NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer & Twitter Subscription Service

By David Erickson | August 3, 2017

Beyond Social Media Show, Episode 197

BL and David discuss NASA’s opening for a planet protector; Foreign Affairs’ sophisticated direct mail program; Facebook’s publisher subscriptions program; Google’s SOS Alerts; touring podcasts; the hilarious Lord Birthday; Twitter subscriptions; how a poor choice of font lead to Nazi glitter; companies pitching paid placements; fishing drones; a PR pitch from hell; and much, much more. SUBSCRIBE: iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher or iHeart Radio.

Best Digital Cases

Looking for a Job? NASA Has One for a Superhero

NASA is looking for a Planetary Protection Officer to protect the planet from potential alien contamination

Foreign Affairs’ Direct Mail Program

Foreign policy publication provides a sophisticated example of direct mail marketing program.

Foreign Affairs

Law Makes it Illegal to Look at Your Phone While Crossing the Street in Honolulu

While other cities consider following suit, people seem split on whether this law makes sense in the first place.

Twitter Moment

Banning phones while crossing the street: Good move or lame? 🚶‍♀️

— Spotify for Podcasters (@forpodcasters) July 31, 2017

Pedestrians have been banned from looking at their mobile phones while crossing the street in Honolulu. @NinaBStevens #7News pic.twitter.com/0kGUbmIxwG

— 7NEWS Sydney (@7NewsSydney) July 31, 2017

Google SOS

For search, the alerts will display at the top of results related to the incident or crisis location. In maps, there will be a tappable card with relevant details.

Facebook wants to help news publishers sell subscriptions

Facebook’s paywall plans are part of its ongoing effort to address publishers’ complaints about the way the company uses their work, and what kind of compensation they get in return.

Facebook wants to help news publishers sell subscriptions, but says it doesn’t want a cut of the revenue

Podcast Tours

Live shows are shaping up to be an increasingly meaningful component of your standard podcast business, and if you’re looking to set that up, you probably need the help of touring professionals.

Lord Birthday

Some guy has built a huge Instagram following by posting his twisted cartoon drawing lists.

A post shared by Lord Birthday (@lord_birthday) on Sep 2, 2016 at 7:44pm PDT

Worst Digital Cases

Twitter is testing a subscription-style ad program that costs $99 a month

It’s a ham handed attempt at building revenue.

Nazi Glitter

With the wrong font, a seemingly innocuous tote bag can get misinterpreted as mild hate speech.

When your favourite colour appears to be ‘Hitler’, because of a poor choice of font. pic.twitter.com/ghZxKiJdU3

— Paul Burley (@PaulBurleyFFS) July 23, 2017

We are beyond embarrassed about the design of our GLITTER tote bag 🙈 ✨. We replaced it with a new design. Hope you like this one better! pic.twitter.com/1ZXGAOcnGj

— BelleChic (@bellechicdeals) July 24, 2017

Companies That Misrepresent Their Paid Placements

I don’t have a problem with paid placements. I have a problem with NewsWatch not saying what they are. #FAIL

Fishing Drone

This is cheating.

Shiny New Stuff

Buffer Reply

Buffer’s new social customer service software for support teams.

Google Data Studio

Create custom, interactive, shareable dashboards.

Google Data Studio

Social Sharing Analytics

Get social sharing data for any link.

Who Shared My Link?