Mediaboss Marketing

You likely saw a post like the one below more than once over the holiday season a friend, family member or someone else you follow on social media sharing the results of their rapid tests.

And, whether the motivation is cynical or altruistic, one psychologist says the trend can go a long way towards normalizing the process health officials have touted as an important tool for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Story continues below advertisement

You are conveying that you can contract the virus, which can carry a bit of a stigma, which I think speaks to why its so beneficial to be doing this, said University of British Columbia Associate Professor of Psychology Azim Shariff.

It does de-stigmatize the communication of your virulence to others, which I think is a positive thing.

Shariff says that, similar to when people posted pictures of their vaccination stickers when that campaign debuted, social learning theory is at play.

A non-cynical interpretation is that people are motivated by virtuous processes its the right thing to do and theyre doing it because its the right thing to do, Shariff said.

Even if people are motivated to virtue signal to show that they themselves are virtuous, the byproduct which is a very positive byproduct is that it communicates to the community what actually is virtuous. In this case that youre being responsible, testing and isolating.

Trending Stories

Story continues below advertisement

Jane Caulfield, a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewans Edwards School of Business, also drew a comparison to the vaccination campaign and its stickers.

We are all consumers and we make consumption choices when we pick what we want to listen to, eat and buy, and often those choices are influenced by the groups we associate ourselves with, she said.

Thats the in-group we want to be a part of and the out-group we dont want to be a part of. So having the stickers or your rapid test and posting it on social media is a way of signaling to other people I believe in this stuff and it allows people who want to be part of that in-group to be a part of that interaction.

Caulfield says its especially valuable when people publish photos showing positive test results.

Theyre really demonstrating that theyre part of that in-group and helps consumers make choices, she said.And its not an organization pushing that. Its people doing what they are proud of and showing that which creates an in-group on its own without it coming from some authority. The sticker and the rapid test trends really did happen from the consumer, from the people.

Story continues below advertisement

Both Shariff and Caulfield caution that posting these photos online could have the opposite effect as well.

The downside could be that it makes people feel ostracized, or on the outside, but from a marketing perspective, they may not be your target market. So the act of sharing that information isnt talking to people who are ultimately willing to use the rapid tests to begin with.

Shariff adds, though, that the benefits of normalizing healthy pandemic habits and reducing stigma is an overall positive.

I suspect there may be a contingent of people they disagree with and dont like positing their tests and theyre going to roll their eyes. Theres also the effect that it could diminish how seriously people take the virus if they say so may people have this so its not a big deal,' he said.

Story continues below advertisement

There are a couple of danger zones but by and large because of the social learning effect, because of the way it destigmatizes and normalizes not only getting tested but showing others that you have the virus, I think its a good thing.

2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Follow this link:
Posting those rapid test results online can help normalize the habit, experts say - Globalnews.ca

Jan 04, 2022

Two-thirds of Chinese consumers bought products via livestream in the past year, according to an AlixPartners survey from October 2020. Will Americans ever catch up?

A McKinsey study from July 2021 estimated that livestreaming has quickly grown to 10 percent of Chinas online sales since Alibabas Taobao Live launched in 2016, boosted by Singles Day. Following Chinas path, McKinsey estimated that livestreaming could account for as much as 10 to 20 percent of all e-commerce by 2026.

McKinsey identified two core drivers of live commerce:

In the U.S., shoppable livestreaming gained significant traction as in-person shopping was necessarily restricted due to the pandemic, and some see another leap forward this year.

A recent Adweek article, however, predicts an inflection point for live commerce will likely not arrive for a couple years following more experimentation across Instagram Live, Amazon Live and TikTok as well as numerous niche platforms.

Gartner analyst Ant Duffin told Adweek, What youre starting to see more and more now, especially in the livestreaming space, is a proliferation of different executions of livestreaming.

A BeautyMatter article said livestreaming has to become more seamlessly integrated into social media and e-commerce platforms, like China, to gain greater adoption. The article states, In Western markets, the experience to date has been more transactional than social.

A recent study from livestreaming platform Buywith found successful live shopping pushes tend to involve knowledgeable, engaging hosts, multiplatform promotion and exclusive offers.

Andrew Lipsman of eMarketer recently told Morning Brew that he doesnt expect U.S livestreaming to ever reach Chinas level. People have compared livestream shopping to QVC, but QVC works because its on TV, he said. With livestream, people have to lean in and really want to engage with it. So the question is, how many people really want to spend a significant amount of time watching these?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Will livestream shopping in the U.S. see a spike in adoption and availability in 2022? Whats holding back adoption similar to what has happened in China?

"It's time to define what social commerce looks like in the U.S., rather than just replicate what was successful elsewhere."

"I do predict an uptick in U.S. livestreaming, but not to the extent that we see in China. Culture is a big part of this."

"I dont know many people who have disposable income waiting for anyones livestream."

Continue reading here:
Will US livestreaming soon take off like it did in China? RetailWire - RetailWire

A Green Bay woman's weight loss journey launched an Instagram business.

A Waunakee mother of three turned a blog for family and friends into a full-time social media career, while a Kenosha fathersold his insurance company to go full-time on YouTube.

A University of Wisconsin-Parkside student dropped out of college to make TikToks and a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate teaches other creators how to make successful YouTube videos.

The rise of social media has brought with it the rise of content creators andinfluencers, people who are able to earn money and grow a following through posting content on YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok and other social platforms.

As of October 2020, there were more than 50 million content creators globally, and 2 million of them were earning six-figure salaries, Forbes reported.

With the COVID-19 pandemic changing many people's attitudes about work and some reluctant to return to a traditional job, becoming a content creator is becoming more of an option to be your own boss, do something you're passionate aboutand earn a living doing it from anywhere in the world even Wisconsin.

Those who have found success on social media say there's a lot more work that goes on behind the scenes that viewers don't see. Building a viable social media career takes time, hard work and a little bit of luck too.

Here's how fiveWisconsin content creators have grown their followings and made a living through social media.

Wisconsin's workforce woes:Businesses say finding employees is their top headache. This series explores the trends.

We want to hear from you:Did you leave your jobduring the COVID-19 pandemic anddecide not to return?Tell us about it.

Amber Clemens has amassed an Instagram following of more than 61,000 people by sharing recipes, workout routines, weight loss transformation photos and snippets of her living her everyday life in Green Bay.

Clemens, 31,didn't set out to become an Instagram content creator. It just sort of happened organically, she said.

Clemens started posting about her weight loss journey on her personal Instagram page after losing 50 pounds. She kept dropping pounds and gaining followers and by the end of 2019, 8,000 people were following her on Instagram.

On Jan. 1, 2020, Women's Health magazine published a story about Clemens' weight loss and her following doubled that day. Now, she's able tomake a "fairly decent" income from Instagram.

"It's definitely not something that I set out to do and I never thought I would be in this position, but I'm very thankful, especially after losing my full-time job because of the pandemic," she said."I'm very fortunate that I'm in this position."

Clemens grew up in Eagle River and in 2014, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay with a degree in communications and public relations. She was laid off from her job at LaForce in Green Bay in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was around the same time she lost her job that her Instagram account was really taking off. Losing her job gave her more time to focus on growing her social media platform, she said, and also, for the first time in her adult life, gave her the opportunity to consider what she wanted to doin the future.

Clemens said she puts as much effort into her Instagram page as she would any other full-time job. She uploads new content almost daily and posts multiple times on her stories, often sharing healthy recipes she's made, grocery store hauls, workout routines and just chatting with her followers about her everyday life.

There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes as well, she said, such as planning content, negotiating with brands that want to sponsor her and responding to messages from followers.

Clemens credits her success on Instagram to just being her authentic self.

"People who match your energy, who connect with you are going to find you," she said. "Don't try to mold yourself into what you think you have to be because people I think now more than ever are looking for authenticity and they want to see you being genuinely you."

Her favorite part of being a social media influencer and content creator is connecting with the supportive community she's built.

"I feel very blessed to have the community that I do because 99% of the people that I've met are so amazing and it's just a community of people there to build each other up," Clemens said."I am very fortunate to be surrounded by a group of people who I've never met but feel so connected to and they just want the best for each other."

"If my Instagram got lost tomorrow, the one thing that I would miss the most would be the community," she said.

Find Amber Clemens on Instagram and TikTok at @alittlebit_amber.

Twenty-year-old Tommy Winkler has grown a following of 6.5 million on TikTok by sharing what he eats in a day.

Winkler's followers will suggest challenges anything from eating only Culvers for a whole day to only eating sour foods for the day and he happily obliges, filming himself eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, usually nodding his head in approval after he takes the first bite.

Winkler got his start creating online content when he was in high school and he and hisolder brother started posting videos on YouTube. When TikTok a short-form video-sharing app got popular in 2019, he joined and started posting what he called relatable comedy videos.

The next year, he started his "what I eat in a day" videos, he said, and that's when his content really took off. He gained more than 6 million followers in about a year and a half.

"It's definitely changed my future," Winkler said of his online popularity.

Because of his TikTok success, Winkler decided to drop out of school earlierthis year to pursue full-time content creation. He had been attending the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, majoring in marketing and playing on the men's golf team.

"My biggest goal in starting this was being able to be financially successful with it and creating a business where I can start doing it full time, which is what I've achieved so far," he said."It's just been so exponential because it's been all in the lastyear pretty much."

Now, he livesin the Madison suburb ofMount Horeb with his parents, who were at first skeptical of their son's social media ambitions.

"They were very skeptical, just kind of like, 'How does this work? How are you making money?' The older generationdidn't grow up around social media and people turning it into marketing themselves and making a job just by making videos and posting them throughyour phone," he said."My phone is where it started for me and my parents just thought it was crazy that theygot me an iPhone and then I'm able to turn it into this huge, successful business."

But now, they're on board and fully supportive, Winkler said. His mom even has her own TikTok account.

Currently, Winkler isworking on a video series where he travels around the country and tries each state's most iconic foods. He started in Wisconsin with a lot of cheese and has made it to 16other states so far, including Hawaii.

Winkler said heplans to pursue content creation and capitalize on his social media success for as long as he can. He hopes to one day own a restaurant, create his own food line or even have a TV show, he said.

"With the right work ethic and with just constantly being able to innovate and create new types of videos that nobody's seen before, anybody can achieve that kind of success," he said."I try and set a good examplebecause I was just a regular kid with normal plans going to college, and it's completely changed my lifein like the best way possible because I love doing it."

Find Tommy Winker on TikTok and Instagram at @tommywinkler and on YouTube at Tommy Winkler.

If you're an aspiring content creator and you want to learn how to make YouTube video thumbnails, attract sponsorshipsor gain more followers, then Muaaz Shakeel is your guy.

Shakeel, 24, makes videos about technology, gaming and social media. His videos aim to help other content creators grow their platforms by sharing tips and advice that Shakeel himself used to grow his YouTube channel to 281,000 subscribers and more than 37 million video views.

Shakeel first started watching video gaming content on YouTube when he was in high school. He played the same games that he watched videos about, so he thought he would try making his own videos, but they didn't get many views, he said.

"While I was in high school, I was kind of just like, throwing stuff at thewall andhoping it would stick," he said. "I was really justthrowing up content, hoping someone would watch it. But it just didn't work out, so I ended up quitting for a while. I didn't fully understand how to really grow a channel at that time. I was just uploading videos and hoping someone would find them somehow. I wasn't thinking about it strategically."

As Shakeel'sfreshman year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was approaching, he decided he wanted to give content creation another try. This time, he took it seriously, he said, and taught himself everything he needed to know about being a YouTuber.

RELATED:When gamers on YouTube need help making videos, they turn to this University of Wisconsin grad

He started making gaming content again and the videos were getting a couple thousand views. It was around this time that some of his subscribers started asking him for advice about how they could make videos too. So, he uploadeda few tutorials and those got more views than his gaming videos,he said.

Now, Shakeel'sYouTube channel is dedicated to sharing what he's learned to help other creators. He works from his bedroom at his parents' home in Madison, his neatly made bed a frequent backdrop to many of his videos.His channel homepage is full of eye-catchingvideo thumbnails with colorful backgrounds, bold fonts, intriguing titles and expressive photos of himself.

Shakeel has been able to expand his success on YouTube into sponsorships from brands, a Twitter account with 23,000 followers and a Discord server a community-based text, video, voice and media sharing platform popularized by the online gaming community with 10,000 members. He also recently launched his own online business, Shoish, where he sellsanimations that other creators can use in their videos.

Shakeel sees the demandfor his type of content growing in the next few years as being a content creator is becoming a more popular goal for young people today. His best advice for aspiring creators is tobe consistent with uploading and making sure their video is engaging from beginning to end.

"Back when (my friends and I) were kids, wheneverour teachers would ask uswhat we want to be when we grow up, weprobably say like a basketball player or something like that," Shakeel said."But now I'm pretty sure that a lot of kids wouldsay they want to be a Twitch streamer or a YouTuber or something like that because these are the people that a lot of these kidslook up to now. So I'm sure thatover the next few years, even more people are gonna wantto become creators and make that their goal."

Shakeel graduated from UW-Madison in 2019 with a degree in information systems but plans to continue making social media his full-time career as long as he continues to enjoy it.

"This issuch a great job to have," he said. "It's literallya hobby that becamea career. So as long as I enjoy it, I want to continue doing it. And if I don't enjoy it, I'll find ways to expand off it. But I'm having fun with it, so I want to keep doing it for as long as I can."

Find Muaaz Shakeel on YouTube atMuaaz, on Twitter @mws and Discord at Muaaz.

Amy Kiefer hopes she can help other women feel less aloneby openly and candidly sharing thestruggles that come with being a mom, wife and woman.

Starting with a blog and Instagram account, Kiefer has created a host of content all geared toward empowering women.

Kiefer first got into social media through blogging when she still worked full-time as a nurse. She has a degree in exercise science, so other women she worked with would come to her for nutrition and exercise tips. That led her to start a blog called Balanced Ames, where she putall that information in one place for people to find.

At first,only family and friends read her blog. When she started using Instagram to support her blog,people outside her circle began to findher content, Kiefer said.

Now, Kiefer has more than 41,000 Instagram followersand is the cohostof two podcasts,HERself and Pursing HER Purpose. She and her sister also started Expecting and Empowered, a workout program for pregnant and postpartum women.

Her content creation ventures are now her full-time job. She left nursing at the end of 2019, she said.

Through her social media, Kiefer has shared her experiences and thoughtson being a working mom, marriage, parenting, pregnancy and entrepreneurship. Her Instagram account frequently features her husband and three boys, ages 5, 4 and 2. The family lives in Waunakee.

"Everyone's human,everyone has struggles," she said. "I think that my followers really connect because I'm willing to be really open about things.I was in therapy for a year. It wasone of the best things I've ever done for myselfand I shared that whole journey with (my followers).Anything I can do where I'm like, 'I know that another woman just needs to hear that.' It's very important to me to make sure that other people are feeling supported and not alone like that."

In addition to sharing her own perspectives, Kiefer also likes to bring experts, like therapists and authors, into her content to help her followers learn and grow.

She hopes her content shows women that they can have multiple passions and don't have to keep themselves in just one box.

"It's justincredibleto connect with women from all over," Kiefer said."I'll post something and I just can't believe how well it will resonate and someone will say, 'I just I needed that today.' In this day and age, people really can have a deep connection on Instagram, especially with those moms that are maybe breastfeeding in the middle of the night or whatever it is, they're going through a season where they're kind of in isolation, as we all were when the pandemicstarted. The connection is truly amazing. And that's my favorite part still today. "

Find Amy Kiefer on Instagram at @ameskiefer.

Dan Becker was a 40-something father of three who owned an insurance agency when he decided tosellhis business and become a full-time YouTuber at the beginning of 2020.

Becker, 43, started posting videos about backpacking, hiking and camping in 2018 after he turned to YouTube for advice abouthow not to be claustrophobic in a hammock. He couldn't find any videos on the topic, so he had to figure it out on his own.

He realized there were probably other people out there who were looking for similar advice, sohe made his own video and uploaded it to YouTube.

"I came back a couple days later and went, 'Holy cow! People actually watched this,'" Becker said. "And I just thought, 'Well, maybe I'll make another one.' And I made another one and more people watched it and then eventually I was like, 'This is athing. I think I could do this.'"

Since then, Beckerhas amassed a following of more than 125,000 subscribers and his videos have nearly 12 million views. His Instagram account has more than 12,000 followers.

Becker's channel is all about the outdoors. He posts reviews of camping gear, tips and advice for fellow hikersand takes his followers along on his backpacking adventures all over the country.

He works with outdoors brands that send him free gear to review or pay for him to travel to a new location, like Yosemite National Park in California, to make a video. Becker said he travels about once a month from his home in Kenosha where he lives with his wife andkids to film videos.

When Becker first started making videos, he knew very little about using a camera, editing or posting on social media.

"It was just kind of like, here's a dad who's just about to turn 40 who's going to be a YouTuber.Okay, let's try it."

He and his wife made the decision that YouTube would be Becker's full-time career when they realized he was able to make a steady income and his earnings were projected to grow.

Becker, now 43, never set out to be an online content creator. But for those who do, Becker wants them to know that it's not as easy as it may appear online.

"I think people are super discouragedwhen they make 15 videos, and they look back and nobody watched any of them and then they give up," he said."The realityis thatit may be your 100th video that you've made that people start watching you. It's a lot of work for people who want to do it. But it can be very lucrative at the same time. It's definitely a fun job, for sure."

For Becker, the best thing about being a full-time content creator is that the flexibility that comes with being his own boss allows him to spend more time with his family.

"I get to make content about one of my biggest passions," he said."I'm just basically filming what I love to do."

Find Dan Becker on YouTube at Dan Becker and on Instagram at @danbeckeroutdoors.

Contact Natalie Brophy at (715) 216-5452 or nbrophy@gannett.com. Followher on Twitter @brophy_natalie.

See the rest here:
People are ditching traditional jobs for social media careers. Here's how five Wisconsinites did it themselves. - Post-Crescent

Social media is a great way for businesses to connect with their customers especially if they are out in rural Maine during a pandemic.

Maine farmers arent strangers to social media, but the pandemic made the need for a robust and responsive social media presence even clearer for many of them. Farming organizations over the past few years have offered more social media training, and Maines farmers have reaped the benefits.

Abby Sadauckas, owner of Apple Creek Farm in Bowdoinham, said social media has been important for her farm to attract new customers and communicate with existing ones, too. AppleCreek Farm is, admittedly, Instagrammable, with its stunning vistas, happylivestock and a charismatic Great Pyreneesthat shows her fuzzy mug in many posts.

If we went and looked at our posts by week and our sales by week theres a direct correlation there, Sadauckas said. We see an uptick in our weekly orders when we take time to do a post and use the Instagram feature where you can link directly so people can go right to our website.

She went from having no social media presence at all to having a Facebook page and Instagram with more than 2,000 followers each. The number of followers, though, matters less to Sadauckas than connecting with her existing customers. Social media, especially in a crowded marketplace, helps her stand out from the crowd.

You want to connect with your customers and justify why theyre buying from you, Sadauckas said. It has enabled us to really engage and activate the folks that follow us. Even though sometimes it feels superfluous, it does feel like when it works it is a benefit to our farm.

Some newer Maine farms have even started out with only a social media presence online. Angela Baglione, co-owner of Seek-No-Further Farmstead in Monroe, said when they started their business in 2019, the only online presence the farmstead had was on Facebook and Instagram.

They were both super helpful in getting our name out there, because the use of hashtags meant local people were finding us even if they were doing a general search for local farms, Baglionesaid. I think social media is a great way to make your farm feel personal and specific to your customers. Giving them the sense that you are their farmer and this is their farm by showing up on their newsfeed alongside their friends and family members is a great gateway to familiarity.

Baglione said they were able to build their online presence through personal familiarity with the platforms. But Sadauckas and other farmers have taken advantage over the last few years of social media training for farmers offered through a number of Maine-based organizations, like the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Maine Federation of Farmers Markets.

Emily Buswell, program associate at the Maine Federation of Farmers Markets, said her organization has been offering social media training for the past four years or so. It is usually done in the winter when farmers have a little more downtime.

Buswell said most of those who show up to training are new farmers trying to break into the scene and attract customers, but the demographics can run the gamut.

Quality photography is especially important for Maine farms on social media enough so that people like Kelsey Kobik have been able to make a career out of it. Kobik is a farm photographer who has hosted workshops about teaching farmers to take better quality photos on the fly, even with their phones. She also runs the social media page for GoransonFarmin Dresden.

The pandemic changed a lot of Maine farms relationship to social media, allowing them to communicate much more readily with their customers in order to get them products, as well as posting public health regulations for the markets they serve.

Farmers were giving more frequent updates about things; a lot of markets throughout the state started using a preorder system so they would let people know when orders were open using their social media, Buswell said. The pandemic encouraged farmers to use that as the quickest and broadest way to reach their shoppers and supporters.

Before the pandemic, Sadauckus said she would sell all of her produce at farmers markets. Social media allowed her to quickly transition to having an online store where customers could shop and set a location for pickup.

It really helped us onboard a lot of new customers, Sadauckas said. We saw a pretty significant jump in sales in 2020.

Even though the Maine farms that have put in the time to work on their social media presence have seen results, Tori Jackson, chair of the Maine Farmer Resource Network and extension professor for Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maine, does not think every farm needs to commit to social media going forward. Farmers raising crops and livestock for the wholesale market might need it less than, say, a farm looking to build a fan base for agritourism.

It totally depends on who their customer is, Jackson said. There are some businesses that this wont necessarily make sense for and others where it would be a missed opportunity to not take advantage of it as, quote-unquote, free marketing.

More articles from the BDN

Originally posted here:
More local farmers relying on social media to help survive the pandemic - Bangor Daily News

Digital transformation is changing the traditional workplace

Digital transformation is changing the traditional workplace, forcing employees to deepen their technical skills.

These skills, in addition to a growth mindset, can help you fill the skills gap and create more job opportunities for yourself. With rapid digitalization, technical skills such as digital skills and data analytics are becoming increasingly important.

And with the further development of the digital landscape, the qualification requirements are also increasing.

Hence, it is crucial to have basic digital skills and ongoing technical skills to keep up with the latest developments.

Regardless of your industry, these are some of the most common technical skills employers look for and tips on how to acquire them.

Digital Marketing or Social Marketing

Marketing teams use data collected through digital channels to determine campaign performance and develop new strategies. And the skills required to create such marketing campaigns and strategies. Technologies like keyword optimization, social media marketing, and improving user experience and engagement can help with this.

Coding

Coding isnt just for tech professionals, many roles require coding skills these days, including compliance and risk management, digital marketing, and quality assurance.

Coding changes the way you see the world and teaches you logical problem-solving skills.

It can take a lot of time and resources up front, but you can learn the basics of coding relatively quickly and apply them to your work. Java, SQL, Python, and Ruby are some good programming languages to learn.

Cloud

Most companies are moving from traditional infrastructure to the cloud to work remotely, improve collaboration and connectivity, and increase data security.

Cloud computing products have enabled us to work seamlessly from anywhere, anytime in the world, with some cloud services geared towards unique business needs and operations being agile and adaptable

Experts for navigating various cloud systems are considered to be more suitable for work because they have an attitude of enthusiasm for learning.

Artificial intelligence

AI and machine learning (ML) can help you deliver more relevant, personalized, and innovative products and services. Daunting at first, but you dont have to learn the technical aspects of AI development.

What you need to know is how using AI and machine learning would affect your work.

Chatbots, for example, often use AI and ML to improve their conversations and save costs in the long term.

See the original post:
The 5 most important digital skills you will need in 2022 - GhanaWeb