If you're someone like me who monitors social media from
both a personal and professional standpoint, every so often you'll have one of
those days where you are able to say "wow, that was a pretty cool
experience." When I say experience, I'm referring to the basis of social
media having the power to connect everyday average joes like myself with
high-profiled celebrities, athletes, businesses, etc. From Wednesday 11/15
through Thursday 11/16, I had four instances where I was able to say "wow,
that was actually pretty cool." Allow me to elaborate...
Wednesday 11/15 at noon: If you know me, you know I'm a
huge fan of Barstool Sports and have followed the company literally since I was
a senior in high school when they were barely online. Prior to the juggernaut
of a media company they are now, they were a newspaper with a very basic
following and stories revolving mostly around gambling. Anyways, each day they
have a show called 'Barstool Radio' that airs Mon-Fri from 12-2pm. On this
particular day they had retired NHLer and Olympian Ryan Whitney on the
show to talk some puck. While listening
I decided to Google Ryan to see if I could interact with the show via Twitter
or possibly even on the phone. In short, I did both. I ended up tweeting a
picture of Ryan to the Barstool Radio account (which was retweeted by the show
and Dave Portnoy himself) during one of the rare fights in his career. However
if you look at the picture, you'll notice it was never much of a fight. After
tweeting, I decided to call the show and read a quote from legendary coach Jack
Parker from the 2003-04 Boston University Season Preview, a quote that didn't
shine Whits in a very strong light but got a laugh from the crew. My takeaway
from this: I had the chance to talk with an Olympian.
Wednesday 11/15 around 3pm: Keeping with the theme of
Barstool essentially taking over the world, the big news out of the company on
this day was the quote that was said in the latest episode of Family Guy, where
Stewie is quoted as saying "Are there cameras over there? I'm going to
yell 'Viva la Stool' like a young white drunkard..." Again, if you follow
the company you'll know that the tagline of Viva la Stool has become somewhat
of a war cry at golf tournaments, football tailgates and college parties around
the country. I sent out an out of the blue tweet of 'Viva la Stool' to the
official Family Guy twitter account and almost immediately received a response.
Also pretty cool.
Wednesday 11/15 at 7pm: Along with Barstool's endless
content filled with sports humor, it was their laundry list of podcasts that
drew my newfound interest of podcasts in general. About a year ago I discovered
a podcast called 'The Quack Attack Podcast, the Official Mighty Ducks podcast'.
I mean you can literally find a podcast for anything. Anyways, they started
this trivia series to see who the biggest Mighty Ducks fan on the planet might
be and your boy was competing in a semifinal matchup against a curling coach
from Connecticut. Long story short yet again, I've moved on to the finals and
will compete in a couple of weeks. You can fast forward to the end of the
episode here:
Thursday 11/16 at 9am: For the past two years, WCSH6 has
helped promote and carry out a telethon to support Maine veterans in an effort
to send them to Washington D.C on a weekend-long trip to sight-see and visit
the Veterans museum. I volunteered some time during the day to take calls and submit
donations for this cause and most importantly talk with some of the veterans
who were able to attend the telethon. Talk about a humbling experience. We had
promoted the telethon for a few weeks on our station's website and on TV, but
during the first segment of the telethon the station went live on Facebook,
which I was able to participate albeit in the background trying to look pretty.
It was incredible to see the call-volume increase after only a couple minutes
of being live on Facebook, which goes to show the power of live video to help
promote a product or event.
In closing, you may read this and think big deal? Well,
to me, it was a big deal because it gave me an opportunity to connect with
people I never imagined being able to speak with, if not for these social
platforms. Think about it: Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, cable television,
satellite radio, regular radio, etc were all platforms that came into play over
the previous 24 hours. Whether it be for personal enjoyment or professional
use, we're all a little more connected than ever so take that for what it's
worth. Maybe tomorrow I'll tweet at The Rock or Julian Edelman, and maybe, just
maybe, I'll get a response.
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