The days when social media refused to monitor content in support of free speech finally may be over. It took the emergence of a batsh*t-crazy conspiracy-theory group, QAnon, for this policy to emerge. 

So who are these people?

Founded four years ago, pro-Trump QAnon believers think the world was run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who were plotting against Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring. I know. That’s a lot to take in. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter from Georgia, won a Republican primary and could be on her way to Washington. I watched a brief interview with Ms. Greene after she won the primary. She was outraged that Muslims were moving into their neighborhoods, and she couldn’t wait to get to Washington to “beat Nancy Pelosi!” Not sure what Ms. Greene has in mind, but I’ll put my money on Pelosi.

Facebook now is restricting 1,950 groups and 440 pages and more than 10,000 Instagram accounts related to QAnon. “We have seen growing movements that have celebrated violent acts; they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior. One QAnon supporter wanted to “take out Joe Biden”. When she was arrested, police found dozens of knives in her car. 

Social media and social responsibility

Social is limiting QAnon and other groups that promote violence. As groups like QAnon have revealed how these sites can become vehicles for abuse, social media has taken responsibility for the content on their platforms. 

• Twitter is removing thousands of QAnon accounts and is blocking trends and key phrases related to QAnon from appearing in its search and Trending Topics section. 
• Reddit has banned some of its forums for QAnon content.
• TikTok has banned several QAnon-related hashtags, and it monitors hate speech that violates guidelines.
• YouTube has taken down tens of thousands of Q-related videos and terminated hundreds of Q-related channels. 
• Facebook has taken down other group pages that represent violence, including Antifa and other militia movements.

What is all of this about? 

Conspiracy theorists are nothing new, and according to Donald Trump, “I’ve heard these are people that love our country, and they like me.” He doesn’t seem to get that these groups are really dangerous. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executives have been meeting regularly to discuss ways to stop their platforms from being used to spread misinformation about the vote, and are even considering a “kill switch” to shut off all political ads after election day.

A new, emerging message of change, inclusion and decency

The recent Democratic Convention shared an upbeat message of good will and decency. Of experienced, hardworking people taking responsibility and being accountable. Of getting things done. A new spirit of hope is emerging, of working together for change. Valerie Jarrett, a former Obama advisor, described it as a potential new theme: Building Back Better. It means everyone’s being accountable, and that now includes big tech and our social media sites. 

Content marketing with Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

An Overlooked Resource: Linkedin Company Pages

An Overlooked Resource: Linkedin Company Pages. I was reviewing a client’s social sites, and lo and behold, I realized I had completely missed LinkedIn’s company pages! These are not the individual profile pages that we all have, but pages that are specific to our companies. Let’s take a look at LinkedIn as an often-overlooked resource.

LinkedIn pages are fully fleshed out and robust

First those overlooked company pages. Create a company profile and post to your company newsfeed in the same way that you post to your Facebook company page. LinkedIn copied the Facebook prototype, so it’s easy for all of us to use. Another resemblance to Facebook? Sorry. If you want to maximize the visibility of your posts, you really do need to promote them. 

Statistics help tell a story

• LinkedIn statistics in 2019: 303M active monthly users, 40% of whom visit the site daily. 
• 90M are senior-level influencers and 63M are decision makers. 
• Compare that with Facebook’s 2.38B monthly active users. 

If you’re looking for higher-value leads and contacts, LinkedIn clearly outperforms the higher-volume Facebook. 

LinkedIn has always been the career application 

What has always distinguished LinkedIn from other social media applications is its emphasis on careers and recruiting. Recruiters love this application as do those who are looking for jobs. Let’s not forget savvy salespeople and networkers who use this application strategically to connect with those whom they want to meet. 

The Career pages are thoughtful and comprehensive 

There is an impressive array of free resources within the Career section. Most have been made within the last year. They’re pdf files that you can download. You’ll find:

• Templates for job descriptions and discussions of recruiting, trends and branding. 
• Datasheets for recruiting ads and increasing employee retention. Profiles to inspire you.
• There is a series of webinars on a range of topics, including small business hiring challenges. 
• Hiring and retaining millennials and business development on LinkedIn.
• There is a resource library that includes toolkits for just about everything—one for recruiters, one for onboarding and job postings. There’s the ultimate guide to hiring with social media!

Don’t overlook LinkedIn’s Learning Center

LinkedIn’s Learning Center is a vast resource 13,000 online courses taught by professionals. There is a fee for these, but you get the first month free. I used these when I wanted to learn more about how to manage online advertising/PPC campaigns. 

These are video tutorials that have little quizzes at the end–the accountability keeps you on your toes. I love cool free stuff, so I really worked these so I could finish them within my free month. I also knew that I needed continuity; big time gaps between sessions wasn’t going to provide optimal learning for me. You can control the speed, and go back and listen to something again. Topics are wide-ranging and the materials are comprehensive. There’s software development such as Microsoft apps and WordPress or Leadership and Management. Take a look. LinkedIn is an excellent resource.

Are you leveraging LinkedIn as a social media application and resource? Let’s talk! Contact Top of Mind Marketing; we’re writers and internet marketing experts.  

Facebook, Privacy and Your Data

It’s been a tough year for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook

Facebook’s data wound up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, who used the information to target voters during the 2016 election. Facebook allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages. Facebook downplays the data privacy breach, claiming that it never granted access to user data without permission.

You really can’t overestimate the value of user data

Personal data has become the most prized commodity of the digital age, and it’s traded on a vast scale by powerful companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. For those who may not understand what this is all about, it’s hard to overestimate the value of user data. Data helps us understand consumer buying habits, and it’s worth its weight in gold. It helps companies know how to market to whom. Facebook users make it easy by happily providing detailed information about their lives as they fill in fields with their new job titles, education levels, marital status, interests, hobbies, etc. This information can all be exported and shared with other companies.

Sharing consumer data: How this works

Let’s say you just got engaged, so of course you added this to the Relationship field of your Facebook page. The average couple spends $25,000 on their wedding, so there’s a lot of money to be made here. Now think of all the vendors that service the wedding industry—florists, bakeries, hotels, caterers, photographers, dress designers, wedding planners, etc.

The more upscale (You’ve already identified your education level, community and job title, which are affluence indicators), the more interested these vendors are going to be. They want to identify those couples who are most likely to be spending upwards of $25K so they can begin marketing to these potential new wedding clients.

Facebook executives have acknowledged missteps over the past year

Facebook understands they’ve got to regain user trust, and it requires stronger teams, better technology and clearer policies. One spokeswoman says it has found no evidence of abuse by its partners. Some of the largest partners, including Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo, said they had used the data appropriately, but declined to discuss the sharing deals in detail. Facebook did admit to mismanaging some of its partnerships.

What’s next for Facebook?

Facebook is facing decelerating revenue growth—they’ve begun to saturate their market, at 1.74B users. Data privacy issues have taken a toll, but Facebook sees big opportunities in private messaging. Stories format and video. Facebook is investing in data privacy and messaging. Augmented and virtual reality represent a significant investment.

This last summer, California’s state legislature passed a groundbreaking bill that will give residents unprecedented control over their data. The law, criticized by pro-business groups like the Chambers of Commerce, will become law on January 1, 2020. Tech giants are racing to supersede the law with more industry-friendly legislation. A lot could happen before then.

Do you need help with your social media strategy?

Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing specialists.

Facebook Rolls Out 3D Camera, Investing Big in VR

Mark Zuckerberg spent most of last quarter mired in controversy for indiscriminately sharing millions of Facebook users’ account details with third-party vendors. His punishment? Peeling off that ratty tee-shirt, donning his first-ever big-boy suit and tie and testifying before Congress. He was completely MIA for a few weeks as his handlers schooled him in the art of humility. Among his tasks: Explaining to a group of aging politicians that cookieshave no relation to one of America’s favorite desserts. There was clearly a knowledge gap between Zuckerberg and his audience—these legislators had little understanding of the power of data mining or the value of user information.

While Zuckerberg was defending himself to Congress, his team was creating new functionality

At the company’s annual developer’s conference in May, Facebook showcased new visual tools that focus on the platform’s augmented-reality (AR) capacity.

Facebook introduces their new 3D camera

You can now download Facebook’s free 3D camera to your mobile device and take three-dimensional (3D) pictures and upload them to your Facebook News Feed and other apps. The 3D posts provide a whole new layer to images that respond when users scroll past or angle their phones.

Time for a reality check

To try this out, I took a few photos and uploaded them to my own News Feed to see if the camera really worked. I was delighted to see that the new images really do provide an interesting new dimension. The 3D camera has an editing tool so you can filter, enhance, highlight, crop or add text to an image. You can take a new picture or pull up an existing image from your smartphone’s photo library and turn it into one that’s multidimensional. You can upload your new 3D image directly to your Facebook News Feed, Instagram, iCloud Photosharing or WhatsApp applications.

Facebook and VR: enticing us with great new functionality

Facebook is making a significant investment in virtual reality (VR), betting that 3D will be an important component of social communication’s future. While this may be the future, it’s still a long way off. To transition users from their regular social feeds to full VR environments, Facebook will be providing little stepping stones that hint at what the next evolution will be. While the 3D photo may seem like a modest step, the new imaging will make users more interested in how they view images and enhance their own photos. With more than 2 billion smartphone and Facebook users around the world, I’m betting these 3D images will quickly become disseminated across our social channels.

Look for more new tools from Facebook

In the coming months, look for Facebook to introduce visual enhancements that will showcase new ways to engage with Facebook content. Watch Party lets users watch video while chatting with friends.Dating Home enters the online dating space, accessible by clicking on a small heart icon.Facebook is counting on its users to embrace the new functionality that will broaden and enhance our content experiences.

Need help with your and content marketing program? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing specialists.

Tired of Fake News? Facebook’s Disputed News Tag Goes Live

Unless you’ve just crawled out of Sleepy Hollow, you know that there’s a bit of a controversy going on with the news these days—especially the news that’s coming out of the White House. We’re accustomed to never quite trusting our politicians, and while we’d like to have faith that our journalists are entirely objective, the times clearly have changed. The days of Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, are over. People these days are getting their news from the internet, and they assume that because they read it, it’s true. But scan the morning news, from Breitbart to the venerable New York Times, and you’ll begin to see that the “news” varies dramatically, depending on who’s writing the headlines.

As our journalists report on the news coming out of the new Trump administration, the White House counters the facts with what they call “alternative facts”. What? There are no alternative facts. If we do our due diligence, we find that the White House is just plain lying. Again. We’ve never seen anything like this, and it’s lowering the bar on truth and integrity.

Facebook responds to alternative facts

Facebook has decided that, as a public application that reaches more than 1.86 billion monthly active users, they have both influence and a responsibility, so they have created a new Disputed tag that will appear beneath news stories on the site that have been deemed inaccurate.

• Facebook has added a new Help page outlining how the system works.
• Stories flagged as fake by users will be reviewed by independent fact-checking organizations, including Politifact and Snopes.com.
• Those organizations will be signatories to a “Fact-checkers’ Code of Principles”maintained by the journalism nonprofit Poynter Institute. The principles include nonpartisanship and transparency in sourcing and funding.

Disputed posts and rankings

There’s no indication yet whether the Disputed designation will have a direct impact on how a story is handled by Facebook’s ranking algorithms. The thinking is that users will be less likely to share stories that have received the Disputed tag, reducing their likelihood of being spread.

A dependency, of course, is that the flagging process itself can take several days, which is plenty of time for a story to get plenty of attention. We all know that a story that is topical and sexy, accompanied by an attention-grabbing image, can go viral within a few hours. The internet and social media have made global communication immediate. One big dependency of the Disputed tag is its due diligence: it takes time to research the verity of a fact.

What does Facebook have to gain?

There’s another imperfection of this system that will likely satisfy nobody. Despite huge public pressure to tackle fake news, particularly from the political left, Facebook has no real motivation to tell its readers what to believe.

Potential for reduced user engagement

From a business perspective, filtering or flagging disputed news stories could reduce user engagement among those who had previously enjoyed a steady diet of alternative facts. The move has already invited scathing criticism from the right, potentially actively alienating a huge swathe of Facebook users who apparently feed on the fake news coming out of the White House.

A final thought: It’s an initial effort by a medium that reaches billions of users/month. While it may or may not be effective or completely successful, it may set the stage for other social media applications to look for ways to censor the rise of alternative facts.

Do you need help with your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.