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A study that ran for one week in February last year (2016), involving 2,000 adults in the US. who got at least some of their news from online sources, found that people were equally likely to get news by going directly to a news website (36% of the times they got news) as getting it through social media (35%).

Furthermore, according to Pew, people were "less likely to access news through emails, text messages or search engines. And most people favored one pathway over another. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of online news consumers had one preferred pathway for getting most of their online news".

The news experience that most inspires people to action - such as sharing, searching for more information or talking about the news with others - is when it comes in the form of emails or texts from family and friends, when 73% of instances were acted upon. That's more than news found on social media (53%) or direct visits to a news outlet's website (47%).

Mark Zuckerberg has gone on record to say that he does not consider Facebook to be a traditional news source.

"Facebook is a new kind of platform. It's not a traditional technology company. It's not a traditional media company," he said during a live video chat with Sheryl Sandberg in December last year. "We do a lot more than just distribute the news, and we're an important part of the public discourse."

And that's it in a nutshell. Facebook is a source of news for many people, with many getting news articles from traditional media they have connected with on the social network. So, that 10% of people cite Facebook as a news outlet doesn't necessarily mean they believe Facebook to be a media outlet, it is purely a portal through which they are exposed to media stories.

Tags: media outlet, news gathering, social media, trends

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Pew: 10% of people cite Facebook as a news source - BizReport

Asbury Park Press 12:04 a.m. ET Feb. 13, 2017

Excelsior Medical in Neptune is upgrading its plant as part of a $20 million investment.

John A. Vagueiro is president of Adapting Social, a Red Bank business that helps other businesses with social marketing.(Photo: Tanya Breen)Buy Photo

John A. Vagueiro owns Adapting Social in Red Bank.

When did you decide you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I dont know the exact age, but when I was a child coming from an average blue-collar family and being the oldest of fiveI had to wise up at a young age. I was taught by my parents you dont get anything you dont work for. Learning that concept early in life changed my mindset and made me understand that if I wanted to live a better life for myself, I had to put my destiny in my own hands instead of someone elses.

Why did you start this business?

For the freedom to be completely creative and knowing that my destiny both financialand quality of life was in my hands. What made me choose the digital design and marketing industry was the want to provide entrepreneurs a top quality service acting as their complete and total marketing department. From designing and managing their website to implementing their marketing strategies, we are their one-stop shop.

Were there any challenges that made you think twice about striking out on your own?

Never. I have definitely faced the uphill battles of owning a business. From the start I expected great times, good times and terrible times. The challenges are what motivateme to grow and become better both as a man and an entrepreneur.

If you could do it again, what would you do differently?

I wouldnt change one thing. Everything I have done that resulted in a mistake is something I learned from, which ultimately made me a better business owner. Well maybe there is one thing I would have started earlier!

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John A. Vagueiro, president of Adapting Social, a business that helps other businesses with social marketing, works with some of the members of his team in Red Bank.(Photo: Tanya Breen)

Whats the best business advice you have ever received?

If you provide your customers with a great product or service and give them world-class customer service, they will become your sales team. They will spread the word to their friends and colleagues. My favorite quote is: "As an entrepreneur you have to live a few years of your life like most people won't, so you can live the rest of your life like most people cant."

What personality trait helps you the most?

Being personable and loving people. When I sit down with a client for the first time I want to know everything, how they started, their journey, what theyve learned along the way. They understand that I care, and it's not just about the sale.

Whats the hardest part of the job?

Being in the creative world we are constantly designing websites, graphics, marketing creative etc. The most challenging part about the creative field is most of the time the client doesnt know what they want but they know what they dont want. I wouldnt say its a negative, it's just a challenge that my team and I love facing.

The easiest?

Building a team of people who are passionate and care about their craft. Over the years I have had people work for me who werent passionate and you could tell in their work. This has led me to create an ecosystem of people who are hyper-passionate about their craft. Finding those people and making our team high energy and passionate has now become a normality.

What surprised you the most about running the business?

The fact that when you first start, you are each department of the business. The designer, the salesman, the customer service rep, book keeping and everything that comes with it.As an entrepreneur, you must wear many hats.This is the element I love.

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John A. Vagueiro, president of Adapting Social, works in his office in Red Bank.(Photo: Tanya Breen)

How would you like the business to grow and change?

The game plan for Adapting Social is to be a household name nationally for small businesses with locations in New York City, San Franciscoand London. We provideeach small businessa marketing department at an affordable price! Right now the big corporations have big budgets and marketing departments that drownout the little guys. There are ways to stay competitive and Adapting Social helps our clients with that everyday.

In one sentence, tell us why customers should go there.

We are a passionate group wholoveto help grow our clients businesses and we do so by learning your story so we can share it to your target market creatively and effectively.

What do you love about the community where your business is located?

Red Bank is the epitome of Adapting Socials values. Small business is the heart and culture of Red Bank, which makes it unique. Its a little mini city where you know your neighbors and everything is a walk away. My team and I love it!

When you leave work, do you leave the office behind, or are you always in contact?

I am always in contact because I genuinely love what I do, so on the weekend, answering a phone call or an email isnt bothersome to me. Its a big reason people choose Adapting Social. They know if there is an emergency or if they need to reach me, I am available to them.

What do you do in your off time?

I enjoy spending time with my fiance, family and friends. I also love being active and working out. A healthy body will lead to better quality of life both in and out of the business world. Traveling is something that I have just started to do, since the first fiveyears in business I did not take one vacation. I plan to make traveling and seeing the world a priority!

When you leave the business behind some day, what will you do?

I plan to keep Adapting Social as long as I humanly can and would love to make it a business I can pass to my family. What I see myself doing after is focusing on my two philanthropies, which arehelping people who have generalized anxiety and helping entrepreneurs who think they cannot start their own business because lack of resources, money, etc. to bring their venture to market.

Small Business Spotlight runs Mondays. If youre a small-business owner in Monmouth and Ocean counties interested in taking part in this Q&A, contact business producer Dennis P. Carmody at dcarmody@gannettnj.com.

ADAPTING SOCIAL

Describe your business:Adapting Social is a creative design and marketing firm. We partner with our clients to ensure their digital branding success by giving small businesses their own marketing departmentwithout having to maintain one or pay the cost it would take to have it all in house. Through website design, social media management and strategy, effective digital marketing and eye-catching graphics, we give their business a professional and credible image that sets them apart. We incorporate industry-specific trends that keep them ahead of the competition. Every one of our clients is an entrepreneur with their own unique story and we're very passionate about sharing those stories with their target markets.

Owner: John A. Vagueiro

Location: 54 Broad St., Suite 204, Red Bank

Phone: 848-220-4770

Website: http://www.AdaptingSocial.com

Founded: 2011

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Adapting Social brings marketing to the little guy - Asbury Park Press

Social media has already acquired over 2.3 billion users in a decades time. A medley of stuff is expected to happen on social in 2017. For starters, platforms will evolve further, social spend will increase, and competition will heat up. As digital marketers, you must stay on top of the trends to engage users in innovative ways.

Here are top 18 predictions that will influence social space in a big way:

1) Social media automation must for every organisation

Big businesses with huge budgets have automated almost all their social marketing efforts. However, according to IMCS 360, as much as 92% small businesses are still missing out on social automation. 2017 will very likely see them automating their efforts. Social media automation is must because businesses have to be consistent while targeting diverse demographics across multiple networks.

2) Native advertising spend will increase

According to a survey conducted by Socialbakers, businesses are promoting posts 120% more on native now than they did 3 years ago. Its predicted that over 30% more Internet users will be using ad blockers. Native advertising is theonly way to stop ad irritability.

3) Employee advocacy on social will rise

Social media employee advocacy programs have grown by 191% in last three years. Brands are now realising this and will invest more on social media advocacy. Employee advocacy will help you benefit from your employees channels in a very credible way. Your employees may turn out to be your best micro-influencers in 2017.

4) Live streaming on social will grow

The Internet saw 81% more live-video consumers in 2016 than in 2015. Tubular Insights reveals - viewers spend 8X longer with live video than the archived video. 2016 has set the trend for live-streaming through Twitters Periscope, Facebooks Live, Meerkat, Blab and a few others. Itll only grow in 2017. More and more video consumers will switch from TV to social streaming, unleashing a vast opportunity for video marketers. According to Guy Kawasaki, 2017 is about Live video, live video, and live video.

5) Social messaging apps on arise

30% of smartphone users prefer messaging apps over SMS. Now, about 900 million people are using Facebook Messenger app. Its predicted that over 2 billion people will be using several such apps by 2018. People are preferring it to other means such as SMS, calls and emails. A number of ad options such as stickers, sponsored moments and geo filters have been introduced to monetize messaging apps.

6)Content co-creation

User-generated and co-created content boosts customer satisfaction score up to 80%. Social media recognises this trend, and the platforms have become advanced enough to enable brands to create content through users through right incentive and context. Theres also an option to work with non-competing businesses to co-create content. 2017 will fully utilise this on social media.

7) Social selling will grow multifold

Businesses having a strong social media presence close 78% more sales than those who dont. The catch is now they can use social media to reach 93% of millennials, the social junkies, and sell products on their chosen platforms. Twitter already has a Buy button, others are following suit.

8) Social chatbots will talk to you

Since the real-time response is the need of the hour, smart bots will play a greater role on social media. Beyond increasing customer support effectiveness, cutting manual effort and operational budget, they will serve as personal assistants to users. A case in point is the success of KalaniBot. US Makeup Brand Covergirl simulated celeb Kalani Hilliker into an AI bot and hosted on its messaging app Kik. KalaniBot became a hit, clocking up 91% positive sentiment among users. It also helped Covergirl generate 14-times more conversation on social media.

9)Augmented reality on social will be a big factor

Pokemon Go has shown the way and others are not far behind. Go Pro, Oculus and vTime are getting much attention from major social platforms. Augment.com survey reports 40% would be willing to pay more for a product if they could experience it through augmented reality. That means augmented reality on social platforms will get huge investments. Facebook has an exclusive Social VR (virtual reality) team working to help users share their experience in totality. Augmented reality is going to be a sweet spot for marketers.

10) Social focus will shift to mobile

Mobile is where almost 80% of the time is spent on social media. Whats more, the number of smart phone users is predicted to increase to 6.1 billion by 2020. Ad spends on mobile is going to increase 72% by that time. Needless to say, platforms will focus more on mobile users than they ever did before. The push has been there to drive users to mobile social apps.

11) Influencer marketing on social will increase

A recent survey proclaims 84% of marketers will execute at least one influencer marketing campaign during in 2017. Adweek reports keyword search for influencer marketing has increased over 90 times since 2013. If we look at the web carefully, content propagation on social has been constantly on the rise ever since it all started. To clean the clutter and grab attention, better content through influencers on social platforms is going to be the de facto option in 2017.

12)Social budget will rise and eat into search

In the battle for attention, every business will spend more on social than search. The ad spends on social is expected to increase to $36 billion in 2017 depicting a steep rise of 20% from 2016. Needless to say, paid social strategy will take away some budget from search marketing.

13)Social will mean real-time

When social has already become the staple for your marketing efforts, marketers must respond everything real-time on platforms. Social care, listening or problem resolution; everything is going to be real-time on social.

14) Personalization will grow

Search result and content feed experiences on social have been personalised to some extent. In 2017, the personalization will still refine itself leaving less scope for undesired or ambiguous experience. Social platforms will improve personalization in such a way that the content must resonate with the users.

15) Content curation will drive innovation

Ever-growing content as a whole creates clutter on social, but not every bit of it is clutter per se. Social platforms are creating innovative methods to make sense from old yet meaningful content. Be it Snapchat stories, Instagram stories or Facebook memories; it will be all about making expired content meaningful on the social.

16) Social platforms will merge

There cannot be a multiple level playing fields on social. To command innovation, stay relevant and influence the market, social media must consolidate platforms. This is happening for the last couple of years. Facebook now owns WhatsApp and Instagram, Twitter owns Periscope, Google owns YouTube, and Microsoft owns LinkedIn. Therell be more such mergers and acquisitions in 2017.

17)Social news feeds will overtake mainstream

People dont have enough time out of their busy schedules to go through the press news. Besides, they rely more on social media than mainstream. This trend is growing at an alarming rate. Users will consume bits and pieces of interesting stories on social platforms, and they will venture out to traditional media only for exclusive stories.

18) Quality will be the priority on social

Brands cant put anything just like that on the social platform. And fake posts will die a natural death. Only authentic and relevant content will make it to the social. Fake news was a big menace in 2016. But not anymore, all major platforms and search engines are taking concrete measures to curb fake and irrelevant content.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETBrandEquity.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETBrandEquity.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

Originally posted here:
Here are 18 social advertising predictions for 2017 - ETBrandEquity.com (blog)

WWD

Cond Nast Buys Social Data and Marketing Platform WWD The acquisition helps the publisher broaden its audience-targeting and data capabilities beyond its own properties to social platforms, such as Facebook. Translation: The company's advertising and marketing partners will, in theory, be better able to ...

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Cond Nast Buys Social Data and Marketing Platform - WWD

As 2017 unfolds, small businesses should take a look at what didnt work in 2016 and find ways to improve in the upcoming year. While you work to control spending and shed some of the holiday pounds, dont forget about making social media resolutions for your business.

Social media in 2017 will really be a defining factor in successful marketing strategies and strong businesses. In 2016, social media boomed for businesses. It was part of marketing strategies in previous years, but new advertising updates for social platforms and business-friendly changes made it easier than ever for organizations to make connections and offer valuable customer service.

This year, social media will be even more important, particularly as far as your strategy is concerned. You wont have the competitive edge of being the first to use social marketing to its full advantage, so youll have to find ways to stand out as a business and create a more powerful strategy.

Online marketing and business building guru Gary Vaynerchuksays social media should be the biggest marketing target for small businesses, adding:

In 2017, if you are a business or organization of any kind that wants to be heard in the world, refocusing on the content you put out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, LinkedIn, Medium and whatever else has the markets attention at the time is a huge factor.

Overall, Vaynerchuk believes that social media for startups and small businesses is the best channel for your marketing budget because of the connections to be made and networking to be done.

If youre a small business, theres probably a lot more that you can do for your marketing campaign on social media. As you make some goals for a more effective business year, dont forget to include these useful resolutions.

Social media is all about communicating with your target audience, and there are certain applications that can make the process easier. Whether youre looking to communicate internally or across channels, here are some of the most highly recommended communication appsavailable:

Through these apps, you can make face-to-face connections, send SMS messages, voice broadcast and chat instantly to make your social interactions that much more powerful.

Investing in your content should be a top priority in the new year, particularly when it comes to posting across multiple channels. Delivering inconsistent content is all too common with small businesses, making your strategy appear unreliable and unprofessional to consumers. Vaynerchuk says:

Quality content is so important to marketing to anyone under the age of 40 right now. Anyone in that demographic discovers a business for the first time by either Google searching or finding their content on social media. If you are not crushing it and focusing on the content that you put out on the most important social platforms, youre going to become mute and obsolete in the modern day of doing business.

Demonstrate that youre committed to posting useful and regular content to your clients. Use a content calendarto help you stay on track with your content and make sure its split evenly across all channels.

Another important part of posting content on social media is tailoring the information to match your target audience. If youre selling products meant for stay-at-home moms, for example, marketing your content to 22-year-old bachelors wont do your strategy much good.

Make 2017 the year you finally develop customer personasthat guide your marketing efforts. This information will show you demographics, trending topics, and favorite social channelsmaking your marketing easier in 2017.

Even if youre only spending $200 per week, your paid media dollarscan make your content skyrocket. This is particularly true for YouTube and Facebook video content, which receives billions of views every day.

Just remember that its content that carries your strategy forward. Your social media budget should allocate about 75 percent to content creation and about 25 percent to content amplification through paid advertising venues.

No amount of paid media is going to turn bad creative into good content, says Vaynerchuk, and this is a principle that should be a primary focus in 2017. Youll see far more value in your social efforts if you focus on building your content.

Larry Altonis an independent business consultant specializing in social media trends, business, and entrepreneurship. Follow him on Twitterand LinkedIn.

Image courtesy of eli_asenova/iStock.

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4 Social Media Resolutions for Small Businesses Adweek - FishbowlDC (blog)