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From Geordie Shore Snapchats to Barack Obama's (not quite) selfies - Here's the news that got Twitter talking this week

By Iona St Joseph

June 27, 2013 | 4 min read

This week’s column is jam packed with exciting social media news, from Snapchats of the cast of Geordie Shore to selfies of Barack Obama (kind of).

Obama's presidential helictoper gets Instagrammed

Hashtag highjackers strike again

Every now and again, people seem to forget about hijacked hashtags. Either that, or they’re naïve enough to think that it’s not going to happen to them when they launch their own excellently thought out Twitter promotion.

This week, it was just-about-average boy band The Script who were the victims of a totally hilarious hashtag highjacking.

Danny and the other ones launched the #askthescript hashtag so their fans could ask them pressing questions like ‘Will you marry me?’ and ‘OMG FOLLOW ME XD’. However, this ended up backfiring when Twitter users decided to ask them their own non-music related questions.

The cream of the crop included gems such as ‘#askthescript whats the best compost in which to plant strawberries, given that there is a high clay content in my garden?’ from @fudgecrumpet and ‘What is your highest score in the warehouse level for the original Tony Hawk game on the PS1? #AskTheScript’ from @TheStripeyOne.

An unmitigated hashtag success, I think you’ll agree.

MTV’s most misjudged digital maketing campaign?!

Hold on to your hats people, MTV have revealed what could end up being their most poorly judged digital marketing campaign EVER. The network announced on Tuesday that they are planning to use Snapchat to promote the upcoming sixth season on Geordie Shore.

Now, once we move past the fact that combining Snapchat and Geordie Shore could end up being the disaster of the following 15 minutes, until we move on to something else, it’s the first time that anyone has really used Snapchat as a promotional tool.

MTV will be sending out exclusive photos and videos from its ‘Geordie Shore’ Snapchat account directly to fans’ smartphones, giving them a sneak peak (terrifying insight) of the ‘cheekier side’ of the new series.

Snapchat at your own risk, Geordie Shore fans.

Obamastagram

Barack Obama (apparently) launched the White House’s Instagram account on Wednesday. The first photo shared on the app was a snap of presidential helicopter Marine One, which was accompanied came by the caption: "The First Family takes off for a three-country trip across Africa."

The White House is already pretty social savvy, with accounts not only on Twitter and Facebook, but also on Pinterest and Vine as well.

I’ll be keeping my eye out for some Obama 1977-filtered selfies, but I’m not holding my breath.

Apple’s Finger Print Scanner

Word on the street is that Apple’s next product could add an extra element to the creepy stalker world we now live in, with a fingerprint scanner.

A newly published patent allegedly shows a fingerprint scanner that could be embedded within products and is rumoured to be included in the upcoming iPhone 5S.

So, in the words of Austin Powers, ‘WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!’ Well, instead of having to type in that pesky four-digit code every time you want to unlock your phone, it will also simultaneously scan your fingerprint, so if the person entering the code isn’t you, they won’t be able to access your phone.

Bit creepy, potentially quite annoying, but also pretty cool.

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