For those of you sharing, posting, and liking images of Boston victims – BE AWARE that you might not be posting a true story. The sentiment is kind, but keep in mind that many of these sites are making stuff up so you will repost it and give them more views. Essentially, using a tragedy to get Internet traffic.

This is the most popular one I’ve seen – this image of a man in a red shirt has been coupled with a story about a man whose girlfriend died before he was supposed to propose. I’ve included the original post (an image posted in response to the fake one on Facebook) via the Globe and blacked out the parts that could be a trigger. Note the original caption? It probably was combined with part of the reddit volunteer story, which was edited out because it was too private.

Even if it was 100% true, it can safely be assumed that Will_Ferrel’s parody Facebook is still probably exploiting it so you’ll follow it.

Also, posting gory pictures on Facebook and Twitter could trigger awful memories for victims of violence. And the world is small–families and friends of these people can see this stuff.

Social media is a tool. But you don’t have to be one.

I read an article yesterday about how Instagram was THE social media channel for the Millennial generation and reaching 26,000 new followers. I thought it was kind of interesting and spent a little time doing some research about one of my favorite topics: social media!

My response:

Didn’t get a chance to comment yesterday–YES! Social media strategy, front and center. It’s good to know that we are reaching out on all communication channels. I would’ve liked to see mention of them in the article – we have a Twitter (multiple ones, counting regions), Tumblr, Facebook, all the major social media outlets to understand more about our cohesive social media strategy.

One aim is the target Millenials (which sounds “kids” younger than 18-29) about ending global poverty through visuals–but we must be integrating other outlets too? Because I believe”the social network” is still Facebook… Instagram was bought by Facebook, but the social media strategies I had worked with (based on Pew research late 2012) showed that over 80% of Millennials used Facebook and while those using Instagram was around 30%. Indeed, Facebook has over a BILLION active users compared to Instagram’s 100 million. Of course, this isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s very likely that users have 2 or more social media profiles.

I guess what I’m saying is KUDOS to the social media team for Instagram [account]‘s recent success, but social media is still a marathon and knowing how many accounts we have, I feel for the curators of that content. (And sometimes numbers are not what they seem… one tale of caution was that Sky News gained 12,000 users *without posting a single picture* with a placeholder Instagram account. With it being so easy to “follow” not all number targets are useful.)

P.S. to the Anonymous person who wrote about they — digitally native populations — never sitting down and reading a report? Maybe we could do a better job of sharing them. Our generation (at least in the US) is among the most educated, ever. But we also have WAY more information coming at us through email, our phones, the Internet, and our people networks. Also, if it invites criticism, maybe we  should not be afraid of it. Criticism isn’t always fair, but quite frankly, it’s out there anyway, even if we do nothing to invite it. Might as well address it professionally.