Stand out from the crowd with a memorable brand 

Today’s consumers are quick to dismiss businesses that push vague, watered-down ideas with little regard for what genuinely matters to their audience. To attract like-minded customers, startups and brands that are just starting out need to cultivate and express a clear set of values using consistent messaging across all channels. Afterall, rich, trusting, and lasting relationships with customers are built on a foundation of shared values, respect and empathy.

More ecommerce activity means more businesses are competing for the same consumers – making it even harder for startups with limited resources to keep up and stay competitive:

• With research showing that 91% of consumers will leave a mobile app or site if it doesn’t satisfy their needs, it’s essential for small brands to prioritize the mobile ecommerce experience as this is where the majority of consumers are – and where they should likely direct most resources and efforts.
• In addition to product marketing, small brands should connect and engage with consumers on what their brand represents (e.g. communicating clearly their vision, mission, and brand story – which is where startups can often have an advantage when starting out) and share that through immersive and memorable designs, web pages, and social media interactions. If done right, this aspect will make brands truly stand out among their competition and foster a strong brand image from the beginning on.

Provide curated and personalized shopping experiences 

What makes a good e-commerce experience? For starters, they’re built on a foundation of functionality, reliability, and usability – table stakes for today’s digital first consumer. But to keep customers coming back, you need to deliver a differentiated shopping experience at the right time and place with the right information. As ecommerce continues to move away from traditional online stores to publishers, social networks and beyond, the opportunity influence the decisions and preferences of shoppers increases. Successfully addressing customers’ needs at each touchpoint, especially on mobile, is a huge competitive edge. Research from Forrester reveals that 61% of U.S. adults are unlikely to return to sites that don’t provide a positive experience.

So, how do you deliver a great experience at each touchpoint? First, understand how and where customers are discovering your products and making purchase decisions. For example, you can look at what search terms were used, frequently asked questions, product reviews and social media discussions to get a sense for what information is important to your customers. Next, deliver valuable information they can use in their purchasing decisions via a streamlined and lightweight shopping experience that’s easy to navigate and loads fast.

To further delight customers, small brands/startups can elevate these critical touchpoints by incorporating interactive 3D product images, catchy, on-brand micro copy, and AR technology to create an immersive and memorable shopping experience. Optimizing these experiences for mobile is a must as more and more commerce takes place on social apps and the mobile web.

While this may sound like a big investment for a business just starting out, there are a variety of easy-to-use and affordable tools on the market that empower anyone to build sophisticated experiences with limited resources.

Build deeper connections with customers on social platforms

Social commerce is booming as more and more people sign on to social networks. Most people spend an average of two hours and 25 minutes daily scrolling platforms or apps such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Leveraging social to build an engaged audience is a cost effective way for small brands to drive awareness, foster positive and long-term customer relationships, and ultimately strengthen their brand and brand loyalty. 

You can tap into a variety of social media opportunities to engage your target audiences and meet them where they already are – video and live shopping via social platforms, posting video product reviews, product drops on live video, and using shopping and story features on platforms to showcase live product demos or customer takeovers. By highlighting brand ambassadors, brand voices, influencers, and products live on relevant social platforms, smaller brands can tell their stories and emphasize what they care about and stand for in a more engaging and personal way.

Think about your favorite brand to visit in the digital space. Consider for a moment what you love about their space. Odds are that you value the personal and engaging experience they have created. This is the goal for startups when it comes to sprinting out of the gate with an authentic and strong voice and messaging – developing a memorable and unique brand from the beginning.

The post Build a Strong Brand Voice From the Onset appeared first on Grit Daily News.

1. Figure out the barrier

Identifying why you are scared of selling will help you overcome your fears and there can be a range of reasons. Perhaps you don’t want to be seen as pushy? Or you are scared that people won’t like you or deep down you lack confidence in the item or service you are trying to sell? Maybe you are scared of rejection? Once you have identified the source of your fear it gives you a starting point for overcoming it.

Admitad ConvertSocial affiliate marketing experience with newcomers to blogging says that it is essential to start selling in the beginning. That will prepare your audience and give you confidence that your followers are ready for what will follow.

2. Believe in your product

If you believe in your product, you can be genuinely enthusiastic why other people should like it too. If you don’t believe in your product yourself, deep down you may feel that you are behaving dishonestly and this will have an adverse impact on your sales. That’s where affiliate marketing comes, where you can choose and try things before selling them.

3. Sell makes people happy  

A great sale is a perfect place where both buyer and seller are happy. And with a great product, all you have to do is to point out the benefits to your customer to help them see it is the best solution for their needs. All customers are looking to buy something that solves a problem or will enhance their life. 

Helping them find that solution with your product or services saves your customers time and effort for which they will thank you. That is actually a part of being a blogger –  to use your influence to help people find things that they will enjoy. For example, at affiliate marketing platforms you have a variety of brands that you can choose from to sell something that you really find useful and believe in it yourself.

4. Make selling fun

Think up fun ways to share your passion and knowledge of your product. There are various formats like reels, videos, posts, tick-tocks, that you could use to show the product. Use your imagination to make content that will have a long-lasting effect. Don’t be afraid to be creative.

5. Stay focused

Staying focused on your desired outcome will remind you why you are doing this. Sales are an important part of your work so remind yourself of the likely outcome and keep focused. 

6. Track your successes

Sometimes it can be hard to stay confident so tracking your successes will help you stay on top of your game. Affiliate marketing services help you check the statistics on your sales and track the record of your achievements, helping you realize just how much you do right.

Don’t compare yourself or fixate on other people’s sales figures. Instead set goals which stretch you but are achievable.

7. Build relationships with followers 

The important thing to remember is that if you get to know your followers and take time to know about their needs as well, you are far more likely to find the perfect product for your own usage and or your audience’s. You cannot make sales without having a good relationship with your followers.

8. Learn to accept rejection

In sales a rejection is nothing personal, you have to accept that sometimes they just might not want your product. Just give it another try or check out a different product. Eventually, you’ll find what to sell.

9. Change your perspective

Don’t focus on a certain number of sales, focus on the process itself and try to make it as enjoyable as you possibly can. By changing your perspective from the sales to creative processes, you are likely to have a better outcome than you could have imagined.

10. Don’t stress about bad days 

Everyone has bad days sometimes, we do too! People who are successful often go through difficult times that may last days or even months but it does not stop them achieving their goals. Perseverance is all part of success, so if you feel you are going through a bad patch, just keep your confidence and try to put those bad days behind you. Tomorrow is another day so view each one as another step along the way to achievement.

The post 10 Tips for Overcoming the Fear of Selling on Your Blog appeared first on Grit Daily News.

“During Sheryl Sandberg’s 14-year tenure at Meta, the company’s social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – devolved into cesspools of disinformation, racism, misogyny, violent conspiracy theories, and alt-right organizing.

“Sheryl Sandberg knew this was a problem, and – like CEO Mark Zuckerberg – she failed to act. Sandberg leaves Meta, and the social media environment that Facebook helped create, in a far worse place than she found it. Hers is a legacy of enabling trolling, harassment, and abuse. 

“But beyond Sandberg’s legacy at Meta, a note from CEO Mark Zuckerberg about her departure should alarm everyone: it boasts about building a new content team that would ‘train our AI recommendation systems to help you discover the most interesting, relevant, and personalized content.’ This is a complete change of course from Facebook’s public claims that it would reduce disinformation and extreme content from newsfeeds by prioritizing ‘organic content’ from friends.

“Additionally, Sandberg’s departure will further empower Facebook’s policy boss and longtime Republican party operative, Joel Kaplan. More than just a mere enabler, Kaplan actively uses the levers of Facebook to advance his ideological and partisan interests.

“The keys to Facebook are now being handed over to bots that will further foment extremism and a partisan ideologue with a history of misusing his position to tip the scales in favor of his ideology. Hard to imagine, but Facebook is about to get even worse and much more dangerous.”

After last year’s Capitol insurrection, Sandberg dismissed the company’s role in enabling the attack and falsely claimed that “these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate.” Media Matters found, however, that “Stop the Steal” organizers had used Facebook and Instagram to promote events, including the rally that led to a mob breaching the Capitol.

The post Media Watchdog: Sheryl Sandberg Ignored Rampant Disinformation, Hate, and Extremism on Meta appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Ever since MySpace reached 1 million monthly active users in 2004, social media has gone mainstream. If you were an early adopter back in the early days of the internet, chances are you participated in chat rooms, forums, and other early versions of social media.  No matter who you are, if you are reading this… you surely have an online history going back years. 

Your social media history will depend largely on your technological age, which is why the more you use social media, the more important it is you clean it up. If you are wondering what your technological age is, ExpressVPN’s quiz will help you find out!

Many of us have experimented with googling some of the usernames we have used for online accounts, as well as going well back on our social media profiles. While most of what we found might have been nostalgic, interesting, or funny, many entries were just embarrassing. We all grow, learn, and change opinions, after all. It makes sense that what used to be appropriate years ago is not any longer.

If you do this exercise too, there is a high chance of you getting similar results. That is unless you are some of the few people who already made the effort to clean up their social media presence. If you have never done this, we recommend you do it as soon as possible to avoid situations like that of Adam Rapoport and many other celebrities. Even if you are no celebrity, potential clients and employers could take a look at your online presence at any time.

So, how do you go about cleaning up your social media presence? Well, the first thing to keep in mind is to be authentic. When looking at posts, videos, photos, and other content, you want to be sure they reflect who you are today. Allowing others to see your personality via social media could open opportunities in the future, after all.

Another important aspect to consider is looking at your social media presence from a third-party perspective. While you and your friends know who you are, third parties don’t. As such, it is a good idea to either set it as private or delete altogether all content that could be deemed inappropriate or offensive. This should be applied to everything from groups you are in, content you have created, and content you have shared.

You also want to make sure to avoid focusing on major social media platforms. If you have ever run a blog, participated in a forum, had a podcast, or used any other online medium, you want to check it out. Using search engines is a great way to find this type of content, especially if you tend to use the same usernames! 

A common mistake many of us make is assuming old accounts don’t matter if they are not showing in Google. All it takes for this account to resurface is an update to a platform that results in it being indexed. If you have an old account you no longer use or care about, just delete it!

Lastly, let me share a little secret: hiring managers, journalists, and potential clients check who you follow and interact with in order to get a sense of who you are. If you follow any questionable personality or group, it will be noticed and might reflect poorly. On the other hand, if you follow accounts that are valuable for your role and industry, this will reflect well on you.

Managing your social media presence to improve your reputation might seem like hard work but it is in fact easier than you think. Sure, you will have to spend some hours cleaning it up if you have never done so… But maintaining it once you are aware of it, is just a piece of cake.

Your social media presence is another type of resume and cover letter you were not aware of. It is up to you to choose how you want to show yourself! By taking the time to review it, clean it, and maintain it just like you would do with your resume, you are sure to improve your online reputation. Go out there and start working on it.

The post How To Clean Up Your Social Media Presence appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Narratives have been an essential aspect of human civilization since prehistoric times, evolving along with them both in terms of functions and presentation. Of this, written narratives and the ability to replicate texts massively were some of the biggest. However, we could also argue that the most radical shift came in modern times,  with the inception of digital storytelling

With digital storytelling being one the most effective ways of connecting people and sharing information, is not a surprise that brands and organizations are making use of it.  This is especially true at a time when the younger generations have proven to be especially attracted to short-format content such as Tik-Tok and Instagram stories.

What Is Digital Storytelling?

Digital storytelling involves the use of modern content creation tools to produce media such as audio, video, social media, text, and interactive elements. While this definition sounds too general, there are some common threads, even through different topics and media types.

As we get to understand the process of communication better, content can be conveyed in faster and more reliable ways. This knowledge, supported by the flexibility of modern media, helps deliver an experience better suited for the needs of the receiver.

An immense number of technologies developed in several different fields made this content revolution possible as hardware is more powerful and cheaper than ever, and software keeps evolving too. Together, they improve access to editing tools that were unavailable or limited to a small number of people in previous years.

As communication technology improves, content availability and production follow closely and extend quickly, reaching almost every corner of the planet. Each day, more humans are connected to the internet to enjoy the many benefits it brings. This keeps growing the incentives for creating digital content, enabling people from all over the world to partake in it.

In a similar way, devices for capturing images, video, and audio have seen incredible improvements in the last decade. This multiplies options for content creators in many ways, providing infinite possibilities as to how they can record and combine media. Recording audio or video can be done in many different locations, with little preparation and lightweight equipment. All of this while achieving a quality that was unthinkable just fifteen years ago.

Most often, digital storytelling is produced in video form, although there are many other options available. However, video content allows for the usage of still images, text, and sounds, which make them extremely efficient when it comes to using social media platforms. Video also allows creators to transmit more information in a simplified manner, which makes content easier to digest for the receiver.

Written articles, on the other hand, can provide for an immersive experience as readers go through the text at their own pace. They can also include images, links, audio, and even embedded video depending on the platform. Indices can also be used to browse the text more easily and jump back and forth within articles.

In this way, readers can quickly pick the information that they want, while disregarding information they already know. The possibility to jump to a different webpage, video, etc. also helps the person on the receiving end. All of this makes for a smoother, more versatile experience to suit everyone’s needs better.

While text and video are some of the most popular mediums in which digital storytelling is presented, there are several others. For example, podcasting has seen incredible growth in popularity over the past years.

The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling

Joe Lambert is one of the most-cited experts on the topic of digital storytelling. He is the founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling, a nonprofit organization focused on digital art. One idea defined by Lambert that is widely used is that digital storytelling has seven important elements creators should consider.

These ideas revolve mainly around video content but can be applied to any other media, forming a framework to help shape the story while taking advantage of the strong points of this art form. This idea has been used by many as a great starting point for digital storytelling, such as the University of Houston.

Let’s go over the seven elements of digital storytelling and how they help create a compelling experience:

1. Point of View – Defines the main point of view and the author’s perspective.
2. A Dramatic Question – The question around which the story revolves. It should be answered by the end of the story.
3. Emotional Content – The presentation of issues that attract the audience and makes it feel connected, presented in a powerful, personal way.
4. The Gift of Your Voice – Usage of clear voice recordings to tell the story taking advantage of all the benefits of spoken words.
5. The Power of the Soundtrack – Any music or sounds that follow along with the story and help the audience get immersed.
6. Economy – Not using too much content, just enough for the viewer to have a comfortable experience.
7. Pacing – The rhythm of the story or speed at which events unfold.

Where Can Digital Storytelling Be Used?

The insights and tools of digital storytelling can be extremely useful in many fields. No matter what you specialize in, chances are digital storytelling can help you communicate better. It allows you to create material that is more clear, easier to follow, and more interesting for the receiver.

As technologies become wider-reaching, the requirements for organizations to take advantage of digital storytelling grow thinner. Just having a smartphone, computer, or laptop puts anyone in a good position to start producing this kind of content. Considering that, we can conclude that most organizations are capable of getting involved in digital storytelling.

Any advance in making communication more precise and efficient is likely to benefit us all. Digital storytelling is a force to reckon in that sense, given its power and accessibility in modern days. Let’s see some examples of this.

Digital Storytelling in Dducation

For educators and students of all levels, digital storytelling can help a great deal in exposing ideas and learning. It makes educational content exciting in many ways and helps it last longer in memory.

The most obvious way is applying it to content created by the teachers themselves, but there are other resources. Encouraging students to create their own stories provides a handful of benefits to be harvested too. This process forces them to get involved with the content on a deeper level. It helps them learn to communicate better in general and improve their confidence and writing skills. And knowing that digital storytelling is here to stay, it’s important to push students into learning the skills involved.

When educators use digital storytelling to create their own content, they can make for a thrilling piece of information. This can be a standalone piece to be expanded further in class or through other media. In that case, it serves as a starting point to get students involved and interested in additional content. It can also become part of a series in which the teacher develops a larger topic. When requested in the form of group projects, it helps the students work in their team-building abilities.

We should hope that more educators become aware of this tool and how to put it to work. In combination with their knowledge of pedagogy, very educational content can be created with little resources and time.

Digital Storytelling in Marketing

For brands, digital storytelling can provide a powerful and versatile marketing tool. It helps connect with people in new ways that convey the strength of emotional responses such as empathy. This helps in making customers feel closer to the brand in a way that colder, old-school media could never match. Now that companies compete for our attention constantly, it helps to communicate relatable, human experiences in little time.

Going further, those organizations that have more extensive resources can produce more of this bond-creating content. This allows marketers to do tests in order to see which stories do better. That strategy is great to create more specialized content and focus on particular audiences.

For these reasons, many, if not most big marketing efforts involve some sort of digital storytelling nowadays. If you have seen a few video ads online, chances are at least one of them has been conceived within this framework.

Another powerful way to introduce digital storytelling is to have followers of the brand create them. In a similar way that hashtags are encouraged, the creation of these stories can be encouraged too. This results in stronger communities, and a better sensation of being involved, further attracting people to the brand.

Digital Storytelling in Health Promotion

One big obstacle that science and health communicators face is a lack of interest from the general public. This creates big opportunities to put digital storytelling to work for public knowledge about all things health-related.

Many public service announcements containing recommendations often go overlooked by the public they’re made for. In situations like that, digital storytelling can be used to target these efforts more efficiently. 

Spreading information about diseases like cancer or diabetes can save lives for example. By having a clearer idea of how their messages are being delivered, experts can communicate better to their audiences.

Medical devices and treatments sometimes demand people who are not trained in medical sciences to take certain actions. Digital storytelling gives doctors and other specialists better control over the message that patients receive.

Medical companies can use this resource too, in order to improve the way they communicate to doctors and patients. This includes information about processes that are not directly health-related, such as payments, policies, and resources.

What Are the Best Digital Storytelling Platforms??

As digital storytelling becomes more popular, it influences the way we connect to others online. Many companies recognize this and seek to provide people with the tools and audience to deliver their message. The result is a growing number of communities with their own creators and receivers, forming a thriving environment for ideas.

Whether you are a communicator or just want to enjoy the content, these platforms are very useful. They are a show of how mass media gave ground for small-scale productions for writers, video makers, and artists in general.

Next, we will go over some of the main platforms for digital storytelling. We will describe each complete with its approach to this new era of communication.

Medium.com

Covering all sorts of topics, a widely popular publishing platform for digital storytelling is Medium. Focused mainly on text posts, this website features everything ranging from amateur publications to professional works.

With over 100 million readers, Medium has a large enough audience for any type of idea. The website does not run ads, based on its intention to remain unbiased. One clear leader in digital storytelling, Medium is where social media meets quality content sharing.

As time goes by, more of your Google searches are likely to result in Medium articles. Especially since it features many different tags for an extensive set of topics. Among the most popular ones, you can find startup, life, politics, design, business, sports, food, art, and health. Some of these go over current news, others explain how a service or website works, others are opinion articles. There is content for all tastes and expectations.

Medium charges a monthly or yearly subscription to read unlimited articles, and pays content creators for their contributions. Once contributors achieve a large enough follower base they can start getting paid for their content. The profit of each creator depends on the amount of time paid subscribers to spend on content made by them.

Steller.co

Steller is another great company that is taking advantage of modern technology to create an impressive experience. This platform is theme-oriented, encouraging content creators to focus on travel stories. Through the app, they can combine images, audio, video, and text for a rich description of a place or experience.

Tourism, vacations, and travel can bring about some of the most interesting photos and videos. Really, who doesn’t enjoy the picture of a beautiful, exotic landscape? Some of the stories featuring this theme make it hard to look away. While the platform was created with the most enthusiastic traveling fans, the posts are enticing for anyone.

To access Steller content users have to download an app, available both for Android and iOS. Once they start creating content, they can use the app to post it on other social networks too.

Shorthand

Another company that is great to see at the front of innovation is Shorthand. One of the pioneers of “scrollytelling”, it allows people to create pages that move and respond while the user scrolls. These stories can include a wide variety of different tools and animations. Images, videos, effects, animations, and even interactive pieces like graphics and maps can be included in Shorthand content.

Shorthand provides the possibility to create highly interactive and dynamic experiences with no coding required. That means average users can create great content by just getting to work with minimal training. Bridging that gap between regular people and the creation of interactive sites is an excellent way to make the web more friendly. This is not limited to publicly available sites, as Shorthand is great to create internal communications within companies. Some big organizations have already made use of Shorthand content, such as Honda, the University of Cambridge, and the BBC.

Created stories can be published in Shorthand hosting at a subdomain of your choosing. They can also be downloaded in different formats, some of which are easy to put on a web server. Surely, putting some effort into offering this kind of flexibility was a great idea on Shorthand’s side.

While a free trial is available, getting your Shorthand story published requires a paid plan. The plans are named prime, pro, and premium, with the first one containing more than enough features to get started. While prices are not publicly available, you can ask for a discount for charities, academic institutes, or Journalism classes. While it features an extensive knowledge base, it’s important to note that only premium plans receive support from Shorthand.

Animaker

Recognizing the advantages of digital storytelling for projects of all sorts, Animaker is another great platform for content creation. It is directed towards entrepreneurs, educators, online content creators, and anyone else who can make use of creating entertaining animated stories. Several big companies trust Animaker to create part of their digital content. Some of its largest clients are Pepsi, Google, Verizon, Unicef, and Walmart.

Animaker can help you edit video and combine it with animated objects and custom characters, and much more. It allows for cropping video and adding overlays of all sorts, including subtitles and watermarks of your own creation. This platform also has one of the largest collections of multimedia content to include in your projects. It also supports 4k video, to create digital stories of excellent viewing quality.

All of this can be accessed through powerful templates that simplify content creation a lot. Some other well thought features make the process easier too, such as a character builder with many facial expressions. It also has text-to-speech with several different voices and auto lip-sync for characters.

Animaker has a nicely done knowledge base and tutorials page, covering almost any question you can think about the platform. While this tool is not totally free, it offers several different plans starting at $10 a month. By creating a free account you can also test most of its functions.

Book creator

While video content and animations get most of the attention, books are far from dying out. Almost all of our devices with a screen provide book reading capabilities, and ebook readers still have a growing user base. Book Creator knows this and made a modern platform that is up to the challenge of satisfying digital content creators. By using this tool, users from all over the world create nearly two million books each month.

Books created in this platform can include a variety of media types, including video, music, recordings, and drawings. For additional functionality, these stories can also include spreadsheets, Google Maps, and personalized code. Book Creator users can collaborate in real-time, allowing for a rich experience for teachers and students.

This platform is also fully compatible with Google Chrome, Safari, Edge, and can even be used as an iPad app. Once a book project is completed it can be published online or exported as a PDF or as an ePub file. 

The free version of Book Creator lets users create up to 40 books, but real-time collaboration is not available there. Paid plans start at $12 per teacher per month, and allow for up to 1000 books per user.

Conclusion

Now you are ready to put digital storytelling to work in alignment with your objectives. This puts you in a position to extend your influence on the world. Make sure to use that in a positive way, and help others improve in this aspect too.

The power of narrative to make people feel more connected is much more than a tool to increase sales. It can be a way to connect more deeply with your teammates, students, or organizations.

Knowing how digital storytelling presents itself you will be prepared to recognize it when used by others. Being able to spot those narratives and think about how they were conceived can help you become a better communicator too. It can also aid in protecting yourself from being heavily influenced by these stories.

The post Digital Storytelling: A New Way To Connect appeared first on Grit Daily News.

This is not surprising when considering that startups have made a name for themselves for being disruptive. After all, a disruptive idea will bring you attention and funding but what happens when the novelty fades away? You could even say that coming up with the idea is easy, the difficult part is the execution of the idea and putting it out there in a consistent manner.

Startups need to be able to develop effective plans that allow them to achieve the goal every startup is looking for: Succes. However, with so many elements to consider and increasing competition for funding, it is hard for a founder to know where to start. Well, many experts agree that marketing should take precedence.

The reasoning for prioritizing marketing efforts is pretty straightforward: Getting noticed will increase your chances of getting funded, establishing partnerships, and converting sales. One of the most effective, time-tested, and popular strategies is paid media.

With most of us being constantly connected via our phones, computers, smart devices, TV, and traditional communication methods, it is easier for brands to get in touch with us. Startups can benefit greatly from this to raise brand awareness and reach a larger audience.

However, competition has also become more fierce as organizations fight to grab our attention and get us to learn more about them. As such, startups can be at a disadvantage compared to established companies with a larger budget allocated to paid media as they search for the channels that will allow them to engage audiences most compellingly.

Learning what paid media is, what it can achieve, why you should consider it, and what the best strategies are, will prove beneficial for any entrepreneur looking to have a successful business… which we are sure is 100% of them.

What Is Paid Media?

The lines between what does and doesn’t constitute paid media have become increasingly blurry over time. In the past, the idea of paid media was limited to print, TV, radio, and outdoor marketing. Now, most marketing experts agree that any external marketing effort that requires a company to pay for the placement can be considered paid media, independent of the medium.

While this sounds simple enough, the existence of categories like “earned media” and “owned media” often result in misunderstandings. It is also not uncommon for inexperienced marketing professionals to think about these categories independently when in fact, they complement each other.

Paid media includes any advertising medium (websites, blogs, etc.) that companies pay to have their ads published in, with most startups using paid media to create social media marketing campaigns. Campaigns in social networks (social ads) and search engine marketing (SEM) are also used here so that your company is optimally positioned in a browser.

Through this type of campaign, companies manage to accomplish the difficult task of gaining visibility in crowded spaces, as well as revenue growth.

Earned Media and Owned Media: The Complement to Paid Media

As we said before, there are different types of media that startups can take advantage of when it comes to executing sponsored content. Understanding the difference between these types of media and how they interact, will allow you to design better strategies.

Earned Media

Earned media includes all portals that advertise a product or service free of charge because they were influenced by it. In other words, it is an exhibition that has organically reached your brand, either through the recommendation of satisfied customers or through a viral event. 

This type of media includes press mentions, reviews, recommendations, sharing, or any form of word-of-mouth resulting from your content distributions, SEO efforts, or customer experience. This recognition will often follow active efforts with other types of media as it tends to be more organic, especially at a time when social networking and blogging have made it easier than ever to share recommendations.

Owned Media

As the name implies, owned media is any platform that a company owns to promote itself. Some examples are blogs, YouTube channels, TikTok accounts, etc. These are very useful for building a digital presence and ensuring brand recognition.

Nowadays digital presence is one of the key factors that determine whether your business can succeed or not. With it, you can attract a larger number of people to move them down the funnel. 

Why Does Paid Media Matter?

Paid media is one of the most effective means of marketing as it allows startups to reach a wider audience in an active manner than any other type of media. While earned and owned media require you to have gained relevance in the industry, paid media allows you to expand such relevance.

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that paid media brings to startups looking to promote content and drive exposure.

More Visibility and Better Positioning

By establishing a startup on social networks, it will automatically have greater reach and visibility. You will reach a larger audience, and the opportunities to increase sales will be much greater. Paid advertising allows you to increase traffic to your website.

On the other hand, if your website still does not appear in the best positions in Google despite having paid for advertising, you should consider hiring an SEO specialist. These experts will take care of your website optimization so that it appears first in search results, which will improve the benefits of paid media.

Platform Flexibility

A great advantage of using paid media is that the contracts are not final, which means you can cancel the contract at any time without causing your company major losses. This will allow you to test multiple platforms, mediums, and outlets to come up with the best strategy for your campaign.

If you see that a campaign is not achieving the expected goals, it is better to get rid of it and try another platform. After all, paid media is all about reaching new potential customers to increase your user or customer base.

Get to Know Your Audience

When you pay to advertise your product or service, you have control over all the information about who goes through the advertising. Based on this, what you can also do is adjust your content to whoever views it.

Information you can find about the people viewing the ads might include the following: Demographics, gender, age, interests, and more. This can be very useful to customize your services to an audience you already know and even expand further to generate more sales.

This is incredibly important as you don’t want to reach just about anyone but the people who might help your business get off the ground. Efficacy is more important than volume! 

Affordability

Paid media tends to be a pretty accessible service for startups, especially at a time when the industry is getting more attention. While the costs will depend on the objectives, you will often find that most platforms will have a multitude of plans for different needs. 

For example, It’s not the same to set a cost-per-click (CPC) or a cost-per-1,000-impressions (CPM) term. In the first variant, advertisers pay platforms depending on the total number of clicks made on the ad. In the second one, as you can guess from the name, advertisers pay for 1,000 impressions on the announcement.

Increased Trust

In the modern age, having your business on social media and being widely advertised is a sign of authenticity and transparency. Earlier we mentioned how paid media could positively influence your business. It is good to know that it also gives recognition to your brand.

Companies that are trusted can also retain their customers longer. When word gets out, many people will know that your company is reputable, and they will come to purchase what you sell. That’s another great perk from paid media and social media ads.

The relevance of social media is one of the main reasons why influencers have become one of the most important players in the paid media market. After all, influencers get to have a more personal connection with their followers.

Types of Paid Media

Social Media Ads

In social networks, the ads we are shown usually have a lot to do with our interests. Moreover, they are distributed in a very strategic way. What are we trying to say? Well, take Instagram as an example: You are scrolling through Stories and there it is, that shirt you have been meaning to buy. This is possible because of how social media uses advanced algorithms to serve customized ads.

Currently, this type of paid media is most popular because a large portion of the population has social networks and uses them frequently. As mentioned earlier, a great advantage of social media ads is that a CPC strategy can be used. The cost per click can be beneficial for you because you do not have to pay anything until users are led to your ads.

Finally, you should know that when looking for the best platform for social media ads, you can choose from a variety of options. These include the following:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Amazon Ads
• YouTube Ads
• TikTok For Business
• Linkedin Ads
  

Each of these platforms has its merits. However, you should do deeper research to know which fits the most to your marketing plan. Another good idea is to hire influencers to promote your service. This is another example of paid social media advertising.

Print Ads

Yes, we know what you are thinking. Print ads are an archaic way to promote your services. But it is not. This type of marketing was most commonly used before the advent of social media and is still used, albeit on a smaller scale. As you know, there are still many people who read magazines or travel by car and see large billboards on the road.

With the right placement and the right size, a print ad can certainly be very effective for promoting your brand. A good idea is also to print out a QR code and attach it to the ad to mix the online and offline parts.

Finally, print ads, though overtaken by digital ads, are still viable for many reasons. The way it approaches certain types of audiences is unique, and it can be used to focus on a very specific niche without spending so much. This type of marketing strategy is not going away any time soon.

Radio/Podcast Ads

It may be a good idea to consider paying podcast or radio owners to promote your business. Advertisers pay to have their ads aired for a few seconds. There are many stations where you can advertise your business, and also different types of commercials.

For example, there are radio live reads, where the main journalist reads your advert on air. If you don’t like that idea, you can do a straight reading. Here it’s only you that will be giving your business information and how customers can get in touch with you.

With 58% of Americans having listened to podcasts and the number of frequent listeners growing, podcasts have become a great medium for marketing campaigns. In addition to this, the variety of podcasts ensures that you can reach an audience with specific interests.

Display Ads

Display ads, also called banner ads, are images or gifs that appear on websites for a certain period of time showing your advertising. These are often used on landing pages, so you should look for a website with a nice presentation and high traffic to set your ad.

Determining the demographic you want to reach is also extremely important to increase the potential of your campaign. Fortunately, platforms that offer display ads also have a lot of customization options for you to choose from.

How to Make A Successful Paid Media Campaign?

There are many keys to a successful paid media campaign. Small businesses grow mainly thanks to marketing, and a good strategy can lead to many customers and investors. Let’s look at what we can do to run a successful paid media campaign.

Identify Your Goals

When you start in the field of paid media, many doubts will surely cross your mind. However, you must stay focused and ask yourself: What do I want to achieve? What do I want to let people know in my advertisements? Do I want to increase customer satisfaction or make more sales? That’s the first step to a successful paid media campaign.

You can not get where you want to go if you do not know where you want to arrive. By defining your goals, you can give shape to your marketing campaign. Whatever you define as your goals will also change your campaign requirements.

For example, if you are trying to target young people as your main audience, you should use TikTok For Business before Linkedin Ads or Amazon Ads. We all know that Linkedin is a platform for workers and Amazon is for buying stuff. Young people use other platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

These are factors to think about before launching a marketing campaign. Set different objectives and work hard on them.

Track Your Successes Even if Minimal

Getting started with paid media and a marketing campaign is not easy and it can take some time to see big results. That’s why you also need to set micro-goals to see success early on. For example, you can set milestones for your first sale. You can even set another milestone when the campaign starts to be profitable.

These are different ways to know you are doing things right. They motivate you and keep you on course to do the best you can. Immediate results are not expected on paid media campaigns, you have to be patient and resilient.

Take Control Of Your Financials

It is always important for any business to set its budget. By determining how much money you have available, you can calculate what is the best option for a paid media campaign. This allows you to focus your energies where they really need to be.

However, as we mentioned earlier, you can always switch to other campaigns if the one you are using is not working well. The real benefit of figuring out your budget is that you can have peace of mind at the time of investment. Your money will be spent wisely.

If you know how much you want to spend and how much ROI you will get, you can make better decisions. You will understand where to get the best results and you will be able to focus the budget on the best platform.

Choose The Correct Platform For Your Needs

As we already know, paid media campaigns are always conducted through third-party platforms. Therefore, you should take your time to choose the right platform. That’s where money is invested, and you won’t want to throw it away.

There are many platforms, so focus on what your goals are and how your business is set up. If you want to sell your own product, consider Amazon Ads. On the other hand, if you want to generate more leads, running a campaign in Google Ads is always a good option.

There are many ways a campaign can be managed, so it is extremely important to find the platform that best fits your goals. If your budget allows you, it could be even worth trying some of them to see which gives the best results.

Implement and Stick to Your Plan

After all the extensive work, it is time to execute the strategy. This can be the most challenging part of the campaign. Up until this point, it has all been about planning but now it’s time to turn everything on and wait for results to happen. 

You will need to keep a close eye on the performance of your strategy. Be aware that you won’t see immediate results most of the time, so don’t despair. Stick to the plan and once you have sufficient data, adjust your strategy as necessary.

If you take your time and do your homework, your paid media strategy is sure to pay off!

Should You Get A Paid Media Specialist?

Advertising is evolving and all businesses need it to some degree. Constant interaction with digital devices for many hours a day and new consumption habits make the user a constant recipient of digital communication and advertising.

The Internet creates opportunities for growing and personalized communication between companies and customers. New roles have been created in the professional market and companies need professionals to fill new positions.

Specialized training in technology, design, and marketing opens the way for professionals who are constantly up to date and curious about new trends. Programmers, project managers, and designers work together as a team to make the marketing campaign successful.

The main tasks of paid media professionals are writing content for social networks, researching new trends in digital marketing, collecting and analyzing data for decision making, and managing search engine positioning tools and data science platforms.

A digital marketing specialist’s income ranges from $2,000 to $4,000, so if your company’s budget allows, contacting a paid media professional might be a good decision.

The post What Is Paid Media and Why Does It Matter? appeared first on Grit Daily News.

What Is the Metaverse?

The concept of Metaverse is nothing new despite its recent appearance in pop culture. In fact, the word “Metaverse” has been around since 1992 when it was introduced in a science-fiction novel by the title of “Snow Crash”. Written by American author Neal Stephenson, the novel depicts the metaverse as the successor of the internet which operates as a virtual world that users can access via portable terminals.

Stephenson’s metaverse was bound to the laws of physics just like in real life, with users even having to walk or use monorails to commute in the virtual world. However, the concept of metaverse has evolved to represent a virtual world in which users can live a second digital life. Unfortunately, the definition of what this actually entails is non-existent as everyone seems to have their own idea of the requirements.

Despite the lack of clarity on what actually constitutes a Metaverse, you probably are already familiar with the idea. If you have watched movies like “Tron”, “Ready Player One”, or “The Matrix”, you have seen what the metaverse represents. You probably also have heard or even played games that could arguably be considered a metaverse in itself, as is the case of “Second Life”.

What is important for you to keep in mind is that the idea of the metaverse is still changing and evolving. This fact is important as when investing in a metaverse stock, you are investing in the company’s vision for the metaverse, not the metaverse itself… as there is no such thing.

Why Should You Care About the Metaverse?

We understand if our previous explanation of the Metaverse and the examples we mentioned made you underestimate the potential of the metaverse. While it is true that most iterations of the metaverse depicted in movies and existing platforms are game-like, there is so much more to it. As a digital world means to offer the chance of a “second life”, a metaverse should also offer a wide range of services that extend beyond gaming.

Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG) like World of Warcraft have been around for years, offering players a virtual world to roam freely. This makes gamers closely familiar with the concept of metaverse but not necessarily users until this point. What would set a virtual world like WOW apart from the Metaverse is its range of functions.

The idea of the concept being pursued by the big companies at this time includes complex economic systems that open the doors to monetization through commerce, advertisements, virtual real estate, virtual jobs, and much more. As such, the metaverse creates a virtual world that mirrors the real world, instead of being a world with pure entertainment value. 

As the metaverse is basically the real world taken into the digital realm, independently of the form, the possibilities are endless. Imagine the chance of creating virtual businesses, items, organizations, and anything else in a virtual environment populated by millions of people from all around the world. 

By merging the internet and real life, the metaverse promises a new way to live. It is not a surprise that Grayscale estimates the metaverse is a $1 trillion revenue opportunity for the advertising, social commerce, and tech industries. Even if you choose not to invest in the Metaverse, it will play an important role in shaping your and our future.

This potential the metaverse represents to reshape the digital realm was some of the biggest companies heavily investing in its development. Let’s take a look at 8 metaverse stock you should consider investing in!

What Companies Will Benefit the Most From the Metaverse’s Success?

With the Metaverse representing such a great financial opportunity, it is not a surprise that some of the biggest companies in the world are taking part in its development. For example, Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, for $68.7 billion was motivated by the Metaverse. This makes the company one of the latest tech giants to join the race.

Several tech companies have already been working on the metaverse directly or indirectly for a while. These are the companies we will focus on for this list while taking a look at their journey into the metaverse so far. No, with no particular order in mind, let’s take a look at the top metaverse stock you should consider investing in!

Nvidia

Nvidia is widely known as the leader in the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) market ever since its founding back in 1993. However, despite its prominent role in the industry, it has been expanding into other fields over the past years. The favorite of millions of gamers and power users around the world, Nvidia is now working on Artificial Intelligence (AI), data science, cloud computing, self-driving vehicles, computing, and more.

Nvidia’s stock grew in value by more than 125% during 2021 as a result of the increasing demand for GPUs and data centers. The company reported record revenue of $7.1 billion for the third quarter of 2021, which represented an increase of 50% from the revenue it generated over the previous year. 

GPU and data center demand is still on the rise as the transition to remote work continues to take place for millions of people and businesses move to operate online. However, the company also has an important role to play in the development of the metaverse due to its relevance in the AR and VR spaces.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, has also proven to be one of the most vocal supporters of the metaverse, having talked about it for years. Back in April of 2021, Huang delivered a keynote on the topic of the omniverse, a company’s version of the metaverse specially designed for engineers. Ever since the announcement, the project has continued to gain relevance among the engineering community as the company keeps prioritizing its development.

With metaverse platforms being likely to require high specs for the processing of graphics, Nvidia’s 83% share of the GPU market will allow the company to benefit from the metaverse craze. 

The great thing about investing in Nvidia metaverse stock is that you are investing in diverse applications of its technology which are poised for growth. In addition to this, its approach to the metaverse (omniverse) is unique in nature, which means that any competitor would be at a disadvantage. 

Coinbase

Let us be clear: Coinbase is not working on any metaverse project that we know of at this time. However, this doesn’t mean that the company has nothing to gain from the success of the metaverse.

As you probably know, Coinbase is one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges out there. As one of the only exchanges operating in the United States, the exchange has grown exponentially over the past years. In fact, it became the first major exchange to go public back on April 14 of 2021.

Blockchain technology is being used by several projects on the development of decentralized metaverses. Names like Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and The Sandbox have been making headlines over the past months, with all of them making use of blockchain and crypto to run their virtual economies.

As one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges out there, Coinbase will surely be one of the go-to platforms for the trading of cryptocurrencies powering future decentralized metaverses. If you believe that decentralized metaverses will be able to go mainstream, this is certainly a metaverse stock to add to your portfolio.

Unity

Unity is one of the most important names in the gaming industry. The game development platform has become one of the most popular game engines with more than 1.5 million monthly creators. The engine has grown so big that many consider it to be a strong competitor to Epic Games.

Despite not having the best year in 2021, Unity’s metaverse stock has seen its value increase by over 9.92% over the past 6 months. The company also reported revenue of over $286 million during the third quarter of 2021, an increase of over 43% when compared to the past year.

With Unity powering many of the most popular mobile and desktop game titles, as well as other platforms, the metaverse explosion could get its total addressable market even higher.  The company is not planning on taking a leading but a “support” role in metaverse development, as Unity’s senior VP of revenue Julie Shumaker told Forbes back in December.

Despite not being actively working on the creation of its own metaverse, Unity is committed to making the transition to the metaverse easier. The company envisions the metaverse as a transition space that connects multiple games and ecosystems together through accessible doors. 

In line with this idea, the company has launched its work toward making connectivity between games easier through features like Unity Gaming Services. However, for the company to play a real supporting role, it would need to introduce new features that allowed creators to include such “lobbies” that would host players moving between spaces.

For now, Unity’s potential to benefit from the metaverse craze is related to the relevance it has as a game engine. If this is not enough for you to seriously consider it, just know that Unity’s CEO John Riccitiello seems committed to having the company play an essential role. Back in November of 2021, he stated “We’re the underlying toolset for creating the metaverse”.

Epic Games

Epic Games is the company behind Unreal Engine, one of the biggest game engines out there. While Unity has the biggest market share in the mobile game market, Unreal has managed to be a worthy competitor while completely dominating the PC and console markets.

Fortnite, an online game with more than 350 million players, is another popular product in Epic Games’ belt. Despite having been around for years, the game has continued to be one of the most popular titles by keeping the game fresh via unique partnerships and updates. This has made the game transcend its original nature to become an internet phenomenon and even work as a social network of sorts.

Epic Games is betting on Fortnite to grow until it achieves metaverse status, a process that has taken place organically over the years. The already huge user base of the game also provides the company with a competitive advantage.

Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO and founder, is known to be one of the most enthusiastic executives when it comes to the metaverse. Last year, he referred to the importance of the metaverse and the race to build it by stating:

“Over the coming decades, the metaverse has the potential to become a multi-trillion-dollar part of the world economy. The next three years are going to be critical for all of the metaverse-aspiring companies like Epic, Roblox, Microsoft, Facebook,” he said in an interview after. “It’s kind of a race to get to a billion users, whoever brings on a billion users first, would be the presumed leader in setting the standards.”

Back in April of last year, Epic closed a $1 billion funding round launched “to Support Epic’s Long-Term Vision for the Metaverse”. This vision includes the connection of many of Epic’s most popular titles, which include Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys, as well as facilitating interaction between titles built with Unreal Engine.

Meta

This is a metaverse stock that couldn’t miss in this list! While the metaverse has been in the mouth of millions of people over the past year, the company that helped it popularize the most was Meta. Formerly known as Facebook, the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg rebranded itself to make its commitment to the development of the metaverse clear for everyone.

Ever since the rebranding, Meta has redoubled its efforts to develop the metaverse, investing over $10 billion on its metaverse unit during 2021. This investment allowed the company to create a working prototype that is currently in beta (Horizon Worlds), which is why the company is planning to invest more over the next few years.

Patent applications submitted by Facebook to the US Patent and Trademark Office show that Meta’s metaverse will be heavily focused on virtual stores. These would allow users to acquire digital and real-world goods, as part of a commerce-led business model.

As one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Meta is not sparing in expanses when it comes to winning the race. The company is working on technology that would allow for the creation of hyper-realistic avatars that could be able to replicate poses, facial expressions, and more.

While Facebook’s public perception has grown increasingly negative over the past years, the company is making efforts to change this. For this reason and its approach, many experts see Meta as one of the safest bets on the Metaverse. Just like Epic Games, Meta already counts with a huge user base it can easily incentivize to adopt its vision of the metaverse.

AMD/INTEL

Back in December of last year, Intel recognized the important role the metaverse will play in the future of computing. However, the company believes that computing capabilities need to increase by “several orders of magnitude” in order to make the metaverse a reality. This is where both AMD and Intel come in.

AMD and Intel are the Coca-Cola and Pepsi of the CPU world. These companies power most of the devices people would use to access the metaverse, which is why they stand to benefit from the success of the metaverse.

While GPUs have been the go-to solution for gamers for decades, the short supply over the past years has forced CPU manufacturers to improve their discrete graphics chip market. This, in combination with the additional computing power needed by upcoming platforms, would result in developers prioritizing CPU optimization for the metaverse.

The demand for CPUs in the metaverse will not be limited to end-users but will also include the companies developing it. Back in November, Meta announced that it would be using AMD’s Epyc chips in its data centers, many of which will power its metaverse.

Betting on AMD or Intel’s metaverse stock is investing in the infrastructure that will support the metaverse, no matter if decentralized or centralized models succeed. Investing in AMD or Intel is a matter of which approach you believe more in. 

Amazon 

Just like with our previous entry, Amazon is also a metaverse stock you might want to consider if you are thinking about investing in the infrastructure behind the metaverse. As the company behind Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon has the biggest share in the cloud computing market and has a lot to benefit from when the metaverse gets off the ground.

In addition to this, Amazon will also benefit from the commerce opportunities that the metaverse will create. With an online model that has already proven to be incredibly successful, not only would the company be able to offer its services in the Metaverse but also expand its services. For example, Amazon could link real-life goods with virtual ones, as well as offer virtual goods like real estate, 3d models, services, and more.

It is also important to note that while the Metaverse is not exclusively focused on gaming, this will surely play an important role in it. This, in combination with its social nature, will also have a profound impact on the streaming industry. With Amazon also being the company behind Twitch, this trend would also prove extremely beneficial to the e-commerce titan.

Amazon has not disclosed any plans to play an active role in the development of the metaverse yet. However, we believe that the reasons we already listed are more than enough to consider investing in and treating Amazon stock as a metaverse stock.

Tencent

The Chinese internet giant is one of the most influential companies in the social media and gaming industries in the world, and certainly the biggest in China. This places the company in a unique position to capitalize on the increasing interest and cultural relevance of the Metaverse.

This week, it was announced that Tencent would be acquiring Xiami’s BlackShark gaming division. BlackShark is a company that manufactures gaming phones and accessories but will be changing its focus to AR/VR hardware after the acquisition. With this move, Tencent will further expand its capabilities and synergy with metaverse development as this could be the building block it was missing.

Back in 2021, Tencent revealed its vision for the Metaverse in an earnings call when CEO Pony Ma said:

“The way we look at Metaverse in terms of sort of — at a high level is that we feel that anything that really makes the virtual world more real and making the real world richer with virtual experiences can actually sort of becoming part of the Metaverse big world. And as a result, we felt it’s going to be an opportunity that really adds growth to the existing industries. For example, it will be an addition to the gaming industry.”

Tencent is also the second-largest stakeholder for Epic Games, which certainly opens the doors to interesting collaborations. With other Chinese companies like Baidu joining the metaverse race, it is just natural for Tencent to follow through now that it has acquired the last piece in the puzzle.

The post 8 Metaverse Stocks You Should Consider Investing In appeared first on Grit Daily News.

NBA star Kevin Durant and business partner/manager Rich Kleiman’s Thirty Five Ventures made a massive investment into Topia. An undisclosed lump sum was invested into the belief of community and the future of human connection on social media.

Kevin Durant’s portfolio is diverse and winning! Earning $75 million in 2021, with $44 million of it coming from off-court ventures, you could say he knows what he’s doing. His investment into Postmates back in 2016 that scored him $15 million with the Uber acquisition in 2020.

Thirty Five Ventures Success: 

• Signed a multi-year partnership with Coinbase
  • Early investment in the crypto space, 2017 
  • Joined $100 million round at a $1.6 billion valuation
  • Coinbase $100 billion IPO 2021 = 61x returns 
• Joined $100 million series B round for OpenSea
  • OpenSea is the leading NFT auction platform
  • Round valued at $1.5 billion
  • Surpassed $10 billion in NFT sales, November 2021
• Invested in Robinhood, 2017
  • App to trade stock and exchange cryptocurrencies commission-free
  • Round valued at $1.2 billion
  • 2021 IPO valued at $32 billion 
  • Over 30 million users

Topia falls under 35V’s investment portfolio umbrella of fintech, cryptocurrency, health and wellness, media, etc, while aiming to educate within each market. Each startup shares mutual goals of bringing people together to form communities (Durant’s blog, boardroom and charity foundation).

Add “confluencer” to the buzzword list because Topia believes “influencers stand apart, confluencers bring people together.” Topia’s main focus is facilitating relationships that are usually accumulated from in-person attractions like museums, concerts and social experiences. Every member has the ability to create virtual art, worlds and portals, and most importantly, the ability to collaborate and share.

KD’s 6’9, long and lean stature looks absolutely nothing like Topia’s avatar. However, he can still create an entire world designed specifically to his exact memories, concerts, sports highlights, favorite places, while educating, showcasing art, hosting events or collaborating with other creators. As your 2D Topia bubble-buddy navigates unique and creative worlds, synchronicity ignites when video chats appear from members based on proximity – replicating the universe’s take on “right place at the right time.”

As social networks are evolving, Topia is supporting new and emerging markets where users unlock economic value. Forming memories at a low cost is top of mind, yet, Topia’s ahead of the curve with their ability to list NFT’s directly into their social media platform. The buying and selling of digital creations brings us back to buzzwords and the future.

With the success of Thirty Five Ventures and their impressive investments into the metaverse, NFT’s and cryptocurrency, Topia is a startup to watch. 

The post Kevin Durant Invests Into the Future of Social Networks – LA Tech Startup, Topia appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Today, Walker leads TSMA. The company was formerly known as The Social Media Advantage. Currently, the company’s moniker is The Social Media Agency and has experienced meteoric growth over the last decade since he founded it. As one of the pioneers in the influencer economy, TSMA quickly gained notoriety amongst the celebrity crowd. Walker’s agency quickly emerged as a global leader in social media management. Influencers liked the perks and financial remuneration. And developing economies like Argentina were receiving tens of thousands of dollars per month by bringing international followers to celebrities’ social media platforms. Indeed, TSMA had found the path to the triple win.

Grit Daily queried Walker about how TSMA manages to stay one step ahead in a very competitive market. He explained, “We incentivize the creator community with giveaways and we’ve leveraged that influencer economy for a long time, even before it was trendy to do so. TSMA is the first and only firm that uses the creator economy.”

Social media is constantly changing

Of course, TSMA’s success wouldn’t be possible without two critical components. One, a focus on developing the talent within. And two, a lot of hustling and hard work. When asked how social media has shifted since TSMA launched, Walker had this to say, “Prior to the pandemic, we didn’t anticipate a large boom and pivot to e-Commerce. That high influx led to new departments and adding a dozen new hires which was a boost to our social media community.”

Along the way, they’ve also had to make adjustments to evolve in parallel to how consumer habits were changing. “We’ve seen a massive shift in how people consume content and how individuals and businesses use it, and the strong desire for education in this space,” Walker said. He continued, “What I’m most proud of is the educational content that we’ve created. We’ve seen the impact that education can have.”

Maintaining compliance with ever-changing policies on social media platforms is an essential hallmark of the TSMA brand. “We’re always compliant so that we can attract the level of client base that we have.” However, one effort maintaining social media compliance threw them for an unexpected loop. “Back in October, 2019, Instagram made a wide-sweeping shift that wasn’t well documented publicly. They changed the way they allow third-party software to access their back end. Automated actions changed the way our clients were getting engagement literally overnight. Each account went from say a thousand likes to just a few hundred. Billions of actions per month went away which put a lot of social media agencies out of business. And engagement levels have been been lower ever since.”

What consumers want

Consumers want fresh, quality content. Short-form video content around 30-seconds at a time, “TikTok style,” is being voraciously consumed. In fact, TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform. Stock imagery is no longer resonating with the audience. People want authentic material; videos in particular. Each day, more than one billion hours of video are consumed on YouTube alone.

Walker shared his thoughts on how social media was likely to shift over the months and year ahead. “Short-form video content isn’t going to go away anytime soon.” To hear more insights about social media management and the grit required to build a massively successful company, tune into Grit Daily Like a Boss podcast. As Season 2 wraps up next week, we’ll soon be launching Season 3 under a new podcast title, “The Grit Files: Startup Stories.” Listen to the episode featuring Ryan Walker anywhere that content is streamed.

The post Taking Social Media to the Next Level appeared first on Grit Daily News.

This is just another setback in a long series of disappointments surrounding a growing and vibrant industry that has been embraced by consumers across all demographics, due to dated taboos that are still reflected in government policies.

So what now? Should cannabis companies expect further restrictions? And how can they pivot to new channels to keep the audiences they’ve worked so hard to build engaged and primed for conversion? Here’s what you need to know.

SMS Marketing: Getting the SHAFT

The CTIA is a self-regulating body of the wireless communications industry, which includes companies that offer SMS text messaging. SHAFT is an acronym that stands for sex, hate, alcohol, firearms and tobacco. It outlines categories of text messages that cannot be sent based on legal and moral grounds.

Today, this also covers any subjects relating to marijuana/cannabis, vaping or CBD. Any SMS messages that contain words remotely related to the categories listed in SHAFT will be flagged by providers and blocked by carriers.

Why Are They Doing This?

CTIA guidelines prohibit a range of products and services, including illegal substances. While cannabis and related products are legal in many states, not all states have decriminalized marijuana, and cannabis is still illegal by federal law. 

Diversify Your Digital Marketing 

Closing down SMS marketing is just the most recent barrier to cannabis and related brand marketing. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Snapchat and others were all closed long ago. Until such companies, as well as legislatures and governing bodies like the CTIA, start making changes, cannabis brands will have to double-down on the channels that are available.

There are still plenty of ways for cannabis and CBD brands to connect online and to differentiate themselves with consumers. Here are five:

Start With Your Website

Your website should be the center of all your marketing endeavors. Political winds can shift and blow in any direction, policies can change and platforms like SMS can be blown away at any time. Your website, however, is the one asset you always control, the calm eye in the midst of any storm, so make it central to your marketing strategies. Product announcements, customer reviews, your staff’s expert reviews, breaking news, social news, articles and blog posts should all go on your website first.

Generate Organic Hybrid Content

Cannabis brands can thrive on social media if you go organic – stories, photos and videos posted from your brand’s profile and shared with your fans. But don’t just link items from your website or use social media as some old-school RSS feed. Mix it up, create new blends and keep your content short, catchy and memorable. Are you releasing a new product? Show it to a customer and record their reaction and post a 5-second video to Twitter or TikTok. Pairing a strong content calendar with consistent and personality-filled community management (by responding to comments in real-time, posting interactive stories, etc.) can be a great way to replicate some of the direct-messaging feel of SMS.

Get Under the Influence

Practically an industry of its own now, influencer marketing was huge in 2020 and it’s estimated to be worth as much as $13 to $14 billion in 2021. The reason for this? It works. If you don’t have the budget to take on a national snowboarding team, don’t worry. Using several micro-influencers who are still building their audiences is less expensive and often provides better, more sustained results.

Consider Affiliate Marketing

For some cannabis/CBD brands, affiliate marketing generates great results. If you’re skeptical of affiliate marketing, think of them as influencers who take a commission instead of upfront payments. This is particularly effective if you have a major product launch or you want your brand to be pervasive across multiple platforms.

Native Advertising

Bypassing third-party platforms is still viable for cannabis brands. Going directly to major websites like Civilized.Life, you can get your ads front and center, without worrying so much about being coy about the products you sell. 

Agencies use a number of different strategies to help our cannabis and CBD brands to connect with their audiences and to grow their brands. There is never a one-size-fits-all solution, but here are some of the key takeaways.

A Note of Caution

Shadow bans are still a problem for cannabis brands, although each platform varies on its level of tolerance. Twitter is still quite liberal, however Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are strictly enforcing rules on cannabis-related content. You can currently use a “c*nnabis” hashtag on these platforms, for example, but the word “cannabis” itself will either be deleted or shadow banned.

Having an experienced cannabis marketing consultant on your side is definitely an asset going forward. But if you are going forward alone, keep in mind that each platform varies in its enforcement of cannabis rules. If too many posts are deleted or shadow banned, you should expect to have your account banned sooner or later. 

Before doubling down on content campaigns:

• Review the terms of service and community guidelines frequently.
• Review what other brands are doing successfully on each platform.
• Note which hashtags and words can be used and which cannot.
• Monitor your new content for its reach.
• Pull any content that doesn’t appear to be reaching your audience.

Above all, don’t let this keep you away from social media. Your customers are all likely there and the rewards of investing time there are great. Just use it carefully.

The post Cannabis Just Got Banned From SMS Marketing — What Now? appeared first on Grit Daily News.