Archive for July, 2017

The Latest: Israeli media: Cameras may secure holy site – Kansas City Star


Kansas City Star
The Latest: Israeli media: Cameras may secure holy site
Kansas City Star
The installation of the metal detectors last week had outraged the Muslim world. The railings seen Monday are of the type used for crowd control, to create orderly lines. Israeli police declined to comment. A media report has suggested that such ...

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The Latest: Israeli media: Cameras may secure holy site - Kansas City Star

The media manipulators who poisoned the coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline also sold us the Iraq war – Boing Boing

The Standing Rock protesters were an unprecedented coalition of indigenous peoples, veterans, and activists of every stripe, and they faced down vicious mercenaries who targeted them with "anti-terrorist" tactics.

But the oil industry and its authoritarian pals didn't just buy muscle, they also bought ideas: hiring firms like Delve and Off the Record Strategies to secretly develop talking points and coordinate PR strategy to discredit the water protectors.

These PR firms worked with DCI Group -- a GOP PR favorite -- who created an astroturf organization called the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN) (now called Grow Americas Infrastructure Now, or GAIN).

Significantly, the PR apparatus mobilized to discredit the water protectors cut its teeth selling America on George W Bush's Iraq invasion. For example, Off the Record principle Mark Pfeifle was GWB's communications advisor for justifying the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's just the tip of the iceberg: the rogues' gallery of PR flacks who worked to justify the poisoning-at-gunpoint of the Standing Rock water supply are a who's who of GWB-era dark arts practitioners, and leaks of their talking points documents show that they originated the fake news that the right-wing press circulated about the water protectors.

Pfeifle, who heads Off the Record Strategies, specializes in damage control, according to a 2005 Baltimore Sun story profiling the Bush White House communications strategy to fend off domestic critics of the Iraq War.

Pfeifle's specialty is damage control. And at the moment, there is more than enough damage surrounding Bush, The Sun wrote of the campaign Pfeifle co-ran with the host of MSNBCs Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace, who then was a top communications advisor to President Bush. With public alarm about the war mounting and public trust of Bush plummeting, the White House has gone on the defensive with a public relations push designed to discredit his opponents. The operation has all the trappings of a political campaign including rapid-response statements targeted at opponents, using carefully compiled research.

Pfeifle isnt the only person with ties to the Iraq War who did public relations for Dakota Access. James Spider Marks led intelligence-gathering for the 2003 shock and awe campaign for Operation Iraqi Liberation. Today, he serves as a consultant to Energy Transfer Partners and sits on the advisory board of TigerSwan, the companys private security firm and a funder of the National Sheriffs Association.

With a tagline of Private Council/Public Results, Off the Record Strategies does all of its business behind the scenes and rarely issues public comments.

If we told you exactly what we do, wed have to go on the record, reads its website. Were strategic counselors with decades of high-level experience and a no-holds-barred approach to meeting and exceeding our clients needs through personal and confidential service.

Emails Show Iraq War PR Alums Led Attempt to Discredit Dakota Access Protesters [Steve Horn and Curtis Waltman/Desmog]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, having been thrown under the bus by Donald Trump, has clearly run out of fucks to give, and so now hes not only reviving the feel-good anti-drug program that convinced kids to take drugs, not only directing fed cops to arrest people who take weed in states where its legal []

The GOPs 7-year promise to repeal and replace Obamacare ends in a flaming pile of fail.

58% of right-leaning Americans believe that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country; only 36% of Republican-leaning voters support higher education.

Web content creators who dont have a solid SEO strategy should take note of Webtexttool. Its a service that pulls in anonymous data from their entire user base to offer crowdsourced guidance that increases your search page ranks. By analyzing prior user successes, it helps you better gauge how your posts will perform at a []

Just because English has become the common global tongue doesnt mean its the easiest language to writeeven for native speakers. If youre looking to improve your written communication skills, especially on your smartphone, take a look at Ginger Page.Ginger is a cross-platform app that offers corrections for phrasing as well as grammar. Its powered by []

The current web development landscape is rife with buzzwords and technology that gets abandoned almost as soon as its made. If youve never written a line of code before, it can be hard to figure out whats coming, whats here to stay, or how to get ahead.This Beginner Web Development Bundle is a great place []

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The media manipulators who poisoned the coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline also sold us the Iraq war - Boing Boing

Digital producer – Journalism.co.uk

Purpose of the role:

The Digital Producer is responsible for ensuring the visual quality of the SciDev.Net website and for maximising each pages reach by appropriate use of SEO and other appropriate techniques. They ensure production delivery by overseeing digital support tools and provide training for regional and editorial staff. They are responsible for the efficient delivery of technical content, notices and comments and for internal commissioning of graphics and data visualisations. The role will also be expected to provide basic web technical support ensuring digital product service delivery for the website and key core business systems (CRM, production manager and analytics tools), through liaison with key suppliers.

For the foreseeable future, the Digital Producer will also have some responsibility for User Engagement such as managing the Twitter feed and Facebook posts.

Key accountabilities:

Digital production

Responsible for online layout of articles and appropriate image selection

Creation of data visualisation tools such as interactive graphics and maps

Proofreading of articles and editing of headlines where required

Responsible for quality assurance, technical delivery and control around the look and content of all digital products;

Creation, training delivery and support of a digital production enabling environment supporting editorial staff to post content (non-technical) efficiently to the website;

Quality assurance and technical posting all material (articles, notices, containers and promotional content) on to the SciDev.Net website via the content management system (CMS);

Updating and creating new sections and pages of the website and other digital products;

Responsible for set up, integration and efficient production of other outputs e.g. debates;

Ensuring production synergy across all digital delivery channels and products (including social media, search, email alerts and externally hosted online training course and longform/dataviz content).

Coordinating non-editorial (i.e. web, marketing, notices) content production tasks to digital delivery, ensuring subediting and translation as required.

Ensuring future production and digital needs are met relating to digital strategy.

Digital, user and social media engagement

Supports digital strategy, including SEO, keywords and topic metadata;

Supports and integrates social media strategy into web and digital product pages and supporting social media output delivery and user engagement.

Graphic design and creation for user engagement (print and online)

Coordinating comments to the website, supporting editorial community engagement and writing community engagement guidelines.

Creating and sending out weekly alerts, and when applicable, proofreading and sending out marketing email alerts.

Production planning, communication and workflows

Supporting efficient and consistent regional production delivery through monitoring and regular liaison with regional coordinators and editorial stakeholders.

Coordinating regular production meetings (with regional coordinators and user engagement as appropriate).

Produces and maintains online documentation and guides for digital production, and supports staff through training.

Responsible for maintaining production schedules and tracking and communication tools.

People management

Provide production leadership to regional coordinators and editorial stakeholders, including training, regular communications and monitoring of tasks and providing feedback where appropriate.

Manage external suppliers and consultants to ensure smooth delivery of website and core business system (including CRM and Production Manager) services and projects, as well as other consultants engaged in graphic or data visualisation production.

Other

Supports digital effectiveness through data capture and analysis using Google Analytics, CMS and other performance monitoring tools.

Support implementation and testing of new digital products and those supporting production workflow, including user experience testing;

The role will be expected to perform additional duties as reasonably commensurate with the role.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Knowledge & Skills

REQUIRED

At least three years experience in a digital production role

Knowledge of, HTML and CSS

Knowledge of Google Analytics

SEO for improved user engagement

Eye for design

DESIRABLE

Person management

Some practical knowledge or experience of daily or weekly journalism

Copy-writing skills

Excellent Microsoft office application skills

A working knowledge of Spanish, French or Arabic. A broad interest in science and technology as it relates to the developing world

A scientific background

Experience of delivering training or workshops

Experience of graphic design, photo editing and data visualisation software

Education & Qualifications

REQUIRED

DESIRABLE

Personal Characteristics

REQUIRED

Good time management skills

Ability to work under pressure

Resourceful and able to take initiative for troubleshooting technical problems

DESIRABLE

**NOTE: **This job description is not intended to be exhaustive. It is expected that the post holder and CABI will adopt a flexible attitude and accept that the duties may have to be varied according to circumstances, in particular changing corporate requirements and individual development needs.

Subscribe to our daily (Mon-Fri) email job alerts to get more jobs like this and/or follow @journalism_jobs on Twitter.

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Digital producer - Journalism.co.uk

Understanding internet marketing lead generation [Infographic] – Social Barrel (blog)

Posted By Brad Shorr on Jul 24, 2017 |

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Source https://www.pinterest.com/pin/205476801724784738/

A lead generation campaign is an engine that drives your business to continued success. Like any other type of engine, a lead generation campaign is an extremely complicated kind of machine that must be assembled with care.

Every component, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, needs to be in its proper place or else the machine wont function well.

For example, people visit websites for a variety of reasons, and lead generation websites need to be built with all of those reasons in mind. A visitor who comes to a website to research a particular product or service may be swayed by customer testimonials or case studies.

However, a well-crafted social media post shared by friends may grab the attention of someone who wasnt even thinking about needing that particular product or service, and drive that person to visit the website.

Other types of visitors become aware of useful products or services through referrals from blogs or news sites. These elements plus many others must be present in a lead generation campaign to ensure that none of those potential customers are left behind.

Here at Internet marketing company Straight North, weve spent a lot of time examining successful lead generation campaigns and taking them apart to understand how they work. In doing so, weve identified the most common essential elements that all lead generation campaigns must have to be successful and organized them into the infographic below.

By using this flowchart as a blueprint of sorts, Internet marketers have a tool that can help them visualize how a successful lead generation campaign is assembled. This helps ensure that when they put their campaigns together, nothing is excluded, and they will have a campaign that addresses every possible type of visitor their websites will encounter.

For instance, the lead validation element toward the bottom of the chart is a critical component that far too many online marketers ignore or forget when putting their campaigns together. Without it, however, they are missing crucial data that provides them with better reporting that feeds into their conversion optimization efforts. If they didnt have this infographic to use as a blueprint, theres a good chance that the lead validation element might not make it into the finished website product.

Whether youre building a lead generation campaign from the ground up or optimizing an existing one, take a moment to examine this illustration of the lead generation ecosystem. Make sure that the engine driving your business success is firing on all cylinders.

Brad Shorr is Director of Content Strategy for Straight North, which provides SEO and PPC services, and is a leader among Internet marketing companies. Shorr has more than 25 years of marketing, sales and management experience, and has been featured on reputable sites including Forbes and Entrepreneur.

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Author: Brad Shorr

Brad Shorr is Director of Content Strategy for Straight North which provides SEO and PPC services, and is a leader among Internet marketing companies. Shorr has more than 25 years of marketing, sales and management experience, and has been featured on reputable sites including Forbes and Entrepreneur.

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Understanding internet marketing lead generation [Infographic] - Social Barrel (blog)

WebMD acquired by Internet Brands, a portfolio company of KKR, for $2.8 billion – MobiHealthNews

WebMD Health Corp., operators of the popular WebMD website, is being acquired by Internet Brands, a portfolio company of KKR, for about $2.8 billion.

A subsidiary of Internet Brands will float a tender offer in the next 10 business days to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of WebMD common stock for $66.50 per share, to be paid in cash when the transactions a done deal.

The valuation represents a premium of about 30 percent to WebMD's share price on February 15 of this year -- the day before WebMD announced that it was starting to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives -- as well as a premium of around 20 percent over WebMD's closing share price on July 21.

The financing for the transaction is fully committed, and the WebMD Board of Directors has approved the merger agreement. The acquisition is expected to close during the fourth quarter of this year, subject to the all of the customary closing conditions.

Martin J. Wygod, Chairman of WebMD, said the transaction provides our stockholders with immediate and significant cash value and a substantial premium. He said WebMD and its financial advisors reached out to more than 100 strategic and financial partners, garnering confidence that stockholders value would be maximized by the move.

Bob Brisco, CEO of Internet Brands, called WebMD a trusted source for health information with unparalleled reach to consumers and healthcare professionals.

Internet Brands' health vertical serves millions of consumers and more than 50,000 healthcare practices utilizing a multi-brand, multi-product approach. The company is the leading SaaS/web hosting player in the health space, serving a wide variety of practice areas, including dental, chiropractic, veterinary, vision care, and mental/physical therapy. Its health SaaS businesses provide web presence, online marketing and practice management solutions to practices across the country. These businesses include Demandforce, Officite, Sesame Communications and Baystone Media.

The company's consumer-focused health brands provide content and online communities for consumers in search of health-related information. These include DentalPlans.com, eHealthForum.com, HealthBoards.com, FitDay.com and VeinDirectory.org.

Equity financing for the transaction is being provided primarily by KKR's private equity funds.

The news comes during a busy period for WebMD. The company posted an 8 percent increase in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016 as well as improved bio-pharma advertising, and a bump in their health and information services. Medscape continues to be the companys powerhouse, with 60 percent of the advertising revenue and 8.3 million physician sessions per month. The number of consumer visitors to the WebMD health network was also up on both desktop and mobile, with 64 million users during the quarter.

And as of March, people who use the Amazon Alexa voice-assistant service can launch the WebMD skill on any Alexa-enabled device -- such as the Echo, Echo Dot and Amazon Fire TV -- and ask a question about a range of health-related topics including conditions, medication, tests and treatments. Alexa will respond with WebMD-sourced answers in easy-to-understand language.

Rumors that WebMD was shopping around for a buyer have sprung up for years. In January 2016 the company denied rumors that it was in conversations with Walgreens and UnitedHealthcare. At that time, we dove into the company's history and the ways in which it has navigated the emergence of digital health as a category.

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WebMD acquired by Internet Brands, a portfolio company of KKR, for $2.8 billion - MobiHealthNews