Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard of and saw about Instagram's newest feature Hyperlapse.

There are a ton of great videos out there from brands, but there are a select few that are actually putting some planning into their videos and executing them to perfection. This careful use of resources is leading them to the holy land of engagement with their audiences in awe!

Below are some of my selections for the best brand examples of Hyperlapse:

The Detroit Institute of Arts
With something like an art museum where people pay to see the art, you don't want to just give it away for free on your social media accounts. One way to still entice your audience is by offering them a behind the scenes look at logistics behind what the visitors get to see. The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) does a great job of this!




Note: I might be a little biased of the second video because it features and was made by my boyfriend, Marc Langlois (@marcxlanglois).

The White House
What's better than getting an inside peak of one of the country's most important and influential buildings! Actually, the only thing that could have been better is if we could have had a celebrity cameo from the First Dog.


Want to walk around the White House? Take a 15-second tour right now!
Nickelodeon The geniuses over at Nickelodeon are really taking advantage of droves of children that have been flocking to Instagram with this inside look at how the magic happens. It also doubles as somewhat of a tutorial for how to draw the famous sponge.
A Spongebob artists at work in the Nickelodeon Animation Studio!  Can you draw Spongebob Squarepants as fast as she can? Teen Vogue What's a better way to sell a dying medium, printed media, to young people than by giving them a flash of what they're missing?! This video leaves teen girls everywhere thinking, "I've gotta have it."
We test drove Hyperlapse with our September issue!
National Geographic The wilderness never looked so fun and tech friendly as it does in this video from Nat Geo during their trip to Yellowstone National Park. Also, you can't help but think about how cute those bison are!
The roads that run through Yellowstone National Park are often roadblocked with roaming bison and other wandering wildlife. This is what my morning commute looks like while on assignment for National Geographic Magazine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. This time-lapse video was created by David Guttenfelder @dguttenfelder for @natgeo. Naked Juice You know what they say... sex sells! And with a name like NAKED how can you not capitalize on media's favorite medium, bare skin.
Don't let life pass you by, get Naked. What do you think? What are you favorite Hyperlapses you've seen come out from your favorite brands? Leave the videos in the comments.

Here is another great resource that came out of Ragan Communication's annual Social Media for Public Relations and Corporate Communications conference that I attended earlier this month!

• Camera, lighting and audio equipment
• How you plan your videos
• Production tips
• Suggestions for sharing your video

I know this happens to all of us corporate communications people, someone comes up to us and casually says "Let's make a video." Just like that. Like it's easy. Like it's just something simple you can throw together this afternoon.

“What’s up with these hashtag things?” — We’ve all heard it (as social media aficionados) or we’ve asked it (as Facebook-only users). In this episode we discuss the uses, annoyances, and pop culture affects of the social media hashtag.

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 “What’s up with these hashtag things?” — We’ve all heard it (as social media aficionados) or we’ve asked it (as Facebook-only users). In this episode we discuss the uses, annoyances, and pop culture affects of the social media hashtag.

What should companies have social media policies? What do social media policies mean for employees? How do companies and their employees benefit from social media policies? Where do you start when writing a social media policy? We'll answer all these and more!


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Are you (or your mom) ever in the position of not knowing whether or not to accept a particular friend request? Maybe it's a distant relative, an estranged friend, the kid with the locker three down from yours in middle school, a coworker, or just a complete stranger. At some point in our digital lives we all have this moral dilemma: to accept or not to accept.



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As 2012 comes to an end we wanted to share all of our favorite and most hated social media moments and trends of the past 365 days.

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When was the last time you angrily tweeted about a product or service you were unhappy about? Or maybe you took to Facebook? How many of those angry public posts got you a response from the company's customer service reps? Customer service is a huge, changing market right now with the widespread use of social media as a form of user testimonials. On this episode we will be talking about why this is a genius idea, how it fits into a social media strategy, and some best practices in the industry.


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We've been talking about how to promote your business on Facebook a lot lately but anyone who’s anyone has a Facebook Page these days. (They're like bellybuttons, everyone's got 'em!) Just as with the www websites, Facebook Pages are on track to become a standard practice for companies. As we start to make this transition to a Facebook Page norm for brands, how can you ensure your brand is staying ahead and above of the competition?



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We never thought when we started this show that we would ever seriously cover Myspace. We figured that we might cover the official death of the network--if anything--but never its comeback! Recently Myspace unveiled a promo for the new Myspace. It's pretty awesome.

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The big trend in 2012 social media has been, and will continue to be, visual media. This trend makes perfect sense when you think about the way humans are hard-wired. According to a study conducted by 3M, we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text! That speed may seem hard to grasp but if you think about the current obsessions on the internet, all of them include a visual element.

• Blog Images - It's no secret that images sell newspapers (just look at what's getting your attention about the front page) and this recipe for success has been transferred to newspapers' digital counterpart, the blog, with the same undenying success.
• Facebook - With the introduction of Timeline earlier this year, brands (and the average user) are now having more visual experiences on Facebook. The Timeline itself, framed by the Cover Photo, gives a visual storyboard of a brand's evolution (and of a person's life). If you play your cards right, this is visual storytelling at its best.
• Memes - You no longer need a witty comeback up your sleeve, just grab something from the internet's arsenal of memes and you'll be sure to make a point without having to say anything at all.  This images are worth a thousand words.
• Instagram - The mobile app Instagram allows anyone to take beautiful photos with their smartphone. Over a billion photos have been uploaded and posted through Instagram by both individuals and brands. It's a newer platform but brands are starting to use it more and more to capture the still beauty of their company. Instagram was recently acquired by Facebook, which means we should be seeing even more visual integration into Facebook.
• Pinterest - The latest (and greatest) of social media is one of the most visual social networks out there. Pinterest is the fastest growing independent social network and sends more referral traffic to other sites than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined. Its quick growth and addictive qualities points toward the desire to consume visual content.
• Infographics - An infographic is basically a visual representation of a story, typically featuring data. Its rise in popularity across all networks shows that people want visual content and want to interpret data differently.

The Future of Visual Social Media?

• Mico Video Blogging - In addition to still images that are all the rave right now, I believe we will see the increase of micro video blogging through platforms like Viddy--the Instagram of video editing.
• Google+ - In addition to its spring closing in acquiring Picnik, Google has just acquired Snapseed. As a competitor of Instagram, Snapseed is a photo editing tool that could transform Google+, along with Picnik, into a visually stimulating social network, which it is currently lacking. Google+ already has photo editing tools available but they are not widely utilized.

Patriotism has been a trending topic lately on the internet with the excitement over the Olympics and the new outerspace infatuation with the US landing a rover on Mars. Is social media the reason why we know about and are able to cheer for more teams and more athletes from across the globe than previous generations? Is social media going to be the saving grace for the US space program? We discuss all this and more on this episode of Social Media Meltdown!