molly daly Archives - Everywhere Social Media

By Molly Daly

I’d wager to guess that almost every Facebook user has seen a meme in their day. There’s a decent chance that those memes feature cats. The Internet has had a long lasting love affair with felines and many cite the ancient Egyptians as unknowing inspiration to future generations.

The concept of Internet memes has spread from culture sites such as Reddit and 4Chan and worming its way into the mainstream and life as we know it. For “meme management” pioneer Ben Lashes, it’s a way of life. After success with perhaps one of the oldest cat memes, Keyboard Cat, Lashes left his job as a music distributor and started managing memes full time. Keyboard Cat has made several television appearances, and his likeness was even used in a Pistachios commercial, with over 2.5 million YouTube views on the ad alone.

Photo courtesy of YouTube.com

Lashes manages other popular memes such as Nyan Cat, and Grumpy Cat, among others. There’s a bit of a feline pattern here, but that’s no surprise to a Redditor or a cat lover. (Or in my case, both.) Therefore, I am pleasantly surprised by the recent leaps Internet cats have made towards television and film.

Photo courtesy of GrumpyCats.com

Grumpy Cat, who was boosted to extreme popularity thanks to Reddit, has hailed many accolades. Voted Meme of the Year at the 2013 Webby Awards, she now has over 1 million Facebook likes under her dwarfish belt, was a star at SXSW – and just scored a movie deal. I can only hope the proposed Garfield-style family film lands on its feet.

Photo courtesy of LilBub.com

Another figure in the feline field is Lil Bub, who won big at the Tribeca Film Festival with her documentary on cats and the Internet, titled Lil Bub and Friendz. If this blog post caught your cat fancy, I definitely recommend checking out the trailer.

There’s no question that the popularity of Internet memes affects marketers in a big way. So how can brands catch the breaking memes before they become too mainstream? “Become a nerd about memes,” says Ben Lashes, in an interview with Big Think. “Watch culture websites like the stock market.” For me in particular, this advice is not hard to follow.

By Molly Daly

My lovely mother works tirelessly at a wedding gown shop. When she tells me about single girls who come into the store to try on gowns and waste her time, I instantly think of what the Pinterest looks like in this equation.

I think we should talk about wedding boards and the presumptions that single ladies tend to make. I am of the opinion that almost every female Pinterest user has a regularly maintained board devoted to her special conjecture day. These boards feature gowns, venues, rings, engagement photos, hairstyles, flowers, even photos of ideal husbands.

As we know, social media is an unprecedented phenomenon that has made a massively positive impact on our lives over the course of the past decade. However, it’s also created cause for social scientists to examine our heads a little bit. Studies regarding the psychological and social implications of social networking are continually surfacing. Some specifically examine the level of narcissism required to actively post about oneself on a daily basis. (According to a study published by Taylor & Francis Online: Twitter is particularly narcissistic, Facebook not so much - check it.)

Think about it: Pinterest, as a concept, is modeled after a bulletin board. If these ladies had a real life, tangible bulletin board full of wedding ideas hidden in their boudoir, they would not want the boyfriend to find it. Maybe that’s the subconscious thrill of it - maybe the lucky guy will happen to come across their pins and think “what in the world have I been waiting on?” Then drop his laptop and rush out for the ring.

This isn’t to say there’s not a market here – wedding blogs and retailers have pounced on this ripe opportunity. Ruffled Blog’s Pinterest has close to 3 million followers and helps keep traffic flowing towards the main blog. The market is so widespread that wedding-specific, Pinterest-style sites such as Loverly are popping up. The majority of Pinterest users are female, at a whopping 80% as of January 2012. According to a Comscore study from 2010, women are the majority in social networking, period, and spend 30% more time on social sites as compared to men.

Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social sites in history, and much of that success is due to aspiring brides-to-be, which has to be respected. One in three couples use Pinterest to plan their wedding, and that number was one in five only two years ago. That being said, I suppose I should let you know that I’m as guilty of wedding pins as you are, though my board is disguised with the not-so-subtle title “Social Ideas.” Even the Everywhere Pinterest has a wedding board! I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? It’s fun to play pretend, but if you really want to keep things under wraps, Pinterest now offers private boards, too.

“Molly Daly is an intern at Everywhere. As part of our internship program, we invite interns to write blog posts. We think you’ll be lovin’ Molly for this post.” - Danica

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