Friday, March 1, 2013

Naming Winter Storms

As a native Minnesotan, I was irked beyond reason when The Weather Channel started naming winter storms. The practice came to my attention when the so-called Winter Storm Caesar was approaching Minnesota in December.

What the what?!! Remember the Halloween Blizzard of '91? The Armistice Day Blizzard of '40-something? (OK, we weren't there, but we've heard of it, over and over.) The thing is, Minnesotans know that winter storms must EARN their names, not be assigned them in some marketing scheme by East Coast weather elites.

Which leads me to this blog post's real topic, the idea that social media can save lives. Well, that's what The Weather Company (parent of The Weather Channel) is claiming. In an Adweek article, Weather CEO David Kenny claims that they named storms so that people would start tweeting and posting about them on social media, thus raising awareness and saving lives.

Kenny
cited the nearly 800 million photos and tweets that "Nemo" generated
over 5 day period as proof positive that the naming system worked to
raise awareness and served to consolidate the torrent of storm-related
social media data. - See more at:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/weather-channel-thinks-facebook-and-twitter-save-lives-147540#sthash.3FnaXZWx.dpuf
Kenny claimed the almost 800 million photos and tweets that "Nemo" (good lord) generated over five days when it slammed the east coast was proof of his claim.

What do you think? Does naming something encourage social engagement about it? What could we name here at the U to encourage social engagement? Please share your thoughts! And heaven help us if Winter Storm Yogi should approach the northern plains.
Kenny
cited the nearly 800 million photos and tweets that "Nemo" generated
over 5 day period as proof positive that the naming system worked to
raise awareness and served to consolidate the torrent of storm-related
social media data. - See more at:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/weather-channel-thinks-facebook-and-twitter-save-lives-147540#sthash.3FnaXZWx.dpuf



1 comment:

  1. When winter storm Yogi comes to the fork in the road, it will take it.

    ReplyDelete