Mediaboss Marketing

Is social media marketing really dead? Thats one question business owners, marketers and leaders are currently struggling to answer. According to recent reports, social media platforms are losing their momentum, with the likes of Snapchat losing subscribers and Twitter losing the conversation appeal. This, in turn, is affecting the impact social media marketing has on business.

In a study of B2B buyers, only 19 percentof those surveyed said that social media played an important role in their discovery process. This report, among others from industry influencers, has sparked a new concern about the future of social media in business. But dont be alarmed.

Related: Social Media Matters in Marketing for More Reasons Than You Think

In reality, social media isnt dead. In fact, its not dying anytime soon. It is very much alive and remains an effective tool for marketing your products and services. This is why 78 percentof companies have dedicated entire teams to social media and others have reported more than a 700 percentincrease in social media sales from their efforts on social media.

If you are thinking of boycotting social media in your marketing efforts, think again.

Its undeniable the way we use social media today isnt the way we used it a few years ago. Due to the fast advancement of technology, more people are now online, and the amount of information available is enormous. Users, bombarded with a never-ending flow of information on different social platforms, can only read a fraction of it.

As a business owner, you have a challenge to reach your audience in the midst of all this information. To succeed, you need to:

Know where your readers like to hang out

Understand the type of content they like

Strategically plan your content based on that information

Its the only way you can guarantee readership and an increase in customer base. Thats why a company likeTED, known for its TED Talks, is winning on social media. The company has managed to leverage its content by turning those long videos into short, easily shareable viral videos. They found their winning formula because they understood what their users were looking for.

To understand why you shouldnt give up on social media, you need to understand how it works today. Some time ago, a business could easily go on social media to sell its products and services directly to consumers. Today, the landscape has changed.

People no longer appreciate direct sales on social media. They want to be enticed with interesting information or videos before they decide whether or not to buy what youre selling. Thats why an informational blog post will be shared more times than an advertisement. By posting easily shareable content like videos, images or posts, you will:

Achieve better online visibility

Improve your credibility as an expert

Increase your customer base

Related: 4 Ways to Boost Your Social Media Creativity Game

Through the data you are able to gather on different social media platforms, you can better understand the demographics of your followers, their preferences and their thoughts on your brand. This information can help you generate targeted content that will lead to improved readership, an expanded follower base and increased service inquiries -- all of which are good for business.

In addition to providing valuable insights, social media is a great tool for converting leads to customers. When you respond to their concerns or make them feel special in some way, they regard your company as more desirable. They also become more loyal to the brand and are more likely to recommend your products or services to friends.

Through personalized customer service and regular interaction on social media, your business can gain new customers and retain existing ones very easily.

In todays digital era, the importance of website traffic cannot be overstated. More traffic to your website means more subscribers and more potential customers. You can later convert these subscribers into buyers, increasing sales.

While website traffic can come from different sources, including organic search and links from other websites, social media is a great component of it. When you post clickable content, people share it among their circles, and the cycle can be endless.

At a time when more people are online at one particular time, you can expect increased website traffic from increased social media presence.

Related: 3 Ways to Master Social Media Content Marketing

The reality is social media isnt dead. Is just changing and requires businesses to adjust accordingly. You have a shorter time than before to reach your audience, communicate your intention and draw them to whatever service you provide.

According to research, only 16 percentof your Facebook followers are able to see your company posts organically. And on Twitter, only 10 percentof your followers can see your tweet when its posted. To reach the right users, you need to make sure your content can be found. You can achieve that by sharing the right content at the right time and on the right platform.

Ayodeji Onibalusi is an inbound marketing expert and advocate of high quality digitalmarketing. He has over five years of experience helping companies create winning contentdistribution strategies. You can check out his company...

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Don't Believe Those Reports You're Hearing About the Death of Social-Media Marketing - Entrepreneur

Facebook, Twitter, and other web companies are facing increased pressure to remove hate speech, fake news, and other content in Europe, where lawmakers are considering new measures that critics say could infringe on freedom of speech.

In the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron said last week they are considering imposing fines on social media companies that fail to take action against terrorist propaganda and other violent content. The European Union, meanwhile, recently moved closer to passing regulations that would require social media companies to block any videos containing hate speech or incitements to terrorism.

But nowhere is the pressure more acute than in Germany, where lawmakers are racing to pass new legislation that would impose fines of up to 50 million ($55.8 million) on tech companies that fail to remove hate speech, incitements to violence, and other obviously illegal content from their platforms. Companies would have to remove clearly illegal content within 24 hours; they would have up to one week to decide on cases that are less clear.

The Social Networks Enforcement Law, first announced in March by Justice Minister Heiko Maas, aims to hold social media companies more accountable for the content published on their sites, and to ensure they are in accordance with Germanys strict laws on hate speech and defamation. But the bill has drawn vehement criticism from rights groups, lawyers, and a diverse mix of politicians, who say such steep financial penalties could incentivize tech companies to censor legal speech out of caution. Critics also claim that the proposed legislation known as the Facebook Law would give social media companies undue power to determine what people can say online, effectively outsourcing decisions that should be taken by the justice system.

a wholesale privatization of freedom of expression

Joe McNamee, executive director of the Brussels-based digital rights group EDRi, says the German law would compel social media companies to shoot first and dont ask questions later in relation to anything thats reported to them. He also believes it would move Europe closer to a wholesale privatization of freedom of expression, with large internet companies deciding what they want the public the discourse to be, and how much restriction to impose to have legal certainty.

Maas defended the bill during parliamentary debate last month, describing it as a necessary measure to curb the spread of illegal speech. "The point of the proposed legislation is that statements that violate the law must be deleted," Maas said, according to Deutsche Welle. "These are not examples of freedom of speech. They're attacks on freedom of speech. The worst danger to freedom of speech is a situation where threats go unpunished.

Maas has been a particularly outspoken critic of Facebook, claiming that the social network should be treated as a media company, which would make it legally liable for hate speech, defamation, and other content published to its platform. The justice minister also criticized Facebook for failing to remove flagged hate speech in 2015, amid rising anti-migrant protests violence across Germany; prosecutors in Hamburg opened an investigation into Facebooks European head later that year for ignoring racist posts.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google agreed to remove hate speech from their platforms within 24 hours, under an agreement with the German government announced in December 2015. But a 2017 report commissioned by the Justice Ministry found that the companies were still failing to meet their obligations. Twitter removed just 1 percent of hate speech flagged by its users, the report said, while Facebook took down 39 percent. The companies struck a similar agreement with the EU in May 2016, and although Facebook has made progress in reviewing and removing illegal material, the European Commission said in a report last month that Twitter and YouTube are still failing to adhere to the voluntary accord.

Facebook and Google have also taken steps to combat fake news in Europe, amid concerns that misleading content could influence elections. Facebook began labeling fake news in Germany and France earlier this year, and it partnered with Correctiv, a Berlin-based nonprofit, to help fact-check dubious news stories.

Facebook pushed back against Germanys proposed law last month, saying in a statement that it provides an incentive to delete content that is not clearly illegal when social networks face such a disproportionate threat of fines.

It would have the effect of transferring responsibility for complex legal decisions from public authorities to private companies, the statement continues. And several legal experts have assessed the draft law as being against the German constitution and non-compliant with EU law.

When reached for comment, a Twitter spokesperson referred to a previous statement from Karen White, head of public policy in Europe, following the release of the European Commissions report. Over the past six months, we've introduced a host of new tools and features to improve Twitter for everyone, the statement reads, in part. Weve also improved the in-app reporting process for our users and we continue to review and iterate on our policies and their enforcement. Our work will never be done.

You cant just delete what these people are thinking.

Chan-jo Jun, an activist German lawyer who has filed several high-profile lawsuits against Facebook, says hes ambivalent about the draft law because it lacks what he sees as a crucial component. In a phone interview, Jun said the law should allow for users to appeal Facebooks decision to remove flagged content, and to force the company to hear the voice of the person whose post has been deleted. Free speech may be jeopardized without such a mechanism, he said, though he believes there is still a need for government oversight of social media.

If we think criminals should be prosecuted on the internet, then we have to make sure that German law applies on the internet, as well, Jun said, and that it is not only being ruled by community standards from Facebook.

Maas is looking to pass the bill before the Bundestags legislative period closes at the end of June the last chance to do so before national elections in September though it faces opposition from a broad range of politicians. Lawmakers from the far-left and far-right have strongly criticized the bill, as have organizations such as Reporters Without Borders. McNamee says that even if the law does pass, it likely will not hold up to legal challenges in Germany or Europe. In a non-binding ruling handed down last week, a German parliamentary body determined that the bill is illegal because it infringes on free speech and does not clearly define illegal content.

Maas has expressed support for Europe-wide laws on hate speech and fake news, though EU regulators have traditionally favored a more self-regulatory approach to policing online content. Yet new EU data protection rules slated to go into effect next May point to a more aggressive stance. Under the regulations, technology companies found to violate consumer privacy could face fines of up to 4 percent of their global turnover. (Facebook earned nearly $28 billion in global revenue in 2016.)

Up until now, one could argue that large tech companies have been able to, by and large, get away with saying, oh, its all technology and its all very difficult, says Joss Wright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. Lately, however, European regulators have shown an increased willingness to take on tech companies directly, Wright adds.

In Germany, however, some activists worry that lawmakers who support the bill may be looking to score political points ahead of this years elections, while ignoring deeper societal issues that have allowed hate speech to propagate.

We fear that after this law comes to action, the whole debate is over for the politicians, and we are just right at the beginning, says Johannes Baldauf of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a Berlin-based NGO that tracks and combats hate speech and extremism. Baldauf, who leads a project tracking hate speech online, says there has to be some sort of legislation to curb illegal speech, though he believes it should be coupled with public awareness campaigns and public debates about what drives racism and xenophobia.

You cant just change the mind of the people by proposing a law, Baldauf says. And you cant just delete what these people are thinking.

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Germany wants to fine Facebook over hate speech, raising fears of ... - The Verge

DW: Mr. Baumhauer, according to the Freedom on the Net Report 2016, internet freedom has declined globally for six consecutive years. Users in China, Syria and Iran are among the most affected. The report also states that governments are increasingly censoring social networks and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. How does this affect strategies to hold online censorship in check?

The basic concept hasn't changed. Millions of people are affected by online censorship, it happens across the globe, it affects social media as well,and it's nothing new to DW. We know exactly that there are governments out there who don't want us to get into the country to make sure that our content reaches the people who live there. Depending on how the internet is set up technically in a certain country, it can be very easy to block websites. However, in some societies, for instance in Iran, the young generation is very capable when it comes to bypassing censorship - that also goes for messaging apps. We at DW won't accept censorship, and wherever it happens, we'll try to find a way around that. Bypass Censorship is just another approach.

The website provides download links and guides for a number of tools that help you go online without being tracked or get access to blocked content. How exactly does that work?

Some users at some point might have tried to watch a movie that was released in another country, for instance in the US, but not yet in their own country. They might have used some kind of VPN (virtual private network) software. These tools make it look like they're an American user, that way they get access to US servers. The tools we recommend on the website use a similar technology. After downloading them, they help users connect to various servers, and thus offer unrestricted internet access to them. For example, we use PSIPHON for our Farsi and Amharic services. Both Iran and Ethiopia are pretty good at censoring.

Some of the tools on the website, for instance TOR, are quite well-known, at least to people who know a thing or two about encryption. Does this mean the website is aimed at users who aren't familiar with these topics?

DW's Guido Baumhauer hopes that DW's knowledge of combating censorship can help internet users worldwide

Most of the tools have been out there for a while;none of them are brand new. In countries where censorship is a daily routine, let's say Iran or China, we find a lot of internet-savvy users who know what they are doing. But other users elsewhere might want to get access and feel a little helpless to begin with. We want to show them what possibilities they have.

Additionally, the website always provides download links for the newest versions of the tools. The moment the censors realize how the technology works, they start blocking the servers. The tool basically adapts to the censorship and tries to keep the road to free internet access open. It's an ongoing race and it will not stop until one side backs down - and that will definitely not be us. We will do everything we can to help people get access to information, because we believe freedom of speech is the highest value for people. Even if we only reach a few people through the website, it will be worth it.

But aren't you worried that the whole website might be blocked once word gets out?

That's definitely something that's going to happen, and we have to find ways for users to access the information on the website through other means. When content on the DW website gets blocked, for instance in Iran or China, we find ways around that and we'll do the same with Bypass Censorship. For example, we offer users to email the tools to them. That might sound stupid and very simple, but it works.

Experts say that tens of thousands of internet police are employed to implement China's "Great Firewall"

Bypass Censorship sounds like a project that could have been founded by activists or a hacker group. Why are leading international broadcasters getting involved?

If we're talking about providing free access to censored content that people should be able to see in order to know what is happening in their country and around them - which does not include promoting things that are lawless -I think we have the same mindset.

We have great people who know ways around censorship and we want to share this knowledge. In that respect, I think there is no difference between people who call themselves activists and broadcasters like DW.

Bypass Censorship is co-sponsored by Deutsche Welle, the BBC, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), France Mdias Monde (FMM) and the Open Technology Fund. Guido Baumhauer is DW's Managing Director of Distribution, Marketing and Technology.

Thisinterview was conducted by Helena Kaschel.

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Fighting censorship online: 'It's an ongoing race' - Deutsche Welle

Fort Worth Star Telegram (blog)

Kaepernick case isn't about race but NFL censorship Fort Worth Star Telegram (blog) In short, Kaep' is full of it. If a team had offered him a job with a seven or six-figure salary he would have played ball, even on the bench. He would have been dumb not to, and this is not a dumb man. Kaep's famous taking of a knee is the ultimate ...

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Kaepernick case isn't about race but NFL censorship - Fort Worth Star Telegram (blog)

The Weibo microblogging app displayed on an iPhone, April 22, 2014. Brent LewinBloomberg/Getty Images

China's media oversight body has ordered three major online companies to halt some of their multi-media streaming services, the government's latest move to tighten controls on an already restricted Internet.

Agence France-Presse reports that Sina Weibo the country's Twitter-like microblogging site with more than 340 million users as well as news sites iFeng.com and ACFUN, were informed they lacked permits required by the body to run audio-visual streams.

An announcement by China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said the sites hosted "many politically-related programs that do not conform with state rules," and authorities are trying to "create a cleaner cyberspace," according to AFP.

Earlier this month another regulator, the Beijing Cyberspace Administration, ordered internet companies to terminate social media accounts that cater to "the public's vulgar taste" and disseminate celebrity gossip, AFP reports.

Willy Lam, a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong's centre for China studies, tells TIME that Beijing has steadily tightened the screws on expression ahead of the Chinese Communist Party's 19th Congress, due to be held around October.

Lam says that Chinese President Xi Jinping " wants stability above all else in this sensitive period," but that ultimately censorship could backfire. " The more control of the media there is, the more ordinary Chinese tend to believe in speculation and innuendo," he says.

[ AFP ]

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Chinese Authorities Crack Down on Streaming to Create a 'Cleaner Cyberspace' - TIME