Social Networks Demo

n the middle we have Bella Thorne (@bellathorne) who became famous because of her work with the Disney Channel. Each tweet she sends out to her 3.3 million followers earns her $6,500 from a sponsor.

unding was led by Special Situation Funds

The idea behind Izea is that influencers are writing in their own voices and matched with individual brands,

A lot of times, it's not the mega superstars that drive engagement, it's people that fly under the radar that have a very rabid fan base."

The more brands and celebrities understand the personal and casual nature of social, the more their story-driven content will perform well

The audience on Twitter is different than the audience on Tumblr, which is different than the audience on Facebook. This truism is regurgitated over and over in countless articles on how to achieve social media success for your brand, and yet we continually see the same content cross-promoted on brands’ social networks. If your social team isn’t creative enough to take one piece of content and craft that story differently on each platform, then you need a new social team.

Big money is changing hands, much of it to teenagers, which has made this a topic the media has loved to cover.

"The way that I started was creating a parody account of a fictional character, which is probably more common than you think."

Nikolai is in favor of working directly with companies to build awareness instead of driving traffic to websites and getting paid off AdSense, which he calls unsustainable.

Fans respond to originality, live-tweeting events, and piggybacking on trending topics

YouTube, Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Pinterest—these are the platforms where you find young buyers waiting to be influenced.

Since Facebook makes users pay to reach target audiences, it’s the only major social network not in the mix.

Google+ is reportedly at work on AdHeat, a patented system connecting brands with influencers.

"Influencers" get paid per tweet or post, or work under contract on campaigns. Some get connected with companies covering multiple platforms, like theAudience, or specialty spots like Big Frame, CollectiveDigital, or Jukin Media, which focus on video creators. Then there’s twtMob for Twitter, theAmplify for Instagram, or HelloSociety for Pinterest. A startup called Niche gives you a customized group of social media "celebrities" who will organically tweet, post, and talk about your products. This isn't canned material made by some agency coming out these kids' mouths. It's them.

Twitter has started to quietly reveal engagement numbers for major users, a real metric influencers can use to prove ROI.

But while the 16-year-old stars making big bucks are being celebrated, what’s not as well known is that some of this activity is not legal. That’s because in the U.S. the Federal Trade Commission mandates the disclosure of paid or sponsored content. Penalties are in the six figures, but many in the space say there’s still a Wild West mentality at work.

On YouTube, Vine, and Instagram, creators are the stars, but on Twitter, the trendsetters are largely parody accounts, which can leave the people running them feeling like the Cinderella of the ball.

In 2009 the FTC released guidelines concerning online endorsements.

There are more than 50 pages of regulations, but the main takeaway is this: If you’re paid to post online, you have to make it known, and when it comes to social that means including an "s/p" designation (sponsored post), or tags that say #sponsor or #ad.

Typically millennials in their teens and 20s, influencers drive engagement—creating tweets, videos, photos, memes that people respond to, share, comment on, or even steal. Originality, wit, and volume posting is key—and so is pulling at heart strings or tickling funny bones.

followers and reach are key, but the main criteria hinges on "capturing an emotion or quality in a platform that is meaningful," explains Oliver Luckett, the founder and CEO of the social media publisher theAudience

they don’t have to be traditional stars. The fact that they’re relatable, and look and live like their peers actually make them more convincing than Hollywoo

With mainstream magazines like Seventeen putting Instagram stars on their covers, commercials using user-generated videos, and brands like American Eagle turning Viners into models, are these the new secret celebs?

People feel closer to them because they show up in their feed—they hang on every word and thing they’re wearing

it’s a win for teens to work with big companies that line up with their personality, and a win for brands to reach new audiences. "This is the way it’s going."

Perlman says back then Disney laughed when they proposed using an online heavyweight as a marketing tool. But in 2010 they convinced Disney to use the electronic musician Pogo to create an official remix for Toy Story 3. They also managed to twist Disney’s arm and sell tickets for the film on Facebook. The video got almost 4 million views and the gambit was a huge success.

Taryn Southern has built a following of almost 350,000 subscribers on YouTube, parlaying that success into television appearances, a web series sponsored by Glamour magazine, and a deal with Hot Pockets. Southern, who appeared on American Idol when she was only 18, says she won’t work with brands she doesn’t actually have an affinity for.

"Your audience knows—it never works with a brand you’re not passionate about," she told me. "Where I’ve made mistakes is trying to be clear of an integration that doesn’t work for YouTube personalities. If people are being paid on social they have to be honest."

"Anyone with 250,000 to 300,000 followers is influential enough to work with,"

Content thievery remains rampant, as are selling accounts, and failing to disclose brand partnerships. Eventually the FTC will start cracking down. And what happens when influencers grow up? What will their role be then—will they lose their brand appeal or morph into a new commodity?

author of Going Viral, which explores how ideas spread online.

Jarre, who co-founded a Vine marketing company that previously worked with Nash, calls it “snack content.”

Vine, which has over 40 million members, declined to share the age breakdown of its audience, but marketers who work closely with the service say it skews young, toward people Nash's age.

Add Nash's Vine following to the number of fans watching him on Instagram (6.2 million), YouTube (3.3 million) and Twitter (3 million) and you’ve got a kid with higher social media ratings than the White House.

Nash's team also confirmed that major brands will pay the star between $25,000 to $100,000 to plug their products in a six-second clip and share it with his fans.

He's been called sexist, racist and homophobic in connection with a Vine telling girls how to be attractive; another video mocking Asian names; and a clip in which Nash suggests only gay people are afflicted by HIV, then shouts "fags!" while barely hiding a grin.

He's also purged multiple pejorative tweets about "homos" or being a "damn queer" that once littered his Twitter feed, as well as a post from May 2012 that read, “Gay rights? Nahhh."

for a certain class of adolescent, if you tried to design the world’s most viral human, you couldn’t do better than Nash

He’s got prom king good looks and magnetic, made-for-selfie blue eyes. He’s hilarious, at least according to the teens watching him, who happen to be among the most wired people on the planet. He’s a relentless self-promoter. And he’s mastered the art of “authenticity” — that combination of staged closeness, strategic imperfection and calculated self-deprecation that’s the key to charming the web.

The upbeat teen Nash plays on smartphone screens diverges so sharply from the kid who lashed out against "homos" that it can be hard to shake the sense his online image is at least in part a carefully constructed fiction — one more staged than his casual candids might suggest. Nash discusses "filth" in terms that hint he may consider it imprudent for business reasons: "You don't want to come off as stupid. You don’t want to have racial slurs. You don't want to limit yourself. You want an audience that [includes] anyone from 2 years old to 50 years old,"

Nash genuinely gives off the impression of someone who’s still more 16-year-old kid than groomed child star

As he ducked away from the screaming throngs at the mall, leaving them with nothing more of himself than the same digital images, an uncomfortable truth became clear: The closer you get to Nash, the farther you feel from him. On Vine, Nash can post a single video and make millions feel he’s talking directly to them. In person, you can feel lucky to get a full sentence. At the dinner table, waiting for his takeout, he stares at his phone. He slips easily into the clipped, non-committal generalities of the disinterested teen

The most intimate moment most fans get to share with Nash is taking a selfie.

Nash is, after all, only the latest in a string of nobodies who’ve become sponsorable online somebodies by bypassing agents and taking their talents directly to the web. In its short life, Vine has spawned a suite of homegrown celebrities who are creeping toward six-figure salaries thanks to an exceptional — and exceptionally strange — talent that until now had little marketable value: the ability to capture attention with six-second bursts of humor or skill. They include Viners like "KingBach," a 26-year-old actor who has landed a role on Showtime's House of Lies, and "BatDad," a father whose Batman alter ego helped him land a lucrative gig pimping laundry detergent for Tide.

Like other Vine sensations, Nash hopes six seconds of fame will be the gateway to something more lasting than 15-minute stardom. He “isn’t really monetizing right now,” according to Alan Spiegel, one of Nash’s three managers including his father. Instead, having conquered the smartphone, Nash is going after larger screens that can put distance between an idol and his fans.

They’re carefully-edited, six-second jolts of humor that are big on action, short on subtlety and long on relatability

You can play professional lacrosse, but they make less than a teacher’s salary now. I always thought about that. And it’s a very difficult career, a short career, as a pro athlete,” Nash explained. “I was like, ‘I can be an entertainer until I’m 75!’ So logistically, it seemed better. And I liked it better.”

Nash recently landed a deal to appear in a yet-to-be-specified movie produced by Dreamworks-owned AwesomenessTV and the director of Varsity Blues

“There’s always someone coming, always someone funnier, cuter, more engaging, which is why [social media] stars today are seeking out professional managers and agents,”

Nash has a collection of catchphrases — including "Nashty," "or nah" and "zayummm" — that his fans repeat themselves and sport on T-shirts.

His new dream, he said, is to be “the first, like, George Clooney or Leonardo DiCaprio who starts from the Internet.” According to the logic of a plucky teen who’s excelled at most of the things to which he’s set his mind, going Hollywood is, despite its risks, purely the most logical career route.

When Shawn Mendes, another teenage Vine star, launched his debut album and asked fans to "get this bad boy to No. 1," it took them just 37 minutes to push it to the top slot on iTunes.

This time around, his first video, “How to wake up like a thug,” got him 1,000 likes and 4,000 followers after it was shared by another Viner with a large following. “I was like, ‘Holy crap! I have to keep this up,’”

Nash scrutinized the techniques of Vine stars like Marcus Johns, a college student with several million fans, for clues about what would draw the largest audience.

Currently, the 12 most popular Viners are each variations on the same formula: They are all comedians, they are almost all men and many of them are God-fearing Christians who bleep f-bombs and steer clear of sex.

There is no filler or downtime, only punchlines and story climaxes in continuously looping six-second doses. “It’s fast, it’s punchy, it’s like a party,” said Hemsley, the expert on viral phenomena.

Vine can evoke a basement rec room on a Friday night — young, frenetic and full of inside jokes. There are pretty girls filming staged sleepovers in one corner, someone belting out John Mayer somewhere else and everywhere, the attractive fraternities of male Viners who film “collabs” (collaborations) they use to help each other get more fans.

Nash realized from his study of Vine that the blockbuster formula had two ingredients: He had to be funny, and he had to be clean.

“Kids still want programming, but they don’t want to sit through Boy Meets World" — a mind-numbing 24 minutes long — said Rob Fishman, a former Huffington Post editor who is now the co-founder of Niche, a marketing platform that connects brands with social media creators, including Nash. "What Nash and these guys do is they fill that void.”

He also tries never, ever to publish videos in the middle of the day. He saves them for after 3:00 in the afternoon — just as teens are streaming out of school and pulling out their phones.

Nash says he's "trying to steer away from being called a Viner." He's prioritized YouTube videos and auditions in Los Angeles as he works to reinvent himself as a Hollywood star.

More recently, using money he earned plugging Sonic milkshakes and Virgin cell phone plans on Vine, Nash bought himself a camera and video-editing software that he learned to use by watching tutorials on YouTube.

This was the closest most of the girls had ever been to their idol. But thanks to the stream-of-consciousness updates Nash dispatches online (“I LOVE ACNE. YES. WOO.”), his fans have the sense they know every detail about his daily routine.“He just got highlights,” one said with authority. Another: “What’s that water that Nash endorses? … Yeah, I bought it.” A third girl confessed, "I Google-earthed their house."

Facebook is often used by us mainly for its group functionality. I know plenty of classmates who only go on Facebook to check the groups they are part of and then quickly log off. In this part Facebook shines—groups do not have the same complicated algorithms behind them that the Newsfeed does. It is very easy to just see the new information posted on the group without having to sift through tons of posts and advertising you don't really care about.

Messaging on Facebook is also extremely popular among our age group, mainly because they provide the means to talk to those people who you weren't really comfortable with asking for their number but comfortable enough to send them a friend request.

Facebook is often the jumping-off point for many people to try to find you online, simply because everyone around us has it.

Instagram is by far the most used social media outlet for my age group.

I'm not terrified whenever I like something on Instagram that it will show up in someone’s Newsfeed and they'll either screenshot that I liked it or reference it later.

I am not as pressured to follow someone back on Instagram, meaning my feed is normally comprised of content I actually want to see

The content on Instagram is usually of higher quality.

Instagram hasn't been flooded with the older generation yet

Another point: tagging. I don't have to constantly check Instagram to make sure I wasn't tagged in any awkward or bad photos. That’s because you can't easily see them in your feed, making the whole experience seem way more private.

People do not post 10000 times a day on Instagram. Many are much more polite about posting, either doing once a day, a few times a week, etc.

it is possible to be “caught up” with my Instagram feed.

There are no links on Instagram, meaning I'm not being constantly spammed by the same advertisement, horrible gossip news article, or Buzzfeed listicle

Facebook gets all of the photos we took — the good, the bad, etc—while Instagram just gets the one that really summed up the event we went to.

Tumblr is like a secret society that everyone is in, but no one talks about.

Many of those younger than me (10–16 years old) who I've talked to about this matter don’t even have a Facebook — Instagram is all that they need.

To be honest, a lot of us simply do not understand the point of Twitter.

Your tweets are also easily searchable on Twitter which is good but not good if you want to be yourself and not have it follow you around when you're trying to land a job. Thus, to others Twitter is used like Facebook—you post with the assumption that your employer will see it one day.

There are then three main groups of Twitter users: the ones who use it to complain/express themselves, the ones who tweet with the assumption that their prospective employer will eventually see whatever they are saying, and the ones who simply look at other Tweets and do the occasional RT.

Snapchat is quickly becoming the most used social media network, especially with the advent of My Story.

Everything about the application makes it less commercialized and more focused on the content

On Facebook you post the cute, posed pictures you took with your friends at the party with a few candids (definitely no alcohol in these photos)

On Instagram you pick the cutest one of the bunch to post to your network.

Snapchat is where we can really be ourselves while being attached to our social identity.

Without the constant social pressure of a follower count or Facebook friends, I am not constantly having these random people shoved in front of me. Instead, Snapchat is a somewhat intimate network of friends who I don't care if they see me at a party having fun.

Snapchat has a lot less social pressure attached to it compared to every other popular social media network out there.

If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it.

Another quick aside about Snapchat—I only know a handful of people (myself included) that believe Snapchat does delete your photos. Everyone else I know believes that Snapchat has some secret database somewhere with all of your photos on it. While I will save that debate for another day, it is safe to say that when photos are “leaked” or when there’s controversy about security on the app, we honestly do not really care. We aren't sending pictures of our Social Security Cards here, we're sending selfies and photos with us having 5 chins.

Tumblr is a place to follow/be followed by a bunch of random strangers, yet not have your identity be attached to it.

You post yourself getting ready for the party, going to the party, having fun at the party, leaving at the end of the party, and waking up the morning after the party on Snapchat.

Tumblr is where you are your true self and surround yourself (through who you follow) with people who have similar interests.

It’s often seen as a “judgment-free zone” where, due to the lack of identity on the site, you can really be who you want to be.

it’s simple in Tumblr to just change your URL if anyone finds you.

There is a lot of interaction on this website in the form of reblogs because people just simply have feeds of only things they care about (and are then more likely to support with a like/reblog)

I wouldn't say a lot of “socializing” — at least in the way we've defined it in our social media society—occurs on the site

I wouldn't say a lot of “socializing” — at least in the way we've defined it in our social media society—occurs on the site, but people can really easily meet others worldwide who hold similar interests

Yik Yak

There’s an advertisement I see often on Twitter for Yik Yak that says something along the lines of “Everyone’s on it before class starts.” I can 100% reaffirm that this is true. And everyone’s on it during class, talking about the class they are in. And everyone’s on it after class to find out what else is going on around campus.

Yik Yak is a powerful contender that people actually use. Often I see people post about the fight for anonymity with other applications such as Secret. I can tell you that I do not know a single person in my network who uses that application.

Yik Yak is only as good as the 10 mile radius around you, so if you are in an area with a low population of Yik Yak users, you won’t really be using the application much.

LinkedIn — We have to get it, so we got it. Many wait until college to get this (as they probably should, it isn’t for this demographic anyways).

Pinterest—It’s mainly female-dominated and is for those who have an artsy/hipster focus. Not too many people talk about it.

GroupMe—By far the most used group messaging application in college. Everyone has one, uses it and loves it. GIF support, the ability to “like” others messages, even trivial things such as being able to change your name between group chats all make this both a useful and enjoyable application.

Six days after signup, about 20 percent of users remain active (which RJMetrics defines as users who have “actually posted” from the account)

Twenty percent of Ello users are still active four, five, and six days after signing up

round is being led by Sam Altman, the CEO of Y Combinator, the startup incubator where co-founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman first launched Reddit in 2005 — and among the individual investors who are participating in the financing are two Y Combinator partners: founder Jessica Livingston and Gmail creator Paul Buchheit (Ohanian recently became a partner at Y Combinator).

individual investors in the round include early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, actor and singer Jared Leto, Eventbrite co-founders Kevin and Julia Hartz, Minted CEO Mariam Naficy and Reddit CEO Yishan Wong. Previous investors in an angel-only Series A last year included Ohanian, Reddit executive Ellen Pao, YouTube founder Jawed Karim, former Square COO Keith Rabois and Marc Andreessen.

gives Reddit more financial freedom than it has had in the past as a unit of Advance Publications, the parent company of the Conde Nast magazine family. Advance acquired the company in 2006 and spun it out three years ago as an independent entity, but retained control over its finances (and still owns more than half the shares, according to one report).

Reddit also convinced all of the investors in the financing to give 10 percent of their shares to users, “in recognition of the central role the community plays in reddit’s ongoing success.

crypto-currency that would be exchangeable for shares in the company

one of the most significant challenges for Reddit as it tries to justify the valuation it has been given is the tension between wanting to grow and reach a broader audience — and, most importantly, to reach advertisers who can help monetize the site — and the nature of the community itself.

One of the most powerful things about Reddit as a community is the freedom that it gives users, and especially the freedom to create forums on whatever topics someone happens to be interested in, including disturbing content like pictures of female corpses and links to bestiality.

Ohanian has talked in the past about the importance of Reddit’s commitment to free speech, even uncomfortable kinds of speech, and its commitment to anonymity

$500-million-plus valuation

need to attract advertisers and large media brands

desire to become more of a journalistic entity by giving users tools such as the live-reporting feature Reddit launched earlier this year

This type of bloat and the company’s flashy office space contributed to a burn rate that was as high as $2.5 million per month at one point, according to sources close to the company.

including his obsessiveness over design and his proclivity for spending

ath offers a $14.99 annual Premium subscription, as well as monthly and a la carte options. How big that business can become is another matter, however.

It was up against Instagram, which had none of those same advantages, and yet won handily.

caving on Path’s initial 50-person network size limits and then getting distracted by competing around photo-sharing with the more popular Instagram

Foursquare has raised its own warchest of $162 million at ever increasing valuations. But it has faced serious headwinds with recent rounds – while struggling to grow its audience beyond a few million loyal users and to drive real economic value from their location-sharing activity.

And Foursquare still has a primarily North American audience, not to mention heaps of real-time location and intent data to wave in front of advertisers.

VK facilitates two things that young people want to do: search for sexual partners and watch (pirated) newly released movies.

According to the Russian users I’ve been chatting to, that has essentially turned the site into a free and comprehensive dating service as well as a social network one

Good dating apps linked to your social media profile are incredibly popula

VK also allows piracy to go almost unchecked. VK has an enormous catalogue of pirated moves. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, it is one of the most egregious piracy sites in the world

(VK’s boss recently offered Snowdon a job helping to improve encryption; he hasn't answered