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lilcherubtears-blog · 6 years ago

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What advantages and disadvantages does social media present to the modern writer?

Laura Slominski

Contemporary writers have access to an array of methods to help them become noticed, whether it be as an author or blogger. This is as a result of the 21st Century technological developments where social media platforms such as: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, amongst many others, exist to share and promote content. The neologised term ‘social media’ in itself is very broad, and almost ambiguous. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the obscure expression ‘social media’ as: ‘websites and computer programs that allow people to communicate and share information on the internet using a computer or mobile phone.’[1] This essay will analyse, compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages that social media poses as an easily accessible tool to the modern writer.

At first glance, the seemingly endless possibilities that the worldwide web has to offer, even with regards to enabling voices from every corner of the globe to be heard, may present social media as extremely advantageous to the modern writer. This could especially, both aid and boost writers who wish to gain a more than steady income, and expand their portfolio, status or platform in order to reach a wider audience that a writer may not have been able to connect with previously, due to factors such as distance. Furthermore, before the advent of social media, a writer’s material may not have had an existing space for promotion, where platforms will recommend similar works. This proposes that social media, in a modern-day context can target a diverse demographic and audience, although disadvantages historically occurred in the form of socioeconomic class. James Lull offers that “well paid, highly-educated, young male professionals are most likely to own and use a computer, especially for Internet access.”[2] Assessing Lull’s socioeconomic evaluation, would this arguably limit a demographic of readers online to young, most likely white, middle-upper class males? This may certainly have been the case at the beginning of the 21stCentury, narrowing the potential audience for an established writer. Lull’s book was published in 2000 – at the very start of social media -with massive corporation platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr not yet in existence. Instead, LiveJournal which was launched April 15, 1999 [3] as a “social network built around constantly-updated blogs” [4] was potentially accessible to 361 million internet users [5] in the year 2000, and is still accessible to this day. Kaye reports one leading blogger, ‘found that 60% of its readers log on every day, suggesting that blogs may be used out of habit.’[6] As of October 2018, almost 4.2 billion people are active internet users, 3.4 billion of these being social media users globally. The country with the highest annual growth of social media users specifically as of January 2018 in comparison to January 2017 is Saudi Arabia, with a 32 percent growth.[7] According to online blog ‘We Are Social,’: ‘Filipinos spend the greatest amount of time on social media, with the average user in the country spending almost 4 hours on social [media] every day’. [8] This data represents the rise of some Third World countries gaining access to social media and the internet, expanding both the type of demographic to a possibly larger scale, but also increasing the chances of the modern writer’s work spreading at a faster speed worldwide.

Another advantage of social media being available and user-friendly to many countries around the world is the variety of languages used in the online community. If a post or extract of writing becomes particularly successful for example, especially within a fan or ‘fandom’ community context, works can be translated into many different languages, in turn increasing accessibility of a modern writer’s work to an even larger audience. If a modern writer has accumulated a significant following, fans of said writer’s work may get in contact via micro-blogging platform Twitter, and then translate this and publish it on fan fiction repository ‘Archive of Our Own’ (AO3). Fan fiction specifically, and ‘fan culture’ can be viewed as especially advantageous in terms of building an audience who are deeply invested in characters, but this can be simultaneously unfavourable and often negative. Fan culture community, where social media users will actively show admiration for writer’s using platforms such as AO3, can also become hostile and aggressive, easily able to comment hate under posted works. Social media blogging platforms such as Tumblr almost encourage this behaviour from its users, by having a: ‘reblog’ button, which allows users to comment directly under a post whilst reposting it to their own blog, creating often lengthy discourse of disgust and hatred towards blogger’s writing in a messy and unconstructive way. In contrast, advantages to blogging platforms such as Tumblr having the ‘reblog’ button, or micro-blogging platforms like Twitter having a ‘retweet’ function, means feedback can be instantaneous, and the insights gained will help them develop as a writer. This also demonstrates to the audience as consumers that the writer is pro-active and interacting with them regularly, listening to suggestions or praise, and constantly editing posts to satisfy both the audience and the writer themselves.

Additionally, Jill Walker Rettberg argues that ‘blogs certainly map and perform a social network’[9]. This further presents the advantages of specifically blog forms of social media, and how the modern writer can use it to their advantage to keep in close contact with their audience in an interactive, connected friend web, where content is shared frequently. This idea of social media as a whole, not just blogging platforms ‘mapping’ and ‘performing’ a social network can be explored through sociological theories, for example, Mark Granovetter’s theory of weak ties. ‘Granovetter was interested in how ideas spread through communities, and argued that weak ties between individuals are more important than strong ties for the broad dissemination of information.’[10] This social network theory is vital to the spread of writing on social media in relation to reaching potential out-group members of the online community in different parts of the world. However, there are additional disadvantages concerning the wide-spread of material through weak ties in particular. If the online community decide to read a piece not normally available to them, there may be internet jargon, slang or sociolect included in the text which is unfamiliar to the reader. This makes the reader a member of the out-group. In turn, this could heighten feelings of isolation and separation in the relationship between reader and writer, making the writer unrelatable to the reader.

There are many different forms of social media available to internet users, which at first may not appear to be considered ‘blogging platforms’ as such, but these websites are very similar in style and ability to typical ‘blog’ websites like Tumblr, Wordpress and Livejournal. This includes: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It is highly advantageous to the modern writer that there is a wide selection of social media platforms to choose from, as success can be found on multiple websites, and writing can be shared, supporting the writer in finding exposure and visibility online. But when evaluating the availability of all these options, handling multiple blogs or accounts could quickly become overwhelming, the pressure to remain active for an audience by posting consistently the catalyst for this stress. As a result, this could have a negative effect on the writer’s mental health, and identity issues could develop, leading to the quality of the writer’s work diminishing. If someone posts any form of written content online, they are included and thought of as a writer.

Exploring LiveJournal and WordPress specifically as blogging platforms, these social media sites are centralised, meaning they run on a single server and possess profiles on the same domain. Such websites will link to similar blogs or suggested friends, similar to how mainstream social media like Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest would, though Rettberg states that: ‘even blogs that are not part of a centralized [sic] site like LiveJournal can, however, be seen as social media, and, though decentralized, [sic] blogs certainly map and perform a social network.’[11] It can be inferred that a social media format that focuses more predominantly on blogging as its selling point can act and support the modern writer in a more beneficial manner, due to a close and connected social network. It can be argued that such blogging platforms specifically allow the modern writer to hold full control and powerover mainstream social media sites, especially since the blog paved the way for such social media outlets historically.

To conclude, social media could be perceived as highly advantageous to the modern writer due to several factors such as exposure, a supportive online community, and constructive, instant feedback from audience interaction and accessibility. But in contrast, this can be tedious to use and create further complications for both the modern writer and reader if misinterpreted or misused. Writers can mitigate these disadvantages by becoming ‘media savvy’ and investing time and effort into curating their chosen platforms over the longer term. ‘Many people will try to create a blog to see how it works, but then abandon the blog after a single post.’[12] Learning about the audience, their interests and listening to feedback is vital in sustaining blogs that are key to a writer’s success.

1526 words

[1]Colin McIntosh. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) s.v. “social media.”

[2]James Lull, Media, Communication, Culture, 2nded. (Oxford: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2000), 7.

[3] “Whois Record for LiveJournal.com” accessed November 16, 2018.

http://whois.domaintools.com/livejournal.com

[4] “The History and Evolution of Social Media,” accessed 13 November 2018.

https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/10/the-history-and-evolution-of-social-media/

[5]“The incredible growth of the Internet since 2000.” accessed November 13, 2018. https://royal.pingdom.com/2010/10/22/incredible-growth-of-the-internet-since-2000/

[6]Barbara K Kaye. “Blog Use Motivations: An `Exploratory Study” in Blogging Citizenship, and the Future of Media. ed. Mark Tremayne, (New York: Routledge, 2007). 131.

[7]“Global digital population as of October 2018.” accessed November 13, 2018. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

[8]Simon Kemp, accessed November 14, 2018, “Digital in 2018: World’s internet users pass the 4 billion mark,” We are Social, https://wearesocial.com/blog/2018/01/global-digital-report-2018

[9]Jill Walker Rettberg, Blogging digital media and society series, 2nded. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), 64.

[10]Rettberg. 2014. 66.

[11]Rettberg, 2014. 64.

[12]Rettberg, 2014. 16.

References

Domain Tools. “Whois Record for LiveJournal.com” accessed November 16, 2018.

http://whois.domaintools.com/livejournal.com

Kaye, Barbara K. “Blog Use Motivations: An `Exploratory Study” in Blogging Citizenship, and the Future of Media. edited by Mark Tremayne. 127-148. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Lull, James. Media, Communication, Culture, 2nded. Oxford: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2000.

McIntosh, Colin. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ,2013.

Rettberg, Jill Walker. Blogging digital media and society series, 2nded. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014. 64.

Solar Winds Pingdom. “The incredible growth of the Internet since 2000.” accessed November 13, 2018. https://royal.pingdom.com/2010/10/22/incredible-growth-of-the-internet-since-2000/

Statista. “Global digital population as of October 2018.” accessed November 13, 2018. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

We are Social. https://wearesocial.com/blog/2018/01/global-digital-report-2018

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aurelliocheek · 5 years ago

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Gaming is the ascendant consumer tech category

The confluence of a few forces throughout the consumer technology landscape over the past few years has created a marketplace for consumer products that is hostile to new social platforms. I categorize these three forces into three broad buckets:

The advertising “Duopoly” of Facebook and Google — and their walled gardens of targeting data that advertising clients cannot access and thus cannot export for use on other platforms — has served as a hard distribution gate to growing a user base. In order to build a user base, especially on mobile, a company requires a considerable amount of capital to invest into Facebook and Google advertising before it can achieve any appreciable scale. And increasingly, as companies grow their spend on these channels, diminishing returns on advertising performance create a hard ceiling for overall scale: very few social apps (but especially ad-monetized social apps) feature the long-tail freemium monetization distributions that can deliver the requisite escape velocity needed to break out of hyper-targeted advertising segments, which is the only way to support spending lavishly on Facebook and Google ads. This phenomenon has been captured in the notion that some non-trivial proportion of all VC funding is now spent on Facebook and Google advertising;

The mobile platform “Duopoly” of Google Play and the iOS App Store, which is rarely identified as a duopoly but certainly is one, has created a soft distribution gate that feeds into the advertising dynamic described above (the only way to aggregate a user base on mobile is to spend heavily on paid user acquisition) and also keeps developers under the yoke of Apple and Google in terms of not only how they monetize (with the 30% IAP tax, which, to be fair, is deteriorating as developers rebel against it) but also in how developers access user data, how developers are able to build moats around their IP and brand terms (eg. targeting other apps’ names as keywords with Apple Search Ads, Spotify vs. Apple, etc.), and how developers are able to build lasting relationships with users across multiple apps (the “no-app-store-within-an-app” prohibition). The Apple and Google soft distribution gates create an environment in which it is difficult to organically aggregate and maintain an audience for a social product — and if, as has been long rumored, Apple does deprecate the IDFA (its proprietary advertising identifier), all of these points will be aggressively intensified;

General (and justified) public mistrust with the way large technology companies safeguard user data has resulted in the passing of onerous data protection legislation like GDPR, the CCPA, and what most knowledgeable people agree is an impending national-level policy related to user data protection in the United States. Popular wisdom asserts that these policies benefit large technology incumbents who have already collected personal data on the billions of people that own smartphones — since that population isn’t growing appreciably, the largest tech companies don’t need to college this data in the future and thus possess a powerful competitive advantage over new companies who cannot collect it. This data is incredibly useful for advertising and monetization purposes, and upstart social product developers cannot collect it and also must bear the significant overhead of ensuring compliance with these byzantine regulations. Data protection is a competitive gate.

The result of all of this is that new social products cannot aggregate user bases to the scale needed to represent true competition to Facebook and Google in this environment. Some might cite TikTok as an example that this isn’t the case, but my belief is that TikTok supports this thesis: TikTok subsumed Musical.ly, a social video start-up that it acquired for $1BN in 2017; TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that is valued at $75BN and which is rapaciously acquisitive; and TikTok grew its US user base via roughly $1BN in advertising spend over 2018. TikTok’s story seems representative of a best case scenario for a social product in the current climate, which is not growing as an independent company to a scale that supports hundreds of millions or billions of users to an eventual IPO, but rather of an acquisition by a behemoth and incorporation into an existing product structure.

Facebook has mastered this acquisitive maneuver (Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.), and their ravenous appetite for incipient traction is perhaps more noteworthy for when it doesn’t work: Facebook acquired tbh, a three-month old social communications app with 2.5MM DAU, for a reported $100MM and shuttered it just nine months later.

These distribution and competition challenges have killed the market for new social products: the combined effect of the three forces outlined above has made it impossible for social apps to reach mainstream scale.

These forces, in concert, act somewhat like a filter: the need for substantial amounts of money to be spent on user acquisition before a social app reaches a size that even makes it interesting to advertisers results in a failure to launch for most mobile apps. But then, even if they are able to grow to a level of meaningful scale that makes them attractive to advertisers, the fundamental dynamics of the mobile platforms prevent them from aggregating audience across properties into a portfolio that resembles a platform. And finally, data protection and privacy regulations present an existential risk to companies as they grow and become targets of opportunistic litigation.

It’s generally dangerous to say “this time it’s different,” but it seems almost impossible that an upset that was seen with Facebook completely deflating MySpace’s user base could happen in 2019. The open web is fundamentally different than the mobile ecosystem, which is powered by proprietary, fortified platforms, and the challenges of that climate are amplified by the advertising Duopoly’s distribution power. The compounded barriers represented by the advertising Duopoly, the total control that the platform owners exert over their ecosystems, and the disproportionate burden that privacy regulations pose to new entrants have effectively killed new social products.

Gaming is different

In my book, Freemium Economics, I labeled the social components of products that allow them to become viral as the “Three Cs”: collaboration, competition, and communication. The mechanics that facilitate these three forms of interaction are hallmarks of social apps: they allow for network effects to take root, for virality to power product growth and supplement paid user acquisition, and for products to become sticky / habit-forming. Communication and collaboration might immediately call to mind a social media product like Snapchat or Instagram or Pinterest, but competition is almost the exclusive domain of gaming, and the modern gaming landscape has evolved to assimilate those other two elements of social interaction in a way that has rendered gaming the new social media.

And what’s more, the forces that have limited the ability of social products to aggregate audience either don’t apply to games or are not nearly as acute for them. One reason for this is that the rigid edges that differentiate “mobile games” from all other classes of games have softened as gaming goes cross-platform. Fortnite serves as a great example of this: it exists on mobile but it certainly isn’t a “mobile game,” and notwithstanding the fact that Fortnite is a global phenomenon, Epic can acquire users wherever its connection to them is the strongest and the least expensive. The platforms that serve games outside of mobile — Steam, the Epic Store, etc. — are every bit as difficult to penetrate as the App Store and Google Play, but there are more of them, and cross-platform game developers can aggregate audience across them in a way that benefits their presence on mobile. Game streaming, although it is by no means a proven concept, would magnify this reality: if games, even those played on mobile, aren’t subject to the distribution gates of the mobile platforms, then they can acquire users anywhere.

Additionally, the constellation of product types that makes up the gaming ecosystem is mostly complementary and universally beneficial to overall engagement with gaming. At the nucleus of the gaming ecosystem is great content, but every subsequent layer of products that surrounds it enhances and intensifies the user experience of gamers. Examples of this are Twitch, Discord, etc. that facilitate the Three Cs without directly connecting to gameplay and, perhaps most importantly, do so even for people that don’t play games. Games themselves might compete with each other, but the gaming ecosystem is so much wider than just games, and much of that ecosystem serves to intensify the social interactions that happen within games.

Compare this dynamic to social media, where the largest players have actively sought to prevent complementary products from gaining traction, as with Twitter killing TweetDeck, the independent Twitter account management software that it acquired, and Facebook blocking Vine’s access to Facebook friends lists. The biggest social media companies protect their privileged, entrenched positions by razing these incipient ancillary ecosystems and salting the earth beneath them: developers now know that building anything on top of the large social media platforms is a non-starter. The exception here might be Snap, which is fairly progressive with respect to its developer platform. YOLO, the anonymous Q&A app, was built on top of Snapchat’s platform and exploded virally to the #1 Top Downloaded position soon after release, but as with most social apps that aren’t supported with paid user acquisition, its popularity quickly waned.

Sustainable Growth

Games are not immune to the distribution pressures highlighted above, but they have an advantage over social products that need to monetize via their own proprietary ad platforms: they can produce workable unit economics at launch and scale profitably. An ad platform is only worth anything at a significant level of scale: no one wants to go through the hassle of onboarding a new ad channel if they can only reach a limited audience on it (I discuss this idea in more depth in “the Quality vs. Volume fallacy“).

That is to say: if I launch a new social app tomorrow called ChatFace, I won’t be able to get any advertisers interested in running ads in my app until it reaches something like 50MM installs, and even then, I’d likely have to give them a discount on CPM just to run a trial, because trials incur operational costs and overhead. But games aren’t limited in their monetization in this way because they either sell users in-game items or sell ads via ad networks that aggregate ad impressions across many games.

This ability of games to scale growth profitably from launch means that games can exist and be viable enterprises at any level of scale: from 100,000 DAU to 100MM DAU. And because of this, games don’t need to rely on constant injections of outside investment until they generate revenue. Even on mobile, which is certainly a hypercompetitive advertising marketplace, many games are able to support their own growth from Day 1 through revenue re-investment into user acquisition.

Which raises another point: advertising has become a workable path to monetization in gaming over the past 2-3 years as mobile data plans have become cheaper around the world and smartphone hardware has become advanced enough to support streamed video advertising. This shift in consumer capacity is wholly responsible for the genesis of the hypercasual games category, which offers users superficial gameplay mechanics that can be intuited immediately and monetizes entirely through advertising. Hypercasual games are very much a proof point that games have a fundamental distributional advantage over any other type of social product in the modern consumer technology landscape: although their per-user monetization is low, because they are so universally relevant, their per-user acquisition costs are also low and they tend to benefit from significant virality, creating productive unit economics that support profitable user acquisition.

And games advertising is massive: I recently published an analysis in which I valued the games advertising market at $100BN. This enormous advertising market exists almost separately from the one in which other types of apps compete, and even when they overlap, games completely overwhelm almost every other app type simply because they monetize so effectively.

And games typically aren’t reliant on user data to the same degree that advertising platforms are, so their liability from privacy regulations is much more limited. Even when user data is used in games, behavioral data is much more valuable than demographic data, because every player of a game by definition has an affinity for games. In this presentation from GDC 2016, I discuss how I built an intelligent cross-promotion platform in my role as the VP of User Acquisition at Rovio, the company that makes Angry Birds: because so much signal is captured in the fact that someone plays games, no demographic or personal data is needed to target smart ads. Contrast this with social products, which have very little a priori understanding of a user’s tastes and affinities for other product types and must use demographic features to find relevancy signals; it’s easy to understand why legislation like GDPR impacts social products so acutely.

Games as the ascendant consumer product category

It’s easy to look at the success of Fortnite or PubG or League of Legends and conclude that a game can be a gargantuan, lucrative business. But in assessing the combined impact of the market forces I outlined above, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to determine that games will be the ascendant consumer technology product category of the next several years. As more of the social interactions that were typically captured by social media products — the Three Cs — move into either games or the ancillary products that support games, gaming will become ever more prominent as both a social structure and a technology investment theme.

Photo by Pawel Kadysz on Unsplash

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sentrava · 6 years ago

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How Chambers, CVBs + DMOs Are Getting Tourism Marketing Wrong

In the past decade, we’ve seen a huge shift in the travel media space: Magazines are folding left and right, those that survive often scale back to 10 issues a year and then, eventually, a digital-only model, and earned media seems a thing of the past. Newspaper content is hardly “news” anymore; it’s product placements for its sponsors with zero concern for FTC disclosure. Even the few magazines that put up the facade of still running “editorial” often plan their issues around advertisers, so it’s not truly “editorial” at all. For tourism boards, it can be tricky to keep up with it all, and so it’s no big surprise really that many are doing it completely, utterly wrong.

My best gal Jade, vice president and creative director of top influencer marketing agency Travel Mindset, and I text frequently about this very topic. We share the same philosophy that tourism boards could be doing so much more with their funds but often phone it in, instead blowing their budgets on these third-party content platforms that do little to nothing for their brand awareness. They’re too quick to jump on the bandwagon—”everybody’s paying for Instagram content? I should be paying for Instagram, too!”—rather than drilling down into what truly makes their city or region unique and doing the hard work of thinking about how to reach their target demographic.

“Every destination is not the same and should think about how and why people are finding them, then go after that,” Jade texted me last week. “It’s just like you wouldn’t market tennis shoes in the same way you would flip-flops.”

In other words: Tourism marketing is not a one-size-fits-all model. So stop treating it as if what works for one city is a slam-dunk for the next.

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And herein lies the greater problem: DMOs (destination management organizations), CVBs (convention and visitors bureaus) and chambers of commerce are totally missing the mark when it comes to tourism marketing. Thinking that maintaining the expensive status quo of magazine ads, legacy partnerships, trade show booths, shrimp-eating press trips and a bloated bureaucracy to scrape by while trying to stay relevant in a world where travel is so much more accessible than it once was—thus, meaning you’re now competing with thousands of other, often more attractive destinations—just doesn’t cut it anymore.

But guess what? There are nearly eight billion people on the planet, and while one traveler may gravitate toward Beijing, the next may be far more interested in exploring South Bend. It doesn’t take a million dollars a year to reach your target niche either—there are so many ways you could get it right by just hopping off the carousel of the mindless marketing chatter that’s spinning out of control around you by stopping to think about what’s best for your destination. Chances are, what everyone else is doing (and what you’ve always done) isn’t a good fit for you in 2019.

You still with me? Good. Let’s lay out what I see as lingering, ubiquitous problems in tourism marketing today:

You’re trying to be on all the platforms, when in reality you don’t need to be. If you’re a 20,000-person city with a CVB spearheading your tourism efforts, do you as the CVB need to be spending all day on Pinterest? No, absolutely not. Sure, you want to provide high-quality content and Pinnable images optimized for a platform that readers and search engine referrals are going to be inspired to Pin—you’ll notice I do this at the end of every post, and as a result get a good mix of readers Pinning my content onto their aspirational idea boards as well as regular referral traffic from Pinterest itself. But Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform like Twitter, so you should not be wasting hours trying to Pin your own imagery, but rather optimize those images for the platform and let others do the sharing work for you.

Speaking of Twitter, just because the POTUS has made the platform a relevant resource for tropes and decision-making doesn’t mean that you should be agonizing about whether you’re using the right hashtag or shouting loud enough into the nightmare stream of information overload that is social media. Only 24 percent of Americans even have an account on Twitter, and I’m willing to bet many, if not the majority, of that 24 percent don’t use it effectively enough to matter for tourism spending at your partner’s resort. Seeing that a destination has an actively managed Twitter account is just icing on the cake for a consumer and one more way to engage in a public sphere. We find Twitter a great way for engaging with readers, brands and writers we admire, in addition to sharing blog posts from our deep well of content, but again: What works for us might not work for you.

You’re not reading your market. Find where your consumers predominantly are and focus on one or two effective platforms (and please tell me you’ve dropped Snapchat by now; no one but tweens trying to hide things from their parents has taken Snapchat seriously since at least 2015). If you’re only getting a couple of likes per Facebook post, then mist out information via a few different avenues: Mixing up content, trying something new and tracking what kind of posts get the most traction (for me, this is often shares of popular stories and not links to my own blog content); using other platforms to drive eyeballs to your Facebook page; or (gasp!) stop focusing on Facebook altogether and put your efforts where your members or potential customers are (like, for example, newsletters that actually convert).

And for the love of God, do not post to one platform (like, say, Twitter) and enable the function that then sends a version of it to all your other social media sites. This defeats the purpose of “social” media that even rookie users of the Internet recognize. To add insult to injury, search engines don’t like duplicative content, so it’s actually a detriment for indexing and rankings if you’re posting the same thing on all the sites.

You’re putting the cart before the horse. Storyboarding! ROI! Native advertising! Influencer marketing! We must. Do. It. All! Even. When. We Have. No. Idea. What. “It.” Means!

No, no you mustn’t. If you’re a destination that has little to offer tourists (operative word: yet), you’d be wiser to put your money where your mouth is—or rather, put those funds toward creating a reason travelers are going want to visit your city in the first place. Don’t have an arts district? Start one. Don’t have a coffee shop or local breakfast joint that’s going to capture drive-by traffic? Launch a small-business initiative to incite entrepreneurs to want to start something new. Put tourism dollars into under-the-hood renovations that are going to create longevity in your community’s appeal, because if you build it, they will come.

But if you don’t—build it first, that is—what on Earth are travelers going to do in your city, what is the media to write about? You can’t market something that doesn’t exist. Don’t launch an ad campaign before you have a website. Don’t hire bloggers to visit your destination before there’s anything for them to photograph and experience. Influencer marketing is extremely effective when implemented correctly, but you have to have the basic framework in place before you even consider rising to that level of marketing prowess. As a journalist and content creator, there’s nothing sadder than visiting a town with good bones only to find that, in the words of Gertrude Stein, there’s no there there—and, thus, I have no story to tell.

Create the story first for your travelers, for the potential media who will cover your town, and for your locals, your hometown brand ambassadors, who are going to be your biggest advocates. Only then, focus on getting the word out through other means.

You’re getting hung up on all the wrong things. Say it with me now: Instagram is not the be-all, end-all. I’m starting to feel like a broken record on this one. Don’t believe me? That’s fine, but I’m not the only echo chamber out here: Read this and this and this and most definitely this if you need to get caught up to speed.

Furthermore, why are destinations without many visual draws, specifically, still trying to spend all their marketing dollars on a platform driven by aesthetics and with no marketing longevity? To steal a phrase from one of my past interviews with Steven Tyler, Instagram is “a quick shot to the arm.”

“If people really want Instagram-worthy destinations when maybe they don’t have one, then they should find influencers who influence the Instagram influencer crowd or the wannabes—the people who go to a spot just to take the same photo as their favorite Instagrammer,” Jade told me. “Then you’d have people come down and spend their own money because they just want to be in the hip place immediately after that influencer they so admire.”

But really, CVBs, is this the kind of travelers you want to be attracting? Those who are just going to parachute in and out on a whistle-stop tour of Instagram must-sees and not actually spend money in your destination? Places like California have seen the damage Instagrammers can do to a natural phenomenon like the Super Bloom, and even Auschwitz has asked influencers to stop taking photos posing at the concentration camp: two very different scenarios on opposite ends of the spectrum but, really people, doing it “for the gram” and nothing else? Why, exactly, do you travel again?

Despite my hate for it, I do still love Instagram. IG Stories, in particular, connect me with readers in a more personal way and serve as a supplementary marketing tool when working with CVBs on marketing projects. Regardless, if you’re a destination, Instagram should not be your entire marketing strategy, and yet I get requests almost daily to join campaigns for CVBs or brands that only want Instagram content. (I even got one the other day from a past client inviting me on an Instagram scavenger hunt and ended by saying: “if you have a blog or website and want to post there, too, we’d love it, but it’s not required.” %#&@^@.) Where’s the disconnect, and do you CVBs really think that’s the most important platform right now for selling yourself to the Internet for the long haul?

Instagram may yield instant gratification, but what do heart-shaped likes actually mean when it comes down to it? They aren’t heads in beds, that’s for sure. They likely mean that Instagram pod buddies are trying to boost their post to beat the system at algorithm games to morph themselves into a fictional celebrity with a paycheck at the end of the rainbow. It’s a reality that Instagram has no longevity more than 24, 48 hours max, or searchability on the web, which is what you want in your online marketing efforts: to create brand awareness and a constant stream of index-able content that reminds potential visitors that you’re there. That little pop-flash of scrolling content to a potential visitor is about as useful as rain in a river.

It allegedly takes consumers being exposed to a place or product a minimum of three times before he/she considers pulling the trigger—though psychographics are now showing that six to eight touches are more accurate. Either way, let’s be honest, for travel, you could triple that number and still be off in calculations: A vacation is not a $20 purse you liked to know on your favorite fashion blogger’s Instagram account. Most travelers plan their vacation time wisely, and you’re competing with thousands of other destinations for their same tourist dollars. Be the cream that rises to the top in an industry of sugar cubes that sink to the bottom of the coffee mug. This takes thought and not blind spends on agencies or platforms that, at their root, don’t make sense.

You’re spending too much time tooting your own horn. Chambers, in particular, are guilty of this (yeah, you all know it, so let’s just acknowledge that and move on), so very quick to post about members’ ribbon cuttings and little else—it seems like phoning it in to me, and really: How uninspired is an entire feed of boring ribbon cuttings? Personally, it does nothing to make me want to join a chamber. The most successful chambers and CVBs we’ve worked with are ones who do not just promote their paying members, but who recognize that economic development and investment are always beneficial to everyone and, therefore, are happy to help advertise events and happenings beyond their new membership by plumbing the depths of the community calendar. Not to mention, what better way to attract members than proving your value before they pay for your services, right?

You’re not using your marketing budget wisely. Why are you so quick to blow your budget on every traditional ad or billboard that comes your way, but then think you can’t spend money on commissioning content or building out marketing assets that are vital to your destination’s survival? Why not mix it up and implement new digital marketing techniques like targeted Facebook ads that go directly to the kind of customer or traveler you’re trying to attract, whether location- or interest-based? Why not spend the time to create marketable assets and hire an actual photographer to document places, events and stories, then inventory those assets for easy reach when needed? Why not—oh, horror of horrors—pick up a phone or have a meeting with partners and journalists to discuss holes in the narrative of your brand? Only then can you hire a trusted storyteller who’s going to do your destination justice.

I’m so tired of CVBs giving me the line “we don’t have a budget” for X or Y or Z, when they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on agency fees. You do have a budget, you’re just choosing to ignore the writing on the wall: that you don’t truly know where to put those dollars or perhaps that you’re not prioritizing digital content. I don’t care what people say, evergreen information will always be king, especially in this era of user-generated content (UGC) when it’s more necessary than ever to control facts and an online brand image. Reallocate those funds and figure out a mindful breakdown between PR, marketing and custom content. It doesn’t have to be one or the other; it can be all of them at once—if you’re smart.

You’re not holding your PR or marketing firm accountable. Do you know what’s being communicated to others by your agency in your company’s name? Do you know that they’re sending out a press trip invite to all 2,000 journalists on their press list and confirming the first five who respond? Do you realize that, for them, you’re just another name on a list, a quota they have to fulfill, an excuse to rack up a ludicrous hourly rate, and that they aren’t actually vetting journalists and culling through online clutter to find the best possible fit for your destination? Probably not, and well, let’s just say you should—you should know everything being done in your company or city’s name.

I stopped taking press trips 10 years ago, but just putting on my journalist hat for a moment, I’ve completely written off destinations simply because I was harassed or treated like a louse by a PR firm I’d never met, and I know plenty of other travel writers who have their own comparable version of this story. Or I see the same PR people cross-posting press trip “ads” across every binder on Facebook, and I know they’re not someone I’m ever going to work with because there’s no thought going into the process of outreach. And if there’s one thing I hate it’s wasting a city’s hard-earned tax receipts. Bottom line, if you’re paying someone tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to be the public-facing representative of your destination, you better well know what they’re saying and doing. Again, this requires work and accountability conversations. It’s hard, but someone is paying you to manage these relationships so be #basic and ask folks if they are doing what they were hired to do.

You’re not keeping your social media in-house. Along the lines of the previous point, I’ve watched many a CVB’s social media presence go downhill the second they start farming it out to a third party. Use that third-party agency for strategy, tips and best practices, but keep the content production in-house and don’t buy the up-sell that will be farmed out to a college intern. I watched my own home-state tourism board in Tennessee use a Kansas City-based agency run their social media accounts for many years make some pretty grievous errors (anyone from Tennessee knows that Leipers Fork and Brentwood are two very different places, *face palm*). Luckily, they learned the hard way and have since brought the social media job back in-house.

Also, realize that your social media manager is not an entry-level position. It is (or rather, should be) a senior-level marketing, communications or advertising professional who has a solid command of the English language, knows good imagery when he/she see it and isn’t going to make a glaring mistake (like posting from Brentwood, Calif. thinking it’s Brentwood, Tenn.). It should not under any circumstances automatically be assigned to the lowest man on the totem pole simply because it’s one of the “newer” professions and therefore not yet a priority. If the newest or youngest hire happens to be the best one for the job, then sure—put him or her on all your social accounts. Otherwise, recruit internally for that position and use someone who is already well-versed in your destination and not starting from scratch.

Social media is not a 9-to-5 job, y’all, so stop giving the keys to your Twitter account to the employee who doesn’t believe in working more than 40 hours a week. Also, social media should be fun—take a page out of MoonPie’s book—and don’t be afraid to give your destination a personality.

A few of my favorite examples of mid-sized CVBs doing great social media in-house are: Visit Franklin, Visit Huntsville and Visit Savannah. They’re all personable (GIFs are always a winner), quick to respond (who doesn’t love a two-way relationship?) and interact through the platform with those talking to—and about—them (again, why all CVBs aren’t doing this is beyond me!). On the flip side, I’ve been to destinations like Puerto Rico or Portugal where I tagged the tourism board in every post hoping they’d chat back at me, share my content or even extend recommendations for my trips and … crickets. I’m there on my own vacation time, creating imagery and garnering interest about your destination simply because I’m inspired to do so, and it wouldn’t cost you a dime to further promote said content—why wouldn’t you jump at the chance?

You’re spending the money, but not following through. A big trend with tourism boards lately is to drop large chunks of cash on consultants who come in, do an audit and create a comprehensive marketing plan, and then the city or tourism board never does a thing with it. Why are you dropping $70,000 on a marketing expert to spend his time evaluating your destination and steering you toward excellence and then not doing anything with the suggestions he proposes? That seems like a huge waste of taxpayer dollars. As does spending $98,500 on a simple logo for a city branding effort that’s only going to be hastily discarded less than 18 months later. Studies and evaluations are worthless if you don’t act on the advice of those you’ve hired to give it to you.

You’re posting crappy photos that do nothing for your destination. Travel is very much a visuals-driven industry, and who wants to go somewhere that looks like undeveloped film that your mother-in-law took with a disposable camera back in the 70s? (I guarantee you there’s a filter for that, but keep that for your personal account and steer clear of filters for your destination’s own livelihood.) Everyone working for a chamber or CVB/DMO has an iPhone (or comparable), and many even have a DSLR in their departments. Either way, the best camera is the one you have on you, so learn how to use it. Good photography is rooted in basic principles that anyone can learn with practice.

Learn how to stabilize your shooting hand and capture crisp, in-focus images; use natural light when possible; and please, please, please take 20 seconds to edit before you post. (I use Snapseed and A Color Story almost exclusively.) In this day and age, there is zero excuse for bad photos even if you have no photography background, so let’s all commit to doing better for the sake of giving our destination or client our all, mmmkay?

You’re not using content creation correctly. For every DMO who tells me “we don’t do influencer marketing,” I want to ask: “do you set up booths at trade shows? Do you buy sidebar advertisements or purchase billboards? In-flight or convention advertorials?” Because “influencer marketing” (or “native advertising”) is a supplement to all the other marketing you’re doing and, in many cases, a far more effective way of spreading the message through a reliable third-party creator—so long as you’re hiring the right people. You can work for the Timbuktu tourism board and shout all day long how great Timbuktu is, but ultimately, people are going to believe a content creator who has established trust and credibility far quicker than an employee of Timbuktu.

You’re not amplifying the content you already have. We had a state hire us for a campaign in which four of us traipsed across it on a week-long road trip, discovered so many cool gems, took thousands of pretty photos, shared every moment in real time and on our blogs later … and they never so much as acknowledged our presence on social media. Why then were they paying us to come explore every corner of their outdoorsy state if they didn’t want to amplify the content? Don’t get me wrong: They got great content out of us that was shared with our own audiences, but imagine the amplification potential had they shared it with theirs, as well—an audience who has a vested interest in that state, at that, and is already following them.

On the flip side, SVV and I had such a good time on a project in South Dakota a couple years ago with campaign results that far exceeded our own expectations. This was largely attributed to the tourism board and its agency MMGY not only fully engaging their own followers every step of our trip and making it feel like it was the community’s projects. My inbox was flooded with recommendations from locals on that trip, several invited us out for a meal or cup of coffee, and we were even recognized on many occasions around town—and then back home at Bonnaroo two months later, a South Dakotan saw us and said, “hey, you’re that couple who wrote about why everyone should go to Sioux Falls! We were so excited to see South Dakota getting some great love.” Natives, local partners and fans of a destination absolutely relish others spreading the good word about their place, so why wouldn’t you as the DMO want to involve them and make them feel as if they are equally important to the success of a content creator’s trip?

Visit OKC is another prime example of a CVB who uses our content frequently on all their platforms and gets their entire city involved in our trips; as such, we’re also recognized on many occasions by locals who have followed our OKC journey over the past two years and are genuinely thrilled we care so much about their fair city. It has a cyclical and exponential effect: We already fell in love with OKC from the first day we visited in 2017, but the more we meet and interact with the local populace, the more connected we feel to this place that already has inspired and intrigued our creative spirits. An added bonus, too, of course is that, through these interactions, we often get tips for the best spots and happenings we might not have stumbled upon on our own.

*****

At the end of the day, being authentic and verbose—or really, just being a good human—will never steer you wrong, and keeping that ethos at the front of your mind as you approach tourism marketing along with a healthy dose of accountability and respect for knowledge will create a professional and effective digital interface with the rest of the world.

Want more tips on influencer marketing and new media marketing? Start here:

Why Third-Party Creator Platforms Aren’t Helping Your Marketing

Fitting Influencers Into Your Marketing Strategy

Why You Should Not Be Focusing Your Efforts on Instagram

No, You Can’t Pick My Brain—Here’s Why

How to Leverage Influencer Marketing for Brand

11 Lessons from 11 Years Blogging

I’ll also be speaking at the Elevate Marketing Summit in May, for which you can purchase your virtual conference pass here.

PIN IT HERE

How Chambers, CVBs + DMOs Are Getting Tourism Marketing Wrong published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

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paullassiterca · 6 years ago

Text

Federal Government Mandates Vaccine Reeducation Camps — The Dystopian Future Has Arrived

While parents claim their vaccine-injured children are being swept under the rug, federal and state authorities in the U.S. are cleaning up such “misinformation” by eliminating — with the hope of preventing from ever being seen — books, movies and websites touting harms of vaccines. As recently reported by The Washington Post:1

“YouTube said it was banning anti-vaccination channels from running online advertisements. Facebook announced it was hiding certain content and turning away ads that contain misinformation about vaccines, and Pinterest said it was blocking ‘polluted’ search terms, memes and pins from particular sites promoting anti-vaccine propaganda … Amazon has now joined other companies … pulling books touting false information about autism … and vaccines.”

According to CBS News,2Google is also “reducing recommendations of … content or videos that could misinform users in harmful ways.”

Plan for Inoculating Vectors of Misinformation Contagion Announced

According to bioethics professor Bart Craplin, parents of brain damaged children are dangerous vectors of misinformation contagion3 and pose a very serious threat to public health.

However, it’s not entirely their fault, he points out. In all of these cases, the children’s decline in health coincided with exposure to vaccine misinformation, causing these parents to wrongfully assume that their children’s vaccinations played a role.

By removing all sources of vaccine misinformation and reeducating these confused parents, “we’ll be able to inoculate them both mentally and physically,” Craplin said during a recent news conference, at which the government’s plan for mandatory vaccine reeducation camps was announced.

“The power of social media, particularly in the vaccine space, is so strong that it’s leading to fear of vaccines, which is leading to epidemics, which is putting people at risk,” Craplin said, adding, “For the greater good, clearly there is a role for targeted censorship of vaccine misinformation. Pharmaceutical decisions should be made by educated physicians and politicians, not misinformed individuals.”

As reported by The Washington Post:4

“The anti-vaccine movement has been sustained … by fraudulent research from 1998 that purported to show a link between autism and a preservative used in vaccines — despite numerous studies that have provided conclusive evidence that vaccinations do not cause autism.

False anti-vaccine claims continue to sweep the internet, prompting concern from public health experts, lawmakers and from parents who are not able to get their children vaccinated because of medical conditions and rely on others to do so. In fact, the World Health Organization has named 'vaccine hesitancy’ as one of the '10 threats to global health in 2019.’”

The impetus for federally run vaccine reeducation camps was the failed attempt at reeducation in Ontario, Canada. Starting in 2017, parents leery of vaccinating their children have been required to attend a 25-minute video presentation of vaccine safety facts.

Alas, as reported by the National Post,5 beta testing groups show that the initial reeducation effort has so far resulted in “a zero percent conversion rate.”

The failure of this program made it clear to U.S. officials that reeducating ignorant parents would require far more than a simple presentation of vaccine propaganda. As a result, the U.S. reeducation camps will service individuals for as long as is necessary for successful conversion to established parameters of knowledge. And, to eliminate any possibility of pollution of facts, individuals will not be permitted contact with the outside world during their stay.

Censorship Required to Combat Nonsensical Fears

As reported by CBS News, “Every major medical body and federal office agrees: Vaccines are safe and effective. But that’s often not the message you get if you’re a parent poking around online.”6

Fortunately, the federal government is here to protect the public health, and despite federal cutbacks believes it has the required funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to do so.

In light of the World Health’s Organization listing vaccine misinformation as one of the top 10 public health threats of 2019, high-ranking government and health officials are in unanimous agreement that eliminating vectors of misinformation contagion, online and in the real world, is at the top of the national agenda and no expense will be spared to ensure the population’s health and safety.

In a letter to Amazon CEO Rep. Schifty, who co-wrote the new vaccine reeducation camp bill, stressed the public health responsibility of technocrats, urging the company to live up to its potential as a social engineering leader:7

“There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause life-threatening or disabling diseases, and the dissemination of unfounded and debunked theories about the dangers of vaccinations pose a great risk to public health … Every online platform, including Amazon, must act responsibly and ensure that they do not contribute to this growing public health catastrophe.”

Monopolies Prove Their Altruism

The good news is technology monopolies are proving to be as altruistic as multinational drug companies, stepping up to collectively work with the federal government to have all dangerous content removed for “the greater good” — which, ironically, is the title of one of the misinformation contagion vectors recently removed from all tech platforms.

In a statement, Dr. Fauxi, director of the National Conglomerate of Infectious Disease Provocation, a new division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said:

“We need to rescue the public from this dangerous misinformation, and shut down this fake debate. Those claiming that vaccine injury occurs are liars. Vaccine injuries are nonexistent; they simply do not occur, and the public, especially parents who claim vaccine injuries, need to be reeducated — no matter how long it takes or how much it costs.

The overwhelming evidence clearly shows disability after vaccines is just an epidemic of coincidence. We’re dedicated to helping these seriously misinformed parents by establishing reeducation camps in every state.

In time, no one will be able to recall a day when people doubted or distrusted the safety of vaccines. We’re taking the first solid step into a brand-new world where singular truth will reign supreme, as it should.”

Civil Re-Entry Qualifications

According to the new law, which will take effect on April 1, 2020, each vaccine reeducation camp will provide federally sanctioned reeducation on vaccines depending on level of vaccine resistance.

Level 1 will include such infractions as reading or sharing social media posts containing anti-vaccination sentiments. Level 2 will include level 1 infractions plus public voicing of anti-vaccination sentiments such as “I know someone who was injured by a vaccine.”

Claiming to have a vaccine-injured child will be considered a level 3 infraction, requiring the longest and most intense reeducation, regardless of whether the individual has engaged in any level 1 or level 2 infractions.

Following successful reeducation of unspecified length at a federally sanctioned reeducation camp, parents will be given a certificate good for re-entry into society. At that point, they will be able to provide pre-established and appropriate answers to safety questions about vaccines, and both they and their children will be up-to-date with all vaccinations.

The necessity for standardized public re-entry certification became apparent after states like Oregon passed legislation banning vaccine-deficient individuals from encroaching on the public’s physical space. As stated in the state’s amendment, section 2:8

Elimination of Hate Groups 'Guaranteed’

In collaboration with government, Amazon.com is also cracking down on the ability of “hate groups” that represent parents of vaccine-injured children and physicians with a conscience to raise money through AmazonSmile, the Amazon fundraising portal, Mother Jones reports.9

Dr. Hatez, commenting on this news and the impending implementation of federally mandated reeducation, said:10,11

“It’s great we’ve finally found a way to guarantee the elimination of these hate groups … Parents — delusional from grief over what is in truth an epidemic of coincidence — hate vaccines; they hate public health and they hate their brain-damaged kids.

And this delusion is wholly the result of reading lies spread by anti-vaxx hate groups. Finally, the lies will be silenced and government officials qualified to provide proper love and care will be in charge of these children’s welfare. Any citizen who makes a negative statement about vaccines will be fully prosecuted under existing hate crime laws.”

Dr. Proffit, a vaccine inventor, and chief of the division of infectious diseases at a prominent children’s hospital, agrees, saying:

“Objection of any vaccine on the grounds of religious or philosophical beliefs negates science. You don’t get to negate science just because you oppose injection of aborted fetal cells. This is the 21st century.

If you are a parent who believes your child was injured by a vaccine, you need to be properly reeducated on the facts, and your child needs to go to the state where their rights will be honored and protected and their health overseen by people who truly love them. I, and people like me, will love your child.”

youtube

Zero Tolerance Policy on Vaccine Resistance

As previously noted by Fauxi:

“We have hundreds more vaccines coming down the pipeline, and there is no way we are going to stand for anti-science resistance to any of them. HIV, herpes, obesity, anti-opioid, anticrack, anticholesterol, antidiabetes, antifatty liver, all rhinoviruses and influenza types — these are all vaccines that are crucial for public health.

The anti-autism vaccine for pregnant women and their babies is going to be a game changer. The more of these vaccines we can get into all pregnant women, newborn babies and children, the better off we’ll be as a society.

It’s going to require plenty of boosters, of course, to maintain the nearly 100 percent herd immunity requirement. Throughout adulthood, people will need to repeat all of their childhood vaccinations every five or 10 years.

We simply cannot have outbreaks like mumps12 and whooping cough13 among the vaccinated, and if we need to vaccinate everybody every year, that’s what we’ll have to do. Until we eliminate every known disease, we simply must increase the frequency of vaccination.

We are closing in on the ability to perfectly engineer our immune systems through genetic modification, this will be a responsibility of all parents to ensure their children receive this scientific gift. After seeing the benefits of mandatory vaccination, the next step will require everyone to have their immune systems genetically perfected to protect public health as well.”

Indeed, while some say censorship is the last resort of a dying conspiracy, TruthGuard, a Wall Street and government-endorsed third party terminator of misinformation sees it differently. Chief Terminator Winston Smith14 knows that once the science is settled, opposing views must be eliminated or we’ll never make progress.

“Science and truth have only one side. There is no other side,” he says, finishing off his statement with a poem he wrote for the inauguration of the first reeducation camp in Washington D.C.:

“Technocracy is the dream to light the candle’s head

'I’ll plow the path through the darkness, I’m here to help’ AI said

Chip Chop, Chip Chop — Cut the noise, so you won’t be misled

Trust me for all the answers, till the last thought is fed”

You Can Trust Your Government

To aid in the nationwide conversion effort, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has partnered with drug companies to ensure the optimization of public health through the standardization of consensus science and medicine.15

While the CDC does accept funds from commercial interests, the agency uses easy-to-understand disclaimers stating they do not accept commercial funding. Such simplified disclaimers are an essential tool in the CDC’s public service strategy, as it prevents people from wasting precious time wondering whether conflicts of interest might influence public health policy.16 As explained by a CDC spokesman:

“We are free of industry bias even though a lot of our funding comes from corporations selling FDA-regulated products that we promote and want states to mandate. So, it’s best to just say that we don’t take commercial funding in our disclaimers.

It may sound confusing to the average person, but if you are a pharmaceutical company or work at the CDC, it’s very simple. This money helps us do more for Big Pharma, and do it much faster.

Drug company funding is like greasing the wheels of the CDC, so it’s really more like grease than it is money. So, it’s easier to just say we don’t take pharma money or Coca-Cola money — we just take grease, and trust me, greasing the wheels at the CDC is good for everybody.”

NOTICE

This piece is our April Fool’s article. While written in jest, some of the details herein are in fact true, or disturbingly close to it, and the article could be suggestive of what we might face in the near future, should we fail to take corrective action to protect and preserve vaccine exemptions, informed consent and medical freedom of choice.

from Articles http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/04/01/vaccine-reeducation-dystopian-future.aspx source https://niapurenaturecom.tumblr.com/post/183860163826

0 notes

jerrytackettca · 6 years ago

Text

Federal Government Mandates Vaccine Reeducation Camps The Dystopian Future Has Arrived

While parents claim their vaccine-injured children are being swept under the rug, federal and state authorities in the U.S. are cleaning up such "misinformation" by eliminating — with the hope of preventing from ever being seen — books, movies and websites touting harms of vaccines. As recently reported by The Washington Post:1

"YouTube said it was banning anti-vaccination channels from running online advertisements. Facebook announced it was hiding certain content and turning away ads that contain misinformation about vaccines, and Pinterest said it was blocking 'polluted' search terms, memes and pins from particular sites promoting anti-vaccine propaganda … Amazon has now joined other companies … pulling books touting false information about autism … and vaccines."

According to CBS News,2Google is also "reducing recommendations of ... content or videos that could misinform users in harmful ways."

Plan for Inoculating Vectors of Misinformation Contagion Announced

According to bioethics professor Bart Craplin, parents of brain damaged children are dangerous vectors of misinformation contagion3 and pose a very serious threat to public health.

However, it's not entirely their fault, he points out. In all of these cases, the children's decline in health coincided with exposure to vaccine misinformation, causing these parents to wrongfully assume that their children's vaccinations played a role.

By removing all sources of vaccine misinformation and reeducating these confused parents, "we'll be able to inoculate them both mentally and physically," Craplin said during a recent news conference, at which the government's plan for mandatory vaccine reeducation camps was announced.

"The power of social media, particularly in the vaccine space, is so strong that it's leading to fear of vaccines, which is leading to epidemics, which is putting people at risk," Craplin said, adding, "For the greater good, clearly there is a role for targeted censorship of vaccine misinformation. Pharmaceutical decisions should be made by educated physicians and politicians, not misinformed individuals."

As reported by The Washington Post:4

"The anti-vaccine movement has been sustained … by fraudulent research from 1998 that purported to show a link between autism and a preservative used in vaccines — despite numerous studies that have provided conclusive evidence that vaccinations do not cause autism.

False anti-vaccine claims continue to sweep the internet, prompting concern from public health experts, lawmakers and from parents who are not able to get their children vaccinated because of medical conditions and rely on others to do so. In fact, the World Health Organization has named 'vaccine hesitancy' as one of the '10 threats to global health in 2019.'"

Alas, as reported by the National Post,5 beta testing groups show that the initial reeducation effort has so far resulted in "a zero percent conversion rate."

Censorship Required to Combat Nonsensical Fears

As reported by CBS News, "Every major medical body and federal office agrees: Vaccines are safe and effective. But that's often not the message you get if you're a parent poking around online."6

In light of the World Health's Organization listing vaccine misinformation as one of the top 10 public health threats of 2019, high-ranking government and health officials are in unanimous agreement that eliminating vectors of misinformation contagion, online and in the real world, is at the top of the national agenda and no expense will be spared to ensure the population's health and safety.

"There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause life-threatening or disabling diseases, and the dissemination of unfounded and debunked theories about the dangers of vaccinations pose a great risk to public health … Every online platform, including Amazon, must act responsibly and ensure that they do not contribute to this growing public health catastrophe."

Monopolies Prove Their Altruism

The good news is technology monopolies are proving to be as altruistic as multinational drug companies, stepping up to collectively work with the federal government to have all dangerous content removed for "the greater good" — which, ironically, is the title of one of the misinformation contagion vectors recently removed from all tech platforms.

In a statement, Dr. Fauxi, director of the National Conglomerate of Infectious Disease Provocation, a new division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said:

"We need to rescue the public from this dangerous misinformation, and shut down this fake debate. Those claiming that vaccine injury occurs are liars. Vaccine injuries are nonexistent; they simply do not occur, and the public, especially parents who claim vaccine injuries, need to be reeducated — no matter how long it takes or how much it costs.

The overwhelming evidence clearly shows disability after vaccines is just an epidemic of coincidence. We're dedicated to helping these seriously misinformed parents by establishing reeducation camps in every state.

In time, no one will be able to recall a day when people doubted or distrusted the safety of vaccines. We're taking the first solid step into a brand-new world where singular truth will reign supreme, as it should."

Civil Re-Entry Qualifications

According to the new law, which will take effect on April 1, 2020, each vaccine reeducation camp will provide federally sanctioned reeducation on vaccines depending on level of vaccine resistance.

The necessity for standardized public re-entry certification became apparent after states like Oregon passed legislation banning vaccine-deficient individuals from encroaching on the public's physical space. As stated in the state's amendment, section 2:8

Elimination of Hate Groups 'Guaranteed'

In collaboration with government, Amazon.com is also cracking down on the ability of "hate groups" that represent parents of vaccine-injured children and physicians with a conscience to raise money through AmazonSmile, the Amazon fundraising portal, Mother Jones reports.9

Dr. Hatez, commenting on this news and the impending implementation of federally mandated reeducation, said:10,11

"It's great we've finally found a way to guarantee the elimination of these hate groups … Parents — delusional from grief over what is in truth an epidemic of coincidence — hate vaccines; they hate public health and they hate their brain-damaged kids.

And this delusion is wholly the result of reading lies spread by anti-vaxx hate groups. Finally, the lies will be silenced and government officials qualified to provide proper love and care will be in charge of these children's welfare. Any citizen who makes a negative statement about vaccines will be fully prosecuted under existing hate crime laws."

Dr. Proffit, a vaccine inventor, and chief of the division of infectious diseases at a prominent children's hospital, agrees, saying:

"Objection of any vaccine on the grounds of religious or philosophical beliefs negates science. You don't get to negate science just because you oppose injection of aborted fetal cells. This is the 21st century.

Zero Tolerance Policy on Vaccine Resistance

As previously noted by Fauxi:

"We have hundreds more vaccines coming down the pipeline, and there is no way we are going to stand for anti-science resistance to any of them. HIV, herpes, obesity, anti-opioid, anticrack, anticholesterol, antidiabetes, antifatty liver, all rhinoviruses and influenza types — these are all vaccines that are crucial for public health.

It's going to require plenty of boosters, of course, to maintain the nearly 100 percent herd immunity requirement. Throughout adulthood, people will need to repeat all of their childhood vaccinations every five or 10 years.

We simply cannot have outbreaks like mumps12 and whooping cough13 among the vaccinated, and if we need to vaccinate everybody every year, that's what we'll have to do. Until we eliminate every known disease, we simply must increase the frequency of vaccination.

"Science and truth have only one side. There is no other side," he says, finishing off his statement with a poem he wrote for the inauguration of the first reeducation camp in Washington D.C.:

"Technocracy is the dream to light the candle's head

'I'll plow the path through the darkness, I'm here to help' AI said

Chip Chop, Chip Chop — Cut the noise, so you won't be misled

Trust me for all the answers, till the last thought is fed"

You Can Trust Your Government

While the CDC does accept funds from commercial interests, the agency uses easy-to-understand disclaimers stating they do not accept commercial funding. Such simplified disclaimers are an essential tool in the CDC's public service strategy, as it prevents people from wasting precious time wondering whether conflicts of interest might influence public health policy.16 As explained by a CDC spokesman:

"We are free of industry bias even though a lot of our funding comes from corporations selling FDA-regulated products that we promote and want states to mandate. So, it's best to just say that we don't take commercial funding in our disclaimers.

It may sound confusing to the average person, but if you are a pharmaceutical company or work at the CDC, it's very simple. This money helps us do more for Big Pharma, and do it much faster.

Drug company funding is like greasing the wheels of the CDC, so it's really more like grease than it is money. So, it's easier to just say we don't take pharma money or Coca-Cola money — we just take grease, and trust me, greasing the wheels at the CDC is good for everybody."

NOTICE

This piece is our April Fool's article. While written in jest, some of the details herein are in fact true, or disturbingly close to it, and the article could be suggestive of what we might face in the near future, should we fail to take corrective action to protect and preserve vaccine exemptions, informed consent and medical freedom of choice.

from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/04/01/vaccine-reeducation-dystopian-future.aspx

source http://niapurenaturecom.weebly.com/blog/federal-government-mandates-vaccine-reeducation-camps-the-dystopian-future-has-arrived

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brood-mother · 8 years ago

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hey, i'm super into your 'the sun sets on us' blurb/board on pinterest. can you say more about the story? it looks super interesting

of course, yeah! it’s still in its infancy so i don’t even have definite names for the main characters yet (umm let’s call the them middle sis jara, little bro elan, and big bro amal for purpose of this i guess?). i’ll put it behind a read more because i am going to go IN on this bc i don’t get to talk about it often and i am excited abt it. edit: i definitely got carried away but it felt good to air it out, thank you.

anyway, the basic premise is that in this universe, magic is an inherently destructive force. it is capable of doing fantastic, unbelievable things, but it requires a lot of energy, and typically consumes that energy in the form of life-force. magic users, if they regularly use magic, have a dramatically reduced life-span (even magic users who totally abstain from using magic can expect to live to 60 at the absolute most, a good 20 or so years less than a normal person). magic use blackens and scorches the flesh. magic users are constantly hungry, and run at unnaturally high temperatures because of the perpetual unnatural energy generation in their bodies. however, it is possible to draw that life-force from other people and even the environment around you, and as such in most places seek to eradicate magic with extreme prejudice.

the siblings live in one such country with their father; their mother, a magic user like jara, has already passed away naturally. they live in almost total isolation to protect jara from persecution (although relatives of magic users are also treated abysmally whether they show talents or not), but when war breaks out in the land, conscription is enforced, and every family must provide at least one able bodied adult to join the army. the father immediately volunteers, so as to stop anyone from sniffing around, but shortly thereafter the siblings are forced to flee their home without him or be swallowed up in the violence.

at first they are comfortably anonymous in a tide of refugees, but eventually it becomes hard to hide. other magic users flushed out by the war are caught, persecuted. people are scared, angry; scapegoatism is rife, and an actual witch-hunt begins. with nowhere to hide and so little experience of the ‘real’ world, the siblings are forced to flee. they run aimlessly for a while until they realise the only place they could ever be safe is a secluded, insular, frozen land far to the north. most southerners only know of it through fearful hearsay and myths, but it is rumoured magic is seen as a boon, and magic users are like gods among mortal men.

the journey there is treacherous; they must first make it to the northern coast of their own country, cross the sea, and then trek across a great barren wasteland to reach it. on the way, they encounter many obstacles, not least of all a dragon (dragons, while exceedingly rare and quite dangerous, are not devastating beasts in this world; they’re sort of on the same level as a polar bear, maybe, if polar bears could breath fire). while it should be easy enough for them to defeat with jara’s magic - she is naturally inclined to a particularly destructive type of magic known as entropy, which causes poison, decay, unconsciousness, etc - if they work together, amal panics and freezes, allowing elan to be mauled badly enough that he nearly dies, and has to have his arm amputated, which widens the schism in their already strained relationship.

eventually they reach their destination. they spend several weeks on the outskirts, among common folk with no magic. the land is barren and inhospitable, and the eke a modest existence as farmers, labourers, hunters, etc. while not technically oppressed, non-magic users are almost seen as second-class citizens; they’re used for their superior physical strength and health/longevity and rarely raise above that station, and are often excluded from ‘magic-only’ spaces and the upper echelons of society. magic is essentially a ticket to the aristocracy, regardless of birth. jara uses this to her advantage, and tries to find a space for herself with elan and amal posing as her servants so that they are permitted where other non-magic users aren’t.

it doesn’t work, at least not initially. while she is a magic user, she is still a foreigner in a very deliberately insular country. she is generally looked down upon, mistrusted and scoffed at for being untrained and reluctant to use her magic. she eventually garners enough ire to be challenged but another young woman; they skirmish, and jara manages to defeat her, but only just. this catches the attention of a particularly wealthy and powerful man, for whom the other woman was an apprentice (rather than standard blood inheritance laws, magic-users have apprentices who compete for the right to inherit their wealth, rank, legacy, etc, and apprentices in return contractually bind themselves to their master’s service). he releases her, and instead offers his apprenticeship to jara.

jara accepts immediately. while it is obvious that the competition between apprentices is ruthless, even a failed apprentice is held in good esteem and can live comfortable lives. she sees it as an opportunity to secure a better life for her and her brothers. all is well at first: she finds the magic-users strange and intimidating, with their gold-dipped hands to hide their burnt flesh, elaborate head-dresses meant to represent their magical aura, and clothes of sheer wispy material to prove that they don’t feel the cold, but she enjoys learning and shows great natural talent. she is even surprised to find she actually gets along with her master’s other apprentice, yulia, and they become close friends very quickly.

for a while, things go very well for jara. her talents grow tenfold. she experiences a wealth of new things she’s never tried before. for the first time in her life, she is able to be unapologetically herself. for the first time in her life she is not made to feel like a burden, a liability, or a mistake. for the first time in her life, she is not hungry. she even sees many older magic-users, those living well beyond the expected age in her home country, which gives her hope and confidence.

meanwhile, without jara’s knowledge, things develop differently for the brothers. jara’s master takes a particular interest in amal. he considers amal to be a ‘perfect psychical specimen’, and appears to think very highly of him - for a non-magic user. he wants to train him to be his personal guard and assistant. amal is easily flattered, and eagerly agrees, and is naively unconcerned by the apparent need for secrecy.

as both a non-magic user, and physically ‘deformed’, elan is largely neglected by everyone - including his own siblings, who are suddenly busy with their own training. he becomes (more) moody and withdrawn, his resentment of amal grown to toxic levels, and only finds solace in the unexpected companion ship of the master’s current bodyguard, tymo, a strange and quiet man with a creeping terminal illness. as they become closer and tentatively explore their feelings for each other, he confides in elan about his master’s horrid mistreatment of him, and the reason his morbid interest in amal: he is obsessed with the idea of “blessing” non-magic users with the gift of magic, but it can only work on those with magic already in their blood - like amal, and like tymo. he’s tried the experiment on dozens of ‘guards’ but their bodies cannot handle the strain, and the few that survive sicken and die as tymo is.

things take a turn for the worse for jara. her studies begin to tread in areas of magic that she doesn’t care to learn, namely how to siphon the life-force of things to lessen the tax of magic-use. at first it is only plants, fruits, even the earth itself. her natural inclination towards entropy means she is exceptionally proficient at it. then they move on to livestock, and finally, her master presents her with a human - a magicless member of the household staff. at first she refuses and the master tries to sooth and flatter her, insisting that even sweet yulia had completed the lesson, and yulia wasn’t nearly as accomplished as she was. jara still refused, and the master becomes enraged at that point - he needs her magic to conduct his experiments, and as his apprentice she all but belongs to him. he threatens to use elan and amal in the next lessons if she fails to comply and, terrified, she does.

she watches the damaged flesh on her hands smooth and heal. she feels stronger than she has in months, the weariness of her magic use washing away, and she realises this is what allows the mages to live as they do. their magnificent buildings, the forever-blooming gardens, even the ability to grow food in such an unforgiving landscape - it’s all beyond the reach of natural magic. they use the non-magic citizens like batteries.

jara realises in that exact moment that both she and her brothers are in grave danger, and the only way she can ensure their safety is to play along. she acts as though she finally realises the true extent and appeal of her power, and that she understands what her master desires of her. as soon as she is away from him, she begins to plan her escape. she turns to yulia, her closest and indeed only friend, for help. she knows the master has forced her to do such horrible things too, and jara wants her to escape with them. she also tells her brothers.

at first amal refuses to believe it until tymo himself explains what his fate was to be. they agree a time and a place to meet so that they might all flee together. however, when the night comes, yulia and tymo are waiting for the siblings but something is off: once they are within sight tymo cries out that it’s an ambush, and that yulia had betrayed them to gain favour with the master. the trio manage to escape, but only just, and tymo is left behind.

they make it to a safe place, but elan cannot forgive himself for leaving tymo behind. he goes back in the hopes that he can free him somehow, and is caught. however, rather than being killed or tortured for the whereabouts of jara and amal, the master offers him a deal. he will give him tymo. he will give him an amazing functional prosthetic arm. he will even use magic to extend tymo’s pitifully short life, like he had his own.

elan accepts. he provides a location, and his granted his boon, and while the master and yulia go to collect his siblings he is told to wait in the castle with tymo. he doesn’t wait: the information he gave the master was false, and he manages to escape the guards and flee with tymo back to their true hiding place.

the master anticipated this. he put a tracking spell on tymo, and is lead right to their position. in the cold and freezing forest, they fight. it nearly kills her, sapping her strength until her entire body is tortured and scorched from the exertion, but in the end, jara comes through victorious by draining the very life from her master until he crumbles to dust, betraying herself and her morals, but saving her family.

she then has to make one final agonising choice: does she stay and inherit her master’s vast estate where they can live in comfort in a rotten land, or go back on the run where they can never rest but will always be free? either way, she knows she must fight to protect every single day of her life.

#this is the first time i wrote it out like that and i'm tired now #this is longer than some fic i've wrote lol #star-lord

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beingcee · 8 years ago

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Feelings Online - 2

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites and as of the fourth quarter of 2016, Facebook had 1.86 billion monthly active users. (Statista) Facebook also features a multitude of other sites and apps and some of them include: Spotify, Instagram, Pinterest, Indeed, Tinder, Shazam, etc. These apps all serve specific functions but Facebook has found a way to actively create memories when you connect your apps to your Facebook account. Apps are discursively framed by Facebook as tools that let users articulate – and more importantly publicise – ‘who they are’ by accommodating any user lifestyle preference, interest token, socio-cultural taste, consumer choice or even affect; ‘your runs, your bike rides, your cooking, your eating, your sleeping, your happiness, your fashion, anything you want’” (Kant, 2015)

When we think about affect, we can see that Facebook tailors everything we see on our account based on who we are, where we are, cache, ads, recommended videos, pages and even friends. These things affect how comfortable we feel online because we feel like the system knows everything about us without us saying it. The author I focused on – Tanya Kant, in her study, focused on Spotify and how it creates a user-friendly experience by giving the user an option to share what song they are listening to. However, Kevin, a participant of this study brought to our attention the fact that this can create social problems if you are listening to a song that most people tend to look down on. He says “If you forget [to switch to a private session on Spotify] then everybody’s like watching every song that you’re listening to, you could be listening to complete trash.” This in turn reminded me of the idea behind comments and how easy it is for an individual to get judged based on their likes or interests.

While I was reading this journal, Instagram kept coming to mind because it is another app that you can connect to Facebook and you can post a picture that you just posted on your Instagram to your Facebook profile. However, this can pose a problem because Instagram is an app that is seen as more open (you can post your spring break pictures here), while Facebook is stereotypically more conservative because of your family members.

I found it interesting that although a social networking site and be tailored to please us, the dynamics of that same site might work against us which is why I chose the video below. Although these sites are for us, most of what we post is intended to please others and not ourself.

youtube

Works Cited

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

Kant, Tanya. 2015. "'Spotify Has Added an Event to Your Past’: (Re)writing the Self through Facebook’s Autoposting Apps." The Fibreculture Journal 25

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 6 years ago

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Is it time to give up on an organic Facebook strategy?

It’s easy to start an article about Facebook in a way that promises the world: “WOAH check out Facebook, it has over 2 BILLION global users, why aren’t you on Facebook? We’re making you think your page could have 2 BILLION fans!”

But that excitement is misleading, especially these days.

Social media’s golden goose has become just a regular goose. Businesses the world over are having issues with their organic reach like never before; their once-awesome traffic dropped suddenly and never returned.

So we won’t start this article with mega stats that seem amazing, we’ll start with a simple question: Is it time to give up on an organic Facebook strategy?

Part 1: Organic Facebook strategies: Time to give up?

If your business is having issues with Facebook organic reach, it’s not time to give up yet. But you will have to change your strategy if you’re still using techniques from pre-2018.

What happened to my Facebook?

Changes to Facebook in the past few years saw average organic reach drop from 16 per cent of a page’s total likes (2012 levels), down to as low as 2-6 per cent a few years later, according to research from Social@Ogilvy. Then, in 2016, 2017 and 2018 more changes were made to the news feed, reducing people’s numbers further – Facebook was prioritising content from family and friends over that of liked businesses.

Social@Ogilvy’s report even went so far as to state that page users should be prepared for 0 per cent organic reach in the future.

youtube

But wait, didn’t you say not to give up?

We did. While the numbers might seem dire, especially for long-time Facebook users, organic reach still has a place in a Facebook strategy and indeed the new restrictions – frustrating as they may seem – could help you.

When Facebook’s algorithm is deciding whether to show your page posts in fans’ respective news feeds, it looks at four key metrics:

Are people commenting on or liking the post?

Does it have multiple replies?

Is it being shared over Messenger?

Has it provoked ‘meaningful’ interactions?

We’ll cover these in more detail in part 2 of this article.

How these restrictions could help you: If you’re forced to publish content that provokes response (i.e. discussion and sharing), it’s encouraging you to produce better quality, more valuable content, with smarter audience targeting. This will vastly improve your social media skills, and make your business look more professional in the process.

Part 2: Organic Facebook strategy ideas

1. Focus on building meaningful engagement

Likes, comments, replies and shares are signs of quality content to Facebook, so your posts will need to encourage these. That said, you can’t straight up ask for them – posts that say “comment for this!” or “Like for that” are considered ‘engagement bait’ and could get your Page demoted in the algorithm.

Instead, encourage interactions with strategies like:

Creating quality content that’s worth a like.

Telling stories.

Posing questions.

Replying to every comment to spark further discussion.

2. Target the right audience

Audience targeting can be used for organic posts as well as paid posts.

Audience targeting isn’t just for paid posts. By turning on audience targeting in your page’s settings menu, you can publish to unique demographics for each organic post, too. You can target all the common metrics, like age, location, interests and so on.

While the total reach of targeted posts may seem smaller, the idea here is to get a higher engagement percentage. This could make your post appear more meaningful and, thus, encourage its organic appearance in users’ feeds.

3. Publish videos and broadcast live

Videos are doing very well on Facebook, appearing higher up people’s news feeds and gaining higher engagement. Just look at these stats:

People spend up to 3 times more time watching live videos than non-live videos on Facebook (Facebook stat).

Facebook Live videos are more likely to appear higher up the news feed (Facebook stat).

Facebook videos receive up to 530 per cent more comments than YouTube, and 477 per cent more shares (Quintly stats).

youtube

4. Ask people to change their notification settings

Fans are able to see your posts more frequently if they change their follow settings from “Default” to “See first” – which should help prioritise your content on their feed.

There’s no harm in asking people to do this! If your content is valuable and people want to keep updated, they’ll be more than happy to make the change.

Part 3: Ideas for a Facebook strategy with NO organic component

Time to get a little scary. Let’s say Facebook does drop organic reach further, even down to that horrifying 0 per cent mark. What then? How do you speak with customers if you just turned invisible?

Relying on only one social media platform puts you at that company’s mercy.

1. Focus on more than one platform

Relying on only one social media platform puts you at that company’s mercy – as we’ve seen, this is a big risk. The way to minimise this risk, of course, is to post in multiple places.

Facebook’s best practices – encourage conversation, be visual, create quality content – work well in other places too. So when you’re scheduling those Facebook posts, consider if you could add them to Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest as well. And of course don’t discount WeChat or Snapchat, either.

Quick tip: Don’t spread yourself too thin. Go back to your user personas and figure out where your customers like to hang out online. If they aren’t on Pinterest, don’t post there. But if they are on LinkedIn, Twitter and WeChat, it makes sense to consider those channels alongside Facebook.

For more advice on good social media habits, check out the article in our tweet below!

It doesn’t take long to improve your business’ social media presence, but it pays to go in with a strategy. Use our checklist to clean up your social pages. https://t.co/4hvGQqgL0I pic.twitter.com/wjUol7ptlK

— Castleford (@castlefordmedia) March 2, 2018

2. Use Facebook paid ads

We know, paying for something you’d rather get free is a bit of a tough sell, but hear us out.

Facebook paid advertising is a fantastic, low-cost way of reaching a huge number of people in a very short time. Indeed, with savvy audience targeting and a good post, you can reach and engage tens if not hundreds of thousands of users while barely spending three figures (if that).

If you’re setting up Facebook paid for the first time, read these key tips first:

Use specific audience targeting: Much like your organic posts above, your paid ads should target very specific audience members. Check your personas and mine your existing data to figure out the perfect demographics and interests for each of your ad campaigns.

Recycle existing posts where possible: If you’re about to run a similar campaign to one you ran previously, recycle the existing post. That way your new ad will be boosted with the reactions and comments of the prior post – think of this as the busker putting coins in his hat before playing (nobody wants to be the first coin, you see). You can do this in Ads Manager by modifying an existing post.

Be visual: Facebook is a visual platform, and this is especially true if you promote content in video channels, Facebook Instant Articles or on Instagram. Images should be striking and interesting, without being wordy (Facebook won’t allow wordy images). Your ad copy must be natural and engaging, without being spammy. Tell a story, incite emotion, and gently encourage interested parties to take the next step (whether that’s clicking a link or filling out a lead form).

If you need more tips on promoting with Facebook, check out our “Ultimate guide to successful Facebook promotion.”

When it comes to promoting content on social media, @facebook has the biggest audience and the best range of ad products. In this ultimate guide to Facebook promotion, we’ll help you find the ad strategy that best fits your marketing goals. https://t.co/EjEii7UahE pic.twitter.com/wsL6M1Xxan

— Castleford (@castlefordmedia) September 21, 2018

3. Try Facebook groups

Facebook groups are like an evolution of forums. These groups are where like-minded individuals come together to share ideas and discussions on topics they like.

Many businesses are setting up their own groups to move content away from the traditional page/follow dynamic and into a more 1:1 discussion space. So, instead of posting an article and hoping for reactions and comments, you’d be an active member of discussion in the group by posting and answering questions. If your article happens to answer those questions, you could use it as a response.

Benefits of Facebook groups include:

You can link them to your page, making them easier to find for existing fans.

Communication is more personal in a group, humanising your brand and helping build loyal customers.

Events can be promoted through groups.

You can send mass messages to group members, and people who are active members are more likely to see your posts (as they are seeking them out).

But, there’s a catch:

It’s hard to get membership from people who aren’t fans or friends of fans. So it might take a little promo work on your part to encourage traffic to the group (for example, mentioning it in your content on the blog or in videos).

A Facebook group might not necessarily replace your page, but in an age of declining organic reach, it’s another way to speak with customers without paying.

from http://bit.ly/2pY8X0m

#content marketing

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years ago

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What it's like to learn from Twitter that your grandpa's become a meme

At any moment in time, whether you want it to happen or not, someone could take a photo of you, post it online, and turn it into a meme for the internet's enjoyment. (This, I assume, is the price we pay for existing in 2018.)

And as one Reddit user recently learned, this applies to everyone — even grandpas. On Thursday, u/manic_unicorn revealed in a post that her grandfather was once the subject of a meme.

SEE ALSO: Instagram now lets you see when your friends are online

"My cousin was browsing Twitter and came across this picture of our grandpa at the mall with his friends that a stranger took and captioned 'Squad Goals'," she wrote in the Reddit post of the photo, and noting that the image "had been retweeted thousands of times."

In a Reddit direct message with Mashable, u/manic_unicorn (whose name is Brooke) explained how she first learned that her grandfather and his friends were now viral content.

"It all happened during a family get together," Brooke wrote. "It was actually my cousins [sic] girlfriend who first saw the meme circling twitter and she thought it was Pawpaw so she confirmed it with my cousin."

Brooke said she was initially shocked to see the photo, but considered it pretty benign and even humorous. Then her grandfather caught wind of what happened.

"We told him then and there about it but he had no clue what a meme was and was just very angry that a stranger would post a photograph of him on the internet without his knowledge," she wrote.

Though her grandfather was annoyed at first, Brooke said that once they'd explained the concept of memes and "squad goals," he ended up thinking the whole thing was "pretty funny."

Brooke says the photo's been floating around the internet for four years now, though she's not sure when it first ended up online. It still exists on Twitter, Pinterest, and even 9gag.

Squad Goals pic.twitter.com/D3a7lYA2Qy

— White Vs Black Twit (@WhlteAndBIack) December 10, 2014

Not much has changed since her grandfather became a meme, according to Brooke. He's yet to be recognized in public, though a few people who know him personally have seen the meme online and asked if it was him.

Lucky for Brooke's grandfather, the experience of becoming a meme against one's will hasn't been nearly as irritating as it has been for others, like Dustin Mattson of "Hipster Barista," or romance novelist Carly Philips of "Sheltering Suburban Mom" fame.

And if you're wondering if Brooke's grandfather and his friends still hang out, the answer is yes. Brooke says they meet at the mall every morning, five days a week.

WATCH: Kim Kardashian's 'uncomfortable' pose gets the meme treatment

#_uuid:8e9ed457-4186-30bf-a628-3776f4d9e176 #_author:Amanda Luz Henning Santiago #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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nuflysm-blog · 7 years ago

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Have you noticed a drop in your Facebook engagement?

Wondering how you can better engage with your fans?

Making small changes to what and how you post can help your Facebook updates generate clicks, likes, and comments.

In this article, you’ll discover 26 tips for boosting Facebook engagement.

Discover 26 tips for better engagement on your Facebook page.

#1: Pose a Question

One of the simplest and most effective ways to kickstart a dialogue with your Facebook fans is to ask them a question. Basically, you’re inviting a response. If fans can relate to the question and you find a way to leverage people’s interests or needs, they’ll find it hard not to answer.

Pair a question with an appealing visual like a pizza.

Here are some questions to ask:

Specific: What’s your favorite…?

Tips: How do you…?

Experiences: What’s your favorite moment from experience/memory…?

Edgy: Do you think…? (controversial question)

Direct: Why do you…?

Events: Who is going/Who attended…?

Timely: Today is…, so what are you…?

#2: Ask Fans to Make a Choice

A fun way to get your fans to engage with you is to publish a “this or that” post. Ask people to choose a side, pick a favorite, or make a choice between two things. An added benefit is that it can create a division among your fans, which can spark a dialogue in the comments.

Most of the time, those debates are good fun but be mindful of trolls. If you want to spark even more debate, you can always mix in a little controversy but avoid politics.

#3: Post When Your Fans Are Online

People use Facebook at different times of the day. Some are on Facebook throughout the day, while others may only check it in the early morning or evening. If you’re randomly publishing a few posts each day, there’s a good chance some of your audience will miss them. By the time they check their feed, your content could be buried.

Facebook Insights will show you the peak times for fan engagement.

A better tactic is to post when your audience is most active. Check your Facebook Insights to find that data. To access it, click the Insights tab and then click Posts in the left menu.

By default, the dashboard shows data for when your fans are online. You can adjust the date range to compare blocks of time so you can see what times of the day your fans are most active.

Tip: Posting late at night (when your fans are less active) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s less competition in their feed, so the people who are active on the site are more likely to see and engage with your content. If that engagement jumps a bit, there’s a better chance your audience will see it when they come online in the morning.

Try posting at different times to see what works best for you.

#4: Share Relevant Images

A picture can say a lot more than a text post. A visually striking image can bring the rapid thumb-scroller to a halt. Images have proven time and again to improve engagement, especially when they tell a story or connect with the audience on a personal or emotional level.

The right images can help tell a story and encourage responses.

According to BuzzSumo, Facebook posts with images see more than double the engagement of basic text posts.

Use relevant, colorful, and high-quality images. If you want to spice up your photos but don’t have Photoshop-level skills, try free tools like Canva and Adobe Spark.

#5: Engage With Other Brands

There’s no rule that says you need to limit your Facebook efforts to your own page. Wander the social landscape, post to other pages, and engage with brands when there’s synergy and a shared audience.

Engaging other brands can put you in front of a whole new audience.

However, you need to be tactful. The other business and their fans know what you’re up to, so don’t post spam. Treat it just like you would audience engagement: build the relationship, share content, and engage with people.

If you can work out an agreement to share someone else’s content, it will help provide a mutually beneficial boost in organic reach, as both sides are exposed to a wider audience.

#6: Crowdsource Feedback

People love giving feedback. When you ask for input the right way, your audience will jump on board and be quick to respond. The added benefit is you can uncover opportunities to improve your business and delight your customers.

Strategic questions can boost engagement while eliciting the desired feedback.

Imagine the potential boost to customer loyalty (and future engagement) if you make changes to your business based on the input you receive? Give this tactic a try. It’s a much more personal approach than surveys and you can respond to people directly to address their feedback.

#7: Include a Call to Action

The standing rule for any kind of marketing is that if you want your audience to do something, you have to tell them to do it. Use a call to action in every post, whether it’s to prompt a comment, share, opt in, like, RSVP, or any other action.

Always use a call to action to elicit the desired response from fans.

Always tell your audience what you want them to do to encourage engagement.

#8: Boost Your Best Posts

If you have a blog post or other website content that has seen tremendous traffic, post it to your Facebook page and boost that post. You don’t need to throw hundreds of pounds at it; give it a modest boost of £25 and target the people who like your page and their friends.

You won’t necessarily see thousands of shares, but a boosted post can help get your best content in front of your target audience and spark some engagement. The more people engage, the greater the organic reach to their networks. This tactic can be especially effective if you’re sharing high-value content with a lot of great takeaways, such as a solution to a problem or an answer to a question.

To find your most popular content, check your Google Analytics. In the dashboard menu, click Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. Review the metrics for each post to determine what content to promote on Facebook. If you don’t have any archived content to pull from, that’s okay. You can always boost other post types from this list with a small budget to give them an extra nudge.

#9: Share Industry News and Hot Topics

Even your most loyal fans are interested in more than just your business. Sharing big news from your industry will show your fans that you’re not focused solely on promoting your business; you want to keep them informed about current topics. They’ll appreciate and respond to that.

Share news your fans will find interesting.

Curate industry news from a trusted source and ask your fans what they think. Ask people to contribute their thoughts and share the post.

#10: Adjust Your Post Frequency

If your Facebook engagement is slipping, it might have something to do with your post frequency. Posting too little (say a few times a week) won’t help you establish relevance with Facebook’s algorithm and you’ll be fighting for space in your audience’s feed.

On the other hand, posting too often can hurt you, too. Facebook tries to show users the most interesting and relevant content from everyone they follow. If you’re posting a half-dozen times each day over a short period, expect a lot of your content to be missed.

To find a sweet spot, try posting a few times each day at the times your fans are most likely to engage.

#11: Give People a Giggle

We all love a good laugh in our news feed. Lighten the mood for your fans and show them that you have some personality. Don’t overthink it; just do something to give your fans a chuckle. Keep their interests in mind and make sure the humor is relevant to your audience.

Even a touch of humor can spark engagement and shares.

#12: Respond to Everyone

If you receive comments from your fans but fail to respond or acknowledge them, they’ll notice and stop engaging with you. It only takes a few minutes throughout the day to monitor your social activity and make a few quick or witty responses to fans who comment.

A little effort goes a long way toward making customers feel valued.

Consistent responses make fans feel valued and they’ll be more likely to engage with future posts from your page.

#13: Solicit Fan Content

Encourage your fans to share photos on a given topic or photos of your products. This is a fun way to spark engagement and dialogue with fans. To go one step further, run a contest or offer a giveaway to encourage more shares and submissions.

Give fans a chance to be featured if they share their content.

Once engagement starts to climb, you’ll begin seeing even more image posts from fans.

#14: Share Content From Other Channels

Unless you’re publishing the same posts to all of your social channels, you probably have a goldmine of content that users on other channels have never seen. Don’t let that content gather dust. Look over your content, videos, and images on other platforms (YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on) and share the best with your Facebook fans. <p>

This is a great way to fill a few gaps in your weekly posting schedule if you come up short on content ideas.

#15: Go Behind the Scenes With Live Video

Visual content is much more likely to be shared on Facebook, and this is especially true for video. Facebook Live makes it easy to stream live video to your audience, anytime you like, to leverage that engagement.

Live video gives your fans an all-access pass.

Don’t stress about the production value or not having a killer splash intro. Fans legitimately enjoy seeing the people behind a business just being…people. Give fans a glimpse into how your company operates, show your personality, and make a human connection.

Live video is also a great way to take your fans with you on company outings or to major events and trade shows they aren’t able to attend. Once your live broadcast is finished, it’s saved so others can view, share, and enjoy it at any time.

To broadcast a live video, open your Facebook page from your mobile device. In the status window, click the option to Go Live. Give Facebook access to your camera and microphone, describe your video, and click start.

#16: Make an Emotional Connection

If you want to elicit a big response from your fans, publish a post that appeals to your audience on an emotional level. Share content and tell stories that pull at people’s interests, emotions, fears, and even their dislikes. Brand loyalty doesn’t come from a product; it comes from a customer’s joy at experiencing a shared sentiment or finding a solution that works.

Share content that connects with fans on an emotional level.

Emotion drives loyalty and engagement. It’s why millions of people couldn’t help but share the “Thank You, Mama” P&G commercials, making them the most shared Olympics ad at the time.

#17: Provide Value

Anytime you share or post content to your Facebook page, ask yourself what kind of value you’re providing to your fans. The best way to get their attention is to make sure there’s a takeaway or something in it for them. At the very least, give them a good chuckle. At best, teach people how to do something, inspire them to take action, and add value to their life.

Give away value to build trust and engagement with your fans.

#18: Tap Into Trending Topics

There’s a whole world of content revolving around us every second. Keep your ear to the ground for events and trends that might grab the attention of your audience. Work a relevant trending hashtag into a post to help boost organic visibility in social search.

Get creative to find engagement opportunities in trends.

Both Facebook and Twitter make it easy to see which topics are trending based on posts and discussions. Google Trends provides the same insight into trending topics based on search volume and published topics.

If you’re a local business, keep up with city and county event calendars and watch for local trends that could be used in the same fashion.

#19: Recycle High-value Posts

You’re not limited to posting only new content to your Facebook page. Occasionally dip into your archives for an engagement spike

Look at your Facebook posts from a previous year and identify posts that created a substantial amount of engagement. Post that content again, but tweak it so it’s fresh. Recycling posts allows you to spotlight popular content that some of your fans may never have seen.

#20: Upload Native Video

YouTube is a sizable social channel, but if you’ve been sharing your YouTube videos to your Facebook page, it’s time to make a switch. Facebook’s native video allows you to upload videos directly to your page, just like photos, and the algorithm works in your favor if you do.

Native video is proven to get more engagement and views.

If you compare YouTube shares to native videos on Facebook, native video receives more likes, shares, comments, and reach.

#21: Celebrate Holidays

If you factor in silly holidays, along with more serious awareness dates and traditional holidays, you’ll never run out of ideas for your Facebook content schedule. If it’s a more whimsical celebration, have a little fun with it.

Use well-known events for engagement and promotion.

Your fans might also appreciate knowing when they can get a good deal, like £1 hotdogs on National Hot Dog Day. Find ways to add value to every post to spark engagement.

#22: Share Valuable Curated Content

Your audience knows when you’re promoting your business, and if you do it too much, they’ll start losing interest. To mix it up a bit, source high-value content relevant to their interests. Be a helpful resource for your fans.

Share valuable content from authoritative, trusted sources.

Use a tool like Quuu to curate content for specific audiences. It’s free and pulls relevant hand-curated content. Alltop and BuzzSumo are also recommended for finding popular content to share.

#23: Post a Quiz or Poll

While a survey can generate more serious engagement, a quiz or poll can be a little more lighthearted. Focus on current developments in your industry or topics that are relevant to your audience. This type of interactive content can drive substantial engagement, especially if it generates personalized results that can easily be shared

A free tool like Qzzr makes it easy to create customized, engaging quizzes that you can post anywhere, including Facebook.

Share quizzes on relevant topics on your Facebook page.

#24: Rethink Hashtag Use

BuzzSumo analyzed over 1 billion Facebook posts and discovered that posts without hashtags get more engagement than posts with hashtags.

While you should use hashtags for trending topics to boost visibility, use hashtags sparingly (or not at all) in all of your other types of posts. Don’t make the mistake of using multiple hashtags in the hopes of increasing your content’s visibility.

#25: Use Audience Targeting for Organic Posts

You can target a custom audience for your Facebook posts just like you target a specific audience with your ads.

Like ads, segmentation can potentially limit your reach, but the upside is your content is more likely to be seen by the people you want to get it in front of. It also costs nothing to set up a custom audience for your organic posts.

Put your posts in front of the perfect audience.

If this option isn’t enabled on your page, here’s how to turn it on. Go to your page and click the Settings tab. Under General Settings, you’ll find Audience Optimization for Posts. Click Edit and make sure this feature is turned on. This custom audience option will now be available whenever you post a status update to your page.

Turn on Audience Optimization for Posts.

#26: Host Contests and Giveaways

Not many types of posts can garner as much attention as a giveaway or sweepstakes. The greater the value and relevance of the reward, the greater the engagement and potential reach. The best part about giveaways is they could potentially cost very little.

Give away your own product or even a decent third-party prize, and your costs are limited. You’re only paying out of pocket for the cost of the prize, fulfillment, and whatever service you use to host the promotion.

Everyone loves free stuff and contests bring people out of the woodwork.

You can also reduce your costs by partnering with another brand for a giveaway. It’s a good way to get the prize at a discounted rate or provided for free by the other brand. Once the giveaway is live, it can be promoted on your partner’s social channels as well as your own for a significant boost in reach.

If you use an app like Woobox or Rafflecopter to manage the event, you can capture email addresses for continued marketing and engagement. Just make sure you follow state and federal guidelines and Facebook’s requirements when hosting a contest or giveaway.

Over to You

This exhaustive list of ideas should help you fill your calendar with a good mix of content types that are likely to promote engagement among your Facebook followers. Keep your Facebook posts short for maximum effect. The ideal character count is about 50 or fewer.

Also keep in mind that if you want engagement, you need to post and respond to your fans every day. Don’t automate your social presence. Go for the human connection and provide value, and you’ll see your engagement rise.

What do you think? Have you used any of these tactics on your Facebook page? Which were most effective for you? Share your insights in the comments below!

#digitalmarketing #social media

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steadyrisem-blog · 7 years ago

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The SEO Benefits For Local Businesses

SEO

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Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO has played a huge role in the growth of many businesses across the country. This marketing method has consistently been one of the popular marketing methods for businesses across diverse industries. For the most part, the popularity of SEO has not been out of luck; SEO has consistently been yielding positive results for businesses that employ it as a marketing method.

At Steady Rise Media, we have seen our clients accrue some of the highest returns on investment (ROI) from any marketing method in use today. More importantly, we have seen businesses grow by leaps and bounds owing to the fact that we have successfully deployed SEO as one of or even only marketing method. However, in the previous past, the vast majority of businesses that have made use of SEO have been medium-sized to large companies.

Nonetheless, things are changing, and more and more local businesses are turning to SEO as their preferred marketing method. The increase in SEO by local businesses is guided by the realization that more and more people are turning to the internet to seek the information that they need, even in the local context.

Consider this, it is estimated that 93% of all internet experiences begin with a search engine. Additionally, 43% of all Google's queries are queries seeking local content. The percentage also increases a tad as it is estimated that at least 50% of Google's mobile queries are oriented for local content. As for Bing and Yahoo, at least 25% of all their search queries are for local content. Considering that Google commands 70-80% of the search market, even ranking well on Google alone for your local content will boost your internet traffic and consequently improve your bottom line.

However, SEO is not just a game of numbers. There are quantifiable benefits to using SEO. Read on to acquaint yourself with some of the benefits that SEO offers local businesses.

#1. More Cost-Effective Compared To Other Marketing Methods

For local businesses, the marketing method that they use should guarantee that it generates income of the business at the least cost possible. Granted that marketing can be done for purposes such as branding, for local businesses, the main aim of any marketing should be to boost income generation.

With this assertion in mind, at Steady Rise Media, we believe SEO is the best marketing method to meet this goal. For starters, it does not cost a fortune to implement local SEO. Secondly, SEO improves the visibility of the local business; the visibility that results from SEO lasts longer than any other marketing method including Pay Per Click, email marketing, and even social ads. Thirdly, and arguably most importantly, SEO has the ability to improve sales, especially when done right.

Consider this, in 2014 Google stated in a report that at least 50% of the customers who searched for local businesses on their mobile phones visited the same companies that day. Additionally, 18% of searchers who used tablets and desktop computers also visit local businesses in the same day. As you can see, ranking high in search engines for your target keywords correlates with improved business performance.

Therefore, even though SEO usually costs less than other marketing methods, it still tends to have a higher ROI, especially longterm.

#2. Provides Local Businesses With High-Quality Search Traffic

Another significant benefit that local businesses get from SEO is a flood of high-quality traffic. As mentioned earlier, Google stated that 50% of local mobile search users did visit the local businesses they searched. This rate of conversion is quite high, giving local businesses an advantage. Additionally, Google stated that the near me search term, which is a local-oriented search term, more than doubled between 2014 and 2015.

Presently, it is safe to assume the term use has increased significantly owing to the popularity with mobile users. With this in mind, local businesses making use of SEO are in a position to attract internet traffic that is actually looking to make a purchase, hence the high-quality nature of the search results. This traffic tends to be at the final stage of the purchasing experience (looking to make a purchase), which is not common among other internet marketing methods.

#3. Gives Local Businesses The Opportunity To Take Advantage Of Micro Moments

Especially local SEO enables businesses to take advantage of micro-moments, where customers and clients make an impulse purchasing decision. Such unplanned purchases, although it might not seem like it, are quite significant and can increase your bottom line in a significant way.

However, your business needs to be easily accessible to such customers and clients to not miss an opportunity.

#4. Ability To Generate And Showcase Local Reviews

As you might know, a business' review plays a significant role in the amount of sales it gets. Luckily, SEO enables businesses to generate and display local reviews, something that bodes well for increased business performance. In 2014, a BrightLocal survey found that 88% of customers trusted the local reviews they got.

Thus having the ability to attain local reviews and to display them will, in turn, generate a positive outlook on the local businesses, improving the business performance.

#5. Provides High-Quality Branding Prospects

There is also the benefit of building your brand. For local businesses, building a brand is never easy and more often than not, tends to cost a lot. However, by effectively using SEO and making sure that the business' website appears among the top ranked links in the search engine results page, a local business can build trust. Customers and clients have a positive bias towards the links that are ranked among the top, instinctively assuming that that particular business is the best in its niche.

#6. Google Loves Local Businesses

As you might know, Google aims to provide the most accurate and highly relevant search results. As such, where local businesses exist, Google tends to favor such businesses. For instance, aside from the regular search results in the search engine result pages, Google also displays a Google map with local businesses as well as the so called Snack Pack results, all being search results. As such, local businesses can get multiple chances to drive traffic to their websites with this marketing method.

#7. Mobile Internet Usage Is Growing By The Year

Local businesses should look more into SEO owing to the fact that mobile internet usage is increasing. With each passing year, internet access from mobile devices is increasing. In fact, since 2015 access to the internet using mobile devices has surpassed computer internet access. With a high rate traffic of conversion from organic search engine results, local businesses have ever improving increased business prospects by simply employing SEO.

Therefore, regardless of the niche that your local business operates in, you will be hard-pressed to ignore SEO; at least if you are interested in your company surviving and thriving well into the future. It is not a matter of jumping on the SEO bandwagon but a matter of improving the performance of your business by being visible to your customers and or clients.

In a nutshell, refraining from SEO may pose an existential threat to your business, more so as more and more people opt to use the internet to locate and review local businesses before deciding where to take their business. And most likely, your competitors are doing it, too.

The Right Kind Of SEO

Local businesses should take note of the fact that to get the desired results, the foundation and the implementation of any SEO strategy should be informed and guided by the best and latest white hat SEO tactics. Search engines, especially Google, are taking concerted steps to ensure that their results are the best results possible for every individual user.

As such, if you run a local business it is your responsibility to hire an SEO agency, or marketing agency that has professional personnel with an intricate understanding of the right SEO strategies. This means that local businesses should refrain from contracting SEO consultants that promise instant results. They should also refrain from contracting SEO experts that do not keep up with the latest changes of algorithm updates.

Keeping up with changes is particularly important as search engine companies are constantly changing and refining their search algorithms with the intention of ever-improving the accuracy and relevancy of their search results. These changes, unfortunately, are implemented without any prior notifications or warning. With this in mind, you would not want to hire an SEO company that is constantly left flat-footed by each algorithm update.

Ideally, the expert that you hire should have an internal mechanism for identifying any possible changes to search engines. More importantly, the agency should have the capacity and capability to stay on top of any changes search engines make.

As mentioned above, SEO has proved to be the most cost-effective marketing method in the advertising realm. Nonetheless, it can also prove to be too an expensive endeavor for local businesses, if it does not yield the desired results and or ample ROI. If you are a local business, do not fall victim of ineffective SEO agencies; only go for the best. Contact us today to discuss a customized solution for your situation.

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