Mediaboss Marketing

Digital marketing is a broad category of services used to describe any campaign in a variety of mediums that are published or broadcasted through digital platforms such as the internet, television, social media and more.

There are so many digital marketing professionals offering services online that it can be tough for a business to find the right fit. Here are a few things to consider when making your decision.

Online marketing services are quickly becoming a necessity for businesses who want to stay competitive and grow. Whether you have a brick and mortar location or you only do business via an eCommerce site, you are most certainly in need of quality help.

Webcast, March 15th: How to Scale Upmarket with Enterprise Field Sales

Finding the right help can be easy when you know what to look for.

Always make sure that your partner in digital marketing is offering you proof that your investment is paying off. For instance, with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) there are many key performance indicators that should be discussed and presented to you on a regular basis. Things like who is coming to your site and how they are getting there should be topics of discussion. You need to see and understand the data that is driving your sales.

Youll also want a team of professionals advising you on how to improve your current efforts so that your existing clients are happy while you grow your business. Staying current and evolving with Social Media and Email Marketing is important, and youll need to see proof of ROI there too.

An experienced digital agency for small and medium companies will be able to not only fulfill your marketing needs theyll be able to direct you to the best course of actions according to your budget and specific goals.

The marketing professionals you choose should be more than happy to provide you with reports and suggestions regarding your efforts at all times, while making sure you understand things in plain English!

If you do choose to manage some or all of your marketing through an agency, choose one who is a proven success in the business to ensure your dollars are well spent and aligned for the highest return. The road to success online requires a steady hand and committed approach. Were ready when you are, contact us to talk more.

Steve Hamm is a Digital Marketing Solutions Pro, a published authorand Owner of MaaS Pros. He is a digital marketing strategy expert who is passionate about solving online problems for businesses and organizations. So whether youre just starting to build your companys online presence or need to give it a Viewfullprofile

Follow this link:
Choosing Online Marketing Services - Business 2 Community

Forbes

Is This The Future Of Real Estate Marketing? Forbes While traditional forms of marketing real estate fizzle out, a new era of digital marketing has dawned. Thanks to the global connectivity of the internet, people no longer have to turn to traditional media to market a home or condo or any other form of ...

View post:
Is This The Future Of Real Estate Marketing? - Forbes

Forbes

Is Snapchat The Right Social Media Marketing Platform For Your Brand? Forbes Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, had the largest IPO since 2014, with a market evaluation of $24 billion. That being said, investors aren't the only ones keeping a close eye on the platformmarketers are, too. With over 158 million daily users, ...

Read more here:
Is Snapchat The Right Social Media Marketing Platform For Your Brand? - Forbes

On the occasion of World Day Against Cyber Censorship, ProtonMail and Amnesty International join forces to show how internet restrictions affect people around the world.

As the worlds largest encrypted email provider, ProtonMail is the privacy tool of choice for journalists, activists and privacy conscious everyday users. Today when logging into their inboxes, ProtonMails 2 million users from 150 countries will see Amnesty Internationals latest findings on cyber censorship.

The internet is a powerful tool for free speech and activism, but in the wrong hands it can also be a tool for repression.

The internet is a powerful tool for free speech and activism, but in the wrong hands it can also be a tool for repression. Amnesty International has documented cases of advanced "techno-censorship" across the world, as governments race to find new tools and tactics to silence dissent. The range of cyber censorship and surveillance tactics being employed by governments is getting more sophisticated with each passing year, with dire consequences for freedom of expression, said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Head of Technology and Human Rights at Amnesty International.

Amnesty International and ProtonMail want people who believe in a free internet to take action. The tech firms developing the architecture of the internet need to build in stronger security, with end-to-end encryption for example, that we can use to protect our rights to privacy and free speech online. The decisions made about the nature of the internet will affect our societies for a generation to come.

The decisions made about the nature of the internet will affect our societies for a generation to come.

Each year governments around the world are increasingly restricting internet freedom. With the use of IP address blocking today Turkey and Saudi Arabia block over 50,000 and 400,000 websites respectively; including news and social media networking sites. Chinas Great Firewall continues to restrict internet to over 800 million users.

Cyber censorship not only steals peoples rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future.

Cyber censorship not only steals peoples rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future Dr. Andy Yen, co-founder and CEO ProtonMail.

It is becoming an increasingly common practice for governments to shut off the Internet during moments of unrest and protest, such as Ethiopia did on more than one occasion in 2016. Last year several governments also shut down encrypted messaging apps, like Signal in Egypt and Whats App in Brazil.

Cyber censorship is further exacerbated by the indifference from some of the biggest tech companies towards their users privacy. Last year, Yahoo confirmed that it cooperated with the NSA to implement a special surveillance software to scan all its users emails for the agencys use.

On 21 October 2016, Amnesty International warned that tech companies like Snapchat and Microsoft are failing to adopt basic privacy protections on their instant messaging services, putting users human rights at risk. Only 3 of 11 tech firms examined in Amnesty Internationals Message Privacy Ranking provide end-to-end encryption by default on all their messaging apps.

Today we are changing our login page to stimulate a debate about online privacy, digital freedom and cyber censorship. Many of our users are journalists, dissidents and everyday users who have experienced internet restrictions in one way or another and who have turned to encrypted email to secure their communications, said Dr. Andy Yen, ProtonMail co-founder and CEO.

Cyber censorship not only steals peoples rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future. Earlier this year ProtonMail launched a Tor hidden website to combat censorship and today we are happy to highlight the brave work Amnesty international is doing to protect civil liberties online.

View original post here:
Amnesty International and ProtonMail join forces to fight cyber censorship - Amnesty International

The social networking website Twitter has put new measures in place to try to stop users from being harassed or from seeing things that offend them.

Some free-speech activists are worried that the changes could lead to unpopular ideas being censored.

The measures were announced last week. They include hiding possibly threatening messages even if no one has complained to the company that the person who sent them is abusive.

In a statement announcing the change, the company said, Were working to identify accounts as theyre engaging in abusive behavior -- even if this behavior hasnt been reported to us."

The company said it would take action only when it strongly believes abuse has taken place. It uses software to identify abuse.

Risk to free speech?

But some free speech supporters are worried about the changes.

Suzanne Nossel is the executive director of the free speech activist group PEN America. She said Twitter is considering taking action, in her words, where there is really no problem that needs to be solved. To take action when there hasnt been a complaint raises the concern of whether there will be mistaken blocking of accounts or suspending of accounts, she said. That raises a risk.

Twitter has been pressured to deal with abusive speech in the past few months after some famous people complained about long-term, planned abuse campaigns.

Actress Leslie Jones left Twitter for a brief time last year after she received many racist messages and death threats. Several months after she met with the head of Twitter, the company announced it had developed new ways to deal with abusive messages.

Those ways included strengthening the ability of users to stop receiving messages that had certain words or expressions in them, and expanding the ability of users to report abuse.

Twitter also retrained its workers on how to deal with online abuse.

Esha Bhandari is a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. She told VOA that she supports these kinds of changes, which permit users to have more control over what messages they see and from whom they receive messages.

She said the ACLU encourages companies to focus less on ways it can stop abuse and more on tools that allow users to control their experience on the platform."

Low-quality tweets and safe search function

But some tools launched by Twitter give the company a lot of power to decide what messages are seen. In February, the company began hiding what it called potentially abusive or low-quality tweets. The messages will still be able to be seen, but only if people search for them.

VOA asked Twitter many times for more information on how it decided which messages are low-quality. Twitter did not answer our questions.

Also in February, Twitter introduced a safe search function that removes messages that have potentially sensitive content from search results. VOA also asked the company how it identified this kind of message, but Twitter again did not answer our questions.

Global town square

As a private company, Twitter is not forced to permit free speech. However, spokespeople say the service permits free expression. And they say they believe in speaking truth to power.

PEN America and the ACLU support this role. Nossel and Bhandari say they consider Twitter a kind of global town square, where everyones voice has equal weight.

Bhandari said, As a practical matter, decisions made by Twitter have a huge impact on the messages that we receive, and I hope that Twitter and other companies take those responsibilities seriously."

Nossel noted that Twitter has financial reasons to be careful as it seeks to balance free expression and stopping abuse.

The power and influence of their platform depends on the free flow of ideas, so I think there are commercial reasons why they would not want to limit (free speech), Gnossel said. And I think for their users, they do have a kind of softer, implicit contract that they are going to be a platform in which you can express things freely.

Im Ashley Thompson.

VOA News Writer Joshua Fatzick reported this story from Washington. John Smith adapted the story for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

account n. an arrangement in which a person uses the Internet or e-mail services of a particular company

complain v. to say or write that you are unhappy, sick, uncomfortable, etc., or that you do not like something

engage in phrasal verb to do (something)

encourage v. to make (something) more appealing or more likely to happen

allow v. to make it possible for someone or something to have or do something

focus v. to direct your attention or effort at something specific

racism n. the belief that some races of people are better than others

potentially adv. capable of becoming real

function n. the special purpose or activity for which a thing exists or is used

platform n. something that allows someone to tell a large number of people about an idea, product, etc.

practical adj. likely to succeed and reasonable to do or use

impact n. logical and reasonable in a particular situation

implicit adj. understood though not clearly or directly stated

Visit link:
Twitter Fights Abuse, But Free Speech Activists Worry About Censorship - Voice of America