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March 9, 2017

Social Spotlight with Landon Cassill

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The “Social Spotlight” series continues this week with Landon Cassill, who drives the No. 34 car for Front Row Motorsports. This interview is available in both podcast and written form.

How would you describe your social media philosophy?

I’m a child of the internet, as we all are, for the most part. I’m your typical Millennial, I think. I grew up doing school work on the internet, playing video games on the internet. I feel like internet culture is part of my life, so I kind of just live it out that way. It’s kind of an extension of me.

What was the first social media platform you used?

Xanga was my first social media platform.

What was Xanga?

Xanga was a blog site. Me and my friends had Xanga pages and we’d just post daily content, I guess. (Laughs) It’s all pretty similar — everything has kind of moved from one to the other.

Back then, you’d get home from school, log onto the internet on my computer at home — we had dial-up internet for the longest time — and log onto my Xanga account and make an update about something that happened at school. Then I’d check it every couple hours to see if anybody liked it. You could leave comments and things like that, customize your page. It was kind of cool.

You’re on Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram. But do you operate your own Facebook?

My Facebook is kind of a collaboration. The biggest thing I do on Facebook is Facebook Live. I scroll through my timeline a lot and see what people comment on pages. I don’t use a personal Facebook page, so it’s not in my habit to be logging onto Facebook a lot. But I love Facebook Live, I love that platform. So I do kind of go in spurts where I’ll be on Facebook an awful lot if I’m posting live content.

For Instagram, I don’t feel like I’m the best photographer and it’s not in me to always stop and take pictures. So my Instagram content is kind of intermittent. But the one thing I really like about Instagram right now is Instagram Live. The content disappears, so you catch it live. There’s no rewinding, you don’t get to see the beginning of the video. You’re just watching it live as it happens, and then once the person logs off the live feed, that’s it. It’s gone. As the host, you see how many people watch your video, and that’s pretty much it. I really like Instagram Live, because it’s a cheap and easy way to see what’s going on out there.

Snapchat is cool. Twitter is where I spend most of my time, mainly because I think it’s folded into my daily life. I spend probably 75% of my time on Twitter reading the news and other content, and less than 25% of my time actually engaging.

Going back to the live stuff for a minute — I’ve never used Instagram Live because it disappears. Why do you like it better than Periscope or Facebook Live, which sticks around on your page?

I think it’s kind of a way for me to post unique, personal, native content on Instagram — but then not have to have that airing out for an extended period of time. That’s one purpose that it serves that I like about it. Because even as authentic as Facebook Live is, it’s still a little planned out.

For instance: After the Daytona 500, I did a recap where I stopped at Love’s Travel Stops (his sponsor) and got fuel on the way home from the Daytona 500. Which it was totally natural — there was nothing staged about that; I needed gas for my truck and there was a Love’s Travel Stop off the interstate. Like I was stopping there anyway.

I was like, “Man, I’ve kind of been wanting to do race recaps and talk to my fans, so what better way to do it than on Facebook?” So that was a very authentic post and it was a real thing that happened, but it was also something in the back of your mind, I know that content is going to stay on Facebook and get more views and for people to see it and follow up with that recap.

Where on Instagram, I can just pull my phone out walking out of the garage to the car and have literally no plan whatsoever and have no idea what I’m going to do, but just fire up Instagram Live and see who’s watching.

The other day, I was on Instagram Live and somebody I hadn’t talked to in five years who I went to high school with was like, “Hey, Landon!” And it was like, “Oh my gosh! Tyler, I haven’t seen you in five years! How’s it going, man?” And then it sparked a conversation, made you think of a story, you tell a quick story and then you get to your car and you log off and it’s gone.

It’s really just an authentic experience between you and your viewers and then I think it serves a value to Instagram because a lot of people have notifications turned on, and Instagram sends out a notification that says “Landon Cassill is live.” I think the platforms are thinking people can’t help themselves. They have to see what’s going on. I think it’s like free advertisement for your page. It’s a good way to drive people to your site.

You’re excellent at Snapchat, but it doesn’t seem like you love it as much as you love Twitter. Has your love affair with Snapchat cooled? And how many people do you follow on Snapchat?

I follow just a handful of people on Snapchat. Snapchat isn’t my primary source of news, and I feel like I’m super interested in news. Twitter is just a really good platform for that right now.

I do like watching people’s snaps. Snapchat is really cool because they have some neat technology none of the other platforms have. The facial recognition stuff and even the object recognition stuff that is in their platform, that’s probably what they’re going to be positioning themselves to really pop here in the next couple years. Especially since they’ve gone public, they’re injected with a crapload of money.

I follow NASCAR, Lewis Hamilton, a couple friends of mine, Jordan Anderson, Gary Vee (Vaynerchuk), Kim Kardashian, my sister Echo. And then I have a couple group messages with friends and some friends that send me snaps on a daily basis. I’ll probably be going in and out of Snapchat over the course of the year.

Let’s talk about Twitter, since you use that the most. Is it the first thing you check in the morning? Do you ever worry you’re looking at it too much? Because we hear about the Twitter vacuum.

Yeah, I’m probably stuck in the Twitter vacuum. It’s definitely the first thing I check in the morning. I don’t watch a lot of TV other than Netflix — my wife and I have shows we watch — so I get all of my news, my gossip, pretty much my social information from my Twitter timeline. Everything serious, everything humorous. I follow my favorite weatherman on Twitter. Political stuff. It’s pretty much Twitter for me.

If you have people who are giving you a hard time, do you block them, mute them or ignore them?

I don’t block people. Actually, if somebody is giving me a hard time, I take the time to try and win them over. (Laughs) Honestly, it works every time. I have won over fans that were talking so much crap and I would just engage with them. They just want attention. Now, I don’t get a lot of people hating on me on Twitter. When I do get someone, it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to see what’s crawled up this guy’s butt and just talk to him a little bit” and it always works.

But if you’re like Dale Jr. or Brad Keselowski or some really polarizing figure in the sport, they probably get hundreds of those a day. I wouldn’t be doing that at that point.

I don’t like blocking people. I don’t like silencing people. I don’t think that’s cool. But I do mute people — and that’s just if their timeline is annoying.

So people you follow — you mute them?

I definitely have people I follow that I mute. And that’s just because I don’t really want to unfollow them. I have people I’m friends with that I just don’t like their regular content. But if they tweeted me, I want to see a notification so I can engage in conversation. So I mute them. That’s my solution. But blocking people? I’m not into that. I’m not into silencing people.

What do you think the future of Twitter is? We hear a lot about how Millennials don’t get on Twitter and they go straight to Snapchat. Is Twitter going to go the way of MySpace?

I’m not really sure. People said the same thing about Facebook, but Facebook had the strength of a billion users. Twitter has been up and down and the one thing that’s tough about Twitter are a lot of the bots that are on there.

Yeah, what’s up with the bots?

It’s just weird. You don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know if it’s a problem with Twitter. I feel like Twitter did a good job with one of their recent algorithms. They made an update where verified accounts or accounts with seemingly original content are higher up in the replies list of other verified accounts. So that got rid of a lot of the shit-posting, pretty much. But that still happens an awful lot.

Twitter is a cool thing, and for me, until I find a better place to get my news and a better place to get a constant stream of updates, it’s going to be hard to find another platform. I’ve got almost six or seven years of time invested in this one platform for all the people I follow.

Unlike a lot of drivers, you’ve built relationships and made friends with people through Twitter — fans of yours, people who have cool content. Why were you willing to do that?

Man, why not? I’m just a regular person, and I like to get to know people and I like to learn from people who have different points of view and have different skills. So I’ve made a lot of friends online in all kinds of industries. In a lot of ways, those networking moves and relationships I’ve built have gotten me a lot of interesting media attention and opportunities on platforms outside of just NASCAR racing. I’ve built a lot of genuine friendships and I’ve learned a lot of cool things from people and I think that’s just natural for me. I don’t put myself on a pedestal or anything. I’m a NASCAR driver, but I’m kind of just like anybody else.

How many people you’ve met through Twitter have your personal cell phone number?

Probably quite a few. I mean, more than you could count on two hands.

So no problems with that?

Not really. I don’t just give it out to anybody. But how is it different letting someone have your cell phone number than letting them in your direct messages? Like, the notification comes through the same way. Shoot, with Snapchat you can call someone. You can video call with someone. You have the same capabilities. To me, it’s all the same thing.

Landon Cassill’s social accounts: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

February 18, 2017February 19, 2017

Social Spotlight: Austin Dillon

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This is the first edition of a new feature called the “Social Spotlight,” where I’ll spend some time asking people in the NASCAR industry about their social media usage.

First up: Austin Dillon. You can hear the full interview in the podcast at the bottom of this page, but below is a transcript for those who would rather read it (the transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity).

JG: Do you have any private social media accounts?

AD: I’m all public on everything. No private stuff. I used to have a Facebook, but don’t have one anymore (except) for the one RCR runs and I do Facebook Live videos from. But as far as Instagram and Twitter, it’s all me.

JG: Are you on Snapchat?

AD: No. I deleted Snapchat when I got engaged — even before that, when I got a girlfriend. I just didn’t think Snapchat was really for me. Didn’t need it. (Chuckles)

JG: So you associate Snapchat with the old days when it wasn’t as corporate.

AD: Yeah, and it’s kind of repetitive because Instagram has all the same stuff with the stories now. I just like the format of Instagram better than Snapchat. I do think Snapchat is a little less business-ey.

JG: If you could only keep one (form of social media), which would you go with?

AD: Instagram. I think people can really take cool pictures and do cool videos and you’ll see a lot of that out of my Instagram this year. I’ve got a guy I’m working with where we’re pretty much just posting videos of different things we do at the shop, away from the shop and kind of my personal life.

I’m into the video stuff a lot. We posted a pretty cool one the other day with Slugger (Labbe) and the guys coming out and drinking some Coca-Cola by a Grizzly cooler. So the partners we have…they like those videos and it gives them something they can put on their Instagrams.

JG: How much of the posts we see are from you and how many are PR-type posts?

AD: On Instagram and Twitter, they’re pretty much all me. Jackie (Franzil, his PR rep) does a really good job updating people on what’s going on with our Facebook. … I would say 75 percent of my social media is me.

I think the worst part of my Instagram and Twitter is my grammar errors, so I definitely check with my fiancee (Whitney Ward) and Jackie. I think the biggest thing for me is punctuation. I struggle with that.

JG: Do you show them before you tweet? Like, “Hey, honey…”

AD: It’s right on my phone. I just hand it over to (Whitney) and she’ll go over everything. Sometimes I’ll copy and paste and send it to Jackie (and say), “How’s this look?” Now my brother (Ty), he doesn’t spell check anything. So it’s pretty funny to watch him sometimes.

JG: Do you ever say, “Should I tweet this?” if something could be controversial?

AD: I have in the past. I haven’t had to do that much lately, because I pretty much know where I’m at and what I can say. I’m pretty honest if you ask me a question if I want to say something.

If you say something on TV, I think it hurts more than if you do it through your social media account. I’m not gonna say the word I want to say, but it’s a cop-out to do it on social media.

JG: So it’s more brave if you’re not hiding behind the keyboard, so to speak.

AD: Exactly. If you’re going to say something about somebody or to them, you go say it to them or do it (in an) interview. At least they know it a little differently than through a keyboard.

JG: How many times a day are you looking through Instagram?

AD: Quite a bit. I’m on Instagram a lot. I like looking through people’s stories. I’ve got some good buddies who are always doing stuff that I follow. And then Twitter, I like following Trump. He’s pretty entertaining. And (Conor) McGregor on Instagram, he’s not afraid to show the lavish (lifestyle) and I’m sure people think he’s cocky and out there, but I think he’s done a good job with his marketing stuff.

JG: Do you think the Trump Twitter style will make people less afraid to be…

AD: Honest? Yeah, I think so. I like his honesty. There’s human error in everything. What he’s trying to show everybody is you can be yourself and it’s OK. I think that’s why a lot of the people voted for him — they can kind of relate to him a little bit — the screw-ups he has and then the stuff he does right. He’s really morally a good person, I think. But it’s funny to see all the different tweets he lets go. Sometimes they’re not needed, but it’s a different way of doing politics.

JG: Everybody has haters on Twitter. How do you deal with that? I assume you see them, so you do you ignore them? Do you block them?

AD: I personally just block ‘em. If they say something I don’t like, I just block ‘em. I don’t give them a second chance, usually.

I did respond to one kid. He was going off, and I had a lot of people go off on him underneath (the tweet), so I saw the guys who were just roasting this guy. I actually commented back to him and said, “You don’t even know me. Why don’t you come to the (RCR) Museum and I’ll take you around the museum?”

That kind of turned the whole situation around, but I’ve learned if you try to do that with every one of them, it’s too much time. Some people want to take the time to get to know you, but some people just want to screw with you. They might not hate you, but they just want something to do and make fun of. So I kind of laugh at it or just block it, because I don’t want to see it.

I like the new Instagram, too, because you can actually put words that key off that don’t let it come up in your comments.

JG: Oh, I didn’t even know that.

AD: Yeah, it’s a little edit list. My fiancee showed me that. It’s pretty cool. So like if somebody calls me a “short midget rich kid,” I can type “short midget rich kid” in there and it won’t pop up.

JG: No kidding? So I can type, “Jeff Gluck is a loser” and no more comments like that will come up?

AD: No more comments of “Jeff Gluck is a loser.”

JG: That’s awesome! I learned something here.

AD: It’s under Edit somewhere. (Note: To find this feature, go to Settings on Instagram, then look for Comments and type in the keywords you don’t want under “Custom keywords.”)

JG: Do you think your skin has been getting thicker over the years, the more you do this?

AD: It’s been pretty good lately. If they’ve said something bad once, I’ve already (blocked them), so I don’t even know who the haters are anymore. I have people who are close friends of mine and they’re like, “Man, this guy is hating on you!” I’m like, “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.” So it doesn’t bother me at all and I haven’t seen a hate message in a long time. I think I kind of got the group who were after it.

And if a new one comes up, I delete it so quickly that I don’t even look at their name. I just block ‘em. I have Hater Vision on at all times.

JG: What do you think the future is in the garage for social media? I hear a lot of younger people are going away from Twitter. Do you get that sense at all?

AD: I do, but I feel like I get more news off Twitter than anything. I get updated on things quickly, especially with sports and politics. I can be updated really quick. Instagram is more of a personal thing. … I think Instagram is the future for your personal use, but for news, I think Twitter is going to kill it. You just can’t get anything faster than Twitter on news.

JG: Twitter has a mute function. I’ve muted people I follow in the past, because I don’t want to unfollow them and be a jerk, but I also don’t want to see their updates all the time. Have you ever muted anybody you follow?

AD: I just unfollow them. If you’re saying stuff I don’t really agree with, I just unfollow them. I’ve done it multiple times. Even my friends, if it’s someone I know but they’re talking about something I don’t agree with, I’ll just unfollow them.

JG: Have you ever had anyone say, “Hey dude! You unfollowed me?” after you did that?

AD: I might have had like one or two who said that, but I’m just like, “I don’t like what you’re saying.” I’m pretty open and honest with them. It doesn’t bother me, really. If they come back around and they really ask me, “Hey, will you follow me again?” I’d follow them back, probably.

JG: Sometimes drivers tend to get into social media feuds. Is it hard after a race to not vent your anger that way?

AD: (After) probably four or five races last year, I’d get out and want to tweet something or say something — and then type it out and not say it. Maybe I should be more open about it on those things, but I try and keep it to myself.

JG: How quickly after a race is your phone in your hand?

AD: Really quickly. And then mostly I’m checking fantasy football. If I had a bad day on the track and my fantasy football team lost, it’s usually a long ride home.

JG: Anything else you want fans to know about your social media use or your accounts?

AD: If you want to see real, personal stuff, Instagram will tie you closest to me right now at this time in my life. So follow me on Instagram if you want to see stuff behind the scenes at my house, hanging with my friends and that kind of personal stuff.

Dillon’s social accounts can be found at @AustinDillon3 for both Twitter and Instagram.

July 17, 2015July 17, 2015

SavedYouAClick is right: Clickbait guessing games aren’t worth it

When I started following @SavedYouAClick last summer, I thought the idea was amusing but didn’t take it seriously. Jake Beckman, the man behind the account, was on a crusade to eradicate clickbait by spoiling headlines that said things like “You’ll never believe…” or “And the baby’s gender is…” or “The best way to retire early.”

Crap like that. And, let’s face it — it is mostly crap. So Beckman set out to expose any headline that attempted to draw in readers with a question or that juicy hook they just couldn’t resist — even if the result was wasting only a few seconds.

Anyway, I somewhat understood where Beckman was coming from. It irritated me when I’d see outlets trying to trick me into clicking, and I’d often withhold a click out of principle.

But at the same time, I didn’t necessarily agree with the concept.

Didn’t Beckman understand we needed readers to click on our stories? The entire Internet economy was based on people reading, and sometimes readers need a nudge to take action. No clicks? No job. And media outlets had to do what was necessary to draw people in.

Or so I thought.

But in May, Beckman had an exchange that really hit home with me. It started with this:

“i really hate it when tweets are like WATCH this or LOOK at this just tell me what it is and i’ll decide,” he tweeted.

A user then responded with this:

@SavedYouAClick but when data shows they will get more clicks, why wouldnt you do it as a social media mgr?

— Jadd (@Jaddams) May 7, 2015

Beckman’s answer was perfect:

Because you respect your audience. https://t.co/AKNbaACrwI — Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) May 7, 2015

Think about that for a minute. Because you respect your audience.

Someone has chosen to follow you on social media. In a quest for followers and readers, that’s no easy task at times. And to repay them, you constantly tease people into clicking in search of information that could easily be said in a 140-character tweet or a Facebook status update.

First of all, if the content is that flimsy and there’s no other meat to it aside from that little nugget or detail you’re withholding — does it really deserve to be clicked? You’re intentionally wasting people’s time in order to get a few hundred more clicks which don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Beckman is right: We should show more respect to the readers than that. Even if the data is discouraging when it comes to what people really want to read, we should tell them what the story is about, and if they want to read more? Hey, they’ll click.

If you give readers that courtesy, people might actually be more likely to give regular clicks. Personally, I’d appreciate a writer more if they told me what I was getting instead of luring me into it.

The news is not a game. I don’t want to guess. I want you to tell me. — Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) June 2, 2015

As journalists, our job is to inform. Ideally, that shouldn’t be done in a cheap way. So over the past few months, I’ve gone almost completely away from making readers guess in tweets. I’ll spoil my own stories or even tweet a picture of a relevant quote because I want people to know what they’re getting.

Has it cost me clicks? Honestly, I haven’t really seen a difference in my bit.ly numbers (which I monitor closely and am kind of obsessive about). Of course I’d prefer more people read what I write, but at what cost? If the topic doesn’t interest them, the solution isn’t to force someone into a click so they scan the page for three seconds and then press the “back” arrow, feeling foolish after falling for the trap.

Respect your readers. Respect your followers. Maybe you’ll lose a few thousand clicks in the short term, but it’ll enhance your credibility and the appreciation from your audience in the long run.