Social Media Archives - Page 33 of 38

In News

Millennials Trust Social Media Influencers Less

December 13, 2017 No Comments

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Millennials rely on social media influencers more than ever for fashion shopping ideas and inspiration, but say they trust them less.

This is according to a Dealspotr survey of Millennial shoppers, conducted to better understand the shifting dynamics between consumers, lifestyle influencers and retailers in today’s digital economy. They say, “Perhaps more than any other industry, fashion retail has been upended by social media and the rise of digital influencers. Millennials are increasingly reliant on social media and the influencers who dominate them to curate trends, new brands, and the styles they wear.”

This year’s edition, Dealspotr’s Millennial Fashion Shopping Study, underscores some surprising shifts in Millennials’ perceptions of social media influencers. Notably, in 2017, Millennials are starting to trust influencers less than they used to. Millennials are also becoming more sophisticated in how they evaluate influencers – a previously important indicator of trust, an influencer’s number of followers, is now largely ignored by this demographic. At the same time, Millennials are now more reliant than ever on lifestyle influencers for fashion ideas and inspiration, creating a critical yet challenging landscape for fashion brands to navigate.

“Millennials now trust social media influencers more than their friends and family for fashion picks and recommendations,” says Michael Quoc, founder and CEO of Dealspotr. “However, as the influencer economy matures, brands must be hyper-aware of shifting perceptions and increasing skepticism towards online influencers when crafting an influencer marketing strategy.”

Highlights from the report:

Social media influencers are now the #1 factor driving fashion shopping decisions among female Millennials (41% selected as their primary influence). Lifestyle influencers now have greater impact than more traditional factors such as friends and family (37%), TV / magazines / advertisements (20%) and celebrities (19%).
At the same time, 52% of Millennials say they trust social media influencers less these days.
Millennials no longer judge influencers by their number of followers. Only 7% primarily care about an influencer’s number of followers, far outweighed by the influencer’s sense of style (60%).
Millennials are extremely price conscious when it comes to fashion brands. 70% of Millennials say price and value are the most important attributes of a fashion brand, above the brand’s style at 43%.
36% of Millennials say the availability of a discount code is their primary factor determining whether they would try purchasing from a new or unfamiliar fashion brand.
65% of Millennials primarily make fashion purchases in-store, compared to 41% who primarily buy online.

To download the full report, click here.

In News

The Vast Majority of People Don’t Trust Social Media. So Where Should Marketers Put Their Ad Spend?

December 11, 2017 No Comments

If you want to reach people with your advertising message, what can you do?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

While consumers use social platforms as their principal access point for information, not many people trust the content they find there. 89% of 18-64-year-olds are categorised as social skeptics when it comes to things they read that has reached them via social media. The solution? You’d better use a trusted news/information site, or you are just peeing your ad spend up a wall.

These results are according to a research conducted on behalf of Digital Content Next. The research highlights the fact that brand credibility is EVERYTHING.

“Consumers lack trust in social platform content and that it’s spilling over into their perceptions of brand sites and apps,” said Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next. “While we don’t recommend that publishers walk away from the relationships they have with the platforms, we do recommend they urge the platforms to better utilise and protect trusted news and entertainment brands.”

When it comes to trust, consumers have higher expectations for brand sites and apps and expect them to be trustworthy, credible, accurate and up-to-date. Thus, brands should closely monitor trust and work to maintain it as a key differentiator in the volatile digital media marketplace.

Other findings:

Social automation and algorithms appear to have a negative impact with 62 percent of consumers agreeing that “there’s so much random content on social media, there’s no way to tell if an article is credible or not.”
A younger audience of “Social Skeptics” has emerged. Seven in 10 of these consumers choose quality brand sites for content and prefer brand sites/apps for information. In fact, 41 percent of Social Skeptics have a content subscription, which also signals a preference for premium content.
Brand sites build trust by delivering on key attributes, such as credibility and accuracy, which correlate highly to both trust and importance. However, there are also hidden drivers which are less obvious—but that correlate highly to trust. These include popularity, virality, and personalisation, all of which are important strategies to employ and very much a part of the algorithms of platforms.
“Trust as a Proxy for Brand Value” found that brand sites should incorporate four key building blocks of trust into their strategies:
- Attribution (confirming multiple sources)
- Reputation
- Navigation
- Prediction (past experiences with the brand)
Consumer trust in brand sites also positively impacts advertisers on the site. Higher trust in brand sites results in a trust halo effect for advertisers. Brand sites provide a significant boost in advertiser trust and positive perception compared to social media and YouTube.
Consumer expectations around trust are higher for brand sites and apps and they expect them to be trustworthy, credible, accurate, and up-to-date. Therefore, publishers should closely monitor trust and work to maintain it as a key differentiator in the volatile digital media marketplace.

To view the full research report, click here.

In News

5 Insanely Useful Social Media Automation Tools For Bloggers

November 27, 2017 No Comments

By David Hartshorne

Social media is a part of everyday life.

Whether you’re using it as part of your business marketing strategy or just catching up with friends (not forgetting the cats and dogs videos of course), it’s difficult to avoid.

According to research figures published in January 2016, there are now more than 2.3 billion active social media users, a 10% increase since last year.

But how do you ensure you maintain a healthy presence on your chosen social networks?
And how do you get your message across to your audience when you’re competing with a few other million or so?

As entrepreneur John Rampton wrote:

Between updating your profile, responding to customers, coming up with content and sharing content, managing your social media accounts can become a full-time job.

If you want to have any chance of surviving and reaching your audience, then you need to use some social media automation.

But before we dive into some of the tools you can use, we need to establish a ground rule.

The golden rule of social media automation

Using tools to automate tasks on social media is not a problem; as long as you remember to keep the human interaction as well.

You see, if you just spew out content all day and all night, and don’t bother to interact with people, then you’ve just dropped the social out of social media marketing.

Not only have you broken the golden rule, but you’ve lost a golden opportunity.

As Brooke Sellas wrote on Business Grow:

If they’re scheduling tweets but not following up, isn’t that spam?

What a turn-off that would be to any potential customers looking for an answer to your product or service.
What an insult that would be to any customers seeking answers to support queries.

And as Kevan Lee from Buffer says:

Automate what you can while still remaining engaged on a consistent basis.

The point of automation is to relieve you of the mundane, repetitive tasks, freeing up your time to focus on the most important activities of the day.

So, by all means, automate your social media tasks, but remember to set aside some time each day to interact and engage with your audience on your chosen social networks.

What type of social media automation tool works best?

There are various social media automation tools on the market. In my experience, the type that works best is the content scheduling tool.

Now, don’t get me wrong, some tools can generate automatic Direct Messages on Twitter, and others that can help you manage who you follow and unfollow.

But in keeping with the golden rule above, I prefer to interact and choose who I follow rather than let an app decide.

So I stick with the tools that schedule content.

What type of content can you automate?

When sharing content on the various social networks, you’ll want to get a good mix of your own plus other people’s content to keep things interesting.

There are different recommendations about the exact balance you should aim for, but it’s best if you experiment with the ratio and find your sweet spot.

What tools can you use to automate your social media activities?

OK, let’s take a look at five social media automation tools that will free up your time.

#1 Buffer

Buffer lets you create a queue (a buffer) of content for each social network. You decide on the schedule for each network; for example, you could choose to tweet five times a day, but only post to LinkedIn twice a day.

Adding content is easy, especially if you use the browser extension. Once you’ve read a piece of content that you like, just click the bookmarklet.

It brings up a selection panel where you can modify the description, select an image, choose which network, and what time to post.

You can even take it one step further by using the Power Scheduler option which allows you to set up multiple posts of the content.

Buffer is also available as an iOS and Android app so that you can share ‘on-the-go’ from your smartphone too.

Pricing

Buffer has a broad range of pricing plans for both individuals and agencies:

The Individual Plan lets you connect up to five social accounts (one per Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, GooglePlus and Instagram) and add up to ten posts in your buffer. It’s an excellent free plan on which to get started.

The Awesome Plan at $10/month extends the features so you can connect up to 10 social accounts (any number per platform as above plus Pinterest) and add up to 100 posts/tweets to your buffer. Plus, you can also link to RSS feeds from your favorite blogs.

So, for example, say you love Blogging Wizard and know that Adam only ever produces top-notch content, then you can link to that RSS feed and automatically add the latest posts into your Buffer. Neat!

Get Buffer

#2 Social Jukebox

Buffer is perfect for getting your current content queued up and ready to post, but what happens after that?

We all know that tweets disappear in a couple of seconds.

What if your audience missed your fantastic tweet about your new blog post?
How would you potentially reach them again?

Well, you need to consider scheduling your content on a social network more than once. That’s the beauty of the Buffer Power Scheduler.

But even so, what happens after a month?

For your evergreen content, you need to consider using a tool like Social Jukebox.

The premise is simple.

You load content into your jukeboxes:

And set them to play at the desired frequency:

When all the content has finished playing, then it starts over again.

But, here’s the clever part – it plays them in a different random order, so it keeps things fresh!

If you don’t like random, there is another feature called Targeted Posts. Here you can load some posts that will play at a particular time, either as a one-off or repetitively.

Social Jukebox also has a Chrome Extension, which is handy. As you discover a piece of content on the web that you like, you can quickly add it to the applicable jukebox with one click.

Along with Buffer, this is one of my favorite tools because it saves me so much time.

Remember the golden rule: if people interact with your content as it’s played – a like, a retweet, a share, etc. – then jump in and have a conversation with them.

Pricing

There are a variety of pricing plans to choose from starting with Advanced at $19.99/month and ending with the Ultimate Plan @ $99.99/month. Each plan varies the number of Jukeboxes, Stored Posts, Targeted Posts, and Linked Social Accounts that are allowed. Each plan comes with a free 14-day trial.

Get Social Jukebox

#3 Missinglettr

Missinglettr is the new kid on the block, but it’s a handy time-saver. Once you’ve setup your account and connected your blog via RSS, you let Missinglettr monitor your blog 24/7.

A few minutes after publishing a blog post you receive an email notifying you that your drip social marketing campaign is ready to review:

Click the link in the email and dive into your latest campaign to review what Missinglettr has created.

You have the options to change the text, the image, and the hashtags for each of the scheduled posts:

Once you’ve approved your campaign, you can let the automation start. Missinglettr will deliver your post on the prescribed days throughout the next twelve months.

Pricing

Like Social Jukebox there is a broad range of pricing plans for Missinglettr to suit your requirements.

Individual Plans:

Team Plans:

There’s also a free plan which is an excellent place to start if you have one blog and only want to connect one social network.

On the premium plans, you can connect to Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and Facebook. (Pinterest integration is coming soon.) All plans have a free trial period, so why not give it a try today.

Get Missinglettr

#4 Tailwind

Tailwind is probably best-known as a scheduling tool for Pinterest. But recently they’ve added Instagram scheduling and publishing, too.

You could say they’ve got the visual marketing channels sewn-up! But what makes Tailwind so attractive?

For starters, Tailwind, along with Buffer, is an official marketing partner for Pinterest and Instagram, so you know you’re in good hands.

Whatever platform you’re using Tailwind for, it helps you to discover fresh content, monitor conversations, maximize your reach and measure results.

But the scheduling features are Tailwind’s greatest strengths as they help you save time.

The idea is to upload your content in bulk and then let Tailwind post it as per your schedule.

The Schedule shows your time slots:

The dotted time slots are smart suggestions from Tailwind, based on their analysis of when people are most active. These recommendations are a tremendous help when you’re getting started, as you probably don’t know what times will work best.

When you accept a suggested slot, they turn green. You can also add your own time slots, and these are colored gray.

You can change your schedule whenever you wish, increasing or decreasing the frequency of content you’ll post.

The Scheduled Pins shows an overview of what you have scheduled:

The padlock symbol shows the scheduled slot is locked, but you can unlock it and drag-and-drop pins if you need to make adjustments.

One more time-saver with Tailwind is the ability to create Pinterest Board Lists. A Board List is a group of boards in the same category; e.g. blogging, that you schedule the same pin to with one click.

The Instagram scheduling works similarly to Pinterest. But Tailwind also suggests the best Instagram hashtags to use, with intuitive color coding to help you maximize your engagement:

However, Tailwind cannot post to Instagram directly, as it can for Pinterest. Like all Instagram-approved scheduling apps, it sends push notifications to your mobile phone that remind you it’s time to share your post:

Pricing

You’ll need to buy a separate plan for each platform that you want to connect on Tailwind:

Tailwind for Pinterest Plus Plan is available for $15/month or $119.88/year.
Tailwind for Instagram Plus Plan is available for $15/month or $119.88/year.

You can schedule up to 100 pins on Pinterest and 30 posts on Instagram for free before deciding if a paid plan is right for you.

Get Tailwind

#5 IFTTT

IFTTT stands for IF This Then That.

It’s a platform that lets you create automations called applets (previously called “recipes”) that connect different services with a command.

For example, take the applet: Save Your Instagram Photos to Dropbox.

It would use the command: If you post a photograph on Instagram, Then Save a Copy to Dropbox.

If you head over to All Services, you can see the full listing of services (applications, networks, features, tools, etc. previously known as “channels”) that IFTTT connects to.

There are all kinds of weird and wonderful connections available. But I’ll just share a few recipes that can save you time on social media.

Automatically share new posts to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn – When you publish a new blog post on WordPress, this applet will share the link on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn automatically.
Sync your new Instagrams to a Pinterest board – When you post on Instagram, this applet posts the image to a particular Pinterest board.
Post your Tweets to Facebook when you use a specific hashtag – When you use a specific hashtag on a Tweet, IFTTT will automatically strip out the hashtag (as Facebook doesn’t benefit from hashtags) and post the message on Facebook.
Automatically share your new videos to a Facebook Page – When you upload a new public video to YouTube, the link will be posted on your Facebook Page to keep them in sync.

You’re not limited to using existing applets. You can create your own as Kristi Hines explains here.

Pricing

IFTTT is a free tool.

Get IFTTT

Wrapping up

Social media automation is a necessity if you’re going to have any chance of maintaining a healthy balance of creating and curating content to share with your audience.

But it’s not merely a set and forget strategy.

You need to dedicate some time to staying social on social media; else you’ll turn into a robot.

Let the tools do the repetitive work and free up your time for more meaningful social interactions.

By David Hartshorne

Sourced from bloggingwizard

In News

Marketing to millennials: Should brands spend money?

November 17, 2017 No Comments

By Shawn Lim

As social media increasingly becomes the tool of choice for millennials, is it sensible for brands and marketers to base their marketing strategy around user-generated content on these platforms and not invest any money into their strategy?

According to Rohit Sharma, founder and chief executive of Pokkt, a mobile video advertising and app monetisation platform for game developers, he tells The Drum that even though the millennial generation is extremely plugged into social, many companies are plunging headfirst into social without understanding that social simply cannot function as a standalone strategy as it must be incorporated as part of an integrated strategy.

“It is akin to functioning with tunnel vision, or with blinkers on – you end up overlooking other channels that could deliver greater reach, engagement, and which ultimately drive the bottom line,” he adds.

Sharma believes that social is prized for how easily it lends itself to native and while there are channels that might do this just as well, or even better. For example, he says by engaging the user in a mini-game within a game, in-game advertising is the perfect example of native, with a far higher guarantee that the user will actually see and interact with content, instead of simply scrolling past as they might do on a social feed. “Furthermore, the nature of the games in question often allow for short, predictable breaks – easy spaces for advertisers to communicate their message without being annoying or interruptive,” he adds.

However, there are some brands who buck the trend by putting their trust into social media. Take GlampingCity for example, a company that combines glamour and camping for people who want a hotel-style accommodation, but with the feel of outdoor camping.

Its entry into Singapore was initially met with scepticism, but the trend slowly caught on when the company started posting picturesque photos on its Instagram page, taken by its staff and local social media influencers that it collaborates with.

Aside from its Instagram page and a website, GlampingCity does not have any budget allocated for ad spend and marketing strategy, according to founder Ryan Lam, adding that glamping caught on fast in Singapore through word of mouth and social media because people were posting about their experiences with it.

Lam, who was speaking to The Drum on the sidelines of the 2017 ACI Asia Business Summit in Singapore, also reveals that 50% of the photos on the company’s Instagram page is from his own team. “This business is very new, so we have not approached anyone (influencer) yet, all of our collaborations and partnerships, it all came naturally. I spent zero dollars on marketing. I only spent on logistics. The publicity came naturally.”

“I don’t plan to pay influencers, the genuine ones, maybe, not those that are looking to do it for their own benefit,” he adds.

Bart Mroz, co-founder and CEO of Sumo Heavy, a ecommerce consulting company, tells The Drum that he agrees with GlampingCity’s social media heavy strategy as he feels that social should be a main priority for the production, distribution and syndication of content when it comes to marketing to millennials as they are changing the ways brands market.

Brands like Sephora and Nike, have also been successful in marketing to millennials by using Instagram to post visually stunning photos that clearly reflects brand identity and draws users in, according to Mroz, noting that Nike has become the 19th most followed account and the fifth most used hashtag, while Sephora has increased its engagement rate and now boasts nearly 13 million followers.

Mroz however, adds that in order to effectively use social media, brands still need to put money into these platforms. “You won’t see the needle move much if you don’t invest. Marketers need to shift their spending from traditional channels like TV, print, and PPC to social media. For example, Facebook and Instagram are both strong channels because of their high engagement rates, robust targeting options, and popularity with this demographic.”

Noting that 41% of millennials use Facebook every day, which makes it still the number one marketing channel, and that Instagram and Snapchat are catching up because the platforms are very different in style and have features that attracting more millennials, Mroz says: “Therefore, brands should still focus on Facebook, but pay much more attention to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to better engage with this target audience in the long-run.”

Feature Image: Ryan Lam, founder of GlampingCity. Photo by: Institute on Consumer Insights

By Shawn Lim

Shawn Lim is a reporter at The Drum, covering industry news around the Asia Pacific region with a focus on Singapore and Southeast Asia. Based in Singapore, he has worked across photography, video and online, covering a range of subjects including current affairs and sports.

Before Game of Thrones, he was a huge Breaking Bad fan. He does CrossFit and yoga to stay healthy.

Sourced from THEDRUM

In News

Twitter Pledges To Be ‘Dramatically’ More Transparent With Political Advertising

November 14, 2017 No Comments

By Jack Sommers

It comes amid fears of Russian influence on elections over social media.

Twitter has announced it will be “dramatically” more transparent about the political adverts you see on your feed, amid fears Russia sought to influence the 2016 election with adverts on social media

From now on, any advert promoting a specific candidate or party will be clearly labelled as electioneering and state who bought them.

It comes after Twitter suspended accounts it suspected of having been bought by Russian operatives.

The site will also build a “Transparency Center” that would:

Show all ads that are currently running or that have run on Twitter, including Promoted-Only ads

Disclose total campaign ad spend by advertiser

Disclose the identity of the organisation funding the campaign

Reveal the targeting demographics, such as age, gender and geography

Show historical data about all electioneering ad spending by advertiser

For now adverts that do not name a specific candidate will not be affected but Twitter said it would work on this.

But it warned there was no “clear industry definition” for political adverts that only addressed issues.

“We are committed to stricter policies and transparency around issue-based ads,” Twitter’s Bruce Falck wrote in a blog.

“There is currently no clear industry definition for issue-based ads but we will work with our peer companies, other industry leaders, policymakers, and ad partners to clearly define them quickly and integrate them into the new approach.”

Political ads will also face:

Stricter requirements on who can serve these ads and limits on targeting options

A requirement to identify as the work of an “electioneering advertisers”

Introduce stronger penalties for advertisers who violate policies

Falck’s blog specifically mentions the Honest Ads Act, which congressional representatives introduced to “help prevent foreign interference in future elections” and that “Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election by buying and placing political ads on platforms such as Facebook”.

Senator John McCain said: “In the wake of Russia’s attack on the 2016 election, it is more important than ever to strengthen our defenses against foreign interference in our elections.

“Unfortunately, US laws requiring transparency in political campaigns have not kept pace with rapid advances in technology, allowing our adversaries to take advantage of these loopholes to deceive millions of American voters with impunity.”

Twitter has announced it will be ‘dramatically’ more transparent about the political adverts you see on your feed

Twitter’s rule change comes amid a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the issue. Twitter told the committee it had suspended more than 200 accounts over concerns they were Russian bots.

Earlier this month, Facebook said 10 million people had seen adverts bought by a shadowy Russian agency during the election.

Twitter’s new rules will go out in the US first but will follow in the rest of the world.

By Jack Sommers

Sourced from HUFFPOST

In News

More Time on Social Media is NOT Linked to Poor Mental Health

November 3, 2017 No Comments

HOW people use social media is more important than the time they spend using it. Let’s stop the moral panic.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

There has so far been no evidence supporting the view that the amount of time spent on social media affects mental health in young people, says Chloe Berryman of the University of Central Florida. In fact, she says that there are very few links between different aspects of social media use among young adults and possible mental health problems such as loneliness, decreased empathy and social anxiety.

“We do not deny the potential for some online behaviours to be associated with mental health problems, rather we propose that research focus on the behaviour of individuals rather than assume media is the root cause of all socio-personal problems,” says Berryman, who compared the response that some people have to social media to a form of ‘moral panic’ such as that surrounding video games, comic books and rock music.

Berryman and her colleagues analysed the responses of 467 young adults to a variety of questionnaires. They were questioned about the amount of time per day they spent using social media, the importance it has in their lives, and the way they used social media. Their current mental health state, levels of social anxiety, the quality of their relationship with their parents and the amount of social support that they could count on were also assessed. Aspects such as general mental health symptoms, suicidal ideation, loneliness, social anxiety and decreased empathy were also considered.

The only worrying trend found had to do with ‘vaguebooking,’ which refers to a person’s tendency to write social media posts that contain little actual and clear information, but are worded in such a way as to solicit attention and concern from potential readers. Young people who tended to often write such posts were found to be lonelier, and to have more suicidal thoughts than others.

“Vaguebooking was slightly predictive of suicidal ideation, suggesting this particular behaviour could be a warning sign for serious issues,” says Berryman. “It is therefore possible that some forms of social media use may function as a ‘cry for help’ among individuals with pre-existing mental health problems.”

“Overall, results from this study suggest that, with the exception of vaguebooking, concerns regarding social media use may be misplaced,” she adds. “Our results are generally consistent with other studies which suggests that how people use social media is more critical than the actual time they spend online with regards to their mental health.”

There you go, readers. Go forth and Facebook obsessively… it’s all good.

In News

Are Social Media Data Miners Doing it Wrong?

October 26, 2017 No Comments

Researchers need to be aware of the mistakes that can be made when for mining social-media data.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A growing number of academic researchers are mining social media data to learn about both online and offline human behaviour. In recent years, studies have claimed the ability to predict everything from summer blockbusters to fluctuations in the stock market.

But mounting evidence of flaws in many of these studies points to a need for researchers to be wary of serious pitfalls that arise when working with huge social media data sets. That is, according to computer scientists at McGill University in Montreal and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Such erroneous results can have huge implications: thousands of research papers each year are now based on data gleaned from social media. “Many of these papers are used to inform and justify decisions and investments among the public and in industry and government,” says Derek Ruths, an assistant professor in McGill’s School of Computer Science.

Ruths and Jürgen Pfeffer of Carnegie Mellon’s Institute for Software Research highlight several issues involved in using social media data sets – along with strategies to address them. Among the challenges:

Different social media platforms attract different users – Pinterest, for example, is dominated by females aged 25-34 – yet researchers rarely correct for the distorted picture these populations can produce.
Publicly-available data feeds used in social media research don’t always provide an accurate representation of the platform’s overall data – and researchers are generally in the dark about when and how social media providers filter their data streams.
The design of social media platforms can dictate how users behave and, therefore, what behaviour can be measured. For instance, on Facebook the absence of a “dislike” button makes negative responses to content harder to detect than positive “likes.”
Large numbers of spammers and bots, which masquerade as normal users on social media, get mistakenly incorporated into many measurements and predictions of human behaviour.
Researchers often report results for groups of easy-to-classify users, topics, and events, making new methods seem more accurate than they actually are. For instance, efforts to infer political orientation of Twitter users achieve barely 65% accuracy for typical users – even though studies (focusing on politically active users) have claimed 90% accuracy.

Many of these problems have well-known solutions from other fields such as epidemiology, statistics, and machine learning, Ruths and Pfeffer write. “The common thread in all these issues is the need for researchers to be more acutely aware of what they’re actually analysing when working with social media data,” Ruths says.

Social scientists have honed their techniques and standards to deal with this sort of challenge before.

The infamous ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ headline of 1948 stemmed from telephone surveys that under-sampled Truman supporters in the general population. Rather than permanently discrediting the practice of polling, that glaring error led to today’s more sophisticated techniques, higher standards, and more accurate polls. Says Ruths, “Now, we’re poised at a similar technological inflection point. By tackling the issues we face, we’ll be able to realise the tremendous potential for good promised by social media-based research.”

In News

The Small Ways You’re Already Building Your Personal Brand

October 20, 2017 No Comments

By Judith Ohikuare

For many people, every share on social media (a tweet, status update, Snap, Boomerang) feels like an extension of one’s personal brand. Even the act of setting a profile to private is an expression of that brand.

If you’re concerned about how to best develop whatever you want your brand to be (or reshape what you already have) for professional reasons, rest assured that you have likely done a lot of legwork already.

You likely have some digital presence and have started to represent yourself in some way IRL. What you might really need to hone is your framing of those efforts, so that they become specific to your career.

“The term ‘personal brand’ is a buzzword, however, I believe the concept is incredibly important,” says WayUp CEO Liz Wessel. “Being able to convey what it is that makes you unique, and tie it back to what you do professionally, is something that everyone — whether you are looking for a job or not — should be able to do.”

One step is learning how to convey who you are through conversation, she explains. You can start by thinking through the following questions:

1. What am I passionate about?

2. What are some of my favorite hobbies or activities?

3. What are my interests?

4. In what activities, projects, or groups have I demonstrated leadership?

“These questions will give you a good start to developing the story you can start to tell about yourself,” Wessel continues. “Once you’ve fleshed out your answers, practice speaking about these attributes so that you’ll be able to weave them into the conversation in interviews, coffee chats, or when you are meeting new people in general.”

Some guidelines to follow in those networking situations: Introduce yourself with your full name, be mindful of your body language, and make it a genuine conversation (which means not dominating the interaction). Other actions, like sending thank-you emails or cards after a meeting, or how quickly you respond to people could become part of your trademark.

For better or worse, another aspect of your personal brand is how you look. If you don’t have to wear a uniform, do you tend to wear all black? If you do wear a uniform, do you put a spin on the non-regulation aspects, or present yourself more neutrally? Be aware that things like makeup, hair, piercings, tattoos, even whether you wear heels versus flats, or trousers over dresses can all contribute to your personal brand — or what others perceive that brand to be.

Next, after you have a good handle on what works in presenting yourself in person, determine how to do the same thing online, Wessel says.

If you are intentionally aligning your online presence with your professional field, you may want to follow some conventions, even as you put your own spin on it. That can vary by industry in terms of the kinds of photos people share (candid or professional?), the regularity with which people post, or even the times they post (considering when likeminded, like-interested people are alert).

“Eighty percent of employers Google jobseekers before inviting them into an interview, so it’s vital that you create the image online that you want employers to see, and don’t let others create it for you,” she says. “You can tell your story through a personal website or portfolio, or by crafting a consistent image on your social media accounts. For example, users on WayUp create profiles where they talk about more than just their work experience — partially because they have only a little in the first place.”

When you talk about your job or your career, she continues, you should absolutely talk about why you love what you do — “don’t just list out your jobs and your achievements.”

“What is it that makes you love your work? How did you get into it in the first place? There’s likely a story somewhere in there that will give a glimpse into who you are as a person,” Wessel adds. Delving deeper into these areas on a website, in a portfolio, or in person, gives you the opportunity to showcase who you are as a full person — something that is harder to achieve on a résumé page.

“I think most people don’t realize that incorporating your brand and non-work experiences into the way you talk about your career is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from other applicants,” Wessel says. “For example, the number-one attribute employers look for is leadership. The best candidates I’ve interviewed demonstrate their leadership abilities by referencing their hobbies, interests, and other non-work experiences in addition to talking about their professional experiences.”

In essence, even though the idea of personal branding can feel contrived or awkward, it’s really about dictating the terms of how you engage with other people on and offline. Not everything is in your control when it comes to work, but putting your best self forward is.

Feature Image: Photographed by Anna Alexia Basile.

By Judith Ohikuare

Sourced from Refinery 29

In News

Content Marketing, Blogging, And SEO

October 18, 2017 No Comments

By Bill Wagner

My own little small-sample case study.

Blogging is big business, and Google thinks so, too. Rand Fishkin of Moz has a series of YouTube video I highly recommend to anyone interested in deep dive into the deeper recesses of SEO. Check out his Whiteboard Friday series HERE.

Ranking high on search results is vital for smaller business in need of exposure. Blogging is the best organic method of achieving those results if done correctly. Throwing words on a page isn’t the answer. Quality is, and that means writing good stuff that gets shared over and over again.

A good social media automation tool boosts this process nicely. I use eClincher. You should, too.

I don’t have an AdWords account or fancy metric aggregators, nor do I need them. Social media is a storytelling platform that takes time. I believe in the process and sticking to the grind. In the end, quality wins the right people and the right eyeballs. This proves my point if only to myself.

The Test And Results

Using a long-tail keyword, I found my grind quite fruitful. I searched “Bill Wagner Content Marketing” and found my blog posts ranking on page 1 of results.

I was beyond happy. I actually clapped and giggled like a little kid at my desk. Then, of course, the skeptic in me raised his hand with a valid question: Were these results simply a by-product of searching on my own Google account?

That’s a good point. Let’s test that.

The benefits of social media paid off once more as I reached out to my LinkedIn network and Facebook friends for help. I asked for screen shots of their front page with the same long-tail keyword. Below is a sample of results. You can see more of them on my LinkedIn profile.

Mobile searches yielded a few more paid results before my organic work showed up, but the data was clear. My blogging and automated sharing has paid off. A simple long-tail keyword is mine, all mine! (Cue the Dr. Evil laugh!)

Conclusions About The Process

Blogging works and this is proof. The secret sauce, the one thing you must do right now, the simple hack to make it all work? Time. That’s it. It takes time.

These posts were all written in June and July 2017. I shared them repeatedly over the last several weeks. The question you may be asking is how many clicks and reads does it take? Here are my Medium stats:

A big part of social media sharing is using the right platforms at the right times. LinkedIn and Google + are big parts of my strategy. Google + is very important for search because Google’s search algorithm prioritizes placement there.

The numbers speak for themselves. Obviously some of the stuff I wrote didn’t do as well as the rest. My personal favorite is Connecting With People Who Hate Your Shirt. Yet, my most popular post is about marketing buzzwords. There’s another one of those coming soon. Believe that.

My Beliefs Confirmed

I embrace the grind at my content marketing business Safe Strategies. Social media, blogging, graphics, videos, and all online content comes together to tell a multi-layered story that is your business.

This is just a tiny sample of how well-crafted content builds a great online presence. Let’s connect and chat about what you want out of social media and how Safe Strategies creates it. Increased engagement, better leads, and quality customer interactions are all things that happen when you invest time online.

Let’s chat. Connect with me on Twitter @LearningBill, on LinkedIn, or Facebook.

By Bill Wagner

Umpire and referee turned writer and coder. I delete more than I publish. I laugh at my own jokes, too. Follow my company on Twitter @SafeStrategies

Sourced from Medium.com

In News

Web Expert: 5 Skills Every Business Blogger Should Master

October 17, 2017 No Comments

By Dixie Somers

Blogging as a marketing strategy for your business takes several different abilities to be successful. While those skills may vary based on your niche, industry, or branding, here are the core skills that will improve your blog marketing.

1. Social Media

Social media marketing is about building a following that you can channel to your blog and your business. You have to discover who your target market is, which social platforms they use, and what kind of posts and content they prefer. For example, you can leverage social causes such as reducing the 7.8 billion tons of waste businesses discard annually.

2. Basic HTML

If you’re working with web content, you should know some HTML (hyper-text markup language), the code by which webpages are created. Sure, you can buy text editors that convert to HTML, but that isn’t always necessary, and may not help if you need to change the HTML later. If you want to make quick adjustments to your content, such as adding links or changing images, you need to know HTML.

3. Technical Skills

HTML is a good start, but there’s more technical knowledge involved. You may want to know some scripting or programming languages to customize your blog site. You’ll probably need to lean about tools and software for creating audio, video, photo editing, and database use. A database master degree will benefit you in all aspects of modern business.

4. SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an absolute must. Search engines rely on different factors to rank your site for their indexes. It starts with keywords and phrases. This is how the search engines index your blog and its content. You can use keyword tools to find the most popular, most relevant keywords and weave them naturally into your content to improve your ranking.

5. Web Analytics

The traffic you draw is a good measure of how successful your blog is. Major social sites like Facebook and Twitter include analytic tools. You can also find them included in several blogging platforms or available as plugins, as well as third party tools. These analytics breakdown your number of visits, page views, length on page, abandonment rates, and more. Understanding these numbers can give you a clear idea of where your blog is headed or what kind of impact your last post or change had.

You can learn as you grow, or just learn enough to implement your latest idea. But the more you improve on these skills, the more effective your blogging will be.