#LinkedIn Ad Size

[ms-demeanor]

Since July (when the business I work for got acquired by a larger company) I've been doing a LOT more work and have been under a lot more stress and have been a lot more tired.

I have also said the words "I'm severely underpaid and we need to fix this" to at least three people from the c-suite and have been assured that nobody has forgotten that and that's on the agenda.

It's great that that's on the agenda but I keep having to choose between buying a mattress that doesn't hurt and paying power bills and it has been five months. (I got paid about a thousand dollars for a side project recently so this is no longer a choice that has me over a barrel but also it's not a choice I should have been struggling with given the size of the company I'm now working for and my tremendously increased workload)

All of which is background for the fact that I am applying for jobs and have been spending an unconscionable amount of time on LinkedIn (which is, like, eighty times more soul-crushing than I had realized; it is fucking grim on that website).

Because applying for jobs is a nightmare and because it is totally normal to apply for approximately a million jobs before you hear back from one, I have made up a tiny, miserable RPG to play to track my applications and I figure every time I "die" in the game I'll do something nice for myself like burn a vacation day or get takeout.

Anyway, here are the rules for playing Labor Quest:

Player starts with 100 HP; interactions with the Job Board determine player health over time.

Applying for a position: +1hp

Response: (call or email): +2hp

Interview: +10hp

Rejection: -10hp

Ghosting (1 month silence): -2hp

You die when you get to 0 points.

I'm playing very slowly because I do at least have a stable job with benefits so I'm not putting in more than a few applications a week and I'm currently at a score of 93. I've been ghosted by a landscaping company that was looking for a receptionist (and that I had to do an indeed skills test for to apply) and rejected by an extremely scammy ghostwriting company that I mostly replied to just to see what would happen (it's the writing company from the Dan Olsen "Contreprenuers" video). I suspect that I'm going to lose a lot of HP through ghostings in the coming week (I only wrote this out as a game in October so I haven't been tracking ghostings more than a month).

I'm considering adding modifiers like "reconfiguring entire resume for one submission," "taking skills tests," and "writing a goddamned cover letter," "spending > 1hr on LinkedIn in a 24hr period" that would also impact player HP.

[toa-archive]

Bellroc Design Path

As per Anon request there's going to be three posts regarding the Arcane Order consisting of any and all concept art we have of them. As ever with these it is far from impossible something else will belatedly turn up. Should this occur (And in this specific case would not be surprised), wherever it is added will have a [/edit xx/xx/xxxx] which includes a date marker. Just makes it easier to find the "new" thing :)

Also per Anon request we're starting with Bellroc! As a fun bonus fact, the voice meandering from masc to femme is both really cool and a Angel of Death from Hellboy reference. Particularly in this climate, we support non-binary they/them wrongs. So let's get to it!

First up is some initial concepts from Yingjue Chen! While this was originally figuring out Nari and thus forest themed, the left most one was repurposed into a fire wizard. Never went any further of course but still very neat to see how just changing some shapes and adding colour make something fresh from old ideas.

Source

Francisco Ruiz Velasco had his own stab at a bunch of wizards which are nigh impossible to pin down if it was for any of the Arcane Trio specifically or not. Still important to include tho :) This one will very understandably appear in all three.

Source goes to Linkedin so may require an account.

Then seemingly all of a sudden Bellroc as we know them pops up, also by Francisco Ruiz Velasco, who would finalise their design. This is a crop from a height chart shown during the Art of Wizards panel and when you compare it to the artwork below (Also from the panel), they do seem to get tightened up considerably.

Now this was uploaded outside the panel as well, which is great as can see it at a decent size, though does lacks one sketch and the specifics of their eyes. It's very possible that someone else drew/painted those though who if that is the case is currently unknown.

Source

The next one to appear is their texture markup by Isaac Orloff! This is an absolute goldmine for your reference needs, particularly all their little details.

Source

Decided to add a trio of bonuses just for fun. You might have noticed the Order pops up in the Wizards credits sequence though unlike Trollhunters and 3Below, it is not Headless Studios. They were drawn in a similar way though! They are by Alison Donato.

Source

Ivan Gozali, who boarded on Wizards, had a bunch of Bellroc sketches on his website which were likely related to boards he may have done that are not public. Sadly, said sketches suddenly vanished one day and to date only one of these has been recovered. This is a good a time as any to show it.

This is also a great excuse to yet again break out Francisco Ruiz Velasco's Order band poster again! In part due to them only appearing in colour keys for RotT otherwise. Well, there's one exception but want to save it for it's own post...

Source goes to Linkedin so may require an account.

Can't forget Bellroc's staff! Presumably it was modeled after Fruiz's design as Alison Donato mentions her texture work here was painted over a blank. Unlike the other two which do have 2D reference art for the design, it's not been seen publicly at this time.

Source

On the more magical front there is a tiny screenshot from the Art of Wizards panel which shows the magic effects for Bellroc. It is unknown who the right two images belong to however -

We do have a bigger version of the left image which we know is by Yingjue Chen! Aren't effects neat?

Source

[/Edit 13/02/2025] The following was missed due to no obvious note of what it is on the original tweet this version is from and it's being added in now. This is the spell effect combining Bellroc, Skrael and the Green Knight's power into a single shot! It is by Isaac Orloff.

Source

Poking Rise of the Titans a moment, thanks to Andy Murray we have the glow up eye effect for Bellroc. This has been cropped from a larger image for fitting this post reasons only. Have to scroll back up for the Wizards version!

Source

And for fun since we also have it, this is the Arcane Circle for Bellroc which is shown on the Fire Titan including the Genesis Seal marker. As above it has been cropped for fitting this post reasons only. This time they are by Sean Wang.

Source

To close up a fun little tidbit! Thanks to Bianca Siercke we have the temporary name for Bellroc before they became, well, Bellroc. It was Belrog!

Source

When all three posts are up there will be a link here to the other two members. For now it is a placeholder:

Bellroc - Nari - Skrael

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, March 2024

Welcome to my roundup of SEO and marketing news and useful resources for ecommerce businesses, March edition. There is a lot going on with Google, and some really strong marketing pieces this time around, so let's get right to it.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google launched both a core algorithm update and spam updates on March 5, with the spam update ending on the 20th. Core updates now include the Helpful Content algorithm. In early observations, Etsy and Reddit both picked up visibility in the UK. 

The Helpful Content algorithm updates late last year destroyed a lot of sites’ Google traffic. Avoid the things they had in common.  You can read the full study here. 

Ecommerce sites were some of the biggest losers in Google visibility in 2023, with Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy, Target and Best Buy in the top 10 of sites whose Google appearances slipped. 

New to Google SEO? They’ve revamped their SEO starter guide for people like you. And if you are more advanced and want to learn how to optimize your website product pages, this is a good overview. 

This lengthy article on backlinks for ecommerce websites covers pretty much all the angles, including the really difficult ones. 

Reminder that if you want to rank on Google for a search term, you need to look at what is already ranking, and make decisions based on that content. [video and transcript] This works for most search engines, not just Google. 

Yes, Google crawls “high quality” content more often. I used to refer to this as Google thinking the page is “interesting”, so I guess I will need to change my wording...

While Google sends the most traffic to websites, people spend a lot more of their online time elsewhere. Market where people are, not just where your stats say they came from. 

Sadly, Google has stopped providing caches of website pages in its search results. While you can still see the caches of some pages by using the Google search Cache:[page link] as in cache:https://cindylouwho-2.tumblr.com that will eventually stop working as well. Bing still provides caches, but unfortunately both it and the Wayback Machine do not crawl often enough to give really recent results most of the time. 

Missed Google news in February? Here’s your update. And just in case you are really behind, here is January. 

Not Google

Unsure if your website has enough good backlinks? Bing Webmaster Tools will now tell you if you don’t. 

Yandex - the top search engine in Russia - was sold by its Dutch ownership group to a consortium in Russia. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

A US study of social media use found that the most popular site was YouTube, with 83% of adults using it. Two-thirds of American adults use Facebook, while TikTok is up to ⅓ of the US population. 

Because they do change periodically, here are the latest image and video sizes recommended for the top social media platforms. [infographic]

Bluesky is now open to everyone - it was previously invite-only. 

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta has introduced several changes to its Ad options, applying to Facebook and Instagram. 

Meta had a great 4th quarter in 2023, with revenue, users, and earnings per share up. “Fast-growing upstarts Temu and Shein, which originated in China, have been pouring money into ads on Facebook and Instagram. Li said on Thursday that revenue from China-based advertisers accounted for 10% of sales for the year and 5 percentage points of growth.”

Instagram

An updated post on Instagram's algorithm and how it works. 

Instagram is still beta testing longer Reels for some users. 

If your account is a brand account, you can now run ads on Instagram with coupon codes right in them. (Some Facebook users can already do this.)

LinkedIn

Among other recent changes on LinkedIn, the algorithm is now looking to boost important content longer than just the first day or two after publication. 

Pinterest

Pinterest has its own stats package, called Pinterest Analytics, but only for “Business” accounts. They show how many people clicked on the outgoing links, how many people saw your pin on their screen, and much more. Here’s everything you need to know. 

Reddit

Reddit successfully launched on the stock market this past week, but questions remain about how this will change the site. 

Google is paying Reddit to scrape its content through the API instead of from the web. 

Snapchat

Snap was a little later than most tech companies doing layoffs recently, waiting until February 5 to let 10% off staff go. 

Threads

Threads is so new that the algorithm is bound to change a lot in the next year, but for right now, here is how it works. 

TikTok

There is an overwhelming amount of info out there on the US attempt to either ban TikTok or force its sale, and much of it is incomplete, so I will let you Google to your heart’s content if you want to learn more. If you are relying on TikTok to drive sales, this would be a good time to make sure you diversify your promotional strategy. 

You can now track trending terms on TikTok through the Creator Search Insights section. “Creator Search Insights will highlight frequently searched topics, which creators can organize by category (for example, tourism, sports, science) or tailor to their content type with the “For You” option. Additionally, creators can filter for “content gap” topics, which are highly searched but have relatively few videos on TikTok covering them.“

TikTok may be testing a photo app, which would obviously compete with Instagram. 

Twitter

What? Twitter may have lied about its Super Bowl ad performance? I’m so not shocked. 

Tumblr

Tumblr will be selling data access to AI companies. 

YouTube

This is a pretty decent article on YouTube SEO. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Small and micro-businesses need an email list. An email list is:  

portable (unlike most social media followers or marketplace buyers) 

is available to almost everyone, as we all need at least one email address if we are online

less susceptible to the whims of algorithms (unlike SEO, marketplaces, social etc.)  

I keep seeing people argue that no one opens emails, but the chart in the article above is proof that is still wrong. (My blog email list averages close to a 70% open rate, depending on the topic and the time I send it. My jewellery email list - which I hardly ever send to - still has an over 30% open rate. My click rates are well above the industry averages, usually 30 to 40% of all recipients for the blog list. These are much better numbers than social, and astronomically better than my clickthrough rate on Google and other search engines.)

Gmail and Yahoo both changed how they handle bulk emails such as newsletters in February. Here’s what you need to know on the basics, including authenticating yourself so your email gets through. 

Find out how to get people to read all the way to the end of your content. 

Get ready for April marketing with 5 topical ideas. National Handmade Day is April 6. 

We should all think twice before deciding to use AI to create content. “Circa 2024, generative AI does not produce new ideas or even develop its own conclusions. Rather, it regurgitates information that it has indexed.” Not convinced? Here’s another article. “AI-generated content represents the literal “average of everything online.”

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google Ads can now be tracked in Google Analytics 4. 

Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising were up in the 4th quarter of 2023. 

STATS, DATA, TRACKING 

Google Analytics 4 tracks organic traffic differently than the previous version. Here’s how to figure it out. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

I’ve probably posted this specific article before, but it is worth another read: how to communicate with customers.  For example, “Mirroring your customer’s tone lets them know you’re on their side. If a customer is formal, for example, hold back on the LOLs. If they’re more casual, relax your tone.”

According to a US study, Generation Z is skewing the traditional marketing funnel. “Per Archrival’s data, 77 per cent of Gen Zs and 79 per cent of millennials in the US are actively seeking style inspiration at least monthly, with almost half of those looking for style inspiration on social media. When asked where they learn about new brands, products and experiences, video reigns supreme: YouTube is the most popular platform with Gen Zs, followed by TikTok, then Instagram.”

Trend alert: bag charms are back. 

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

Almost all of these 12 video tools are free, and some can be used on your phone. 

MISCELLANEOUS

This is an older piece, but it checks out: IKEA Hacks for Craft Show Displays. A few of these could be done with non-IKEA items. 

Want to stay up-to-date on a nearly daily basis? Follow me on Bluesky or on LinkedIn, or become a member of my Patreon.

[mohammedrinshad]

How the Best Digital Marketer in Malappuram Can Boost Your Business

In today’s digital age, the success of any business depends on how well it can leverage digital marketing strategies. Whether you’re running a small local business or a growing enterprise, having a solid digital marketing strategy is crucial. But how do you ensure your business stands out from the competition? The answer lies in working with a skilled digital marketer – someone who can tailor strategies that align with your goals, audience, and market trends.

As the best digital marketer in Malappuram, I’ve helped numerous businesses achieve remarkable success through a combination of creativity, strategic planning, and the latest marketing techniques. Here’s how partnering with me can give your business the boost it needs to thrive:

1. Tailored Digital Marketing Strategies

Every business is unique, and a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work when it comes to marketing. By working with the best digital marketer in Malappuram, you’ll get a strategy customized to your specific needs. I will analyze your business, identify your target audience, and determine the most effective digital channels to reach them. Whether it’s through SEO, social media marketing, email campaigns, or paid ads, I’ll design a roadmap that ensures maximum results.

2. Boosting Online Visibility

A strong online presence is essential for any business looking to expand. By implementing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, I’ll improve your website’s ranking on search engines like Google. With the right SEO strategy, your business will be more visible to potential customers who are searching for products or services like yours. This increased visibility can lead to more website traffic, higher conversions, and greater brand recognition.

3. Social Media Expertise

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter are powerful tools for engaging with customers. As the best digital marketer in Malappuram, I use these platforms to create compelling content that resonates with your audience. Whether it’s organic posts or paid ads, I will help you build a loyal online community and foster deeper relationships with your customers. Social media marketing is not just about posting; it’s about creating a conversation that drives action.

4. Targeted Advertising for Higher ROI

With the right paid advertising strategy, you can drive quality leads and increase your sales. As an expert in Google Ads and Facebook Ads, I specialize in running targeted ad campaigns that deliver results. I use data-driven insights to optimize your ads, ensuring that every penny spent yields the best possible return on investment. Through careful audience targeting, compelling ad copy, and A/B testing, I’ll help you generate leads that convert into loyal customers.

5. Content Marketing to Build Trust

Content is king in the world of digital marketing. From blog posts to videos, infographics, and email newsletters, content is a powerful tool for building trust with your audience. As your digital marketing partner, I will help you create valuable, informative, and engaging content that educates your customers while promoting your products or services. Content marketing not only boosts your SEO efforts but also positions your brand as an authority in your industry.

6. Real-Time Analytics and Continuous Improvement

One of the key advantages of digital marketing is the ability to track and measure results in real time. With the help of analytics tools, I’ll monitor the performance of your campaigns and adjust strategies as needed. From website traffic and engagement rates to conversion metrics, I’ll ensure that your digital marketing efforts are continually optimized for success.

7. Cost-Effective Marketing Solutions

Compared to traditional marketing methods like TV or print ads, digital marketing is highly cost-effective. By focusing on online platforms, I can help your business reach a larger audience without breaking the bank. Whether you’re a small startup or an established business, digital marketing provides opportunities for all to achieve growth on a budget.

8. Competitive Advantage in Malappuram’s Growing Market

Malappuram, known for its vibrant local businesses, is also a rapidly growing market for digital opportunities. By working with the best digital marketer in the region, you’ll have the edge over your competitors. I keep up with the latest trends, tools, and techniques in the ever-changing digital landscape, ensuring that your business stays ahead of the curve.

9. Building Strong Brand Identity

A well-executed digital marketing strategy can help define and solidify your brand identity. From your website design to your social media voice, I ensure that your brand stands out and communicates its unique value proposition. By fostering a strong brand presence, you’ll attract more customers, build loyalty, and increase your overall market share.

Conclusion

Digital marketing isn’t just about advertising; it’s about creating long-term strategies that drive results and connect with your audience on a deeper level. As the best digital marketer in Malappuram, I am committed to helping businesses unlock their full potential through smart, data-driven marketing strategies. By partnering with me, you’ll gain access to a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and resources that will take your business to new heights.

Ready to boost your business? Let’s work together to create a digital marketing strategy that works for you!

[ingenioushitechpvtltd]

Empowering Businesses in Los Angeles with Expert Digital Solutions

In today’s competitive market, having a strong digital presence is no longer optional — it’s a necessity! At Ingenious Hi-Tech, we specialize in providing top-notch digital marketing services in Los Angeles, helping businesses of all sizes grow, scale, and thrive online.

Whether you’re a startup looking to establish your brand or an established business aiming to maximize online sales, we’ve got the right solutions for you.

Why Choose Our Digital Marketing Agency in Los Angeles?

We offer a comprehensive suite of services designed to boost your online visibility and drive real results. Our expertise includes:

✅ SEO & Local SEO — Rank higher on Google and attract local customers in Los Angeles. ✅ Social Media Marketing — Engage your audience with compelling content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more. ✅ PPC & Google Ads — Drive high-quality traffic and generate leads with targeted ad campaigns. ✅ Web Design & Development — Build a stunning, high-performance website that converts visitors into customers. ✅ Content Marketing & Branding — Tell your brand’s story and create a lasting impact.

Take Your Business to the Next Level

As a trusted digital marketing agency in Los Angeles, we combine creativity, data-driven strategies, and the latest industry trends to ensure your business stays ahead of the competition. Our team of experts is committed to delivering customized digital marketing services in Los Angeles that align with your brand’s unique goals.

Ready to scale your business? Let’s make your brand shine in the digital world! Contact us today and let’s build something amazing together.

[twostranger]

Starting Salary in Digital Marketing: A Complete Guide for Freshers

Introduction

If you're considering a career in digital marketing, one of the first things you might wonder about is the starting salary in digital marketing. Whether you're a fresh graduate or someone switching careers, understanding the financial prospects of the field is crucial. In this blog, we will discuss the starting salary in digital marketing, factors affecting salaries, different roles, and tips to increase your earnings.

What is the Starting Salary in Digital Marketing?

The starting salary in digital marketing varies based on multiple factors such as location, skills, company size, and experience level. On average, freshers in digital marketing can expect to earn anywhere between $30,000 to $50,000 per year in the United States. In India, the starting salary in digital marketing typically ranges from ₹2.5 LPA to ₹4.5 LPA.

Factors Affecting Starting Salary in Digital Marketing

1. Location

The starting salary in digital marketing significantly differs from country to country and even within different cities. Metropolitan areas often offer higher salaries due to increased demand and cost of living.

2. Skills and Certifications

If you have certifications from platforms like Google, HubSpot, or Facebook, you can negotiate a better starting salary in digital marketing. Specialized skills like SEO, PPC, and social media marketing can give you an edge.

3. Company Size and Type

MNCs and established agencies tend to offer a higher starting salary in digital marketingthan startups. However, startups can provide faster growth opportunities and hands-on experience.

4. Job Role and Responsibilities

Different roles within digital marketing have different salary structures. A content writer might earn less than a PPC specialist, while an SEO analyst may have a different pay scale than a social media manager.

Common Digital Marketing Roles and Their Salaries

Here are some of the most common roles in digital marketing and their respective starting salary in digital marketing:

1. SEO Executive

USA: $35,000 - $50,000 per year

India: ₹2.5 LPA - ₹4 LPA

2. Content Writer

USA: $30,000 - $45,000 per year

India: ₹2 LPA - ₹3.5 LPA

3. Social Media Manager

USA: $40,000 - $55,000 per year

India: ₹3 LPA - ₹5 LPA

4. PPC Specialist

USA: $45,000 - $60,000 per year

India: ₹3.5 LPA - ₹6 LPA

5. Email Marketing Executive

USA: $35,000 - $50,000 per year

India: ₹2.5 LPA - ₹4.5 LPA

6. Affiliate Marketer

USA: $40,000 - $55,000 per year

India: ₹3 LPA - ₹5 LPA

How to Increase Your Starting Salary in Digital Marketing

Here are some tips to boost your starting salary in digital marketing:

1. Get Certified

Earning certifications from Google Ads, HubSpot, Facebook, and other platforms can increase your earning potential.

2. Build a Portfolio

Having a strong portfolio with real-world projects showcases your skills and makes you a desirable candidate.

3. Gain Experience Through Internships

Internships help you gain hands-on experience and can significantly impact your starting salary in digital marketing.

4. Learn Advanced Skills

Mastering skills like paid advertising (Google Ads, Facebook Ads), data analytics, and email automation can set you apart.

5. Network with Industry Experts

Attending webinars, networking events, and joining LinkedIn groups can open doors to better-paying opportunities.

Future Growth in Digital Marketing Salaries

The demand for digital marketers is increasing rapidly. As businesses continue shifting to online platforms, the scope and starting salary in digital marketing will keep rising. Within 2-3 years, you can expect significant salary hikes, with experienced professionals earning over $70,000 per year in the US and ₹10 LPA+ in India.

Conclusion

Thestarting salary in digital marketingdepends on several factors like location, skills, job role, and company type. By upskilling, gaining experience, and networking, you can increase your earning potential and build a successful career in digital marketing.

[woofpets]

The Power of Digital Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, digital marketing has become an essential component of business success. The rapid growth of the internet, mobile devices, and social media platforms has reshaped the way businesses reach and engage with their audience. Unlike traditional marketing methods, digital marketing offers precise targeting, real-time analytics, and cost-effective strategies to enhance brand visibility and customer engagement. This article delves into the key aspects of digital marketing, its benefits, strategies, and future trends.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use electronic devices or the internet. Businesses leverage various digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, websites, and mobile applications to connect with current and prospective customers. Digital marketing is an umbrella term that includes several key components:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Content Marketing

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

Email Marketing

Affiliate Marketing

Influencer Marketing

Marketing Automation

Mobile Marketing

Benefits of Digital Marketing

1. Cost-Effectiveness

Compared to traditional marketing methods, digital marketing is significantly more affordable. Small and medium-sized businesses can reach a global audience with a limited budget.

2. Measurable Results

Digital marketing allows businesses to track and analyze the performance of their campaigns in real time. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, and HubSpot provide insights into website traffic, engagement, conversion rates, and more.

3. Targeted Advertising

With digital marketing, businesses can precisely target their audience based on demographics, interests, online behavior, and geographic location. This ensures that marketing efforts are reaching the right people at the right time.

4. Higher Engagement Rates

Social media platforms and interactive content enable businesses to engage directly with their audience. Engaged customers are more likely to convert and become loyal brand advocates.

5. Global Reach

Unlike traditional marketing, which is often limited by geography, digital marketing allows businesses to reach audiences worldwide. This is particularly beneficial for e-commerce brands looking to expand their customer base.

Key Digital Marketing Strategies

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO involves optimizing a website’s content and structure to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to increase organic traffic by improving visibility on search engines like Google and Bing. SEO strategies include:

Keyword research

On-page optimization (meta descriptions, alt text, internal linking)

Off-page optimization (backlinks, social sharing)

Technical SEO (site speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data)

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing focuses on creating valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain an audience. It includes:

Blog posts

Infographics

Videos

E-books and whitepapers

Case studies

3. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media marketing involves using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok to promote products and engage with customers. Key strategies include:

Creating engaging posts and videos

Running targeted ads

Collaborating with influencers

Hosting live sessions and Q&A forums

4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC is a digital advertising model where businesses pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. Google Ads and social media advertising platforms like Facebook Ads offer PPC advertising. Strategies include:

Keyword targeting

A/B testing for ad copies

Retargeting to capture potential customers

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing involves sending personalized messages to a targeted audience to nurture leads and maintain customer relationships. Key elements include:

Personalized subject lines

Segmentation and automation

A/B testing

Compelling call-to-actions (CTAs)

6. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based strategy where businesses reward affiliates for driving traffic or sales. This is often done through:

Bloggers and influencers promoting products

Coupon and cashback websites

Affiliate networks like Amazon Associates

7. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing leverages individuals with a strong online presence to promote products and services. Businesses partner with influencers to reach a broader audience and build brand credibility.

8. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation uses technology to streamline marketing efforts and improve efficiency. Common tools include HubSpot, Marketo, and Mailchimp, which help with:

Automated email campaigns

Lead nurturing

Customer relationship management (CRM)

9. Mobile Marketing

With the rise of smartphones, mobile marketing has become crucial. It includes:

Future Trends in Digital Marketing

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning

AI-driven marketing tools analyze data and predict customer behavior to enhance personalization and engagement. Chatbots, AI-powered recommendations, and automated content creation are becoming mainstream.

2. Voice Search Optimization

With the increasing use of smart speakers and voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, optimizing content for voice search is crucial. This involves focusing on conversational keywords and answering direct queries.

3. Video Marketing

Video content continues to dominate digital marketing, with platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels leading the way. Live streaming, interactive videos, and short-form content are gaining popularity.

4. Blockchain and Data Privacy

With growing concerns about data privacy, blockchain technology is being explored to provide transparency in digital advertising and secure transactions.

5. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

Conclusion

Digital marketing has revolutionized the way businesses interact with customers. Its cost-effectiveness, data-driven approach, and global reach make it an indispensable part of modern business strategies. By leveraging SEO, content marketing, social media, PPC, email marketing, and emerging trends, businesses can stay ahead of the competition and achieve sustainable growth. As technology continues to evolve, stay updated with the latest trends and best practices in digital marketing with Zypher learning.

[beardedmrbean]

A Colorado man took to YouTube to express his fear that he may have accidentally found a serial killer's crime scene when he found 10 pairs of women's high-heeled shoes discarded in the desert.

Levi Comstock posted the video to YouTube over the weekend to the Countertop Epoxy account, an account typically dedicated to epoxy. The video, which has garnered millions of views across X, formerly Twitter, lasts roughly five minutes. In it, Comstock walks the viewer through the strange discovery he made while four-wheeling in a remote desert location in western Colorado.

At the beginning of the video, Comstock said he felt that he had found what "could be a crime" and went on to explain what happened. Later on, Comstock asked for advice and admitted that he did express concern to a local sheriff's office but that he was told "it was probably nothing."

Newsweek has not confirmed the discovery or Comstock's report as of publication of this article.

It's unclear which sheriff's office Comstock spoke to in the video, but according to LinkedIn, Comstock owns Countertop Epoxy, which is located in Grand Junction, Colorado. Newsweek reached out to Countertop Epoxy by email and phone for comment.

Mesa County Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Wendy Likes told Newsweek that police have investigated the area in the past and found evidence of illegal dumping. She said that lots of trash has been found in addition to shoes and commented that shoes are a common item to dump. She added that if evidence of something nefarious surfaces, law enforcement will investigate the area again.

During one of his desert adventures, Comstock found a "very well hidden" pond where he stumbled across one high-heeled shoe. The discovery originally didn't surprise him, but then he found the shoe's pair a few feet away.

"I found two more sets of high heels within looking around for about 5 minutes, and they are all in the shoreline of this shallow pond," he said, adding that the shoes were different sizes.

During several visits to the pond, Comstock said he found 10 pairs of shoes, some with broken heels, and a pair of women's nylon stockings.

Comstock, who clarifies that he isn't an investigator, said he noticed the pond's water level was low. When he walked out on a series of boulders going into the middle of the pond, he found a piece of plastic sticking out of the mud that he soon came to realize was a broken high heel. On the second day he returned, he was accompanied by some friends and their tracking dogs, although the dogs weren't trained for cadaver searches.

"I think it's crazy that every single pair has had a matching pair together," Comstock said. "I think it's crazy that there's been multiple sizes."

"I'm guessing that whoever is throwing these shoes down here is expecting that usually they're going to be underwater," Comstock said later in the video.

[nandanadm]

A Comprehensive Guide to Thriving as a Digital Marketing Freelancer

In today’s digital-first world, businesses of all sizes recognize the power of online marketing. As a digital marketing freelancer, you’re uniquely positioned to help these businesses grow, all while enjoying the flexibility and autonomy of freelancing. Whether you’re just starting or looking to refine your strategies, this guide will help you thrive in the competitive digital marketing landscape.

Why Choose Freelancing in Digital Marketing?

Freelancing offers numerous benefits, including:

Flexibility: Work from anywhere, at any time.

Variety: Engage with diverse clients and industries.

Autonomy: Set your own rates, choose your clients, and define your work scope.

Scalability: Expand your business as you gain experience and build your portfolio.

Key Skills Every Digital Marketing Freelancer Needs

To excel in this field, you’ll need a mix of technical expertise and soft skills:

1. Technical Skills

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Master on-page, off-page, and technical SEO strategies.

Content Marketing: Craft compelling blog posts, social media content, and email campaigns.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: Manage campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Analytics: Interpret data from tools like Google Analytics to optimize campaigns.

Web Design Basics: Familiarity with platforms like WordPress or Wix can be a plus.

2. Soft Skills

Communication: Clear communication with clients ensures smooth collaboration.

Time Management: Efficiently juggle multiple projects and deadlines.

Problem-Solving: Tackle challenges creatively to deliver results.

Networking: Build and maintain relationships within the industry.

How to Get Started

1. Define Your Niche

Specializing in a niche—whether it’s e-commerce, local businesses, or tech startups—can set you apart from competitors.

2. Build a Portfolio

Create case studies showcasing your results. If you’re just starting, offer your services at a discounted rate or collaborate with non-profits to gain experience.

3. Establish an Online Presence

Your digital footprint is your brand. Invest in a professional website, optimize your LinkedIn profile, and maintain active social media accounts to showcase your expertise.

4. Leverage Freelance Platforms

Platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Toptal can connect you with clients. Ensure your profile highlights your skills, experience, and previous successes.

Tips for Sustained Success

1. Stay Updated

Digital marketing is ever-evolving. Regularly update your knowledge through courses, webinars, and industry blogs.

2. Build Long-Term Relationships

Focusing on client satisfaction and delivering exceptional results can lead to repeat business and referrals.

3. Diversify Your Income Streams

Consider offering additional services like training sessions, digital marketing audits, or consultancy to increase your earnings.

4. Track and Showcase Results

Quantify your impact with metrics like increased traffic, conversion rates, or ROI to demonstrate your value.

5. Set Clear Boundaries

Define your working hours, payment terms, and project scope to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Overcoming Challenges

Freelancing comes with its hurdles, including inconsistent income, client management, and staying motivated. Address these by:

Building an emergency fund to cover slow periods.

Setting clear expectations and contracts with clients.

Breaking projects into smaller milestones to maintain focus.

Final Thoughts

Becoming a successful digital marketing freelancer requires dedication, continuous learning, and strategic planning. By honing your skills, building a strong brand, and delivering exceptional results, you can carve out a thriving career in this dynamic industry.

[phragmitessoftware]

Why Digital Marketing Agency Matters to Your Business

World being a digital place, nobody does not wish to compete with one another because it builds itself into a business. Which might be rather easy with such tough competition around in this rapid change in the digital marketplace. This is the very reason why many companies use digital marketing agencies in order to gain more visibility in the virtual space and hence establish a momentum for their business. Now, so what is a digital marketing agency and why do any organizations need it? Let's discuss its key advantages and services.

What is a Digital Marketing Agency?

A firm with experts in each stage of digital marketing is known as a digital marketing agency. They try to reach the desired market target with creating brand awareness and revenues generated by effective digital marketing plans developed by them suitably. They use high-end tools and technologies for designing a suitable campaign on more than one channel, which include social media, search engines, email, and websites.

Core Services a Digital Marketing Agency Must Have

A good digital marketing agency should ensure that not any aspect of the digital marketing service goes unattended by offering different kinds of services to the clients. This may include:

SEO. Also known as web optimization, the top ranking on SERPS, perhaps, is the best gauge of how visible a website is. Therefore, agencies do keyword research; optimize on-page content and build backlinks that help your website gain organic traffic.

Pay per Click Advertising, PPC: PPC campaigns include Google Ads and create quick traffic to the website. The agency optimizes how the money spent in advertisements to ensure the reach of correct people and optimal ads' optimization towards conversion.

Social Media Marketing. Agencies run a paid campaign on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and every other space; business creates the ability to interact with the audience to develop a sense of brand loyalty.

Content Marketing: The best digital marketing is a great base of content. Blog posts, videos, infographics, and all other things are developed by an agency to attract and retain customers.

Email marketing. This has been there from the beginning of when digital marketing was at its start; it is still standing good as one of the most productive strategies. Agencies come up with campaigns to nourish leads and sell more.

Web Design and Development: Be your business small or big, your website has to be user-friendly as well as looking good. Agencies ensure that your site is optimized aesthetically as well as functionally.

Analytics and Reporting: It is quite crucial to track the performance of marketing campaigns. Agencies provide in-depth analytics and reports of ROI evaluation and data-driven decisions.

Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

Here are good reasons why partnering with a digital marketing agency is the right move:

1. Exposure to Expertise

This means that digital marketing covers all from graphic design to analytics. Here, a digital marketing agency has experts who have specialized in particular areas so your campaign is addressed by the professionals.

2. Cost-Effective

Engaging an in-house marketing team is expensive, especially to small-sized business concerns. The agency places an entire team of professionals right in front of you, without requiring a quarter of their billable amount.

3. Focus on core Business Activities

Time spent in the process of marketing campaigns is nothing short of monumental at its core. You’re getting freed off of your list, or even just simply transferring the follow-up work of marketing campaigns off of you are delegated by hiring a digital marketing agency.

4. Scalability

With how fast businesses are growing, does that mean that the need to expand one's marketing requirement. This is exactly what a digital marketing agency can do-to scale services upward when it's needed without having to hire more employees in your book.

5. Catch the Trends

Organizations keep side by side of the most recent patterns and advances to keep your trade ahead of the competition. 

Not all agencies are the same, and it is always important to find a suitable one that aligns with your goals. Here are some tips:

Check Their Portfolio: Look into their past work to find out whether they have the experience needed in your industry.

Read reviews and testimonials: This is one of the best ways to know their dependability and effectiveness.

Ask them how they approach: the right agency will address it in a customized way with you not that blanket one-size-fits-all package.

Transparency: Keep them communicating and always apprised of your performance.

Digital marketing agencies no longer exist as luxuries but instead as a need in today's world of advancing technology. Expertise would be very well in line with cost effectiveness, while innovation would bring strategies together. Companies can navigate through these apparent online marketing complexities; it would be either for branding awareness, lead generation, or even to enhance sales.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, JUNE 2024

You know the drill - here's all the marketing, SEO, social media etc. news for the last month. You can see the Etsy and other ecommerce news here.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

As of July 5th, sites that cannot be read on mobile will no longer be indexed by Google. This has been coming for a long time, and we’ve all had plenty of warning, so it is unlikely to affect many ecommerce sites. 

One final reminder that you need to save your old Google Universal Analytics data before July 1, as it will vanish on that date. There are several ways to do this. [Even if you never upgraded to Google Analytics 4, the old stats will still be going away, so don't miss out on saving the important stuff!]

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

If you are interested in deep dives into the recent Google leak, Aleyda Solis has compiled a Google spreadsheet (ironically), of articles on the topic, along with resources. 

It appears that Google’s AI Overviews are so bad that they are now only showing up for 15% of queries, down from 84%. 

Google’s latest spam update started June 20th.

This case study on Google’s March core update looks at the hazards of having high-ranking but irrelevant content on your website. 

Another recent study looking at the effect of various Google updates found that some losing sites may have been trying to game SEO a little too much in Google’s eyes. 

Out-of-date content can hurt SEO, but there are proven tactics for dealing with those pages. 

If you missed any Google news last month - and there was a lot of it! - Barry Schwartz summarized May for you. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

Artists concerned about AI tools training on their items are joining Cara in droves, and many are hoping to leave Meta properties at the same time. Cara allows users to add Glaze to their images, which disrupts AI training. 

True federated social sites are getting closer, with an app that lets Mastodon users and Bluesky users connect without joining the other site. Confused about how federation works? This TechCrunch article goes through all of the current details, and highlights some of the biggest federated sites, including Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. 

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta will stop using users’ personal posts and information to train its AI models in the EU, due to privacy concerns.  

Turns out that using AI to detect use of AI is just as flawed as most applications of AI - ask Meta, which is inaccurately claiming some real photos were “Made with AI”.  

Facebook thinks it is for young people again. Yes, really. Among other areas, “Facebook Dating is continuing to see steady and strong daily active user growth, and is up +20% year-over-year with young adults in the United States and Canada.”

Here’s a decent overview of various types of Meta ads; it is written by Wix, but has some useful points for any advertiser. 

Instagram

The head of Instagram divulged some tips on the algorithm recently, including the fact that video gets more views than photos these days. 

Some video ads on Instagram can’t be skipped right now, but it is only a test. 

Apparently Instagram’s Notes feature is quite popular with teens, so the platform is adding more to it. This includes mentions and likes. 

LinkedIn

If you want a full sized image in posts with links, you will need to pay for LinkedIn Ads from now on. Regular posts with links now have downsized images. If you don’t know anything about LinkedIn Ads, here’s how they work. 

LinkedIn Ads can no longer use data from LinkedIn Groups to target people in Europe. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is now working with Shopify for its “Pinterest Inclusion Fund” which helps underrepresented groups use Pinterest to boost their businesses. 

Reddit

Reddit’s traffic is said to be up 39% this year, increasing interest in using it for marketing. It is also making people worry about bad information. 

Reddit has changed its conversation ads. 

Snapchat

Snapchat now has increased safety features, including improved blocking abilities. 

“Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit from the California Civil Rights Department...Snap paid women less and offered them fewer promotions when compared to male employees.”

Threads

Threads has expanded the ability to post to other federated social sites. 

TikTok

TikTok has combined a lot of its Creator Center tools into one dashboard called TikTok Studio. 

Klaviyo now integrates with Tiktok, so advertisers can find their known audiences and personalize ads. 

Twitter

Hootsuite has updated its guide to Twitter ads, which is quite detailed. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

July content marketing ideas include International Joke Day (July 1). [I can’t decide if I am insulted or not that it is the same day as Canada Day.] 

Patreon has announced several upcoming changes to their creator tools, including the ability to give away paid memberships to fans at no charge, opening chat to free members, and a countdown clock for big posts. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Microsoft’s smart shopping campaigns will become “Performance Max” in the near future, although you can also make that change yourself now. 

Brave now has Search Ads in some areas, after testing them for a year and a half. 

Websites that offer coupon codes and use Google’s free shopping ads can sign up to have the codes displayed in Google's organic search listings. You can get all of the details here. 

STATS, DATA, TRACKING 

If you use Google Shopping Ads (free or paid) for your website, you can now see their performance in Google Images by using the Google Search Console. 

Google Analytics 4 has an updated Realtime report now. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Price cutting (as opposed to sales and discounts) is the latest retail trend. “[C]onsumer spending on goods fell 0.2% during [April]”, while US prices were up 2.7%. 

US consumers are still buying some types of “hot” items, such as clothing, but they are spending less on electronics and homewares. 

UK ecommerce sales to the EU have dropped £5.9 billion since Brexit. 

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

Adobe confirms it will not use its customers’ content to train AI.

A list of 19 new design tools, including free fonts. [Note: some of the tools use AI.] And here are even more free font libraries and resources. 

Get notified of these updates plus my website blog posts via email: http://bit.ly/CindyLouWho2Blog Get all of the most timely updates plus exclusive content by supporting my Patreon: patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

[mariacallous]

The latest in a series of duels announced by the European Commission is with Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. Brussels suspects that the giant based in Redmond, Washington, has failed to properly moderate content produced by the generative AI systems on Bing, Copilot, and Image Creator, and that as a result, it may have violated the Digital Services Act (DSA), one of Europe’s latest digital regulations.

On May 17, the EU summit requested company documents to understand how Microsoft handled the spread of hallucinations (inaccurate or nonsensical answers produced by AI), deepfakes, and attempts to improperly influence the upcoming European Parliament elections. At the beginning of June, voters in the 27 states of the European Union will choose their representatives to the European Parliament, in a campaign over which looms the ominous shadow of technology with its potential to manipulate the outcome. The commission has given Microsoft until May 27 to respond, only days before voters go to the polls. If there is a need to correct course, it may likely be too late.

Europe’s Strategy

Over the past few months, the European Commission has started to bang its fists on the table when dealing with the big digital giants, almost all of them based in the US or China. This isn’t the first time. In 2022, the European Union hit Google with a fine of €4.1 billion because of its market dominance thanks to its Android system, marking the end of an investigation that started in 2015. In 2023, it sanctioned Meta with a fine of €1.2 billion for violating the GDPR, the EU’s data protection regulations. And in March it presented Apple with a sanction of €1.8 billion.

Recently, however, there appears to have been a change in strategy. Sanctions continue to be available as a last resort when Big Tech companies don’t bend to the wishes of Brussels, but now the European Commission is aiming to take a closer look at Big Tech, find out how it operates, and modify it as needed, before imposing fines. Take, for example, Europe’s Digital Services Act, which attempts to impose transparency in areas like algorithms and advertising, fight online harassment and disinformation, protect minors, stop user profiling, and eliminate dark patterns (design features intended to manipulate our choices on the web).

In 2023, Brussels identified 22 multinationals that, due to their size, would be the focus of its initial efforts: Google with its four major services (search, shopping, maps, and play), YouTube, Meta with Instagram and Facebook, Bing, X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Amazon, Booking, Wikipedia, Apple’s App Store, TikTok, Alibaba, Zalando, and the porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat. Since then, it has been putting the pressure on these companies to cooperate with its regulatory regime.

The day before the Bing investigation was announced, the commission also opened one into Meta to determine what the multinational is doing to protect minors on Facebook and Instagram and counter the “rabbit hole” effect—that is, the seamless flood of content that demands users’ attention, and which can be especially appealing to younger people. That same concern led it to block the launch of TikTok Lite in Europe, deeming its system for rewarding social engagement dangerous and a means of encouraging addictive behavior. It has asked X to increase its content moderation, LinkedIn to explain how its ad system works, and AliExpress to defend its refund and complaint processes.

A Mountain of Laws …

On one hand, the message appears to be that no one will escape the reach of Brussels. On the other, the European Commission, led by President Ursula von der Leyen, has to demonstrate that the many digital laws and regulations that are in place actually produce positive results. In addition to the DSA, there is the Digital Markets Act (DMA), intended to counterbalance the dominance of Big Tech in online markets; the AI Act, Europe’s flagship legislation on artificial intelligence; and the Data Governance Act (DGA) and the Data Act, which address data protection and the use of data in the public and private sectors. Also to be added to the list are the updated cybersecurity package, NIS2 (Network and Information Security); the Digital Operational Resilience Act, focused on finance and insurance; and the digital identity package within eIDAS 2. Still in the draft stage are regulations on health data spaces and much-debated chat measures which would authorize law enforcement agencies and platforms to scan citizens’ private messages, looking for child pornography.

Brussels has deployed its heavy artillery against the digital flagships of the United States and China, and a few successful blows have landed, such as ByteDance’s suspension of the gamification feature on TikTok Lite following its release in France and Spain. But the future is uncertain and complicated. While investigations attract media interest, the EU’s digital bureaucracy is a large and complex machine to run.

On February 17, the DSA became law for all online service operators (cloud and hosting providers, search engines, e-commerce, and online services) but the European Commission doesn’t and can’t control everything. That is why it asked states to appoint a local authority to serve as a coordinator of digital services. Five months later, Brussels had to send a formal notice to six states (Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia) to urge them to designate and fully empower their digital services coordinators. Those countries now have two months to comply before Brussels will intervene. But there are others who are also not in the clear. For example, Italy’s digital services coordinator, the Communications Regulatory Authority (abbreviated AGCOM, for Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, in Italian), needs to recruit 23 new employees to replenish its staff. The department told WIRED Italy that it expects to have filled all of its appointments by mid-June.

The DSA also introduced “trusted flaggers.” These are individuals or entities, such as universities, associations, and fact-checkers, committed to combating online hatred, internet harassment, illegal content, and the spread of scams and fake news. Their reports are, one hopes, trustworthy. The selection of trusted flaggers is up to local authorities but, to date, only Finland has formalized the appointment of one, specifically Tekijänoikeuden tiedotus- ja valvontakeskus ry (in English, the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center). Its executive director, Jaana Pihkala, explained to WIRED Italy that their task is “to produce reports on copyright infringements,” a subject on which the association has 40 years of experience. Since its appointment as a trusted flagger, the center’s two lawyers, who perform all of its functions, have sent 816 alerts to protect films, TV series, and books on behalf of Finnish copyright holders.

… and a Mountain of Data

To assure that the new commission is respected by the 27 states, the commission set up the DSA surveillance system as quickly as possible, but the bureaucrats in Brussels still have a formidable amount of research to do. On the one hand, there is the anonymous reporting platform with which the commission hopes to build dossiers on the operations of different platforms directly from internal sources. The biggest scandals that have shaken Meta have been thanks to former employees, like Christopher Wylie, the analyst who revealed how Cambridge Analytica attempted to influence the US elections, and Frances Haugen, who shared documents about the impacts of Instagram and Facebook on children’s health. The DSA, however, intends to empower and fund the commission so that it can have its own people capable of sifting through documents and data, analyzing the content, and deciding whether to act.

The commission boasts that the DSA will force platforms to be transparent. And indeed it can point to some successes already, for example, by revealing the absurdly inadequate numbers of moderators employed by platforms. According to the latest data released last November, they don’t even cover all the languages spoken in the European Union. X reported that it had only two people to check content in Italian, the language of 9.1 million users. There were no moderators for Greek, Finnish, or Romanian even though each language has more than 2 million subscribers. AliExpress moderates everything in English while, for other languages, it makes do with automatic translators. LinkedIn moderates content in 12 languages of the European bloc—that is, just half of the official languages.

At the same time, the commission has forced large platforms to standardize their reports of moderation interventions to feed a large database, which, at the time of writing this article, contains more than 18.2 billion records. Of these cases, 69 percent were handled automatically. But, perhaps surprisingly, 92 percent concerned Google Shopping. This is because the platform uses various parameters to determine whether a product can be featured: the risk that it is counterfeited, possible violations of site standards, prohibited goods, dangerous materials, and others. It can thus be the case that several alerts are triggered for the same product and the DSA database counts each one separately, multiplying the shopping numbers exponentially. So now the EU has a mass of data that further complicates its goal of being fully transparent.

Zalando’s Numbers

And then there’s the Big Tech companies’ legal battle against the fee they have to pay to the commission to help underwrite its supervisory bodies. Meta, TikTok, and Zalando have challenged the fee (though paid it). Zalando is also the only European company on the commission’s list of large platforms, a designation Zalando has always contested because it does not believe it meets the criteria used by Brussels. One example: The platforms on the list must have at least 45 million monthly users in Europe. The commission argues that Zalando has 83 million users, though that number, for example, includes visits from Portugal, where the platform is not marketed, and Zalando argues those users should be deducted from its total count. According to its calculations, the activities subject to the DSA reach only 31 million users, under the threshold. When Zalando was assessed its fee, it discovered that the commission had based it on a figure of 47.5 million users, far below the initial 83 million. The company has now taken the commission to court in an attempt to assure a transparent process.

And this is just one piece of legislation, the DSA. The commission has also deployed the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a package of regulations to counterbalance Big Tech’s market dominance, requiring that certain services be interoperable with those of other companies, that apps that come loaded on a device by default can be uninstalled, and that data collected on large platforms be shared with small- and medium-size companies. Again, the push to impose these mandates starts with the giants: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, ByteDance, and Microsoft. In May, Booking was added to the list.

Big Tech Responds

Platforms have started to respond to EU requests, with lukewarm results. WhatsApp, for instance, has been redesigned to allow chatting with other apps without compromising its end-to-end encryption that protects the privacy and security of users, but it is still unclear who will agree to connect to it. WIRED US reached out to 10 messaging companies, including Google, Telegram, Viber, and Signal, to ask whether they intend to look at interoperability and whether they had worked with WhatsApp on its plans. The majority didn’t respond to the request for comment. Those that did, Snap and Discord, said they had nothing to add. Apple had to accept sideloading—i.e., the possibility of installing and updating iPhone or iPad applications from stores outside the official one. However, the first alternative that emerged, AltStore, offers very few apps at this time. And it has suffered some negative publicity after refusing to accept the latest version of its archenemy Spotify’s app, despite the fact that the audio platform had removed the link to its website for subscriptions.

The DMA is a regulation that has the potential to break the dominant positions of Big Tech companies, but that outcome is not a given. Take the issue of surveillance: The commission has funds to pay the salaries of 80 employees, compared to the 120 requested by Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and the 220 requested by the European Parliament, as summarized by Bruegel in 2022. And on the website of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a politically left-wing tech industry coalition (all of the digital giants, which also fund CEPA, are members), stated that the DMA, “instead of helping consumers, aims to help competitors. The DMA is making large tech firms’ services less useful, less secure, and less family-friendly. Europeans’ experience of large tech firms’ services is about to get worse compared to the experience of Americans and other non-Europeans.”

Kovacevich represents an association financed by some of those same companies that the DMA is focused on, and there is a shared fear that the DMA will complicate the market and, in the end, benefit only a few companies—not necessarily those most at risk because of the dominance of Silicon Valley. It is not only lawsuits and fines, but also the perceptions of citizens and businesses that will help to determine whether EU regulations are successful. The results may come more slowly than desired by Brussels as new legislation is rarely positively received at first.

Learning From GDPR and Gaia-X

Another regulatory act, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has become the global industry standard, forcing online operators to change the way they handle our data. But if you ask the typical person on the street, they’ll likely tell you it’s just a simple cookie wall that you have to approve before continuing on to a webpage. Or it’s viewed as a law that has required the retention of dedicated external consultants on the part of companies. It is rarely described as the ultimate online privacy law, which is exactly what it is. That said, while the act has reshaped the privacy landscape, there have been challenges, as the digital rights association Noyb has explained. The privacy commissioners of Ireland and Luxembourg, where many web giants are based for tax purposes, have had bottlenecks in investigating violations. According to the latest figures from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), 19,581 complaints have been submitted in the past five years, but the body has made only 37 formal decisions and only eight of those began with complaints. Noyb recently conducted a survey of 1,000 data protection officers; 74 percent were convinced that if privacy officers investigated the typical European company, they would find at least one GDPR violation.

The GDPR was also the impetus for another unsuccessful operation: separating the European cloud from the US cloud in order to shelter the data of EU citizens from Washington’s Cloud Act. In 2019, France and Germany announced with great fanfare a federation, Gaia-X, that would defend the continent and provide a response to the cloud market, which has been split between the United States and China. Five years later, the project has become bogged down in the process of establishing standards, after the entry of the giants it was supposed to counter, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Huawei, and Alibaba, as well as the controversial American company Palantir (which analyses data for defense purposes). This led some of the founders, such as the French cloud operator Scaleway, to flee, and that then turned the spotlight on the European Parliament, which led the commission to launch an alternative, the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud, which counts among its 49 members 26 participants from Gaia-X (everyone except for the non-EU giants) and enjoys EU financial support.

In the meantime, the Big Tech giants have found a solution that satisfies European wishes, investing en masse to establish data centers on EU soil. According to a study by consultancy firm Roland Berger, 34 data center transactions were finalized in 2023, growing at an average annual rate of 29.7 percent since 2019. According to Mordor Intelligence, another market analysis company, the sector in Europe will grow from €35.4 billion in 2024 to an estimated €57.7 billion in 2029. In recent weeks, Amazon web services announced €7.8 billion in investments in Germany. WIRED Italy has reported on Amazon’s interest in joining the list of accredited operators to host critical public administration data in Italy, which already includes Microsoft, Google, and Oracle. Notwithstanding its proclamations about sovereignty, Brussels has had to capitulate: The cloud is in the hands of the giants from the United States who have found themselves way ahead of their Chinese competitors after diplomatic relations between Beijing and Brussels cooled.

The AI Challenge

The newest front in this digital battle is artificial intelligence. Here, too, the European Union has been the first to come up with some rules under its AI Act, the first legislation to address the different applications of this technology and establish permitted and prohibited uses based on risk assessments. The commission does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. Mindful of the launch of the GDPR, which in 2018 caused companies to scramble to assure they were compliant, it wants to lead organizations through a period of voluntary adjustment. Already 400 companies have declared their interest in joining the effort, including IBM.

In the meantime, Brussels must build a number of structures to make the AI Act work. First is the AI Council. It will have one representative from each country and will be divided into two subgroups, one dedicated to market development and the other to public sector uses of AI. In addition, it will be joined by a committee of technical advisers and an independent committee of scientists and experts, along the lines of the UN Climate Committee. Secondly, the AI Office, which sits within Directorate-General Connect (the department in charge of digital technology), will take care of administrative aspects of the AI Act. The office will assure that the act is applied uniformly, investigate alleged violations, establish codes of conduct, and classify artificial intelligence models that pose a systemic risk. Once the rules are established, research on new technologies can proceed. After it is fully operational, the office will employ 100 people, some of them redeployed from General Connect while others will be new hires. At the moment, the office is looking to hire six administrative staff and an unknown number of tech experts.

On May 29, the first round of bids in support of the regulation expired. These included the AI Innovation Accelerator, a center that provides training, technical standards, and software and tools to promote research, support startups and small- and medium-sized enterprises, and assist public authorities that have to supervise AI. A total of €6 million is on the table. Another €2 million will finance management and €1.5 million will go to the EU’s AI testing facilities, which will, on behalf of countries’ antitrust authorities, analyze artificial intelligence models and products on the market to assure that they comply with EU rules.

Follow the Money

Finally, a total of €54 million is designated for a number of business initiatives. The EU knows it is lagging behind. According to an April report by the European Parliament’s research service, which provides data and intelligence to support legislative activities, the global AI market, which in 2023 was estimated at €130 billion, will reach close to €1.9 trillion in 2030. The lion’s share is in the United States, with €44 billion of private investment in 2022, followed by China with €12 billion. Overall, the European Union and the United Kingdom attracted €10.2 billion in the same year. According to Eurochamber researchers, between 2018 and the third quarter of 2023, US AI companies received €120 billion in investment, compared to €32.5 billion for European ones.

Europe wants to counter the advance of the new AI giants with an open source model, and it has also made its network of supercomputers available to startups and universities to train algorithms. First, however, it had to adapt to the needs of the sector, investing almost €400 million in graphics cards, which, given the current boom in demand, will not arrive anytime soon.

Among other projects to support the European AI market, the commission wants to use €24 million to launch a Language Technology Alliance that would bring together companies from different states to develop a generative AI to compete with ChatGPT and similar tools. It’s an initiative that closely resembles Gaia-X. Another €25 million is earmarked for the creation of a large open source language model, available to European companies to develop new services and research projects. The commission intends to fund several models and ultimately choose the one best suited to Europe’s needs. Overall, during the period from 2021 to 2027, the Digital Europe Program plans to spend €2.1 billion on AI. That figure may sound impressive, but it pales in comparison to the €10 billion that a single company, Microsoft, invested in OpenAI.

The €25 million being spent on the European large language model effort, if distributed to many smaller projects, risks not even counterbalancing the €15 million that Microsoft has spent bringing France’s Mistral, Europe’s most talked-about AI startup, into its orbit. The big AI models will become presences in Brussels as soon as the AI Act, now finally approved, comes into full force. In short, the commission is making it clear in every way it can that a new sheriff is in town. But will the bureaucrats of Brussels be adequately armed to take on Big Tech? Only one thing is certain—it’s not going to be an easy task.

[shahanamarketing]

Freelance Digital Marketing Expert in Palakkad: Turn Your Business Around with ShahanaMarketing

In today's dynamic digital atmosphere, every business wants and needs a robust online presence. Whether it is a small, local business or a rapidly growing brand, the role of digital marketing in reaching your audience optimally cannot be overlooked. That is where ShahanaMarketing, a leading Freelance Digital Marketing Expert in Palakkad, will find a way to help you.

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Success Stories

ShahanaMarketing is proud to help businesses succeed in Palakkad online. From improving your website traffic and increasing social media engagement, our customers have seen results. We value long-term relationships as we focus on giving our clients reasons to celebrate their successes in business.

Let's Get Started Today

ShahanaMarketing is your go-to Freelance Digital Marketing Expert in Palakkad if you are looking for a seasoned and reliable professional. We can help you to achieve your objectives through digital support.

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[aryuenterprises1]

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[anjana7244]

Experience Growth with Anjana Digital Expert: Your Best Freelance Digital Marketing Strategist in Palakkad

In today's digital-driven world, establishing a strong online presence is critical for any business looking to succeed. For brands in Palakkad, having the support of a skilled digital marketing strategist can make all the difference. This is where Anjana Digital Expert comes in – recognized as the Best Freelance Digital Marketing Strategist in Palakkad, she offers comprehensive and results-driven strategies tailored to businesses of all sizes.

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In conclusion, if you’re ready to elevate your brand’s digital presence, engage with your audience, and grow your business, look no further than Anjana Digital Expert – the trusted Best Freelance Digital Marketing Strategist in Palakkad. Let her expertise and passion for digital marketing drive your business towards success.

[saishout]

How a Digital Marketing Company in Hyderabad Can Boost Your Online Presence.

A significant presence online is critical for businesses to prosper in this present competitive digital landscape. Digital Shout is the reliable digital marketing agency that can flip everything around for Hyderabad-based companies. Here's how a digital marketing company in Hyderabad would create grand success for your brand and shift it on all the right tracks to online success:

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Conclusion Partnering with a Digital Marketing Company in Hyderabad like Digital Shout will create a huge difference in your online presence. From that tailor-made strategy to proper execution by experts, make sure your business is visible and competitive in the digital world. Do you want to progress your online presence and reach more customers? Now's the right time to look for that ideal partner for success in digital marketing: Digital Shout.