https://writetodone.com/make-money-translating/
Editor’s note: Are you a writer? Do you speak a second language? To make money translating other authors’ works (or your own), then, might be an unexpected income stream… Many writers focus solely on their own writing projects, honing their craft over the years and pursuing that goal of making a living from writing. Few […]
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Exactly fifty years ago, noted futurist Alvin Toffler wrote one of the most widely read books about the future called Future Shock. It was a legendary work, and the inspiration for the team at the Abundant Future Institute to seek out 50 top futurists to each contribute a chapter to a book celebrating Toffler’s vision and offering new thoughts for a new era. I was honored to be among those who added their insights to the curated selection.
The book is now available on Amazon and my contributed chapter is titled “The Non-Obvious Appeal of Vicarious People.” Here’s an excerpt …
I once purchased a tweet from Kim Kardashian.
Admitting I bought a forgettable endorsement from a forgettable person on a forgettable platform hardly seems like an appropriate story to share in a book co-authored by some of the world’s foremost thinkers on the future. But it points to a seeming contradiction in my interests: For someone who has spent most of his professional life trying to not-so-gently nudge companies and leaders back toward embracing their humanity, I have an unusual fascination with fake things.
I attribute this interest to my experiences working in advertising for the first decade of my career, before I shifted my focus toward trying to predict and describe the future. While I was developing creative persuasion strategies to sell everything from orange juice to cloud computing, I became a student of human behavior.
The team I used to lead would regularly talk to people and pore over reports from global analytics firms to develop consumer insights. Our goal was to create “personas” that would neatly describe large categories of people in terms of their beliefs, passions, and motivations—no matter how mundane or unexpected.
Why do people pick up the second magazine from the rack instead of the first? Why do they worry about climate change yet still buy bottled water? And why do they mistakenly place so much trust in false information, manipulated media, and fabricated celebrities?
It was this last question that fascinated me most: In a world of near-perfect information, why do certain people hold such power to influence us despite sometimes being demonstrably fake? We trust and follow people who are famous simply for being famous, or believe in the experiences of perfect strangers who post product and experience reviews online. We get duped over and over again by self-serving politicians and fame-chasing celebrities.
Thanks to the internet, we have plenty of resources that should allow us to instantly debunk any half-truth or anyone peddling half-truths. Fact-checking is at our fingertips. Despite this easy access to information, somehow people continue to be easily and deeply manipulated on a daily basis.
This invisible force is a potent fixture of our culture, but it isn’t new. Writers have been exploring and imagining its effect for much of the past century.
In Manipulation We (Often) Trust
In 1928, in his seminal book Propaganda, Edward Bernays described the “conscious and intelligent manipulation” of the masses by governments, mostly achieved through imperceptible methods of persuasion designed to keep citizens in line.
Nearly a quarter-century later, noted science fiction luminary Frederick Pohl imagined a future where advertising agencies manipulated public perceptions and capitalism ruled the world in his dystopian novel Space Merchants. Both believed outside entities like governments or organizations shaped what we believe to further their own ends.
In 1970, Alvin Toffler extended this idea to suggest individuals were influencing us, too. He used the term “vicarious people,” such as artists, television personalities, and even fictional characters, to describe the outsized effect that both people and fictional characters were having on our identities and personalities. We model our behavior after theirs and increasingly use their examples to moderate our own beliefs and shape who we are.
As politicians preach more xenophobia, online influencers chase views, and the media curates sensationalism, we the people get assaulted by the fake all around us. And sometimes we reflexively create it ourselves through what we share online.
How can we live in a future where we might overcome—or at least better manage—this parade of fake personalities to become better versions of ourselves instead of indulging our darker impulses? To start, we will need to more deeply understand the nuances behind it. I have spent considerable time trying to do exactly that, usually by doing something that most futurists are loathe to do: focusing primarily on the present.
If you want to read the rest of my chapter, you can download the entire excerpt here >>
https://wordtothewise.com/2020/02/stop-obsessing-about-open-rates/
In 2020:
The industry needs to stop obsessing over open rates.
As measured by senders, an open means a particular image was loaded. This sometimes corresponds with an email being opened and read by a user.
There are a number of ways open rates can be wrong, though.
I mean, I get it, I use opens are easy to measure and easy to use. They’re a start for looking at a number of things. But we have to remember the data is, at best, an approximation. There are lots of folks opening and reading messages that never load a pixel (hi! is me!). There are also some people who show as opening the mail but have never looked at it.
At Gmail someone can open a mail, and then immediately mark it as spam. As I said recently, in some cases an open can hurt your reputation. “If they opened it they’re engaged with the mail” has always been an assumption. It’s become part of the delivery
They’re a data point. They’re not the be all and the end all of data points. In order to effectively use them you need to understand what they mean and what they don’t mean. They’re inaccurate at best and can be very misleading if you’re not paying attention.
We need to stop spending so much time obsessing about open rates and more time worrying about how accurate our data collection processes are.
https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-advertise-quora/
Looking for a new online source of leads and customers? Have you considered advertising on Quora? In this article, you’ll learn how to discover if your audience is on Quora and how to run Quora ads to reach them. Why Marketers Should Consider Quora Ads Depending on your company’s sales cycle, you may need to […]
The post How to Advertise on Quora appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWritePractice/~3/LxcHgcYAx3w/
Is it maybe? May be? Or maybe it’s both?!
If you’re wondering when to use maybe vs. maybe, don’t worry. You’re in the right place. See my simple trick to always get may be vs. maybe right below.
If you’re in a hurry, he’s the quick rule for maybe vs. may be:
If you can replace it with “potentially,” use maybe. If you can replace it with “might be,” use may be.
If you’re interested in knowing WHY this is true, read on!
There is one main difference between these two: they are two different parts of speech. As you may remember from elementary school, there are nine different parts of speech:
Need a refresher on these? Check out our full parts of speech guide here.
Which do maybe and may be fall under, though?
Maybe and may be both are about the potential of something happening or being true.
The main difference between them, though, is that maybe is an adverb, which means it needs to modify a verb. Most adverbs end in “ly”—which is why you can replace maybe with potentially.
On the other hand, “may” and “be” are both verbs, which means they express a state of being.
As verbs, the phrase “may be” will always modify a noun, e.g. “John may be at the dance tonight.”
The tricky thing is that they have similar meanings, which makes it more difficult to distinguish. So with that in mind, let’s look at the difference between these two words in context:
Correct:
Maybe Deon will be interested in going swing dancing next week.
Deon may be interested in going swing dancing tonight.
The first sentence is correct because “maybe” is modifying the verb, “will be.” If you replaced it with “potentially” it would mean the same thing, but if you replaced “may” with “might” it wouldn’t make sense. “Might be Deon” just sounds weird, right?
The second sentence is correct because “may be” is referring to the proper noun, “Deon.” If you replaced “may” with “might” it would sound normal, “Deon might be interested….” Sounds good, right? But if you replaced it with “potentially,” it would be weird. “Deon potentially interested….” Unless you’re a caveman, that doesn’t sound right.
Let’s look at some incorrect examples:
Incorrect:
May be Shirley will go to tango night with us.
Shirley maybe going to tango night with us.
For the first sentence, again try replacing “may be” with “might be” and you’ll find it sounds more like Yoda-speak than normal English.
For the second sentence, replacing “maybe” with “potentially” feels weirdly clipped. You’d have to say, “Shirley potentially will be going…,” to make it work, and even then, “may be” is much smoother.
Let’s look at a few other examples:
Correct:
Vardy says he may be doing a cha cha performance next week.
Vardy says he is thinking about maybe doing a cha cha performance next week.
If Tina goes dancing tomorrow, she may be showing off her new swingout skills.
If Tina goes dancing tomorrow, maybe she can show off her new swingout skills.
Again, the easiest way to make sure you’re using these correctly is to replay “maybe” with “potentially” and “may be” with “might be.” If the sentence is still correct, you’re good. If it’s not, then you know you need to change it.
So there you have it. Now you’ll never confuse the two again! But just to be sure, let’s practice the two with a creative writing exercise.
Need more grammar help? My favorite tool that helps find grammar problems and even generates reports to help improve my writing is ProWritingAid. Works with Word, Scrivener, Google Docs, and web browsers. Also, be sure to use my coupon code to get 25 percent off: WritePractice25
To practice using maybe and may be correctly, use the following writing prompt:
Write for fifteen minutes about the possibility of something that happens at a Labor Day cookout. Use may be and maybe appropriately as often as you can. Post your practice in the comments and leave notes for your fellow writers.
The post Maybe vs. May Be: The Simple Trick to Always Keep Them Straight appeared first on The Write Practice.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/lKMA0GqHQ0M/
Sifting through thousands of available tools is a hit and — more often than not — a miss proposition, but we’ve got you covered with 31 do-it-yourself marketing tools that are perfect for helping you create remarkable campaign experiences.
It can be overwhelming even deciding which new tools to start trying out to see if they’re helpful, so to jump-start your marketing efforts in 2020 we’ve gathered a varied selection of innovative and helpful tools that can significantly enhance your marketing efforts.
These tools come from a varying array of categories useful to digital marketers, from artificial intelligence (AI) content analysis bots and data manipulation utilities to video and image manipulation — a smorgasbord of helpful software that is unified in that each tool can provide immediate improvements to your marketing campaigns.
Some tools are free and many offer free trials to test out and see how they mesh with the way you like to work and your particular needs.
[bctt tweet="“Giving people legitimate value before asking them to pay can be a really useful strategy for any company wanting widespread adoption.” — Melanie Perkins @MelanieCanva" username="toprank"]The software, tools, and online image creation apps most-used by Instagram influencers have been outlined in a recent survey of more than 1,200 influencers on the platform, with results showing that just 10 percent use the once-ubiquitous Photoshop, nearly 30 percent now use Lightroom, and some 4.8 percent regularly work with Canva, according to the study.
Even as far back as when I operated a 300-baud bulletin board system in the 1980s, it was difficult to keep up with the astounding number of new software tools developers programmed. It was then when my love of categorizing things took off, and I broke my sizable online freeware and shareware tool offerings into dozens of specific categories. For this list, however, we’ve stuck with three basic categories for marketers.
Let’s jump right in and start examining our collection of 31 tools to ramp up your content marketing experiences.
These data and information analysis tools let you visualize and work with data in new and insightful ways, along with exploring the power and limits of search engine optimization (SEO), and with the record levels of data marketers have access to today, assistance in making sense of those terabytes of information can come as a welcome relief.
Keylime Toolbox — Marketers struggling to find search queries that are normally hidden from discovery in Google Analytics as “not provided” can uncover this helpful information using Keylime Toolbox, which also offers a number of SEO-related data reports useful to digital marketers.
Vennli — A content intelligence platform, Vennli lets marketers dig in to customer data and pull out a wide range of insightful content to explore the world through a client or customer’s eyes, using real-time data gathering and a slew of visualization options.
SEODataViz — Generate topic ideas for both relevant content creation and SEO keywording efforts with SEODataViz, a tool that helps marketers visualize information and break it down into manageable segments, among others features.
Talk to Transformer — How well do today’s neural networks perform when it comes to type-ahead and content prediction? With the Talk to Transformer artificial intelligence (AI) content completion bot, marketers can explore a wide range of activities from translation to question research.
[bctt tweet="“When done thoughtfully, data visualizations have the power to change perspectives, far more quickly than a spreadsheet or bullet points on a slide.” — Alexis Hall @Alexis5484" username="toprank"]The digital marketing world of 2020 is undoubtedly more visually-focused and experiential than ever before, and the tools and utilities to create images and video that stand out and which make people take notice are a valuable asset in your marketing tool-kit. We recently explored this trend in “What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Experiential Content.”
BuzzSumo YouTube Analyzer — A new YouTube video analysis tool from popular content research platform BuzzSumo, offering a variety of video performance data for the world’s most popular video platform.
Kapwing — Kapwing’s platform gives marketers tools to create images, videos, and GIFs, with specialty resizing video features for popular social network formats, and more.
Rocketium — Offering both video and still image manipulation at scale through an API, Rocketium’s tools also bring text and images to video content, and the ability to turn blog posts into motion-rich formats.
Tubebuddy — This YouTube-oriented browser extension-based tool lets marketers dig deep into video keyword research, build bulk cards, annotations, descriptions and thumbnails, along with a variety of video management features.
Plotaverse — The suite of tools from Plotaverse features motion and animation art creation along with digital sharing and numerous other video and image features to bring your visuals to life.
Easil — A do-it-yourself design tool for individuals and teams, Easil focuses on drag-and-drop ease-of-use for brand marketers, with features that allow you to implement brand restrictions to keep visual content uniform, along with resizing, automatic complementary color recommendations, brand kits, and plenty of templates.
Pixlr — Pixlr brings AI-powered smarts to make professional online photo editing easier through smarter tools, and includes a large collection of image-related digital assets.
Fotor — I’ve used Fotor for years to quickly build image collages, and with over 300 million users this online photo and design tool brings with it an array of handy design tools with easy social platform formatted output.
Canva — Since arriving on the Web graphic-design scene in 2012, Canva has seen its numerous creative tools adopted by more professionals every year, with company valuations hitting $2.5 billion in 2019, and the Australia-based firm also made our list of “5 Top B2B Brands Mastering Facebook Engagement,” with its easy to use online design tools running the gamut from icons to infographics.
Visme — Visme’s tools focus on the creation of professional presentations and infographics in a design environment that seeks to turn boring data into visually engaging stories.
Easelly — Offering one of the most straightforward interfaces for turning text-based content into visually pleasing infographics, Easelly has templates for timelines, comparisons, reports, and processes.
Streamyard — Bringing a full-fledged live-streaming studio of tools into a browser is a tall task, and StreamYard has met the challenge allowing screen-sharing, broadcast branding, direct sharing to popular social platforms, video interviews, plus a slew of built-in options for making and growing audience connections.
EzGIF — EzGIF’s tool specializes in making, resizing, cropping, and optimizing animated GIF images, with features to turn video into GIFs, add text, apply filters, and split existing GIFs into separate new images, among numerous other functions.
ClipScribe — Today’sB2B marketers face audiences that increasingly interact with consumers who have their sound muted, and ClipScribe offers a variety of social media video captioning options in multiple formats, plus countdowns, blog export and headline design features, along with branding options.
Snapseed — An Android and iOS app from Google-owned Nik Software, Snapseed offers a wide variety of photo enhancement and digital filtering features that can help DIY marketers bring their content to life.
VSCO Cam — VSCO Cam’s Android and iOS app lets users work with an impressive array of photo filter and editing functions.
FaceTune — One of the more popular apps for editing portraits and selfies, FaceTune brings hundreds of selfie-oriented filters, from a firm that also offers its Swish video tools.
Picsart — Picsarts allows marketers to create collages, edit images, and draw using layers with an easy-to-use app that is also backed by an active social community.
A Color Story — A Color Story allows marketers to add newfound levels of color to images and videos with its powerful editing and enhancing app.
Typorama — Typorama offers a swift and handy app for quickly building typographic designs from plain old text and photos.
InShot — InShot’s popular app is tailored to making it easier to edit video and add music, along with a variety of other video-specific tool features.
Splice — Splice’s app allows marketers to harness the power of mobile devices to edit video on-the-go, an emerging technology that is finally coming of age.
[bctt tweet="“Images, video and even interactive content are a big part of the shift towards creating more engaging experiences that go beyond informing B2B buyers about solutions, but connecting with them on an emotional level.” @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]Clever programmers are always coming up with fascinating new problem-solving methods, often creating tools than don’t fit squarely into just one category. From social media management to tools for finding out the questions people are asking, we have this type of tool in the following group of helpful do-it-yourself marketing tools.
SparkToro — SparkToro, currently in beta-testing stage, offers a helpful array of audience intelligence tools and accompanying resources that allow marketers to easily track and reach the most relevant audiences.
Sendible — Sendible brings brand amplification and social media management together in a set of collaborative tools from scheduling to advanced reporting.
Drift Chat — Reaching customers when you and your customers are both on the move is the specialty of live chat app Drift Chat, allowing advanced features such as mobile device video recording and team collaboration.
Audioburst Studio — Podcasts are booming for marketers B2B and B2C alike, and Audioburst Studio allows marketers to improve user engagement through real-time audio playlists and content, from creation through launch.
Focalmark — Focalmark’s hashtag analysis tools offer a ranked look at the reach and authenticity of Instagram hashtags, among other hashtag insights.
Unfold — As a bonus 32nd tool, Unfold’s Instagram Stories-specific app is aimed at building engaging messaging using a variety of unified filters and effects.
[bctt tweet="“How can you be the best answer for your audience if you don’t understand what questions they’re asking or what problems they’re trying to solve?” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]While the tools we use to produce the content and digital assets we share online in our marketing efforts are certainly important, don’t lose sight of the fact that even the ideal utility can still be used to make truly poor experiences if not used smartly.
The experience, creativity, and insight of the person using any tool is key to creating top output, and it’s when a savvy individual is using the perfect tool that true marketing magic happens.
While by no means complete, we hope this list helps you discover new tools and ultimately leads to creating more engaging B2B marketing efforts.
Finally, here are additional articles we’ve published covering even more helpful tools for B2B content marketers:
The post 31 DIY Marketing Tools To Create Remarkable Experiences appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
