The rise of social media has changed the information landscape in myriad ways, including the manner in which many Americans keep up with current events. In fact, social media is now among the most common pathways where people – particularly young adults – get their political news.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of surveys conducted between October 2019 and June 2020 finds that those who rely most on social media for political news stand apart from other news consumers in a number of ways. These U.S. adults, for instance, tend to be less likely than other news consumers to closely follow major news stories, such as the coronavirus outbreak and the 2020 presidential election. And, perhaps tied to that, this group also tends to be less knowledgeable about these topics.

Through several surveys over the last nine months, the Center’s American News Pathways project has been exploring the connection between Americans news habits and what they hear and perceive about current events. One important aspect of this project is taking a deeper look at the pathways, or platforms, Americans use most often to access news – such as news websites or apps, social media, local, cable and network TV, radio, or print.

As of late last year, 18% of U.S. adults say they turn most to social media for political and election news. That is lower than the share who use news websites and apps (25%), but about on par with the percent who say their primary pathway is cable television (16%) or local television (16%), and higher than the shares who turn to three other pathways mentioned in the survey (network TV, radio and print).

With all the social media site tools available, often the best way to be effective with your social marketing is to automate the process. First, you need to decide whether automation is right for you and, if so, which automation you should set up. Automation can be key in turning your contacts into profits because you can post less, but at the same time, you get more exposure. Social automation, however, can be considered spamming, so be careful with how you set it up.

How does social network automation work? There are tools like Hootsuite and SocialFlow where you can automate your social networking sites or TubeMogul to automate your video posting. These sites can submit a link or post to not just one or two sites but, in some cases, up to 60.

You can use these completely free platforms to boost your personal brand and grow your audience. Lets look at some winning ways you can enhance your online presence.

1. Keep your profiles updated
2. Use visuals!
3. Use keywords in your profiles
4. Make your headlines attractive
5. Be active on social media
6. Develop a persona

The Trump administration on Monday formally asked the Federal Communications Commission to develop plans to regulate social media platforms.

The Commerce Department sent a petition for rulemaking to the FCC on Monday asking the agency to reinterpret Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which provides online companies immunity from legal liability for the actions of their users.

Jeff Bezos calls social media a nuance destruction machine during antitrust hearing, with Mark Zuckerberg on the call.

A new study led by researchers at McGill University finds that people who get their news from social media are more likely to have misperceptions about COVID-19. Those that consume more traditional news media have fewer misperceptions and are more likely to follow public health recommendations like social distancing.

In a study published in Misinformation Review, researchers looked at the behavioral effects of exposure to misinformation by combining social media analysis, news analysis, and survey research. They combed through millions of tweets, thousands of news articles, and the results of a nationally representative survey of Canadians to answer three questions: How prevalent is COVID-19 misinformation on social media and in traditional news media? Does it contribute to misperceptions about COVID-19? And does it affect behavior?

When you want to subscribe to a podcast, it is usually as easy as clicking a link—often a link labeled Add to Apple Podcasts or to another popular podcast app, like Castro, Overcast, and Pocket Casts.

However, I increasingly find that a benefit of membership to editorial sites, many kinds of creators’ patronage campaigns, and subscription podcast networks includes a custom podcast feed tailored to you or only available to members. In order to prevent this feed from becoming widely distributed, it is sometimes made not quite as easy to add through a single click.

Get the Podcast URL
The plainest form of the URL, and the one that typically works reliably across all apps and services, starts with http:// or https:// and often ends with .rss. Custom feeds may instead end with a long code. For custom, paid, or membership feeds, the feed may be the only link or may be labeled as Subscribe via RSS.

Fiery Feeds is better prepared to meet the needs of that kind of user thanks to a pair of important additions: full-text search and saved searches. Throw in optimized iPad pointer support, plus a new native article rendering option, and the latest Fiery Feeds update is a compelling one.

One of your greatest foes as an entrepreneur is misinformation. There is a lot of erroneous advice online, especially when it comes to social media marketing. Unfortunately, much of this guidance seems reasonable on paper. Without the right research or knowledge, you may end up unwittingly endangering the future of your business. Here are seven common social media marketing myths you need to watch out for.

1. Negative feedback can be safely ignored
2. Email is no longer relevant
3. All content represents thought leadership
4. Social media and content marketing are two different campaigns
5. Content topics must be limited to protect your secrets
6. Social media marketing is primarily for generating new customers
7. Social media metrics cannot be measured

RSS Feeds are a simple way to keep yourself updated of the latest articles from your favorite sites. Some prefer desktop programs like QuiteRSS, while others prefer a web-based service.

A good browser extension can offer the best of both worlds, that is what Drop Feeds does.

The extension supports RSS and Atom feeds. Once you have installed the extension, click on its button on the toolbar. Drop Feeds has a three-pane sidebar, and a reader pane taking up the rest of the space.

COMMON CORE OBJECTIVES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS
Share positive company news
Grow the company’s audience across platforms
Steadily improve engagement
Provide consistent value to followers, through education, entertainment or both

To optimize these partnerships, companies should take the following steps:

1. Put a premium on trust.
2. Establish clear and ongoing communication channels — and do it early.
3. Meld internal and external perspectives.
4. Establish clear objectives and align on metrics.
5. Keep one hand on the steering wheel.
6. Seek partners that adapt in times of uncertainty.
7. Stay attuned to social and political issues through your agency partner.
8. Help the rest of your business learn from your social media agency partnership.

A study from QUOTED reveals the average time spent on social media in North America is 2 hours and 6 minutes. Adults spend 2 hours and 55 minutes on their cell phones a day. It goes without saying that if you are not utilizing social media platforms for your business, there is major leverage that is being missed out on.

Harness the power of social media
Below is a breakdown of each of the major five social media platforms.

Instagram
YouTube
TikTok
Twitter
LinkedIn

Misjudging information can spiral out of control in hours. Researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School highlight that misinformation is a major threat to global public health(opens in a new tab), especially when there is a large lag between the emergence of a disease and an effective solution. Examining COVID-19, they identified that the lag time for vaccine development has created a vacuum for scepticism to grow and misinformation to spread – which has been amplified by bots and trolls.

Social media is designed to share information we believe to be correct, quickly, and works on gut-based intuitions where patterns are rapidly recognised, and biases quickly confirmed.

Misinformation is having a serious impact on our health worldwide.

Ask to connect in your own words, for a good reason--do not use a template.
Be honest and do not spam.
Your profile photo.
Talk to folks.
Read the tone of the room.

When US consumers started spending more time at home during the pandemic, they also started using social media more, providing an unexpected boost to engagement on these platforms. The coronavirus has hastened the development and popularity of new live streaming, video chat and gaming features on social networks.

The Harris Poll conducted between late March and early May, found that between 46% and 51% of US adults were using social media more since the outbreak began. In the most recent May 1–3 survey, 51% of total respondents — 60% of those ages 18 to 34, 64% of those ages 35 to 49, and 34% of those ages 65 and up – reported increased usage on certain social media platforms.

Which consumer behavior trends on social media will continue after the pandemic and how can we prepare for any expected shifts?

Social virtual reality, or social VR, has seen an increase in users too. Social VR apps like Rec Room, BigScreen, VRChat, and AltSpace have all seen an increase in traffic. AltSpace is even hosting one of Burning Man's virtual worlds from this year's virtual event. This week, Facebook announced the launch of the public beta for its social VR experience, Horizon.

Sneak peeks of Horizon screenshots are flooding social media. Facebook dropped the gameplay trailer for Facebook Horizon after months of anticipation. The trailer shows avatars playing games in Horizon, building their own worlds, and having fun with other avatars. Facebook Horizon's beta access is currently invite-only.

By setting boundaries around what you post, when you're online, and who you surround yourself with in real life, you can strike a better balance between Instagram and reality

Of course not everyone can become the next YouTube or Instagram star, but many like Lipovetsky have used social media as a platform to spread a message, and in turn make it a career in the process.

Content can not be more of the same however, and being relevant while standing out remains crucial. Right now more of the same is not going to work. Creators need to think about what is working today and how to change it up for tomorrow.

When US consumers started spending more time at home in March and April, they also started using social media more, providing an unexpected boost to the platforms.

Depending on the research source, up to 51% of US adults are using social media at higher rates during the pandemic. But even though elevated social usage continued at least into May, causing us to upgrade our forecast for time spent on social networks by US social network users, we believe that when consumers eventually get back to their normal routines of school, work and social activities, the trends will moderate. We think this will start to happen later in 2020, with a more visible downward trend evident in 2021 and beyond.

Last week, we ran a few polls in the newsletter to learn more about how marketing goals vary between social media platforms. You may use a platform to accomplish many goals, but there is most likely one goal that you both have invested in and have consistently seen a great return on that investment.

We selected four common social media marketing goals to focus on:

Brand Awareness
Lead Generation & Sales
Customer Service
Community Engagement

Instagram and Facebook were the first two platforms we selected for the polls. Given the immense user-base of both platforms, plus the diversity of interests and communities found on each, it's not a huge shock that brand awareness took the lead in both of these polls.

Like any Fortune 500 company, public safety agencies should be active users of social media if they want to thrive in todays information-rich environment. Content on the big four platforms—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube—is accessed by more than a billion people worldwide. For many people social media is the first thing they check in the morning and the last thing they see before they sleep at night.

While most of us all have personal social media accounts where we post our cat videos and vacation photos, there are still agencies that don’t have official social media presences. My argument is that all public safety entities should maintain an active presence on at least one of the larger social media platforms, because the benefits of doing so far outweigh the costs in time and effort.

While there are many reasons why every agency should have a vibrant presence online (many of which are unique to individual departments), my favorite benefits all relate to recognition: staff recognition, agency recognition, and interagency recognition.

Social media has seeped into virtually all aspects of modern life. The vast social media universe collectively now holds 3.8 billion users, representing roughly 50% of the global population.

With an additional billion internet users projected to come online in the coming years, it’s possible that the social media universe could expand even further.

How the Networks Stack Up
To begin, let’s take a look at how social networks compare in terms of monthly active users (MAUs)—an industry metric widely used to gauge the success of these platforms.

Rank        Social Network        
#1        Facebook        
#2        WhatsApp        
#3        YouTube        
#4        Messenger        
#5        WeChat        
#6        Instagram        
#7        TikTok        
#8        QQ        
#9        Weibo        
#10        Qzone        
#11        Reddit

Social platforms are still reporting robust growth — yes, even Facebook — despite a growing chorus of opposition. Social conversation continues to shape everything from culture to the media cycle to our most intimate relationships. And we now spend more time than ever on our phones, with endless scrolling through our social feeds being a chief reason why.

But dig a little deeper, and a more nuanced picture emerges about social media users today that has important implications for the ways in which brands reach customers. Specifically, when you look at who is — and more importantly, who is not — driving the growth and popularity of social platforms, a key demographic appears to be somewhat in retreat: young people.

For example, 2019 findings from Edison Research and Triton Digital show social media usage overall among Americans 12 to 34 years old across several platforms has either leveled off or is waning, while 2019 research from Global Web Index suggests that the amount of time millennial and Gen Z audiences spend on many social platforms is either flat, declining, or not rising as greatly as it has in years past.

Today, we have several modes and tools for consuming news. Browsers such as Opera, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge offer news integration right on their respective home screens. News providers are reaching more readers via social channels, which can get overwhelming at times. If you are an RSS feeds lover, like many others on the GT team, there are a few worthy RSS Feed reader apps for iPhone. Feedly and Reeder 4, which was launched last year, are two of the best RSS readers on iOS.

If you are reading this article, chances are you found it through social media. And that means the platform that used it to get your attention knows you are here. While you are reading these words, Facebook, Twitter, or Google are likely reading you.

That is the premise of the new Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma from filmmaker Jeff Orlowski, which features repentant Silicon Valley figures sounding the alarm that big tech companies are doing three very dangerous things: (1) Spying on you. (2) Manipulating your feeds to keep you engaged. (3) Deepening your biases and blind spots by pushing away everything else.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told Deborah Knight her agency can compel social media companies to remove harmful content which victimises children.

However, we now have more adult cyber abuse reports coming in than we do youth-based cyberbullying reports.

Ms Inman Grant criticised the leadership of social networks for deflecting responsibility onto victims and regulators.

This year is likely the last one ever in which you can say that more than half the planet is not on social media.

Hootsuite just released a massive digital state of the union report. Some of the high-level findings:

5.2 billion of us now have phones globally
4.5 billion are connected to the internet
3.8 billion are active social media users

That 3.8 billion is 49% of the planet’s population, and it grew 9% over the past year.

The good news is that majority group members and men have an immense source of power at their disposal to prevent and confront bias in the workplace: their social networks. Here is how you can take action.

You have a bigger sphere of influence than you realize. Most people think about their immediate circle of friends as their audience. However, research in the study of social networks has shown they are wrong. Your ideas and behaviors ripple out from you, influencing your friends, friends of friends whom you may not even know, and friends of those friends as well. In fact, a whole range of outcomes are influenced by these third order ties – your weight, your values and beliefs, even your risk of divorce. This is your sphere of influence, in both your place of work and your daily life.

A database of 235 million social media profiles were found unsecured by researchers with Comparitech. While data scraping is technically legal, it goes against the terms of use for the brands affected.

The Facts:
Data scraping is the act of moving information from a website into an actionable form like an Excel spreadsheet or computer file. Such a technique can be benign under certain paradigms. For example, travel comparison sites like Trivago and Kayak deploy a program that scrapes hotel and airline sites for rates which it compiles on their website. Data scraping is commonly used by marketers to paint a clearer picture of their target base and advertise to them accordingly.

However, social media data scraping and aggregating is an effective way for hackers to quickly and easily scale phishing schemes and engage in fraudulent activities. Additionally, scraped data can be sold to companies who engage in spam practices as a means of advertising. Although spam remains legal in most jurisdictions, it is condemned as a legitimate marketing strategy. Finally, data scraping is commonly used on social media sites to steal content from influencers and repost it under a fraudulent account. It is for this reason that Facebook and Instagram banned the now defunct data scraping company,

Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat get all the buzz in the social media investing world. But Pinterest has sharply outperformed them all in 2020.

~ Brands must shift from their pre-pandemic social media strategies
~ More organic and engaging approaches are crucial when it comes to winning back customers or retaining new ones
~ Select the most appropriate platform that fits the target audience, even if it’s uncharted territory for your brand
~ Authentic influencer campaigns, user-generated content challenges and conversational tones are among the most effective ways to engage with customers

Convenience, but not only
At first glance, it could be said that the price of the product and its technical characteristics are decisive aspects when it comes to an expenditure. When two products have the same level of performance, the quality-price ratio always wins. But this is not true! The market is full of examples of products that are more popular even though there are competing goods that have similar characteristics.

Looking to implement a content marketing plan for your business, but not sure where to begin?

Used well, content can help you maximize connection with your target audience, and become a key resource in your niche. Your content can boost brand awareness, exposure, and eventually, lead to greater business success as potential customers become aware of your brand and its expertise.

So where do you begin?

The key to content success is mapping out a full strategy from the beginning, so you know not only what you're going to create, and where you'll share it. But also, what metrics you'll be using to measure its success, and how you can track performance over time.

An effective content strategy does take time to generate results, and if you have not aligned with the right metrics, you can come off the rails quickly.

Today, almost everyone is a critic, complete with an unfiltered opinion. Be it the clout chasers or active advocates, many take to social media to air these opinions and grievances where the views are met with either support or scorn; and the line between the two is often blurred.

To be present online, one must plan well and be equipped with a solid risk register to deal with any potential reputational damage that could occur. While a tweet may lead to brand tragedy, it could also lead to business popularity.

It's all dependent on metrics; a well-planned social marketing and content plan that considers all options should be viewed as your lifeline. Here are three ways to implement such a plan:

1. Make your metrics matter
2. Improve stakes and stakeholder management
3. Take online and offline conversations seriously

Social Marketing Predictions for 2020-2025

French startup Yubo is the biggest social media app you have never heard of — unless you are a teen. With a focus on young people under 25, the company has managed to attract 40 million users. A fraction of them hang out every day in live-streaming rooms, meet new people and spend money for more features.

That is right, the company isn’t betting on ads. You can pay to unlock items or subscribe to the app. Yubo  expects to generate $20 million in revenue this year — that’s twice as much revenue than it generated in 2019.

This year has been a whirlwind, but if there’s something we all have in common – aside from living in the midst of a pandemic – it is our mutual exposure to a new age of activism. Modern social movements have transitioned online, much like the rest of our lives. With social media platforms remaining at the forefront of online communication, it has become more important than ever to reevaluate why and how we use these platforms, especially as they pertain to social movements.

Instagram, with its incredibly platform-specific-spread, has mini slideshows of infographics. Twitter and Facebook both have catchy headlines and quips, bites of information from a wide range of credible and not-so-credible sources. Almost every form of social media has a way to disseminate information in bite-size chunks; that function is central to its purpose as social media. This is fine, except when it comes to activism.

There are two sides to online activism: there are those who want to appear like they care about a cause, and there are those who actually do. A lot of the former tend to fall into the brand/celebrity/influencer category.

During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a discussion was being held about the content moderation policies of various platforms and the impact of the recent US General Election. When Senator Lindsey Graham asked both Jack and Mark about their opinion whether their platforms can become addictive for the users, both answered differently.

As per Jack Dorsey, (like any other tech) social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook can make users addicted to continue using them. His opinion is in line with the opinions of several psychologists also who say that these social media networks give the users a sense of well-being by giving them a feeling of connection with others. One post after the other, and the urge of users to keep returning to these platforms to see newer posts one after another is like a trigger for their dopamine centers in the brain. And that is why psychologists believe that all social media platforms tend to become addicting for their users.

However, Mark Zuckerberg is of a different opinion. He stated in front of the Senate Committee that he believes that all the research regarding this matter is still inconclusive, and no one can say for sure if the social media platforms are addicting or not.

Think about learning. We all experience learning differently. Most of us took part in one or other forms of formal education — took a course, went to university or even attended a workshop. More often than not, we associate learning experiences with these formal settings. However, that’s not always the case; learning occurs throughout one’s life and well beyond the classroom.

In a world where social media is becoming part of our lives, it’s more relevant than ever to explore its potential as a learning and teaching tool. Research shows that social media and mobile devices can support learning and create a positive impact on both educators and learners.

As social media companies increasingly take on the role of free speech arbiters, they need to ensure their policies offer transparency and the types of checks and balances government relies on.

Social media companies do not want to moderate speech. They want to show you ads. Mark Zuckerberg famously told Senator Orrin Hatch as much in 2018 when asked about how Facebook makes money. But as advertisers and the people populating these ad-based platforms began to demand an online experience that was more heavily regulated to mitigate abusive behavior, platforms like Facebook were thrust into a quasi-governmental role. That’s a huge expansion in responsibilities for a company that just wants to show users ads. Predictably, it has not been a smooth transition.  

While visual content provides a fun and expressive outlet for people. The experience is not the same for everyone. For a large portion of the population, some kinds of content is inaccessible. According to the World Health Organization, about 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability.

Inclusive design should start with a solid understanding of accessibility fundamentals.  Most social media platforms have guides on accessibility and offer how-tos, best practices and tools. Other resources include Federal Social Media Accessibility Toolkit and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Have you ever heard of conversion conversations? This sales technique involves getting to know your prospect through an online messaging platform, creating a conversation, then shifting to a sale once they are qualified. The best part? It is entirely free if you do the legwork.

When choosing which social media platform to use for your messaging, keep in mind that Facebook is still the largest social media platform, used by 2.6 billion users, according to Statista. Pew Research found that 75 percent of high earners use Facebook. Instagram is more visual, so if you are selling products or services that look good in photos, or if you are targeting younger generations, go for Instagram. According to Statista, 32 percent of users are between 18 and 24, and 33 percent are between 25 and 34.

The extension supports RSS and Atom feeds. Once you have installed the extension, click on its button on the toolbar. Drop Feeds has a three-pane sidebar, and a reader pane taking up the rest of the space.

One common refrain is that, for understandable reasons, people feel worn down by the volume and composition of the media coming at them.

This fatigue stems from a few compounding factors. There is a strong perception that the character of the information presented by the media is warped by highly polarized players.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans across partisan affiliations believed that the existence of too much bias in the reporting of news stories that are supposed to be objective constituted a major problem in our media, a 2018 survey found.

It was back in 1999 that RSS feeds originated as a way of getting an overview of new articles and blog posts. They are still around today and can still be useful if you want to tailor and streamline your reading content.

RSS feeds can be used to bundle news from any number of websites within a program, browser extension or app. The only requirement is that the pages must support the.rss or.xml file extensions.

For example, if you just want to read headlines on the go, there are smartphone apps such as Feedly, Newsblur, Inoreader, and Feeder.

These applications have modernised the classic RSS service and offer, for example, the synchronisation of the RSS feed between smartphones, desktop computers and laptops.

The modern type of RSS feed reader also offers other advantages. Providers like Feedly also make suggestions about possible feeds based on keywords or interests, Neuhetzki says.

Smart RSS Reader is a feed reader extension for Firefox and Chrome.

Install the add-on and click its toolbar icon to open a new tab with the extension's RSS reader. It has three panes, each of which has a toolbar at the top. The left pane is the feeds pane and lists all RSS feeds that you are subscribed too. Selecting a feed displays the title of the articles published by the site in the center pane. It also displays the author's name and the date when the article went live.

Today the platform is launching an RSS reader called Substack Reader, which offers a streamlined collection of your latest newsletters. Any Substack newsletter you already subscribe to will automatically show up, and if you want, you can add third-party RSS feeds, too.

Google Podcasts is finally getting a feature that’s already standard across most listening apps: private RSS feed support. The head of product for Google Podcasts, Zack Reneau-Wedeen, made the announcement on Twitter today and shouted out some networks that are especially reliant on private feeds, including Patreon, Slate, RedCircle, and Supercast.

To access the feature, tap over to the activity tab in the bottom right-hand corner and slide over to the Subscriptions tab, then tap the plus symbol.

It is reported today in Hong Kong that more RSS apps are disappearing from Apples App Store in China in a new crackdown on feed readers. Apple removed two additional apps that pull content from RSS feeds, allowing Chinese users to access articles that might normally be blocked by the countrys Great Firewall.

Fiery Feeds and Reeder both acknowledged on Twitter that their iOS apps had been removed in the country. They cited a 2017 tweet by Inoreader, another popular RSS service, which posted a letter from Apple saying its app was removed in China because it included content that is illegal in the country. Inoreader said the entire service was blocked in April this year.