editor, Author at Mediastreet

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Why Wasting Time Is Good for Design

March 4, 2022 No Comments

Wasting your time may be an example of exaptation, where traits evolved to serve one function end up serving another.

When I was 17, I read about the first natural language A.I., named SHRDLU, created by Terry Winograd way back in 1968. The user could talk to it about various shapes in a block world and it could respond and manipulate the world with impressive comprehension.

What struck me was how SHRDLU died. Operating systems back then were updated frequently and were rather bespoke. Each update caused a type of bit rot in existing programs, making various functions inaccessible. Every year or two, someone would try to have a conversation with SHRDLU, and it would error out earlier and earlier, becoming more and more aphasic and finally mute.

I found the slow death of this A.I. tragic, dramatic, and gripping. I tried to resurrect its code, and like so many others, I failed. There was no point to any of this. It was only a curiosity for me — some might call it a waste of time.

But what I’ve found over and over is that the things you waste your time on lead to your best designs. This random inspiration and diverse interests approach to innovation and design is a repeatable technique, and I’m certainly not the first to say so. Nobel prize winners are about three times as likely as the general public to have an artistic avocation. It may also explain why the concept of a liberal arts education has endured for nearly two millennia.

Humboldt incorporated subjective emotional experience into his scientific works thanks to conversations with his friend Goethe. Elon Musk’s use of Iain M. Banks’s ship naming conventions is evidence of some wasted, or possibly well-spent, time reading the Culture series. Newton was a poet. Galileo was a painter. Before Oprah launched one of the most successful book clubs ever, there was Oprah’s love of reading.

Turn Wasted Time Into a Resource

With the modern non-stop pressure to produce and the inundation of “productivity hacks,” I can be as hard on myself as anyone for wasting time. In order to turn a waste of time into a valuable design resource, you need to be analytical about your consumption, but only after the fact. That’s how you extract utility in the future. In Book 2 of The Analects, Confucius said, “Learning without thought is pointless; thought without learning is dangerous.”

Firstly: Enjoy. Go toward what interests you. Don’t judge yourself. Give yourself permission to abandon a book halfway through and start three more simultaneously. Spend an hour trying to take a photo of a bumblebee and fail entirely. Watch reality TV and watch the ads too. Learn to weld without having a welding project in mind. Eat a croissant.

Secondly: Be retrospectively analytical. You are always learning, even if you don’t notice at the time. Take a moment to think about how you’ve chosen to spend your time and what you learned. Maybe you learned how a novel holds (or doesn’t hold) your attention, how a new language-invariant interaction from a video game crosses cultural barriers, or lessons in teamwork from whirligig beetles. This analysis sometimes happens years after the experience, or you may revisit the same experience several times at different intervals and draw other lessons from it.

Finally: Always create. You will go through production and consumption cycles. But you can go through consumption cycles with no guilt if you know you will have a production cycle in the future. Without the confidence that you will create, you will always fear being only a consumer, a critic, or a viewer. With the confidence that you have created and will create, you can waste your time delightfully and without compunction.

In the End, Wasting Time Can Lead to Your Success

Wasting your time may be an example of exaptation, where traits evolved to serve one function end up serving another. In 2010, I sketched out a documentary series that was ultimately my inspiration for MasterClass. I wrote a list of possible instructors, and in looking back on that list, I see Annie Leibovitz, Hans Zimmer, and James Cameron, all instructors who now have their own MasterClass. I also found J.D. Salinger, Steve Jobs, Trent Reznor, and, strangely, Terry Winograd.

After working with my co-founder, David Rogier, and our team to build and shape the concept into MasterClass, I took a year off, travelled to 28 different countries, and became interested in for-credit education. The space seemed crowded and hard to break into, but in pondering why SHRDLU was so good at natural language responses, compared to, let’s say, Siri, I realized how valuable a highly-constrained universe is for teaching. And introductory topics are well-constrained universes. This was the kick I needed to get out and start Outlier.org.

I might have called reading about an early A.I. and getting emotional over it a waste of time, but looking back, it’s hard to think there isn’t value that it provided in my most recent companies. Your interest and development of a trait like skill in music may end up serving another function, like writing dialogue the way Aaron Sorkin does, like music. For all you know, your waste of time will turn into your next big creation.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Aaron Rasmussen

Founder and CEO, Outlier.org@AaronIRasmussen

Sourced from Inc.

In News

How To Use Colour To Improve Your Conversion Rate

March 3, 2022 No Comments

By Jon Clark

Wait, isn’t colour on a website just used for aesthetics? No. Colour is used for so much more than the attractiveness of a website.

Research shows that colour is crucial in shaping customers’ perceptions of a brand. That’s why some of the most successful companies put in a lot of effort to find the right colours to represent their brand. It keeps its branding consistent everywhere, especially in its communication channels.

So, how exactly can you use colour for conversion optimization on your site and increase sales? Let’s take a closer look.

Pick The Right Colours To Convey Brand Personality

Colours help shape a brand’s perception. One study even showed that colours evoke and elevate people’s emotions. What’s more, most people closely associate memories and experiences with specific colors. So, choosing the right colours will ensure your brand remains at the forefront of your customers’ minds.

Take, for example, someone who grows up in a happy family home with orange walls, whose favourite restaurant has orange chairs, and who’s won every soccer game in an orange jersey. Because of these memories, this person will associate joy and success with the colour orange.

You want people to connect a colour or a combination of tones to your brand. Picking the right shades can improve your brand’s perception.

Be careful when selecting colours for an international brand, though. A colour that one audience thinks of in a positive light could be perceived negatively in another due to cultural differences. Carefully examine the perceptions your colour choices have in different cultures, so you don’t adversely affect your conversion rates.

Categorize Products By Different Colours

Think of how easy it is to find a page on a file binder with coloured tabs. That’s how easy it’ll be for your potential customers when you use colour to categorize different product pages. Furthermore, it makes your website look more organized and user-friendly.

When picking the best colours for product pages, make sure they align with the website’s overall colour theme because doing so will reinforce your brand’s perception.

Pro tip: Use colours that reflect your products’ personalities for the product pages.

Make Your Call To Action Pop More With Bright Colours

The CTA represents the last part of the conversion funnel just before web visitors become leads for your sales team. If a visitor can’t locate the CTA button, all your marketing efforts will go to waste because they won’t do what you intended them to do once they got to your site.

For example, if your “Buy Now” button blends in with the website background colour, then a web visitor may not find it during the checkout process. This will force them to click away to find a site where the entire process is more seamless, lowering your e-commerce conversion rate. To avoid this, make sure your CTA buttons are bright enough so your website visitors don’t miss them.

Best Colours For CTA Buttons

One study showed that red CTA buttons increase your conversion rate more than green ones. However, not all businesses go by this study. Companies like Spotify and Evernote, for example, still have high conversion rates with green CTA buttons.

You should choose a colour that works well for your brand. Some of the best colours you can use for CTAs are blue, yellow, orange and black.

Make The Colour Of Your CTAs More Pronounced

Once you find the right colour for your CTAs, check their effect against the background colour. Are they contrasting or do they blend in? If the CTAs have a contrasting colour to the background, they’ll pop out more, which is precisely what you’re aiming for.

Contrast can either be high or low. High-contrast colours (complementary) tend to pop out more, while low-contrast colours (analogous) are subtle yet still eye-catching. The more the CTA draws attention to itself, the more likely the customer is to click on it and the higher the chances of increasing your conversion rate.

However, the best colour contrasts won’t matter if your customers don’t like the colour combinations. You need to conduct an A/B test to find out which colour combinations they prefer to increase your average conversion rate.

Boost Your Conversion Rate Optimization To Reach Your Conversion Goals

Colour is often overlooked by most businesses when trying to boost a website’s conversion rate, but if you choose the right colours to represent your brand, you’ll see a correlated boost in your conversion rates.

Over and above choosing the correct colours for your overall website and even product pages, make sure potential buyers can’t miss your CTA buttons because all your marketing boils down to this.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Jon Clark,

Managing partner at Moving Traffic Media, a New York digital agency offering SEO, PPC and Amazon marketing services.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Twitter to label all state-affiliated Russia media

March 3, 2022 No Comments

By Samuel Benson

The latest steps come as Russian disinformation spreads.

Twitter will begin labelling content from Russian state-affiliated media websites, the company announced Monday, amid a flood of Russian-backed disinformation related to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The company began labelling and de-amplifying official Russian media accounts in 2020, Twitter said. The additional action announced on Monday applies to individual Twitter accounts that share links from those state-affiliated sites.

“Since the invasion, we’ve seen more than 45,000 Tweets a day from individuals on Twitter sharing these links — meaning that now the overwhelming majority of content from state-affiliated media is coming from individuals sharing this content, rather than accounts we’ve been labelling for years as state-affiliated media,” Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby told POLITICO in an email.

Twitter maintains a continually updated list of media organizations belonging to the Russian Federation and 20 other countries, and the new label will automatically apply to any tweeted URLs from a designated state-affiliated media website.

The social media company also announced it will continue to de-amplify articles from these websites by barring the URLs from the platform’s top search function. Twitter also will not “recommend” tweets that include articles from the sites.

The move comes after Russia used “false flag” operations to justify its invasion of Ukraine, including false information disseminated through social media to portray Ukraine as the aggressor. Last week, reports from state-affiliated Russian media falsely reported a Ukrainian civilian genocide, a claim that went “unchecked and unchallenged.” Similar Russian-backed falsehoods compiled millions of likes, comments and shares on Twitter and Facebook, a POLITICO review showed.

Twitter blocked advertisements from all accounts owned by Russia Today and Sputnik in 2017. In 2019, the company banned all state-backed media advertising and political advertising.

Feature Image Credit: The company began labelling and de-amplifying official Russian media accounts in 2020, Twitter said. | Matt Rourke/AP photo, file

By Samuel Benson

Sourced from POLITICO

In News

4 Critical Marketing Techniques You Need to Know When Building Your Brand Online

March 3, 2022 No Comments

By Derick Quinanola

Thinking of new ways to promote your business? Looking to find an efficient marketing strategy to increase sales or brand awareness?

If your business is banking on old forms of marketing – print, broadcast, word of mouth – you won’t maximize the potential of your business, no matter how good you claim your products and services are.

In reality, for every successful business, using different online marketing techniques is what sets them apart from the rest of the competition.

What are online marketing techniques?

Online marketing techniques are forms of marketing and advertising that utilize the power of the internet to promote your brand to audiences across different platforms.

Does your start-up have any chance when going toe-to-toe against more reputable brands?

Of course, it does!

The good news is, when it comes to online marketing, it’s never too late to get in on the action. Social media platforms and search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, making online marketing an ever-changing field that can either help give your business an edge or push you further down the hole.

With so many different online marketing techniques available, how will you know which will work best for your business?

To help you get started, here are four online marketing techniques you can use for your business to sustain success in the long run.

1. Social media marketing

Social media marketing is an avenue where your business can gain visibility beyond your local area and connect directly with customers anywhere. Your business doesn’t even have to venture into all the different social media channels to reap positive outcomes.

These days, everybody expects a business to be active on at least one social media platform. A GlobalWebIndex survey found that over 54% of customers use social media to research a brand before making a purchase or recommendation.

Now, before you dive in and create a business page, remember that social media marketing is more than just posting any old content.

We know how tempting this can be, considering that creating a business page won’t cost you a penny.

So, where do you start? Like in all business strategies, the probability of success would be greater if you have a plan. A plan gives you a guide on what you need to do, provides you a measuring stick to gauge the success of your social media goals, and layout alternatives ahead in time just in case plan A fails to live up to expectations.

When thinking of a social media plan, make sure to include the following:

Set goals that align with the S.M.A.R.T. goals framework
Perform competitive research
Create a social media calendar
Conduct a social media audit (only for those with existing social media accounts)
Don’t settle on mediocre visual content
Mix up your visual content

* If you’re having difficulty finding a social media platform to promote your business online, your best bet would be to go on Facebook. This won’t always guarantee success, but this social media giant has everything you’ll need starting with their free tools and over 2.89 billion active monthly users.

2. Content marketing

This form of marketing takes on different forms. As per the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating valuable, relevant, and consistent content geared to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – ultimately to drive profitable customer actions.

When it comes to content marketing, always remember that it’s a long-term process. It gives you a chance to indirectly promote your brand by providing educational content to your potential customers, becoming an industry leader in your niche, and helping you rise in search results.

At first glance, you might think content marketing is all about writing informative blogs, but what we know is that people consume content differently.

To give you an idea, here are different ways (aside from blog writing) that you can use to help you get started on your content marketing strategies:

How-to videos and tutorials
Live broadcasts
Infographics
Podcasts
Host webinars
Photoblog

3. Email marketing

What better way to build trust with your customers than through email marketing? This method of online marketing is effective for both start-ups and reputable brands as you get to interact with your audience directly.

Think of it this way, how often do users change their personal emails or even virtual mailboxes for that matter? Presumably not that often, making a customer’s email a valuable piece of information to acquire.

The biggest disadvantage when it comes to email marketing is trying to find a way to increase your email list and the timing of when you send your emails. Some of the methods to increase your email list include using lead magnets, incentives, or cold-calling.

For the timing of your emails, the frequency varies depending on the niche and goals of a business, but in terms of recipient preference, the sweet spot for over 61% of users is receiving at least one promotional email in a month.

Once you grow your email list, make sure to create personalized and segmented emails.

Personalized emails can range from adding the customer’s name to pointing out some of their recent activity on your site. This will make your customers feel more connected and appreciated by your brand, resulting in an immediate increase in trust and customer retention.

Chances are, your customers don’t see eye-to-eye with you on every topic. If you email them irrelevant content, this will lead to lower conversion rates, or even worse, an unsubscribing customer.

This is where segmented emails come in handy. When you segment your email lists in groups, it makes it easier for you to tailor content that’s sure to keep them wanting more.

Take this, for example: say your business sells clothing for men and women. If sales are lower on one end, say the male side, sending coupons or limited offers of male apparel to your female audience wouldn’t generate much revenue and could be, at times, annoying for them to receive.

4. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is an organic online marketing strategy businesses use to gain traffic to their site with the main goal of trying to consistently land on page one of a search result.

Similar to content marketing, SEO takes time before you can reap its benefits. With different businesses looking to outrank your landing pages for a particular keyword, fine-tuning your SEO efforts become an everyday task, even with the help of some of the best SEO tools. This, in turn, makes some businesses hesitant to invest any time and resources towards it.

But once you can land on page one, the amount of visibility and revenue your business makes is immeasurable. The following data can support its claims:

Web searchers are 8.5x more likely to click an organic listing than a paid ad.
90% of respondents in an Oberlo survey said they were likely to click on the first page of a search result.
SEO drives more than 1000% more traffic than organic social media

In general, SEO strategies can be subdivided into four parts:

Keyword research
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO

“Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.” – Warren Bennis

By Derick Quinanola

Guest author: Derick Quinanola is a writer and digital marketer who is passionate about helping businesses maximize their virtual presence through engaging social media campaigns and dynamic content marketing to capture the attention of diverse audiences. He is based in the Philippines but has a global mindset and continues to find innovative methods to help businesses thrive in an increasingly digitized economy.

Sourced from JeffBullas.com

In News

The Professional’s Guide to SEO: Advanced SEO Strategy Sneak Preview

March 3, 2022 No Comments

By: Felicia Crawford

If you know Moz, you know the Beginner’s Guide to SEO. It’s the resource marketers the world over have used to learn SEO and get a taste for its potential and power. And while we offer a delectable buffet of guides in our content smörgåsbord, there hasn’t been one comprehensive resource to serve as a follow-up for those who’ve mastered the beginner level. That’s why we’ve developed the Professional’s Guide to SEO: a guide that will help folks take the next step, preparing them with all the baseline knowledge they need to practice SEO in a professional capacity.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing chapters and/or chapter excerpts here on the blog, with the full guide releasing at the end. Yes, we want to whet your appetite, but we’d also love to hear your feedback — if there’s something you know in your heart of hearts we should cover, get at us on Twitter (@moz) and let us know!

First up, we’re sharing a portion of our chapter on advanced SEO strategy. Brought to you by the inimitable Kavi Kardos, Moz alumni and SEO Manager at Automox, this chapter looks at getting started with a next-step strategy, tactics to implement, and resources for levelling up.

Bon appétit!

Advanced SEO Strategy

Getting started: SEO priorities & plausibility

In the beginning stages, it’s easy to audit a site and come up with long lists of pie-in-the-sky ideas for content, link building, technical, and so on. Most sites, especially those that have never been handled by an advanced SEO, need a lot of work, and the new strategist arriving on the scene often gets pulled in several directions by various teams seeking their expertise.

Prioritization of the tasks you’ll undertake and the tactics you’ll employ is a vital first step in developing an advanced SEO strategy. And it’s important to work on this step thoughtfully — ask questions, be realistic, and involve as many stakeholders as you’re able to meet with. A misstep in the prioritization stage can throw off your schedule for the whole quarter and cause important tasks to fall through the cracks.

Try a SWOT analysis

It may feel old-fashioned, but the classic SWOT analysis (identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a great way to frame your initial site audit because it will familiarize you with both the website itself and the competitive landscape in which it lives. As you explore both, jot down your thoughts in a Google Doc that you can return to whenever you discover something new.

Strengths: What is already working well? What high-value terms does the site already rank for? What high-authority sites already link to you? Does the site already score well in page speed and performance tests or avoid other common technical snafus?
Weaknesses: What is the site lacking? Is it difficult to navigate? Are its sitemaps and robots.txt file messy? Is the organization lacking insight because it doesn’t make use of basic reporting tools like Google Analytics? Does it have a lackluster content strategy?
Opportunities: What’s on the horizon that could be capitalized on as part of your strategy? Is there a highly valuable asset that’s already been created and is now begging for distribution? Is a tough competitor lagging behind in a certain content area?
Threats: What’s on the horizon that could be harmful to your search visibility? Is there an up-and-coming competitor with an obvious wealth of SEO resources? Is there a platform migration looming? Is the site likely to fall victim to the next algorithm update?

Being conscious of the site’s current standings, both in the SERPs and in terms of its overall health, will help you prioritize tactics based on urgency. The most dire threats should usually be addressed first, while minor weaknesses can often be moved to your “nice to have” list.

Assess the organization’s search maturity

Regardless of how urgent the need is or how simple a task seems to you, the difficulty of getting your SEO recommendations implemented will vary from organization to organization. The plausibility of executing your strategy depends largely on the organization’s search maturity, or how fully they understand and integrate SEO at all levels of the business.

The concept of search maturity was developed by Heather Physioc of VMLY&R, and her guidance on diagnosing where your organization falls along the maturity spectrum is an absolute must-read at this stage in the strategic planning process. Not only does using this model help you solidify your recommendations; it also makes it more likely that those recommendations will see the light of day because it allows you to communicate with stakeholders on their level.

How much buy-in can you expect from your department, your direct manager or client contact, and the rest of the larger team all the way up to the C-suite? If SEO has been socialized across the organization and is already a part of the company culture, you can probably expect your recommendations to be met with excitement. If not, you may experience some pushback when asking for necessary resources. At an agency, you’ll be dealing with the confines of existing SEO packages as well as the amount of time you’re expected to spend on each client each month. As an in-house SEO, you may have more autonomy but must often answer to more stakeholders and navigate more red tape.

How difficult will it be to get recommended changes implemented? If the content team has an existing calendar that tends to be jam-packed, new assets may not get slotted in as quickly as you’d like. If the web devs are slammed, working back-end fixes into their sprint cycle can be challenging.

What resources will be available for SEO? Resources come in many forms, and the most scarce of them tend to be headcount and tools. Are there writers on staff who are capable of creating best-in-class content? Does the marketing team have dedicated developers, or are the folks with access to the site’s code in a totally separate department? What tool subscriptions already exist, and how much budget is available to add to your tool kit?

Create an impact vs. effort matrix

Once you know which areas of the site need the most help the fastest, it’s time to make a list of recommended tactics and further prioritize that list by likely impact weighed against required effort, based on what you learned in the previous step.

Create a matrix like the one above, perhaps in a meeting with relevant stakeholders. The likely impact of a tactic could be small, medium, or large, and the same scale will apply to the level of effort required to complete it. Plot each planned tactic into its own cell. Your list of tactics for the quarter, the year, or whatever time frame is dictated by your organization can include granular tasks as well as larger-scale projects — just make sure you’ve broken down any bigger ideas into pieces that make sense within the plot.

Taking urgency into account, tackle the tactics that will have the highest impact and require the lowest effort first. You may also want to set in motion some more demanding, high-impact tactics at kick-off if they can be chipped away at simultaneously. Low-impact, high-effort tactics can often be re-evaluated.

By: Felicia Crawford

I’m Felicia, and I’m the Moz content marketing manager. True fact: Neil Diamond tweeted at me once. It’s framed on my desk.

Sourced form MOZ

In News

Facebook blocks Russian state media from advertising on the platform

March 2, 2022 No Comments

By Emma Roth

State-led media outlets are barred from content monetization

Facebook is blocking state-run Russian media outlets from advertising and monetizing content on the platform amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine (via Reuters).

“We are now prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy announced on Twitter. “These changes have already begun rolling out and will continue into the weekend.” He also noted that Facebook will continue to add labels to “additional Russian state media,” an initiative the platform started for all state-controlled media outlets in 2020.

Facebook has since established a Special Operations Center to help the network monitor and respond to the developing conflict. It also rolled out a “one-click tool” in Ukraine that lets users lock their profiles, preventing anyone but friends from viewing their posts, photos, and Stories — Facebook launched the same feature during the crisis in Afghanistan last August.

Russia already partially blocked access to Facebook in the country, with the Russian government claiming the platform “restricted” four accounts associated with Russian media outlets. The country’s tech and communications regulator ordered the social network to stop fact-checking and labeling content from state-owned media, but Facebook refused to comply.

“We are closely monitoring the situation in Ukraine and will keep sharing steps we’re taking to protect people on our platform,” Gleicher added.

By Emma Roth

Sourced from The Verge

In News

Russia Is Now Blocking Twitter

March 2, 2022 No Comments

By David Gilbert

Facebook Messenger is also down as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative around Ukraine.

The Kremlin has begun blocking access to Twitter, hours after the social media company stopped Russians from advertising on the platform.

The decision to block access to Twitter followed Russia’s move hours earlier to restrict access to Facebook in the country as the government seeks to control the narrative around its invasion of Ukraine.

The Twitter block was first reported Saturday morning by NetBlocks, a digital advocacy group that tracks internet outages across the globe.

“Network data show that access to the Twitter platform and back-end servers are restricted on leading networks including Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline, and MegaFon as of 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning,” the company wrote on its website.

Alp Toker, the director of NetBlocks, told VICE News that the decision to restrict access to the Twitter platform was to be expected, but that the social media company’s decision to stop the ability to advertise on its platform was the trigger that forced the Kremlin to act.

“Although it’s been a long time coming, this tit-for-tat seems to have pushed it over [the edge],” Toker said, adding that while the restrictions can be circumvented with virtual private networks (VPNs), most regular users won’t be able to access these services.

“The restrictions are targeted so circumvention remains possible through the use of VPN services,” Toker said. “However, for casual and non-technical users this will offer little respite.”

There were about 9 million Twitter users in Russia in January 2021, according to Statista.

The company did not immediately respond to VICE News’ request for comment about the government blocking access to its platform, but it posted the following statement on Friday night.

“We’re temporarily pausing advertisements in Ukraine and Russia to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it.”

On Friday, Roskomnadzor, the government body that regulates telecommunications and the internet in Russia accused Facebook of being involved in violations of the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.

Later, Facebook spokesperson Nick Clegg tweeted that the Russian government ordered the company to stop fact-checking Russian state-owned media organizations on its platform.

“We refused,” he added. “Ordinary Russians are using our apps to express themselves and organize for actions. We want them to continue to make their voices heard, share what’s happening and organize.”

The statement from Roskomnadzor didn’t make clear what exactly the restrictions would look like, but on Saturday morning some social media users began complaining that Facebook’s messaging app Messenger was no longer working.

Toker confirmed to VICE News that Messenger was facing similar restrictions.

The Kremlin is pursuing a two-pronged approach to controlling the narrative around the Ukraine invasion. While at home it’s seeking to stop citizens from accessing information outside state-run platforms on social media, in Ukraine it appears to be trying to cut off internet access entirely.

On Saturday morning, there was a significant disruption to Ukraine’s internet backbone provider GigaTrans, which supplies connectivity to many other networks

Feature Image Credit: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his address to the nation at the Kremlin in Moscow on February 21, 2022. (Photo: ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

By David Gilbert

Follow David Gilbert on Twitter.

Sourced from Vice

In News

Why So Many Entrepreneurs Don’t Know Their Digital Marketing ROI

March 2, 2022 No Comments

By Timothy Carter

Not every metric can be pinpointed exactly, but you can certainly come much closer than intuition or an educated guess.

Let’s place a bet.

Currently, 55 percent of small business owners are planning on investing more in their digital marketing strategies. It’s unclear what percentage of businesses owners are already investing in digital marketing, since this is a broad concept that’s difficult to precisely define. But let’s assume at least three-quarters of existing businesses are spending money on digital marketing in some form. Most of these businesses have been investing in digital marketing for months, years or even decades.

So, if you asked them individually, what percentage of these business owners would be able to tell you what their marketing return on investment (ROI) is?

Do you think it’s 90 percent? Or closer to 80 percent?

The exact numbers vary depending on what strategy you’re examining, but 44 percent of businesses have no way to measure their social media ROI. And those that can measure their social media ROI may not be doing it consistently or effectively.

Extend that concept to the rest of the digital marketing realm. Why do so few entrepreneurs know their marketing ROI when it’s such an important concept for long-term marketing success?

Apathy

Often the problem is entrepreneurial apathy. Some entrepreneurs simply don’t care what their ROI is. But why is this the case? There are several possibilities. For starters, entrepreneurs may underestimate just how valuable ROI is in a digital marketing context. If they don’t understand its significance or how to use it, they’re not going to care about measuring it.

Other entrepreneurs may be more interested in achieving some specific goal or milestone. If they’re extremely committed to reaching a follower count of 100,000, for example, it doesn’t matter how much it costs to get there.

Lack of tools

Some entrepreneurs claim that they can’t measure ROI or don’t measure ROI because they don’t have access to the tools that would allow them to do this. Obviously, you’ll need some way to track and measure your progress in digital marketing if you want to calculate your ROI.

But there’s really no excuse for this. Plenty of free tools exist to help business owners determine their marketing effectiveness and boost their campaigns — and most of them are ridiculously easy to use. Google Search Console, for example, allows entrepreneurs to get an in-depth look of how their website is performing and how it appears in search engines. If you choose to market with a social media platform like Facebook, you’ll have a chance to review large amounts of important performance metrics in the back end, no extra fee or subscription required.

The nebulous nature of ROI

A legitimate grievance that entrepreneurs have is that ROI can be hard to measure exactly. You may know how many conversions you’re getting or how much your organic traffic has grown, but can that really tell you what your return on your investment is?

Consider:

Ambiguous costs: How much are you spending on marketing, really? If you’re working with a marketing agency, you might have a straightforward monthly cost. But even then you’ll need to calculate all the hours you’re spending on administration and other details and calculate the costs to the business.
Misleading data points: Some data points you measure won’t be clear or provide you with an accurate assessment of your marketing effectiveness. For example, your conversion rate might be high, but if the people filling out your forms aren’t buying your products, your ROI might be lower than you think.
Unmeasurable impact: Digital marketing can affect your return in a variety of different ways, including some that are almost impossible to measure. For example, how can you prove that your brand visibility or reputation are improving?

ROI as a secondary metric

I touched on this concept earlier, but it has a potentially bigger impact. Some entrepreneurs see ROI not as a primary metric for evaluating marketing campaign success, but as a secondary metric. For example, think about SEO. SEO is a strategy designed to help businesses rank higher in search engines. So it’s reasonable to suggest that the number one goal here is to reach rank one for a target keyword. However, it’s possible to reach rank one and still end up with a negative ROI; if you’re spending more money than you’re making in a given strategy, you shouldn’t consider that strategy a success. Similarly, you may end up in a position much lower than rank one while maintaining a very high ROI.

The solution

In my opinion, ROI is the most important metric to know for digital marketing success. If you can’t say, definitively, whether or not your marketing efforts are working, your campaign could actually be hurting your brand. And, no matter what, you’ll be missing out on the full potential of your digital marketing strategies. All business owners partaking in digital marketing should monitor their ROI closely and consistently. Otherwise, all your investments and efforts could end up being a waste.

By Timothy Carter

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor

Timothy Carter is the CRO of the Seattle digital marketing agency SEO.co. He has spent more than 20 years in the world of SEO and digital marketing leading, building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and driving growth from websites and sales teams.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

Where 2022 Ad Spend Is Going (And How To Get Ahead Of The Trends)

March 1, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

There is a multitude of factors to consider and important decisions to make when creating an advertising budget. Aside from choosing the right channels and tactics to meet their own strategic goals, a brand must take the state of its industry as well as the latest marketing and advertising trends into account to create ad campaigns that will stand up against those of its competitors.

Brands don’t want to jump on any old bandwagon or social platform without a good reason to do so, and this year, they’ll once again be seeking the right avenues to reach their target markets. From diversifying with an integrated multichannel approach to doubling down in a specific medium such as digital, television, print or social, the options are endless.

With their insight into where ad dollars are being spent in real time, the members of Forbes Agency Council can forecast where brands will be spending their budgets this year. See their predictions below, along with good ways for brands to get ahead of these trends.

1. Digital Marketing To More ‘Connected’ Consumers

Digital marketing is something that cannot be ignored! The pandemic has made people even more connected to their devices with the demands of remote work and staying in touch with family and friends. This shift has made digital marketing a great vehicle to get your brand noticed by your target consumer in a cost-effective manner. – Thomas Morganelli, Centipede Digital

2. Connected TV Ads Informed By First-Party Data

Where your media dollars are spent really depends on your marketing goals. One area where we see continued growth is connected TV. There is real power that comes with the ability to serve up video on the big screen in your target’s living room. Combine that opportunity with the strength of first-party data, and it’s clear why CTV offers opportunities unavailable on other marketing channels. – Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy

3. Online And Offline Platforms With Consistent Media Availability

Ad dollars will continue to increase on digital platforms that are optimizing their ad strategies, such as TikTok. There will be a continuous amount of spending on offline platforms that follow the supply-and-demand curve, where media availability is consistent. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC

4. Higher-Funnel Digital Efforts With Advanced Tracking

Ad dollars will be spent in digital, but more specifically in higher-funnel efforts where advanced tracking and attribution are now showing true impact and ROI. Think about over-the-top content, streaming video, audio and more, which were once stuck measuring impressions or maybe view-throughs. Agencies implementing better tracking systems will be able to show the trickle-down effect of these higher-funnel efforts and get better buy-in for a full-funnel digital investment. – Brian Walker, Statwax

5. Niche Targeting Via OTT And CTV

I see a switch from spend on social and search to a surge in OTT and CTV advertising. With the level of understanding of these mediums growing, the barriers to entry are not so high now. For companies with the right level of budget, both OTT and CTV present fantastic growth opportunities and the ability to reach new markets in this increasingly niched-out world. – Christopher Tompkins, The Go! Agency

6. Digital And Social Media Advertising Strategies

Ad dollars will definitely be best spent this year on digital and social media. Brands can get ahead by starting to implement result-driven social media advertising strategies. There are more users on social media than ever before, and platforms such as Facebook and Instagram give businesses the opportunity to yield a considerable return on ad spend and stay profitable year-round. – Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc

7. Small-Budget Programmatic Buying On CTV

2022 will see lots of ad dollars move into the CTV space. Many major brands will take their first steps into CTV, especially as they discover how effectively smaller budgets can operate in this less-crowded space. With programmatic buying and audience-targeting tools, it’s possible to make a big splash in CTV, and I expect we’ll see lots of 2022’s ad dollars migrating in this direction. – Jason Wulfsohn, AUDIENCEX

8. The Right Social Media Platforms For Narrow Targets

The growing addiction to social media in all the age groups and interest groups makes social media the best place for marketing investment. Social media ads allow for narrow targeting, which helps increase brand awareness among the target audience, and thus conversions. Agencies should identify the right social media platforms for their clients and develop a focused marketing plan to exploit this trend. – Ajay Prasad, GMR Web Team

9. Specific Content And Content Creators

While the easy answer is “digital,” I think “content” is more accurate. Forget about which screen, or even which delivery method, will be dominant—consumers are becoming more tied to specific content and content creators. This is a meaningful shift in consumer behavior and an opportunity for agile and innovative marketers to find their audiences. – Andrea Palmer, Publicis Health Media (PHM)

10. Video Content Designed For Omnichannel Use

Designing campaign creative for omnichannel use—with a focus on video through CTV and linear TV—is key. Our in-house production company and agency-owned studios allow us to quickly create video, and this is something all agencies should consider. Even out-of-home placements can leverage video more in 2022. Video content is the 2022 campaign anchor. – Vix Reitano, Agency 6B

11. Inbound Marketing Technologies

It depends on the audience. The goal of digital marketing is to get the right message to the right potential client at the right time. The best way to do that is to utilize the marketing technology that most clearly communicates ROI. I believe that inbound marketing technologies that show the full buyer’s journey are where ad dollars should be spent. – Christopher Carr, Farotech

12. Increased CTV Ad Spend Across All Industries

While spend by channel typically varies by industry, we expect a surge in CTV spending from brands across all industries. While many marketers are shifting spend away from linear TV, we expect investment to come from digital channels, as CTV offers the sophisticated targeting of programmatic advertising with a comparable reach to linear TV for a much lower cost. – Donna Robinson, Collective Measures

13. Product Placement In Streaming Content

Marketers and agencies are increasing their interest in product placement in streaming content on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and HBO Max. This is driven by the fact that they themselves sat watching hundreds of hours of streaming episodes and films over the course of the pandemic, none of which included traditional advertising. – Stacy Jones, Hollywood Branded

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Customer Engagement: Improved Through Technology

March 1, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from NewsReports.com

It is more crucial than ever for businesses to use information technology to improve customer engagement as they expand and adapt.

Customers can interact with businesses in a variety of ways in the digital age. This includes chatbots, social media, and other channels. Businesses must ensure that they are utilizing the most up-to-date technologies. They must do this in order to engage with their clients in the most efficient manner possible.

Consider using the most cutting-edge technology that companies are adopting to boost customer engagement.

Make use of social media.

For businesses, social media is now more vital than ever.

Customers continue to find social media accounts to be one of the most effective ways to communicate with businesses. Many businesses have adopted social media in recent years, but not all of them are efficiently using it.

First, engage with people on your social media profiles whenever possible. Make sure that each of your social media profiles has an easy contact option so that customers can simply get in touch with you.

Keep an eye out for people who mention your brand or product in their postings, as well. As much as possible, reach out to them and engage in discussion with them. This ensures that they are aware that you are paying attention. In addition, it shows that you are aware of any knowledge they may have about your product or service.

Customer engagement is improved by providing a live chat option.

In the digital age, live chat functionality is becoming increasingly vital.

Customers desire to contact businesses as much as possible. Furthermore, many prefer live chat over other types of communication. As a result, organizations should seriously consider using an online message platform with live chat capability. This allows your consumers to interact with you as much as they want. In addition, it lets them contact you in the method that is most convenient for them.

Furthermore, having a live chat platform allows organizations to effectively address their customer support needs.

Many online messaging systems can provide users with automated responses. They can do this based on the information they provide. This ensures that each consumer receives the finest possible service from your company.

Make a user-friendly website to ensure customer engagement.

One of the most significant methods to engage with your customers is through your website.

Every day, customers are online, whether on their PCs or on their mobile devices. They will go to your online store if they wish to buy your products or services. As a result, companies must ensure that their websites are simple to navigate and use.

It all begins with the design. Every online store should have a contemporary design.

It needs to appeal to customers who are accustomed to social media sites on a daily basis. If you run an online cosmetics business, for example, your virtual storefront should resemble the virtual shops of prominent social media networks. That’s because this is what your potential clients are used to seeing.

Make sure that your online business is very easy to navigate. You can, for example, include a quick-search bar at the top of each online storefront page. That way customers can find what they’re looking for quickly.

You may also make movies to show clients what they need to do to complete a transaction. In addition, guarantee that clients have the information they need. Make sure they can use the various aspects of your online store. Therefore, focus on virtual video production while creating the video.

Use mobile channels for customer engagement.

People nowadays are constantly on their mobile gadgets. They use these gadgets to surf the web, check email, and connect to social media sites.

Businesses must ensure that they can interact with clients while on the move. This entails developing a mobile-friendly website that includes services such as live chat. This allows customers to communicate with you.

Chatbots can help you increase engagement.

Chatbots are another common means of business-to-customer communication. They enable organizations to interact with clients in real-time, 24 hours a day.

This, of course, enhances customer engagement. Virtual chatbot technology is being used by many businesses to boost customer satisfaction. In addition, it helps cut response times and improve overall service quality.

Businesses are increasingly using chatbots to connect with their customers. The finest chatbots provide virtual self-service.

In addition, they allow users to seek assistance without having to wait for a human to respond. This is especially useful if you need to contact a customer service person after work hours. Customers can get speedy service without having to contact a person.

Virtual chatbot technology is also for other applications. Chatbots, for example, can collect information from customers. In addition, it can provide verbal or written training on how to use your products or services.

The way businesses connect with their clients is changing as a result of technological advancements. As a result, businesses must ensure that they are utilizing the most up-to-date technologies. They must do this in order to engage with their customers in the most efficient manner possible.

Sourced from NewsReports.com