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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 19, 2016 8:34 PM
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The day after the election, news began swirling around social media that New York Times columnist David Brooks had called for President-elect Donald Trump’s assassination. Snopes managing editor Brooke Binkowski had a feeling it was fake. Because, come on now, would a prominent columnist for a reputable news outlet really make that kind of comment? Snopes has made its business out of correcting the misunderstood satire, malicious falsehoods, and poorly informed gossip that echoes across the internet — and that business is booming. Traffic jumped 85 percent over the past year to 13.6 million unique visitors in October, according to comScore. The site supports itself through advertising, and in the last three years it has made enough money to quadruple the size of its staff.
Sure enough, a bit of Snopes reporting revealed that Brooks had written a column saying Trump would likely resign or be impeached within a year. A news item published on The Rightists claimed Brooks had then said in an interview for KYRQ Radio New York that Trump should be killed. Snopes found The Rightists doesn’t even pretend to traffic in truth. In the site’s “about” section, it describes itself this way: “This is HYBRID site of news and satire. part [sic] of our stories already happens, part, not yet. NOT all of our stories are true!” What’s more, the story’s facts didn’t add up. For example, the site claimed Brooks had made the comments on a radio station — KYRQ — that didn’t exist.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 6:31 PM
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Lee Feinstein, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland, has an impressive résumé. He served under two presidents (Clinton and Obama), worked at the Departments of Defense and State, and is a prolific author. Today, he serves as the Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund.
But when I saw this tweet on Sunday night, I knew I’d want to write about an interview he recently gave.
The tweeter, @JudgeElihu, snapped a photo from Mr. Feinstein’s television appearance, which aired on BBC World. Although I couldn’t find the video from this appearance, I did find video of another interview Feinstein conducted from the same room in March.
The room from which Mr. Feinstein conducted the interview was a mess: a nightstand door was open, a bed was directly behind him, and small, barely detectable items were perched on the dresser....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 4:21 PM
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In a reply to a publicist who contacted me recently on some subject or another, I surprised even myself when I wrote to her that I could not take up her pitch because she used the phrase “reaching out” in her email.
If memory serves, I actually went so far as to tell her it is my policy to say no to pitches in which the phrase “reaching out” or any of its variants is applied. It was a ridiculous, ornery reply to a well-meaning request for coverage, for which I apologize.
However, the “reaching out” phrase rankled me, and I am trying to figure out why. One reason is its overuse. This phrase -- “reaching out,” “reach out,” “reached out” or whatever form it takes -- is certainly overused in the p.r. biz today (and in many other places too)....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 11:38 AM
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Paul Horner is a professional fake news writer, whose completely made-up story about the Amish committing their vote to Trump got over 134,000 likes on Facebook; his story about Obama signing an executive order to invalidate the election results has over 250,000 likes. This week, The Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey interviewed Horner--who is stunned that his work gets accepted as true. “I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything -- they’ll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist… I thought they’d fact-check it, and it’d make them look worse. I mean that’s how this always works: Someone posts something I write, then they find out it’s false, then they look like idiots. But Trump supporters -- they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything!”...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 10:15 AM
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Well then. Here's one for all you culture buffs who pride yourselves on staying abreast of trends as they come and go each year. New York-based sparks & honey is out with its annual A-Z Culture Glossary of 2017: The Trends You Know to be Relevant, a compendium of cultural trends the agency predicts will...wait for it...change the world in 2017! To get one thing out right up front: Trump is nowhere to be found on the list. This is the agency's third outing of the list which, to date, has received over 2.4 million views on Slide Share. Which makes perfect sense because some of the trends and terms used to describe those trends are just whack. To come up with the list, the agency uses a framework called the Elements of Culture to organize its cultural trends. The 100 trends in the report are broken into the following five categories: Aesthetics, Media, Tech/Science, Humanity and Ideology. Among the trends to watch for 2017 are....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 2:45 AM
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Over 800,000 high quality photos, illustrations, and vector graphics. Free for commercial use. No attribution required. Free images and videos you can use anywhere. All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty free for anything you like, even in commercial applications. Attribution is not required....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 1:33 AM
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Gifs.com is the fastest way to create animated gifs from Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo and other video sites. Just upload your own video or paste in a URL and click create a gif. Gif anything in seconds A YouTube video, an NBA game, a Twitch stream — anything. Supercharged effects at your fingertips Make your gif black and white. Maybe add a caption. Maybe two. Do literally whatever. Our editor has tons of effects. Count’m: tons. ifs.com is the fastest way to create animated gifs from Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo and other video sites. Just upload your own video or paste in a URL and click create a gif....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 11:48 PM
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Are your social media marketing efforts working?
Wondering which key performance indicators (KPIs) matter on each platform?
In addition to revenue, there is real value in knowing how many people engage with your social media posts.
In this article, you’ll discover which KPIs to track for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 11:26 PM
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51% of B2B marketers say they plan to increase their investment in content marketing over the next year. (Content Marketing Institute) your buyers are drowning in content. 83% of buyers feel overwhelmed by the amount of content available to them (2016 Content Preferences Survey: Demand GEN Report) They don't trust what you're cranking out. Only 9% of B2B buyers say they trust vendor content like white papers. (CMO Council) Buyers are not happy with vendors. Their contenT [tends to be] over-technical, product-centric and self-serving. (CMO Council)...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 10:47 AM
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The social media world is a fascinating one. Every so often, a new social media platform emerges to capture our attention (Peach) or become part of our daily lives (Snapchat). The social media tools landscape can be just as fascinating — and robust! With all these tools to choose from, how can you stay on top of the latest and greatest? As part of our State of Social Media 2016 campaign, we’ve scoured Product Hunt for the latest trending social media tools and created a list of 21 products for marketers and teams to try in 2017.Keep reading to see the full list, or click over to the Product Hunt collection with all of 2017’s best social media tools....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 16, 2016 7:05 PM
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Starting Wednesday, the e-commerce giant is offering deals on a variety of products, including toys, electronics, kitchen and home goods and video games.
However, the company said many of its top deals will be offered during the "Turkey 5," which starts on Thanksgiving Day and runs through the Monday following the holiday -- known as Cyber Monday.
Samsung, LG and Sony TVs and is reducing some prices of Barbie, Hot Wheels and Fisher-Price toys by as much as 50%.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 16, 2016 11:07 AM
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One of the most important questions for retailers on platforms with high amounts of competition is: "What makes shoppers choose one vendor over another?" There are, of course, obvious considerations like price. But on sites like Amazon or eBay, there are often many retailers with similar prices. Feedvisor recently a study which identifies factors consumers use to determine which Amazon seller they will use buy from. According to Feedvisor's new Amazon User Study 2016, ratings are they key. From product rating to seller ratings, these scores play a huge role in determining which sellers consumers trust. The study found that nearly nine out of 10 (87 percent) shoppers on Amazon 'always/sometimes' check seller ratings before buying. The rating of the product is even more important. With so many sellers with poorly made or knock-off merchandise on the web, it's important for consumers to feel secure that the items they buy will meet their expectations. According to the study, also found that most (92 percent) won't make a purchase for a product with fewer than 3 stars....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 15, 2016 10:40 PM
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When visiting my twin sister’s office recently, I pretended to be her and chatted about five minutes with her assistant. It was hard to keep a straight face, but until my sister walked in, he had no idea I was Stephanie and not Melanie. Yes, we’ve pulled that trick a number of times in our many decades of twin life. Most of our close friends can easily tell us apart, but for others it can be disarming. But it’s all in good fun!
There, I’ve told you something personal about myself. There is a lot I could tell you about me that goes beyond my standard corporate bio, and I think B2B content writers need to consider going beyond the corporate template more often.
B2B #content writers need to consider going beyond the corporate template more often @EditorStahl. CLICK TO TWEET
Telling you my twin story doesn’t distinguish me as a subject-matter expert, but it does make me human. And relating to an audience on a more personal level often leads to greater trust (even if I like to trick people).
Creating content isn’t just about marketing, notes John Hall, CEO of Influence & Co. “It’s about affecting behavior.”
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 11:29 PM
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Customer service today means serving customers "in the red zone." Besides my former beloved 1986 red Honda Prelude, most red things for me fall into a negative category. Think sunburn, red alert, STOP sign, SOS.
The red zone is different for different people and different every time. And that’s the whole point. Sometimes it’s because expectations are set so high with a direct line and then fall short and disappoint, as in my London business travel experience. And sometimes it’s because the bar is set so low and a brand still fails to make the cut, like the slow moving lines at the Post Office and just as you’re the next person (and of course pressed for time), the next open window closes so the agent can take a break... But it’s always in-the-moment and real for the customer.
In other words, customers are normal, garden-variety social, emotional creatures that now have a bullhorn to broadcast their (dis)pleasures with your brand. Humans have always been social, emotional creatures so there’s nothing new here. What is new are the channels and media we have access to at any given point on any given day and the larger pool of connections we can stay in touch with via our social networks/communities. And still there are so many brands that fail to incorporate this new reality into strategy, operations and customer service. In the latest study conducted by Twitter, they found that by responding to customers on Twitter, customers are 44% more likely to share their experience, 30% more likely to recommend the brand, and the responsiveness will positively increase CSAT by 1 point....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 4:32 PM
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Google has agreed to fund a project to develop automated fact checking tools amid anger over the prevalent of fake news websites during the US presidential election.
UK fact checking organisation, FullFact, has announced it has been awarded €50,000 (£43,000) by the tech giant’s Digital News Initiative to build the first “fully automated end-to-end fact checking system”.
In a statement, FullFact explained that the system will have two main features.
One will inform readers if something reported as fact has already been proven inaccurate.
The other mode will fact check claims automatically using Natural Language Processing and statistical analysis in real-time – something FullFact said has never been done before – by highlighting the text and having a factbox appear when the user hovers over it....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 3:56 PM
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In 1977, according to the AP style guide I still occasionally refer to, using the acronym “TV” as a noun when writing about television was not advised.
“Acceptable as an adjective or in such constructions as cable TV [italics theirs]. But do not normally use as a noun unless part of a quotation,” counsels the item on “TV” in the 1977 edition of the AP Stylebook -- formerly titled “The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual.”
Today we use “TV” and “television” more or less interchangeably as nouns, although the former is probably used more now than the latter. One thing the 1977 Stylebook reveals, however, is that “media” -- whether electronic or otherwise -- was not nearly the obsession for news organizations that it is today.
Part of the reason was that the world at large was not nearly as obsessed with media and technology -- and the companies responsible for them -- as we are now. There was so much less of it then too, obviously....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 10:44 AM
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The Internet of Things is not only a land-based phenomenon, but major brands are looking to use hundreds of drones at a time to produce messaging in one form or another. Think interactive, flying billboards. Earlier this month, Intel showed its video of 500 drones flying in formation at night in Germany. The LED lights on the drones spelled out the word ‘Intel.’ That was the first known example of a mass of hundreds of drones being used to portray a company logo in the sky at night. A version of that drone light show is now moving to Walt Disney World in Orlando....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 4:04 AM
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What do you think is the most valuable type of content you can create? Blog posts? Videos? Hot, delicious waffles? Okay, it probably isn’t waffles. But now you can see what types of content OTHER marketers say are the most effective! A recent study asked more than 500 content marketers to name the types of content that work best for them, and some of the results are pretty surprising....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 18, 2016 2:29 AM
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Aggregate social media posts, measure audience engagement and publish custom content feeds for your campaigns, websites and events. Get more from your social content Create custom feeds, measure audience engagement, monitor the competition and publish aggregated content to websites, displays or live events. Aggregate social content Add any @account or #hashtag from Twitter or Instagram to instantly build a custom feed. Monitor your brand and audience, follow #hashtags or keep an eye on the competition....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 11:56 PM
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If desktop search is the first trillion, and mobile search is the second trillion, where will we find the third trillion?
Well, for a start, there is some growth still to come even in searches like those that people are already doing even in the most mature markets - the best argument I have for that is this chart which shows the growth of e-commerce, and how all of Amazon’s growth fits into around 8% of the total retail market. Just as e-commerce has further to go, so there is still untapped search demand.
But that’s going to be slow going - it’s not going to add a trillion / year any time soon.
So what might?
Well, my theory is that it’s going to come from searches people aren’t doing yet.
Here’s some data and evidence...
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 11:41 PM
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From content promotion to prospecting, advertising or engagement, how can you take your LinkedIn activity to the next stage?
According to Hubspot’s State of Inbound survey 2016, 80% of marketers use LinkedIn professionally. LinkedIn is also the most used social media channel for professional purposes across the globe (with the exception of Latin America).
LinkedIn is an invaluable marketing asset, and achieves best results when activity is aligned with wider marketing goals. So from content promotion to prospecting, to advertising and engagement, here’s how to take your LinkedIn activity to the next stage....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 11:07 PM
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I recently spoke with Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group, co-author of the bestselling book, The Content Formula, and recognized by Forbes as one of the top CMO influencers in the country.
Michael is one of the best in the business, and in this interview, we covered a lot of ground concerning the current state of content marketing, and what to expect in 2017 and into the future.
David Reimherr: So, what is happening currently, when it comes to content marketing?
Michael Brenner: I think the state of content marketing is pretty strong. Modern content marketing, I think, is just about 7 years old. A lot of people point to American Express Open Forum as one of the earliest examples of modern content marketing. I think it took another two or three years for other companies to really learn from their example — myself included.
Those early days were a real struggle. 1 — We had to explain content marketing. 2 — executives were still trying to figure out what social media was, and along comes another trend. And then 3 — there weren’t a lot of people nodding their heads in the room when we were having these kinds of conversations.
A lot has changed. Now, everyone understands that you’ve got to distribute content, and be where your audience is on social. I think most companies are starting to realize that you have to create content that helps buyers, as opposed to just creating content that promotes your business....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 17, 2016 2:46 AM
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The President-elect's supporters are threatening to boycott Pepsi (PEP) over fabricated statements circulating on social media. Twitter users, many citing debunked news articles, claim PepsiCo (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi told Trump fans to "take their business elsewhere. "Sites designed to trick people, including Truthfeed and Gateway Pundit, published the fake quote while encouraging readers to stop buying Pepsi's products. Gateway Pundit also incorrectly claimed PepsiCo's stock plunged 5% because of the comment that Nooyi never actually made. Nooyi never told Trump's supporters that Pepsi doesn't want their business and she even congratulated the president-elect on his victory. But she condemned the ugly rhetoric of the campaign....
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 16, 2016 1:37 PM
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New Balance is under (or on) fire — literally.
Following the election last week, the athletic footwear and apparel brand became one of the first international companies to congratulate President-elect Donald Trump, it appears mainly because of what his proposed policies could mean for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Matt LeBretton, the vice president of public affairs at New Balance tweeted, “The Obama admin turned a deaf ear to us & frankly w/ Pres-Elect Trump we feel things are going to move in the right direction.”
Days later, the white supremacist site The Daily Stormer, published an article calling New Balance the “official shoes of white people” and the “official brand of the Trump Revolution.”
In response, some people on social media are showing their disdain for the brand’s endorsement by defacing their New Balance sneakers on social media, or tossing them in the trash.
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Scooped by
Jeff Domansky
November 16, 2016 10:43 AM
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"Native" advertising is expected to drive 74% of all US display ad revenue by 2021, up from a 56% share in 2016, but Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian isn't a fan. Native advertising is paid content that fits a specific publication's style and editorial guidelines. The idea is that unlike standard banner ads — which users can become blind to and easily overlook — people are more likely to engage with content that looks like the rest of the content on a site. Speaking at a small press conference at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal last week, Ohanian described native advertising as something "nobody actually reads but everyone has just bought into." Marketers have been fooled into thinking people are reading their native ads, when instead, Ohanian believes they've simply been tricked by "Facebook arbitrage."...
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It's not the fake news that's the problem, it's the need to fact check and then publish the truth to correct the mistakes.