Snowcial Media: Blogging the Blizzard

Yes…it snowed.

How could you miss it? Social media has completely changed the way we forecast and respond to the weather. Of course, it’s been terrific content fodder for all of us writer types who love analogies!

But here’s how else the proliferation of technology has changed how we all respond to the white stuff:

• First, blizzards now must have personal brands. We’ve been naming hurricanes for years (see below), but now we feel compelled to give every weather incident a moniker and personality.
• Weather people had a field day, tweeting out a blow-by-blow (pun intended) during the storm.
• If you didn’t lose power, you could order up unlimited indoor entertainment (and, if you’re an unplugging type, you could search for recipes for comfort food online).
• Folks were sharing photos of their porches, cars, sleds, dogs, booze, and beds throughout the storm. No one needed to feel alone or disconnected.
• Because New Yorkers can be a feisty bunch, a few  people got a little irritated at the driving ban (which was tweeted by the NYPD and re-tweeted about 6k times). Martial law doesn’t go over well in these parts. People probably had no intention of driving. Many city dwellers don’t even own cars. They just didn’t like being told what to do.

Alas, soon the snow will all be plowed and melted. Jonas will be forgotten. And we’ll all have to find something else to blog/post/tweet/Instagram about. But it’s been a great weekend of cool content for many of us!

My fave “snow art” prompted by Jonas:

	A great NY Times op ed piece!
	My own blog (of course)
	My client’s blog
	Here’s the history of naming hurricanes. Now we have blizzard hashtags: #Snowzilla is one of my faves. But here are the others that were used. Because, after all, you can’t have a snowfall without a name these days.