None of us will ever be able to read all the articles and blog posts we had like to, and RSS feeds can be an incredible source of information overload. WebWorkerDaily highlights tools and tricks that can help make RSS more relevant.

We have waxed lyrical about Yahoo! Pipes before and how Pipes can create a master feed, fetching all your news feeds and filtering them, but the topic is well worth a revisit.

With a particular emphasis on making the flow of information more manageable and more relevant to you, GigaOms collaboration blog WebWorkerDaily singles out Yahoo! Pipes for its robust filtering by various criteria and PostRank, a service that gets the top posts (by engagement score) from a particular feed. You can use PostRank and Yahoo! Pipes together to find only the most popular posts from your favorite blogs and then filter them by your keywords.

Marketers are complicit in the toxicity of social media, they misunderstand its function and how brands should participate in it, and yet they appear to be held hostage by it. Those are some of the main paradoxes confronting brand marketers, according to a damning new report from the social media analyst at Forrester Research.

Brands continue to invest more in social media marketing each year. In fact, HubSpot found that 74% of global marketers currently invest in social media marketing. And with this adoption, theres been enormous amounts of data collected in an effort to measure the success of social media campaigns.

But for many marketing teams, its becoming a challenge to sift through the wide range of metrics to understand if their social media campaigns are effective. Thats why we’ve asked social media experts how they determine success and what metrics you should track that actually matter.

Verizon Business today released findings from a recent survey, Small Business Response to COVID-19 to better understand the impact small business owners and decision makers feel COVID-19 has had on their businesses. The survey, conducted by Morning Consult, focused on 500 small and medium businesses that are currently open or plan to reopen. One of the survey’s key results is that small businesses have renewed confidence, with 68% believing they can recoup COVID-19 related losses.

Key Survey Findings:

As businesses grapple with the economic impact of COVID-19, these responses highlight the assistance small businesses feel they need, the communities they feel most supported by, and the changes they have made to adjust to the new normal.

1. A Renewed Confidence
The small businesses that have weathered this pandemic to date express an overall optimism and the financial wherewithal to eventually reopen.

68% of small businesses believe they can recoup COVID-19 related losses
46% (nearly half) of small businesses that remain open say their businesses will be able to stay open for more than six months if the pandemic continues in the same way
48% of small businesses say it’s unlikely they will need to resume operations with a smaller staff
While 78% of small businesses indicate declining sales, less than a quarter (24%) say that they have missed or withheld any payments of bills (rent, utilities, etc.).

Virtual reality media platform, Sensorium, has announced its membership in the Global Blockchain Business Council, or GBBC — a Swiss-based non-profit industry association for blockchain.

Sensorium will participate in GBBCs upcoming virtual forum on May 28, which will see the firms director of technology Alex Blagirev discuss his predictions for how virtual social media will change the way that people interact online.

Identity theft, fake accounts, etc. all will be to a large extent eliminated as human participants in the socially-virtual world will be required to verify their identity via the blockchain.

Social distancing measures amid the coronavirus pandemic have been rather difficult for everyone. While people remain locked indoors, social media companies offer huge respite from boredom that often becomes unbearable.

These companies have not only welcomed new users over the past couple of months but also have taken many steps to ensure engagement and good browsing experience. Let us thus take a look at how these companies have performed since the pandemic broke out and the factors likely to push them ahead.

3 Social Media Stocks That Gained Despite the Odds

Topping the list of social media companies are Facebook, Inc. FB, Twitter, Inc. TWTR and Snap Inc. SNAP that have fared well during the pandemic. Shares of these three giants have returned decently so far this year and year-over-year revenue growth impressed in recently released results.

The rise of social media has changed the information landscape in myriad ways, including the manner in which many Americans keep up with current events. In fact, social media is now among the most common pathways where people – particularly young adults – get their political news.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of surveys conducted between October 2019 and June 2020 finds that those who rely most on social media for political news stand apart from other news consumers in a number of ways. These U.S. adults, for instance, tend to be less likely than other news consumers to closely follow major news stories, such as the coronavirus outbreak and the 2020 presidential election. And, perhaps tied to that, this group also tends to be less knowledgeable about these topics.

Through several surveys over the last nine months, the Center’s American News Pathways project has been exploring the connection between Americans news habits and what they hear and perceive about current events. One important aspect of this project is taking a deeper look at the pathways, or platforms, Americans use most often to access news – such as news websites or apps, social media, local, cable and network TV, radio, or print.

As of late last year, 18% of U.S. adults say they turn most to social media for political and election news. That is lower than the share who use news websites and apps (25%), but about on par with the percent who say their primary pathway is cable television (16%) or local television (16%), and higher than the shares who turn to three other pathways mentioned in the survey (network TV, radio and print).

You can use these completely free platforms to boost your personal brand and grow your audience. Lets look at some winning ways you can enhance your online presence.

1. Keep your profiles updated
2. Use visuals!
3. Use keywords in your profiles
4. Make your headlines attractive
5. Be active on social media
6. Develop a persona

Jeff Bezos calls social media a nuance destruction machine during antitrust hearing, with Mark Zuckerberg on the call.

A new study led by researchers at McGill University finds that people who get their news from social media are more likely to have misperceptions about COVID-19. Those that consume more traditional news media have fewer misperceptions and are more likely to follow public health recommendations like social distancing.

In a study published in Misinformation Review, researchers looked at the behavioral effects of exposure to misinformation by combining social media analysis, news analysis, and survey research. They combed through millions of tweets, thousands of news articles, and the results of a nationally representative survey of Canadians to answer three questions: How prevalent is COVID-19 misinformation on social media and in traditional news media? Does it contribute to misperceptions about COVID-19? And does it affect behavior?

When you want to subscribe to a podcast, it is usually as easy as clicking a link—often a link labeled Add to Apple Podcasts or to another popular podcast app, like Castro, Overcast, and Pocket Casts.

However, I increasingly find that a benefit of membership to editorial sites, many kinds of creators’ patronage campaigns, and subscription podcast networks includes a custom podcast feed tailored to you or only available to members. In order to prevent this feed from becoming widely distributed, it is sometimes made not quite as easy to add through a single click.

Get the Podcast URL
The plainest form of the URL, and the one that typically works reliably across all apps and services, starts with http:// or https:// and often ends with .rss. Custom feeds may instead end with a long code. For custom, paid, or membership feeds, the feed may be the only link or may be labeled as Subscribe via RSS.

One of your greatest foes as an entrepreneur is misinformation. There is a lot of erroneous advice online, especially when it comes to social media marketing. Unfortunately, much of this guidance seems reasonable on paper. Without the right research or knowledge, you may end up unwittingly endangering the future of your business. Here are seven common social media marketing myths you need to watch out for.

1. Negative feedback can be safely ignored
2. Email is no longer relevant
3. All content represents thought leadership
4. Social media and content marketing are two different campaigns
5. Content topics must be limited to protect your secrets
6. Social media marketing is primarily for generating new customers
7. Social media metrics cannot be measured

A study from QUOTED reveals the average time spent on social media in North America is 2 hours and 6 minutes. Adults spend 2 hours and 55 minutes on their cell phones a day. It goes without saying that if you are not utilizing social media platforms for your business, there is major leverage that is being missed out on.

Harness the power of social media
Below is a breakdown of each of the major five social media platforms.

Instagram
YouTube
TikTok
Twitter
LinkedIn

Social virtual reality, or social VR, has seen an increase in users too. Social VR apps like Rec Room, BigScreen, VRChat, and AltSpace have all seen an increase in traffic. AltSpace is even hosting one of Burning Man's virtual worlds from this year's virtual event. This week, Facebook announced the launch of the public beta for its social VR experience, Horizon.

Sneak peeks of Horizon screenshots are flooding social media. Facebook dropped the gameplay trailer for Facebook Horizon after months of anticipation. The trailer shows avatars playing games in Horizon, building their own worlds, and having fun with other avatars. Facebook Horizon's beta access is currently invite-only.

Last week, we ran a few polls in the newsletter to learn more about how marketing goals vary between social media platforms. You may use a platform to accomplish many goals, but there is most likely one goal that you both have invested in and have consistently seen a great return on that investment.

We selected four common social media marketing goals to focus on:

Brand Awareness
Lead Generation & Sales
Customer Service
Community Engagement

Instagram and Facebook were the first two platforms we selected for the polls. Given the immense user-base of both platforms, plus the diversity of interests and communities found on each, it's not a huge shock that brand awareness took the lead in both of these polls.

Today, we have several modes and tools for consuming news. Browsers such as Opera, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge offer news integration right on their respective home screens. News providers are reaching more readers via social channels, which can get overwhelming at times. If you are an RSS feeds lover, like many others on the GT team, there are a few worthy RSS Feed reader apps for iPhone. Feedly and Reeder 4, which was launched last year, are two of the best RSS readers on iOS.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told Deborah Knight her agency can compel social media companies to remove harmful content which victimises children.

However, we now have more adult cyber abuse reports coming in than we do youth-based cyberbullying reports.

Ms Inman Grant criticised the leadership of social networks for deflecting responsibility onto victims and regulators.

This year is likely the last one ever in which you can say that more than half the planet is not on social media.

Hootsuite just released a massive digital state of the union report. Some of the high-level findings:

5.2 billion of us now have phones globally
4.5 billion are connected to the internet
3.8 billion are active social media users

That 3.8 billion is 49% of the planet’s population, and it grew 9% over the past year.

Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat get all the buzz in the social media investing world. But Pinterest has sharply outperformed them all in 2020.

Social Marketing Predictions for 2020-2025

French startup Yubo is the biggest social media app you have never heard of — unless you are a teen. With a focus on young people under 25, the company has managed to attract 40 million users. A fraction of them hang out every day in live-streaming rooms, meet new people and spend money for more features.

That is right, the company isn’t betting on ads. You can pay to unlock items or subscribe to the app. Yubo  expects to generate $20 million in revenue this year — that’s twice as much revenue than it generated in 2019.

During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a discussion was being held about the content moderation policies of various platforms and the impact of the recent US General Election. When Senator Lindsey Graham asked both Jack and Mark about their opinion whether their platforms can become addictive for the users, both answered differently.

As per Jack Dorsey, (like any other tech) social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook can make users addicted to continue using them. His opinion is in line with the opinions of several psychologists also who say that these social media networks give the users a sense of well-being by giving them a feeling of connection with others. One post after the other, and the urge of users to keep returning to these platforms to see newer posts one after another is like a trigger for their dopamine centers in the brain. And that is why psychologists believe that all social media platforms tend to become addicting for their users.

However, Mark Zuckerberg is of a different opinion. He stated in front of the Senate Committee that he believes that all the research regarding this matter is still inconclusive, and no one can say for sure if the social media platforms are addicting or not.

As social media companies increasingly take on the role of free speech arbiters, they need to ensure their policies offer transparency and the types of checks and balances government relies on.

Social media companies do not want to moderate speech. They want to show you ads. Mark Zuckerberg famously told Senator Orrin Hatch as much in 2018 when asked about how Facebook makes money. But as advertisers and the people populating these ad-based platforms began to demand an online experience that was more heavily regulated to mitigate abusive behavior, platforms like Facebook were thrust into a quasi-governmental role. That’s a huge expansion in responsibilities for a company that just wants to show users ads. Predictably, it has not been a smooth transition.  

One common refrain is that, for understandable reasons, people feel worn down by the volume and composition of the media coming at them.

This fatigue stems from a few compounding factors. There is a strong perception that the character of the information presented by the media is warped by highly polarized players.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans across partisan affiliations believed that the existence of too much bias in the reporting of news stories that are supposed to be objective constituted a major problem in our media, a 2018 survey found.