Throwback video: Kanye, Amber Rose and #FingersInTheBooty
Ya’ll remember when Kanye tried to shade Wiz for being with Amber Rose? ?
Kanye West SLAMS Wiz Khalifa~Amber Rose jumps in and Twitter GO CRAZY!!
Wiz Khalifa & Twitter go in on Kanye after he FINALLY Responds To Amber Rose #Kanyeanalplaylist
8 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses
The small business world can be a grind working in and on the business to reach goals and milestones and grow.
Owners and employees wear a lot of hats and often excel at filling a lot of roles.
The day-to-day requirements of sales, operations, payroll, invoicing, service, and fulfillment take a ton of time and energy.
Something that gets squeezed out is marketing.
The marketing mix for a small business often covers the essentials and things that are closest to the bottom line.
These are often identified as the website and campaigns that impact lead or sales generation closest to the last click or to the conversion. Those include things like email marketing, SEO, and paid search.
Often, social media is left out of that mix or only done in a way that meets a bare minimum to show the business is real.
Social media doesn’t have to be a massive commitment or time investment. It also doesn’t have to be a big mystery as to how it could impact the business and fit into the marketing mix.
By working smarter and not harder, you can use eight tips to put together a social media strategy that makes sense for the resources you have and ultimately can engage your audience and positively impact your business.
1. Identify Personas
There are a lot of resources that speak to the process of persona development and how it can help in the content marketing and overall marketing strategy for your business.
If you haven’t defined who the target audience is for your products, services, or offering, then you should start here.
You don’t have to go through a massive branding or research project to get to the info you need.
If you don’t know where to start, I suggest jumping into your current Google Analytics account and activating the interests section and seeing which affinity groups are noted.
If you don’t have the luxury of current data, you can dig into the Google Ads display planner and Facebook ad planning tools to explore the options for interests, demographics, and behavior and see how the categories and targeting fit with your understanding of your clients or customers.
Using any working or refined models of specific personas, you can save time and fine tune your messaging and targeting in the social media networks to cast the right-sized net and get specific enough with your content.
2. Know the Customer Journey
We all typically know the most about what step or two is the best at driving engagement, sales, or leads. That may be a specific marketing channel, a campaign, or even a category of content.
The problem is that most companies don’t have a 1-touch customer journey that results in a sale on their first visit.
The customer journey can be a little difficult to get a complete picture of, but there are ways to look at what content is resonating with your audience before they convert and you can talk with them to see what they find valuable in making their decision.
There are reporting platforms that can tie it all together, but at the very least, you should get some visibility into the steps in the funnel that customers go through ultimately as they research before buying.
3. Track Everything
If you’re finding challenges with the first two tips, it is likely because you don’t have as much data or information as you’d like. I’m glad you’re still reading and made it this far.
Tracking and measuring are critical for digital marketing.
Without capturing data, you’re left with using industry trends or just giving it your best guess based on what you know about your industry and the things that work in the offline world.
Make sure that all pages on your site are tracked in Google Analytics.
Ensure that all content you are deploying in email, social, and other sources uses UTM tracking parameters so it can be properly categorized in Google Analytics.
Find ways to utilize promo codes and other source codes to merge offline and online data.
The more you can track and measure, the more informed you can be as you evaluate the worth of your time and dollars in your content investment and specifically when you deploy it through social.
4. Use Agile Methods
Ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, and long-form content may be the perfect thing to use to engage and resonate with your audience.
However, these are all big investments to make in the content creation stage before even deploying.
A great way to test out social and figure out the right types of content, frequency of posting, targeting options (for sponsored and ad content), timing, etc., is to perform more frequent, smaller tests.
Agile marketing has become a valuable strategy in recent years. It features an agile mindset similar to what you’d expect in software development and other disciplines.
As a small business, you probably don’t have the time or budget for a statistically significant sample size anyway, so go all in with a wide range of content and options and see what works before you invest a ton into a single piece of content or single strategy by which you plan on judging the viability of social as a channel.
5. Repurpose Content
Where possible, you could and should look for opportunities to leverage existing content and sources.
If you created a great blog post as part of your SEO strategy, test it on social?
If you’re creating content for your email audience, repurpose some of it on social.
By using content in more than one place, you can get a better return on investment for individual pieces of content, plus get more data and see how it performs across various channels.
Also, just because something is evergreen or a tip is not new, that doesn’t mean it isn’t to your audience.
As long as the information is still accurate and relevant, there’s no harm in sharing something that has been on your site for a couple of years.
Your hidden gems of quality content might be a little too hidden or limited to just your search or other audiences. Using content you know works and resonates is a solid strategy for testing on social as well.
6. Learn From Your Competition
When asked how often a company should be posting on social media and what types of content, I can never right away answer the question directly for them.
The answer is always “it depends.” I don’t have a special best practice number of times to post per week or month. It is all relative to the industry and audience.
Competitors are a great place to look for cues and help. Don’t assume that any or all of your competitors are doing it right.
Do know that you can look externally at their social profiles and see:
- How often they post.
- What days of the week and times of the day they post.
- How large their follower bases are.
- What specific types of organic, sponsored, and ad content they post.
- Which types of posts get the most engagement.
Whether capturing all of this in a spreadsheet or other format, you can quickly see patterns that emerge in what is working and what isn’t.
I recommend doing this type of basic research or study before arbitrarily deciding what your social plan should be.
7. Plan for Times When You Don’t Have Time
Even if you’re 100% committed to staying on the social media plan, things will happen.
With the hats that you wear, you’ll get pulled into something that is a higher priority. Or, maybe you’ll get to take a vacation and unplug.
Regardless, there will be times when you don’t have time to focus on social media. That’s OK!
Plan for the times when you don’t have the time and attention now.
Build a content calendar and framework. Know who is posting what content and when.
If you can spread the roles around to others and make sure everyone is committed and following the plan and guidelines, you can ensure that the content strategy, implementation in social, and testing process won’t fall apart the second that other things take attention away from it.
Like other endeavors in business and in life, if you fall off, get back on soon. Stick with it as there’s value in the information gained and meaningful connections made by utilizing social media in your digital marketing mix.
8. Optimize Like You Would in Other Channels
Know that there are going to be some home runs as well as some strikeouts. Take an optimization and agile mindset into social like you would in search marketing.
Set a period of time that you want to test, set your strategy, and then optimize through testing.
- For ads and sponsored content, you can A/B test.
- For organic content, you can at least compare and contrast the different pieces of content, messages, types of posts, and see how they perform if you can control enough of the variables.
Always be testing!
Conclusion
There are a lot of reasons why social media is not at the top of the priority list in the marketing mix of small businesses. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be effective.
There’s also no reason it should be the biggest investment you make.
Smart strategies that are designed to stay on track and properly leverage social through:
- Utilizing content you already have.
- Properly measuring performance.
- Having a system that is less likely to break down are all important aspects to leveraging the power of social to help grow your business.
More Resources:
- Top 9 Benefits of Social Media for Your Business
- Why Social Media Marketing Is Crucial for Your Local Business
- Should I Outsource My Social Media? 6 Questions to Ask Yourself
Article via SearchEngineJournal
Strawberry Moon 2019: Best times to watch and a special viewing bonus
Article via CNN
It’s time for another noteworthy celestial event. Be sure to cast your gaze toward the sky for 2019’s Strawberry Moon. And for the keen-eyed, there’s a heavenly bonus with a prominent appearance from one of our fellow planets.So you’re not disappointed or confused, first things first: The moon isn’t going to actually look like a big, round strawberry. That’s because in North America, the name comes from Algonquin tribes of Native Americans. This full moon was their sign to harvest wild strawberries, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. This moon has other names in other parts of the world. In Europe, you may hear it called the Honey Moon, Mead Moon or the Full Rose Moon. In the Southern Hemisphere, it can go by Oak Moon, Cold Moon or Long Night Moon, according to EarthSky.org.
In the Eastern Time Zone of the United States, that will happen at 4:30 a.m. Monday, June 17. On the West Coast with Pacific Time, the peak will be 1:30 a.m. On the other side of the globe, New Delhi, India, will see peak time of 2 p.m. See the upper right side of the timeanddate.com page to get the time for your location.But remember, peak time doesn’t mean your only viewing time. As The Old Farmer’s Almanac points out, the moon will appear full to viewers on Father’s Day (Sunday, June 16) shortly after sunset.
For the best impression, take a look not at peak time but while the moon is still low on your horizon, says CNN meteorologist Judson Jones.”My favorite time to watch the full moon is as it is rising over the eastern horizon. When the moon is low on the horizon, it allows you to capture the view with objects in the foreground, making the moon appear bigger,” Jones said.”Say you are in the city, and you’re watching between a couple of buildings or over the skyline, it will make it feel that much bigger and give it more impact.” He adds that if you’re around the ocean, a lake or mountains, the perspective could be very pleasing.
Special guest
Now, about that heavenly bonus. You may notice a bright object floating just above the moon. That will be not a star, but Jupiter. The solar system’s largest planet actually made its closest approach to Earth in 2019 back on June 10, but it’s still showing prominently in the night sky. Even ordinary binoculars should yield impressive viewing results.
What’s next?
For those who like to follow earthly and celestial events, we’ve got the summer solstice coming up in just a few days — on Friday, June 21.And the next full moon after the Strawberry is the Full Buck Moon on July 16.
Coffee chain starts charging for disposable cups in Gatwick Airport to persuade consumers to use reusable ones.
Article via Bloomberg
Starbucks Corp. this month will begin a first-of-its kind trial of reusable cups at London’s Gatwick airport.
People drink a lot of coffee at airports. Gatwick says it already recycles a majority of the 7 million disposable coffee cups that travelers use each year. The airport wants to improve on that, and reusable cups potentially have a lower carbon footprint than paper cups.
The funding for the airport trial grew out of a program Starbucks launched last year that added a 5 pence (6 cent) surcharge for disposable cups in U.K. shops. The money raised was donated to environmental charity Hubbub, which is running the program at Gatwick.
“Transport hubs such as airports and railway stations are areas with a lot of footfall and not a very high use of reusable cups,” said Trewin Restorick, chief executive officer and co-founder of Hubbub. The airport is a good place to learn more about whether consumers can be incentivized to reuse cups.
Starbucks locations at the airport will charge customers 5 pence for disposable cups while offering a reusable cup for free. Even if just 250 customers a day opt for a reusable cup, more than 7,000 cups could be saved in the monthlong trial, Starbucks estimates. The company plans to track the number of returned cups, experimenting with different collection points to maximize the return rate.
“What will be really interesting is to see where the cups end up,” said Jaz Rabadia, senior manager of energy and sustainability at Starbucks in the U.K.
Orwell’s 1984 was nothing like actual 1984. But it’s exactly like 2019
Article via DigitalTrends
In 1984, Apple said 1984 wouldn’t be like 1984. George Orwell’s novel describes a dystopian surveillance society as a warning, and Apple positioned itself as a counter to that disturbing future. But here’s the thing: 2019 looks a lot like 1984. And we’re remarkably comfortable with it.
Orwell published one of the great English-language novels on June 8, 1949, 70 years ago today. His book details a society perpetually at war, ruled by an enigmatic figure known only as “Big Brother.” Thanks to secret surveillance, Big Brother’s totalitarian government knows all, punishing thoughtcrimes before they take place and rewarding conformity.
When Steve Jobs and his upstart rebels at Apple used the framework of Orwell’s book to tell a dark story about conformity in the computing world, it seemed distant. In Apple’s famous ad, a hammer-wielding champion blows apart massive screens showing the sneering face of Big Brother.
ST Features
Orwell’s 1984 was nothing like actual 1984. But it’s exactly like 2019
In 1984, Apple said 1984 wouldn’t be like 1984. George Orwell’s novel describes a dystopian surveillance society as a warning, and Apple positioned itself as a counter to that disturbing future. But here’s the thing: 2019 looks a lot like 1984. And we’re remarkably comfortable with it.
Orwell published one of the great English-language novels on June 8, 1949, 70 years ago today. His book details a society perpetually at war, ruled by an enigmatic figure known only as “Big Brother.” Thanks to secret surveillance, Big Brother’s totalitarian government knows all, punishing thoughtcrimes before they take place and rewarding conformity.
When Steve Jobs and his upstart rebels at Apple used the framework of Orwell’s book to tell a dark story about conformity in the computing world, it seemed distant. In Apple’s famous ad, a hammer-wielding champion blows apart massive screens showing the sneering face of Big Brother.
Apple was right. 1984 wasn’t like 1984, with its goofy suits and Alf and Talking Heads videos on MTV. But today? For starters, it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Big Brother and Donald Trump, whose cult of personality commands, for some, a similar unwavering fealty, even if his attention span is hopefully not as constant.
Look beyond the Big Brother we’ve elected and you’ll see that we’ve built the surveillance society we’ve feared for so long — and maybe it’s not such a problem after all.
We live in a world where devices are constantly listening. The power of voice control is profound, allowing us to check whether we locked the garage door simply by speaking aloud. We’re worried about digital eavesdropping — which is partially why Amazon just allowed you to ask Alexa to forget what you just said — but mostly we’re okay with it.
Far from being clobbered into submission by a totalitarian regime, we’ve sacrificed our privacy for the sake of convenience. I can ask Siri to order a pizza, ask Google to play my favorite song, or have Alexa turn on the air conditioning. And sure, some people are worried, but that’s not stopping us from using this tech.
Some of these devices are watching us. Consider Facebook Portal, a voice-activated telescreen that follows you around the room. It literally is watching your every move. Phones, computers and even TVs have cameras that watch us (or do they?).
While useful, these devices have instilled in many a sense of paranoia that’s profoundly at odds with the professed goals of smart home devices. When I brought home an Amazon Fire TV recently, my wife asked why I’d want to bring a device into the living room that spies on us. I couldn’t really argue.
You can draw a line at the door: It’s fine in the house, with devices that you’ve bought and (hopefully) control. What happens when you leave, and enter the public space where even more devices are watching?
For the most part, people believe surveillance cameras make us safer. But the enormous screens on London’s Piccadilly Circus use cameras to analyze the makeup of the crowd to choose which advertisements to play, and it’s likely to get more directly and individually focused at breakneck speed. The power of facial-recognition through A.I. promises to actually track YOU — not just random people. And fears of what that could bring have led to California’s ban on such technology.
Still, is the loss of privacy a terrible thing? Trump aside, perhaps Big Brother isn’t bothering us at all, considering the benefits we gain from today’s technology. Hey Siri: 1984 wasn’t like 1984, but 2019 is.
Lenovo unveils the ‘world’s first’ foldable laptop with a 13-inch bendable screen that folds in half to become the size of a book
Article via DailyMail
- The as-yet-unnamed PC features a 13.3-inch all-screen display in the interior
- In laptop mode, it has an on-screen keyboard for typing notes or writing emails
- When closed, it becomes about the size of a book, allowing for portability
- The device is still in the early stages of development, but could launch in 2020
Lenovo isn’t letting Samsung’s folding phone woes prevent it from taking a crack at flexible screens.
The Chinese tech giant is bringing bendy screen technology to a totally new gadget, releasing what it’s calling the ‘world’s first foldable PC.’
Laptops can already fold in half, but instead of a screen and a keyboard, the interior of Lenovo’s as-yet-unnamed PC features a 13.3-inch OLED display that, when unfolded, transforms the device into a sizable tablet.
‘This is not a phone, tablet, or familiar hybrid; this is a full-fledged laptop with a foldable screen,’ the company said in a statement.
The device is ideal for consumers who are on the go and want the benefit of a full-screen tablet, but with all the computing power of a standard laptop.
When it’s in laptop mode, an on-screen keyboard appears to let you type emails, write documents and more.
Users can also connect a Bluetooth keyboard to use with the device when it’s folded open, to make use of the screen’s maximum real estate.
One promising detail is that there doesn’t appear to be an unsightly crease in the middle of the display – an issue that plagued review units of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold.
Early hands-on reviews of the device by Gizmodo, Engadget and others noted how the interior screen appears to be pretty seamless.
Similar to the Galaxy Fold, the laptop latches closed magnetically and has a small gap where the hinge is located.
Lenovo says the form-factor makes the device ideal for ‘day and night’ use.
Users can fold it in half to read their favorite book in bed, unfold it and stand it up using the built-in kickstand to watch their favorite videos hands-free, or use it as a full-screen tablet to take notes during a meeting at the office.
When folded in half, it becomes about the size of a large hardcover book.
Lenovo claims it’s pretty lightweight, too, weighing in under 2lbs.
The device also features a built-in infrared camera that can power things like Windows Hello, Microsoft’s biometric security system that lets users sign in using facial recognition technology.
There are two USB-C ports located on the device, in addition to stereo speakers and ‘all-day battery life,’ according to Lenovo.
The company says the device is still an early prototype, with more details about it coming in 2020.
Lenovo hopes to be able to include a Wacom pen and cellular support in future versions of the device, according to the Verge.
It didn’t provide many specific details about specifications or price, other than noting it will be a part of the ThinkPad X1 lineup.
Get a Free Ice Cream Cone at Häagen-Dazs Today
Article via LifeHacker
The warm days of summer are almost upon us, and Häagen-Dazs is celebrating today in the best way possible: free ice cream.
The
store’s annual “Free Cone Day” is today, May 14th. At participating
Häagen-Dazs stores in the United States customers can score a free scoop
of ice cream in their choice of a cup, sugar cone, or wafer cone
between 4-8pm.
Unlike
free ice cream promotion at some other retailers that restrict that
free cone to just vanilla, Häagen-Dazs is allowing customers to select
any flavor they’d like. That means you’re free to nab anything from
Rocky Road to Raspberry Truffle in that cone.
According to
Häagen-Dazs, this year’s Free Cone Day is dedicated to bees, which it
says are “some of its hardest workers.” Bees support one-third of the
world’s crops, including ingredients used in over one-third of
Häagen-Dazs’ ice cream flavors.
If you need help finding the nearest participating Häagen-Dazs to take advantage of the deal you can locate your local shop on the Häagen-Dazs website .
National Poetry Month: Xi Xi
Xi Xi 西西 (also known as Sai Sai), pseudonym of Cheung Yin, is one of Hong Kong’s most beloved authors. Her books available in English translation include A Girl Like Me and Other Stories and Not Written Words: Selected Poetry of Xi Xi.
Many A Lady – Xi Xi
National Poetry Month: Tracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith (1972), was raised in Falmouth, Massachusetts. She studied at Harvard, where she joined the Dark Room Collective, a reading series for writers of color. She went on to receive her MFA from Columbia University.
Smith’s first collection, The Body’s Question (Graywolf Press, 2003), won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize in 2002.
The Universe as a Primal Scream – Tracy K. Smith
5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
They both let loose at once, and I think
Of putting on my shoes to go up and see
Whether it is merely an experiment
Their parents have been conducting
Upon the good crystal, which must surely
Lie shattered to dust on the floor.
Maybe the mother is still proud
Of the four pink lungs she nursed
To such might. Perhaps, if they hit
The magic decibel, the whole building
Will lift-off, and we’ll ride to glory
Like Elijah. If this is it—if this is what
Their cries are cocked toward—let the sky
Pass from blue, to red, to molten gold,
To black. Let the heaven we inherit approach.
Whether it is our dead in Old Testament robes,
Or a door opening onto the roiling infinity of space.
Whether it will bend down to greet us like a father,
Or swallow us like a furnace. I’m ready
To meet what refuses to let us keep anything
For long. What teases us with blessings,
Bends us with grief. Wizard, thief, the great
Wind rushing to knock our mirrors to the floor,
To sweep our short lives clean. How mean
Our racket seems beside it. My stereo on shuffle.
The neighbor chopping onions through a wall.
All of it just a hiccough against what may never
Come for us. And the kids upstairs still at it,
Screaming like the Dawn of Man, as if something
They have no name for has begun to insist
Upon being born.