editor, Author at Mediastreet

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Saying “No” Instead of “Yes” Helped Me Build a Six-Figure Business

December 14, 2022 No Comments

By Kinsey Wolf

Kinsey Wolf didn’t believe the power of saying “no” until she saw the effect it had on growing her marketing consultancy. Here are the things she started turning down and the measurable effect they had on her business growth (and happiness).

You’ve heard the adage that the best leaders frequently say, “no.” But it’s one thing to hear the advice and another to experience it. I didn’t believe in the power of that phrase until I actually started saying “no” with intention. As a result, I watched my revenue grow threefold while clocking half the hours and enjoying my work far more than before.

I also think that advice needs a caveat: Saying “yes” to every opportunity that comes your way isn’t always a bad approach. Especially when I was transitioning from working in-house to starting my own marketing consultancy, The Lane Collective, saying “yes” to new projects and people was a learning opportunity, helping me suss out the work I really wanted to do. Plus, it was a confidence boost to prove to myself that I could get a full roster of clients.

But about nine months in, I realized that defaulting to “yes” was no longer serving me. I was constantly task-switching and bandwidth constrained. It seemed like no matter how much I hustled, my revenue seemed to stay the same. My work was suffering—and so was my personal life. I was so burnt out that I was considering quitting this independent career altogether, even though I loved the work.

After deep reflection, I realized that it was time to reorient myself in relation to my work. Naturally, my goal was a thriving marketing business—but “thriving” began to take on a more well-rounded meaning. I wanted my work to enable a more full life, one with more room for hobbies, and more mental and emotional space for loved ones. After all, I believe that my work’s purpose should enhance my broader purpose, not become it. I decided that if I was going to do the work, it had to work for me, too.

That meant things needed to change

A wise independent consultant once told me, “the things that get you to your first $100,000 are the same things that will hold you back from your next.” If saying “yes” is what allowed me to get my business going, saying “no” is what helped me grow to new heights. Here are some things I started saying “no” to and the measurable effect this shift had on my business success and my personal wellbeing.

I Said “No” to Certain Types of Clients

Something had to give, and I realized I needed more room to focus on specific, aligned engagements. That meant letting go of some amazing clients who just weren’t going to be a fit for the future of my business. I started culling my client roster, and I mean seriously culling: I let go of 70-80 percent of the clients I was working with at that time.

I wanted to focus on tech-enabled startups at the earliest stages who were ready to grow. I had about 10-15 clients at the time, and less than a third matched that profile. So, I did the scary thing and let go of all the rest. That meant parting ways with clients I really liked. It also, of course, meant turning away a lot of revenue.

They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but that was simply not the case for me. Working with wonderful yet unaligned clients meant that I couldn’t attract those who were a better fit. Letting them go opened up that space, and, amazingly, the “right fit” clients found me pretty quickly afterward.

Reducing my client load also opened up time to strategically think about the kind of business I wanted instead of getting buried in the day-to-day tasks. I built an inbound process so I could better judge whether new potential clients would be the right fit, and I still turn down about 90 percent of inquiries to this day.

But the clients I have are those I feel lucky to work with every single day, which has made a phenomenal increase in the amount of mental space and enthusiasm I have for the work.

I Said “No” to Tasks Outside of My “Zone of Genius”

I also began saying “no” to certain types of tasks within my client contracts.

As is common for many marketing consultants, especially early-on, I was doing a little bit of everything: social media strategy, content strategy, content writing, and even helping out with paid media when a client was in a pinch.

And while I could do all of these things, it wasn’t the most efficient use of my time, or how I could provide the maximum value for my clients. Plus, it often wasn’t the most energizing work for me to do.

By Kinsey Wolf

Sourced from Buffer

In News

What Is Mailchimp, and How Does It Work?

December 14, 2022 No Comments

By Danny Maiorca

Compared to the beginning of the 21st century, you’ve got plenty more ways to keep in touch with your audience. For example, social media has boomed, and podcasting has become incredibly popular. But despite all that, email marketing remains one of the best ways to engage with your audience.

Creating an email marketing list has several advantages; perhaps the biggest is that you can talk directly to people that have permitted you to do so. On top of that, you can promote any new products or services you release. Mailchimp is one of the best tools for managing email marketing campaigns. But what exactly is it, and how does it work? That’s what we’ll discuss today.

What Is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that has been around since 2001. Since then, it has grown into one of the most popular tools for managing mail campaigns on the web. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and is well-known for its quirky branding and marketing campaigns.

Today, Mailchimp is owned by Intuit—which trades publicly, and bought the company for $12 billion in 2021. Mailchimp has more than two million monthly active users and over 13 million in total. The company generates well over $500 million in annual revenue.

How Much Does Mailchimp Cost?

Mailchimp has a wide selection of pricing plans available, and the amount you pay will depend on multiple factors. Pricing varies depending on the number of email subscribers you have, and you’ll also need to consider the service you want to use.

If you have fewer than 500 contacts in your email list, you can use Mailchimp for free. The free version allows you to send up to 2,500 monthly emails, and you can benefit from multiple third-party integrations. On top of that, you will also find an easy-to-use email creation tool.

Mailchimp has three paid tiers, too. If you have fewer than 500 contacts, you can get the Essentials subscription for $11 per month. You can add up to three users to this plan, send as many as 5,000 emails, and have up to 50,000 people in your contacts.

You can also use Mailchimp Standard, which costs $29 per month—and this is good for up to 100,000 contacts. Meanwhile, Premium—which gives you unlimited contacts and allows you to send up to 150,000 emails per month—costs $299 per month. Note that all of the above prices increase as your subscribers rise. You will also need to pay additional fees if you exceed your monthly allowance.

Does Mailchimp Have Third-Party App Integrations?

Regardless of whether you’re a creator or running a full-scale business, you will probably use multiple apps. These could range from communications tools like Slack to note-taking apps such as Notion or OneNote.

To reduce the amount of strain you place on your brain, you’ll ideally want to keep all your apps in one place. And with Mailchimp, you have the opportunity to do precisely that. Mailchimp lets you integrate multiple third-party apps, including:

Shopify
Stripe
Zapier

You can also sync your contacts from multiple places elsewhere, including Salesforce and Squarespace.

Can You Use Mailchimp on Different Devices?

If you don’t want to limit managing your email marketing campaigns to your computer, knowing where else you can use Mailchimp is a good idea. For users with Apple devices, you can download an app for your iPhone or iPad. Mailchimp also has an app for Android users.

Download: Mailchimp for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)

What Can You Do With Mailchimp?

Now that we’ve discussed more about what Mailchimp is, let’s look at what you can do with the platform. In the sections below, we’ll mention the main things that Mailchimp is useful for.

1. Manage Subscription Lists

As your mailing list grows, you’ll want to manage your subscriptions—especially when you’ve already seen that Mailchimp can get expensive. Fortunately, managing your contacts in Mailchimp requires little effort. When using Mailchimp, you can easily add or remove people from your subscription list.

To get rid of contacts, go to Audience > All contacts > Manage contacts. Then, select Unsubscribe addresses from the dropdown menu. Type the users you want to unsubscribe from your list before selecting the Unsubscribe button. You can also use Mailchimp to manage subscriber preferences, import contacts, and add new subscribers. The app also lets you manage messages you receive from others.

2. Create Campaigns

One of the main reasons that people use Mailchimp is to create email campaigns. And if you want to produce messages, you don’t need to have experience in coding or graphic design; everything is straightforward. In Mailchimp, you can create both emails and landing pages. With both, you’ve got a good selection of customization options—including the ability to upload your own images and logos.

You can also use Mailchimp to make embedded forms. To access all of these, go to Create in the top left-hand corner—before choosing the form of media you’d like to begin making. When using Mailchimp, you can also use the Creative Assistant to help you produce better campaigns with minimal effort.

3. Track Analytics

When you run an email marketing campaign, tracking success is crucial. And in Mailchimp, you’ve got a selection of tools to help you do precisely that. If you go to Campaigns > Email Analytics, you can discover the click-through rate of your emails. On top of that, you also have the ability to see how many users opened your message.

Mailchimp offers a couple of other handy analytics tools. For example, you can find out how much money you’ve made from each email. Moreover, you can find how many users unsubscribe from your messages.

4. Create and Automate Customer Journeys

As your business grows, you’ll want to automate as much of the manual stuff as possible. And if you use Mailchimp, you will find it much easier to do so. When you expand the Automations tab, you’ll find a wide selection of tools that will let you send welcome emails, order confirmations, and much more.

To use tools like sending emails, you will need to sign up for a paid subscription to Mailchimp. It’s something to keep in mind in your early days, as welcome emails are handy for engaging your audience from the get-go. You might also want to check out some of the best email template builders for freelancers.

Mailchimp: An Excellent Email Marketing Tool to Manage Your Audience

If you’re looking for a beginner-friendly tool to manage your email marketing campaigns, you could do a lot worse than Mailchimp. The service offers plenty of features to get excited about, even if you only have a free plan.

When using Mailchimp, you can automate various communications with your audience. On top of that, you can easily create emails without needing to leave the app. With multi-device capabilities, too, you can keep track of everything on the go

By Danny Maiorca

Sourced from MUO

In News

9 Types of Lead Magnets That Will Quickly Grow Your Email List

December 13, 2022 No Comments

By Vlad Gozman

How do you make sure your messages stand out and get opened? Here are nine types of lead magnets that can help.

If you’re anything like most internet users, your email inbox is crammed full of messages from brands you love, brands you’re interested in and brands you’ve never heard of. There’s no way you can read (or even keep up with) all of them. So, how do you make sure your messages stand out and get opened?

One way is to offer a lead magnet, also known as an opt-in incentive. A lead magnet is a piece of content that’s designed to capture a user’s attention and persuade them to sign up for your email list. There are many different types of lead magnets — from ebooks and white papers to free trials and coupons — and they can be very effective in growing your email list. To help you get started, here’s a list of nine types of lead magnets that you can use to quickly grow your email list:

1. Free trial

Offering a free trial is a great way to get people to sign up for your email list. It’s an especially effective lead magnet for SaaS products, which can be difficult to understand and use without some guidance.

This removes the barrier of entry for potential customers and gives them a chance to try out your product before making a commitment. Of course, this has to be done right. Your free trial should be long enough to give people a chance to use your product and see its value, but not so long that they forget about it.

2. A fun quiz

From fashion to pop culture, quizzes are popular because they’re fun and relatively easy to take. They can also be very effective in growing your email list. For example, you could create a style quiz for a fashion brand or a celebrity trivia quiz for an entertainment website.

Even B2B companies can use quizzes as a lead magnet. For example, a company that sells project management software could create a quiz to help users find the right software for their needs. With no-code quiz makers, you can easily create quizzes, polls and other types of content without any tech skills required.

3. Ebook

Ebooks are a popular lead magnet because they’re relatively easy to produce and can be very helpful to your target audience. For example, if you sell products for new parents, you could create an ebook with tips on how to get your baby to sleep through the night. In comparison, a B2B software company might create an ebook with tips on how to reduce IT costs.

The key to creating a successful ebook lead magnet is to make sure it’s relevant and targeted to your audience. It should also be well-written and informative, with a clear call-to-action at the end.

A white paper is a type of lead magnet that’s more in-depth than an ebook. They’re usually around 2,000 to 5,000 words and cover a specific topic in detail. For example, a company that sells email marketing software might write a white paper on the best ways to improve email open rates.

4. Case study

A case study is a type of lead magnet that tells the story of how one of your customers used your product or service to achieve success. For example, if you sell customer relationship management (CRM) software, you could write a case study about how one of your customers used your software to increase sales by a certain percentage.

Case studies are an effective lead magnet because they provide social proof that your product or service works. They also help to build trust with potential customers by showing that you’re transparent about your successes (and learning experiences).

5. A contest or giveaway

People love free stuff, which is why contests and giveaways are such popular lead magnets, whether it’s a free product or even a gift card.

In order to make sure your contest or giveaway is successful, be sure to promote it across all of your marketing channels and put some thought into the prize. It should be something that’s relevant and valuable to your target audience.

6. A downloadable template

Downloadable templates are another popular type of lead magnet because they’re useful and easy to use. For example, a home decorating website could offer a downloadable room layout template that helps users plan the perfect furniture arrangement. Or a business consulting website could offer a downloadable proposal template that helps users create professional-looking proposals.

7. Coupons or discounts

Coupons and discounts are popular lead magnets because they offer a tangible benefit that’s hard to resist. For example, you could offer a 10% discount on your products or services, or you could offer a free shipping coupon for orders over $50.

To make sure your coupons and discounts are successful, be sure to promote them across all of your marketing channels and make them easy to find on your website. You should also consider putting an expiration date on them to create a sense of urgency.

8. Access to exclusive content

People love feeling like they’re part of an exclusive club, which is why offering access to exclusive content is such an effective lead magnet. Entire business models, like Clubhouse and (originally) Tinder, have been built on this concept.

For example, you could offer exclusive access to blog posts, video content or even physical products. Or you could offer a free membership to your email newsletter for a limited time.

9. A free consultation

A free consultation is a great lead magnet for service-based businesses — like consultants, lawyers and financial advisors. It’s an opportunity to show potential clients what you can do for them and build trust and rapport.

To make sure your free consultation is successful, be sure to promote it across all of your marketing channels, make it easy to schedule on your website. You should also consider offering a free initial consultation to new clients as a way to increase leads and conversions.

If you want to make sure your messages stand out, using one or more of these nine types of lead magnets is a great strategy. Make sure your lead magnets are valuable, easy to use and promoted across all of your marketing channels.

By Vlad Gozman

Sourced from Entrepreneur

In News

TikTok Marketing Statistics and Best Practices for 2022

December 13, 2022 No Comments

By Elena Cucu

With TikTok marketing becoming the next big thing for companies that plan to increase their brand’s visibility through social media, one of the questions that arise is what are some best practices to follow to ensure the resources invested into creating content for this new network have positive results and ROI?

To aid social media managers in understanding to what extent a business can benefit from launching a TikTok account these days and help them make data-based decisions, the team from Socialinsider recently launched a TikTok performance study that revealed a couple of noteworthy and useful insights that we’ll cover moving forward.

1. The average TikTok posting frequency for TikTok in 2022 is 20 videos posted by an account per month, and still increasing

Once some of the most visionary brands that joined TikTok gained massive popularity and success within the platform – brands such as Duolingo or RedBull, for example – more and more businesses started to wonder what they could do to match that.

First of all, every company thinking about joining TikTok must know that on this platform, authenticity and creativity matter the most.

While every brand is obviously unique, and each brand must develop a vision and concept appropriate to its personality, there are, however, some tricks that can be incorporated for an optimized TikTok marketing strategy.

For example, when looking at the recommended number of videos to be published per month, in most successful TikTok accounts, the average number is 20.

With a posting frequency increasing year over year, as data has indicated, the fact that TikTok is a platform with a highly positive ROI has become undeniable.

2. When incorporating a mention, a TikTok video gets a higher view rate

Starting off like a creators’ network – just like Instagram back in the day – TikTok is a great platform on which brands can try leveraging influencer marketing.

Thanks to their more humanized approach and content, creators find connecting with the TikTok user base easier, making it the perfect reason for initiating collaborations.

And speaking of collaborations, for those brands that have joined the platform, data has also indicated this is a rather successful tactic for businesses that are investing in TikTok marketing.

With content viewership being the most important KPI in TikTok’s case, it’s important for brands investing in TikTok to remember that when mentioning someone, a video’s viewership reaches a higher value.

3. When picking the song for a TikTok video, it’s preferable to choose a trendy song instead of using an original sound

There’s no secret by now that a key element when creating a TikTok video is the music chosen. When deconstructing the most popular TikTok videos, one of the most noteworthy insights that pop up is that using popular songs increases the posts’ watch rate.

As a matter of fact, TikTok itself revealed the platform’s algorithm features videos on the “For You Page” based on a series of factors, such as – captions, hashtags, and sounds.

Normally, when offering people something they already showed an interest in – like the case of trending songs, the TikTok algorithm will reward the videos integrating those elements as that will make users stay longer on the platform and interact on it.

Needless to say, for being a platform that displays content based on topics of interest, the keywords and hashtags integrated into captions equally matter greatly.

As a final point to cover – here’s a tip for brands interested in investing in Tiktok marketing from Wave Wild – a TikTok expert:

“Start incorporating SEO into your TikTok marketing strategy — as it’s been found that more users are searching for specific content and are more likely to purchase when looking for solutions to a problem.“

By Elena Cucu

A joyful spreader of marketing-related news. Currently the data geek from Socialinsider. Lately out there making use of the power of storytelling when conducting insightful social media studies. Whether it’s writing about everything social or traveling the world dancing, everything I do is out of passion.

Sourced from readwrite

In News

Zoom Launches New Features to Rival Google Workspace

December 13, 2022 No Comments

By Jade Artry

Email and calendar features include end-to-end encryption, access restricted links, and external emails that expire.

Zoom kicked off its annual Zoomtopia conference by announcing several new features designed to take on big boys: Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

Zoom Mail and Zoom Calendar, expected to be released later this month, will mean business clients will no longer need to leave the Zoom platform to access their calendar, schedule or emails.

Other features announced include upgrades to Zoom Meetings, Team Chat translations, and Zoom Spots — a virtual, video coworking space for remote colleagues.

Zoom Mail and Calendar: How Does It Work?

According to the Zoom blog, Zoom Mail and Calendar Clients (beta) will allow all Zoom users to access their existing email accounts from popular third-party services directly in the Zoom desktop app.

The new feature has been two years is the making and is designed to reduce the number of hours spent “toggling between applications,” a surprisingly common problem according to a recent Harvard Business Review study. The ease in integration means employees can easily create and join meetings in their existing calendar directly from the Zoom sidebar.

Zoom Mail and Calendar Services (beta) — designed for US and Canadian customers — will allow Zoom One Pro and Standard Pro users to set an email account hosted by Zoom for free. In addition, Zoom One Business will include up to 100GB of space, and have the functionality to set up custom domains, but how does it differ from other providers?

According to Zoom’s blog, the new features prioritize security, and given that 70% of cyberattacks in 2022 target business emails, it’s certainly a smart move.

“Zoom Mail Service is designed for small-to-medium businesses without dedicated IT resources who also have a need for enhanced privacy in their business communications, such as law firms or any business needing to share private information within their team. Zoom Mail Service offers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for emails sent directly between active Zoom Mail Service users and expiring emails with access-restricted links for external recipients.”

Zoom Spots Explained

Zoom Spots, expected to be released in 2023, is designed to make remote work easier by tackling loneliness. The new feature, described as a “virtual coworking space for colleagues” allows remote workers to connect in real-time with a space specifically designed to let users work side-by-side, aiding collaboration.

The purpose is to “bridge the gap between workers in different locations, introducing a human-centered approach to virtual interaction.” However, some may argue that the increased screen-time could lead to digital burnout. Still, Zoom seems convinced that it’s the answer to our ever-changing work environment.

“Designed to foster inclusive discussions, bringing the fluid interactions of in-person work to distributed, hybrid teams throughout their workday. Zoom Spots replicates the ‘working alongside’ aspect of an open office for workers and encourages free-form video-first conversations.”

Zoom Meeting Upgrades

With a client base of over 470,000 business customers in the US, Zoom has already taken the business world by storm. But with an increasing demand for more remote work opportunities, there’s a push for companies to improve employee engagement by making work from home more enjoyable, and even easier. Zoom’s answer was to bring more video recording capabilities to their existing product with upgrades including:

Smart Recordings: A feature that allows users to add summaries, next steps, and smart chapters to meetings, so that employees can skip to the moments that matter most.
Improved Meeting Templates: Zoom users can now customize their meetings with improved templates, which will automatically configure the right settings for your stand-up, all-hands or specified meeting.
Avatars: Zoom users can now use customized Avatars to change how they appear on screen.
Video Clips: With the video clip feature, users can record and narrate presentations while sharing their screen.

Which Service Is Better? Zoom vs Google Workspace

Zoom is undeniably one of the biggest web conferencing tools in the world business, but Google Workspace is a giant when it comes to productivity, collaboration, and communication tools. Google Workspace is familiar, adaptable, and scalable, but Zoom’s new calendar and email features could take on Google’s Workspace and Microsoft 365’s monopoly in the productivity space.

If you’re just interested in web conferencing, Zoom is more than equipped to cater to your needs, but brands like GoToMeeting, RingCentral, and Webex are worthy contenders too, as they offer a great range of features and competitive pricing. See how they compare with our dedicated web conferencing quote form.

If you’re stuck between Zoom and Google Workspace, the better product will be the one that best caters to your business’ needs. Google Workspace has plenty of features and currently more integrations than Zoom, but we do like how Zoom is a product that is constantly evolving.

“Our team has built and launched more than 1,500 features and enhancements on the Zoom platform this year, advancing the way people connect with each other, their organization, and their customers — ultimately, opening the doors wide for creativity and collaboration.” – Eric S. Yuan, Zoom CEO.

With its new revamped chat, email functionality, chat translations, additionally collaborative tools, and future plans for virtual coworking spaces Zoom’s future workspace might just give Google Workspace a run for its money.

By Jade Artry

Jade Artry is the Content Manager for Tech.co. A digital marketing specialist with over 12+ years experience, her passion for tech and innovation has driven from life in London to Japan. Her experience and exposure to business and emerging technologies means that she’s equipped with a wealth of knowledge to help readers go from technophobe to tech pro, quicker than a cup of instant ramen.

Sourced from tech.co

In News

10 Tried-and-True Tactics That Can Help Boost Your Online Sales

December 12, 2022 No Comments

By Rolling Stone Culture Council

As the amount of e-commerce channels and online competitors increase, businesses must choose the right tactics to stand out.

The e-commerce landscape has evolved rapidly in recent years as more and more “shoppable” digital platforms emerge. Instead of only being able to make online purchases on a company’s website or Amazon page, consumers can also buy products directly through popular social media apps like Instagram or Facebook.

Though there are more avenues than ever to get discovered by potential buyers, there may also be a smaller chance of getting noticed among a growing sea of competitors. To help businesses stand out, 10 Rolling Stone Culture Council members share their top tactics for getting the most online sales possible.

Creating Trustworthy Content

Brands that consistently create credible content win. Podcasts, livestreams and webinars offer an opportunity for consumers to get to know, like and trust you, your products and your services. A strong call to action within this content drives them to your social media or website and invites them to engage with you in a deeper conversation. This begins the pathway to building a customer relationship. – Traci DeForge, Produce Your Podcast

Keeping Things Simple

Regardless whether you’re selling online or in a brick-and-mortar storefront, it’s so crucial to keep things simple for your customers. If you are an online brand, your goal should always be to simplify the process of acquisition for the customer. The fewer steps they have to take to either make the purchase or get the information they need, the more likely it is that you will convert that sale! – Kelly Schwarze, Indie Film Factory

Conducting Research

More customer-centric marketing results in more sales if you invest in low-cost qualitative research. You don’t need a lot of money to distribute polls or an open form to learn what people want and how they feel about a product. Because data-based research is expensive, turn qualitative research into actions by gaining deeper insight into emotions and how your brand speaks to those emotions. – Jacob Mathison, Mathison Projects Inc.

Leveraging Popular Trends

I see a lot of people calling for authenticity from brands, but nobody ever explains what being “authentic” on social media actually means these days. It’s not about sticking to what you know. Sometimes, it’s necessary to jump on trends and have an understanding of what’s working in everyday pop culture and how your brand can leverage that momentum. – Kathy Schenfelt, MISSMANAGED

Getting to Know Your Customers

Get to know your clients or prospective clients. What do they care about? Do they follow a specific sports team? How can you relate to what they care about and start a conversation? Businesses are often turning to tech to scale sales and are forgetting the human, the relationships and customer service. – Ginni Saraswati, Ginni Media

Combining SEO, Marketing and Specialization

Niche specialization paired with a knockout search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing strategy will help bring in sales. It is imperative to stand out by enabling your target audience to find your brand when conducting an informational, navigational or transactional search online. Say you’re a Detroit-based dispensary. Your shop should rank for potential customer searches like “best dispensary in Michigan.” – Evan Nison, NisonCo

Establishing Credibility

Establishing credibility online is the best way to get more sales. You need to make sure your branding looks solid and trustworthy so that when it’s time to close a sale, your potential customer has something solid to look at. – Christian Anderson (Trust’N), Lost Boy Entertainment LLC

Using Email Marketing

In today’s online world, one of the most effective tactics businesses use to generate sales is email marketing. This is because it’s a channel that people use every day and it has high conversion rates. With this type of marketing, you can send out a newsletter about your products and services. Furthermore, this tactic can provide your business with a list of engaged customers. – Kristin Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC

Acting With Integrity

There are so many hacks online, like those who drop-ship fake products or sell snake oil services. Being authentic and serving with integrity will set any business above the rest. Social proof, great reviews and acting the same in person as you are online as much as possible are key. – Victoria Kennedy, Marisa Johnson

Ensuring Brand Consistency Across Channels

First, focus on creating a strong brand for your customer segment. Your brand should be something that customers can trust and feel good about supporting. Make sure your branding is consistent across all your marketing materials, from your website to your business cards. Employ digital tools to design better brand creatives that deliver a clear message. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day

Feature Image Credit: Urupong — stock.adobe.com

By Rolling Stone Culture Council

Sourced from Rolling Stone

In News

I Moaned About VERO on Twitter, So the Billionaire Founder Rang Me up to Ask What They Can Do Better

December 12, 2022 No Comments

By Andy Day

The other morning I posted an unnecessarily snarky tweet about VERO and a breach of my copyright. That afternoon, I found myself on an hour-long Zoom call with founder CEO Ayman Hariri after he got in touch to discuss what VERO can do to improve.

I’ve written about social media freebooting extensively in the past (1, 2). So-called feature accounts spring up, spreading community vibes, garnering an audience of tens if not hundreds of thousands, only to pivot to selling dropship t-shirts and novelty mugs. Others build followers and then start charging money for featured posts while touting for sponsored posts. The vast majority of these feature accounts post people’s artwork without permission, despite this being against any platform’s terms and conditions — and, let’s not forget, unlawful. It’s a quick way to make easy money from other people’s creativity.

Screengrabs from Instagram — On the left, my Explore page where four of the first 11 posts are feature accounts. On the right, a feature account that takes payments for sharing posts.

At the same time, Instagram and other platform benefits massively, actively encouraging this large-scale copyright infringement by featuring these accounts on the Explore page, and dropping them into people’s “you might also like this” feeds. Instagram must know that these practices are wrong but, given that feature posts account for hundreds of millions of post views each day — and therefore generate vast advertising revenue — it appears to be a policy decision, supported by the legal immunity afforded to them under the DMCA.

Appropriation Should Not Be Normal

For me, Instagram has normalized a culture of appropriation, both casual and blatant, to the point that artists blindly accept these breaches of copyright as they extend their reach, bagging them more followers in the ongoing popularity contest that is social media. I’m one of the few photographers that doesn’t appreciate this new normal, as it frustrates me to see my work enriching others while leaving me with nothing.

At an individual level, it’s small fry — a fraction of a penny in ad revenue that should go to me, not to Instagram. However, at a global level, it’s damaging to artists as, cumulatively, the value inherent in our art is extracted and diverted to Mark Zuckerberg’s immense coffers instead. We’ve accepted this because we’ve been conditioned to compete for attention rather than work as a collective.

VERO: A Different Approach

VERO has been a breath of fresh air, offering a platform that fixes many of the issues that Instagram users have been complaining about for almost a decade. High-resolution images, a chronological feed, more control over sharing, the ability to share different types of content, no ads, only content from people you want to see, and a desktop app. VERO has seen a surge in interest in recent months as Instagram has continued to ostracize photographers and influencers have been gushing about VERO’s superiority.

Like many photographers, I opened an account more than five years ago and lost interest before then rediscovering it in recent months. I don’t put a lot of effort into sharing on social media, but I like the VERO experience, and it feels like a genuine competitor to Instagram. Unlike many other Instagram alternatives that have come and gone, it’s not just for photographers, though photography is at the forefront.

A few days ago, I logged on and discovered an unexpected number of notifications: a “hub” account (as VERO refers to them) had reposted one of my photographs, crediting me and congratulating me on my work. The relentless cynic inside of me sighed and assumed that freebooting had taken next to no time to arrive on VERO, triggering my annoyance. Like every good millennial, I immediately turned to Twitter to voice my disgust and tagged VERO’s account. In my defense, countless people moan at social media companies every day and are met by resounding silence. I have next to no clout, so I figured I was just venting my frustration into the void, maybe prompting a few sympathetic replies to soothe my bad mood.

My unnecessarily snarky tweet triggered a back-and-forth with a couple of photographers with a few trolls jumping on board to inform me that I’m wrong before being soundly schooled by the ridiculously knowledgeable law student and photographer Martin McNeil. What I didn’t expect was a response from Ayman Hariri, the co-founder and CEO of VERO, offering to contact the hub account on my behalf and ask for the post to be removed. A constructive discussion ensued and, to my even greater surprise, Hariri then asked if we could continue on Zoom.

A Zoom Call With the Boss

Four of us — myself, Ayman Hariri, Martin McNeil, and VERO’s Head of Community Tom Hodgson — chatted for an hour, and it would have continued had I not cut it short due to other commitments. I’m aware that I’m in the minority when it comes to having my work posted without my permission and, from what we discussed, it’s apparent that VERO is keen to find a way to give creatives control over their content without impacting people’s desire to share work and have their work shared. Feature accounts are popular for a reason, offering ground-up, community-driven curation of encountered content rather than top-down, algorithm-fed discovery feeds controlled by the platform. As Hariri pointed out, VERO is ad-free — and has stated its commitment to remaining ad-free — so these feature accounts are not generating ad revenue for the platform, as is the case with Instagram.

I put forward my own thoughts on how artists can feel that they have more control, such as the option to mark an image as being available for reposting, or a system of reposting that is built into the app, effectively co-publishing the post, not too dissimilar to Tumblr. No doubt, VERO has pondered these options, and Hariri made it clear that he was wary of adding complexity to a social app that depends on simplicity. We seemed to differ in opinion here, but I’ve not just plowed literally tens of millions of dollars into my own Instagram alternative and, not having the same depth of knowledge, there are likely a host of implications that I’ve not thought through. Maybe my ideas are rubbish. We shall see.

My feed on the rather beautiful VERO desktop app, currently in beta.

A chunk of the discussion was centered around the technological solutions that would give artists more control, with McNeil citing the success of YouTube’s ContentID system — notably, something that it was forced to implement in order to avoid chaos, not a feature that it established out of a noble desire to protect creators (in 2007, Google faced a Federal court claim brought by Viacom who sought $1 billion in damages for secondary infringement, a case that ran for seven years and resulted in an out-of-court settlement. The lawsuit prompted Google to begin work that same year on what would become the ContentID system).

Solutions are out there — Google’s own reverse image search is evidence enough — and McNeil has been part of a collective of musicians, authors, illustrators, and photographers who have been consulted by Meta and others on the topic in ongoing talks. I’ve discussed previously the potential of technology such as that provided by French company IMATAG. None of these will resolve freebooting or intellectual property theft completely, but that’s not a reason to ignore it.

If You Care About Social Media, You Should Care About VERO

There are no quick fixes and our conversation was never going to find any, but the discussion felt productive, and it was refreshing to be able to engage, not just with the heads of a social media company, but with people who appear to be genuinely interested in taking our views on board and working to create a platform that is the best possible version of what it can be. Hariri came across as authentic and deeply invested, not just financially, but in establishing VERO as a social media app that respects its users and their content.

In Zuckerberg, we have a billionaire that is busy destroying his share price thanks to an obsession with technology that even his employees believe is pointless, while his chief underling tells photographers: “Thanks for your help now jog along.” In Hariri, we have a billionaire that loves photography and who has invested a vast sum of money gambling on an idea — an alternative to Instagram — that according to precedent, is destined to fail. I, for one, hope that it doesn’t.

I don’t know whether VERO can find a solution to freebooting, but in our conversation, its intentions seem clear. We need a new normal when it comes to social media, and VERO appears determined to provide it.

By Andy Day

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He’s addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means. andyday.com

Sourced from fstoppers

In News

‘Privacy doesn’t need to be boring’: the story behind WhatsApp’s 3D billboard

December 12, 2022 No Comments

By Amy Houston

Tasked with touting its latest privacy features, WhatsApp’s creative team devised a plan to take the somewhat dry topic and make it exciting. Here’s the story behind the 3D billboard that intrigued the internet.

3D billboards are the hot marketing medium of the moment, and the Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp was the latest brand to hop on the trend. Yet, amid the sea of stunts, this Piccadilly activation stood out and garnered industry-wide praise for its creativity.

“We’re very excited. You think about these things, you envision what you’re going to do, but to see it come to life and be embraced by people means the team is feeling very proud,” says Vivian Odior, global head of marketing at WhatsApp, about the reaction.

“Partly because of the creative prowess behind it, but more importantly the messaging that we were able to bring to our users in a powerful, impactful and memorable way. It was a lot of fun. It was definitely a creative dream.”

The project was a collaboration between Meta’s in-house team Creative X and production company Ntropic. The team quickly realized that if they were going to nail this, they needed something bold. “We fell in love with the concept that technology really is modern-day magic. It gave us a license to represent privacy features such as ‘end-to-end encryption’ and ‘disappearing messages’ in truly astonishing ways,” explains Garrett Jones, creative director at Meta.

“When we began thinking about this iconic media placement, we saw a great opportunity to reinforce the brand’s stance on privacy with a visual metamorphosis of a 200-year-old piece of architecture.”

With the location a huge consideration in this project, digitally altering the building made the ad feel more immersive for viewers. It was a “canvas” adds Odior, stating that “we really lucked up on the space at Piccadilly and we wanted to step up to the challenge. We looked for a creative process that was going to be simple in terms of the message that it delivered so that we could spend most of our time on the technicalities and how we brought it to life.”

It was a super-fast turnaround too, with the billboard taking less than four weeks to complete. “Ntropic applied a cinema-quality VFX team to a very simple idea, and I think the result was pretty magical,” recalls Jones. “Our three-chapter story began with a live moment that reflected the WhatsApp community, then leaped further away from IRL with every step. We suspended reality for thousands of passers-by and sparked a conversation around WhatsApp’s ongoing privacy efforts with a bit of ‘wow’ to break up the day.”

In recent years privacy concerns have been a hot topic for many people, with Meta products often at the centre of debates. “We want people to enjoy that story – it doesn’t need to be a boring write-up,” notes Odior. “These features are exciting, they’re very empowering and knowing that they’re there protecting you is super important. It was another way to have that conversation with our users.”

Understanding how WhatsApp “moves the needle” is key to the conversation. “Do people hear us? Do they believe us? What do they think about us now? When you look at the billboard, the reaction speaks for itself,” adds Odior. “People really reacted, they loved the creativity and they took notice.”

Leaning into creative ways of describing privacy and connecting with people is an approach that the marketer says WhatsApp will be continuing. “Once you get a taste of that, there’s definitely no going back.”

By Amy Houston

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Ecommerce is at a nascent stage and I welcome new players entering the sector: Amazon’s Manish Tiwary

December 9, 2022 No Comments

By Delshad Irani

The global ecommerce juggernaut’s VP and country manager for India, Manish Tiwary, on how Amazon plans to unlock growth.

“As we move towards this goal of the $5 trillion economy, I think we have a few things which make me personally very optimistic. One is the age profile, the income profile and, more importantly, the spirit of entrepreneurship and the resilience which all of us, as consumers and as professionals, have,” says Amazon’s Manish Tiwary

“We spent over nine years here. Internally we always say it’s still Day Zero because we have hardly scratched the surface.” Manish Tiwary, who is the country manager and vice president of Consumer Business at Amazon India, shares his views on the India market, old and new competition, and emerging disruptive trends redefining how consumers shop on the Internet.

Edited excerpts.

What is your view on this festive season or Fifth Quarter, as it’s informally known, and the Indian market in the next few months?

The last few years have been very difficult for everyone personally, professionally and on the income front. In some ways this festive season will unlock our next level of customers and consumption and that’s how we are looking at it. In Amazon, we have a saying: Focus on the input. You can’t control the output. That’s what we’re focused on.

At this stage, the country is sort of leapfrogging and in every way – you look at the digitization, the payment industry, the startup culture, the digital culture. As we move towards this goal of the $5 trillion economy, I think we have a few things which make me personally very optimistic. One is the age profile, the income profile and, more importantly, the spirit of entrepreneurship and the resilience which all of us as consumers and as professionals have.

What is the next big thing coming down the line for the ecommerce Industry? What do you have your eyes on?

To tell you the truth, I think a lot has been spoken about e-commerce but it’s still a very small sector. It will likely be 2-3 percent of the overall retail industry. We spent over nine years here, internally we always say it’s still day zero because we have hardly scratched the surface. We have 100 million plus customers, suppliers all over, but a lot more needs to be done. And I think that’s where our focus is at the customer front.

We are trying very hard to create an experience which will appeal to our customers, which is shopping in regional languages, voice shopping, visual shopping, making the entire services like pay on delivery, enabling every time you deliver not only a box, but the related services around it. So that’s been a focus as far as the customer journey is concerned.

How do you reach out to the next 100 million?

We feel good about the progress we are making. We often speak about the three things which matter: selection, pricing and convenience. While we feel good about the fact that we have 12 crore plus products, there are such good manufacturers and producers of unique products across the country. Again, there also we just scratched the surface. So we’re driving a lot of initiatives like local shops on Amazon, digital kendras to get people online.

I think the customer flywheel and the seller flywheel is one flywheel as you get more selection and more and more customers come – so that’s where I think we feel humbled by the progress we’ve made in the first nine years. But there’s a long way to go and that’s what the focus is on – the next 100 million customers and the next lot of sellers.

You mentioned voice and visual shopping. There’s live commerce, influencer-led commerce and social commerce, which is also leading the charge. And there are old players and new, younger and aggressive players. So what else will we see coming up in terms of how Amazon will capture more of that growth away from its competition?

The industry right now is at a really nascent stage and therefore I do welcome new players entering the sector. Innovation is what will drive growth. That is what has happened over the last decade or so. And that is what is going to happen.

We’ve anchored ourselves around some areas which we believe we can sustainably make a difference to the customer. The first one which is very important is we provide an ecosystem of services. It’s not just about shopping. Think of a Prime member who can experience the best content in terms of Prime video, the best reading in terms of Kindle and the best music in terms of Amazon music, and the best payment options in terms of the identical branded credit card and of course shopping sitting at the base of it. So I think our intent has always been to delight our customers by making this ecosystem of services. We are very focused on that and what differentiated us.

The second one, which we believe we are quite good at, is how we leverage technology. Alexa is something which Amazon has invested heavily in and today it works in several local languages. We worked quite hard to integrate some of these new services into a normal flywheel of shopping and selling. And we believe we have that expertise.

Similarly, if we look at machine learning which is critical as you reach out the next 100 million. People would want far more personalized services. So the way you will see your Amazon homepage will be different from others and AI and machine learning is at the heart of how to achieve this. And finally, in order to make an impact we always talk about the fact that our vision is to change the way India buys and sells. We have to take every ecosystem partner and that’s how you can actually make an impact.

This entire thought of leveraging the ecosystem is something which is very powerful. So as we go through the next decade, we will continue to anchor around customers and around leveraging that ecosystem for them. Technology which will be at the heart of what we do and working with the ecosystem of stores, suppliers and manufacturers.

By Delshad Irani

Sourced from Storyboard 18

In News

Malicious Chrome extensions with 1 million downloads can hijack your browser — delete these now

December 9, 2022 No Comments

By Anthony Spadafora

These malicious extensions commit ad fraud and sell your search data

Just like when adding new apps to your smartphone, you need to be careful when adding the best Google Chrome extensions to your browser. Malicious extensions can be used for ad fraud or even to infect your PC or Mac with malware.

As reported by BleepingComputer (opens in new tab), a new malvertising or malicious advertising campaign has been discovered by the cybersecurity firm Guardio Labs that uses Chrome extensions to hijack web searches and add affiliate links to any sites you visit.

This malvertising campaign has been dubbed “Dormant Colours” by the firm’s security researchers due to the fact that all of the malicious extensions in question offer colour customization options for Chrome. However, the extensions themselves don’t include malicious code when installed, which is how they were able to bypass Google’s security checks and end up on the Chrome Web Store in the first place.

Dormant Colours Chrome extensions

Following its investigation into the matter, Guardio found 30 different versions of these malicious browser extensions on both the Chrome and Edge web stores with more than a million installs combined. As we mentioned before, they have been removed from both web stores but here is the full list just in case

Action Colours
Power Colours
Nino Colours
More Styles
Super Colours
Mix Colours
Mega Colours
Get colours
What colour
Single Colour
Colours scale
Style flex
Background Colours
More styles
Change Colour
Dood Colours
Refresh colour
Imginfo
WebPage Colours
Hex colours
Soft view
Border colours
Colours mode
Xer Colours

How to manually remove Chrome extensions

While all of the malicious extensions listed below have since been removed, you may need to manually remove them from Chrome by clicking on the three dots menu at the top right of your browser. From here, click More and then head to More tools > Extensions. Here you’ll be able to disable the extensions and if you run into any problems, this support document (opens in new tab) can guide you through the entire process.

Hijacking your browser to earn revenue from clicks

In order to trick unsuspecting users into downloading their malicious extensions, the cybercriminals behind this campaign use advertisements or redirects when you visit sites that play videos or offer downloads.

A screenshot of one of the malicious Dorman Colors extensions installing — (Image credit: Guardio Labs)

When you try to watch a video or download the program at these sites, you are redirected to another site that says you must add an extension to continue. If you click either ‘OK’ or the ‘Continue’ button, you are prompted to install a colour-changing extension that looks harmless at first glance.

Once installed though, these extensions redirect users to pages that side-load malicious scripts that show the extensions how to perform search hijacking but they also tell the extension which sites affiliate links can be inserted on. This generates ad revenue for the creator of these malicious extensions but your search data is also sold for profit

These Dormant Colors extensions also have a list of 10,000 sites that can be used to automatically redirect users to the same page but with affiliate links added to their URLs. Any purchase made on one of these sites will generate a commission for the extensions’ developers.

In a blog post (opens in new tab) explaining its findings, Guardio provided further insight on the potential of this malicious extension campaign to expand further, saying:

“This campaign is still up and running, shifting domains, generating new extensions, and re-inventing more color and style-changing functions you can for sure manage without. Adding to that, the code injection technique analyzed here is a vast infrastructure for mitigation and evasion and allows leveraging the campaign to even more malicious activities in the future.”

How to stay safe from malicious browser extensions

A man looking at his computer in disbelief due to internet issues — (Image credit: fizkes/Shutterstock)

If you plan on adding any new extensions to your browser, you should probably have one of the best antivirus software solutions installed on your laptop or PC to protect you from becoming infected with malware or having your data stolen.

Apart from this, you should only use trusted sources like the Chrome Web Store or the Microsoft Edge Add-ons store to install new extensions. While bad extensions do slip through the cracks from time to time, you’re still safer installing browser extensions from an official store than from the web.

At the same time, you should always ask yourself whether or not you really need an extension before installing it. For instance, if an extension seems too good to be true, then it probably is and isn’t worth installing. You also want to periodically go through the list of extensions in your browser and delete any you no longer use while keeping a close eye out for new ones you don’t remember installing.

Browser extensions give you a whole new way of customizing your browser and adding new features to it. However, just like with apps, cybercriminals often create fake extensions for their own gain that are capable of committing ad fraud or even infecting your computer with a virus.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Anthony Spadafora

Sourced from tom’s guide