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As ad dollars that used to fund journalism pour into the coffers of Facebook and Google, the information business is experiencing a trend familiar to other American industries: The product they produce is now competing with cheaper versions coming from overseas.
Content farmers in the Philippines, Pakistan, Macedonia (of course), and beyond are launching websites and Facebook pages aimed at Americans in niches such as politics, mental health, marijuana, American muscle cars, and more.
Based on Facebook engagement and other metrics, some of these overseas publishers are now beating their American counterparts. In the process they’re building an industry centered on producing and exporting cheap (and sometimes false) information targeted at the US.
“This is like all of the basic stuff happening in economics and politics today,” said Tyson Barker, a political economist with the Aspen Institute Germany who specializes in international economic policy. “It's a globalization trend and you've seen it also in manufacturing and other industries.”
According to Wordstream, over 50 million businesses use Facebook Business Pages with 2 million of them using Facebook for advertising in the US (2016). Instagram, on the other hand, earns $595 million in mobile ad revenue per year. These stats just show the huge potential of social media marketing and its impact on increasing sales. Most marketers just lack understanding on how to achieve positive results. Social media helps build brand awareness and engage their audience outside of their company website. Data shows that more than 56% of online adults using more than one social media platform. Thus, the competition to gain the attention of the audience is hard. According to Social Media Examiner’s 2016 Industry Report, “40% of marketers say social media marketing has gotten more difficult for them in the last 12 months.” Despite the tough competition for attention, a huge audience pool is there just waiting to be wowed. Studies suggest that 59% of Americans with social media accounts think that customer service through social media has made it easier to get questions answered and issues resolved. People will follow your brand when they “like” what you offer. These may come in the form of discounts and special promotions, entertaining content, or customer service. People will follow your brand when they “like” what you offer. Here are 7 Brand Management tips to help you along the way....
Via janlgordon
USA TODAY LAST WEEK REPORTED that Facebook was breaking up an “extensive fake account scam” targeting publisher pages with false “likes.” The ruse apparently was intended to yield the scammers more friends they could later spam, and USA Today added that it was “among the publishers impacted.” Not included in its report was the fact the news organization was the central target of the scam, which decimated USA Today’s topline Facebook metrics. Whereas some other major outlets saw follower counts dip by hundreds of thousands of “likes” following Facebook’s bot purge, USA Today’s main page lost an estimated 5.8 million such followers between April 13 and April 15, according to CrowdTangle data. It slashed the page’s following by more than a third, and it came in addition to massive decreases in “likes” at other USA Today-affiliated pages, such as USA Today Sports. Taken together, the Virginia-based news organization saw its collective Facebook follower total plummet by nearly 12 million essentially overnight. The army of fake accounts was more than double the number of “likes” on The Washington Post’s main page....
It’s clear now that social media marketing is here to stay, and its massive staying power is attributable to one key characteristic - the fact that social media keeps evolving. It responds to new tech like mobile devices, constantly exceeds users’ expectations, and competes within itself to bring us more and better features. Here’s what you should consider to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts this year: - More live-stream videos.- Increased capitalization of chat-bots. - Increased usage of ephemeral contents. - More social media platform consolidations. - Increased usage of multi-channel digital marketing strategies to address the challenges in acquiring organic social traffic. - The use of virtual reality and augmented reality in social media, especially on Facebook, as a norm. - More personalized content and ads.More traction for social media influencers....
A viciously addictive series has taken my mind hostage and filled it with warnings about the future.
The culprit is Black Mirror, a dystopian sci-fi show from the UK, now bought by Netflix and prolonged to a third season. Each episode works like a standalone cautionary tale and deals with ordinary people abusing technology to ruin their lives.
Hence, it’s just like our social media world:)
Below, I’ve revealed my top five lessons I’ve extracted from the hauntingly real dystopian hit series, spoiler free of course:
Are you looking for the newest social media tips and techniques? Want to know how the experts are staying ahead of the social media marketing curve? We asked top social media pros to share their favorite tips for getting the most out of social media. In this article you’ll discover 25 ways to improve your marketing and save time....
Social media has taken the world by storm. Currently, there are over 1.96 billion social media users in the world, and that number is expected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2018. The trends that shape the future of social media drastically affect other elements of the digital world, specifically in terms of marketing. Today we’re going to look at ten predictions for the future of social media and how they offer exciting new tactics and strategies for today’s digital marketers. 10 Future Social Media Trends Affecting Marketing Today Whether it’s a new technology or a growing need, social media is setting the precedent for how people will consume content and make purchasing decisions online. In fact, social media is already influences 78% of consumer purchase decisions, and that number is only set to grow. Let’s take a look at ten predictions for the future of social media, and how they are affecting today’s marketing best practices:....
The Interactive Advertising Bureau and Edison Research today are releasing new stats on how consumers listen to podcasts and respond to audio-based advertisements. The new report gives marketers a peek at sentiment about podcast advertising from a poll of roughly 1,000 listeners. More brands and media companies than ever are investing in podcasts, but they're not getting the same types of metrics about audio advertising that other types of digital ads provide—like clickthrough or view rates. While advertisers can see how many people download a podcast, they don't know how long people spend listening or whether they skip over the ads. Per the report, 65 percent of listeners said podcast ads increase purchase intent while another 45 percent said that they're likely to visit an advertiser's website after hearing an audio promo. Another 42 percent of listeners said they would consider a new product or service after hearing a plug for a brand, while 37 percent use podcast ads to help research brands. When it comes to how consumers listen to audio programs, 70 percent said that being able to listen to them on-demand is "very important," and 58 percent said they like being able to listen to exclusive content they can't get elsewhere....
It looked like a garden-variety promotional tweet, designed to attract attention to the AP’s big investigation into allegations of conflict of interest on the part of the Democratic presidential candidate. But by trying too hard to drum up interest in the piece, the wire service made itself the target instead.
The post made a significant, and startling, claim. Namely, that “more than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.” Surely this was compelling evidence of a conflict.
As sharp-eyed reporters for competing news outlets noted within minutes of the tweet and article being posted, however, this statistic was only true if you ignored the thousands of government officials, dignitaries, and so on that Clinton met in her capacity as Secretary of State....
You won't believe the amazing amount of stuff people have done online in the past 10 seconds. Take a look and see for yourself. It's pretty amazing! In the time it has taken you to read this first sentence, a shit load has happened around the world via mobile devices. Let’s take a quick look… Now, granted, this is a marketing infographic based loosely on various sources of recent stats. However… in the past 10 seconds: – 48,000 tweets have been posted – 280,000 Facebook Likes given, and – 87,000 new Snapchat pictures shared...
His credibility is zero, but by attacking political correctness he projects a true voice to his internet followers
In most ways, Donald Trump has taken poor advantage of the Net. He has not used it for organizing and spreading a movement the way the Occupy Wall Street or Arab Spring did. He has not used it to raise essential funding for his campaign, as Bernie Sanders does. He has not used it to build community among his supporters as presidential candidates since Howard Dean in 2004 have. He has not even used it as the primary vehicle for getting his message out, relying instead on the countless hours of coverage broadcast media have provided for free — although he’s obviously no slouch at social media. But despite these missed opportunities, Donald Trump has utterly excelled in one single aspect of the Net. Leveraging — and perverting — one of its key values: Authentic speech.
Speech on the Net sounds very different than the voice of old media. When I was growing up, the media’s authoritative voice had the same accent. It was professionally enunciated, often presented as neutral and stripped of personal belief, always calm, and overwhelmingly male. Then the Internet liberated our voices, training us to expect people to speak for and as themselves, with all their idiosyncrasies and imperfections.
Trump’s voice is indeed authentic in that sense. After all, he is the first major candidate for the presidency of the United States who clearly writes his own tweets. Hillary Clinton (whom I support) tweets out carefully prepared campaign points that seem obviously to have been written by her staff — especially when the tweets are dispatched while Clinton is making a point in a live debate. Donald, on the other hand, just says whatever is crossing his mind at that moment, much of which is nasty, degrading, and untrue. The lack of a filter, the weird punctuation, the very clumsiness of its expression makes Trump’s Internet speech seem much more authentic than Clinton’s....
A new report from Pew Research Center shows an increase in the number of people in the United States getting their news from social media platforms. The report revealed that more than 62 percent said they get news on social media, which is about a 13 percent increase since 2012.OK, what else is new? Facebook is becoming more like Twitter as a news source.That might be your reaction to what is already a clear trend of people turning to social media for their news. But what does that mean for media outlets? We dig into the numbers here to translate them into actionable insights....
In a survey spanning 100 TV series, Netflix found that, on average, subscribers spend about two hours a day binge watching the show in question. But some shows, in particular, entrance viewers and leave them wanting more—say, sci-fi thrillers like Orphan Black or horror dramas like The Walking Dead. Subtle, slow-moving dramas like Mad Men, however, are watched at a more leisurely pace, as are comedies like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt....
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Sometimes an international offensive begins with a few shots that draw little notice. So it was last year when Melvin Redick of Harrisburg, Pa., a friendly-looking American with a backward baseball cap and a young daughter, posted on Facebook a link to a brand-new website.
“These guys show hidden truth about Hillary Clinton, George Soros and other leaders of the US,” he wrote on June 8, 2016. “Visit #DCLeaks website. It’s really interesting!”
Mr. Redick turned out to be a remarkably elusive character. No Melvin Redick appears in Pennsylvania records, and his photos seem to be borrowed from an unsuspecting Brazilian. But this fictional concoction has earned a small spot in history: The Redick posts that morning were among the first public signs of an unprecedented foreign intervention in American democracy.
Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report is one of the most closely watched reports in the tech industry, and this year's presentation underscores the growth of mobile, particularly on social platforms that now control the bulk of ad spending and time spent by users.
Here's a look at seven of the most interesting stats in Meeker's more than 200-slide deck presented at Re/code's Code Conference today.
Facebook is Share. Instagram is Show. Twitter is Shout. Snapchat is Shine. Pinterest is Shimmer. LinkedIn is Shoptalk. YouTube is Showcase. Google+ is Shift
Via Everett Bowes
Customer service today means serving customers "in the red zone." Besides my former beloved 1986 red Honda Prelude, most red things for me fall into a negative category. Think sunburn, red alert, STOP sign, SOS.
The red zone is different for different people and different every time. And that’s the whole point. Sometimes it’s because expectations are set so high with a direct line and then fall short and disappoint, as in my London business travel experience. And sometimes it’s because the bar is set so low and a brand still fails to make the cut, like the slow moving lines at the Post Office and just as you’re the next person (and of course pressed for time), the next open window closes so the agent can take a break... But it’s always in-the-moment and real for the customer.
In other words, customers are normal, garden-variety social, emotional creatures that now have a bullhorn to broadcast their (dis)pleasures with your brand. Humans have always been social, emotional creatures so there’s nothing new here. What is new are the channels and media we have access to at any given point on any given day and the larger pool of connections we can stay in touch with via our social networks/communities. And still there are so many brands that fail to incorporate this new reality into strategy, operations and customer service. In the latest study conducted by Twitter, they found that by responding to customers on Twitter, customers are 44% more likely to share their experience, 30% more likely to recommend the brand, and the responsiveness will positively increase CSAT by 1 point....
Think you know your social media? Take a look at a new infographic released this week from skilled.co, and you might find that you don’t know quite as much as you think. From global penetration rates to influence of purchasing decisions, this new social media infographic provides plenty of information for even the most knowledgeable marketer or social business to digest. We’ve covered a few of the essential highlights for you here on the BuzzPlant Blog. Keep moving down the page to see the full infographic below....
Via Jay
Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1 – Microsoft says its speech recognition is now as good as humans.
Based on a study it did, the software giant put its speech recognition technology up against professional transcriptionists. The result? Humans made more mistakes than the software. (Source: VentureBeat)...
There was a point four years ago when marketing agencies—that sprouted up thanks to the explosion of social media—didn't want to be identified any longer as purely "social" practitioners. They contended: We have grown to be so much more. In recent weeks, it's become clear that a similar mindset has fully taken hold among the social media platforms themselves. Snapchat is now a "camera company,"accented by its recent announcement of its video-recording sunglasses calledSpectacles. The Venice, Calif.-based company, now known as Snap Inc., has been trying to shed the "social" tag in recent months when meeting with the press. Twitter COO Adam Bain last week mentioned at Advertising Week that his company recently moved its mobile app listing in Apple's App Store from the social section to news—and his team saw downloads of the app accelerate. The idea that Facebook is a social network? Pfft. ...
The major digital media platforms—full of big gains, big hype and often a lack of transparency—have made the advertising universe a complicated, fragmented place. And with eMarketer predicting digital ad spending to swell to $77.4 billion in 2017, up 16 percent versus this year, it's a domain that's poised to evolve even more rapidly. We asked seven ad buyers—from three consumer brands and three agencies, plus one independent—to talk about what's right and what's wrong with a dozen platforms with which they do business.
"The definitions are different for YouTube, for Facebook, for Twitter, and that is really not user-friendly for any agency or for any brand to work across all of them for proper reporting," says Liya Sharif, Qualcomm's senior director, marketing. Adds Bruce Kiernan, practice lead for performance marketing at MEC North America: "I would say from an agency perspective, we are frustrated. Facebook and Google are not going to give up their data and open up the gates to their walled gardens anytime soon."
Meanwhile, others are more positive about the process. "[Facebook] allows you to basically upload any type of custom audience and not just create a look-alike audience, but you can scale that according to your needs and play with different sizes of audiences," notes Tim Villanueva, head of media partnerships at Fetch....
Every now and then it’s worth looking at the current facts, cast our thoughts back to the past and ponder the future. Here are the latest facts that I could find about 10 of the top social media networks that as entrepreneurs. business owners and marketers we need to consider.
On Thursday, Britain made its choice.
The vote to leave the European Union prevailed by a razor-thin margin, dividing and shocking the country. Markets responded negatively, with the pound tumbling to its lowest since 1985, and prime minister David Cameron announcing he will pass on the baton to someone from the leave campaign.
The only certain thing now is that there will be plenty of uncertainty to come, while the U.K. figures out what happens next. Here’s a rundown of what Brexit could mean for the U.K. media industry.
With there be any immediate changes?
Not really, no. Negotiating the terms with which the U.K. exits — like setting up alternative trade deals — will take at least two to three years. During that time the U.K. will remain under the E.U.’s jurisdiction.
The U.K. will be at the table, but it won’t participate in shaping future E.U.-wide laws or deals that could affect the country — like the GDPR, the new European data laws that Brits will still have to comply with....
Despite these recommendation, which I follow pretty closely with my clients, Buffer ups the ante on some social networks — most notably Twitter, where they post 15 times a day. Even Buffer agrees that sharing more than 1X per hour is going to cost you big time. Buffer isn’t the only one to recommend how often you should post on social media. Recommendations run the gambit, with some recommending fewer and some recommending more posts/ day. I would like to point out 2 things about how often to post on social media. - Be consistent — once you’ve determined how often to post, keep your queue full so you’re consistently sharing content on schedule. - Don’t fall behind in blog posts, especially. Posting 2X per week is optimal, posting infrequently or inconsistently can damage your SEO and reduce ROI from your website. My recommendation is to experiment with different sharing schedules to see where engagement begins to drop off....
Social media is more than just a key to driving sales, it can also be a helpful source for founders to project confidence and grace, or to stay cool during times of crisis.
That's according to a new study called "C-Suite, Social Media, and Brand Reputation" from BRANDfog, a social media consulting startup that helps Fortune 1000 executives improve their web profiles. It revealed that three-quarters of those surveyed (500 U.S. employees from different companies spanning various industries) believe that social media engagement in the C-suite makes a brand seem more honest and trustworthy.
Since 2013, there's been a 15 percent increase in the number of respondents who believe that social media engagement makes CEOs more effective leaders, it found.
"Most companies are good at utilizing social media on the brand level, but social media at the C-suite is much more strategic," said Ann Charles, founder and CEO at BRANDfog. Prior to launching the company in 2009, Charles held chief marketing positions at several tech startups, and later ghost wrote quarterly earnings scripts for executives.
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Here's a thoughtful post by Craig Silverman on the impact of globalization on journalism and publishing. Recommended reading! 10/10