People Who Tweet For Your Company: You have several choices here. Obviously you need to hold your Social Media teams to a high standard. But you also need to know that these errors happen. It could be wise to set up precautionary measures that may save you big in the long run. First, you could set up a protocol that calls for each tweet to be reviewed by another member of the team before it is posted. Another idea is to provide devices for your teams and only allow company Tweets to be sent from a company device. You also could establish accounts that delay a post for 4 minutes before it is officially tweeted. This could give the sender or a supervisor a moment to review even after the Tweet button has been pressed. Tweet4Me and TweetDeck both offer delay functions.

What do you do personally or professionally to control tweets?