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MONROVIA Twenty-five aspiring female politicians who attended the pilot social media and digital marketing skills training facilitated by UN Women Liberia in collaboration with Orange Digital Center from 18 to 20 April 2023 are now equipped to use social media and digital marketing tools, Facebook, WhatsApp and Tik Tok, among others, to advance their political careers, communicate and run effective campaigns ahead of the October 2023 general elections.

Aspirants from various political parties in Liberia attended the training.

I learned how to use WhatsApp to broadcast messages to many people and how to use digital tools to create an event on Facebook, says Siah McCarthy Hare, an aspiring candidate.

I am happy that we have completed the training and will be able to demonstrate what we have learned. I want to assure UN Women and Orange Digital Center that what they have imparted to us will not be wasted. They will see the positive results. The digital skills I learned will help to boost my campaign and help me to reach out to people online through different platforms, she said.

Before the training, I could not use some functions of the phone. I have learnt how to send messages to many people in a minute. I used to pay people to design fliers and plan events for me. With the knowledge I have acquired, I can now create events on Facebook on my own, said Ms. McCarthy.

Another participant, Victoria Torlo Koiquan, said she would use the digital skills she acquired to enhance her campaign and to help people know that she is running for a Senatorial post during the upcoming elections.

I had never posted a message on my WhatsApp status, but during the training, I posted a message, and within minutes, I received more than 100 messages in response. This means we can showcase our work in the community through WhatsApp. Some people are not on Facebook, but they are on WhatsApp. I will continue sharing messages on various social media platforms because I want more people to know I am running, she said.

Ms. Koiquan highlighted that she learnt a lot of things during the training. I learnt to post on my story, broadcast messages through WhatsApp and create events, she said.

Comfort Lamptey, UN Women Liberia Country Representative, applauded the female political aspirants for their decision to stand as candidates and embracing social media as a tool to advance their political careers and carry out more effective campaigns and fundraising in the upcoming elections.

In todays world, social media and digital platforms are critical tools for connecting with voters, building a strong campaign, and sharing messages with a broader audience, said Ms. Lamptey.

In addition, Zaza Mulbah, Orange Digital Centres Senior Manager, highlighted that his organization was proud to be associated with women who want to make a change. He encouraged the aspirants to embrace social media and set a good example so their voices could be heard, and the training could be extended to women in other parts of the country. If you have aspired to go into politics and want to advance your career, there is no way you can avoid social media, he said.

UN Women is partnering with the Orange Digital Center and the Government of Sweden to strengthen the capacity of female aspirants contributing towards womens equal participation as candidates ahead of the October 2023 elections in Liberia. Women are grossly underrepresented in the legislature, where only 10.7 percent of the elected lawmakers are women.

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Liberia: Aspiring Female Politicians Acquire Social Media And Digital Marketing Skills Ahead Of General Elections - Front Page Africa

Position Description: Director Marketing and Communications

The American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ) is seeking an experienced, collaborative, high-performing Director of Marketing and Communications.

This position reports to the organizations Executive Director. The role has primary responsibility for the organizations marketing and communications programs, including editorial and marketing content across multiple channels and vehicles (website, video, social media, direct mail, print collateral, newsletters, annual reports), graphic design, publicity and support of a national video-based education program for churches.

AFEDJ is an established 501 (c) (3) non-profit. Our mission is to transform the lives of the vulnerable and displaced in the Middle East through support of schools, hospitals, and centers for children with disabilities. The institutions we support are owned and operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem in Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of experience in strategic communications planning, message platform development and implementation; strong, current skills in digital content development and management; proficiency in graphic design; a track record of building strong relationships with media outlets and writing effective media releases and stories; experience meeting the communications needs of a network of advocates for an organizations mission. The candidate will have passion and enthusiasm for AFEDJs mission, rooted in faith, and familiarity with the Middle East and sensitivity to its culture.

Responsibilities

Qualifications

Benefits

This is a remote position with occasional travel to events across the U.S. and site visits in the Middle East.

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Director of Marketing and Communications Episcopal News Service - Episcopal News Service

NEW YORK

The Creator Economy is a class of businesses built by more than 200 million content creators, curators, social media influencers, bloggers, podcasters, and videographers that use software and finance tools to assist them with their growth and monetization. This marks a 314% growth in the number of content creators globally since The Influencer Marketing Factory's 2021 Creator Economy Report.

The Influencer Marketing Factory completed a survey that studied the creator economy market from both the user and creator perspectives. This survey was focused on users and creators to understand the preferences of a creator when making content and how much they are able to monetize, while also understanding how users like to support their favorite influencers and which platforms they use most.

After analyzing its results, The Influencer Marketing Factory narrowed down five main findings. Which include:

Learn more about the findings on the Creator Economy and more insight:Download The Creator Economy Report(70+ Pages) for free and check out theinfographic.

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About The Influencer Marketing Factory:

The Influencer Marketing Factoryis a global full-service influencer marketing agency that helps brands engage with Gen Z and Millennials audiences on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.

Excerpt from:
The 2023 Creator Economy Report by the Influencer Marketing Factory - Social Media Today

With new technological advances, consumer behaviour is changing and the advertising industry is paying close attention to Artificial intelligence (AI) and influencer marketing as these mediums are better known for holding attention.

Today, as consumers become more aware, advertisers are listening to their opinions and shaping their narratives accordingly. There is a need to provide an interactive value to them.

Dheeraj Sinha, CEO, Leo Burnett, South Asia & Chairman BBH India believes this is the best time to be in the advertising and marketing business. He said that the value chain is moving from advertising talking down to people, to solving business problems. There is an opportunity to move up the value chain, to solve problems for people.

Reflecting back, he remembered how advertisers played jingles and people watched because they didnt have a choice. Today, that entitlement is gone.

I think the whole value chain is now moving from advertising talking down to people to actually solving human problems and solving business problems.

With increasing fragmentation, the right to earn a consumers time is a challenge today.

T Gangadhar (Gangs), Co-Founder & Group CEO, Quotient Ventures mentioned how the focus areas in advertising goals have changed over the years. Previously, it was broadly related to entertaining and performing while today, you are either entertaining or inspiring.

Citing a few campaigns conceptualized by Leo Burnett for ACKO and Whispers The Missing Chapter, he mentioned how the agency has tried to solve problems and make them interesting for people and that has, in turn, provided value.

For ACKO, we built a technology which is strapped on a bike and it sees a submerged pothole and protects and guides you around it. This saves lives. Thats advertising, thats content and people are interacting with it. For Whisper, to build penetration for sanitary pads, were not saying, Look we have a package of pads thats better than cloth. Were saying, lets have the chapter on menstrual hygiene in NCERT books.

Creating value for consumers and clients goes hand-in-hand. Abe Thomas, CEO, Reliance Broadcast Network (BIG FM) observes two clear trends that are moving the industry forward in this day. The first one being the solutions clients are looking for in the radio segment.

Increasingly, more and more clients are giving briefs saying, Western UP is a challenging market for us, how can you fix it?

Thomas mentioned that the network has built a specialized creative unit to provide solutions for clients which brings in business outcomes. This big shift of clients searching for business outcomes has proved to become a sizable revenue stream for them.

The network has also done an event in the metaverse to show their client that they can actually go there and drive outcomes for them.

As of 2022, the influencer marketing industry in India was valued at over 12 billion Indian rupees. It is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25% over the next five years with its market value estimated to amount to Rs 28 billion Indian by 2026. In 2022, nearly 55 million urban Indians were direct consumers of influencers of various kinds.

However, Rana Barua, Group CEO, Havas Group India believes influencer marketing isnt going to be credible in the long term. He pointed out it works well for experiential marketing, tourism, and food, but its better to be cautious when it comes to authenticity.

I think we will still stick to the bigger form of ideas, we will stick to data, technology, and other platforms, I dont see influencer marketing as a very powerful thing.

At the core, he believes that the whole debate between new and traditional forms of advertising, the way we create and solve problems in advertising remains the same which is making use of the bigger mediums.

Adding to this, Sinha believes that India will be a country where influencers will be on television and there will be a mix of all mediums to advertise.

On the other hand, Rohit Gopakumar, COO, Optimal Media Solutions (Times Group) pointed out that with changing times and embracing them, Times Group has set up an influencer marketing team that has grown 300 PC in just three years. he further added by saying, The more influencer activity happens, we have seen more ad dollars come into the system.

On similar lines, Saurabh Saksena, CEO, VMLY&R India stated that if influencers are creating credibility and trust in brands, thats very valuable.

It is a well-documented fact that when for consumers to trust brands, they will trust people like themselves. Suppose I want to buy something, and an influencer knows a little bit more than me and endorses this brand, chances are that I am more likely to buy it. I think thats the power that we want to have.

He mentioned how harnessing the power of micro-influencers from small towns, might not get many opportunities but their influence can have quite a bit of reach.

The rapid advancement of AI-generated tools hasnt just piqued the audiences interest, but marketers around the globe are curious as well.

The panel had mixed opinions on the integration of AI and advertising and gave their opinions and standpoints on this emerging trend.

Gangs T Gangadhar pointed out how the jury is still unconvinced about AI. He further stated, It will have its uses. I am a big believer in the human mind and it will continue to rule. Creativity and Big ideas will rule.

Having a similar opinion on how humans and their potential still have a long way to go in the industry, Saurabh Saksena said, ChatGPT or the likes cannot replace human intuition. Brilliance cannot be replicated. For brilliance, you need intuition and a deep understanding of people. And that, at least for the time being, is in the domain of humans,

Where the other panellists were still uncertain about the new tech in the town, Dheeraj Sinha seemed warm towards it.

He said that he is open to the idea of AI tools as it will eventually ease the process. Talking about its emergence he added, Anytime there is a change of platform, there will be resistance. Previously the resistance was seen with the shift from AirBrush to Adobe. But, these are all tools and we will need people to feed these tools. I am open to embracing it. If technology can help me eliminate the long tail and improve accuracy, it frees my people to solve the creativity problems.

At the FICCI Frames 2023 session What is the future of Advertising, moderated by Vinit Karnik, Business Head Entertainment, Group M, panellists discussed what lies ahead as the landscape advances.

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What lies ahead for advertising as AI and influencer marketing gain ... - Social Samosa

LAWRENCE Through workshops and scholarly writing, experts from the University of Kansas are guiding conversations about the roles and responsibilities that schools of social work have to educate the next generation of social workers serving LGBTQ+ individuals in an environment of expanding anti-trans legislation across the country. Adding weight to the conversation is that sometimes such social workers are transgender or gender-expansive individuals who themselves experience the same challenges that put people in crisis.

The University of Kansas School of Social Welfare has hosted two annual town halls and led a recent scholarly journal special edition on the roles and responsibilities that schools of social work have in such an environment.

Weve seen an onslaught of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ policy and legislation across the U.S. Every year we hear it is the worst year yet for such policy and then the next year is worse again, said Meg Paceley, associate professor of social welfare and director of the Toni Johnson Scholars for Racial and Social Justice Program. The social justice values of our profession call for us to fight against oppression through social work education. Many of us do community-based work, and the ethics and values of our field call on us to do more.

Following the inaugural 2022 town hall on anti-trans policies and social work education, the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare approached the organizers about editing a special issue of the journal focusing on similar topics. The issue was published in an open-access format this month. Paceley and co-editor Candace Christensen of the University of Texas, San Antonio, made a call for submissions. The journal includes contributions from scholars and students from across the country on the broad themes of transgender and gender-expansive student and faculty experiences in social work education and strategies for teaching, organizing and innovating social work education to promote more trans-inclusive social work education.

The goal of the journal issue is not to advocate for or against any certain policies at a state or national level, but rather to critically engage with social work and social work educations responsibility to acknowledge the harm caused by anti-trans policies and rhetoric and commit to centering transgender and gender-expansive people, communities and issues in their curriculum, programs, procedures and community-based work.

Paceley and Christensen wrote an introduction to the special issue. In it, they address the larger issue of anti-trans policy, how it has largely targeted youth and students and the specific topics authors address throughout the special issue. They close with a call for faculty, social work education programs and accrediting bodies to create equitable, affirming and inclusive structures, systems and practices for the trans and gender-expansive community.

Something Im very happy about is the positionality of our authors. We have students, organizers, faculty and others, Christensen said. And as an open access journal, we wanted it to be available to anyone who is interested in seeing it.

Topics covered by contributing authors include accounts of transphobia in class, a challenge to schools of social work to evolve, practicum experiences of trans and nonbinary social work students, trans-affirming pedagogy, mutual aid from queer and trans perspectives and anti-trans policies and practices in social work education, accreditation and licensing, among others.

Paceley and Emera Greenwood, a KU masters of social work student, co-wrote a chapter as well.

It takes a look at individual experiences and what its like to be a trans, nonbinary student in the Midwest. And it also pulls in their journey through the program, recognizing the harm they experienced alongside the hope and community they found, Paceley said of the entry. And its interspersed with my experiences as a faculty member and recommendations on how programs can address these issues and do better. We can all do better.

Recommendations include examining syllabi and school policies for instances of anti-trans language, creating inclusive written materials, ensuring guidebooks are gender inclusive and finding ways to talk about transphobia in the classroom.

Sometimes what students experience is pretty explicit, and people dont know how to respond. So were providing recommendations on classroom competency and how to respond to such incidents, whether explicit or unintentional, Paceley said.

The journal and town hall from which it formed are not political in nature or responding to any specific policies, but designed to encourage educators, university administrators and accrediting bodies to consider the reality of current society and how the landscape of anti-trans policy can be perpetuated within schools that are not only teaching trans and gender-expansive individuals, but also the future social workers who will work in diverse communities.

Image credit: KU Marketing

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Scholars outline responsibilities of schools of social welfare in era of ... - KU Today