Archive for the ‘Social Marketing’ Category

SBJ Football: The USFL steps up for its turn in the spring spotlight – Sports Business Journal

Just anecdotally, tourist and commuter crowds seem to have really surged this week in Manhattan, which is especially notable juxtaposed with the ridiculous fear mongering about this city I see so often.

When I asked USFL Exec VP/Football Operations Daryl Johnston what constitutes success for the new league, he said: The rally cry here is getting to Year 2." That seemingly simple ambition has eluded just about every pro football league that has launched in recent memory.

If the USFL is to become the first 11-on-11 spring league to have a sophomore year in nearly four decades, it must do two things:

With spending in mind, consider a few points that really stand out compared to most startups:

Birmingham's Protective Stadium will house all USFL games in the league's debut season

In terms of the product, execs from the USFL, Fox and NBC will be thrilled if there are eight QBs who can remain vertical and consistently hit a receiver in stride, and four games each weekend that are still up for grabs in the fourth quarter.

But Johnston does hope for some innovation value-adds. The USFL will use sensors -- not chains -- to measure for first downs, and the games will have more production elements than any game Fox has ever broadcast, aside from Super Bowls, Johnston said. Theres going to be so many unique and good things to talk about when this thing is over, its really going to be something that grabs the viewers attention, grabs the football fans attention, he noted.

Also, Fox Entertainments Blockchain Creative Labs is launching an NFT marketplace, and players will be allowed to create and profit from their own NFTs. Players who wear helmet-cams will be able to use that video too. Empowering players to be entrepreneurial with their own brand and identity is key to the plan. I wouldnt be surprised if we have a couple guys who make more money in the marketplace than they do in salary, Johnston said.

The first game is Saturday at 7:30pm ET, on both Fox and NBC. Three more games are on Sunday (NBC, USA Network and FS1).

After this weekend, the USFL will be back in court with some officials of the original USFL, who claim the new league has no rights to the league and team IP. I dont predict the thinking of a judge Ive never met before, but industry sources dont consider this suit a serious threat.

If the USFL does make it to Year 2, it will have competition in the form of a new-look XFL. The USFL has its players under effective two-year contracts, hoping to block out its stars from considering the XFL.

Late last month, Chiefs CMO Lara Krug and VP/Corporate Partnerships Kim Hobbs joined a contingent of six other team employees and two retired players for an eight-day trip to Germany, where the team now has marking and media rights under the NFLs international program.

One day, they convened a focus group of about 25 local NFL fans over beer and Bavarian cuisine at Paulaner Nockherberg, a large beer hall in Munich. Krug passes on two key learnings:

Along with the focus group, the Chiefs met with potential sponsors and media partners, and also started generating Germany-specific content. Accompanying them on the trip was Bayern Munich VP/Marketing & Communications for the Americas Dee Kundra (the Bundesliga club has a partnership with Hunt Sports Group).

Former players Dante Hall and Tim Grunhard pose with Munich residents at an outdoor market

The platform, from 6Connex, allows Rams fans to gather together virtually in various rooms

Rams

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SBJ Football: The USFL steps up for its turn in the spring spotlight - Sports Business Journal

31 Social Media Marketing Tools You Need to Try in 2021 …

Social media plays a vital role in the promotion of your brand online. You can direct thousands of visitors to your website by leveraging social media effectively.

A study found that 70% of the population in the US is active on at least one social media platform. It also found that 71% of shoppers who had a positive experience on social media are likely to recommend the brand to others.

When done right, social media marketing can bring remarkable success to your brand. You can create and share a variety of valuable content on social media platforms to attract new audiences and drive engagement.

However, it can be a difficult task to manage all of your social media accounts and marketing campaigns manually. Thankfully, there are tools that can help you with social media management and automation (Some of these software solutions are free too!).

Disclosure: This content has a few affiliate links, which means if you click on them, I will get a commission (without any extra cost to you).

Ive put together this list of the best and the most effective social media marketing tools which can help you grow your brand online and boost your engagement.

Are you ready to explore the top features of these tools?

Lets dig in.

Inflact is a tried-and-tested social media marketing tool, mainly for Instagram promotion. It is an all-in-one toolkit for influencers, brands, and digital marketers.

Using this tool, you can grow your followers, curate content, and analyze your competitors.

Key Features

Note: Want to try Inflact? Use the coupon code SHANEBARKER to get a 10% discount on all their paid tools.

ContentCal is a great team collaboration social media marketing tool that can help you and your team with content creation and publishing. Using it, you can create a visual content calendar and set up approval flows with ease.

Key Features

Pros

Cons

Difficulty Level

Suitable for everyone

Pricing

Their Pro and Company plan offers a 14-day free trial. You can check out its features for free.

Case Study

Jeremy Ryan from Metamorphosis Agency says that ContentCal is a great tool for those who want to manage multiple social media accounts.

Pro Tip: Leverage the planning features to customize your setup and save time while using ContentCal.

Liinks helps creators design and build pages in minutes and it offers more customization options than other link-in-bio tools. It helps ensure that no two pages are the same. Its great for brands, creatives, and personalities who want full control over the look and feel of their page.

Key Features

Pros

Cons

Difficulty Level

Pricing

Premium and Team plans offer a 14-day free trial.

Case Study

Ally Love (775k followers on Instagram) uses Liinks in her bio link.

Pro Tip: Upgrade to Liinks Team plan to easily manage multiple pages under one account.

The social media marketing tool comes with a plethora of features that can help businesses automate a number of tasks across social media platforms and even their blog.

Many business owners and marketers leverage this social media marketing tool to boost their productivity, engagement, and to drive the best results.

Top Features:

NapoleonCat is a full-service platform to manage all aspects of social media marketing, from publishing to tracking conversations and analyzing the performance of your social media efforts. It allows you to drive pre-sales conversations, answer typical inquiries automatically, and reduce response time on social media.

By automating your campaigns, NapoleonCat allows you to increase efficiency and cost savings by up to 70%. Being an official Facebook Marketing Partner, NapoleonCat can be trusted to offer reliable marketing solutions.

Want to know the best part?

They offer a 14-day free trial, no credit card information is required. Sign up today!

Key Features

Pros

Cons

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Usability: It can be used with ease by solopreneurs, SMBs, enterprises, agencies, ecommerce stores, and content creators.

Pricing

Case Study

CCC, a European footwear retailer, was facing a challenge with maintaining their 496 Google My Business listings. Their customer service team was spending hours accessing and answering the 1000+ client reviews gathered in their scattered listings on a daily basis.

After using NapoleonCat, the CCC team is able to respond to reviews from a single inbox. In addition, they can analyze customer sentiment and tag reviews as positive, neutral, or negative. By reducing response times, they are able to get higher customer satisfaction and eventually repeat sales.

Pro Tip: To save time and effort, set up automatic replies to routine questions/comments about delivery times, store location, and hours of operation. For complex inquiries, set up automated redirects to designated team members.

Tailwind is a social media marketing tool for visual marketers and businesses who use Instagram and Pinterest. You can discover content, schedule posts, monitor conversations, amplify your reach, and analyze results using Tailwind.

Key Features:

Buffer is a social media marketing tool that can help you post your content easily on social networking platforms.

Whats more, you ask?

It has got amazing automation features as well.

It can publish all your posts automatically, according to your posting schedule. You can even post content while browsing the web using the Buffer browser extension.

Key Features

Khoros is an effective social media marketing tool that helps businesses connect with their customers effectively.

It helps you automate content publishing across multiple social media platforms and monitor conversations about your brand.

And the best part?

You can join these conversations and interact with your potential customers more effectively. This can help you drive engagement.

Key Features

Sprout Social is a social media marketing tool that enables you to find, form, and deepen real connections with people. It is a collaborative platform that ensures faster, smarter, and efficient social communications.

Key Features

Socialbakers is a social media marketing tool that enables businesses to work smart on social media through artificial intelligence (AI) to understand audience behavior.

This tool helps you to engage and grow your customer base through content personalization.

Key Features

Tagboard is a social media marketing tool that allows users to aggregate data from major social media websites into impactful displays. They can then be embedded and re-displayed on various channels.

Their Tagboard Live tool allows you to see your posts live on a screen and provides layouts and tools to customize the display. Its one of the best social media management tools out there.

Key Features

Talkwalker is a comprehensive social media marketing tool that enables you to stay on top of your marketing game. Using this tool, you can leverage social data to make smarter business decisions.

Ready to find out something really cool about Talkwalker?

With AI-powered technology, this tool can monitor online conversations in real-time and analyze them. It covers news websites, blogs, social networks, and other forums in more than 180 languages.

Key Features

Statusbrew is a social media marketing tool that can help you manage and monitor all of your social media accounts from a single platform.

Key Features

Post Planner makes it easy for businesses to find and share content consistently to get predictable, considerable, and remarkable results on social media. Its a social media marketing tool that will be very helpful to your content and social media teams.

Key Features

Most companies have accounts on multiple social media platforms. Managing content publishing on multiple accounts can be very time-consuming.

What can you do about it?

You can use Hootsuite is one of the best social media marketing tool that can help you manage all of your social media accounts from a single dashboard.

It has some automation features that can help you be more productive. Using this social media tool, you can easily find, schedule, and manage your social media content easily.

Key Features

More here:
31 Social Media Marketing Tools You Need to Try in 2021 ...

The latest angle on social media marketing produce to families – The Packer

Social medias importance in marketing to families cant be overstated. And the strategy is changing.

Mastronardi Produce's social media influencers reach target consumers by promoting the brands on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.

Weve learned that user-generated content highly impacts purchasing decisions and creates a high level of brand trust, said Julia Shreve, director of marketing, brand and innovation at the Kingsville, Ontario-based greenhouse grower.

Marketers are responding to the major shift on social toward video content, with the rise of TikTok and Instagram reels.

Also, the creator economy has made influencers and user-generated content a significant consideration for any social marketing strategy, Shreve said. Its important to stay on top of these social trends in order to reach consumers and stay relevant, she said.

Orlando, Fla.-based Healthy Family Projects March Mission for Nutrition social initiatives included a live Facebook cooking class, Twitter party, regular giveaways, video on Instagram and Tik Tok, and sharing of recipe content throughout the month.

These social efforts garnered more than 17 million social media impressions, managing director Amanda Keefer said.

TikTok and Instagram reels have been very successful for us, Keefer said. Also, giveaways have been doing well. People are looking for extra savings and freebies.

The "Dole Healthy Heroes, Assemble!" campaign will have adedicated social media campaign on its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest pages, as well asblogger partnerships.

Launched in March, the centerpiece of the program is Doles Celebrate Super Heroes Contest, which asks everyday champions to submit their own heros story on social media while challenging and encouraging others for a chance to win $1,000 scholarships and other prizes.

Video always performs well, said Rebecca Catlett, director of marketing and communications of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Summerland, British Columbia.

The company has plans to develop more recipe videos in 2022, to inspire and offer creative ideas on how to incorporate more apples into families diets.

Its important to make time to stay up to date on the latest trends, let the creativity flow and not be afraid to try new tactics, she said.

Link:
The latest angle on social media marketing produce to families - The Packer

"Marketing and Beyond" with Gus Wagner from The Rocket Group – Iwantabuzz

Gus WagnerPresident/Owner at The Rocket GroupWebsite Address: https://RocketGroupLLC.com

Each week on Marketing and Beyond, our host talks to media experts across the country. This week our host speaks with Gus Wagner from The Rocket Group. To learn more, check out https://RocketGroupLLC.com.

We are a full-service marketing firm working with clients from local small businesses to the Fortune 100. We work deliver value, not tricks, to our clients and have for 20 + years now.

We sold a large section of our company which has allowed us to refocus on social marketing and advertising for an interesting and varied portfolio of clients.

Commit to the channel with the largest amount of actual prospects and customers for you.

The biggest problem continues to be folks chasing success on platforms which may just be shiny objects for their voices, not successful tools like the proven platforms.

Originally posted here:
"Marketing and Beyond" with Gus Wagner from The Rocket Group - Iwantabuzz

The Social Media Stock Tips And Their Danger | Mint – Mint

By December 2021, the channel garnered quite a followingof nearly 52,000 subscribers. It recommended stocks to buy and sell, particularly small cap scrips. But there was one problem. The administrators werent research analysts. One of them, Himanshu Patel, did a masters in tourism management and had previously worked in a hotel.

Patel, along with other administrators, was using their trading accounts to first buy the shares of certain companies and then recommend it to their subscribers. Next, they sold the shares for a neat profit, Indias market regulator found during an investigation. In an interim order passed on 12 January, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) alleged unlawful gains worth 2.84 crore. It also advised investors to stay away from such tipsters.

Bullrun2017 was running a classic pump-and-dump scheme or one where a stock is manipulated through exaggerated recommendations. Nothing new about this except for the fact that in this case, social media was widely used in talking up penny stocks.

With Sebi cracking the whip, many other Telegram channels dedicated to recommending penny stocks were alarmed. Some of them shifted to other platforms such as Twitter. On 14 January, the admin of one such Telegram channel told its 1,585 subscribers: Due to Sebi guidelines, I will (be) more active on Twitter . I will update all stocks, suggestions on Twitter".

Yet another channel which assures great returns" with close to 2 lakh subscribers said: Mandatory disclaimer as required by Sebi. This channel is only for educational purposes. Consult with your financial advisor before investment".

Interestingly, there is no Sebi guideline that says stock tips and trade suggestions can be given for educational purposes. In any case, most of these channels have little educational material or any discussion on the fundamentals of stocks they recommend.

The rot goes deeper. There are instances where influencers who have considerable following on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are approached by companies to send out social media posts recommending and endorsing their shares.

All this at a time when more and more Indians are investing in equities. According to data published by the regulator, an average of 26 lakh new demat accounts were opened every month in the year ending March 2022, as against a monthly average of 4 lakh in 2019-20. As of November 2021, the total number of investor accounts stood at 7.7 crore. The new-to-stock markets are easy prey for tipsters peddling in penny stocks.

Mint deep dived into this rabbit hole. The hole runs deep. Here, the lines between what is legal and illegal, ethical and unethical get fairly blurry.

Shades of grey

Buy-sell and stock tips are among the most commonly searched terms on every possible social media site. If we type stock tips on Twitter, more than a thousand handles show up.

Social media is full of instances of how certain stocks are sold on behalf of the investment relations teams of the said companies. The stocks are hard sold through webinars, YouTube, WhatsApp, non-stop tweeting and Telegram channels," Shyam Sekhar, chief ideator and founder of iThought, a Sebi-registered investment advisory firm, said. These are all virtual marketing tools used to create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) among investors. There are many instances where investors have been caught in this trap. They end up investing at peak valuation of manipulated stocks and end up losing as much as 25%-30% of the money invested," he added.

Mint investigated 12 stock market focused telegram channels to get a sense of how they operate.

Invest 50,000 and get assured returns of 1.5 lakh in six months," pinned messages in many of these groups often state.

Sebi, in the past, has frowned upon many advisors who have promised assured returns" because this is illegal.

Another standard disclaimer in stock market channels and WhatsApp groups: We are not Sebi registered investment advisors". Surprisingly, this hasnt dented their subscriber base. The admins of many Telegram channels continue to be revered for they have been able to make money in last years extended bull run.

In a bull run, it is easy to make money. The real test of these mushrooming social media stock channels would be in the bear market. These telegram channels are, more often than not, front running stocks at the detriment of their subscribers. These disclaimers are traps to induce investors and avoid being caught in regulatory crosshairs," Alok Jain, founder of Weekend Investing, another Sebi registered advisory firm, said.

One Telegram channel has over 15,000 subscribers and is run by an individual whose credentials on LinkedIn show that his real expertise lies in search engine optimization. He worked with a leading stock exchange as a junior level social media manager. On his channel, he recommends small cap stocks.

Yet another channel is run by an individual in Bihar whose experience, before 2017, was solely marketing for retail chains. Before he began giving super HNI calls" (tips that high networth individuals use), he was the CEO of a departmental store. Currently, his firm is dolling out stock calls to 31,000 subscribers for free. He also has a premium modelfor 10,000, he would advise buying the next multi bagger stock". Stocks that generate returns several times their costs are called multi baggers. These stocks are mostly undervalued but have strong fundamentals.

Stock recommendations are always followed by emojis of a rocket taking off or fire. These are highly suggestive emojis that indicate a stock is ready for a take-off," said a senior market analyst who didnt want to be identified.

Typically, many of these stock calls are always accompanied by an increase in trading volumes.

Here are two examples. Both the stocks were recommended in at least two-three Telegram channels.

Inventure Growth and Securities, a financial services company, was recommended in January this year and the volume of shares traded increased by 3.5 times as compared to the previous month. However, in February, the volume reduced nearly by half.

Lasa Supergenerics, an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) products company, was recommended in December 2021 and in January this year. The trading volume in December increased almost three times; in January, the volume tripled from the previous month. The volume subsequently reduced almost by half in February.

Mint reached out to both Inventure Growth and Lasa Supergenerics for clarifications. Both did not respond.

Sebi regulations are clearany investment advice against a fee needs the advisor or the advisory firm to be registered with the regulator. However, some channels have found a way around it. They recommend stocks against a nominal fee towards a social cause. No one can verify what that social cause is, and whether the money is being used for the said social purpose," said the market analyst quoted above.

The fin-influencers

Along with hordes of investors during the pandemic, came a new breed of financial experts. They offer advise on personal finance through the social media. Many of these experts have amassed a massive following on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. They are popularly known as fin-influencers or money-influencers. At times, these influencers are approached by companies to subtly push their upcoming public offerings or even give their stock prices a boost. The influencers include chartered accountants.

I know of a well-known chartered accountant who quotes nearly 8-10 lakh for recommending stocks," a market expert who didnt want to be identified said.

A recent example of a scrip being pushed by influencers is allegedly that of Salasar Techno Engineering Ltd, an infrastructure construction services company. At least three financial experts who have a large following on Twitter raised concerns.

Please be careful of Salasar....many influencers are being approached to push this in return for 25-30K," Alok Jain of Weekend Investing tweeted on 7 March to his 1.88 lakh followers.

Shravan Venkataraman, a proprietary trader with over 17,000 followers on Twitter, claimed that a digital marketing agency contacted him for a promotional tweet on behalf of the company. I usually promote any good tool or software, or anything useful for the followers. But this took me by surprise," he said.

Aditya Kondawar, chief investment officer at JST Investments, a financial services company, said he has been approached quite a few times to recommend the scrip of Salasar.

Mint reached out to Salasar for clarifications multiple timesthrough the companys website, and to Shashank Agarwal, the companys joint managing director, through LinkedIn. The company didnt respond, neither did Agarwal.

What is the regulator doing?

The markets regulator, since December last year, has conducted search and seizure operations against Telegram channel operators. Sebi has also issued multiple press releases to alert investors against misleading stock tips on social media platforms.

Barring cautionary advisories, Sebis crackdown has hinged on whether the admins of social media channels, or individuals giving out stock tips, have made gains. This, perhaps, gives us a sense of the nature of the beast.

It is difficult, not just because of the scale of social media, but also because it is often difficult to distinguish between honest or wrong opinion from dishonest manipulation," said Sandeep Parekh, managing partner, FinSec Law Advisors, a law firm.

One should not impinge on the freedom of speech for honest but inaccurate opinion. Anyone holding shares may have a view on how his portfolio of companies are likely to do. The forecast may or may not turn out to be true. But that doesnt automatically mean that the person is dishonest," he added.

Going ahead, Sebi wants to establish a data lake initiative to improve surveillance. A data lake stores and processes large amounts of structured and unstructured data. This would help the regulator monitor and analyse social media posts to detect potential market manipulations.

During an event, former Sebi chief Ajay Tyagi, said: Sebi has already planned (a) data lake project to augment analytical capability with advanced analytical tools, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, deep learning, big data analytics, pattern recognition, structured and unstructured data processing, text mining and natural language processing, and so on".

Madhabi Puri Buch, the current chairperson of Sebi, earlier spearheaded the regulators Advisory Committee for Leveraging Regulatory Technology Solutions (ALeRTS).

Sebi has now formed a special team to carry out frequent search and seizure operations. Since posts on WhatsApp and Telegram channels are encrypted and data is not shared by the big tech companies with Indian regulators, scanning the mobile phones and laptops of suspected market manipulators is crucial. Sebis search and seizure team is working closely with consultants to develop a machine learning platform that would help scan social media posts for relevant information.

Stock exchanges, on their part, use web crawler tools to listen" into social media chatter and posts.

Exchanges are typically looking for terms such as assured returns, money will be doubled/ tripled. Social media posts and conversations with such terms get flagged internally for further action," said an exchange official who didnt want to be named.

Meanwhile, the exchanges are proactively cautioning investors to be aware.

On fin-influencers, much like the rest of the world, Sebi hasnt firmed up its approach just yet. The only outlier is the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The Australian regulator, earlier this month, said that paid advertisementssuch as sponsored posts or traditional commercialsmay constitute a violation of the law. The Australian law specifies that only licenced financial advisers are permitted to recommend financial products.

The Indian regulator has a long road ahead. And it would be interesting to watch how it regulates malpractices without impinging on free speech, a right under the Constitution.

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The Social Media Stock Tips And Their Danger | Mint - Mint