Tag: Instagram

Fake Hurricane Dorian video goes viral on Twitter

Whenever there is a major event, news story or a natural disaster like the hurricane Dorian, someone is going to try to take advantage of it to gain followers and reach on social media. Do you remember the fake photo of “Frankenstorm” hurricane Sandy, that looked like it would destroy all of Manhattan? Completely fake of course, but that didn’t stop people from sharing it more than 626,000 times on Facebook. Incredible!

sandy-frankenstorm-new-york

This was back in 2010, and although Facebook’s algorithm has changed and it might be a little harder to get that kind of virality today, we as users probably haven’t become much smarter.

As hurricane Dorian approached the coast of Florida, a Twitter account tweeted a video that appeard to show an enormous hurricane about to hit Miami Beach.

fake hurricane dorian video from miami beach

The tweet has gotten more than 1.7 million views, 35,000 retweets and 76,000 likes in one day, despite the fact that it is obviously fake. It looks fake and it is very easy to fact check, especially if you know that hurricanes originating in the northern hemisphere rotate counterclockwise. In the fake video, the hurricane spins clockwise.

Also, many of the replies to the tweet point out that it is not true and even link to sources that debunk the claim of the tweet.

The same video has also been shared several times on Instagram, but has since been taken down.

The computer animated video was first posted to Instagram in May 2019, several months before hurricane Dorian started to emerge. You can see the video here:

 

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Ett inlägg delat av ♏TheGlitch♏ (@theglitch.og)

 

Why do we share fake news on social media?

So why do we keep sharing stories that are so blatantly false? There are probably many reasons why this happens. Research into why people share fake news show that “Individuals tend not to question the credibility of information unless it violates their preconceptions or they are incentivized to do so”.  There is also a tendency to view unique content as “too good not to share”.

In other words, there is no incentive to fact check something that looks so cool. Some may not even care.

There are many ways you can fact check social media posts, by googling and checking hashtags. You can take a screen shot and do a reverse image search on Google, that often reveals that the footage is older than what it appears to be. And as always, if it looks too good too be true, it probably is fake.

 

Champions League streaker Kinsey Wolanski’s Instagram suspended

Suspended

During last night’s Champions League final in Madrid between Liverpool and Tottenham, model Kinsey Sue Wolanski ran onto the pitch in a tiny swim suite. Wolanski is the girfriend of Russian born Youtuber and prankster Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, who has a history of streaking as well.

Kinsey Sue Instagram

Gained more than 2 million followers

Right before she ran onto the pitch in Madrid, Wolanski had 316,000 followers on Instagram. That has skyrocketed to about 2.5 million followers earlier today.

instagram_kinsey_sue_followers

Instagram is also full of copy cats who try to look like her account in order to gain followers. One of the fake accounts has grown from 73,000 to 114,000 followers in less than a day, so it pays off apparently.

Instagram has supspended Kinsey’s account

However, Kinsey Wolanski’s real Instagram account @kinsey_sue is nowhere to be found right now. A few hours ago, Vitaly posted a photo on his Instagram story where Kinsey says her account has been hacked.  More likely though is that her account has been suspended by Instagram, due to her sudden fame being a result of a criminal act.

account suspened on instagram

Footnote: I’m @kullin on Instagram.

 

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Ett inlägg delat av Hans Kullin ✈︎ (@kullin)

Instagram now lets you post the same image to multiple accounts

Today I noticed a new feature on Instagram. If you are logged in to more than one account, Instagram now lets you post the same image or video to multiple accounts at the same time.

With this new feature there are toggle switches for each Instagram account that you are logged into. By turning the switch on or off, you can decide which accounts the image or video will be posted to.

I tried to post to two of my accounts and it worked like a charm.

Here is the image posted to @kullin 

And here it is on my @sthlmer account:

instagram accounts

This can be an advantage for users who run multiple accounts in the same niche, or for brands that may want to publish identical posts to different brand accounts.

I would still use it with caution, especially if a lot of your views comes froms hastags. Since both images are publishes simoultaneously, they will appear next to each other in the hashtag feed, which may lower your reach and cause confusion.

instagram

Anyway, it’s an interesting new feature and we will see if this is a limited test or if the feature is permanent.

Follow me on Instagram at @kullin or @sthlmer for travel photography. Also see my travel blog “The World is Kullin”.

Micro influencers affect purchase decisions

i am an influencer

Digital influencers have become a major force in online marketing in recent years. Brands turn to celebrities and other influencers to engage audiences and sway purchase decisions in influencer marketing campaigns. A new study by Fullscreen and Shareablee shows that these social media influencers have a strong impact on their followers’ behaviour.

The study looks at four levels of digital stars:

  • Celebrities – 20 million followers or more
  • Trailblazers – online stars with 1 million or more followers
  • Emerging voices and rising stars – digital creators with 250k – 999k followers
  • Micro influencers – social media stars with less than 250k followers

Young people are influenced by social media stars

In the study, consumers aged 18-34 were asked whether they had taken any action as a result of seeing social media posts from digital influencers. Not surprising, many of them had and it turned out that celebrities were least effective in swaying consumer behaviour.

Micro influencers and “rising stars” are most effective in getting consumers to try one of their recommendations. As many as 45% of consumers report that they had done that.

“Digital trailblazers” are very effective at getting followers to purchase an item that they talked about in social media. Influencers with less than a million followers are almost as effective, while one in five consumers report that they had made a purchase as a result of a celebrity post.

Instagram creates most engagement for influencers

Among the social platforms that digital influencers use (Snapchat not included), Instagram creates the most engagement. This is especially true for micro influencers who see 86% of total engagement take place on Instagram.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that for example Youtube is not important. For many influencers, Youtube generates millions of views, so it all depends on how you define engagement. Also, I would have liked to see how much blogs affect consumer behaviour. At least in Sweden, many high profile bloggers generate massive sales for brands in campaigns that include a combination of blogs, Instagram and Youtube.

To read the entire report, please click here.

Instagram now shows when you were last active, here’s how to turn it off

Instagram now shows you when your contacts were last active on the app. If you look under the direct messages, it states how many minutes, hours or days since the other users were last active.

That of course means that they can see your status as well.

If you find this intrusive, fear not, there is a way to shut it off. Here’s how to do it.

Go to your profile and click on the settings gearwheel. Scroll down to Show Activity Status and slide to turn it off. Once you remove this feature, you will not be able to see others’ status and they will not see yours.

Instagram about to remove Top 9 for hashtags

Instagram might be getting rid of the Top 9 images for hashtags that normally are placed on top of the screen under each tag. Getting into the top 9 has been a great way to get your posts exposed to people who are not among your regular followers.

One of of my Instagram accounts I noticed today that the Top 9 posts are gone. In that place there are now two tabs and two feeds for each hashtag:

  1. Top Posts
    The left tab shows top posts under this hashtag and there is no limit in terms of number. So there are more than 9 posts, you can scroll down to find as many as you like.
  2. Recent Posts
    The right tab shows the most recent posts under this hashtag.

What does this mean?

There has been a lot of speculation as to whether hashtags are becoming less important or not. Some say they see less reach from hashtags and then there is the entire issue of the infamous shadow ban. But I believe that hashtags will continue to be an important tool, since Instagram recently added the ability to follow hashtags.

A new tab with a feed of the top post will show more high quality photos or videos, that Instagram assumes you will like. So hashtags will continue to be important as a means to reach non followers.

Note: follow me on Instagram at @kullin

Read my travel blog at hanskullin.se

One of the best travel experiences during 2017 was our visit to Crater Lake in Southern Oregon. This spectacular lake is actually inside the caldera of a volcano. It is also the lake in the US with the clearest water since no rivers flow into the lake. This is one of the top travel destinations of 2017, read more on the blog (link in bio). . . #craterlakenationalpark #craterlake #southernoregon #traveloregon #oregonexplored #oregonnw #cascadiaexplored #pnwdiscovered #exploregon #sky_brilliance #travelgram #wanderlust #beautifuldestinations #neverstopexploring #goexplore #passionpassport #exploringtheglobe #ilovetraveling #oregonhikes #theamericancollective #theIMAGED #visualambassadors #royalsnappingartists #teamtravelers #vscoexplore

Ett inlägg delat av Hans Kullin ✈︎ Travel (@kullin)