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Social media has changed not only how we interact with friends and family, but also how we do business and interact with our customers. Companies of all sizes have joined in to see how social media can add value to their business and increase revenue.

Marketing experts believe social media helps grow business. However, it has been hard to quantify the direct effect on sales. In an infographic by Ad Week and Social Pro Daily titled Examining the current state of social marketing, written by Kimberlee Morrison, one challenge was linking social media campaigns to sales and revenue.

The report says that nearly half of top marketers could not demonstrate social media spendings effect on their business. Only 15 percent of marketing officers could demonstrate social medias quantitative effect on their business.

However, the evidence shows that social media marketing does work. Fifty-four percent of business-to-business marketers have generated leads from social media.

The conversion from Facebook likes to long-term customers has been hard to measure and track.

Social media credibility is the perceived image a customer gathers about a company based on what others are saying about it on social media.

This includes how the company listens, interacts and responds to customers requests and, above all, creates a buzz about its brand.

What does social media credibility do for you? While those who follow and like your social media page may not be your customers, they create a likability factor for your real customers to stay, interact and do business with you.

The real measure of your posts, likes and followers on social media is how they make new visitors feel about your brand. Today, before a company enters a contractual agreement with another company, its social media presence is one way of doing due diligence to take a social measurement of what people are saying about the company and how they are responding.

This gives a real-life profile of the company far better than any self-written corporate capability statement.

Social media credibility is what makes you want to go to the restaurant in a busy downtown, with a long line of customers waiting, while others with similar services have no customers. It is like a celebrity endorsement of a brand, but the celebrities are you and me, who used and experienced the brand. The endorsement is more credible since we are not being paid to endorse.

How do I measure my social media credibility? Here are some thoughts:

Professor Hari Sundaram at the University of Illinois is working on a study, using an app to study the behavior of people who want to adopt new habits, but somehow cannot seem to change. He gives an example on healthy eating: If you are about to go out for lunch and get an alert on your phone that seven out of 10 of your friends just ate salad, this may influence your food choice.

This will help motivate you to attain your desired behaviors by the choice of food your friends made. You are going to be influenced by actions (likes) that you saw or experienced, which will make you more likely to adopt a similar behavior.

We are influenced by decisions people make in the presence of social signals. Knowing what your friends or other people do will influence your choice.

In the context of social media, we are influenced by our perception of a product or brand by how others interact with it. We may end up buying an item even though the people who liked it on social media just liked it.

Akwasi Oppong is a digital marketing professional who helps small businesses develop their online brands and develop and automate their marketing processes. Akwasi is a SCORE Frederick certified mentor.

SCORE Frederick is part of a nationwide volunteer network of 310 chapters dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. SCORE Frederick provides free and confidential business advice and mentoring to start-up businesses and to established small businesses in Fredrick and Carroll counties. SCORE Frederick also offers business workshops for both start-ups and established businesses. For more information, go to http://www.scorefrederick.org. Once on the site, to register for mentoring, click on register for mentoring, fill in the request sheet and submit.

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SCORE Frederick: How social media credibility affects your marketing strategy - Frederick News Post (subscription)

When it comes to making our homes safe for those active babies and toddlers in our lives, we must think about childproofing furniture, electric outlets, small objects and more.

It can be easy to overlook something as simple as windows. But windows pose specific child hazards that are extremely important to address. Keep a few simple things in mind when it comes to windows and kiddos, and your little wild child will be safer.

Nearly one child per month dies from strangulation by cords attached to window treatments, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. These cords are one of the most overlooked hazards in the home. Take these simple steps to avoid this danger when childproofing, and consider these options when outfitting the windows in your home:

The safest choice you can make are window treatments without accessible cords, such as cordless cellular shades, spring tension roller shades, plantation shutters and drapes (without cords or ties). If youre looking for new or replacement window treatments, consider these the safest options.

If you already have window treatments with continuous cord loop lift systems, be sure that cords are properly anchored to the wall. If you do not have an anchor or tensioning device, contact the manufacturer to request one.

If you already have window treatments with exposed cords and are not able to switch to a safer option, keep cords out of reach at all times by wrapping them around cord cleats high in the window.

Keep cribs, baby beds and other furniture away from windows where cords are within reach of your baby or toddler, as these items can be used as step stools to reach cords.

Cordless window treatments (cellular shades, shutters and drapes) are most important in bedrooms or playrooms, where kids may be left unattended. However, the safest choice is to use window treatments without accessible cords throughout your home. Fortunately, safer window treatments are available in many styles and price points, so replacing window treatments can be a simple childproofing upgrade.

2. Window locks and latches:

Window safety goes beyond just the window dressings. After all, windows are made of glass and are essentially open holes in your home some of them high above the ground. Its important to make sure children are not able to open windows and push through window screens. Beyond just locking windows shut, you can also install window stops in the frame to regulate how far up the window can go just in case your crafty kiddo manages to get through any safety locks.

Of course, you probably dont want to leave your windows closed year-round, and you dont need to even in the name of safety. In addition to installing window stops, you can install stronger, sturdier metal window guards in windows on higher floors to safeguard against falling.

Katie Laird is the director of social marketing for Blinds.com, and a frequent public speaker on social media marketing, social customer care and profitable company culture. An active blogger and early social technology adopter, you can find her online as happykatie, sharing home dcor, yoga, parenting and vegetarian cooking tips. Laird wrote this blog for momaha.com. To learn more about the variety of shades and other window treatments like those highlighted in this article, visit the Blinds.com website.

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Must-know window safety tips for children - Omaha World-Herald

Reddit BTC moderator Jratcliff63367 officially resigned from the subreddit due to its dysfunctional operations and limited discussions. In his official statement, Jratcliff stated emphasized the censorship on both the Bitcoin subreddit and BTC subreddit, expressing his concerns over two of the largest bitcoin discussion communities.

For a long period of time, the Bitcoin subreddit operated by main moderator Theymos has been the most successful and popular bitcoin community. It still faciliates some of the most important and collaborative discussions with developers, users, businesses and enthusiasts.

However, as Jratcliff notes, the Bitcoin subreddit began to receive harsh criticisms from non-Bitcoin Core supporters for being censorship-heavy. Theymos along with his other moderators of the Bitcoin subreddit was accused of eliminating any pertinent discussions in regards to Bitcoin Unlimited or alternative solutions other than the technologies being developed by Bitcoin Core.

Logically, the reasoning of Theymos and the rest of the Bitcoin subreddit moderators in censoring non-Bitcoin Core discussions can be justified, as the current Bitcoin network is overseen by the Bitcoin Core development team and with the codes the team has written over the past few years.

However, for bitcoin to evolve, bitcoin investors including Ver believes a group of developers or experts need to receive baton to continue the development of bitcoin, the same way bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto passed on his vision to his successors.

Bitcoin Unlimited supporters, as well as many miners,firmly believe that the censorship of Bitcoin Unlimited and non-Bitcoin Core solutions doesnt necessarily benefit the long-term health and development of bitcoin. In fact, they seem to believe that granting one development team the monopoly over a bitcoin network is stalling the development of bitcoin.

Evidently, if Bitcoin Unlimited developers and supporters want to force a hard fork in order to place Bitcoin Unlimited on top of the bitcoin protocol, they can simply initiate a hard fork. No organization or individual can stop Bitcoin Unlimited supports from executing a hard fork. Currently, they simply dont have the support from miners to do so and that is what the Bitcoin subreddit moderators are emphasizing.

Jratcliff specifically mentioned in his statement that the BTC subreddit, despite what it was structured to be, is no longer a platform wherein users freely discuss various solutions, events and activties within the bitcoin industry. As Coinbase Director of Engineering and Litecoin creator Charlie Lee states:

Sadly, /r/btc is becoming a cesspool. Its basically a Core/Blockstream/SegWit-bashing, BU-praising echo chamber. /r/bitcoin is much better.

Former /r/btc moderator Jratcliff offered a similar insight to Lee, stating Today, I find the /r/btc community to be highly dysfunctional. It is not operating as an open and engaging discussion for all things bitcoin. It has become something else. He adds that users including himself cant share off-chain scaling solutions on /r/btc due to the communitys ignorance to off-chain scaling.

I no longer think that increasing the on-chain blocksize by any amount will accomplish much of anything. I have a lot of views on this topic. And I have tried to share them both here as well as /r/bitcoin and other forums such as Lets Talk Bitcoin. I can no longer share them on /r/btc because any post or comment I make immediately receives dozens of downvotes and is hidden from view. explained Jratcliff.

To summarize, both subreddits are censoring discussions and promoting Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Unlimited respectively. Thus, it is dishonest and unfair for any of the moderators of the two subreddits to claim censorship and attempt to appeal themselves to the community as victims.

Image from Shutterstock.

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Reddit BTC Mod Resigns, Cites Censorship in Both Subreddits - CryptoCoinsNews

Facebook logos pictured on the screens of a smartphone and a laptop computer. (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

By Ese Olumhense

A careful approach to fake news

As part of its ongoing effort to curb the spread of misleading or completely fabricated news articles on its platform, Facebook launched a tool Friday to flag links shared from fake news sites, cautioning readers that the material shared has been disputed by non-partisan fact-checking sites.

Though the feature isnt yet available to everyone, according to the social media giants Help page, its the latest step in their war on fake news.

Facebook incurred the wrath of users frustrated by the many hoax news stories surrounding the 2016 election. Bending to pressure, the site announced in late 2016 a series of initiatives that it would take to deal with its fake news problem.

We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so were approaching this problem carefully, said VP of Product for News Feed at Facebook, Adam Mosseri, in a December blog post.

As part of this careful approach, Facebook says that it will work with independent fact-checkers to identify fake news stories, which would then be flagged. These flagged posts would be deprioritized in news feeds, and if a user tries to share a flagged story, theyll see a warning cautioning that the story had been disputed. Flagged stories cannot be promoted or turned into advertisements.

Its unclear whether the mechanism outlined in December is the one in place now, or if other features have been included.

How lies and exaggerations spread on Facebook

Though it isnt a news site, 66 percent of Facebooks users rely on the platform to access news, a 2016 study found. This is up from 47 percent in 2013.

Considering the massive reliance on the social network for news, it became a lightning rod for 2016 election news.

But it soon emerged that some of the news appearing in Facebook feeds was misleading, or flat-out fake. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the interest in the presidential election, predatory publishers drove significant traffic to their sites with fake articles on anything from Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons supposed ill health to rumors that now-President Donald Trumps tax returns had leaked. At times, the misinformation campaigns bordered on dangerous, as fake stories teasing civil war or threatening riots if a particular candidate won or lost became more and more popular.

After the election, some journalists blamed Facebook for Trumps eventual election, claiming that its lucrative advertising prospects helped malicious actors sway popular opinion, even when those actors lived outside the United States.

Fight over fake news continues

Fake news did not stop after Trumps historic upset. In fact, it became a major talking point for Americans on either side of the political spectrum, weaponized to discredit and delegitimize news pieces that dont adhere to either sides agenda.

While Facebooks latest effort is certainly appreciated by some news consumers, others are skeptical, believing that the companys actions amount to arbitrary and unjustifiable censorship.

Who are these people that will be deciding what is relevant and what is not to the largest social media site in the world? asked Mickey White, conservative commentator and critic in December. The source of information for over half the country. We dont know that [they] have any qualifications outside of their own individual bias.

Facebook has enlisted fact-checking organizations like Politifact and Snopes to help monitor stories flagged as fake. The sites are part of a network of fact-checking organizations coordinated by the Poynter Institute. Members of the group must apply and be vetted by a team at Poynter, and agree to a set of principles including transparency and nonpartisanship.

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Facebook launches tool to fight fake news but is it censorship? - WGN-TV

A senior Chinese official has spoken out against his countrys repressive internet censorship measures in a rare show of defiance.

Luo Fuhe, a technology adviser to Chinas parliament, said that Communist officials should un-ban some of the thousands of websites currently blocked by the so-called Great Firewall.

Web censorship has become more severe in the years since Xi Jinping became president, with hundreds of news sites blocked, as well as most social networks.

But Luo spoke out against Chinas determination to control its peoples internet access over the weekend, saying that academic sites should be removed from the filter.

He said continued censorship will have a grave impact on our countrys socio-economic development and scientific research, theSouth China Morning Postreported.

He cited examples of state filtering software slowing the internet down to an unusable pace.

Pages hosted by the UN could take 20 seconds to load, while sites hosted by foreign universities are so heavily vetted they can take more than half an hour, he warned.

Luo belongs to one of Chinas non-Communist political parties, and works for theChinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, which advises their parliament.

His criticism is exceptionally outspoken given the commitment of the Communist party, which dominates Chinas political culture, to the policy.

Notably, Luo stuck to uncontroversial academic examples and the economic costs of web censorship, rather than focusing on personal freedom.

He left out the social penalty suffered by the Chinese people, unable to access huge chunks of the internet which are freely available in the West.

The repressive outlook earned China the worst score in the world in a recent ranking of government internet policies by the Freedom House watchdog organization.

But is unlikely to be taken on board by leading figures of the Chinese politburo, who are headed in the opposite direction.

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Chinese Official Dares to Challenge Repressive Government Internet Censorship - Heat Street