President Trump joining the video platform Rumble marked the beginning of his digital return after bans against his accounts have restricted his access on Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube.
In joining Rumble, a YouTube rival, Mr. Trump is attempting to redefine his social media persona, from that of an outcast muzzled into silence by the tech giants to that of a defiant outsider challenging the status quo.
Followers should not expect to see pithy blog posts on Rumble like they would on Twitter. Instead, the user experience is more akin to YouTube, with short video clips and broadcasts. The first video from Mr. Trump‘s account featured a live broadcast of his Saturday rally in Ohio.
Rumble, buoyed by an influx of users and cash, particularly from conservatives, has mounted its own insurgent campaign against its much larger rival, Google.
Rumble has roughly 30 million monthly users and has grown its user base by 10% month over month, said Rumble founder Chris Pavlovski last month. That’s up from 800,000 monthly visits in August, per the Wall Street Journal.
Rumble has sued Google for antitrust violations in federal court and recently scored a large undisclosed investment from a group including billionaire Peter Thiel and conservative author J.D. Vance. Mr. Thiel, founder of PayPal and Facebook’s first outside investor, supported Mr. Trump‘s first presidential bid and Mr. Vance is considering running for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio.
Rumble’s detractors say it does not share the ideological commitment to free speech that was the hallmark of social networks Parler and Gab that similarly sought to compete with established tech companies. Parler and Gab featured microblogging posts similar to Twitter that have attracted right-leaning audiences as fears grow of censorship by more prominent platforms.
Gab founder Andrew Torba criticized Rumble for allegedly changing its terms of service on the day Mr. Trump joined to include new policies about hate speech. John Matze, Parler’s fired former co-founder, piled on and questioned Rumble’s motivation for securing Mr. Trump‘s digital presence.
“I wonder how much equity or money Rumble had to give … The same Rumble that runs entirely on Google ads, Google analytics, etc … [that is] big tech,” said Mr. Matze in a post on Gab. “Not that I think Trump‘s brand is worth anything anymore.”
Before his exit at Parler, Mr. Matze spoke favorably about what Mr. Trump‘s joining Parler would mean for the upstart platform. Last June, he told The Washington Times his platform would likely have trouble scaling if Mr. Trump suddenly joined Parler.
Mr. Pavlovski did not respond to questions about Mr. Trump‘s addition and the criticism from Gab and Parler’s founders. Last month, Mr. Pavlovski said he was more interested in competing with large incumbent platforms than mixing things up in American politics.
Rumble‘s competitor YouTube also has not written off restoring Mr. Trump‘s access. Twitter has permanently banned Mr. Trump and Facebook has extended its ban until at least 2023, but YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in March her platform would end the former president’s suspension after determining the risk of violence had ceased.
YouTube and Google did not answer requests for comment
It’s too early for VR ads. Facebook found out the hard way.
Facebook’s quest to experiment with advertising in virtual reality took on the familiar three-act structure of tech backlash.
The test was announced on June 16 and caused reasonable concern among critics and players over the ensuing three days. By Monday of last week, the only game developer signed up to test ads — Blaston maker Resolution Games — pulled out. It leads us all to wonder why none of the smart people in charge at Oculus didn’t see this coming.
The test crashed before it even started. It’s now unclear how Facebook intends to proceed, but players have made their voices heard loud and clear.
Resolution was the first to break the silence. “After listening to player feedback, we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test,” the developer wrote on Twitter. “Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test.”
The developer was fast becoming a focal point of the criticism, suffering a barrage of one-star reviews for Blaston (a $9.99 game) on the Oculus Store. “Blaston is getting uninstalled forever and I’m not gonna buy a single game from this company from now on,” wrote one enraged fan.
Facebook gave a feeble defence of the test, saying in a statement, “Ultimately, opening up new revenue streams for devs will help us to unlock new types of content on the Oculus platform and offer products at consumer-friendly prices.” Resolution may now shift the ads to its free-to-play game, Bait!
VR and advertising have had a rocky relationship. This was Facebook’s most high-profile attempt to test the advertising waters with its VR platform, and it’s been a resounding failure. A cursory look at the history of Oculus should have told Facebook executives this was bound to happen.
Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey said in 2014, following the Facebook acquisition announcement, “We are not going to track you, flash ads at you, or do anything invasive.” Luckey is no longer at the company, and Facebook is now controversially forcing users to link a Facebook account with their Oculus profile by 2023.
While video games have included more and more in-game ads over the years, players associate those ads with free-to-play mobile games more than any other category. Premium, non-VR games have instead resorted to brand tie-ins and other forms of more subtle marketing. Ads in VR, however, have long carried a dystopian flavor.
It seems inevitable that the coveted combination of VR and the metaverse will contain ads, yet Facebook’s reputation makes the format extremely unpalatable, especially on a pricey headset and within paid games.
VR’s business model is an open question right now. That’s increasingly true as Facebook, an advertising company, is becoming the biggest force in the fledgling market, scooping up the most popular developers for its Oculus platform in a way that resembles its push to control digital communications technologies a decade ago.
Facebook could, if it chooses, begin experimenting with business models on its first-party VR titles, making some free to play and filling them with ads. There are plenty of other options, too, from subscriptions to more bite-sized indie experiences priced like paid mobile apps.
But without the financial safety net of Facebook or Sony, few VR developers can find success right now due to how nascent the market is. That gives Oculus more control to set the terms for how VR software monetizes going forward.
Facebook’s primary issue is presiding over a dominant VR ecosystem that costs a lot to operate, doesn’t make a lot of money and is mostly made up of enthusiasts who aren’t sympathetic to pragmatic arguments about how to grow and fund the market. This audience right now is mostly distrustful PC gamers for whom getting in bed with Facebook is akin to a deal with the devil.
All of this is in conflict with Facebook’s strategy of giving away stuff for free and funding it with targeted ads while hoping users respond to its business model with apathy. It’s not clear how the Oculus platform evolves from here if Facebook isn’t willing to continue floating it for years or doesn’t find a more consumer-friendly mechanism for extracting money. It is still early days for VR, but perhaps a bit too early to rely on advertising to pay the bills. Let’s hope there’s a better way.
Overheard
“In this light, the solution seems simple: Organize the video games industry. If there were a video game developer’s union as powerful as the Writers Guild, with agreements with all the major publishers, game development would be a vastly different career, and many of those problems seemingly endemic to game production might suddenly seem less intractable.” —The New Republic’s Alex Pareene laid out a smart, impassioned defense for unionizing the dysfunctional game industry in his review of Jason Schreier’s new book, “Press Reset.”
“Respect and tolerance are keystones of our company’s culture and we were distressed to discover that an event meant to be fun and engaging for participants had instead caused offense for some attendees.” —Sniper: Ghost Warrior developer CI Games apologized for a San Diego press event in which journalists were invited to participate in mock firefights again enemies based largely on Arab and Muslim stereotypes. The company, based in Poland, said it was unable to oversee the event directly due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
When it’s allergy season you ask for a “Kleenex” instead of tissue paper; you might enjoy a “Popsicle” on a hot summer day instead of an ice pop; and you “Google” something when you need to search the internet for information.
This is expert branding in action. Some companies have so successfully pushed their brands that the brand name itself has overtaken the generic term, as in the above cases.
Good branding is indispensable to the success of your business, and there are numerous benefits that come with it. Having an easily recognizable brand drives new business through word-of-mouth referrals while making it easier to roll out new products. It also helps build coherence within your company and attract the best talent to your open roles.
Keep reading to learn more about branding and the five biggest benefits for small and large businesses alike.
What Is the Purpose of Branding in Marketing?
It’s easy to conflate branding with other forms of marketing, but they aren’t exactly the same thing. Marketing is what you do to drive your products and services to potential customers, whereas branding is basically the way your company presents itself to the world.
Branding includes the obvious components of name, logo, colors and fonts, but it also includes your mission, values and motivations, creating an all-encompassing brand identity that, if done right, customers will readily associate with your company. This is key: You want your customers to feel something when they think of your company.
The main purpose of your brand strategy should be to differentiate you from your competitors and create brand equity, or commercial value derived strictly from the perception of the brand. Doing so builds trust and loyalty among your target market and puts you at the forefront of your potential customers’ minds when it’s time to buy.
Developing an easily identifiable tone and logo, aligning your values with those of your customers and evoking a strong emotional response at the sight and thought of your brand are all signs of a great branding strategy.
5 Benefits of Branding for Companies
1. Brand awareness: One of the strongest and most impactful benefits of high-quality branding is brand awareness. Customers who already trust your company and recognize your distinct color, logo or font style are far more likely to buy your product or service. In this way, brand awareness does much of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to selling your products or services.
2. Drives new business: Word-of-mouth referrals are still the tried-and-true way of driving new business. This is especially true for small businesses, 85% of whom report that word-of-mouth referrals were the best way to drive local business. When customers can quickly and easily recall a brand they use and trust, they’re much likelier to refer your company to their friends and family members.
3. Shared values build company coherence: Strong brand equity doesn’t just help strengthen your relationships with your customers and clients — it also helps build a clearer sense of mission and direction within your company that boosts coherence and ensures your employees are all working toward the same set of goals.
4. Easier to rollout new products: If you have a strong brand in place, much of the work of marketing and selling your products and services is already done. Once you’ve built up a level of trust among your customers, it’s far easier to convince them that your latest product is worth buying. Think about it: Apple doesn’t need to do a whole lot of convincing to generate interest in and sell the latest iPhone, right? That’s good branding at work.
5. Better job applicants: Customers want to buy from brands they know and trust, but the same is true for job seekers. Good branding can actually help you attract a larger and more talented pool of applicants to your open positions, ensuring that you’re hiring the best of the best.
The Main Types of Branding, With Examples
Visual Branding
The visual components of your brand are some of the most important — and ultimately attention-grabbing — features of your brand. A good visual brand strategy conveys your company’s personality and style to your audience through visual cues (i.e., are you easy going and laid back or serious and resourceful?). This helps them learn about you without having to dig too deeply.
Think Apple: Apple’s visual branding style is silvery, sleek, sharp and new, and this is evident in their stores, logos and, of course, their devices. You don’t need to know much about Apple to understand that it develops and sells some sort of cutting edge technology, based on its branding alone. And that’s exactly what good visual branding should do.
Social Media Branding
A huge proportion of social engagement and consumer activity today happens on social media, so it’s important that your company has a clean, consistent online presence across all social networks. Social media is one of the few places where attention is measured in mere seconds, so it’s important that users can identify your company in this short space of time.
Amazon’s Twitter presence should serve as a model for other companies. It operates dozens of different accounts for many of its products and services. While each account has its own distinct edge to it, there is a clear sense of continuity involving similar colors, tones, fonts and messaging threaded between each of them, all of which marks them as Amazon’s. The bottom line is users shouldn’t have to work hard to recognize that your social media account belongs to your company.
Corporate Branding
Corporate branding covers all elements of your company’s branding strategy, from marketing its products/services to ensuring that all digital touchpoints are in sync. At the end of the day, a customer should feel like they’re getting the same message from the same company no matter which part of your business they’re interacting with.
Nike stands at the top of the corporate branding world. Its mission to enhance physical performance through top-tier athletic attire permeates every section of its branding and marketing, from its motto “Just Do It” to its marketing materials, featuring athletes in the zone.
Don’t overlook the importance of branding. The right branding strategy can make or break a company, and it’s important to ensure you have a clearly defined brand that permeates across all of your products, services and touchpoints to ensure you’re front of mind when your customers are ready to buy. Doing this drives your company forward.
By Dan Haverty
Dan Haverty is a content writer at Brafton. Currently based in Boston, he also spent time living in Ireland and Washington, DC. When he isn’t writing, Dan enjoys reading, cooking and hiking, and he recently became an avid yoga practitioner.
Is there a way for IT leaders to be proactive about AI and machine learning without ruffling and rattling an organization of people who want the miracles of AI and ML delivered tomorrow morning? The answer is yes.
How should IT leaders and professionals go about selecting and delivering the technology required to deliver the storied marvels of artificial intelligence and machine learning? AI and ML require having many moving parts in their right places, moving in the right direction, to deliver on the promise these technologies bring — ecosystems, data, platforms, and last, but not least, people.
Is there a way for IT leaders to be proactive about AI and ML without ruffling and rattling an organization of people who want the miracles of AI and ML delivered tomorrow morning? The answer is yes.
The authors of a recent report from MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS advocates a relatively new methodology to successfully accomplish the delivery AI and ML to enterprises called “ModelOps.” While there a lot of “xOps” now entering our lexicon, such as MLOps or AIOps, ModelOps is more “mindset than a specific set of tools or processes, focusing on effective operationalization of all types of AI and decision models.”
That’s because in AI and ML, models are the heart of the matter, the mechanisms that dictate the assembly of the algorithms, and assure continued business value. ModelOps, which is short for :model operationalization, “focuses on model life cycle and governance; intended to expedite the journey from development to deployment — in this case, moving AI models from the data science lab to the IT organization as quickly and effectively as possible.”
In terms of operationalizing AI and ML, “a lot falls back on IT,” according to Iain Brown, head of data science for SAS, U.K. and Ireland, who is quoted in the report. “You have data scientists who are building great innovative things. But unless they can be deployed in the ecosystem or the infrastructure that exists — and typically that involves IT – – there’s no point in doing it. The data science community and AI teams should be working very closely with IT and the business, being the conduit to join the two so there’s a clear idea and definition of the problem that’s being faced, a clear route to production. Without that, you’re going to have disjointed processes and issues with value generation.”
ModelOps is a way to help IT leaders bridge that gap between analytics and production teams, making AI and ML-driven lifecycle “repeatable and sustainable,” the MIT-SAS report states. It’s a step above MLOps or AIOps, which “have a more narrow focus on machine learning and AI operationalization, respectively,” ModelOps focuses on delivery and sustainability of predictive analytics models, which are the core of AI and ML’s value to the business. ModelOps can make a difference, the report’s authors continue, “because without it, your AI projects are much more likely to fail completely or take longer than you’d like to launch. Only about half of all models ever make it to production, and of those that do, about 90% take three months or longer to deploy.”
Getting to ModelOps to manage AI and ML involves IT leaders and professionals pulling together four key elements of the business value equation, as outlined by the report’s authors.
Ecosystems: These days, every successful technology endeavour requires connectivity and network power. “An AI-ready ecosystem should be as open as possible, the report states. “Such ecosystems don’t just evolve naturally. Any company hoping to use an ecosystem successfully must develop next-generation integration architecture to support it and enforce open standards that can be easily adopted by external parties.”
Data: Get to know what data is important to the effort. “Validate its availability for training and production. Tag and label data for future usage, even if you’re not sure yet what that usage might be. Over time, you’ll create an enterprise inventory that will help future projects run faster.”
Platforms: Flexibility and modularity — the ability to swap out pieces as circumstance change — is key. The report’s authors advocate buying over building, as many providers have already worked out the details in building and deploying AI and ML models. “Determine your cloud strategy. Will you go all in with one cloud service provider? Or will you use different CSPs for different initiatives? Or will you take a hybrid approach, with some workloads running on-premises and some with a CSP? : Some major CSPs typically offer more than just scalability and storage space, such as providing tools and libraries to help build algorithms and assisting with deploying models into production.”
People: Collaboration is the key to successful AI and ML delivery, but it’s also important that people have a sense of ownership over their parts of the projects. “Who owns the AI software and hardware – the AI team or the IT team, or both? This is where you get organizational boundaries that need to be clearly defined, clearly understood, and coordinated.” Along with data scientists, a group that is just as important to ModelOps is data engineers, who bring “significant expertise in using analytics and business intelligence tools, database software, and the SQL data language, as well as the ability to consistently produce clean, high-quality, ethical data.”
As the world reopens, consumers are changing their mindset and adjusting back to everyday life. They are spending more on products, services, and various offers from entrepreneurs. While the growth opportunities are tremendous, a lack of clarity often derails that growth. You may have started your business around something you’re passionate about, but you need clarity on where you’re going.
One important step to scaling a business to six, seven or even eight figures is a vision and plan for what the business will evolve into. Will you always have a solopreneur type of operation? Do you want to build a business with virtual assistants? Would you consider bringing employees on?
If it’s your goal to build a seven-figure brand and business that you could sell someday, here are four ways to build in a way that leads to clarity and growth.
1. Create a larger entity while using personal brand-building strategies.
To build a sellable business, you need a structure that allows the business to be sold. If your business is wholly tied to you, it will be hard to sell.
While creating an entity (LLC, corporation, agency, etc.) helps build a sellable business, personal brand growth strategies are still essential. A great example of this is how Gary Vaynerchuk has built VaynerMedia using the reach of the personal brand he’s created.
To build a legacy brand, first, come up with the structure and name or convert an existing business. You can then use the internet and social media to leverage exposure, content and marketing on your personal brand alongside the entity brand. You end up building two assets.
The idea of entrepreneurship is freedom and financial independence. The goal should be to build a business that can function without your constant direct involvement. Building a larger entity helps you accomplish those goals.
2. Use a value-first approach to marketing.
It won’t take you long to scroll through the internet and experience a full-on hard rush of sales ads and messages. Too much content being published indicates you’re goes right for the sale without adding value to the consumer first.
To build a seven-figure business that scales, don’t follow the typical approach. One way to convert more cold consumers is through value-first content. People are tired of the ads; they want real value through the content they consume every day. When you are the entrepreneur or business adding value first, you easily stand above the screams for sales.
Consumers want to know how and why your business was started and the path you’re using to grow. They want high-performance strategies, digital marketing tactics, wellness optimization tips and other how-to-based content they can use without having to first spend money with you.
Take a longer-term approach to marketing and converting consumers. It turns casual visitors into followers and eventually customers when you take a value-first first approach to digital marketing through solid content.
3. Make offers that have practical consumer value.
Your business offers should be clear and based on practical value if you’re building a sellable business. That value could be through software, services, physical and digital products.
Have product offerings for every segment of your target audience, ranging from low-tier to premium. Focus on tangible results and clear takeaways for consumers. They’ll see the value with less marketing required on your part.
4. Consistently show up and keep adding building blocks.
A lot of the reason why industry leaders build large audiences is that they’re consistent about showing up and adding value. Look at any prominent YouTuber, influencer or big-name entrepreneur, and you’ll see a history of consistency.
Growth starts with you being clear on your overall goals. If you’re content keeping a smaller business model, that’s okay. If it’s your goal to build a scalable and sellable business, consider how you’re doing with these four points.
You can build a business that grows beyond you having to invest all of your time and energy always working. Strategically create freedom.
If you struggle to come up with new content ideas to create and publish, here are some sites and methods that can help!
Content creators need a constant flow of fresh, clickable ideas. Finding these ideas can be difficult, especially when you’re just starting out. While staying on top of trends, you still want to offer an original perspective.
It is also important to ensure that non-trending topics get views! Check out these websites and methods to get inspired!
1. Ensure Success With Trending Topics
Knowing the trending topics is key to getting high-performance ideas. Having a lot of detail about these trends will help you identify unexplored angles.
You can also use it to understand why people are interested, so you can address their needs. Here are some resources to find keyword trends.
Treendly
Treendly shows you the top trending keywords across the internet. You can also enter a specific keyword to see trends related to that topic. If you click a result, you get even more detail.
It sorts the results by website, showing how popular the term is on Google, YouTube, and Amazon. It also pulls up recent forum discussions that mentioned your keyword. These conversations can show lots of detail about what people want to know.
You can also see how the keywords performed over time, and whether they’ll be slowing down soon.
Ubersuggest
Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest is another great way to get inspired by high-performance keywords. This site identifies keyword trends, but the real lifesaver is its Content Ideas feature.
With this feature, you can enter a keyword and view top-performing content that uses it. Ubersuggest will analyse how well the content is performing on Facebook and Pinterest, based on the total visits and backlinks. Lastly, it provides a link so you can take a closer look at the content.
Getting to see the specifics of how the content is performing, rather than only how popular the keyword is, can give you useful guidance. It shows you which trends are worth jumping on, and which you should let pass.
Keywords Everywhere
Okay, this one is technically a browser extension, but it’s too useful to leave out! Keywords Everywhere is available for Google Chrome and Firefox. It analyses the content in your browser for trending keywords. It also links up with Trending Topics so you can get even richer data.
You can zoom in on specific pieces of content and analyse how well they perform. Since it’s an extension, it travels with you as you browse the internet and lets you know if you’re looking at an explosive content idea!
2. Try a Prompt From a Random Generator
Responding to a random prompt can be a great way to brainstorm. When you are randomly confronted with experiences, it can push your mind in directions you would not otherwise go!
This can lead to really unique concepts that break the mould and help you stand out. Additionally, it can inspire your creative side after a period of stagnation.
These websites take your keywords and use them to generate titles, concepts, and even first lines to get you thinking!
Hubspot Blog Topic Generator
Enter up to five nouns related to your topic, and Hubspot will give you a week of blog topics. Try entering some of the top-performing keywords from Treendly!
At the free level, it provides you inspiring titles. The titles are randomly generated, but not so random that they don’t make sense. The more specific you are with your starting words, the better your results will be!
If you buy a premium membership, you can unlock hundreds of more ideas, plus tips on SEO-optimizing your content.
Use Topic Idea Generator
Use Topic offers an Idea Generator that will take your topic and get a blog post started for it. That’s right, it not only comes up with a title but also drafts the first paragraph of your post! The takes range from product endorsements to listicles and op-eds, so it truly works for all blog styles.
Best of all, Use Topic’s results encourage you to focus on creating good content. After all, trending keywords won’t help in the long run, if your content isn’t useful.
The longer you’ve been working on your topic, the more your own experience can serve as inspiration. Problems you’ve overcome, and skills you’ve gained can both be sources for content.
If you’ve recently solved a problem, you could share that solution with your followers. You can also explain how to avoid the problem in the first place. This works even for new creators. You can share what you learned from your getting-started process.
Similarly, you could teach yourself something new and share what you learned. What is something within your topic that you always wanted to know? Or maybe a skill that you want to get better at. Once you have found your answer or mastered your skill, make some content to share what you learned!
Reflecting on past experiences can also inspire content. For instance, what do you wish you knew when you first started in your field? There are likely some newcomers among your readers who could use that wisdom now! The words of experience are always valuable.
4. Get Inspired by the Competition
Make sure you are consuming content from other creators in your category. Follow their social media accounts, too! You need to know what the competition is doing so that you can differentiate. It also helps you stay on top of trends.
You can address a detail that others glossed over, or provide an alternative point of view. In other words, try to notice what others aren’t saying—it might be a content gap that you can fill!
Read critically, take notes, and use SEO and Keyword research to analyse which bandwagons are worth jumping on.
It’s also a good idea to follow topic-specific news blogs, trade journals, and magazines. These can give you specific insights on topics and techniques. A simple way to do this is to follow relevant categories and hashtags on your favourite news-reading app.
Of course, there are also web resources that can help you stay up-to-date.
Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a great way to see all the content trending in your category. When you select a topic, Buzzsumo will show you all the related content. It prioritizes content that’s been performing well in searches and engagement.
By focusing on high-performance articles, you avoid over-focusing on specific publications. It’s also easier to notice gaps in content that you could fill and repetitive takes that you should differentiate from. With Buzzsumo, you’ll also be able to note what type of content is doing well: video, text blog, etc.
As content creators, we must focus on producing high-quality content. This means providing content that our audience would find useful. And no one knows those needs better than the audience itself. Find out what your followers want to see by polling them. You might be surprised!
Creating a poll on your social media or sending out an email survey are good ways of measuring interests. You should also pay attention to social media mentions.
You can also get hints from your own content. Do you have a high-performance piece that you could expand on or update? Looking at previous successes is a good way to get ideas.
Maintain a Fresh Content Strategy
All you need is the right resources to help you maintain a stream of fresh ideas. Inspiration can come from keyword trends, competitive content, experience, or even your own audience!
However, it’s not enough to paste in a few trending keywords. Creativity is the key to keeping your ideas fresh. Keep your mind open to new ideas with creative exercises and prompts.
This week: the page experience update is here, a new privacy-first search engine is here, and a new Search Console feature is here.
Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.
Google Page Experience Now Rolling Out
Here we go!
We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. Some of us have been dreading this day.
And now it’s here.
Google started rolling out the page experience update this week.
But it’s happening slowly. You might not notice how it impacts your site until August.
It’s not likely that the change will impact your site much, if at all, though. Google previously claimed that the new signals have a minor effect on where sites land in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Here’s how it’s all going down:
Google started using page experience metrics to determine eligibility for top stories.
Soon, you’ll see the AMP badge go away.
Google continues to test the page experience badge but offers no report on when it will formally roll out.
Also: keep in mind that a core update recently rolled out. So if your keywords are already doing the Google Dance, that could be the reason. It might have nothing to do with the page experience update.
Meet Brave: A New Privacy-First Search Engine
Looking for a search engine that respects your privacy? Check out Brave.
Brave isn’t just the name of the search engine. It’s also the name of the company that makes that search engine.
And it’s the name of the browser, too.
As it stands now, Brave doesn’t show ads. The company says it might run ads one day in the future, but not in a way that violates users’ privacy.
“Brave Search does not track you, your searches, or your clicks; it’s impossible for Brave to disclose any information about you to anyone,” the company said in a statement. “Any future ads we may support will be anonymized (like all other Brave ads), and will not influence ranking. In the future, we will also offer paid ad-free search.”
Another Brave feature that publishers will love: the founders promise not to use content from the web without sending traffic to the website hosting the content.
As you may know, Google screen-scrapes content from websites and posts it on google.com. That gives people the ability to get their questions answered without even visiting the site with the answers.
Brave says it won’t do that.
The new software is still in preview mode.
Now All Google Merchants Can Accept Payment With Shopify
Good news if you’re a Google Merchant user: you can now accept payments via Shopify.
Even if you’re not a Shopify user.
More good news: you can use Shopify for checkout if you’re a Facebook or Instagram merchant as well.
The new solution is called Shop Pay. It’s a one-click checkout process offered by Shopify.
Here’s the announcement from the company: ”Each day, more than 1.8 billion people log on to Facebook and a billion shopping sessions take place across Google. By bringing Shop Pay to all merchants regardless of the commerce platform they use, we’re making an industry-leading checkout more accessible to independent brands at a time when finding and converting customers has never been more important.”
According to reports, check out with Shop Pay is 70% faster than an average online checkout. It’s also got a 1.72x higher conversion rate.
The new tool also offers order tracking for consumers.
Shop Pay has already facilitated more than $20 billion in online payments.
Google Rolls out Search Console Insights
Want to know more about what kind of content resonates with your core audience? If so, then check out Google Search Console Insights.
As the name implies, it’s part of Google Search Console. If you head over to Search Console right now, you’ll likely see a banner at the top advertising the new Insights feature.
Click on the link in that banner and Search Console will take you to a new screen where you’ll see site activity for the past 28 days.
For starters, the tool will show you how many clicks you got from Google Search. It will also show you how much that number increased or decreased from the previous month.
Below that, you’ll see your most searched queries that brought people to your site. You’ll also see where those keywords land in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and how many clicks landed visitors to that page during the time period.
You also have the option to view most trending queries. That will show you queries “on the rise” on your website.
Google Updating Top Stories Carousel
It seems like the Top Stories carousel is in the news a lot lately. And here it is again.
This time, it’s because Google announced that it’s changing the carousel.
Here are the changes you can expect to see:
AMP no longer required for inclusion in Top Stories
AMP icon will go away
Google will eliminate swiping on the carousel
It’s not much of a carousel without swiping, but Google says it needs to eliminate that ability.
Why? Because Google can’t guarantee instant loading of pages since AMP is no longer required.
You can expect to see the changes roll out around the same time as the page experience update rolls out.
That is: now.
Google Explains the Difference Between Audience Expansion and Optimized Targeting
Google recently sent out an email to Google Ads users stating that some campaigns using audience expansion would get migrated to optimized targeting.
It left many strategists scratching their heads and wondering: “What’s the difference?”
Google is here to answer that question.
According to a spokesperson, audience expansion “limited campaigns from benefiting from Google’s auto-targeting systems by expanding only on the user-selected audiences.”
On the other hand: “Optimized targeting is a new paradigm for auto-targeting that can move beyond any selected criteria to optimize into the best performing audiences for a given ad group while meeting the campaign’s objective.”
Bottom line: you’re in better hands with optimized targeting.
Facebook Gets Into Podcast Integration
This past week, Facebook announced that you can connect your podcast’s RSS feed to a Facebook Page. Then, users can enjoy your podcasts without ever leaving the Facebook platform.
Further, all your new podcasts going forward will automagically get integrated into the Facebook feed.
Facebook says that users can listen to podcasts even when the app is running in the background. So they can do other things at the same time.
Additionally, Facebook will enable users to create and share short clips from podcasts on its platform. That’s a great way to give your podcasts more publicity.
Facebook is contacting some Page owners about the new feature right now. No word yet on when it fully rolls out.
Twitter Getting Closer to Emoji Reactions to Tweets
It looks like you’ll soon be able to respond to a tweet with an emoji.
All we know right now about the feature is brought to us by reverse-engineer extraordinaire Jane Manchun Wong.
And from what we can see, it looks like Twitter is implementing something similar to what’s on Facebook. Users will have a limited set of emojis they can use to give their reactions to tweets.
Current emoji reactions include: “Like,” “Cheer,” “Hmm,” “Sad,” and “Haha.”
Homework
Before you enjoy the start of summer, consider handling these to-do’s:
Windows 10
Support
Apply
Backgrounds
Android
Samsung Flight
Owner
News Articles
Accept Payments
If you’re a podcaster, think about how you can use the upcoming Facebook integration to promote your podcast.
Take a look at Search Console Insights. See what you can learn about the type of content that best works with your audience. Then, double-down on those subjects and keywords.
If you’re in the e-commerce space, think about how you can use Shop Pay to streamline the checkout process for your customers.
Take a look at Brave, the new search engine. It might one day become yet another option for online advertising.
Keep an eye on your keywords over the next couple of months. See where you’re losing ground and where you’re improving. Look for the common traits that seem to help your keywords move up in the SERPs and apply those principles to all your content.
It’s a common sight: Ads from that time you Googled flights to Cancún, or visited Nike to look for new running shoes, following you around the Internet.
Much of that tracking is made possible by cookies — little bits of code that jump off websites and lodge themselves in your browser, allowing new sites you visit to see where you’ve been before. Facebook and Google, the two most profitable advertising companies in history, use cookies to show ads across the Web based on info gathered on their own sites and social media networks.
But that’s all changing. Google has vowed to block cookies completely on its Chrome browser, which is used by around 70 percent of the world’s desktop computer owners, by the beginning of 2022. The decision, announced last year, sent shock waves through the advertising world, which has maintained revenue from tracking is necessary to fund a largely free Web.
Google says it has solutions to allow advertisers to keep showing relevant ads, but in privacy-protecting ways.Taken together, the company’s proposals are meant to let Web publishers, e-commerce companies and advertising agencies continue using targeted ads to make money, while assuring regular Internet users their data isn’t being stockpiled by an ever-growing list of companies and websites.
But privacy activists have already started poking holes in Google’s ideas.
And it may not matter. Advertising technology companies such as the Trade Desk have already taken the matter into their own hands, banding together to create new tracking tools that use email addresses. Other major companies have shown signs of pushing back against Google’s proposals, such as Amazon, which is currently blocking Chrome from collecting data on which users go to its websites. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Meanwhile, politicians and antitrust investigators in multiple countries have raised alarms that Google’s move could hurt competitors and further cement its power. And for regular Internet users, this largely behind-the-scenes change could have major implications for how private companies hoover up our data and make decisions about what we see online.
Here’s what you need to know.
How did we get here?
Cookies were written into early browsers to cut down on some of the inconveniences of surfing the Web. They allowed passwords to auto-fill, or websites to remember payment information so users didn’t have to type theirs in every time they came back. They also created a trail of breadcrumbs that the burgeoning online ad industry eagerly ate up, helping free websites make money.
But as the technology advanced, social media took off and consumers’ lives were lived increasingly online, it got creepy. Privacy advocates have always criticized the model, and more and more regular people have become aware of the issue, some expressing their displeasure by downloading ad blockers.
Google isn’t the first to make this change. Apple in 2017 started limiting and eventually blocking third-party cookies completely from its Safari browser. Mozilla’s Firefox followed soon after. But those two browsers make up less than 20 percent of the market, according to research firm eMarketer.
Despite Google’s own reliance on advertising and tracking for roughly $180 billion a year in revenue, chief executive Sundar Pichai admitted during a 2019 congressional hearing that people don’t like to feel they’re being tracked around the Internet. And in January 2020, Google said it too would block third-party cookies on Chrome within the next two years.
The changes come as politicians in the United States and elsewhere step up their attempts to regulate privacy. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation has forced companies to ask permission before tracking people online since 2018. In 2020, America’s most populous state instituted the California Consumer Privacy Act, which gives California residents the right to ask companies to delete whatever data has been gathered on them. As is the case with other consumer-focused regulation, the California law has essentially become the default nationwide.
Google was facing pressure from its competitors, too. Apple has been marketing its own privacy features aggressively, trying to paint itself as a privacy champion that doesn’t need to gather data to feed an advertising business like Google. It even threw up a giant billboard that loomed over Google’s exhibit at the 2019 CES tech conference in Las Vegas. Apple does gather some of its users data and uses it to sell targeted ads in its app store, though its ad business is much smaller than Google’s.
Some of Google’s advertising technology competitors say the move isn’t about privacy at all, but a way to hurt its rivals and push advertisers toward Google’s YouTube and search ads, which don’t need cookies to effectively target people.
“You can fix your public perception while at the same time cementing your own dominance and growing your own market share,” said Ratko Vidakovic, founder of AdProfs, an independent advertising technology consulting firm. “It seems like a no-brainer.”
A Google spokeswoman pointed to a company blog from March, where Marshall Vale, a product manager, said the company’s goal with FLOC and its other projects is to make cookies obsolete while also helping web publishers grow their businesses. Finding that balance is “critical to keep the web open, accessible and thriving for everyone,” Vale said.
How exactly does Google’s solution for the post-cookie world work?
Google can block cookies in Chrome relatively easily because it designs and controls the browser’s underlying code. Once it decides to make the change, it can update the browser and poof — no more cookies. To replace that functionality, Google’s engineers have marched out a menagerie of bird-themed acronyms like FLOC, FLEDGE and TURTLEDOVE to describe their proposals for advertising without cookies.
The ideas are working their way through the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, an international group of tech companies that debates and sets rules for how the Web works. However, Google doesn’t actually need to get approval from the rest of the W3C’s membership. Since its browser is the biggest in the world, it can simply make new rules and Web developers will have to follow them or risk seeing their websites stop working on Chrome.
“Google using the W3C letterhead to do this stuff makes it seem less like a Google power play,” said Peter Snyder, senior privacy researcher at Brave, a browser that competes with Google’s Chrome.
The most fleshed-out idea so far is FLOC, which stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts. Under FLOC, instead of letting websites drop cookies into an individual’s browser, the browser itself watches what they do online. It then uses artificial intelligence to assign them to a cohort of several thousand people that the AI determines are interested in the same kinds of products. Then, instead of buying access to individual people, advertisers pay for ads to show up for users in a specific cohort.
For example, if you spent the past few days reading articles on ESPN, browsing New York Knicks jerseys and Googling NBA stats, you might be lumped into a package of several thousand basketball fans who would see similar ads. Cohort IDs refresh every week, so they’re based on the most recent browsing behaviour.
In the old world, websites would constantly be pulling up information about you based on the cookies trailing behind you. Now, the only identifying information your browser would present is which cohort you’re in. Google says this system is 95 percent as effective at getting clicks as old-school cookie ads are for advertisers.
If that’s true, consumers would see pretty much the same kind of ads they do now and will probably still have the feeling of being followed around the Web by ads for sites they recently visited.
This is good for privacy, though. … Isn’t it?
Generally, yes, but that doesn’t mean privacy advocates are celebrating the change. For one, Google’s Chrome browser is still monitoring every website you visit and feeding that into its algorithm. The information stays on your device, but it’s still being gathered. For those who want less surveillance from tech companies, it might feel like a step in the wrong direction.
“The technology will avoid the privacy risks of third-party cookies, but it will create new ones in the process,” Bennett Cyphers, a researcher with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in a March report on Google’s cookie replacements. “It hasn’t learned the right lessons from the ongoing backlash to the surveillance business model.”
It also isn’t clear yet which websites will have access to a person’s cohort ID. If it’s freely available, sites you visit repeatedly could collect them as they change week to week, tie it to other pieces of information about you such as your email or IP address, and build a dossier on your interests, circumventing the stated purpose of FLOC, Cyphers argues.Google acknowledges this issue and says it is one of the long-term problems it is working on. The system also raises the possibility of profiling based on race, allowing advertisers to discriminate against some people. Advertising jobs or housing selectively by race is illegal in the United States.
Still, compared to other proposals from the rest of the ad-tech industry, Google’s is arguably the best one for privacy, Vidakovic said.
“They’re trying to balance commercial needs with user privacy needs at the same time,” he said. “Despite their flaws, I think the concept behind FLOC and anonymous cohorts are a good balance.”
What does Google’s move mean for competition?
Unlike FLOC, cookies aren’t owned and controlled by a specific company. They are a generic technology that any Web publisher or ad-tech seller can use to track people and show them ads. The world of cookie advertising resembles a capitalist Wild West, where anyone can hang a shingle and try building a fortune in Web ads.
Google’s new FLOC system is more controlled, laying out strict rules for how exactly advertisers can interact with the people who use Chrome.
Cookies have also been used extensively to check how effective digital ads are. With FLOC, advertisers would have to trust Google that the ads they’re paying for are being shown to the right people.
Competitors to Google argue the company is pulling the ladder up behind it. Google used cookies to help it build a massive advertising business, but because YouTube and Google Search — which don’t need cookies — are its biggest moneymakers, it can afford to live in a cookie-free Web.Advertisers who can’t use cookies to find people on the open ocean of the Web will give more of their money to Google and Facebook who can pinpoint the right targets on their own sites, which industry insiders call “walled gardens.”
In January, the UK’s competition authority said it would investigate FLOC and Google’s other ideas to “assess whether the proposals could cause advertising spend to become even more concentrated on Google’s ecosystem at the expense of its competitors.”
On the flip side, if Google were to simply shut down third-party cookies without building an alternative like FLOC, small companies, and the consumers who look to them for innovative new products, could pay the price. Big brands who already have contact information for their customers can use email marketing to reach them, while start-up retailers use targeted ads to find new people. Without targeted ads, companies such as glasses seller Warby Parker or makeup start-up Glossier might never have survived long enough to compete and bring down the prices that older companies were charging consumers.
The same dynamic applies to publishing. Big news organizations who have paying subscribers don’t rely as much on targeted ads as small, local news providers. If those small news providers have even fewer ways to make money, the communities they serve will suffer. (The Washington Post is working with the Trade Desk and other companies to use an email-based identifier for targeted ads).
Google argues that, unlike Apple and Mozilla, it actually had small publishers, advertisers and the consumers they serve in mind when it said it would build FLOC to account for the loss of targeting ability when cookies go away.
Either way, Google is set up for success. If FLOC does work effectively, it gains more control over the advertising ecosystem and can tell its users it has scored a win for their privacy. If it fails, advertisers will likely invest even more in the “walled gardens” — which conveniently include Google’s search ads and YouTube.
So what does this all mean for me?
The debate over cookies is a major reminder of just how much our online behavior is being tracked and recorded by dozens of private companies. It also shows how many companies have a stake in that reality.
Targeted advertising has grown up alongside the Internet, and helped create giants such as Facebook and Google, but also fostered an ecosystem of thousands of companies employing hundreds of thousands of people. When companies such as Google make changes to how products used by billions of people work, there are consequences. Getting rid of cookies completely could hurt news publishers and e-commerce start-ups, decreasing the number of voices online and pushing up prices for consumer products. It could also increase privacy and move the Internet in the direction of less surveillance overall.
None of this has been fully decided, and keeping track of the big changes made by companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple over the next several years will be key to understanding how our online lives are recorded, packaged and sold.
Feature Image Credit: (Washington Post illustration; iStock)
Make your copy more authentic, relevant, and “shareable” to reach a bigger audience.
Entrepreneurs and content creators wait for that single moment when their videos go viral. But going viral isn’t just a stroke of luck. It requires persistence and a few other key points that will give you that extra boost to get the virality you want. To boost your chances of going viral, keep these tips in mind.
Post across platforms
Try your luck on every social media platform you can think of. Post your video on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. Different content goes viral on different platforms, so you never know when and how it will take off. Make sure your content is easily shareable.
Make your content relatable and relevant
Your video should be relatable. Speak like you mean it, but don’t sound scripted. You’ll get views if people find your content relatable, and what makes it relatable is your authenticity. Most people don’t believe overproduced content.
Don’t overthink content choices. Discover your audience’s pain points. Share your experiences and tell your story.
Be more authentic
We always hear people should strive to be themselves, whether they are in social media or not. Show the world what you’re doing and experiencing. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. Try to:
Elicit emotions. Videos go viral when they elicit emotions. Your story, facial expressions, body language, and gestures build the mood and stir up a wide range of emotions. Make sure you stay connected to the story as you tell it to your audience and engage your whole self in the storytelling.
Challenge yourself as a storyteller. To tell better stories, try telling them in a way you haven’t before. Push yourself in a way that you haven’t.
Talk to people. Discuss ideas so you can gather more relatable experiences.
Tell stories. Share stories about your brand, your products. Captivate your audience. To do that, you need to set your target audience.
Find the right audience
Think about the audience you’re targeting as you create your content. Who are your potential customers? To whom will you address your stories? Finding the right audience is crucial if you like your stories to be authentic and relatable to them.
Assess yourself
Evaluate yourself. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the skills you need to develop? Will you learn more if you do everything yourself? Or will you benefit from learning from someone who can help you achieve growth?
Take a step back to chill for a while. Think about what you want to do with your work life, and consider your life decisions. Do you want to be in a corporate world? Do you want a new environment?
Think about what you like to do. There’s nothing wrong with that! Rinse and repeat.
Follow influencers
Follow influencers of the specific niche you like. If you like startups, follow influencers who are big in those fields.
Follow entrepreneurs and look at what they’re doing. If you like fashion, look for people who are known in that industry. Read their stories. That’s how you learn what works in your niche.
Be an authentic storyteller
Dip your toe in the water. Just start telling your story, but don’t try to come across as someone you’re not.
Don’t aim to be the top creator. Learn from others first. Look for someone you like to get ideas or moves from. That could be someone who influences you in your field or industry. Imitate what they’re doing. Use their success stories and pain points as your inspiration.
But don’t steal their ideas-don’t copy everything they do. Understand why they do what they do. And that will make you successful in the long run.
Approach social like an extension of yourself
It’s fascinating to see where social media is going. Just think about LinkedIn these days. Everyone’s talking about it. TikTok also has taken the world by the storm. Gaming is ubiquitous. Esports is at its height, as well as Fortnite.
How you approach social media now should be an extension of yourself–an extension of who you are. Again: don’t try to be something or someone you’re not. Don’t try to hack the algorithm. Just show up as your true authentic self and watch what happens.
Sometimes you might feel in a funk. It happens to the best of us.
We may love what we do for work and motivation is high, but sometimes we just lose that drive and we may start to question what we do for work. Not only is motivation important in life in general, but it’s important for business.
In this article, I’ll dive into some reasons why your motivation may be decreasing and some tips to reverse it.
Working full-time for a consulting company as well as a photographer, I’ve experienced dips in motivation and I want to share my experiences.
Let’s first touch on some things that can lead to a decrease in motivation to your business.
1. No goal
The first thing that can lead to a decrease in motivation is not having or knowing what you want your goal to be.
Oftentimes, it’s hard to know where we are going if we don’t even know where we want to end up. We might just be aimlessly taking gigs and working on our business without knowing our goals for the month, for the quarter, for the year or even five years down the road!
Now, I can’t tell you what your goal should be, because everyone has different goals. Some have personal goals, financial goals, social goals, etc. That’s up to you to reflect internally on what you want to do with your business.
The important part is that you know what that thing is so you can wake up everyday knowing where it is you want to end up.
2. Aiming low
On the note of not having a goal, the second thing that can lead to a decrease in motivation is not aiming high enough with your goals.
If you set a goal that is too low, you may not be excited for it. In the consulting world, we often tell our clients to set stretch goals and you will be surprised how many times this “stretch” goal often ends up being hit.
Once we set something in our head, we will take the necessary steps and actions to try and reach that goal. So why not set a high goal in the beginning?
3. Not trying new things for the business
The third thing that I have seen lead to a decrease in motivation for my business, is not trying new things.
When running your own business, you can have a lot of plates spinning because you are the sales person, the marketer, the finance person, the CEO, etc. You are all the departments and all the departments are you.
Don’t wait for motivation because you might go weeks without motivation. What’s important to have is consistency. Because on the days you are really unmotivated, you will still want to be consistent.
What’s helped me is to plan out my weekly schedule on Sundays. This way when Monday hits, I hit the ground running.
Learn to be consistent and you can conquer anything.
Motivation comes and goes
In conclusion, these are the four biggest tips I have for you if you find yourself losing motivation in your business. Especially if you just find your self stuck at home like I still am for the most part.
Just remember, that motivation can come and go and that it’s a natural part of life. When you are feeling unmotivated, just know that you aren’t alone.
Stay consistent, stay grateful, and you will see great success. Good luck!
Nate Joaquin Torres is a portrait photographer based in Los Angeles, California. Outside of photography, Nate specializes in SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing. He has a passion for minimalist photography with a film feel. Nate is also the founder of Imaginated.com, DEEP IN THE MIX, and Blue Hour Candle. Feel free to connect with him on Instagram or subscribe to his email newsletter. www.imaginated.com/
