Welcome to our blog section where we delve into the dynamic world of website design, social media marketing, and reputation management. Stay updated with the latest trends, best practices, and tips to enhance your online presence and engage with your audience effectively.
Social Platforms’ Changing Approaches To Political and News Content Could Sway Upcoming Elections
It’s interesting to note the varying approaches that each social app is taking to political content, as we head into what’s expected to be a particularly tumultuous election period.
Not only do you have the U.S. election, which is coming up on November 5th, but also heading to the polls this year are India (May), the European Union (June), the U.K., South Africa, and a heap more.
And with all of this happening, among nations that see very high social media usage, each platform is looking to either reduce or expand the presence of political debate within their apps. Which could have a significant impact on voting outcomes, depending on how things actually play out.
First off, you have Meta, which is now taking definitive steps to reduce the presence of political content in its apps.
Last week, Meta announced that it would eliminate its Facebook News initiative, and end all agreements with local news publishers, as part of its latest efforts to dilute news content, and subsequent debate, on Facebook and Instagram.
That effort has actually been ongoing for some time. Back in 2021, in the wake of the Capitol Riots, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that one of the most common notes of feedback that the company had been receiving from its users was that they didn’t want to keep seeing divisive political content in their feeds.
After years of angst-ridden posts, sparking tension between friends and family, Meta realized that the negative association of such wasn’t worth the engagement benefits. Which then set the Meta team on a mission to reduce political content, however it could. That’s since seen the company lean further into AI-recommended content, mostly via short-form video clips, which have since become a far bigger element in user feeds.
Indeed, as of Q4 last year, AI-based content recommendations accounted for 40% of the content that people see on Instagram, with that figure coming in slightly lower on Facebook. The result? Over the past year, Meta’s seen a 7% increase in time spent on Facebook, and a 6% increase in the same on IG.
By contrast, news content now makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, and shrinking.
With this in mind, and with the reputational damage that news and political debate has caused Meta in the past, it’s now looking to step away from it entirely, in favor of a more light hearted, entertainment-based content approach.
Which makes even more sense when you also consider how much news and political debate has cost Meta over recent years.
Cumulatively, as a result of the Cambridge Analytica debacle, in which political operatives reportedly stole Facebook user data to formulate voter influence operations, Meta has had to pay almost $6 billion in direct costs, via a penalty from the FTC, a settlement over the “data breach”, and fines from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
But the reputational damage may have been even worse. In 2022, Meta said that Apple’s new opt-in data tracking prompts would cost its ad business over $10 billion in that year alone, which can also be linked back to an erosion of trust in the company due to the Cambridge Analytica incident.
On balance, then, it makes sense for Meta to step away from news and politics where it can. But what will that ultimately mean for voters?
According to Pew Research, 30% of Americans get at least some of their news input from Facebook, and with the platform deliberately moving away from such, that has to have an impact.
The end result will be that Meta will be able to raise its hands and claim it had nothing to do with the outcome of any election, whatever it may be, which could help it avoid similar negative headlines. But is that good for democracy, and will that lead to a less-informed public?
On the flipside, the platform formerly known as Twitter is leaning further into political debate, with X owner Elon Musk using the app as his personal bullhorn to sound the alarm on whatever political issue he’s concerned with day-to-day.
Musk regularly posts about the influx of immigrants in the U.S., the war in Ukraine, drug policies, corporate governance concerns, and the perceived decline of various U.S. cities. Musk also regularly points the finger at various politicians, from the President on down, and as the most-followed person in the app, who’s also (reportedly) tilted the algorithm in favor of showing his posts to more people, he alone has significant influence over the general discussion among X users.
What’s more, X’s more “free speech” aligned approach to content moderation, which puts increased reliance on its crowd-sourced “Community Notes” to police misinformation, has left it open to expanded manipulation, which could further skew political discussion in the app.
But that’s pretty much how Elon wants it, with his stated view being that people should be able to see all opinions, no matter how incorrect or ill-informed they are, so that they can decide for themselves what they believe and what they don’t.
Which seems to ignore the past harms caused by such, but nevertheless, Musk believes that no one should be censored, as such, and all opinions should be examined on their merits.
Which then increases political debate within the app. And with Meta looking to reduce political and news content, X may actually be winning out, in becoming the social app of choice to engage in political debate.
Is that a good thing?
I mean, theoretically, as noted, X’s Community Notes system should enable “the people” to decide what they believe, and what should be left, or “noted” in the app. But Community Notes are only displayed on posts once contributors of opposing political viewpoints agree that a note is necessary. Which, for many of the most divisive political debates, is never going to happen, so for a lot of claims, X is facilitating the spread of misinformation.
Indeed, research has shown that the expansion of Community Notes has done little to reduce engagement with misinformation in the app.
And when you also consider claims that coordinated groups are already active within the Community Notes system, and are working to amplify and/or quash notes that go against their own agendas, and that those groups are potentially operating on behalf of foreign governments, it does seem like X is offering little protection from voter manipulation heading into the election period.
Which could skew political debate, and subsequent voter outcomes, with Musk himself looking to sway voters towards Republican candidates.
X’s direct influence in his respect is far less than Facebook (Pew Research data shows that 12% of U.S. adults regularly get news content in the app). But X/Twitter has always had an oversized influence on related debate, because of its popularity among the most passionate newshounds and reporters, who source much of the information from the app, then disseminate such to other platforms.
That’s why Donald Trump was able to use Twitter to such great effect, and likely why Elon was so attracted to it.
The outcome then is that you are going to have more voters more influenced by misinformation via the app, with some of the most divisive, angst-inducing claims already stemming from X posts.
Will that sway the outcome of elections? Likely yes, and with Meta offering no counter, that does seem like a significant concern.
In the end, however, Meta seems more concerned about its business interests than the role it plays, or doesn’t, in politics. Which, again, makes sense when you weigh up the cost-benefit of such for the company. But the concern is that X-sourced, unfounded conspiracies are going to infect the minds of enough voters to sway the outcome of each poll, which could cause significantly more harm in the long run.
Of course, it’s not Meta’s responsibility to play arbiter in such, and it’s also worth noting that TikTok is in a difficult position as well, given its alleged ties to the Chinese Government, and how that might influence what users see in that app.
But it is a potentially concerning situation, heading into the various polls, with X’s more “free for all” approach looking far more like the situation in the lead-up to the 2016 election, as opposed to the lessons learned as a result.
The worst part is that nothing can seemingly be done about this, and all of this analysis and attribution will be conducted in retrospect.
And for many, many people, that could be too late.
The 3 E’s of Content Marketing: A Universal Strategy
“What type of content should I send to my audience?” is among small business owners’ most frequently asked questions. Use the 3 E’s and never worry again.
You’ve probably heard the buzz about content marketing, but if you’re not a marketing pro, you might still be wondering, “What’s the deal, and why should I bother?” Well, here’s the scoop: in today’s hypercompetitive world, content marketing is a necessary part of any successful business’s marketing plan. In addition to being among the most cost-effective strategies, supplying content that is valuable, relevant, and consistent promotes audience retention, raises brand awareness, produces leads, increases conversions, helps establish you as an industry authority, encourages higher rankings on SERPs, and creates brand advocates.
However, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a small business owner, content marketing can feel tricky to pull off. The real head-scratcher is figuring out the magic content formula that’ll resonate with your audience. In fact, “What type of content should I send to my audience?” is among the most frequently asked questions we get.
That’s why we’re taking a deep dive into the game-changing 3 E’s of small businesses content marketing. Specifically tailored to those who aren’t marketing gurus, they can be used in any industry and applied to any channel. With them, you’ll never worry about what to post, email, record, or send again!
But before getting into the details and to avoid any confusion, let’s make a distinction between two terms you may have seen elsewhere: content pillars and value pillars.
Content pillars vs. value pillars.
You can find a useful explanation of content pillars, including how to build them and a corresponding strategy here, but for right now, it’s enough to know that they’re what you want to write about—they’re the topics relevant to your business.
Value pillars, on the other hand, are how to approach those topics. While you’ll find those who recommend more or differently named value pillars, there’s no need to complicate matters. As content marketing experts devoted to helping busy entrepreneurs and solo proprietors with their marketing, we understand the importance of keeping things simple. That’s why we assist our clients in adopting the 3 E’s: present their topics in ways that educate, entertain, and endear.
By way of a quick example, let’s look at one of our most popular Stay Paid podcast guests, Millie Adrian, whose Instagram account, @itsmodernmillie, currently has over 148K followers. With an audience of this size, you can be sure her content is outstanding, delivering tremendous value to her audience. You can also imagine she must be consistently producing a lot of it to keep those followers engaged and coming back for more.
Now let’s take a closer look at the 3 E’s—value pillars that educate, entertain, and endear—and explore their nuances, discovering the unique function of each and how they work together to attract leads that convert to customers.
Content marketing that educates.
Educational content is designed to teach your intended audience about topics relevant to your industry or business that they will find valuable. This type of content works well to establish you as an authority and, in turn, helps build trust.
For example, if you’re a real estate agent, an obvious idea would be a video explaining the impact of rising interest rates on home sales. Another could be a postcard campaign to your farm announcing an upcoming seminar about understanding options for financing a home purchase. But there are countless other ways to educate your audience beyond these necessary but rather typical instances of self-promotion.
Sticking with the case of a real estate agent, additional content marketing examples that educate include posting a video in which you explain the pros and cons of buying a home warranty or using Facebook ads to offer free lead magnets such as “A Guide to Buying Your First Home” or “Preparing for Your Preapproval and Mortgage Application.” (You can download these and more free resources designed for additional industries from our Resource Library.) Or if you enjoy writing, you might author a LinkedIn article or a blog for your website about working with an agent to properly price a home for sale.
The 3 E’s of Content Marketing: A Universal Strategy.
“What type of content should I send to my audience?” is among small business owners’ most frequently asked questions. Use the 3 E’s and never worry again.
You’ve probably heard the buzz about content marketing, but if you’re not a marketing pro, you might still be wondering, “What’s the deal, and why should I bother?” Well, here’s the scoop: in today’s hypercompetitive world, content marketing is a necessary part of any successful business’s marketing plan. In addition to being among the most cost-effective strategies, supplying content that is valuable, relevant, and consistent promotes audience retention, raises brand awareness, produces leads, increases conversions, helps establish you as an industry authority, encourages higher rankings on SERPs, and creates brand advocates.
However, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a small business owner, content marketing can feel tricky to pull off. The real head-scratcher is figuring out the magic content formula that’ll resonate with your audience. In fact, “What type of content should I send to my audience?” is among the most frequently asked questions we get when we host one of our geo farming webinars.
Click here to watch this free webinar that we found online
.
That’s why we’re taking a deep dive into the game-changing 3 E’s of small businesses content marketing. Specifically tailored to those who aren’t marketing gurus, they can be used in any industry and applied to any channel. With them, you’ll never worry about what to post, email, record, or send again!
But before getting into the details and to avoid any confusion, let’s make a distinction between two terms you may have seen elsewhere: content pillars and value pillars.
Content pillars vs. value pillars.
You can find a useful explanation of content pillars, including how to build them and a corresponding strategy here, but for right now, it’s enough to know that they’re what you want to write about—they’re the topics relevant to your business.
Value pillars, on the other hand, are how to approach those topics. While you’ll find those who recommend more or differently named value pillars, there’s no need to complicate matters. As content marketing experts devoted to helping busy entrepreneurs and solo proprietors with their marketing, we understand the importance of keeping things simple. That’s why we assist our clients in adopting the 3 E’s: present their topics in ways that educate, entertain, and endear.
By way of a quick example, let’s look at a popular podcast guest, Millie Adrian, whose Instagram account, @itsmodernmillie, currently has over 148K followers. With an audience of this size, you can be sure her content is outstanding, delivering tremendous value to her audience. You can also imagine she must be consistently producing a lot of it to keep those followers engaged and coming back for more.
Millie’s solution is to create a social media content plan with a pillar content structure in place to ensure she always has a full pipeline of content to share. You can listen to her podcast interview for the full details, but the table below demonstrates how, from a single topic, she can produce multiple pieces of content representing her choice of value pillars.
Now let’s take a closer look at the 3 E’s—value pillars that educate, entertain, and endear—and explore their nuances, discovering the unique function of each and how they work together to attract leads that convert to customers.
Content marketing that educates!
Educational content is designed to teach your intended audience about topics relevant to your industry or business that they will find valuable. This type of content works well to establish you as an authority and, in turn, helps build trust.
For example, if you’re a real estate agent, an obvious idea would be a video explaining the impact of rising interest rates on home sales. Another could be a postcard campaign to your farm announcing an upcoming seminar about understanding options for financing a home purchase. But there are countless other ways to educate your audience beyond these necessary but rather typical instances of self-promotion.
Sticking with the case of a real estate agent, additional content marketing examples that educate include posting a video in which you explain the pros and cons of buying a home warranty or using Facebook ads to offer free lead magnets such as “A Guide to Buying Your First Home” or “Preparing for Your Preapproval and Mortgage Application.” (You can download these and more free resources designed for additional industries from our Resource Library.) Or if you enjoy writing, you might author a LinkedIn article or a blog for your website about working with an agent to properly price a home for sale.
But here’s a word of caution about educational content—it can’t be the only type of content you produce.
Imagine you knew someone who only talked about themselves every time you met. Chances are you’d start avoiding that person. And, it’s the same for your business.
Too often, companies overload their audiences with information primarily about themselves and what they find important, leading the very consumers they are trying to attract to eventually start tuning out. As a result, the algorithms on social media stop pushing their content, fewer people are exposed to their brands, they lose leads, their businesses suffer, and the vicious downward spiral continues.
This is why there are 3 E’s and not just one—it’s essential to entertain your audience and endear them to you on top of educating them. This is the magic formula introduced at the beginning of this blog. A content plan that optimizes variety is one that your audience will enjoy, seek out or look forward to receiving, and readily share with others.
Content marketing that entertains.
When it comes to entertaining content, you’ll experience the greatest degree of success by considering your ideal client and addressing what is broadly popular among them. Develop your content around common themes that speak to their experiences and interests, such as food, travel, pets, family, and local events and attractions.
Charles Weintraub, host of the Handsome Homebuyer podcast and CEO of Mandalay Holdings, gets an astonishing amount of engagement and new followers not by posting about real estate and investing. Rather, he finds the most success from sharing hyperlocal content about topics like the best Italian restaurant in Lindenhurst, Long Island. (Check out this snippet from his Stay Paid interview here.)
Meanwhile, Will Penney, one of the founders of the Penney Group with eXp Realty in northeast Ohio, created a private Facebook group for his clients that offers entertaining content spanning a wide range of topics in a variety of formats. It was such a phenomenal success that it inspired him to create Social Orchard—a company devoted to helping real estate agents provide entertaining content to their own groups. (Listen to him describe his strategy here.)
Content marketing that endears you to your audience
You’ve likely heard many times before that consumers want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. At CS Designs, we can speak from experience about the popularity of endearing content and its ability to achieve just that. When our own president posted a picture to Instagram of his family at Christmas, it received more likes and comments than many of his Reels about marketing tips. That’s because it allowed his audience to identify with him as a husband and father and not simply a business owner. The holidays, family, and smiling babies in general have a wide appeal; these topics make people happy and are easy for them to connect with, thus endearing them to the poster.
But today’s consumers are demanding more from the companies they support than simply feel-good images. According to Forbes, they are “increasingly looking to connect with brands that share their values and stand for something beyond just making a profit.” Enter the strategy described by one sales-and-marketing expert of establishing a purpose, or “reason for being,” that goes beyond making a profit.
However, you don’t need to revamp your entire business model to demonstrate that you’re about more than making money. Consumers just want to know that you’re giving back in a meaningful way; and something as simple as supporting a local animal rescue center can satisfy this need. Consequently, sharing how your business gives back is not something you should keep secret.
Consider the example of the Acree Brothers Realty Team in Lynchburg, Virginia. They promote their ongoing support of a local food bank through numerous channels as a way of endearing themselves to the community while genuinely providing much-needed assistance to a worthy cause. (Full disclosure: the founder of this team, Stephen Acree, is one of our president’s brothers.)
First, they conduct a postcard campaign informing their neighbors about the details of the food drive and inviting them to participate. They then advertise the drive on social media and their website, and as the day of the drive approaches, send text messages to remind people of the upcoming event.
On the appointed day, the agents drive to homes to collect the donated items, giving them the opportunity to meet face-to-face with homeowners. A photographer is on hand to take pictures and record videos, which the team later posts along with the results of the food drive and their gratitude to the community for their support. They also follow up with phone calls to personally thank people for their generosity. Each interaction is a touchpoint with potential clients that helps form and nurture relationships.
In addition to garnering goodwill, businesses that give back benefit from the halo effect—a cognitive bias that encourages a generalized positive perception of a person, product, or brand based on a single attribute. In short, if you promote content about your support or contribution to a cause or, as in the example earlier, post a picture of a happy and loving family, then by virtue of the halo effect, people will assume that you’re not only generous but also kind, thoughtful, selfless, and caring. And, by further extension, they’ll think of you as someone they can trust to meet their needs. All in all, endearing content influences consumers to do business with you over your competitors.
The easy solution to content marketing featuring the 3 E’s.
You know you need to provide content, but you also know that you can’t restrict what you share to information solely about your business. The 3 E’s are a way to provide additional value that goes beyond self-promotion to further build and engage your audience. They help you plan your content and increase your efficiency by offering options for multiple ways to use the same content.
The key to utilizing content as a marketing tool is to consistently provide your audience with value and have them associate that value with your name and brand. We achieve this result for our clients by providing a host of the highest-quality personally branded digital and print marketing tools. All are designed and automated to provide content that is educational, entertaining, and endearing while keeping you top of mind for more referral and repeat business.
Are you ready for the new email authentication requirements?
I recently read a statistic saying that 85% of emails sent in 2023 were spam. That seems like a lot, but I know I get a lot of spam in my email.
Google and Yahoo know that, too. You may have received messages from your Email Service Provider (ESP) – like Mailchimp, MailerLite, GetResponse, or whatever you use to send your newsletters and marketing emails, letting you know there are new authentication requirements and telling you to take action.
TLDR: If you want people with Gmail or Yahoo email addresses (and probably Microsoft and others) to receive your emails, you must send from a domain you own and have properly authenticated.
Want someone else to do the techie work on this?
So what is this all about? Google and Yahoo (and Microsoft will probably officially follow suit, although I think they have quietly done some of this already) are adopting some stricter measures on what emails will be allowed in the inbox. Any emails that don’t meet the requirements will likely go to spam, or possibly be rejected completely.
Emails will have to be fully authenticated, meaning you must have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records set up in your domain. That’s a lot of alphabet soup, but basically these are DNS records that need to be set up.
– SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is the servers that are allowed to send email using your domain name – such as your website, ESP, maybe your invoicing system.
– DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is like a signature for your emails, saying they really came from you and haven’t been tampered with.
– DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance) is like a policy that tells an email provider (e.g. Gmail) that if an email arrives saying it’s from you, but doesn’t match the SPF and DKIM information, here’s what to do with that email.
AND, an important thing to know – if you are using a Gmail or another “free” email address to send emails through your ESP, you won’t be able to do that any longer. You can’t authenticate gmail.com or yahoo.com or yourISP.com, since you don’t own those domains. You’ll need to set up your ESP to use an email from a domain YOU OWN and authenticate that domain.
There are a number of other rules that will be put in place as well. Some items you can’t do anything about, such as implementing one-click unsubscribe in email headers (this is different than the unsubscribe link IN the email) and ensuring emails are formatted in Internet Message Format Standard; we all have to depend on our ESPs to do that (and I’m sure it’ll start to be noticed which ones don’t).
But using your own domain, having it properly authenticated, and keeping the spam rate below 0.3% – that’s all on us.
Some of the stricter requirements are only for those who send 5,000+ messages to Gmail addresses, but the authentication requirements have been best practices for years. Using your own domain and having at least SPF or DKIM set up is going to be required for anyone who sends to Gmail addresses (yeah, just about everyone!)
Google announced they will start implementing these requirements in February. Yahoo has similar requirements and will start implementing in February of 2024.
Enforcing these email best practices will be good for us all, but I know it can be a little painful to get there. If you don’t want to figure this out yourself, I’m offering a service to do the techie part for you. I’ll work with you to figure out your authorized senders, and then I’ll take care of setting up all the records – I’ll even monitor DMARC reports for you for the first 30 days.
This is important for anyone who uses email to communicate with customers, but it’s crucial for those who use email marketing. If you have colleagues who need this information or would be interested in this service, please feel free to forward this email.
With Google starting implementation as early as 1 Feb, I can’t wait until Valentine’s Day to sweeten the deal, so I’m offering a coupon code for $50 off the setup service. When booking the Email Authentication Setup service, put mp42emailauth when asked if you have a promotional code, and you’ll get $50 off until 31 Jan 2024.