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YouTube eases demonetization rules when creators use profanity

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By Damien Wilde

YouTube is to ease the rules surrounding the use of profanity in videos after introducing new stipulations in late 2022.

More advertiser-friendly content guidelines have been adjusted after a creator backlash in recent months. Under the previous rules, the usage of profanity within the opening 15-20 seconds of a YouTube video could result in demonetization or reduced monetization capabilities for content creators. This expanded to include videos with extensive usage of swearing and foul language. However, YouTube did not make it clear just what levels infringed upon the guidelines.

According to a new “Profanity Update” video uploaded to the Creator Insider channel, the previously introduced guidelines are being altered. Retroactive reviews of old content saw many channel content demonetized, but new rules are tuning things ever so slightly.

Profanity (for example, the f-word) used in the first 7 seconds or majority of the video may earn limited ad revenue rather than no ad revenue, as previously announced below. Usage of words like “bitch”, “douchebag”, “asshole” and “shit” in the video content is eligible for green icons.

Now, profanity such as the f-word used within the opening seven seconds of a video or the majority of a video “may earn limited ad revenue.” While the usage of lesser swear words is more likely to allow for full video monetization.

Profanity used in the first 8-15 seconds may now earn ad revenue. We’ve also clarified our guidance on how profanity in music is treated; strong profanity used in background music, backing tracks, intro/outro music may earn ad revenue.

Profanity used beyond the 15-second intro phase may be subject to other rules, but it’s not entirely clear just what has changed here with regard to the volume of swearing within YouTube content. For music, backing tracks and YouTube video intro/outros, profanity will be allowed and can be monetized.

Existing content that may have been demonetized under the previous rule change will be retroactively re-examined and the latest rule changes surrounding profanity will be applied accordingly. This change has already come into force from March 7 and when uploading videos to YouTube Studio, creators will now get a notification to explain the changes. Just how creators respond remains to be seen, but it’s yet another case of YouTube making changes after yet more backlash rather than involving the community in platform alterations.

By Damien Wilde

Sourced from 9TO5Google

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Why Your Brand Should Pivot From DTC to Retail—and How to Do It Right

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By Jason Vaught

The move isn’t without risks, but CPG companies can mitigate them

Direct-to-consumer brands are rethinking their channel strategy, specifically a return to retail, and for a handful of good reasons. While the pivot takes a contrarian stance on the “unavoidable” takeover of online commerce, smart brands are leaning into national retail relationships with a physical and digital footprint.

On the surface, the timing of this shift seems odd. Considering the pandemic’s acceleration of ecommerce sales, many assumed retail revenues would fall off the cataclysmic cliff to certain death. But immediate revenue potential doesn’t always equate to profitability. When considering the burn rate consumer packaged goods brands are experiencing in the DTC model, the proof is in the non-GMO, sustainably packed pudding. There is unavoidable evidence for a CPG brand’s need to pivot.

Within the DTC realm, underlying factors negatively affect the ability of moderately priced CPG and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands to show black on their profit and loss statements. While we weigh the scale differently for each category, the outcome is predominantly the same. The removal of third-party cookies, the low barrier to entry, and the supply and demand of digital DTC marketing platforms create a challenge for almost every CPG sector.

Whether you’re a new brand challenging a category, an existing brand that transitioned away from retail, or an existing DTC brand looking to pivot for the first time, you’ll need to learn how to navigate the return-to-retail terrain and what it takes to succeed on both physical and digital shelves.

Why pivot to retail?

Retailers are constantly innovating, creating seamless integration between their online and IRL storefronts. This integration presents two primary reasons for getting your hands on the in-store action.

First, your brand can embrace a retailer’s online opportunities. Retailers want brands committed to supporting and performing in-store, in-app and online; pivoting to retail presents opportunities to leverage a retailer’s first-party data for specific consumer targeting. Second, the numbers don’t lie: Projections for 2024 suggest 72% of retail sales will occur offline.

No matter how you slice it, brick-and-mortar stores are still the predominant driver of purchases. Brands willing to buck the DTC-only trend are reaching the largest consumer demographic while establishing deep, sustainable relationships that can lead to future online opportunities.

Why pivot away from DTC?

On the flip side, there are reasons to shift your attention. Whether choosing to promote through organic brand strategies, taking the paid ad approach or a combination of both, the high customer acquisition costs of DTC are not attractive to investors looking for a scalable brand.

There’s also the limitation of DTC reach: With 74% of shoppers making purchases in-store, building mainstream brand awareness exclusively online is nearly impossible. Even successful DTC brands, such as Bulletproof, eventually reach a point where they need partners like Whole Foods to further their growth and meet revenue expectations.

And there’s the false assumption that DTC leads to greater customer loyalty than working with traditional retailers. In fact, the most prominent form of brand loyalty is when the consumer views your products across many digital and physical touch points.

When not to pivot

Not every brand is ready for retail. With retail partnerships comes responsibility. To win in retail, you must have your ducks in a row:

  • Supply chain: Do you have the capability to support retail growth consistently?
  • Proof of concept: Can you guarantee a good sales velocity to keep your distribution?
  • Legal compliance: Are you ready to meet the contractual obligations?
  • Capital: Do you have enough funding to support the channel?
  • Competition: Within a retail environment with multiple and different competitors, is your brand differentiated and competitive? Do you lose an advantage only available online?

There are plenty of failed examples where a DTC company poorly shifted to retail commerce. While the details differ, the overarching theme is always the same: These brands wrongly assumed their existing awareness and marketing were enough to support these channels.

How to pivot successfully

Retail brands must take a strategic approach, provide product differentiation and have the resources to compete against the big-name, traditional brands that dominate their category. Whether it results from being too ambitious or simply a lack of experience, many brands may fail against existing retail shelf competitors.

Moving from the DTC approach to traditional retail isn’t without risks, but CPG companies can mitigate these risks by addressing four areas.

Establish the right partner(s)

On the other end of the CPG channel spectrum are consumer brands trying to be everything to everyone. As such, these brands approach all physical retail partners for their product category without considering how one affects the other. Having too many retail partners can cause shelf dilution, capital constraints, having too many promotions to manage or losing distribution due to poor product-shopper fit.

Develop a concise value proposition

Being concise in your product messaging is a practice that should exist across all consumer channels, but it’s especially true for in-store presentations. With limited attention spans and competitors sitting within your product’s line of sight, the speed and eloquence with which you communicate your point of differentiation matters.

Customer loyalty is constantly at odds with the retail environment, so engaging in this form of commerce requires more attention to how effectively your packaging design and in-store presentation reach the consumer.

Prepare your supply chain

In DTC, being out of stock may lead to a preorder. In retail, however, it leads to a lost sale.

Supply chain mishaps are risky for your brand and the retailer. Whether direct-to-retailer or through a wholesale channel, overhaul your supply chain to ensure consistent on time in full rates for customer orders so you are a reliable vendor and good partner. Help your buyer ensure you have enough orders in the system to cover any incremental volume coming from a promotion or big event you know is coming up.

Prepare data to support the channel

Assumptions serve no purpose when engaging in commerce with national grocers and retailers. To enter any retail door, you must have consumer data proving why your brand will be a top category performer.

The modern retail store has advanced insights from internal point-of-sale data and eye-tracking technology. Brands mirroring this data-driven intentionality will build stronger relationships with their retail partners.

The most predictive consumer data comes through testing buyer behavior in a simulated environment—we call this purchase intent testing, where we separate what consumers say they want from how they make buying decisions while at a retail shelf. This test measures the effectiveness of the packaging and its ability to lead to purchase selection, which commonly happens in 3-12 seconds.

At this stage of the buyer journey, we simulate these choices by inserting your product into a set of leading products you are likely to compete with. We then measure the performance of various packaging design candidates in the marketplace.

 

image
SmashBrand

The benefits of retail partnerships

Having looked at the why and the how, let’s look at what success looks like after winning in retail. Here are five ways that retail differs from a DTC strategy.

Greater reach and wider brand awareness: Walmart received more than 230 million visits in 2022. Even though this number is down from prior years, 1% of this figure is more visitors than nearly every DTC brand receives to its website.

Access to valuable customer data and analytics: While not every brand asks, retail partners can provide deep insights helping you understand who buys your product and who does not. Collectively, you can better meet the needs of consumers who match your buyer persona.

Opportunities for product innovation and co-branding: Whether through white-label products or cross-brand collaboration, creative co-branding opportunities only happen when you work with the retailer.

Building a loyal customer base through in-store experiences: The more we push to a digital world, the greater consumer desire for a curated retail experience becomes. In-store demonstrations encourage greater brand resonance, so you get two for the price of one in your shopper marketing: direct influence on the in-store sale, plus a broader brand awareness driver, which may halo to other stores and channels.

It opens the door to click-and-mortar: Being on Target.com is not nearly as powerful as being available within their app for in-store pickup. As retailers innovate, click-and-mortar will continue to grow, and you will want to be part of this action.

Ready to transition into retail?

If you are a CPG brand currently using or weighing a DTC model, it may be time to consider a pivot back to retail. These partnerships offer opportunities to reach a larger consumer demographic, establish sustainable relationships and embrace online opportunities. By engaging in retail action, brands can achieve long-term growth and success.

Feature Image Credit: Mattes/Getty Images

By Jason Vaught

Jason Vaught is the director of content and marketing for SmashBrand.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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Should you pay for Meta’s and Twitter’s verified identity subscriptions? A social media researcher explains how the choice you face affects everyone else

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Social media services have generally been free of charge for users, but now, with ad revenues slowing down, social media companies are looking for new revenue streams beyond targeted ads. Now, Twitter is charging for its blue check verification, and Meta and Twitter both charge for identity protection.

Users benefit from “free” services such as social media platforms. According to one study, in the U.S., Facebook users say they would have to be paid in the range of $40 to $50 to leave the social networking service for one month. If you value Facebook highly enough that you’d need to get paid to take a break, why not pay for these new services if you can afford them?

Meta plans to offer paid customer support and account monitoring on Facebook and Instagram to guard against impersonators for US$11.99 a month on the web and $14.99 a month on iOS devices. Twitter’s proposed changes make two-factor authentication via text messaging a premium feature for paid users. Twitter Blue costs $8 a month on Android devices and $11 a month on iOS devices.

As a researcher who studies social media and artificial intelligence, I see three problems with the rollout of these features.

The collective action problem

Information goods, such as those provided by social media platforms, are characterized by the problem of collective action, and information security is no exception. Collective action problems, which economists describe as network externalities, result when the actions of one participant in a market affect other participants’ outcomes.

Some people might pay Facebook for improved security, but overall, collective well-being depends on having a very large group of users investing in better security for all. Picture a medieval city under siege from an invader where each family would be responsible for a stretch of the wall. Collectively, the community is only as strong as the weakest link. Will Twitter and Meta still deliver the promised and paid-for results if not enough users sign up for these services?

a screenshot with large and small text and a white checkmark inside a 12-point star
Meta is beginning to roll out a paid identity protection service for Facebook and Instagram users. William West/AFP via Getty Images

While large platforms such as Facebook and Twitter could benefit from lock in, meaning having users who are dependent on or at least heavily invested in them, it’s not clear how many users will pay for these features. This is an area where the platforms’ profit motive is in conflict with the overall goal of the platform, which is to have a large enough community that people will continue using the platform because all of their social or business connections are there.

Economics of information security

Charging for identity protection raises the question of how much each person values privacy or security online. Markets for privacy have posed a similar conundrum. For digital products in particular, consumers are not fully informed about how their data is collected, for what purposes and with what consequences.

Scammers can find many ways to breach security and exploit vulnerabilities in large platforms such as Facebook. But valuing security or privacy is complicated because social media users do not know exactly how much Meta or Twitter invests in keeping everyone safe. When users of digital platforms do not understand how platforms safeguard their information, the resulting lack of trust could limit the number of people willing to pay for features such as security and identity verification.

Social media users in particular face imperfect or asymmetric information about their data, so they do not know how to correctly value features such as security. In the standard economic logic, markets assign prices based on buyers’ willingness to pay and sellers’ lowest acceptable bids, or reservation prices. However, digital platforms such as Meta benefit from individuals’ data by virtue of their size – they have such a large amount of personal data. There is no market for individual data rights, even though there have been a few policy proposals such as California governor Gavin Newsom’s call for a data dividend.

Some cybersecurity experts have already pointed out the downsides to monetizing security features. In particular, in giving a very rushed timeline, one month from announcement to implementation, to pay for a more secure option, there is a real risk that many users will turn off two-factor authentication altogether. Further, security, user authentication and identity verification are issues that concern everyone, not just content creators or those who can afford to pay.

In the first three months of 2022 alone, nearly one-fifth of teens and adults in the U.S. reported their social media accounts getting hacked. The same survey found that 24% of consumers reported being overwhelmed by devices and subscriptions, indicating significant fatigue and cognitive overload in having to manage their virtual experiences.

It is also the case that social media platforms are not really free. The old adage is if you are not paying, then you are the product. Digital platforms such as Meta and Twitter monetize the enormous tracts of data they have about users through a complex online advertising-driven ecosystem. The system makes use of very granular individual user data and predictive analytics to help companies microtarget online ads and track and compare advertising views with outcomes. There are hidden costs associated with people’s loss of privacy and control over their personal information, including loss of trust and vulnerability to identity theft.

Social media and online harms

The other problem is how these moves to monetize security options increase online harms for vulnerable users without identity protection provisions. Not everyone can afford to pay Meta or Twitter to keep their personal information safe. Social bots have become increasingly more sophisticated. Scams increased by almost 288% from 2021 to 2022, according to one report. Scammers and phishers have found it easy enough to gain access to people’s personal information and impersonate others.

For those who are scammed, the process of account recovery is frustrating and time-consuming. Such moves might hurt the most vulnerable, such as those who need Meta to find access to job information, or the elderly and infirm who use social media to learn about what is happening in their communities. Communities that have invested resources in building a shared online space using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook may be harmed by monetization efforts.

People are tired of having to navigate numerous subscriptions and having security and privacy concerns that persist. At the same time, it’s an open question whether enough users will pay for these services to boost collective security. Ultimately, the service a social media platform offers is the opportunity to connect with others. Will users pay for the ability to maintain social connections the way they pay for content, such as entertainment or news? Social media giants may have a difficult path ahead.

Feature Image Credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images

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Want to Quickly Increase Your Amazon Sales? Here Are 3 Key Tips from an Amazon Consultant

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By Tanner Rankin

Follow this simple guide of what’s working right now to grow your Amazon sales.

Increasing Amazon sales is more complicated than ever — especially for entrepreneurs without platforms like large social media followings, email lists or YouTube channels. What with Amazon prioritizing driving external traffic, the days of simply optimizing your keywords and listing are long gone.

With that being said, you can still increase your sales on Amazon, even if you’re a new Amazon seller. Here are a few ways to do it:

Amazon influencers

With the influencer marketing industry set to grow to over $21.1 billion in 2023, brands of all shapes and sizes selling on Amazon can take advantage of Amazon Influencers. Amazon Influencers have actually been around since 1996 when Amazon launched its affiliate program called the Amazon Associates Program.

Now, along with the Amazon Influencer Program, Amazon has influencers across blogs, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and beyond that Amazon sellers are partnering with to drive sales. Amazon Influencers work so well to drive sales because they create content covering the full spectrum of brand awareness to buyer intent.

Even if selling on Amazon is just a side hustle, there are Amazon Influencers who will fit your budget and can help you increase sales on Amazon. Not only can you get up to 10% cash back from Amazon for referring external traffic with your Amazon Attribution link, but the commission paid to the Amazon Influencer comes from Amazon’s referral fees and not from the brand. This is the type of content you will want to focus on:

  • Best lists: Consumers who already know what they want and are ready to buy go to the number one and number two search engines in the world, Google and YouTube, to search for the “best” of what they are looking to buy (for example, “best candles for a power outage”). Then, they watch or read and buy one of the recommendations. Your goal is to show up on as many of these “best lists” as possible.
  • Advertorials: Advertorials are product reviews with click-worthy headlines. Instead of a normal product review article like: “Brand X Ring Light Review” the advertorial is: “This $20 Ring Light Makes Your Selfies Look Professional.” This type of content not only does well on social media, Google News and Apple News but also in search results. Plus, the type of person who will read this content will want what you have to sell.
  • Amazon Influencer storefront videos: Amazon Influencers drive traffic from their platforms on social media back to their Amazon Storefront where their audience can purchase their recommendations through idea lists, videos and photos. The key here is videos, because not only do they do a great job at highlighting why someone should buy your product, but they are eligible to show up on your product page as well as the Amazon Influencers Storefront.

Speaking of external traffic sources eligible for the brand referral bonus program, enter Google Ads.

Google ads

Although savvy Amazon Sellers have been using Google Ads to grow their sales and drive traffic to their Amazon listings for ages, they recently became much more attractive since the launch of the Brand Referral Bonus Program. That means Amazon is paying you to run Google ads on your product listings to increase sales on Amazon.

Apart from tapping into the number one search engine in the world, Google, running Google ads on your product listings can also boost the organic traffic on Amazon SEO of your keyword rankings. This is because Amazon knows what keywords consumers enter Amazon through, and this translates to your product being more relevant for those keywords on Amazon. In other words, if you’re struggling to rank for important keywords on Amazon, running Google ads can help immensely.

In the past, Amazon sellers were averse to running Google ads or leveraging other external PPC channels because they couldn’t track the results. Now, as mentioned earlier, Amazon sellers can use their Amazon attribution links to track results.

This is what you’ll want to focus on:

  • Amazon/On Amazon: Run exact and phrase match targeting on keywords like: “Potato ricer Amazon” and “ring light for selfies on Amazon”
  • Buyer intent keywords: Run exact and phrase match targeting on very specific buyer intent keywords like: “recyclable French roast k cups”
  • Best: Run exact and phrase match targeting on keywords that indicate the customer is looking for the best of what you sell like: “best pillow for bed sores”
  • Top-Rated: Run exact and phrase match targeting on keywords like: “top-rated plant protein”

Driving external traffic goes a long way to boost your unit session percentage and educate the Amazon A10 algorithm that you should be relevant for your most important keywords. That said, if you want to increase sales on Amazon, you’ll want to avoid the biggest mistake I see.

Stop copying the big brand best-sellers

This one likely goes against what you’ve learned, but you’ll want to stick with me. If you look at the top sellers of what you sell, copy their images and product descriptions as well as download their keywords from your favourite Amazon tool, you’re making a big mistake.

This is because they make mistakes in everything from copywriting, art direction, keyword selection and more, but they get away with it due to brute force and significant budgets. Apart from having thousands of reviews, their products are talked about in major publications and by mega influencers — and their ads appear everywhere where your products do not.

So, what do you do instead?

  • Get good at selling: This entails learning copywriting, colour psychology, art direction and more. Your listings need to blow theirs out of the water.
  • Build your brand off Amazon: Make sure you’re building an email list, an audience on social media, traffic to your website and getting PR for your brand.
  • Focus on buyer intent: Don’t go after the broadest keywords with the largest volume. Instead, boost your unit session percentage by focusing on keywords that people search for that indicate they already know what they want.

Selling is tough, but you can increase sales on Amazon with these proven methods.

By Tanner Rankin

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. CEO at The Source Approach & Referazon. For 10+ years as an author, speaker, Fractional CMO & CEO at The Source Approach – eCommerce Consultancy & Referazon – Amazon Influencer Search & CRM, Tanner Rankin has helped brands thrive at eCommerce quicker & easier.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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The Recruiting Buzzwords Every Job Seeker Should Know

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By Meredith Dietz

Don’t miss out on a gig due to confusing language in the job posting.

As if searching for a job wasn’t hard enough, it’s made harder by the fact that many job postings are full of language that is either unnecessarily daunting or flat-out confusing. What does it mean to be a “social media warrior?” Should I not apply if don’t consider myself an “accounting rockstar?”

According to one study, 17% of applicants admitted to not applying for an opening because of “vague or confusing” language in the job description. While we may will never find a singular definition for buzzy terms like “dynamic,” “blue sky thinking,” or “self-starter,” there is some concrete vocab that every job seeker should understand. To this end, FlexJobs has created a glossary of terms you might come across throughout job search (and your career), and what they mean.

Vocab every job seeker should know

Chronological resume. You should always cater your resume to the specific job listing, and one may ask you specifically for a chronological resume. Luckily, this is the traditional resume format that you probably already use. The expectation for a chronological resume is to outline your job job history in reverse chronological order, beginning with your most recent position.

Compressed workweek. Any job posting the advertises a compressed workweek means the role entails working longer hours in fewer days. For instance, rather than five eight-hour days, you might work four 10-hour days or three 12-hour days.

Digital nomads. A digital nomad is someone who works virtually from various locations. Digital nomads may move from location to location but use technology and communication tools to stay digitally connected while and traveling. (We previously covered how you can afford to be a digital nomad.)

Distributed company. If you see a job listing from a distributed company, that means the majority (if not all) employees work from remote locations. Communication generally involves strategies to ensure everyone feels included, rather than focusing on physical interactions.

Nonexempt employee. If you work a regular 40-hour work week without an employment contract, you are probably nonexempt. A nonexempt employee is not exempt from federal and state labour laws and must be paid overtime at time-and-a-half for any hours worked beyond 40 hours in a week. This generally applies to those in hourly positions, rather than salaried positions. Examples include interns, servers, retail associates, and similar jobs.

Panel interview. A panel interview, otherwise known as a team interview, is an interview conducted by two or more people at the same time. A panel interview can include managers, supervisors, team members, HR representatives, and other company decision-makers. Here’s our guide to surviving the dreaded panel interview.

Personal branding. Anyone who has used LinkedIn in the past few years knows the pressure of “building your brand.” Simply put, personal branding is the way you market your career focus and expertise. Effective personal branding means providing a cohesive message across your social media channels and application materials. Practice creating your career elevator pitch now.

Remote-first/remote-friendly. If working from home is a priority for you, pay careful attention to the language in a job description. In a remote-first company, most employees work from remote locations, rather than a centralized office. A remote-friendly company, on the other hand, should have policies and procedures in place to accommodate remote work, but ultimately it is not a fully distributed team (see above).

ROWE. A results-only work environment (ROWE) is a type of work environment in which employees are assessed by the work they produce, as opposed to hours on the job or time spent in the office.

Resume summary. Including a resume summary is a great way to succinctly pitch yourself as a prospective employee. This summary is a brief statement (no more the two to four lines) near the top of your resume that provides a persuasive snapshot of your experience, accomplishments, and qualifications.

For more, check out the full glossary from FlexJobs here. And once your secure the bag, brush up on the most annoying corporate jargon.

Feature Image Credit: Prostock-studio (Shutterstock)

By Meredith Dietz

Sourced from lifehacker

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How to target ultra-high net worth individuals on social media

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By Lily Power 

Ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) use social media differently compared with the rest of us. Here, Relevance’s Lily Power reveals how to entice the 1%.

Social media is a powerful marketing tool for reaching ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs), but it requires a tailored approach and a thorough understanding of this exclusive audience.

This group represents less than 1% of the world’s population and has specific expectations regarding digital marketing.

UHNW consumers frequently use social media platforms, with 99% using social media and spending close to 90 minutes per day browsing them. Brands can use these platforms to engage and build meaningful relationships with this audience.

What social media platforms do UHNWIs use?

Each social platform serves a unique purpose and typically attracts different users – including several social platforms used exclusively by the world’s wealthiest.

For example, Best of All Worlds is an invite-only app designed to ensure that members don’t find themselves ‘overwhelmed with irrelevant connections’. Rich Kids is a quasi-Instagram, with membership costing US$1,000 per month.

Yacht broker Northrop & Johnson’s UHNW clients are highly active on LinkedIn, Instagram, and niche investment communities such as Wealthfront and AngelList. Nearly seven in 10 of them use social media regularly, with LinkedIn (36%), YouTube (35%), and Facebook (34%) each cited by about one-third of respondents.

Here are five tips for reaching this powerful audience on social.

1. Create a targeted strategy

It takes more than just creating a social media profile and posting content; you must understand the individual and their goals to target UHNWIs effectively.

UHNWIs are often highly sceptical of marketing messages and will not respond to traditional marketing tactics. When targeting them through social media, focus your efforts on the correct channels. It’s imperative to understand their lifestyle, interests, and values to develop content and messaging that resonates with them.

Once you have identified the right platforms, create a targeted strategy focused on UHNWIs’ unique needs and interests. They are accustomed to being presented with tailored offers, so your message must stand out.

2. Find out what content resonates with your target audience

UHNWIs are seeking content that fulfils their needs beyond purchasing a product or service. For the world’s wealthiest, luxury is a baseline, and nothing is a ‘dream purchase’. Brands can engage them with crafted, strikingly beautiful content and by creating events or experiences tailored to their interests.

This higher-quality and bespoke content develops trust and helps build ongoing relationships while increasing loyalty and adding value to engagement. Create a sense of exclusivity through your brand messaging and content to ensure success.

This group is protective, valuing privacy and security. Instead of being sales-led, you should focus on sharing aspirational content. UHNWIs are a common target for various online crimes and intrusions due to their lifestyle. Privacy and security should be at the forefront of your strategy.

3. ‘Genuinfluencer’ marketing

There is a fine line between promotion and saturation, especially for ultra-luxury brands. Many luxury brands are using ‘genuinfluencers’ due to their high-quality and authentic content, engaged communities of followers, and actionable insights. This makes genuinfluencers valuable partners for luxury brands seeking to reach and engage with UHNWIs.

Genuinfluencers work on establishing trustworthy relationships, making them a highly effective brand partnership. UHNWIs relate to people who are similar to them, so they will be influenced by genuinfluencers only if they are carefully selected. Self-made UHNWIs might relate to self-made genuinfluencers, whereas heirs and heiresses might be influenced by people of similar background.

Executing campaigns over a social platform where your target audience is most active is essential. The right geninfluencer can help you reach UHNWIs and drive engagement, if they’re similar to your target demographic.

4. Targeted ads on social media

Luxury brands can use social media ads to target UHNWIs based on their interests, demographics, and other factors, as well as targeting custom audiences and lookalike audiences.

Paid ads on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have layered and targeted options, which brands can use to target UHNWIs based on their demographic information like industry sector, interests, high-powered job roles or even income level. There is ample opportunity to connect and build relationships with this exclusive audience by sharing content on existing social media groups and pages.

Start by researching UHNW profiles and identifying their interests, hobbies, and lifestyle. This will help you create ads that are tailored specifically to them. Use language that resonates with their demographic and include a strong call to action.

Leverage retargeting; it allows you to advertise to users who have already interacted or had some level of engagement with your brand, ensuring higher conversion rates.

These highly educated individuals embrace emotional intelligence principles such as trustworthiness and empathy, which is why some platforms may perform better than others. For example, LinkedIn is an excellent platform to share thought leadership and research pieces.

5. Track campaign success

Keeping track of your efforts will enable you to understand what is and isn’t working and adjust your strategy accordingly. The best way to know if you are reaching and resonating with your audience is to track business metrics such as leads generated, quality of leads, cost per lead, conversion to sale and overall revenue.

Feature Image Credit: Laila Gebhard

By Lily Power 

Sourced from The Drum

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Twitter Engineer Reveals Just How Deep Elon Musk’s Desperation Goes

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Mass layoffs are the source of much of the chaos at the company, according to both current and former employees.

Current and former Twitter employees have said the company has suffered an inability to protect users from trolling, disinformation and child exploitation, a BBC story asserts.

The company is also said to have been experiencing chaos as a result of staffing issues since Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Free Report owner Elon Musk bought it in October 2022.

Twitter’s former head of content design, who worked on the microblogging site’s features to protect users from hate speech, said her team was making progress.

“It was not at all perfect. But we were trying, and we were making things better all the time,” Lisa Jennings Young told the BBC.

One of the features implemented by Young’s team was the “harmful reply nudge.” When artificial intelligence detected certain trigger words in a user’s tweet, it would alert the user before they posted it.

“Overall 60% of users deleted or edited their reply when given a chance through the nudge,” Young told the BBC. “But what was more interesting, is that after we nudged people once, they composed 11% fewer harmful replies in the future.”

When Musk took over the company, Young’s whole team was laid off. She chose to leave the company in November 2022.

Young said she does not know what’s happening with the features she worked on.

“There’s no one there to work on that at this time,” she said.

An engineer at Twitter, who was granted anonymity by the BBC because he’s still working there, described conditions at the company.

“For someone on the inside, it’s like a building where all the pieces are on fire,” he said.

“When you look at it from the outside the façade looks fine, but I can see that nothing is working, he continued. “All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything.”

He said not just engineers, but cleaning and catering staff, were among the employees that were let go since Musk took over.

Musk even tried selling plants from the office to employees, he also said.

He described the mass layoffs since Musk bought the company as the source of the chaos.

“Twitter has around 1,300 employees today, per CNBC, from 7,500 in November,” tweeted @unusualwhales on Jan. 20.

“The note is incorrect,” countered Musk in a tweet of his own. “There are ~2300 active, working employees at Twitter. There are still hundreds of employees working on trust & safety, along with several thousand contractors.”

The anonymous employee offered his view.

“A totally new person, without the expertise, is doing what used to be done by more than 20 people,” he said. “That leaves room for much more risk, many more possibilities of things that can go wrong.”

“There are so many things broken and there’s nobody taking care of it, that you see this inconsistent behavior,” he said.

By 

Sourced from The Street

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Facebook Is Bringing Messenger Back to Its Mobile App

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By Kourtnee Jackson

Meta is testing how to unify functionality for both apps.

Meta is working on a way for you to view your messages from Messenger within the Facebook mobile app, according to a blog post from Facebook boss Tom Alison. Facebook reports that it has 2 billion active users who connect on its platform daily, and its team is working to enhance how people have online conversations.

The company is “testing the ability for people to access their Messenger inbox within the Facebook app,” Alison wrote. Facebook plans to expand testing in the coming months.

First launched in 2011 as part of Facebook’s functionality, Messenger was dropped from the social media platform and became a standalone app in 2014. Shortly after, it added the ability to share locations, handle voice calls and enable peer-to-peer payments.

Over the last decade, Messenger has received a variety of new features, including encrypted chats, custom emojis and video chats. Facebook has also been working to integrate and enhance multiapp communication among Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Those who use Messenger and Instagram can already contact each other with the direct messaging feature.

Meta says it also saw some success with community chats, a conversation feature that it rolled out to Facebook Groups in 2022. The company aims to fold in more messaging functionality within Facebook to make it easier for people to connect.

Feature Image Credit: James Martin/CNET

By Kourtnee Jackson

Sourced from CNET

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The Ultimate Guide to Selling Your Blog for Profit

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By Shama Shafiq

There’s a lot of money to be made in the blogging world; whether you’re a small blogger who makes money selling digital products or the owner of a high-trafficked blog that earns through affiliate programs and ads, there is something for everyone.

But as a blog owner, have you ever considered selling your blog?

Selling your blog can be a great way to earn a significant amount of money, especially if it is properly monetized. You can use the money to invest in another business or just give yourself a new start.

This article is here to provide you with all the information you need about selling your blog and how you can get the best price.

How much can you sell your blog for?

Identifying your blog’s worth is the first step in selling it. While there are no standard formulas for calculating a blog’s value, some basic guidelines can help you determine how much your site is worth.

The most basic measure of a blog’s value is its traffic. The more visitors your blog gets, the more valuable it is.

For example, suppose you have a blog that gets 500 visitors per day and another that gets 2,000 visitors per day. In that case, the latter is obviously worth more money than the former, even though both blogs may have similar designs and content quality.

Another way to determine this is by looking at how much money you make with your blog. If you’re making $1,000 per month, then it might be worth $12,000 or more. However, If you’re only making $50 per month (after years of working hard on your blog), then maybe it isn’t worth much.

Once you’ve figured out these two, it will be easier to understand the value of your blog. Of course, keep in mind there are other things to look at too, such as DR, domain age, niche, and audience.

Why should you sell your blog?

Selling your blog is a big step, and hanging on to it for as long as possible can be tempting. But there are some good reasons why you might want to sell your blog.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. You can earn money from an asset that’s currently not producing any income. Even if your site doesn’t generate much traffic now, it may still be worth something because of its potential value in the future.

2. You can achieve financial freedom sooner than expected by investing money in another business.

3. Selling a blog can take away the daily grind of running a website and let you focus on other things in life.

4. If you’re in a time crunch, selling your blog can help you get out of debt or fund an emergency expense.

If any of these apply to you, it’s best to sell your blog while it has some value in the online market.

Where to buy and sell blogs

The market for buying and selling blogs is large, with hundreds of websites offering their services. However, not all of them are worth using. Here are four great options for selling your blog:

Flippa

Flippa

 

Flippa is one of the most popular sites for buying and selling websites. The platform has sold thousands of websites across all industries and provides a safe, secure, and easy way to buy or sell websites.

EmpireFlippers

EmpireFlippers

Empire Flippers is another popular marketplace for buying and selling websites with various payment options, including PayPal and Escrow.io. The site also has an advanced search function that lets buyers find what they want based on their budget and other criteria, including niche, traffic, revenue, and more.

Go Daddy Domain Auction

Go Daddy Domain Auction

 

GoDaddy domain auction is a self-service, online auction platform where you can list your domain names for sale. You can list your domains in a variety of categories, including “Buy Now,” “Make an Offer,” and “Auction.” It’s worth noting that GoDaddy charges sellers a small membership fee for using its selling service.

Motion Invest

Motion Invest

 

Motion Invest is an online marketplace for buying and selling websites. It allows sellers to list their sites for sale and buyers to search for sites that meet their needs. The platform offers a 0% listing fee, so if you want to sell a blog and stay on budget, Motion Invest is a good option.

The process of selling your blog

There is a lot of pressure involved in selling your blog. You’ve probably spent years building it, and now you need to find a buyer. Follow these steps, and you’ll be able to sell your blog for a good price.

Step 1: Make sure your blog is ready for sale

The first step to selling your website is to ensure it’s ready for sale. This means getting rid of personal information and ensuring the design is clean, professional, and easy to use. Also, check that your site has no broken links or other technical flaws that might turn off buyers.

Step 2: Determine the value of your blog

Before you start looking for buyers, determine whether your blog is worth selling in the first place. This means you’ll need to make sure that it’s generating enough revenue for its age, has a good number of visitors per month, and has a solid reputation in the niche.

Step 3: Decide how you want to sell it

There are several options for selling a blog, including selling directly to another blogger or using a third-party website such as Flippa or Empire Flippers that specializes in this type of transaction. Each option has pros and cons, so think carefully before deciding.

Step 4: Set a price range

Selling a blog is like selling any other business. You should set a price range to see what kind of offers you get, but also make sure your blog is worth what you are asking. When setting a price range, consider how much time you’ve spent building the site and what it would cost to build an equivalent website from scratch today.

Step 5: Make it easy for buyers

Put together a detailed guide on how to buy the blog and what the buyer needs to know before buying it. This will help eliminate any confusion from buyers interested in purchasing your site and help them make an informed decision about whether or not they should go ahead and purchase.

Step 6: Know your buyer

Many bloggers who want to sell their blogs don’t realize buyers look for more than just traffic numbers and social media followers when they buy a blog. A large audience doesn’t mean anything if the traffic can’t be converted into sales or leads, so make sure that you have a plan in place to convert visitors into subscribers before listing your site online

Step 7: Close the deal

Once you’ve found someone who wants to buy your site, it’s time to start thinking about closing the deal. This is where things get complicated. There are all sorts of documents that need to be signed and hoops to jump through for everything to go smoothly on both sides.

What to do when you receive an offer

  • Before committing to anything, take your time and understand what’s being offered and what happens next.
  • If your buyer has already sent over a purchase agreement, read it carefully and make sure everything is spelled out clearly.
  • Ensure you’re familiar with any contingencies in the seller’s contract (i.e., conditions that must be met before closing takes place).
  • Set up an escrow account for payment. An escrow service holds on to your money until all of the terms have been met by both parties involved in the transaction.
  • After you’ve agreed on a price for your blog, you and your buyer will sign some documents that finalize the sale. These include a contract between both parties and a deed transferring ownership of the blog from one person/entity (you) to another (your buyer).
  • Once all of these papers have been signed and ownership has been transferred. It’s finally time for the buyer to approve the domain on escrow and send the payment to your bank account.

 How to create a blog and sell it from scratch

Don’t have a blog to sell yet? Here’s what to do if you’re starting from zero.

Target the most profitable niche

The first step to building a blog is choosing a niche. To find a profitable niche, start by looking at other popular blogs that are already established in your desired field. What kinds of topics do they cover? What kinds of problems do they solve for their readers? How could you create something similar but different enough to be unique and valuable?

Once you have an idea of what niche you want to target, try searching Google Trends to see how popular the topic is with people online right now. The more searches related to a given topic, the more potential there is for making money from it.

Write high-quality content

The most important aspect of any blog is the content. Without it, your blog will not be as successful as you want it to be. This doesn’t mean you need to be a professional writer, but it does mean you need to write articles that are interesting, informative, and useful.

In order for people to want to click on your links, they need to trust you first. That’s why you need to create an image of yourself as an expert in your niche. You can do this by consistently publishing high-quality content that demonstrates your expertise and helps readers solve their problems.

Also, you need to pay close attention to grammar and spelling; only then can you expect your readers to take you seriously.

Get traffic

To attract organic traffic, you need to make sure that people can easily find your blog when they search Google or other search engines. This means having a good title tag, meta description, and content that is relevant to your target keywords.

Also, you can use social media like Facebook and Twitter. These sites allow you to post links directly from your blog so that people can see what you’re writing about in real-time.

Try using Google Analytics to track how many people visit your site daily, weekly, or monthly. This will give you an idea of your post’s popularity and help you determine what type of content works best for attracting new readers.

Monetize your blog

When it comes to monetizing your blog, there are many different ways you can do it. The most common way is through affiliate marketing, which means you promote other people’s products and earn a commission when someone buys something through your link.

Other options include Google ads, courses, e-books, and selling products. The best way is to combine different monetization strategies.

Consider buying and selling other blogs for profit

Another great way you can earn money with blogs is through blog flipping. But what exactly is blog flipping? Blog flipping is the process of buying a blog with existing content and then shaping it into something more profitable.

The idea behind blog flipping is to purchase a blog that has an established readership and turn it into a money-making asset. You can find blogs that have been neglected by their previous owners, which means they may be available at a relatively low cost.

Once you’ve purchased the site, you’ll need to fix any technical issues (such as broken links), update outdated content, add new content and then promote it through social media channels and search engines.

If you’re able to transform the site into something that generates income from ads or affiliate marketing commissions, then it will be worth more than what you paid for it.

The best part about blog flipping is that you don’t need any prior experience; all you need is an entrepreneurial mindset, some cash in your bank account, and some basic web knowledge.

Wrapping it up

It’s important to remember that selling your blog can be a rewarding experience but also a lot of work. You need to know what you want out of the sale and go about getting it accordingly.

You’ll need to do some research to find the right buyer and then prove to them that your blog is worth buying. But once you’ve gone through all the effort, selling your blog can be highly profitable.

By Shama Shafiq

Author and the founder of Blogituplife, Shama Shafiq, writes about blogging and marketing on her blog. Her goal with her blog is to help beginner bloggers who need step-by-step guidance.

Sourced from JeffBullas.com

 

 

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Beware The Back-To-The-Office Backfire

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By Deborah Lovich

Do all the CEOs who have been ordering their employees to return to their offices really think it will benefit their organizations? In what way? Will it create a talent advantage for them by increasing worker satisfaction and reducing attrition? How about productivity; do they expect that to improve? Or is the real motivation more personal? Are they really nervous about their ability to lead, inspire, motivate, and coach across distributed teams?

Some leaders probably have issued blanket office-return mandates simply because they can, or think they can—especially in the tech community, where RIFs have been cascading for months now. [For younger readers who have never lived through tough times, RIF is an acronym for a large layoff, or a “reduction in force.”]

However, the back-to-the-office lemmings are reading things wrong and their push will backfire. We’re already seeing this, with employees at some companies pushing back. More are likely to follow. Here’s why:

Talent shortages persist. Despite the Big Tech layoffs, which already have surpassed 100,000 according to news reports, many U.S. companies remain seriously understaffed. And there’s little relief in sight, Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggest, with only half as many people looking for work as the number of job openings across the economy. In short: workers still appear to have the upper hand. Their retention should be among every CEO’s top priorities.

Dictated flexibility is not true flexibility. As DJ Casto, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer of Synchrony Financial, told CNBC last fall: “flexibility and choice are the new currency” of the American workplace. What employees mean when they say they want flexibility is that they want agency, trust and accountability. When employers dictate which days employees have to be in the office and which days they can work from home, they are stripping employees of self-determination and telling them that they don’t trust them to deliver.

Teams should decide. Work models should differ among units, departments and teams. Tech teams may be better off with one sprint done together in person and the next one done together online. Finance teams may only need to be together for a few weeks per quarter when the books are closing. Marketing teams may require weekly creative face time for brainstorming, conversation, testing. The appropriate unit for deciding work rhythms and routines is the team, not the boss or the individual. Mandating the same schedule for everyone likely will trigger resentment from employees forced to schlep into the office just to do Zoom calls all day from their desks.

One size will not fit all. The back-to-the-office push, in many cases, stems from a CEO’s personal desire to go back to 2019, before the pandemic. This ignores the fact that 2019 wasn’t as great for everyone as you might think.

The past few tumultuous years have shown many leaders that the reality of the day-to-day lives and needs of their employees is vastly different than their own. If they’ve been paying attention, they should now appreciate the fact that remote-native new hires, stressed-out dual-career parents, single workers living in shoe-box-sized apartments, introverts who never liked office socializing and extroverts who really suffered during the Covid-induced isolation all need different settings to perform at their best. To address this, leaders need to empower their teams to align on whatever working arrangement is most likely to improve teamwork, maximize productivity and results, and meet team members individual needs. And then, of course, hold them accountable for delivering. The entire organization will benefit.

Making hybrid-work work effectively takes both effort and investment. Think about it: You’re rewiring your organization at one of the most basic levels—how people work.

This requires empathy and understanding, equipping teams with norm-setting guidance, and providing managers with the new capabilities, tools, and technology they need to manage, inspire, coach and build connections across distributed teams (which, by the way, most leaders of global organizations needed even before Covid-19).

We found out during the worst of the Covid-19 crisis that some people were naturally good at managing distributed teams. They were the ones who called a team member after a Zoom meeting and said, “Hey, you were unusually quiet today, is everything okay?” They were the ones who sent a private note to a colleague thanking her for her suggestion and encouraging her to “keep the ideas coming.” And they were the ones who were attentive enough and cared enough to ask a team member how his son’s college applications are coming along. These managers delivered a clear message: We care. We’re invested in you. We value you. You are important to me.

Those who can work remotely continue to favour flex-work by large margins. Responsible decision-makers, therefore, need to think long and hard before they issue office-return ultimatums. Any decision to act unilaterally should be made the same way other important decisions are made: based on data, experience, intuition, and in consultation with others. Here is a short guide:

1. Identify the problem. What problem are you attempting to solve by mandating a return to the office? Productivity? Culture? Learning? Innovation? Are butts in seats the only way to achieve that? As with any business problem, think broadly about alternative solutions.

2. Analyse the data. Do you have objective—not opinion-driven—data that support the thesis that returning to pre-Covid ways of working is the best way to solve the problem?

3. Consider other options. Did you try other ways to improve things—such as revamping leadership training and investing in new communication and collaboration technology and tools—before deciding to change your flexible-work model?

4. Consider the consequences. Have you considered the likely consequences of rolling back your flex-work policy? For example, how will it affect recruitment, retention, absenteeism and morale? How will it affect your office space (and related) needs?

5. Co-create. Before you do anything, engage your people in building the future work model they will live with. Designing the future of work is not an undertaking for leadership and management alone. What works best for the boss isn’t necessarily what works best for the bossed.

So, before you order everyone back to the office, or even dictate the fixed days of the week when work will be hybrid, you need to engage the folks whose lives you’re impacting. Not only do they have a big stake in your decision, they also have great ideas.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Deborah Lovich

I’m a Boston Consulting Group Managing Director & Senior Partner who leads the future of work program and a fellow with the company’s think tank, BCG Henderson Institute. Since joining BCG in 1994, I’ve learned that the most important (and challenging) lever for change is people. I work with companies across the global economy on leadership enablement and culture change; HR issues along the entire employee life-cycle; and digital upskilling to unlock new sources of speed, productivity, value delivery, engagement, and impact. I’ve applied my practice inside BCG to create and scale a program to improve BCG’s culture and work-life balance. Today, the program–known as PTO (predictability, teaming & open communication)–is a key factor in BCG’s consistent ranking as one of the top companies to work for.

Sourced from Forbes

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