Snowpocalypse in the Social Media Age

Social Media in the Snowmageddon Era

Since I'm held hostage by a three foot mountain of snow just outside my front door, I find it only fitting to blog about Snowpocalypse in the social media age.

President Obama put it best when addressing a meeting last week, "Greetings from "Snowmageddon," he said. Washington, DC is facing its second blizzard in a week's time and has already accumulated 50 inches of snow this winter. That's getting dangerously close to the 54.4 inch record set in 1899. The view from my window is telling me that 54.4 inches is doable. Definitely doable.

What are Washingtonians to do when hold up in their houses for a week fighting cabin fever? Blog, tweet and Facebook, of course! As we're all aware, social media has been a game changer in how we give and receive news. This is no different for Snowmageddon 2010. The world of social media is ablaze with Snowmageddon this and Snowpocalypse that.

According to Radian6 metrics, there's been over 19,674 mentions of the Snowmageddon across the social media landscape in the past seven days. Pages and Groups are popping up all over Facebook, including I Survived SNOWMAGEDDON and Snowpocalypse (already boasting over 11,000 fans and up 3,000 since yesterday). People have even found a way to make light of the snowy situation with Groups such as Snowmageddon 2010: Let's Play Name that Car! where people upload photos of their snow covered cars and others try to guess the make and model. It's pretty difficult too. Try your hand at this one.

Twitter is going crazy with #Snowmageddon hashtags and constant updates from people, such as Jennydumpling who said, "God bless Chinese food places for delivering during snowmageddon."

A time lapse video posted to YouTube, Snowlapse 2010, is proving to be one of the most viral social media post of Snowmageddon. It was posted on February 7 and after only six days it's been viewed over 294, 000 times. I have to admit, I've done my part in spreading it.

Whether you refer to it as Snowpocalypse, Snowmageddon, SnOMG or Snoverkill, what matters is that you're talking about it on your terms, on your turf and about your personal experience. That's what makes this historic whiteout different from 1899. It's being broadcast to the world through the eyes of the people in real time through social media. Well, that and we have central heat and snowplows now.

While I'm definitely SnOver it, it's still fun to watch it unveil instantly on the social Web!