Mediaboss Marketing

In their book Start Your Own Business, the staff of Entrepreneur Media Inc. guides you through the critical steps to starting your business, then supports you in surviving the first three years as a business owner. In this edited excerpt, the authors discuss the essential ways you should start promoting your business on social media.

The days of in-person networking are quickly being overpowered by connecting on the internet. In the past five years, connecting on social networking sites has rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of internet users. Now, instead of connecting at an in-person event, you can reach hundreds, even thousands, of potential customers online. Social networking can help you reach new markets and enhance your customer service.

In todays networking space, its important to know how to choose whom to connect with online. There are two different types of networkers onlinethe posters and the seekers. Your business is a poster, which means you actively post valuable information, resources, tips, and offers. The seekers are your customerstheyre actively seeking your products or services. Youll find seekers in discussion areas, forums, groups and engaging on fan pages.

When searching for quality contacts to network with online, start with connection sites, such as LinkedIn or Xing, and look for high-level networkers (HLN). Youll know an HLN when you see one; theyre active online, have at least 500 connections and have powerful profiles, which means their profiles are set up completely. Make sure these contacts have at least one of the three criteria before you connect with them online. Some examples of HLNs would be decision makers, executives, the media, and the movers and shakers in your industry.

Dont let the fact that you dont yet know the person hold you back from sending an invite to connect. Simply be transparent, and let them know why youd like to connect with them online. Whether youre offering your help, sending them a resource or introducing them to one of your connections, make sure you make it about how you can help them and not how they can help you.

Target market connections (TMC) are a group of consumers at which your company aims its products and services. Theyre found by using keywords in the search section on social sites as well as in groups and discussion areas in your area of interest or focus. TMCs are mostly seekers that chat and seek out information by posting questions online. In the most basic terms, theyre seeking you. The key is to join in the groups and discussions where your target market is talking and engage with them. You can also send them an invite to connect and let them know you sent them the invite because you have similar interests and youre looking to expand your professional network. You can also find these groups in sites like LinkedIn. Search for groups that match what you have to contribute and then check to see which have not just the largest member numbers, but also the most active discussions.

Another way to find your target market online is to investigate competitors marketing methods. See where another business that offers the same or similar products and services advertises their links and posts on social sites. Be sure each location makes sense and has a large contingent of people in your targeted market. Searching in your field will often turn up places where your audience goes when theyre looking for something in your industry.

Groups and discussion areas on social sites are all over the internet from LinkedIn and Xing to Twitter and Facebook. Most social networking sites have community areas for people who have similar interests to gather and connect. Its important to find a dozen or so of these groups and discussion areas and not only join and monitor them but engage in the conversations as well.

Blogs are another type of discussion forum on the internet. Blogs are quickly becoming places to interact with your target market. Technorati, a site focused on helping people find great blogs and content specific to their industry or topic, manages a list of the top 100 blogs, which is a great place to find the worlds most popular blogs on subjects youre interested in. Not only can you find connections and blogs on this site, but you can also list your own blog so that people can search and find you.

Blogs are a great way to find HLNs to connect with online as well as partner with. For example, if youre a restaurant, you could connect with food and review writers, vendors that are blogging, or food enthusiasts, and share their posts and content on your site or blog. This not only builds relationships but can expose you to their markets, followers and fans.

With any social media platform, you need to be creative and find ways to provide value and engage your target market. One of the best ways to accomplish this and position yourself as an industry leader is to build and launch a Facebook fan page. Fans are enthusiastic, and if they like what they see and read, theyll connect with you, become loyal supporters and tell their friends. This is how word-of-mouth will grow.

Once you get your fan page up and running, pay attention to your analytics, or what Facebook calls Insights. You can view specific demographic information, such as where your fans are from, their gender and their age. Monitor whos becoming your fan, how theyre interacting and how often theyre posting. This will help you figure out who and where else you should be targeting online.

One of the main differences between a Facebook profile and a fan page is you can send bulk messages to all your fans. You can also Suggest to Friends that they join you on your fan page. Its a great way to connect with your target market, especially since these are connections that have opted-in to become a part of your community.

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The Right Way to Network on Social Media

Nextdoor (NYSE:KIND) is a social network focused on hyperlocal connections. Shares of KIND stock debuted late last year following a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Source: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com

Generally, KIND stock has not received a hospitable welcome from investors. Yes, shares did pop to $14 in November immediately following the merger. However, the stock broke down right after that. By December, shares of Nextdoor had slumped below the opening $10 mark. Now, theyve slipped even further, recently hitting about $6 apiece.

This recent SPAC name is off to an unspectacular start in 2022. However, theres actually a fair bit to like about Nextdoor.

In addition to being hyperlocal, Nextdoor offers advertisers a very different demographic. Most hot new social network companies of late such as TikTok and Snap(NYSE:SNAP) tend to gravitate toward younger audiences. Thats appealing in its own way, sure, but youths also have less money to spend. The older Nextdoor-using age group has a lot more disposable income, however. These users also tend to be more sticky and loyal to a service once they engage consistently with it.

Its true that Nextdoor is never going to be the most glamorous social networking experience out there. But there is a solid niche offering available with KIND stock. Whats more, advertisers are generally willing to pay solid ad rates to target wealthy and loyal users.

Right now, monetization is still something of a work in progress for this company. In the third quarter, Nextdoor averaged $1.61 in revenues from each weekly active user (WAU). Thats a pretty low number by social network standards. Overall, the company also had 33 million WAUs. But, given its low revenues per user, it generated just $53 million of sales on the quarter. Thats a fairly light number for a company with a market capitalization of greater than $2 billion.

Most social networks are focused around one main purpose. Be it catching up with old friends, watching videos, or consuming short-form content, social media is usually centered around one theme. Nextdoor, however, plays to a different lane.

In a way, Nextdoor is kind of Swiss-Army-knife application. It is good for catching up on neighborhood gossip, getting local recommendations and connecting businesses with their communities, among other things. This platform dials into the thing that made social media popular in the first place it gives users a way to follow and keep up with friends, family and the neighbors that live in their area.

Nextdoor has also enjoyed a strong word-of-mouth effect. As more of a neighborhood, town, or city joins the app, people talk to their friends about it. Its more impactful when your neighbors tell you to get on an app than just reading about it or seeing an ad. Social media can feel very corporate and distant in todays environment, but Nextdoor offers users a much different experience. Thats great for KIND stock.

Social networks have a hit-or-miss reputation with international markets. Some of the bigger ones have spread virtually all over the globe while the more niche names have generally struggled to catch on in foreign markets. And, even when they do make it overseas, its often a challenge to monetize effectively. Oftentimes, average revenues per user (APRU) are multiples higher for U.S. accounts as opposed to international ones.

Nextdoor, however, is on surprisingly good footing here. The website has already achieved tremendous popularity in the United Kingdom and several other European markets. Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar grew up in Northern Ireland and has worked at or served on the boards of multinationals like Walmart (NYSE:WMT) andBlock (NYSE:SQ).

To succeed as an investment, Nextdoor will need to either grow its user base dramatically or improve monetization. Both would be ideal, but either approach could work in isolation, too. Further, theres potentially strong demand for localized social networks all over the globe. Nextdoor has a broad opportunity to fulfill that need.

Its not hard to imagine a scenario where Nextdoor works out as a business. Theres definitely some demand for this type of local product. Some of the offerings such as local marketplaces are available elsewhere, but Nextdoor has a nice opportunity to offer a broad range of services and social interactions on a neighborhood- and city-wide level.

Currently, though, KIND stock has a lot of obstacles to work through. The SPAC association is just terrible right now. And Nextdoor being linked to backers like Cathie Woods Ark Invest isnt helping matters, either.

An unprofitable social network SPAC is an ice-cold product offering in the stock market of early 2022. Once the tides start to turn, however, KIND stock could find a warmer reception among investors.

On the date of publication, Ian Bezek did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Ian Bezek has written more than 1,000 articles for InvestorPlace.com and Seeking Alpha. He also worked as a Junior Analyst forKerrisdaleCapital, a $300 million New York City-based hedge fund. You can reach him on Twitter at@irbezek.

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Nextdoor Is a Unique Social Network That Needs to Prove Its Financial Merit - InvestorPlace

The technological age has blessed us with digital platforms that allow people to engage with one another virtually. With the advent of social media, information dissemination has fundamentally transformed.

Though people are more connected than ever before, at the same time, the privacy of users has been invaded and manipulated. The breach of privacy takes place when governments seek to control our opinions and manipulate us for their political benefit.

Across the world, this has resulted in political parties and government actors expanding their social-media footprints.

Since 2014, social media in India have witnessed a surge in online promotions, advertisements, SEO manipulation, politically motivated messages embedded with hate speech from political parties. This has transcended into a new type of competition for political parties, which have to engage tech-skilled young people to perform cyber operations for them.

Such operations include flooding social apps with misinformation, clickbait messages, developing new tools, looking for flaws in social-media apps to exploit them to spread propaganda and manipulate public opinion.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal in the US revealed that the company harvested user data before the 2016 election and used those data for social-media manipulation. Such incidents provide an understanding of how modern-day social-media apps can be manipulated to amplify a particular political discourse.

In India, social media have become a battlefield on which political parties manipulate public discourse, especially since 2014. Shortly after its victory in that years general election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) extended its political campaigning on social networking platforms by glorifying its base ideology that calls for the creation of Hindu Rashtra.

The 2014 election is often referred to as the first social-media election because it was when the BJP used its workers to glorify the campaign on social networks in order to manufacture a new consensus.

People at that time had no idea that the apps they installed on their devices harvested data for political parties to use to manipulate public opinion.

Before 2014, India had different political discourses. Now, everything has changed. Researchers are examining the damage social media have done over the last few years. According toa survey by the University of Oxford in 2020, social media have been manipulated to change the political narrative in a range of countries. And India is no exception to this trend.

Although digital connectivity has expanded a lot, the space it provides has shrunk and the propagation of misinformation has affected many developments. An example would be when the BJP announced the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which the Muslim population resisted. During that time,the BJP cyber cellran several campaigns to link such protestss with pro-Pakistani groups.

During last years farmers protest in India, there was an attempt by the ruling partys sponsored IT cell through social campaigns to muzzle the voices of farmersz to delegitimize the protests. Pro-Khalistani accounts were cited to link the farmers agitation with the Khalistani movement.

Advances in social-media apps have deepened the gaps between Indias majority and minority populations. Incidents during the last few years indicate that the ruling party has mobilized special cyber operations like flooding apps with content that favors the Hindutva narrative.

The BJP has invested massively in these sophisticated tools. Such tools have been fruitful for the party. It mobilizes the online audience to issue threats, mock the ideology of people who criticize the BJP, and then delegitimize them.

This has succeeded in muzzling critics of the BJP, which has failed to consolidate the growing unemployment crisis, the economic crisis and the rising inflation rates. Whenever anyone questions the ruling party, the IT cell targets him or her for being a critic of the BJP.

Research has shown that the BJP has used disinformation to engage with the audience who usually discuss Hindutva, and engaged in misinformation and defend that philosophy with illogical premises. Such incidents have pushed social-media clients like WhatsApp to add a tag to forwarded messages and limit them to very few instances.

Political parties have invested in tools that are used to attack individuals privacy, and the modern-day trends that arise on social networks get manipulated when IT cells run different trending campaigns to change the discourse. Such attempts are designed to shape the perception of people to a certain political discourse.

Certainly, social-media trends have been fueled by the motive of changing the political discourse, with governments investing in companies that are developing tools to muzzle the voices of common people.

A recent investigation into this was done by The Wire. The Indian media outlet revealed that an app calledTek Fogthat is allegedly linked with the BJP IT cell harvests data and manipulate the ongoing trends that are against the ruling party.

Social media have indeed been manipulated for political purposes, which poses a growing threat for democratic countries. Over the last few years, social media have been manipulated and the political discourse has changed a lot.

India is heading for elections in five states soon. Social media are abuzz with hate speech that calls for genocide against minority communities. Some videos openly call for the creation of a Hindu state or Hindu Rashtra. Such videos seek to change the political discourse and obviously, people react to such manipulation and get involved in the new narrative.

These are instances that the BJP uses to make its election process easy as the party knows the audience who directly or indirectly supports the creation of Hindu Rashtra falls for disinformation easily.

Its time for social-media companies to look into this matter and work to stop misinformation. Social-media companies should look at their algorithms that propagate misinformation.

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Social media manipulation on the rise in India - Asia Times

BeReal takes casual posting to the next level.

Founded in 2020 by French entrepreneur Alexis Barreyat, BeReal was made in response to the current social media landscape. It's not like Instagram, where users can curate their feeds and edit their images. BeReal doesn't allow you to curate. There are no filters. It simply gives users a random two-minute window each day to post one photo. When you post, the app uses both your front and rear-facing camera, giving your friends a full picture of what you're doing in the moment not unlike the now-defunct Frontback app. With BeReal, there is no way to lie about where you are or what you're doing.You can't project a picture-perfect image.

Once you receive the notification, you only have two minutes to post a photo on the app.Credit: Screenshot: BeReal

"BeReal won't make you famous," reads the description of BeReal in the App Store, "if you want to become an influencer you can stay on TikTok and Instagram."

Instagram's shift towards monetization and the accompanying changes to its algorithm have left its users wanting a feed filled with photos of their friends, rather than one riddled with ads, paid influencer content, and recommended posts. To combat inauthenticity on the app, there's been a move to "make Instagram casual" by posting photo dumps, or slice-of-life pics. But posting casually doesn't solve the problem either. Some say "casual Instagram" is an even greater performance. Is anything really candid on Instagram? Rather than posing for a cute photo at a party, you have to pretend like you're not posing for one at all to make your entire life fit a "vibe" or an aesthetic.

This is where BeReal comes in.

I only have a handful of close friends on the app, and they're all people who might follow my finsta or my close friends story on Instagram. A scroll through my BeReal feed today shows me sitting at my laptop at work, three other friends in front of their laptops, another thrift shopping, and a former classmate drinking coconut water. The appeal of BeReal is in its immediacy. When you get the alert on your phone, you only have two minutes to capture an image, and you never know when it will drop.

An example of one of my posts on BeReal, featuring some freshly baked bread. Credit: Elena Cavender

When BeReal occurs out of work hours, my feed is only slightly more interesting. You might instead catch me on my evening walk or reading The Custom of the Country. The appeal of the BeReal feed isn't the content it's that you like your friends and care about what they're doing.

"It's cute to see what your friends are up to," Juliette Decugis, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student from Paris, tells Mashable. According to Decugis, the app is "huge in France," where it launched. She started using it in July, and like me, only shares her content with close friends. "I don't add people I'm not close with," Decugis says.

Isabel, a 22-year-old analyst in Boston, agrees. "I like BeReal because there's no need to add acquaintances or friends of friends. I only add the people I am fully comfortable with sharing random, unfiltered moments with. Because it's such a small community there's always a ton of good banter on the daily posts," she explains.

And investors are listening. By June 2021, the social media app had raised $30 million in Series A funding. From March to July the app grew from 10,000 to over 400,000 daily users. In November. The Hoya, Georgetowns student newspaper, reported "BeReal is the newest social media craze to take hold of Georgetown."

While BeReal is still in its infancy (as of July 2021, its numbers don't compare to its rivals), everyone I spoke to who uses the app loves it. "I only have four or five hometown friends on there," Kelly Young, a 22 year-old senior at Drexel University, tells Mashable. "[They] all live far away from me. BeReal is a really fun way for us to keep in touch, and it's the most realistic insight into what our lives are like now."

If you miss the notification, you are allowed to post late, but you are unable to see your friends' images until you post your own. By doing so, the app avoids the issue of lurking as well. You are forced to post content in order to see content. Additionally, the app has a more involved version of liking. You cannot just double tap to like a photo, in order to respond to a friends' content, you must take a reaction selfie or comment.

The posting-once-a-day model also means you only have to check the app once per day, and there's no anxiety over missing content because everyone you follow is only posting once a day, too. Therefore, it isn't a time suck the way that Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok currently are.

Not only does BeReal build upon the photo sharing feed of Instagram, but it also incorporates the ephemeral nature of Snapchat by resetting your feed daily. Like Snapchat, the app holds your previous posts in "Memories" that only you have access to.

The app does pose some privacy concerns. It automatically posts your location with your photo unless you disable the feature in your settings, and it has its own version of Snapmaps. By having you post every day, the app can accumulate data that paints a picture of your habits, not unlike its competitors. The app promises not to sell your data to third parties, but its raised some concerns among its user base.

"It's strange because it shares your exact location, like your coordinates," Alisha Pandya, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, tells Mashable. "It's not just your city or general location, but it's your house on the map. So the app is kind of suspect."

But it hasn't stopped college students from downloading it. BeReal is already a hit in France, where it currently ranks in the top 10 of most-downloaded social networking apps in the App Store; in the U.S., its steadily rising through the ranks of the top 100. Last week, it was the 80th most-downloaded social networking app, and now it's ranked 61st. It's gained traction through savvy marketing and word of mouth, enlisting TikTok and college ambassadors to help popularize the app.

Perhaps the appeal of an entirely new social media platform is that it hasn't been overrun with nosy friends of friends, old coworkers, and celebrities. Your feed still feels intimate, and in today's social media landscape that seems radical. Because as soon as you start seeing unfiltered selfies from people you barely know, an app loses all of its charm and potential.

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Photo-sharing app BeReal offers an authentic alternative to Instagram - Mashable

There are plenty of reasons to exercise caution when posting content online, but more attention needs to be paid to the potential impact on employability, a new report suggests.

According to research conducted by cybersecurity company Kaspersky, a third of job seekers say social posts have harmed their employment prospects, a figure that rises to 47% among younger people applying for entry-level positions.

The survey also revealed that more than a third (38%) believe that the likelihood of receiving a job offer would fall if a potential employer had access to their posts, while 40% said they have previously looked up a new colleague on social media.

When social media platforms were first established in the mid-2000s, the novelty factor was enough to blind almost all of us to the dangers these kinds of services can present, from a reputational, addiction and data privacy standpoint.

Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, many people have become more cautious about the social media content they interact with (particularly personality quizzes and the like) for privacy reasons, and awareness about the effects of screen time has encouraged some to establish healthier relationships with their devices. However, the same sense of caution does not necessarily extend to the content people choose to post online.

The report asserts that many people later come to regret the material they post on web platforms, with 45% of respondents saying they regret using social media as much as they did when they were younger.

Meanwhile, 42% of people say their social media profiles are not representative of their authentic selves, despite them becoming the most readily available resource for recruiters looking to learn more about a potential new hire.

However, on the other side of the coin, social platforms like LinkedIn have proven to be an invaluable resource for job hunters over the years. According to Kaspersky, 73% of millennials found their last position directly through a social media platform.

The question then becomes: how do we capture the benefits of social platforms, without exposing ourselves to the dangers? According to Tony Neate, CEO at advice portal Get Safe Online, people could benefit significantly by making a concerted effort to pause before firing off a post.

Social networking has been - and is still - one of the revolutions of the online age. When used correctly, it is an excellent way of keeping in touch with friends and family, sharing information and advertising and finding new work, said Tony Neate, CEO at advice portal Get Safe Online.

Our advice is simple. Enjoy the benefits of social media, but periodically take a step back and remind yourself why its important to think before you post. Use this time to edit and even delete recent posts that might position you detrimentally, minimising the risk of current and future employers seeing you in a negative light.

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Here's another reason you should be careful about what you post online - TechRadar