Mediaboss Marketing

Updated Feb. 1, 2021

Concerned the impending demise of cookies will make audience behaviors harder to track across social media? Not sure if your business needs to make time for TikTok? Curious if misinformation and declining user trust make social media an unsafe space for your brand? Youre not alone.

Social media can be a tough nut to crack. The rules, opportunities, audiences, and value propositions vary greatly from one channel to another and can shift gears without notice.

The one thing to conquer those social media concerns is a channel plan an advanced directive for how your brand manages its content on these evolving platforms. It also spells out what you should (and shouldnt) expect to achieve.

Many brands mistakenly assume they must distribute content anywhere and everywhereto maximize its reach. But plastering your brands content across every social network, trendy news site, and video platform is not a channel plan. It holds no regard for whom it reaches, how they might be impacted, or how that impact might reflect on the business.

Remember: Yourcontent marketing strategyshould define your social media marketing strategy. Evaluate each social channel against your business goals and audience needs. Turn this evaluation into an actionable plan so everybody on your team will know where, when, and what they should post on each channel and what their efforts are meant to achieve.

Heres how to create and implement a channel plan for social media marketing that will enable you to do just that.

The channel-planning process involves three steps: (1) understanding the platforms value proposition, (2) creating your brands use case for engagement, and (3) ensuring everyone on your team works from the same set of guidelines. Lets look closer at each one.

Each channel and its core communitys engagement preferences play major roles in deciding if your content is a good fit. Your audience might be open to connecting with your brand in a Twitter chatbut reservesSnapchatfor personal conversations. Authoritative long-form content might play well onLinkedInor Medium, whilememes, mash-ups, and captioned photosare more appropriate for platforms like Instagram.

Its important to familiarize yourself with the characteristics of each channel and its corresponding community before joining the conversation. Use this helpful tip sheet from Aaron Agius as a primer for matching the content to the best distribution channel to achieve your brands goals.

With a short list of potential channels in hand, map existing content assets to their most appropriate distribution channels. Remember to consider the content experiences audiences expect, determine if you have the resources to meet those expectations, and evaluate the potential to deliver meaningful business results with your efforts.

Answer these questions (adapted from CMIs Social Media Survival Guide) to decide if a channel is the right fit for your business. Your responses also can provide clues as to how to position your content to compel the audience to act:

Who uses this channel and what are they using it for?

Will it help us meet our objectives?

Does it fit with oureditorial mission?

What results do we want to achieve?

What kinds of content work best on this platform?

If your responses dont reveal a compelling opportunity to engage on that channel or if the platforms environment isnt suited to your brands unique content vision and mission, take a step back and reserve your teams resources for channels that are a better fit.

While your companys goals are important, you also need to establish the right tone, the right topics, and the right conversations to ensure the content delivers the experience your audiences want.

Everybody who posts your brands content should understand and align with a set of social media guidelines to maintain a consistent voice and quality standards.

I recommend reviewing your company style guide to refine your social personality and instill factual accuracy and precision. That includes correct usage (and spelling) of unique terms like company trademarks, product names, personnel, and service offerings.

Also consider how to draw attention to your social media content, including the use of hashtags. Wally Koval, former CMI team member and author of Accidentally Wes Anderson created from his popular Instagram account by the same name, has pointed out that pursuing too many audiences at once can dilute your contents impact. He suggests aiming for five to 10 of the most relevant hashtags including two or three unique to your brand.

Take note of topics or issues your team should avoid discussing on social media, as well as any legal or regulatory policies they must follow. For example, if you dont want to risk falling afoul of the EUs GDPR rules, North Coast Medias Bethany Chambers suggests documenting these criteria in your social media guidelines:

Consumption preferences and audience trends: Are there industry events, media innovations, or consumer behaviors on which your content distribution can capitalize (e.g.,livestreamingvideo consumption habits, device-specific capabilities like memojis, popular memes)? How might these impact the tone/velocity of your distribution? Are there controversies oralgorithm shiftsthat might causeyou to reconsider their value to your brand?

Current events: Trending topics can present timely distribution opportunities. For example, important, culture-related topics like diversity and inclusivity, racial sensitivity, and gender equality are at the forefront of the U.S. medias conversations right now. When brands use their social content as a podium to express their values and lend their support to important issues like Chase and Fubu CEO Daymond John did by co-creating Black Entrepreneurs Day, a Facebook livestream event that featured roundtable discussions, audience Q&As, and musical performances it can earn them a critical boost in visibility and relevance in social media conversations that may have been closed to them.

Team resources: If you only have an editor or two managing the content marketing process, the bandwidth for consistent distribution and conversation monitoring may be limited to a few outlets; however, if you have a full team of writers, editors, and other distribution partners at your disposal, the extra manpower (or womanpower, see above) affords increased flexibility and control to manage content across many more channels.

Now that you have the information to determine where, when, and how to distribute your social content, building the plan is simple. Create a matrix of the channels that make the most sense for your brand and note engagement specifics for each one. When all the fields are filled, you have a template that can be referenced easily, updated as necessary, and shared throughout your organization.

In my experience, it can be useful to outline as much information as possible in your initial plan so your team can refer to it when new opportunities emerge or a snap decision needs to be made. But its perfectly OK to start simply then build on or refine your data fields as you learn whats working and what isnt.

The following is a snapshot of recommended information for your initial channel plan. (You candownloadand customize the template [go toFile > Download As >and select the format.]):

Editors note:While CMI was used as a reference for this template, the content does not reflect its channel plan.

Click to download

You may also want to consider including:

No matter how far and wide your business intends to extend its reach, successful content marketing distribution often comes down to having a strategic, systematic, and scalable approach. This model ensures that everyone works from the same social media blueprint, but its not the only way to get the job done. Let us know what processes you use to determine where, when, and how you share your content and spread your brand influence.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

Original post:
Social Media Content Plan: Strategy Tips and Template

If youve got a Virgin TV V6 box, you can use the app to watch selected recordings on your mobile or tablet around the home. You can even download them from the Virgin TV V6 box and watch them on the go.

Youll just need to be connected to your home network to stream or download your recordings. But once your recordings have been downloaded, you can play them anywhere. Say goodbye to boring train rides.

Note: You cannot download recordings from Virgin TV 360 boxes.

How you stream or download recording depends on what type of device you have.

To stream recordings on your Apple iOS device, simply do the following:

To download from recordings on your Apple iOS device:

The show will then be saved in the On Phone tab, ready for you to watch.

To stream recordings on your Android device, simply do the following:

To download from recordings to your Android device, simply do the following:

The download will show in the On Phone tab, where you can select it to watch.

You'll have 30 days from the download date to watch it. After you start watching a recording, you will usually have 48 hours before it expires. The expiry times can sometimes vary between content providers.

Usually, you can download a recording twice per household. However, this can vary based on the content provider.

More here:
How to use the virgin tv control app | Virgin Media Help

As Russian forces continue their brutal invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is waging a digital war of his own at home. Russias media sphere, which was tightly controlled by the state even before the Ukraine invasion, has become even smaller. For years, Putin has overseen a sustained crackdown on press freedom in Russiaa process that in recent weeks claimed two of the countrys last remaining independent news broadcasters, TV Rain and Echo of Moscow. Now, thanks to the Kremlins latest censorship law, many of the Wests major news outlets have been forced out of the country too, and millions of Russians find themselves blocked from accessing numerous major social-media platforms as well as anything resembling free and independent news.

Instead of giving up on their Russian audiences, though, international news organizations are trying to exploit gaps within this new digital iron curtain to reach the Russian people.

Although the majority of Russians rely on state-run television as their primary source of news, the fact that some consume news from foreign outlets has long upset the Russian government, which has spent years asserting control over domestic and foreign media in the country. But even by the Kremlins standards, this latest effort to block Russians from much of the internet marks an escalationone that has quickly transformed the country into a digital pariah.

Russians are, however, finding technical workarounds to sidestep the governments bans, some of which have been encouraged by international news outlets that are keen to maintain a digital presence in the country, even if they can no longer claim a physical one. The New York Times, which has announced that it has withdrawn its journalists from Russia, and The Washington Post, which has removed bylines from its Russia stories to prevent its journalists there from being caught up in the crackdown, launched their own dedicated channels on Telegram, the as-yet-unbanned social-media-and-messaging app that claims more than 1 billion downloads (Russia is its second-biggest market) and acts as a platform to both news outlets and Russian state channels alike. Meanwhile, the BBC, whose Russian-language website more than tripled its weekly average audience (10.7 million people compared with its average 3.1 million) in the first week of the Russian invasion, before being blocked by the Kremlin, encouraged its audience to use tools such as the Psiphon app, an open-source, virtual private-network service that helps users conceal their location, and Tor, a more secure web browser. (The British broadcaster also reverted to more old-school tactics, announcing that it would revive its shortwave radio service as an alternative means of reaching its audiences in Ukraine and Russia.) In the weeks since the Russian invasion began, demand for VPNs in the country has skyrocketed by more than 2,500 percent compared with pre-invasion levels, according to Top10VPN, an online VPN tracker.

Perhaps no outlet is better placed to overcome these challenges than Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The broadcaster was founded during the Cold War with the explicit purpose of reaching audiences behind the Iron Curtain. Despite the Soviet Unions efforts to jam broadcasts, people still found a way through the static, Jamie Fly, the president of RFE/RL, told me. I meet people all the time who remember sitting by the radio, literally turning the dial, trying to find the one frequency that had not been jammed. Today, RFE/RL, which is funded by (though editorially independent from) the United States government, is directing its audience to utilize a number of circumvention tools, including VPNs and Telegram.

I spoke with Fly days after RFE/RL announced that it was suspending its operations in Russia after a more-than-three-decade presence in the country (initiated in 1991 with an invitation from thenRussian President Boris Yeltsin to open a permanent bureau in Moscow, which Putin revoked a decade later). The decision, which came days after the Russian government blocked access to RFE/RL and several other foreign broadcasters, was the culmination of the Kremlins yearslong campaign to expel the broadcasterone that involved designating RFE/RL as a foreign agent and subjecting it to tens of millions of dollars in fines. Although the broadcaster continues to report from within Russia in a limited fashion, Fly said that the majority of its Russian service is now based out of Riga, in neighboring Latvia.

Read: The ultimate symbol of Americas diminished soft power

That RFE/RL now finds itself facing another iron curtain, with its primary methods of serving its audience once again jammed by authorities who would much rather it didnt exist, hasnt undermined its resolve. Our history is coming full circle, Kiryl Sukhotski, who oversees RFE/RLs Russian and Ukrainian teams, told me. Only this time, the broadcaster has more technological tools in its arsenal. In addition to Telegram and VPNs, RFE/RL has also been experimenting with other circumvention tools such as mirror sites, which enable the outlet to replicate or mirror the content from its blocked website at a different URL. When those sites invariably get blocked, we just open up a new mirror, Patrick Boehler, RFE/RLs head of digital strategy, told me. Its a bit of a cat-and-mouse game.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the broadcaster isnt getting its content to Russian audiences but ensuring that its methods are easily accessible. This is where the Kremlin has the greatest advantage. For all the Russians who have been able to access independent news and information using various circumvention tools, millions more remain firmly ensconced within the Kremlins echo chamber. Although its influence in Russia has been in decline, state-run television still remains the primary source of news for as much as 62 percent of Russians, according to a 2021 study by the Moscow-based Levada Center, Russias last independent pollster. To tune in to a typical Russian television broadcast, as my colleague Olga Khazan recently did, is to peek into this carefully crafted alternate realityone in which Russia is the victim, the Ukrainian government is controlled by Nazis, and the war in Ukraine doesnt exist.

If youre a middle-aged person who is not really on the internet, who is maybe supportive of Putin and the government, and youre watching TV, as most Russians of that age do, you will definitely be exposed to a firehose of propaganda about how bad the West is and [how] Russians are under attack, Jill Dougherty, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and CNNs former Moscow bureau chief, told me.

The pervasive nature of the Russian governments efforts doesnt make attempts to combat them any less vital, however. Even if a Russian thought that it was propaganda from the West, at least theyre getting a different viewpoint, Dougherty said. What theyre getting right now is only one viewpoint, and it is highly emotional and very angry.

Though news outlets such as RFE/RL are best placed to provide these alternative viewpoints, they arent the only ones who can. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made an impassioned appeal to Russian citizens through Telegram and other channels, urging them to spread the truth about what is happening in Ukraine. Others have endeavored to reach out to ordinary Russians directly using a tool created by a team of Polish programmers known as Squad303 that enables anyone to text, email, or phone tens of millions of Russians at random. Since its March 4 launch, thousands of people have used the service to send more than 40 million messages to Russians directly with information about the war. We are bypassing the digital iron curtain, a Squad303 spokesperson told me. He cited RFE/RL as part of the groups inspiration.

Thanks to Radio Free Europe, there was in us a hunger for freedom and democracy, which was the basis for the creation of Solidarity, which in effect overthrew communism in Europe, he said, referencing the independent Polish trade union. Now we are trying to help the Russian people in the same way.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: I have a message for my Russian friends

The way everyone I spoke with for this story sees it, the Westand, in particular, its news mediahas an obligation not to turn its back on the Russian public. As space for alternative information becomes ever smaller, and as the threats against those who diverge from the Kremlins narrative become more explicit, the greater that responsibility becomes.

View original post here:
How Western News Outlets Are Piercing Putin's Propaganda Bubble - The Atlantic

by Tan Liwei

Social media are controlled in China, but pieces of information not available elsewhere often appear there, although if they really disturb the CCP they are quickly removed.

President Xi Jinping has personally expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that the Partys control of cyberspace and social media is not total, and called for new and improved regulations.

Since 2021, these regulations and rules go under the name of Operation QingLang. The literal meaning of QingLang () is cleansed and uncontaminated. Originally, the program was presented as aimed at the control of chaos () in the cyberspace. It was explained that the chaos was mostly created by the fan groups of celebrities, where fanaticism was on display and inappropriate comments were published on a variety of items.

However, as new regulations are continuously produced, it appears that the control of chaos means that everything that is not strictly managed by the CCP is part of a chaos to be cleansed and suppressed. The case of the chained mother of eight, a woman who was found in chains in Jiangsu province, a victim of human trafficking, was the most commented news in social media in years, generated widespread criticism of the authorities, and probably confirmed to the CCP that its control on the Internet is not effective enough.

Two recent developments have attracted the attention and created serious concern among Chinese netizens.

The first is a short announcement by the authorities dated March 15, 2022. It reads that, In response to the current serious network chaos on Douban, on March 15, the State Internet Information Office instructed the Beijing Internet Information Office to dispatch a work supervision team to station on Douban to urge rectification.

This text and its importance may not be immediately understood by non-Chinese. They may not know that Douban is a social networking service with 200 million users. Netizens have known Douban as one of the spaces where control was comparatively less tight, and independent information might be posted, even if cautiously and not on all subjects. When Xi Jinping asked for more control of social networks and media, and launched a campaign against chaos there, he probably had Douban especially in mind. The statement that the service allows network chaos and needs urgent rectification does not bode well for the future of Doubans comparative independence.

The other piece of news is that on March 9, Sheng Ronghua, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) organized a meeting at Sina Weibo to present the QingLang rules to be applied in 2022. Once he was at it, Sheng also summoned, in addition to Sina Weibos, executives of Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Kuaishou, Meituan, and Zhihu to attend the meeting, meaning he had there the main companies controlling social media, social networking, microblogging, online question-and-answer services, and online marketplaces in China.

The QingLang 2022 regulations, Sheng explained, consist of four major points.

The first ask that the companies deepen their understanding of the QingLang campaign. They should effectively improve the political position and fight a tough, protracted and overall battle to make sure that all that is posted expresses loyalty to the CCP and the Country.

Second, the companies should assume and assign responsibility. If something disloyal to the CCP and the Country is posted, the Party wants to know who was responsible for it. Each responsibility should be assigned to specific positions and personnel to ensure that all stages of work are carried out without compromise.

Third, once the responsible personnel has been clearly identified, it should control key sections such as topics, groups, and circles. Further chaos will not be tolerated, meaning that posts should be cleaned up and if necessary edited or cancelled immediately.

Fourth, the companies should strengthen security. It is necessary to continuously improve the community rules, and also improve the political commitment of company executives. There should be CCP cells in each company office. The Internet companies should acknowledge the political leading role of Party organizations, and cooperate in case of special operationsan expression that echoes Russian aggression in Ukraine, called a special military operation, but presumably indicates actions to put an end to chaos on the Internet when it disturbs the CCP in a special way, as it is now happening with Douban.

Read the original here:
QingLang Regulations, More of Themand More Control on Chinese Social Media - Bitter Winter

A newly released study warns that artistic freedoms in Hungary are facing graves dangers.

The report, titled Systematic Suppression: Hungarys Arts & Culture in Crisisandreleased this week by theArtistic Freedom Initiative, says that the government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbn has adopted a systematic mechanism to filter out dissenting voices through changes in law and policy that exert control over public opinion, saidSanjay Sethi, a co-author of the report.

Since theintroduction of rules and regulations that promote greater government control over cultural narratives, artistsand institutions have been forced to self-censor to avoid punishment.

Orbn has used vague legislation and policyto give his party greater authority to take liberties with the arts and culture sector with decreased visibility and accountability, said Johanna Bankston, a co-author of the report, which includesinterviews with eight arts and cultural workers conducted between April and June 2021.

He has reshaped Hungarian media, arts, and culture to control cultural narratives, which has in turn allowed his party to stay in power longer, and may very well secure them a third term in national elections next month.

A participant holds a placard showing Russian President Vladimir Putin in front of the parliament building in Budapest on June 14, 2021, during a demonstration against the Hungarian governments draft bill seeking to ban the promotion of homosexuality and sex changes. Photo by Gergely Besenyei/AFP via Getty Images.

SinceOrbn came into power in 2010 through his Hungarian Civic Alliance (FIDESZ), his government has advocated conservative, nationalist values that are in line with the countrys Christian heritage, the report said.

Against such a backdrop, the countrys arts sector suffered a great blow after new rules and regulations penalized pluralist perspectives and alternative opinions, branding as anti-Hungarian.

Changes in the constitution and legislature played a key role. In 2019, a controversial culture bill sought toremove the National Cultural Fund, the main government funding source for the arts. The attempt sparked outrage and saw more than 50,000 people sign a petition in protest.

The law, however,passed, allowing the government greater control over cultural institutions. Art schools are also affected after a similar overhaul.

Participants gather near the parliament building in Budapest on June 14, 2021, during a demonstration against the Hungarian governments draft bill seeking to ban the promotion of homosexuality and sex changes. Photo by Gergeley Besenyei/AFP via Getty Images.

Some art workers have expressed frustrations over the current situation, saying they are forced to choose between censoring themselves and risking marginalization.

This is an existential question for artists,one anonymous interviewee said in the report. Especially in the case of Hungary, there is no private market and there are no private institutions, so there is no independent scene, and everyone is depending on public funding.

There is then no further need for official censorship, since this process automatically guarantees the proper ideological content, said Hungarian art historian Edit Andrs.

Despite the seemingly dire circumstances, the report offered policy recommendations in a hopeful note.

It is important to acknowledge that there are still many democratic institutions and processes in place in Hungary which, though they have been weakened by FIDESZs administrative rule, can be refortified through local and/or EU intervention, Sethi said.

Bankston further urged the international art community to support Hungarian artists by giving them opportunities to exhibit abroad.

We also encourage them to support independent Hungarian arts organizations through funding, artistic collaborations, and partnerships, as autonomous spaces for artistic production still exist in the country, she said.

Here is the original post:
A New Report Says Victor Orbns Government in Hungary Is Systematically Curtailing Freedom of Expression - artnet News