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Women-Owned Small Businesses More Likely to Use Social Media

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Women-owned businesses are most likely to use social media. Men! What y’all doing?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A woman-owned small business is more likely to use social media, according to a new survey from Clutch, a leading B2B research and reviews firm.

Among women-owned businesses, 74% use social media, compared to 66% of men-owned businesses.

The findings came as no surprise to experts, who said women overall are more likely to use social media. Given that trend, female small business owners more easily can bring their business onto social media.

“Women are generally better conversationalists than men,” said Jeff Gibbard, chief social strategist at digital agency I’m From the Future. “They tend to be more expressive and more emotive. It’s no surprise to me why more women business owners use social media.”

Women often communicate better than men, which translates to the online world where they are more likely to use social media effectively.

Millennial-Owned Small Businesses Lead Social Media Use

There is also a generational divide among small businesses’ social media use. The survey finds that 79% of millennial-owned small businesses use social media compared to 65% of small businesses owned by older generations.

Millennials, like women in general, frequently use social media for their personal lives. Their social media skills easily carry over into their businesses – unlike older generations, experts say.

“The older people didn’t grow up with social media, so many don’t understand how to use it for their business,” said Shawn Alain, president of social media agency Viral in Nature. “They went through a significant part of their life without even the internet, and they remember what it was like not to have a smartphone or email.”

Millennials are also more likely to use Instagram and Snapchat than older generations, but Generation Xers and Baby Boomers are more likely to use LinkedIn.

Most Small Businesses Use Facebook

Facebook remains the most popular social media channel for small businesses, no matter the gender or generation of the owner – 86% say they use it, which is nearly twice the number of small businesses that use the second-place channel, Instagram (48%).

Among small business users of social media, 12% say they use Facebook exclusively for their social media efforts.

Overall, 71% of small businesses use social media, and more than half (52%) share content at least once per day. Images and infographics (54%) are the most popular content types that businesses post to social media.

Read the full report here. 

 

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Facebook’s Trust Crisis: What Now?

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Less than 1 in 3 people call Facebook a responsible company, according to a new survey.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Barraged by accusations of spreading divisive fake news and amid new allegations that it handed over personal information on up to 50 million users without their consent, Facebook is losing the faith of the people, according to a new survey.

Almost 4 out of 10 people surveyed said: “Facebook is not a responsible company because it puts making profits most of the time ahead of trying to do the right thing.” Less than 1 in 3 said that Facebook is a “responsible company because it tries to do the right thing most of the time even if that gets in the way of it making profits.” The rest were unsure.

By a 7-1 ratio people surveyed said that Facebook has had a negative influence on political discourse. Sixty-one percent said that “Facebook has damaged American politics and made it more negative by enabling manipulation and falsehoods that polarize people.”

The survey was conducted as new revelations surfaced that the company connected to the 2016 Trump campaign, Cambridge Analytica, inappropriately harvested personal information on millions of Facebook users.

The sharp rise in negative feelings is a significant departure from Facebook’s standing prior to the 2016 election, when the rise of so-called Fake News and polarizing content led to calls for the company to take greater responsibility for the content on the popular social media site – or face government regulation.

By a 2-1 margin, people surveyed said it’s Facebook’s responsibility to remove or warn about posts that contain false or misleading information. And 59 percent reported that the company is not doing enough to address the issues of false and inflammatory information that appear on its site.

“Facebook is at a crossroads because of its inability – nearly a year-and-a-half after the election – to get a handle on its divisive effects on society,” said Tom Galvin, Executive Director of Digital Citizens, who commissioned the survey. “From spreading fake and manipulative information to becoming a ‘Dark Web-like’ place for illicit commerce, Facebook seems to losing the trust of the American public. Regulation will not be far behind for social media companies if things don’t change.”

This declining trust reflects a growing concern about the impact Facebook and other social media sites have on young teens.  In the survey, more than two in five people surveyed said that the minimum age to have a Facebook account should be at least 18 years old.

“Digital platforms have to rise to the occasion and assure internet users that their personal information will be safe, that the content will be legal, safe and not contrived to manipulate. In short, they have to demonstrate they will be the positive influence on our society that they espouse to be,” said Galvin.

 

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How to Win at Marketing Using a Hashtag

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A travel company has managed to stir up a lot of viral traffic with their hashtag. Watch and learn, people.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

What do a dream wedding in New York, an adventure through the mountains of Sri Lanka and a family’s search for their roots in Scotland all have in common? All saw a hospitality professional going out of their way to make or save someone’s trip. And a holiday booking company use this mushy sequence of events with a hashtag to fire up social media views and get a great repsonse from them.

Booking.com call themselves the global leader in connecting travellers with the widest choice of incredible places to stay. Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com B.V. has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest travel e-commerce companies in the world. Part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: BKNG), Booking.com now employs more than 17,000 employees in 198 offices in 70 countries worldwide.

So, what are they doing with their social media marketing? They are riding hastags like a showjumper would a prize horse.

They have had some great success with their recent hashtag #BookingHero. They asked people to share their travel stories using the hashtag. The best story won travel prizes and big kudos online.

Following thousands of submissions via social media, Booking.com selected the three most touching and inspiring accounts of hospitality professionals going above and beyond to create unique and unforgettable travel experiences for their guests.

The customers were then flown back to say thank you to the person who saved their trips. Here are the stories.

 

 

The point isn’t the stories though. The point is that real people’s journeys made the hashtag come alive and generate traffic for booking.com. In fact, the call out for submissions via social media has been so successsful that Booking.com is now using the hashtag to extend the social media campaign with long-form video content that extends the #BookingHero message, with TV to follow.

According to recent research conducted by Booking.com across 25 markets in 2017, a personal connection is essential for many travellers with 29% saying that an accommodation feeling like home is key and 24% sharing that a welcoming host is a make or break factor during the first 24 hours of their trip.

Said Pepijn Rijvers, Chief Marketing Officer, Booking.com. “These stories beautifully demonstrate that an amazing trip is about more than simply finding the right destination or the perfect accommodation– it’s also about the people you meet along the way which truly make for an unforgettable journey. And that’s what travel is all about.”

And for the company, it is about finding the right hashtag and getting it to go viral.

 

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Uh-Oh. How Do We Mobile-Advertise to Gen-Z When They Don’t Like Their Phones That Much?

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Gen Z use their phones a lot, but are relieved when they are taken away. So how do marketers reach this age group if they have a love/hate relationship with their smartphones?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Members of Generation Z are relieved when placed in a situation where they are unable to access their smartphones for several weeks. This is according to a new study conducted by Screen Education, a non-profit organisation that addresses smartphone addiction.

The study involved participants aged from 12 to 16, who spent 2-4 weeks at Camp Livingston during the summer of 2017.  Because Camp Livingston does not permit its campers to bring smartphones with them, they are an ideal group for conducting research about refraining from smartphone use.

According to Michael Mercier, President of Screen Education, “Many children said they have become overwhelmed by their smartphones. They no longer can keep up with all their notifications, and they are burdened by the ‘drama’ they encounter through social media via their smartphones. Consequently, they were relieved to be separated from their smartphones because it eliminated that stress.”

This relief was reflected in a survey conducted with the campers after they had returned home.  The campers were asked the extent to which they experienced feelings of gladness and frustration from being without their phones. “A large number − 92% − experienced gladness, while only 41% felt any frustration. We had expected the opposite,” said Mercier.

When asked what their experience would have been like if they had been allowed to bring their phones to camp, campers revealed just how severe smartphone addiction is among their age group. “They almost unanimously admitted they would have spent the entire time on their phones,” recounts Max Yamson, Executive Director of Camp Livingston. “They said they would not have formed deep relationships with the staff and fellow campers, would not have connected with their surroundings and nature on the same level, and would not have engaged as much in recreational activities.”

According to Yamson, “The study shows that the campers were glad to have left their phones behind so that they could experience a deeper level of engagement.”

“The research also revealed a stunning insight,” said Mercier. “Many campers discussed the experience of face-to-face communication as though it were a novel one. They exhibited a sense of discovery at learning that face-to-face communication is far superior to screen communication when it comes to building friendships and getting to know other people.”

Yamson added, “One camper said that in four short weeks she got to know her friends at camp better than she knows some of her friends at home – because she mostly communicates with her friends at home through screens.”

Other key findings include:

  • 92% said it was beneficial to have gone without their phones while at camp
  • 83% considered having gone without their phones for several weeks to be an important life experience
  • 35% were successful at curbing their smartphone use after leaving camp
  • 17% tried to influence a friend to spend less time on their phone after leaving camp

The researchers plan to follow this study up with additional research during the summer of 2018.

 

Marketers trying to catch the attention of this demographic may need to think carefully about how they approach mobile advertising for this generation of digital natives. It’s another day in the life of modern media.

 

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A New App Can Create Facebook Ads Without the Cost

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This handy app can help you create ads with impact but with very little effort.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An app called Plotaverse helps marketers to create great ads without the dreaded and costly content creation process. Quickly bypassing established app giants, the young startup’s iOS app made the list of Facebook’s top 10 mobile apps.

The photo app’s animation features allow businesses of any calibre to create impactful ads fast and on a budget. More or less, you can choose from many artistically appealling gifs and put your message over them. The artwork on the site is truly eye-catching.

But how did Plotaverse’s 8 months old mobile app manage to disrupt visual advertising, going up against 8 billion video views a day on Facebook alone?

Images animated with Plotaverse, formerly known as Plotagraph, are the key to its success. The app ads movement to any single still photo. This creates ads that stand out in saturated media feeds.

 

Brands like Coca Cola, Wella, Chevrolet and Red Bull were seen boosting their brand with captivating Plotagraphs. There is no need for video, multiple photos or video editing skills to turn a photograph into a Plotagraph. Users of any skill level can quickly animate and post uniquely moving images to their business and social page.

On Instagram and Facebook, Plotagraphs have proven to attract up to 5 times the amount of views and engagement than surrounding images.

Every day, 4.5 million business pages on Facebook are trying to cut through 1.32 billion daily active users according to WordStream. As expected, Adobe’s titan apps, Photoshop Express and Spark Post head Facebook’s list of Photo Enhancing apps. But the tiny startup’s photo animation app has unexpectedly spearheaded the looping content industry.

To check it out, click here

 

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Irish Digital Media Company Electric Media Redesigned – Introducing Packed.House

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As Electric Media completes its tenth year in business, we are also entering the next phase for the company and one which will involve major change for the business.

As we all know, the media landscape is evolving and we are evolving with it.

Brands are demanding a dependable partner for premium branded content production, better informed data-services and the scale and scope to match. With this in mind, we have been busy formulating growth and transformation plans to ensure we maintain our market leading position in Ireland.

We are investing publishers. We are investing in people. We are investing in technology. We are investing in a new premises which will give our clients access to our own content studios (video and audio), production expertise, a full creative team and deeper business insights.

Enter Packed.House – Packed.House will be the new Electric Media. We blend a new line-up of our own properties with best-in-class represented publishing brands.

Presenting this blended offering to the media landscape will give Packed.House a broader range of competencies and the ability to give agencies and brands a wider range of end-to-end services. Our investment will create a new media option of substance for you.

“The creation of Packed.House is intended to combine the muscle of several established and successful media businesses to ensure the digital services provided cover a broader range of abilities and cooperation opportunities. We have Wide Eye Media in Ireland, Pearl and Dean in the UK and a new stable of owned publishers such as entertainment.ie, Beaut.ie, FamilyFriendlyHQ.ie. There are more to be announced at the launch next week including one of the largest parenting sites in Ireland and a brand new sports platform” says Dermot Hanrahan Chairman of Packed.House.

“Over the last 6 months we have assessed the market and engaged with several publishers both here and in the U.K. We had very clear criteria for our acquisition strategy; strong organic traffic, well established brands and a credible, authentic voice generated through talented content teams. Entertainment.ie, Beaut.ie, FamilyfriendlyHq.ie and approved others all surpassed those criteria. Redevelopment of the platforms are already underway, it’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Packed.House” says Richie Kelly, CEO at Packed.House. 

Packed.House will cohabit with Ireland’s cinema advertising specialists Wide Eye Media, in its new premises adjacent to the Three Arena. This will facilitate a greater level of cooperation, across sales and creativity, in both digital and cinema. There are exciting potential synergies to be explored now between entertainment.ie, Wide Eye Media and its sister company Pearl and Dean, Britain’s longest established cinema ad sales company. The construction of fully equipped video and audio studios on site, is just a start!

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“Scientists” Release Documentary “Proving” That the Earth is not Round

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Well, this is MediaStreet and we bring you all the media stories!

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Okay so here’s a change from our usual stories about modern-day media and how it works. A new documentary has been made about the actual shape of our earth.

The question will be answered, apparently, in a feature-length movie called Convex Earth: The Documentary.

The film will be released on March 29 at convexearth.org, in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Here’s what the filmmakers say:

Inquiries concerning the shape of the Earth have been a recurring theme in human history. Based on a series of natural phenomena that contradict accepted academic teaching on the matter, Brazilian scientists at Dakila Pesquisas decided to investigate these inconsistencies.

Founded in 1997, Dakila Pesquisas is comprised of researchers and scientists from diverse fields of knowledge, mainly the natural sciences.

In seven years of studies, scientific experiments were conducted at different points in the world, with the involvement of government institutions and professional researchers from a variety of fields.

According to Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira, founder of Dakila Pesquisas, the thesis that the Earth is round has been refuted by seven experiments: a geodesic experiment, which consists of measuring two buildings at a considerable distance; using sea level as a reference; a laser experiment to ascertain the flatness of water surfaces; levelling of water surfaces; optical distortions relating to processes of reflection; an experiment with boats on the horizon line; and experiments involving gravity and heavenly bodies.

In order to carry out the geodesic experiment, the base and the top of two buildings were measured, one in Torres, Rio Grande do Sul, and the other in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. Engineers at the National Institute of Land Settlement and Agrarian Reform (INCRA – Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária) took part in these activities. A long-range laser was used to measure the flatness of the waters at the Três Marias Dam in Minas Gerais; at the Lagoa dos Patos, in Rio Grande do Sul; at Lake Titicaca in Peru; and on the seas around the island of Ilhabela in the state of São Paulo, and at the Straits of Gibraltar the sea passage separating Europe from Africa. In this way, the theory of gravity has been challenged by two essential natural measures: the plumb line and the level.

All the experiments had the participation of astronomers, cartographers, geologists, topographers and civil engineers, among other professional researchers. Cutting edge equipment was used. After the release of the documentary, Dakila Pesquisas will make available all of the methodology and technology used so that those interested can verify the results.

“In addition to addressing the shape of the Earth, the documentary will reveal the discovery of a new continent sealed off by a great wall of ice. New knowledge will also be demonstrated concerning the sun, the moon and the constellations,” Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira disclosed.

Well there you have it. That’s their case for a convex earth.

Following the documentary, the book Convex Earth will be released, including all the scientific findings and a new map of the world.

 

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