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Conversion Strategy: How SEO Can Unveil Your Target Consumer

by Luke Richardson

In the giant realm of this buzz word “Search Engine Optimization” also known as SEO, what’s truly unclear to many people is what exactly SEO does that is so dynamic and valuable. Sure, it is understood to many that SEO drives traffic and improves visibility for websites...but so does digital advertising, social media, content marketing and P.R. So the question you need to ask is what is it about SEO that is so different than other marketing strategies? 

My answer is very clear...it leverages conversion behavior. 

In my time working as an analyst, I have always been most fascinated by this concept of conversion search behavior which I will define as any type of search data that indicates a user is likely to buy, register, share or download (depending on the ultimate objective of the company). In the image below, you can see the visualization of the typical “sales funnel” that deonstrates how close a user is to actually taking an action. The ultimate goal with conversion strategy is to capture those closest to the bottom. 

Search behavior is truly a brilliant thing. It reveals that there might be an unknown online market for a product and thus a major opportunity for a company to see exponential growth. It shows unusual linguistic patterns and tells marketers that the way they assume people will phrase certain queries might not be congruent with the way people actually type them. But most of all, search behavior tells us who is already educated about something, who has been spending a lot of time looking for a product and who is clearly demonstrating with certain words that they would like to take an immediate action. 

The First Search Insight: Learning the Market

Before even thinking about conversion indicators with search data, one first needs to determine that there is a legitimate and sizable market for online integrated marketing communication. In many cases, professionals in their field will tel you that their users simply wouldn’t use Google to find them. In some cases, those professionals skepticism may be valid. But a lot of the time, general search data proves them wrong. The reality of today’s world is that people are so accustomed to using search engines in every aspect of all online interaction that they subconciously search queries into Google looking for validation, explanation or data. 

The 4 Conversion Strategies in SEO 

Once it is clear that there is a substantial amount of people  searching for the product of service you are working with, the next step is to understand where that person is in the funnel e.g. how far into the buyer-decision process might they be. Do they already know a lot about the product at hand, more than the average person? Are their searches unusually specific and demonstrative of high product knowledge? These questions are all focused around conversion behavior and there are 4 primary strategies to determine conversion with SEO. 

Proactive Keyword Search: This method looks for users who are demonstrating agency and intent with their search queries. Someone searching “What are the best cloud security providers?” makes it easy for an SEO analyst to tell that the searcher is likely in-market for cloud solutions as opposed to simply “cloud security” which is ambiguous and unclear as a keyword. The former demonstrates conversion behavior and is a very valuable insight in the SEO world. Though the former will have a much smaller search volume than the latter, the conversion keyword presents much more value than the highly ambiguous and highly competitive broader keyword. 

Long Tail Search: Similar to proactive, long tail keywords refer to queries that are detailed and complex, demonstrating that the user has spent a significant amount of time educating his or herself about the product and is likely lower in the funnel. Another example from cloud computing would be the long tail search “IT solution for cloud flare” as opposed to a more typical search such as “cloud solutions” which gives an SEO analyst very little to work with from a conversion standpoint. 

Geotagging and Localization: One of the most common conversion indicators in all of SEO is localized search and thus, many businesses live and die by the localization doctrine. The thinking around this strategy is very intuitive: when people are thinking about proximity as a factor of their query, they are very likely to  register or convert. For example, which of these two search queries would you be more excited about as a marketer for cloud solutions: “cloud computing solution” or “cloud computing solutions in boston ma.” Of course, the latter is the attractive option. The former could depict a user wanting a definition of cloud or perhaps an article that outlines free information about cloud solutions. Maybe that user is in-market but it’s impossible to know. With the second phrasing, we know that the user is very likely to be looking for a product or team to help him or her with cloud solutions simply because proximity has been specified.

Relevant Keyword Search: Finally, an easy way to find your in-market target is by looking for related products or needs that indicate to you that someone would also need your service. This is especially important for those companies working with a product that is new and unknown to many consumers or any complex product that doesn’t have simple and easy search terms. For example, a content management system (CMS) product (such as Weebly, Drupal, Wix, etc.) will have a certain percentage of the market that needs their help but may not know the acronym CMS or understand how content management for websites works. Instead of only optimizing for searches directly for their product category, the company might take a relevant keyword approach and look for those searching for “web hosting providers” and bid on that keyword or build out content that talks about it in order to steer consumers towards their CMS product. If the rationale is not clear here: those in need of a web host will also need a way to manage content for their new website and thus the relevance is established. 

[emersoncollegeesm]

What SEOs Should Know About Anchor Text and Relevant Linking Domains

by Luke Richardson

Recent updates to Google’s algorithm (as well as the anticipated Penguin update) has shown increasing importance in how you manage your website’s link strategy, specifically with the text you choose to anchor your links and the sites that you are getting backlinks from. The purpose of this post is to get all those aspiring to learn SEO to start thinking about these two concepts and understand why they will have an impact on how you are ranked as a site. 

Anchor Text: Why It Matters in SEO 

In the old days of SEO, the way you anchored links just didn't have the same importance as it does today. People would commonly link out with one of their targeted keywords or with the text “click here” or “join” as a way of including a call to action directly in the text of their links. It makes perfect sense right? 

Well, the issue with this practice is that it delivers a bad user experience and does not offer transparency to the user as to where the link is about to take him or her. “Click here” is now considered spammy and misleading and thus, sites that use these types of anchor text practices will be penalized. The simple way to understand how to do anchor text correctly is this: the majority of your anchor text should be either your brand name, another brand or product name of whatever your mentioning. And then, after that large majority, the rest of any remaining anchor text should be clear, direct mentions of what the link is about. For example: 

Interested in data on SEO? Read AMA’s 2016 SEO Insights Report to learn more

The anchor text used here is “SEO Insights Report” because that is ultimately what the user is going to see and read if they click the link. If I was simply mentioning the organization AMA and wanted to tell a user about their work, I would only link to their brand name. In general, think of the user and think of transparency and you will avoid any penalties from bad anchor text. 

*Google’s most recent Penguin algorithm updated stressed that anchor text will see more of a focus going forward and thus the need for genuine anchors is more important now than ever. 

Relevant Linking Domains

Now we have already talked about backlink strategy in one of my previous posts so hopefully that concept is familiar to you now. One of the higher level concepts SEOs look at when considering a good linking strategy is the Linking Domain Relevancy (LDR) - a concept that refers to how topically relevant and thematically similar the domain is to your own domain. Thus, this newer requirement from Google tells webmaster to try to get the majority of their links from sites that have readers with similar interests and needs to your readers. 

For example, if my website is all about retirement advice, investment plans, 401ks and etc, the first relevant linking domain that’s going to cross my mind is AARP. Of course, people needing investment and retirement advice will also need tax advice so H and R block might also be a good site for a backlink as well and etc. The limits are not narrow with the concept of LDR it’s the truly irrelevant links that you should think about. 

If this retirement site start getting a ton of links from a site that tends to write about natural health and healthy eating, that will look suspicious and unnatural- as if there is possibly a pay-for-links situation going on. The way to think about this is to ask yourself anytime you get a link from some publication or site: “Are there users on that site that definitely would be interested in the content my own?” If the answer is unclear, the site linking to you is probably not relevant to your topical association understood by Google and should be avoided if possible. 

Transparency is Good User Experience

In short, both anchor text and LDR boil down to a simple concept that Google lives and dies by: making sure that everything is transparent and relevant to the user. Keyword stuffing isn’t just used with on-page content but is also commonly used with anchor text because Google does crawl anchor text and use it to understand what your site is about. However, human beings naturally use synonyms and variant phrases and human beings don't like to be tricked thus redirecting a user to content that has nothing to do with their interests will always be a bad idea. If the site linking to you might be confusing people and thus hurting your user’s experience or the other way around, you need to take that linking consideration seriously and improve that experience at all costs. 

[emersoncollegeesm]

How to Format a Blog Post For On-Page SEO (part 2)

by Luke Richardson 

In my previous blog post, I covered the intro concepts that any blogger should know about in order to properly incorporate on-page SEO into their content. And that now that we have this general understanding covered, we can dive into some of the more technical stuff you’ll need to understand to begin optimizing posts. 

Understanding Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

When trying to determine how well a piece of content is optimized with regard to on-page SEO, the first thing I do is try to discover it in Google and see what the current title tag and meta description reads. This is a good early practice for any SEO because it A. Tells you if the website/content you are reviewing is even indexed by Google in the first place and is discoverable by search and because it B. lets you know if any SEO has been done to this content in the past. Now, the next question you probably have is what do you mean by a title tag and meta description? Let me use an image to show you what simple thing these complex sounding terminologies really are referencing. 

The above image does a great job of illustrating with color highlighting what this search result is displaying. Clearly marked in blue is the title tag of the search result, telling the user the general header and theme of the content piece. The meta description serves as a brief sales pitch meant to describe what the content is about and convince you to check it out. 

How to Optimize Your Title Tags 

The general best practice used by most SEOs for title tags is the following format: 

                               Primary keyword | Brand Name 

However I would recommend that you do your best to make the title sound like a natural, appealing phrase that includes your keyword and brand but isn’t limited to just these two items. Otherwise, your titles will sound a bit robotic and might not have any clickable appeal. Thus an example for a content piece that talks about a company called RedCar that is trying to rank for the keyword “most fuel efficient SUV” in a piece of content describing their new, fuel efficient SUV offering would read something like this: 

                              The Most Fuel Efficient SUV Yet | RedCar 

The difficult thing is managing character count because Google will only show a certain amount of your title tag if it is too long. It is crucial that the title reads correctly so it doesn't lose credibility due to a running cutoff. Although the best case recommendation used to be that anything 65 characters or less would be fine, Google is now showing less characters than that in an effort to optimize all results for mobile and thus my recommendation is to keep your title tags at or below 50 characters (this is including spaces). 

MYTH: When I write in my title tag and meta description into my content management system or directly into the code, Google will automatically use whatever I wrote. WRONG. Google takes your writing as a suggestion but very often Google may disregard your title tag or meta request and pull from a part of your content. This is a reality those of us in SEO simply have to live with. However, in general, Google will use your title tag or description if they pertain to the content and are an optimal length. 

How to Optimize Your Meta Descriptions

The first thing to understand with the meta description is what is not its ultimate purpose : to include as many keywords as possible. Meta descriptions will not improve your keyword ranking. When you see the meta highlight the keywords that you searched in bold, that does not mean that Google is ranking that site better because of those words. The purpose of the meta description is strictly for the user to read and not for Google to crawl for SEO purposes. Therefore, I like to think of meta’s as a mini sales pitch to convince a user to read your content. In a sense, when a user searches for something, they will look at the first 1-5 results and use the title tag and meta description to determine which content or website best fits their inquiry/need. Keep that user behavior in mind when you write your meta descriptions and follow these general guidelines 

 Mention your brand name 

Make your content or web site sound exciting or appealing

Keep the description less than 160 characters, otherwise it will get cut off

[emersoncollegeesm]

How to Format a Blog Post for On-Page SEO  (part 1)

by Luke Richardson 

Now that we have covered an entry level discussion of on-page optimization and how it differs from off-page, it’s time to dive deeper into what a specialist is expected to implement. Specifically, what is the process that an SEO uses in order to improve a site’s ranking and visibility performance? 

Understanding Header Formats For SEO

There are a number of terms to touch on that each outline an aspect of on-page improvements and the first one to know about is heading formats- H1s and H2s. An H1 is just an HTML lingo for the primary header of a page and an H2 would be a secondary level header that corresponds to the overarching main header. These header formats are the most important place to include the focus keywords that you are trying to optimize for. Thus, if you are trying to optimize for “best SUVs in New Hampshire” the first place you should include those keywords would be in your H1 title and your H2 title. If you are working with most CMS you should be able to format any text to be an H1, H2, H3 and etc very easily. If that function is not offered, formatting a header is very easy. The code format looks as follows: 

<h1>Best SUVs in New Hampshire</h1> 

or

 <h2>Best SUVs in New Hampshire</h2>

*MYTH: Using the exact keyword I want to rank for in every single header I have as well as throughout the content of my post will improve my ranking for that keyword. 

WRONG. The hardest thing about SEO in today’s world is managing to implement changes that are natural to the way a human being would read a piece of content. As humans, we naturally use synonyms and variant phrases when we write and speak. Thus, using the same exact keyword phrase 20 times in a post and in every header is certainly unnatural and is viewed in the eyes of Google as a black-hat SEO practice, also known as keyword-stuffing. In today’s world, the coined saying is “move from keywords to topics” meaning think of the overall picture and think about what a user is generally interested in rather than just singular specific keywords. 

With this in mind, determine your target keyword and make sure you come up with variant versions and synonyms such as “top rated SUVs in NH” and “Fuel Efficient SUV” and etc. The more synonyms you have prepared, the more naturally your topical keyword strategy will work in your content and in your headers. 

Here’s my recommendation for content development process when trying to effectively implement SEO:  

Determine your H1 based on the general keyword strategy you’ll be following  (think headline first)

Write your content naturally based on what you want to write and what a reader would find engaging 

After having the post written, go back in and make slight changes to the content, adding keywords where appropriate and adding H2s that have keywords in them but also naturally summarize what that section of text is describing

The next step is to understand title tags, meta description, meta tagging and image alt tags. Look for part 2 of this series for coverage on these SEO topics. 

[emersoncollegeesm]

On-page verses off-page optimization with SEO: what’s the difference?

by Luke Richardson

Two of the preliminary terminologies that you will hear frequently in the world of SEO are off and on-page optimization. Both of these terms describe methods of implementation that will improve a website’s performance and search engine ranking position (SERP). Therefore, it’s not necessary to define these two ideas as separate entities but instead explain their varying purposes. I’ll break down these two concepts and their relevance to any aspiring SEO. Here’s what you need to know

On-page optimization: the simple explanation 

On-page optimization should reflect what your website is talking about and what the actual words and code of the site are doing to please search engines. An SEO specialist will likely implement on-page SEO fixes first when working with a new client because there is an ability to have an immediate impact. There are a number of common best practices with on-page that are known to increase page rank and domain authority: 

Using headers with target keywords in them

Optimizing images with file names and alt tags that have keywords in them (commonly done through code but can be easily implemented with user-friendly Content Management Systems (CMS) like Wordpress)

Adding meta keywords to pages across a site (usually a functionality offered by any CMS)

Technical Optimization by fixing broken links, removing toxic/questionable links, reducing file size of big images, improving page load time and etc. 

Off-page optimization explained 

When someone asks me to explain off-page, I like to think of it as the Public Relations of SEO. Off-page is entirely focused around the credibility and reputation of your website and the technical metrics that measure that reputation are Domain Authority and Page Rank (see previous posts for explanation). A huge part of being effective with SEO is defining a good back linking approach. Back linking can be defined as the scenario when a partner, media outlet or user on social media links to your site or site’s specific content and thus passes on a certain level of domain authority to your site. If Google looks at a website that has never been linked to by any source, Google would recognize that as a highly problematic red flag with regard to web credibility. The more people (and specifically the higher the quality of people with regard to their own DA) that link to your site, the better your site will perform in search engines. 

What Does a Good Link Strategy Involve? 

When a site links to your content, think of it as if that site is endorsing you and verifying that your website has good, accurate and trustworthy content. With this in mind, it is crucial to have a network of trusted partners who are likely to share your content and link to you frequently. The following strategies will all generate backlinks to your site: 

Getting your content shared on social media- shares by real users count as backlinks

Guest blogging - publishing your content on other websites will give you backlinks, just make sure the content has plenty of internal links

Press Releases - submitting a strategic press release will generate good backlinks from credible publications 

This may sound like a fairly easy tactic: just get tons of random people to link to you and you’ll be golden. Unfortunately, not all backlinks are created equal in the eyes of Google. Certain domains such as .Gov and .Edu inherently have more credibility than a .Com, .Net, .Co or etc. Those less legitimate domains will still help you in most cases but you still have to watch out for toxic links that can actually do more damage than good in a linking scenario. Toxic links refer to any backlink that comes from a website that is spammy and illegitimate. Very often, websites will link to thousands of different content pieces in hopes that those publishers will notice and in turn link back to them. However there are two major issues with this line of thinking: 

Having more than 100 external links on a page is an immediate penalizing factor by Google and will indicate that the page is spammy 

If the majority of someone’s website is clearly intent on tricking a user and is baiting the user to click some sort of ad or contest, Google can immediately recognize these spam factors and will deem the site toxic - thus all links you get from these types of sites will hurt you

The simple answer when wondering how to manage link strategy is to always link to high quality and high authority pages and to establish relationships with credible sources that will link to you. Everyone wants to get more backlinks so as long as you have a good reputation in your industry, you should be able to improve your backlinks by offering to link to partners that supplement your topics and content. 

[emersoncollegeesm]

What is Search Engine Marketing? Is it the same as SEO?

by Luke Richardson

Understanding Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is crucial when learning SEO because the two concepts should go hand in hand if you aim to have a prominent web presence. Though there is some debate about what the official definition of SEM is, the general industry expert will tell you that SEM is the process of improving the visibility of a website or web product by paying for a better search result position. Thus, under this comparison framework, you can think of SEO as the work you do to naturally or organically improve the ranking of a site whereas SEM involves actually paying for an improvement in your SERP ranking. (not sure what SERP means? Sounds like you need to read the first SEO blog post)

What does it mean to “bid” on a keyword? How does paid search work? 

To really understand SEM, you need to know about Google’s primary revenue stream and monetization channel: Adwords. Google Adwords allows you to determine which keywords are the most relevant to your service, product or website and then pay a certain amount so users will see ads for your service when they search that precise keyword. Do you ever notice when you search for something and the top 3 results all have yellow boxes that say “Ad” next to them? Those are keyword advertisements hosted through AdWords that various businesses are paying for. 

So is SEM just another way of saying using Google AdWords? 

My answer to this question is absolutely not. Though some SEOs might say that using Google AdWords is the fundamental platform for SEM, I would argue that a company’s marketing strategy can be entirely defined around their keyword approach and search engine approach. Therefore, they can use a variety of paid channels to improve their SERP other than AdWords. For example, if someone is using Facebook as a way to promote some of their content, they are inherently boosting the ranking of whatever keywords they have included in that content. Therefore, if they pay money to boost one of their Facebook posts, they are then using Facebook Advertising as a channel for SEM. Finding a way to integrate SEO and SEM is similar to trying to integrate public relations, communication, advertising and sales all into one marketing strategy. If it’s done correctly, it is beautifully cross-functional and very effective. However, everyone isn’t an expert in both SEO and SEM so it’s important one recognizes them to be two different skills that should be learned. 

Hopefully this post helped you understand the difference between these two common acronyms. Now that you understand both SEM and SEO, you're one step closer to being ready to roll out your own organic SEO strategies and paid SEM campaigns

[emersoncollegeesm]

What is Search Engine Optimization? An Introduction to SEO

by Luke Richardson

You may be hearing this acronym coming up in what feels like every conversation you have lately. People will throw around terminology and talk about considering something “in an SEO perspective” - but what does that really mean? The purpose of this blog post is to give you an introduction to SEO and provide context and rationale for why it has become such an important factor in today’s world of business, web design and digital marketing.

The Simple Definition of Search Engine Optimization

SEO can be defined as the process of analyzing and improving the score given to any website or web product by search engines (namely, Google). In the world of search engines, you can think of websites like cars and search engines like professional automobile inspectors. Just as you want your car to pass inspection so that you can continue to use it, a website must be properly optimized and maintained so that search engines like Google will give it a high score and thus allow it to come up on the first few pages of search results. Today’s reality is that Google is the biggest online publication in the world and generally determines if a brand, product or website has credibility. The simple truth of today’s day and age: if you don’t come up on Google’s first 3 pages, the mass consumer audience will not think you exist.

What is SERP? How does Google “rank” or ���score” a page?

Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP) refers to the positional rank a website possesses. The SERP literally translates to which hierarchal position a site is given on which page. Because Google displays 10 results per page, when you hear someone talking about wanting a “first page ranking” that means they want to be in the top 10 result list for a keyword search. You could also refer to this as wanting to be in the first ten SERPs.

When an SEO  specialist talks about scoring and wanting to improve the “score” of a page, they are generally referring to page rank - a numeric value given to a website due to a variety of criteria that Google uses to evaluate the credibility, relevance and accuracy of that website. The following items are common red flags that Google looks for in determining if a site should have a bad score:

Broken/dead links

No recent content posted in the past several months or more

Typos and spammy language (such as several exclamation marks or etc.)

Extraneous use of links on a single page (>100)

Duplicate content

Keyword Strategy with SEO: What Should I Know About Keywords?

If you’ve been looking into learning SEO, the first thing you have probably heard people talking about is keywords and keyword strategy. In order to understand how they work, we need to understand how the technology of a search engine works. You can think of search engines as a complex web technology that crawls millions of pages every day in order to keep track of what content is on the web and best display that content for a user when he or she is searching for something.

Unlike human beings, computers do not like to read lengthy, in-depth descriptions of something. A search engine spider - the name given to search engine technologies that actually crawl and document websites - prefers to consume information that is organized based on keywords for which a user might search. If your content is filled with keywords that have a high search volume, Google will improve your score due to relevance. With this in mind, a primal SEO tactic is to study which keywords people are searching for and include them in your website content and headers. The process of defining which keywords are preferred and used by your target audience is the first step of laying out a keyword strategy.

Always break up text, Always use headers

Additionally, it is very important to break up the text of pages with headers and subheaders (as this post is designed) because search engines like to first read a keyword-rich header that tell them the jist of what is going on in that section of the article and then crawl the rest of the text to make sure the theme of the article is consistent with the keywords in the header. Long sections of running text with no headers and no spacing are given a bad readability score by Google and will hurt your overall ranking.

Hopefully now you have some of your first questions about SEO answered and have a better grasp for its importance as a whole. Check out some of my other posts that get into the higher level SEO concepts and terminologies.

[emersoncollegeesm]

Governments Up Facebook’s Butt

Mid November, Facebook announced that governments around the world have requested 18 percent more account data in the first half of 2015 than it has in previous years. Facebook also said that the amount of content restricted by governments for violating local law more than doubled over the second half of 2014.

Leading, the US made 17,577 requests involving more than 26,500 accounts, followed closely by top requesters like India, UK, France, and Germany. Facebook said it handed over data to the US in about 80 percent of cases, which is pretty scary, considering we tend to believe we live under an impenetrable umbrella of when it comes to our social profiles.

Facebook was also asked to remove over 20 thousand pieces of content in the first half of 2015, which surpasses double what was requested in late 2014. Most of these requests were made by India.

Chris Sonderby speaks candidly in a blog post, stating “Overall, we continue to see an increase in content restrictions and government requests for data globally.” He emphasized that, “Facebook does not provide any government with ‘back doors’ or direct access to people’s data. We scrutinize each request we receive for legal sufficiency, whether from an authority in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere. If a requested appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back hard and will fight in court, if necessary.”

Sonderby’s words were intended to inspire some confidence in Facebook users, in knowing that one of their favorite social media powerhouses does not actually share their personal information without their consent. However, despite Facebook’s newest privacy law changes, the release of this data has some Facebook users in a frenzy about the privacy of their content. 

By: Tori Knoerzer

[emersoncollegeesm]

World AIDS Day: Snapchat v. (RED)

December 1 was World AIDS Day, and to raise money in the fight against AIDS, Snapchat partnered with (RED) and rolled out some new filters for a limited time only. Three filter options were designed in partnership with Tiesto, Jared Leto, and Jimmy Kimmell, but the cool part is that each time one of the filters was used, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated three dollars to (RED)-- totaling up to three million in under 24 hours.

(RED) is an organization part of ONE Campaign that aims to eliminate new HIV infections. According to (RED), the three dollars raised per filter can provide ten days of life-saving HIV/AIDS medicine in sub-Saharan Africa, the most highly infected area of the world where it is estimated that over 25 million people suffer. 

Brands like Uber and Coca-Cola also partnered with the nonprofit (RED) on World AIDS Day.

Snapchat notified its users of the partnership and its benefits with the slogan: This filter saves lives. 

These filters allow social media users to interact and contribute in an even deeper way with no cost for them, and only lots to gain.

By: Tori Knoerzer

[emersoncollegeesm]

Nigeria’s Social Media Bill

The Nigerian Senate has infuriated its citizens with the draft proposal of a social media bill that would punish any individual who “intentionally propagates false information that could threaten the security of the country or that is capable of inciting the general public against government through electronic message.”

Protestors and activists believe this is a blatant attempt to silence social media users as it completely limits free speech and specifically targets online critics of lawmakers. The Premium Times reported the social media section of the bill reads, “Where any person through text message, tweets, Whatsapp or any social media posts any abusive statement knowing same to be false with intent to set the public against any person and group of persons, an institution of government or such bodies established by law, shall be guilty...” 

Offenders would face heavy sanctions: a seven-year sentence or $10,000-$25,000 fine, and the passing of this bill would literally indict millions of social media users. 

Nigerian social media users have begun using the hashtag #NoToSocialMediaBill in opposition to the proposed law. The reason we love social media so much is because it gives us a voice and a new presence. Imagine that right being stripped of you, and the government censoring and punishing you for trying to express yourself. According to this bill, that could become Nigerian’s realities. 

By: Tori Knoerzer

[emersoncollegeesm]

Twitter Switches From Stars to Hearts

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/twitter-stars-hearts-favorites-data-chief-chris-moody-1201633375/

Just a few weeks ago, Twitter, one of the most prominent social media platforms, decided to switch up their most highly used feature: the favorite button.

Twitter has slowly grown over the years, and one of the reasons why it has grown is because people can interact with what their friends and the public says.  The platform has a favorite button, and a retweet button.  The favorite is the easiest way to show support, because it takes little effort, and doesn’t display in flashing lights that you favorited the tweet on other people’s phones and computers.  Retweets are a little more serious, because that exact tweet and those exact words are now on your personal account feed for everyone to see.

Just this past month, Twitter decided to make a change.  They removed their star button that they used for the favorite button, and they added a heart that has a little action of explosion when you favorite something.  It definitely is cuter, but the public freaked out when it first happened and it turned into a hot debate over the internet.

Chris Moody, Vice President of data strategy at Twitter, explained at Variety’s Big Data Summit in Los Angeles Wednesday that the big switch they made Tuesday was the right move because hearts drive “dramatically better” engagement levels than stars do.  “What I think is happening in this debate is some of our core users don’t like change, and it’s a change,” Moody told Variety.

Overall, I think it is a good thing that Twitter made a change.  Change is healthy, and it keeps the company fresh and in the new.  According to Moody, “Changes like that are necessary, [especially] as Twitter seeks to jumpstart its monthly active users and broaden beyond the users that help put the company on the map.”  Who knows what Twitter will have in store next.

By: Nicky Fox

[emersoncollegeesm]

Live-stream with Facebook!

Facebook has just rolled out a new feature called Facebook Live Video. This allows Facebook users to lifestream what they’re doing in real time. Facebook developed this program to compete with other live streaming sites Periscope and Meerkat. Even though Facebook is new to this niche market, the site may have a leg up on more established competitors because of their large user base. Facebook also added a differentiating feature where once a user is done live-streaming, their video is posted directly to their profile. This new level of multimedia integration on Facebook could either become extremely popular on the Facebook or completely fall by the wayside. Time will tell! 

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-launches-livestreaming-feature-compete-periscope-and-meerkat-168424

By: Alyssa Harberger 

12/3/2015

[emersoncollegeesm]

Sharing Snapchat’s Discover Content is Now Very Much a Thing

Okay, so I’ll honestly admit that I rarely use Snapchat’s Discover feature - where websites and news sources such as Buzzfeed, Cosmo, Vox, and National Geographic, among others can post content - but when I do, I’m entertained. I also usually want to share the content that I read with friends, however that’s been pretty impossible since the articles weren’t ever shareable outside of the Snapchat app - until now.

 Snapchat announced this week that it will be making the content on its Discover app shareable, meaning users can share direct links to articles and videos featured in the Discover section on Facebook and Twitter. 

The Discover section has proven to be pretty successful for not only Snapchat, but also the media outlets featured within it. According to Fast Company, Buzzfeed reported that 21% of its content views come from Discover. 

So, what is Snapchat hoping to accomplish by making content shareable? Well for one, they’re hoping to attract new users. When people click on the link shared by a user, they will either be prompted to download the app or be shown a QR code to use with their phone. The app is also hoping to increase the popularity of certain Discover channels and increase overall engagement. 

By Mollie Coyne

Source : http://www.fastcompany.com/3054095/fast-feed/snapchat-discover-content-is-now-shareable

[emersoncollegeesm]

Facebook: Easing the Pain

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-breakup-filter-tools_564e2d6be4b08c74b734fe93

Facebook just announced that on Thursday, November 19th, they will be releasing a new tool to the social media platform that will make breakups less painful.

Eventually, they will provide tools to people that were in a relationship on Facebook, and then broke up.  Some of these tools include not seeing as much of the person on your timeline, not seeing their name as often when you go to tag a picture, or when you go to message someone.

Another tool that it will provide is to limit what your ex can see - sure, allow your best friend to add that embarrassing photo or video of you partying last night, your ex won't see it!

The last tool allows you to untag yourself from past statuses and photos, and to also limit which of your friends can see these past posts.  Overtime, Facebook basically allows you to clean up your social media page to make it simply back to you again.

And of the best things about this, is that if you guys do decide to get back together, you can go back and change all of these options to go back to the way things were.  And the best part - your ex will never know.

By: Nicky Fox

[emersoncollegeesm]

Online War

The war on terrorism has gone viral. Literally. Even beyond the hackativist group, Anonymous, declaration of war against the Islamic State, other factions including ISIS are moving the war on terrorism to the digital world. It has now been revealed that the terrorist group has released a multitude of pamphlets outlining how to overrun unused Twitter accounts. These pamphlets are circulated throughout the ISIS community and help inform ISIS members about hidden online communication tactics. Through these documents, ISIS members learn how to hack social media accounts, improve online recruitment, and coordinate attacks securely with other members. ISIS even has a 24/7 online help desk that provide tech support for its members.

To combat these efforts, the U.S. government has its own intelligence gathering operations that monitor these Twitter accounts and chat sites. This information is then fed to the Ghost Security Group, a small hacking group led by ex-terrorism adviser Michael Smith. Smith claims that this group has prevented ISIS attacks in places like Turkey and Tunisia.

Another allied hacking group is the Syrian Electronic Army which also targets terrorist social media accounts. This group attacks these accounts by uploading malware into the account, rendering it unusable. The SEA claims that it has prevented countless ISIS recruitment operations through these online attacks. Since ISIS primarily uses social media to recruit its members, sites like Twitter and Facebook have become the main target for these hacking groups.

By Clint Fontanella

http://mashable.com/2015/11/24/islamic-state-isis-hackers/#6nmSFcZIMgq3

[emersoncollegeesm]

#GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday was created as a global day to give back to the community.  Tuesday, December 1 is Giving Tuesday. The goal of the day is to #GetSootDone by helping the planet and saving lives.  Many different non profit organizations are using the hashtag to promote giving to their charity or organization after a weekend full of shopping.  What you do does make a difference, and by giving back to the community during the holidays it can change the world.  

The twitter page simply asks how you can make an impact on our world by giving back and are holding a conference that will be streamed online at 12:30pm ET.  By giving the gift of a future or life, the generosity of Giving Tuesday is a great way to get the community involved to help others in need.

By: Molly Caron

[emersoncollegeesm]

This New Challenge Reassures How Strong Condoms Are

First it was the cinnamon challenge that took over the internet with people putting spoon-fulls of cinnamon in their mouths for no particular reason. Then, it was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge which was done for a very good cause; raising awareness about ALS and those who suffer from it. 

Now, in a way of proving how safe and strong condoms are, I introduce you to: The Condom Challenge. It’s been gaining momentum for the past week, and is now taking over social media. 

This trend consists of people (mainly teenagers) filming themselves while someone holds a condom full of water (like a water balloon) and throws it over their head.  It began when two guys were messing around with what people thought was a water balloon, and it all went wrong. The original gathered over 9,000 retweets, and soon enough the imitators started. There is even an official twitter page for the challenge. 

It is insane to see how powerful social media and the internet can be. Whether it is for a good cause or for something as stupid as this “condom challenge”, the opportunities are endless. 

Here I leave you with many of the fools who have taken part in this. Although, to be completely honest, it’s pretty funny. 

By: Mariela Esclusa