Keeping tabs on the rich, famous, and just-plain-cool is nothing new, of course. But social media can take that fixation to a pretty dark place. The feeling is common enough that some doctors are calling it social media anxiety disorder (SMAD) – although what most kids have is more like FOMO ... on steroids. While it is tough to see your kid in despair, there is a good solution that doesn't require an all-out social media ban: Just help your kid clean up their feed.

Self-comparison is a natural part of the tween and teen years. And for most kids, so is social media. While there are plenty of good things kids get out of their online connections, sometimes the combo can lead to a negative feedback loop that gnaws away at them.

complete article

However, social media marketing efforts can span far beyond the core four: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. In fact, these popular platforms see such high users yet have such stringent algorithms that it can be hard to ensure your followers see your organic content, much less that your content helps you capture new consumers.

complete article

Take time to organize your social media updates and create a social media calendar before you schedule them.

complete article

While responding quickly to incoming customer inquiries has almost become table stakes in social media, many sophisticated brands have learned that proactive customer care can provide additional benefits to both the company and the customer.

Proactively contacting prospects and customers can create a surprisingly positive customer experience, provide marketing benefits like brand awareness, and even save servicing costs. It can also Proactively listening to prospects and customers on social media can identify key trends, new product opportunities, and customer pain points.

complete article

If there are tech ideas that refuse to die, then Moodle is the land of the undead. Moodlers have access to a delightful and eclectic variety of tools whose time in the spotlight happened a while ago. Email, Forums, Wikis, Blogs. SCORM could not go without mention. No matter how hard Moodle tries to add a fresh face to it, most Moodle experiences today are evocatively reminiscent of a simpler past. To nicely tie up the rooms in nostalgia, its core is built in PHP, the language that refuses to die.

complete article

As Reuben alluded and our sources VERIFY, the claim is false. Facebook did announce, in January, it would be changing its status update philosophy.

The social network explained it is going to try to show users more posts from friends that have "meaningful interactions." It plans to do that by reducing the number of articles and videos that appear on news feeds.

But, Facebook never said it is limiting news feed updates to 25 friends. Rather, the social network is just prioritizing the statuses users will be more inclined to see.

complete article

Today, almost every business has a website -- the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker alike. If you are happy with the number of customers you currently have, then do not read this article. If you would like to bring your products to new markets, read on.

There is a catch: Getting more quality traffic means you will have to do some work.

complete article

As an entrepreneur, you are in a Catch-22. If you don’t spend time marketing your business, it can not grow. If you spend too much time focused on marketing, you can not develop or enhance the products or services you are selling.

complete article

Gray Hat SEO is an SEO practice that's riskier than White Hat SEO, but one that may or may not result in your site being banned from search engines and their affiliate sites. Generally, Gray Hat SEO practices belong in neither the Black Hat nor White Hat category because the terms of service regarding the issue are unclear. In this tutorial, you will get the answers to the following questions:

What is Gray Hat SEO?
Why does it matter?
What Gray Hat SEO should mean to you

complete article

Marketing scams have been around for years. The best ones are those that become accepted as the norm — bottled water anyone? The last 20 years, however, has given rise to a new type of online scam and no acronym in the online business world conjures up images of snake oil salesmen quite like SEO.

You’re not alone in being contacted by services claiming they will get your business website to the top of Google within a month. We get them almost daily. It’s frustrating, especially for those of us that are passionate about providing a high-quality SEO service.

complete article

Are you ready to boost your web traffic? If you are relying on people to find you through the internet, then Search Engine Optimisation should be at the top of your priority result. You can’t be able to generate more leads to your business if nobody finds you.

Do you know about 93% of experiences on the Internet start with a search engine? So what happens after someone search the internet? The top results on Google have higher chances of getting clicked. If you are not on the top of the list, you have missed potential traffic. What is even more surprising is that about 75% people won’t even move to the second page of the search results.

complete article

RSS was first invented by Netscape. They wanted to use an XML format to distribute news, stories and information. Netscape refined the version of rss and then dropped it. Userland Software to control of the specficiation and continued to develop it releasing a newer version. A non-commercial group picked up RSS at the same time and based on their interpretation of the Netscapes original concept of RSS they too released a new version. UserLand was not happy with the non-commercial version and continued development of their own version of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), eventually UserLand released RSS v2.

The History of RSS

Enterprise marketers face more challenges than ever in executing their customer-driven, high-ROI strategies. When customers search nowadays, they are looking for more complete and more specific answers provided for their queries: whether they are searching on a smartphone, looking for results specific to their city, or keeping up with the news of the minute. And Google is constantly improving how it delivers those results.

Conductors goal is to make sure the marketing team has all of the data and insights, features, and reporting capabilities customer need—so marketers can deliver for their customers and achieve above and beyond their goals.

complete article

Podcasting is going Hollywood.

Over the past year, HowStuffWorks, Gimlet and Wondery have stepped up their search for content that can be adapted into film, television, or even books as production studios snap up podcasts for high-profile films and cable TV series with A-list talent like Julia Roberts, Connie Britton and Eric Bana.

Gimlet Media, the startup that began selling film and TV rights to its shows last year, has already exceeded every 2018 goal it had set for Gimlet Pictures, said its head, Chris Giliberti.

complete article

Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced with FeedForAll.

RSS feeds generated by other means can be automatically repaired, so that they conform to the RSS 2.0 specification. FeedForAll supports RSS feed creation, podcast and videocast creation, management and publishing.

RSS Feed Software

Every marketer today wants to make their brand presence felt. That is the reason why social media is being leveraged on a big scale.  Whether one owns an established business or a startup, social media marketing is something that everyone is using to reach and communicate with the customers. Doesn’t it make sense to be in a place where the crowd is? One often comes across some social media marketing activities that fail. While, on the other hand, some Facebook and Twitter pages become popular than the others. Many times, marketers observe that their competitors are doing better than them in social media marketing!

Everybody does make mistakes. How can social media marketers be any different? But the fact is, making too many mistakes can see the followers dwindle and their count drop. Indeed, it does affect the revenue of a business. As with all mistakes, the first step is understanding and becoming aware of them. It then becomes easier to avoid them in the future.

complete article

I have been hearing a lot of marketers talk about social commerce, which is exactly what it sounds like: using social media networks to help sell products online. This may sound like a relatively new idea, but when you take a deeper look, social commerce was actually introduced by Yahoo in late 2005. At the time, things like product reviews and sharing wish lists were cutting edge, but that was one of the early examples of combining social networking with online commerce. Technology has since evolved, but the idea remains the same. To understand how to succeed in social commerce, here are five tips for using social networks to sell products online.

complete article

In recent years, social media platforms have evolved from simple communication channels to full-blown news and entertainment hubs. From Facebook Watch to this years innovations like IGTV and Snapchat’s Story Ads, social platforms are stepping up the game to keep its users engaged and entertained -- and your company should not be too far behind.

If you want to keep up with the latest social media trends, you will have to reevaluate your strategy with an eye toward the future of this ever-evolving industry. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share 13 ways to step up your social game in 2019.

complete article

Of the more than 7 billion people on Earth, the number of mobile phone users is approaching 5 billion devices, while toothbrush ownership is closer to 4 billion. Indicating that both marketing of technology and public health have great disparities, but also that leadership in health care are not executing on their brands, social media or marketing. But in the U.S., hospital identity and health branding are paramount for success in a community. By listening to patients, getting feedback on wants and needs, and creating new incentives to engage individuals, increased revenue, greater trust and improved health might be achieved.

Here are 10 surprising things to keep in mind when health care and hospital leadership plan marketing efforts for 2019:

complete article

Wish you could follow a couple of Twitter or Instagram users, without setting up an account? Create an RSS feed for them.

RSS Hub is an open source project that creates RSS feeds from a wide variety of websites, including social media pages. You can install this on your own server, but it’s not necessary for most users.

complete article

Spotify has opened up more to creators lately, with measures such as allowing independent artists to upload their music directly. The streaming service is extending a similar invitation to podcasters, by letting anyone add their shows to the podcast section.

The platform will not host podcasts directly. Spotify can make new episodes of your podcast available as soon as you upload them to your aggregator or host. All you need to do is provide Spotify with your podcast's RSS feed, much like you would when adding your show to Apple Podcasts or other services.

complete article

Did you know that you can subscribe to any Instagram user using RSS directly using any RSS feed reader?

Instagram happens mostly on mobile devices where users subscribe to users, post new media to their own accounts, and use other functionality to interact with other users or content on the site.

While there is an Instagram website as well for browsing user posts and tags, voting and downloading activity, it is fair to say that most user activity happens on mobile devices.

Some users may like the idea of subscribing to Instagram users using RSS. While that is good only for public posts that these users make on Instagram, it is a great way of keeping an eye on new posts of any number of users.

complete article

We have brought together some of our favorite hello 2019 images in order to honor the coming year, which will bring with it plenty of joy.

The beginning of a new year brings with it plenty of hopes and dreams that could completely change the course of your life for the better if you discipline yourself, put the work in and try your hardest to make those changes happen. In the long run, keeping your New Years resolutions could be the thing that helps put everything into place for you.

complete article

After suspending Cambridge Analytica from its platform in March, Facebooks data management issues remained the lead social media news story throughout 2018. The companys constant stream of user privacy challenges left little space for other social platforms to make waves — but, some still managed. Twitter put its focus on election integrity and performed a massive purge of bad user accounts. While Facebook and Twitter focused on cleaning up timelines, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn continued to build out their ad offerings.

Nearly all platforms released new political advertising policies, and you could not open an app without bumping into a Story. (In fact, now that Snapchats original concept has made its way to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, the real question is why does not Pinterest have them?) In its spare time, Facebook did its best to recruit more video creators, YouTube gave its creator base more monetization opportunities, and Instagram launched a video platform. Not to be left out of the mix, Reddit wrapped up its first major redesign in over a decade.

complete article

Those viral videos really are giving you all the feels.

New research from the Netherlands suggests that we mirror the emotions of those we see in videos.

Tilburg University researchers studied more than 2,000 video blogs (aka vlogs) on YouTube, focusing on the more popular channels with at least 10,000 subscribers. They analyzed the words and emotions being expressed by the vloggers in their clips, as well as the emotional language of the online comments left by people who viewed the videos. And they found that when a YouTuber posted a positive video, the audience responded with more heightened positive emotions; but if the video broadcast negative emotions, the audience responded in kind.

complete article

There are very few industries these days that change as quickly as social media. Every new discovery or algorithm update has the potential to shape the future of how we connect with each other and our clients. This past year has been an exceptionally tumultuous one for social media networks, even for an ever-changing industry. We have seen a huge paradigm shift in social media in 2018 toward consumer awareness and expectation. It’s bound to have a major effect on how brands will connect with their customers through social media in the future.

As we wrap up the year, lets take a look back at what has changed in social media in 2018 and how it will impact social media marketing strategy building in 2019.

complete article

Contractor complaints and safety concerns with smartphone apps were among what the ABC 7 I-Team found to be the top three consumer complaints in 2018.

complete article

Mozilla to kill off RSS features in Firefox because they're hardly used and would take too much effort to modernize.

complete article

Nearly two months ago, Twitter began testing a feature that made it easier for users to see the latest tweets on their feed first, rather than the ones pushed by the companys algorithm. It is a toggle dressed as a sparkle icon that lives above the home timeline, which keeps you from having to go deep into your Twitter settings to get that purely chronological view. Certain iOS users have had access to this since October, but today Twitter is making the change permanent and rolling it out to everyone on Apples platform. Twitter's Android app as well as its website are getting the new magic button, too, but that won't be coming until after the holidays.

complete article

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is looking to get its hands on a product that will help its agents investigate tax dodgers who have set up shop on social media, according to a request posted to the federal government’s procurement website, FedBizOpps.

The post indicates that the IRS, whose under-equipped enforcement agents ferret out financial crime related to the tax system, is looking for a new way to investigate potential tax cheats based on their social media usage, citing as one example the ubiquity of online stores. The IRS currently has no formal tool, it says, to comb through social media feeds.

complete article

Every company marketer posting on social media is curious about the best times to post their content. While each audience is unique, having a rule of thumb can be extremely helpful when you are first starting out. Sprout Social recently published the results of their Best Times to Post on Social Media: 2018 Industry Research, a report which includes preferred time slots for the big 4 — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

complete article

Most modern businesses understand the importance of using social media to promote their brand and interact with consumers. Indeed, social media is at the core of many companies’ digital strategy, often delivering measurable results in terms of sales, leads and customer service. That said, there are many social media mistakes that we see time and time again: strategic errors that leave leads on the table and opportunities unexplored.

complete article

Google Assistant will soon be capable of delivering a personalized audio news feed after users say OK Google, play the news.

This new feature is a collaborative effort with publishers around the world, which brings the artificial intelligence of Google News to the voice context of Assistant.

Google Assistant will be able to assemble an audio news playlist on demand when users issue the appropriate voice command.

News feeds will be created based on what the individual user cares about. Similar to what happens when opening the Google News app.

complete article

Did you know that you can subscribe to any Instagram user using RSS directly using any RSS feed reader?

Instagram happens mostly on mobile devices where users subscribe to users, post new media to their own accounts, and use other functionality to interact with other users or content on the site.

While there is an Instagram website as well for browsing user posts and tags, voting and downloading activity, it is fair to say that most user activity happens on mobile devices.

Some users may like the idea of subscribing to Instagram users using RSS. While that is good only for public posts that these users make on Instagram, it is a great way of keeping an eye on new posts of any number of users.

complete article

Carmel Fire took to their Facebook page to notify people that they should not be putting their own spin online regarding situations like Wednesdays explosion at the high school. CFD went on to add that people were posting pictures of patients and minors from the scene.

complete article

This past year, many people deleted their social media accounts following revelations about privacy violations on social media platforms and other concerns related to hate speech.

As people adopt their resolutions for the year, it is likely that many more will reconsider their social media use.

However, as a scholar of social media and religion, I would argue that rather than just stop using social media, people could use it to improve their overall well-being. Here are three ways to do so.

complete article

When it comes to video content on landing pages, marketers tend to either totally crush it, or completely bomb.

Your landing page videos may fail for several reasons.

Typically, this is because the videos on landing pages are:

Too long.
On the wrong section of the landing page.
Missing a key component (like a call-to-action).
Do not make these same mistakes!

This article will explain why landing page videos are so important, and share 11 landing page video best practices that will help increase conversions.

complete article

Firefox maker Mozilla will kill off support for RSS and Atom feeds in this December's release of Firefox 64.

Along with dropping RSS and Atom syndicated-feed support, Firefox 64 will no longer contain the Live Bookmarks feature for subscribing to RSS feeds, nor the feed-preview feature.

Instead of maintaining built-in RSS support, Mozilla believes users should install RSS-reader Firefox add-ons.

complete article

For many consumers, spending too much time on social media often happens subconsciously. We pick up our phones, and before long, hours have passed.

While many of us think nothing of the extra time spent scrolling on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, a new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University found that too much time on social media can lead to bad decision-making.

complete article

This past year, many people deleted their social media accounts following revelations about privacy violations on social media platforms and other concerns related to hate speech.

As people adopt their resolutions for the year, it is likely that many more will reconsider their social media use.
However, as a scholar of social media and religion, I'd argue that rather than just stop using social media, people could use it to improve their overall well-being. Here are three ways to do so.

1. Be active
Studies have shown that there is a big difference between passive social media use and active use. Scrolling through a newsfeed and merely looking at what others have posted is considered passive social media use.

complete article

Excessive social media use has negative consequences that include the kind of risky decision-making associated with drug and gambling addicts, new research shows.  

Researchers at Michigan State University had 71 study participants take a survey gauging their Facebook dependence; it included questions about users feelings when unable to access the website, the influence Facebook has had on a users job or education, and attempts to quit.  

complete article

GitHub is the number one signal in my API world. The activity that occurs via GitHub is more important than anything I find across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social channels. Commits to repositories and the other social activity that occurs around coding projects are infinitely more valuable, and telling, regarding what a company is up to than the deliberate social media signals blasted out via other channels. I’m always working to dial in my monitoring of GitHub using the GitHub API, but also via the RSS feeds that are present on the public side of the platform.

I feel RSS is often overlooked as an API data source, but I find that RSS is not only alive and well in 2018, it is something that is actively used on many platforms.

complete article

Live Bookmarks combines Firefoxs bookmarking functionality with the dynamic nature of RSS feeds to create auto-updating bookmark folders that list all recent entries from RSS feeds.

The removal causes quite the issues for users who make use of the feature. Mozilla announced that it plans to export the list of feeds to an OPML file which the majority of RSS readers support.

While there are some alternatives that might work for some users, there was not a real solution to regain the functionality once it is removed.

complete article

We have all thought about it. Maybe it's time to flick Facebook. Terminate Twitter. Silence social for good, and just be a person again.

Sadly, if this dream of going off the grid is about reclaiming your lost privacy, that might not actually be possible, according to new research.

A new study by researchers at the University of Vermont shows that social media posts by people you're connected with can actually be used to predict your own future posts – and even more accurately than if your own previous posts were being mined for insights.

complete article

We have been hearing more and more about loneliness, and the loneliness epidemic, in recent years, as research has stared to lay out both its causes and effects. There are likely many reasons for this increasing psychological/societal issue, but one that is almost certainly involved is our dependence on screens, and in particular social media. And a new study from the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University finds that social media use—or at least negative experiences on social—is linked to more feelings of social isolation, a.k.a. loneliness.

complete article

I am blessed to say that I get to wake up and live out my dreams each day, says social media influencer, comedian and actress Lala Milan. She creates content for many platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as various apps, doing almost all of the writing, filming, directing, and editing herself. This career has enabled her to generate a six-figure annual income and secured her celebrity bookings at events. Recently, it landed her a role on Boomerang, a TV series coming to BET in February 2019.

complete article

Amazon is now letting anyone create and publish Alexa skills into the Alexa skills store. Amazon first made it easy to create custom skills last year with its Alexa Skill Blueprints program, and it’s taking those custom responses and allowing them to be published in the store for everyone to download and use. There are currently more than 80,000 existing Alexa skills in the store, but todays announcement means the store will be growing significantly with user-generated custom skills.

Amazon is primarily aiming this new functionality at content creators, businesses, brands, and other organizations. Publications, local sports teams, YouTubers, and others will all be able to broadcast their latest updates by simply adding a recorded audio feed URL to a blueprint skill directly and then publishing it on the store.

complete article

Are you looking to maximize your use of Facebook Messenger within your digital marketing plan?

Whether you want to get more contacts, increase conversions or use automation to scale your growth, Facebook Messenger marketing tools can help - when used the right way.

complete article

Google is set to begin deleting data from its beleaguered social network, Google+ in April, but before that happens, the Internet Archive and the ArchiveTeam say that they are working to preserve public posts on the platform before they vanish forever.

In a post on Reddit, the sites announced that they had begun their efforts to archive the posts using scripts to capture and back up the data in an effort to preserve it. The teams say that their efforts will only encompass posts that are currently available to the public: they won’t be able to back up posts that are marked private or deleted.

complete article

Are you looking for ways to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts? Want to know if your social media campaigns are worth your time and effort?

The team from Social Success Marketing share the metrics you can, and should, track in this infographic.

complete article