Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. Last week, TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha gave us his recap of the TED2019 conference and offered key takeaways from the most interesting talks and provocative ideas shared at the event. Under the theme, “Bigger Than Us,” the conference featured talks, Q&As and presentations from a wide array of high-profile speakers, including an appearance from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, which was the talk of the week. Anthony dives deeper into the questions raised in his onstage interview that kept popping up: How has social media warped our democracy? How can the big online platforms fight back against abuse and misinformation? And what is the internet good for, anyway? “…So I would suggest that probably five years ago, the way that we wrote about a lot of these tech companies was too positive and they weren’t as good as we made them sound. …At TED, you’d see the more traditional TED talks about, “Let’s talk about the magic of finding community in the internet.” There were several versions of that talk this year. Anthony also digs into what really differentiates the TED conference from other tech events, what types of people did and should attend the event, and even how he managed to get kicked out of the theater for typing too loud. For access to the full transcription and the call audio, and for the opportunity to participate in future conference calls, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free.
Popular Social Websites
Though only a third of Instagram users say they get news from the app, 60 percent of those who do are nonwhite, whereas on Twitter, 60 percent of news consumers are white. Of people who rely on Snapchat for news, 63 percent are women. Yet 72 percent of people who tap Reddit for news are men. These are some of the takeaways from a Pew Research survey published this week, looking at the news consumption habits of social media users in the US. Roughly two-thirds of respondents (68 percent) said they get news from social media at least sometimes. The survey, conducted between July 30 and August 12, is based on answers from 4,581 US adults who are part of Pew's nationally representative American Trends Panel. Led by analysts Elisa Shearer and Katerina Eva Matsa, the survey first asked people how they consume news: cable or local TV, print newspapers or magazine, online websites, or social media.
The survey then drilled down into the habits and demographics of social media news consumers. It offers unusual insight into how social media news consumption varies by platform according to age, political affiliation, gender, education level, and race. Only a third of people who use Instagram told Pew they get news from the site, but two-thirds of that group are nonwhite—the highest proportion of nonwhite news consumers of any social media site. At Snapchat, another site that prominently features images, 55 percent of news consumers are nonwhite. Contrast that with Twitter: Twitter is the third-most-popular social media site for news; 71 percent of people who use Twitter get news from the site, and 60 percent of those Twitter news readers are white. That’s an important stat to bear in mind when observing the news cycle feedback loop of Twitter. What happens on Twitter becomes news that journalists report on, and then gets shared on Twitter for people to read and react to. WIRED was intrigued by the differences among the platforms that white and nonwhite people use for news consumption, and we asked Shearer and Pew’s director of journalism research, Amy Mitchell, to probe more deeply.
They examined how often people find news on social media and how much they trust that information, and they found that the answers differ significantly by race, even when controlling for education level and age. Though roughly the same proportion of white and nonwhite social media users say they “ever” get news from social media (66 percent white, 74 percent of nonwhite respondents), the answers diverge among those who get news from social media frequently. “Black and Hispanics are more likely to respond and say they ‘often’ get news from social media sites,” says Shearer. Social media users' views of the accuracy of news accounts also vary by race. People told Pew that though they are worried about misinformation in the news they get on social media, they continue to rely on those sites because it’s convenient. Roughly a third (36 percent) of people said social media news actually helped them understand current events better, while approximately a sixth (15 percent) said it actively hindered their understanding.
At first blush, that revelation sounds alarming. A majority of people know news found on social media can be inaccurate but rely on it anyway? But the survey doesn’t delve into how people behave based on that knowledge, or whether concern about inaccuracy is a byproduct of the fact that most news on social media is consumed passively. “Perhaps the follow-up question would be, how do they respond to that content differently,” says Mitchell. Additionally, it’s worth noting that the first step in combating misinformation online is recognizing that it’s a risk at all. The survey also confirms what we’ve known for a long time about which social media sites have news delivery at the core of their services. Facebook is by far the most common social media “news gateway” in the US, with nearly half of respondents saying they rely on the site for news. YouTube came in second (21 percent) and Twitter a distant third, with 12 percent of respondents saying they use that site for news. Twitter’s standing is no surprise, given its much smaller user base than Facebook or YouTube. Those two networks have been jockeying for the most popular social media site in the US, but Twitter is fifth, according to a different Pew survey from January of this year. Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook have the largest proportion of users whom Pew describes as “news focused,” meaning they get a lot of news from those sites. Reddit tops the list, with 73 percent of its users saying they get news from the site, up 5 percentage points from last year. One site that had wanted to discourage news—Facebook, which announced in January that it would decrease news reach and focus its algorithm on so-called family and friend content—saw only a small decline.
Social Web Page
Australian political parties are using voter email addresses to find matching social media profiles then combining them with the country's compulsory electoral roll data, illustrating how privacy scandals have done little to slow the march of data-driven campaigning. While the use of data and public profiles from Facebook, Twitter and other social media for political campaigning has become widespread globally, Australia is one of the most open countries in the world to online information gathering by political operatives. Glenn Kefford, a political scientist at Macquarie University who has written extensively about data-driven campaigning. Australia, which goes to the polls on May 18, is one of the few Western democracies where voting is compulsory. What's more, Australian political parties and candidates are exempt from privacy laws covering access to the electoral roll data - full names and addresses - that all 16 million voters are required to provide. In the United States, just 60 percent of adults are registered to vote, limiting the number of voters whose electoral roll information can be dragged into a data profile. Last year, Europe introduced sweeping laws requiring political organisations to get specific permission before scraping a person's data from another website.
Australia's government, however, rejected calls for a review of its exemption from privacy laws. Branches of the left-leaning Labor and Greens parties, the conservative Liberals and the rural-focused Nationals have all hired consultants to run the U.S.-owned campaigning software NationBuilder, an analysis of party websites shows. NationBuilder's vice president of strategic partnerships, Toni Cowan-Brown, said the company was looking at spreading its "model of privacy by default and consent" beyond Europe but it had not stopped offering its "match" function by default in Australia. NationBuilder is trying to regain access to Facebook event RSVPs, the only data it uses that is affected by the new policy, said Cowan-Brown. Unlike Cambridge Analytica, the firm does not pull data on a person's emotions or habits, Cowan-Brown added. NationBuilder customers can also collect the names of people who "like" or comment on their Facebook posts. Facebook declined to comment on interactions with NationBuilder specifically, but said third party apps could no longer ask for access to personal information such as religious or political views, relationship status, education or work history. The company has also limited access to information in its groups, pages and events features, a spokeswoman said.
With Twitter, NationBuilder customers can under certain circumstances import a person's written profile bio, location, personal website, as well as their name and photo and tweets when a customer is mentioned, Cowan-Brown said. Twitter said its data reflected information that users choose to share publicly. Twitter said in an emailed response to Reuters. The major parties also prospect for email addresses with social media "petitions" about hot-button topics, some collecting emails addresses without a person typing it, thanks to other software linked to the person's Facebook account. Curtis Harrison, a NationBuilder consultant who has worked on Australian political campaigns for five years. Attorney-General Christian Porter said in an email the exemption was "designed to encourage freedom of political communication and support the operation of the electoral and political process". He did not respond to a question about whether politicians had access to too much voter data. A spokesman for the Labor Party's shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the political exemption was "put in place to facilitate political engagement, which is a foundation of our system of representative democracy". From there, the party could manually enter her public profile information, which included her employment situation and home city, to match with electoral roll information. Reporting by Byron Kaye in SYDNEY and Katie Paul in SAN FRANCISCO. Additional reporting by Paresh Dave in SAN FRANCISCO. Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more. Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.
Want to promote yourself online? Then you need to be on social media! Whether you are just trying to get more exposure online, connect with your fans or customers, or improve your online reputation, social networking profiles are the way to go. Start thinking of each social media profile you create as a landing page for your personal brand. This landing page is possibly the first encounter that someone is going to have with your brand, and you will want that first impression to make the visitor interested to know more about you. Here are the 10 elements you need to follow to create a successful social media profile. Okay, this seems fairly basic. The name that displays on your social media profile should just be your own name, right? Usually, that’s correct. But sometimes that doesn’t make the most sense. On platforms like Twitter, where you don’t have to use a real name, a pseudonym might make more sense.
For example, James Chartrand isn’t the real name of the woman behind Men With Pens, but that’s the name on her Twitter account because that’s how she’s known in the industry. On most social networks, your username is included in your URL, and it’s often different from your display name. Usually, you can’t change your username, so choose it carefully. If possible, it’s usually best to just go with your own name. But sometimes, if you’re the face of your company, the company name might work better. On Twitter, Brian Dean isn’t @briandean but @backlinko, since that’s the name of his company. Finally, while it isn’t always possible, try to keep your username the same across platforms. It can be confusing when this isn’t the case, like Instagram being @yourname and Twitter being @yourcompany or @yourmiddlename. Should you go with a logo or a personal picture? Of course, if it’s for a personal account, you should almost always go with a headshot. But what about for a company? It’s a tough call, but it really depends on your goals.
That way you’re easier to recognize on different platforms.
If you run a smaller operation or are the face of your company, include a headshot of you. That’s what James and Brian do on Twitter, even with company usernames. This also applies to people that are brands themselves, like musicians, artists, or politicians. But if you have a more recognizable brand or don’t want your company to be associated with you specifically, go with the logo. It’s also a good idea to stick with the same (or at least a similar) photo across different social networks. That way you’re easier to recognize on different platforms. This varies from one social media network to the next, but be sure to seek out any opportunity to get your link on the main page of your social profile. For example, you can add a link on the “front page” of your profiles on Twitter and LinkedIn. Make sure that your link is front and center so that people can find it quickly and click through to your website.
Another good idea for your links is to create a social network specific landing page so you can track which profiles are bringing your site the most traffic. You can use these pages to offer a special discount for people who have found you on Twitter, or share information that is specific to a network, like recent blog posts you have written about Facebook. Your main social profile bio is usually just a sentence or two about yourself or your business. Think of it as a perfect place to put your elevator pitch and include keywords. In a few words, what would you say about your business? It’s also a good idea to use your bio to its fullest potential. Some sites, like Twitter, only let you write a short description. But if you’re on a platform like LinkedIn, your “summary” can have up to 2,000 characters. This is a huge opportunity to explain what you’re all about and make a great first impression.
To make this succeed, you’ll want to add more than just a simple description of what you’ve done and your current projects. Instead, create a story with a basic call to action. For example, you can tell how you started with the industry you’re working in. For those who have any inquiries regarding in which as well as how to utilize best social media, you'll be able to email us from our own internet site. What got you interested in it, and what makes you stick around and keep learning? Finally, you can finish your bio with a simple call to action. This can be a link to a free report, an offer for someone to call you, or even a mission statement asking “will you join me? Some profiles allow you to have additional extended information about yourself in the form of favorite books, television shows, movies, and so on. A lot of people skip over this, especially when it comes to business profiles, but that is a big mistake. I doubt there is a niche out there that doesn’t have at least one or two published books. Find books, documentaries, and profiles of influential people in your industry and add those in these additional fields (assuming you actually enjoy them, of course!).
This adds credibility and a new level of connection you can build with people who are learning about you for the first time. Different platforms have different requirements, but most social networks today have some way to add a larger image behind your main profile page. Some users, especially on Twitter and LinkedIn, choose to use the default background image, Social Media Beginner's Guide but this is a mistake. A customized background will allow you to share additional information and give personality to you or your brand. Don’t make it distracting or more important than your profile picture, but a great cover image can go a long way to personalizing your social page. On some platforms, like Facebook, this can even be a video. If you have the option (and decent video), this can be even an even more engaging way to connect with others. So after you have all of your profile filled out and pictures uploaded, the next thing that you will need to take a look at your privacy settings.
Seminar On Social Media
These vary from network to network, but you will want to make sure that the information you would like to be public is viewable. Chances are, if this is a business-related profile, you’ll want most everything to be public. But of course, if your profile is of a more personal nature, you may want to hide some things. Once your profile setup is complete, your ongoing mission will be to maintain a healthy level of activity on your main social networks. It’s not enough to leave a profile blank! You need to contribute to the platform and build connections. After all, that’s what they’re there for in the first place. No matter what social network you’re on, the basic guidelines still apply. You’ll want to connect with friends and followers by asking questions and responding to comments. Provide value by posting interesting ideas, or at least sharing interesting and relevant things you find. And if you’re in any groups, become an active participant—be helpful, connect with others in the group, and share things the group will find interesting.
Finally, there is nothing like a little health promotion of your social network profiles to help more people find and connect with you. Be sure to add your social networking profile links to your website, email signature, and business card. Also, don’t forget to interlink your profiles to each other. Many networks have places to include links to other networks, and you can and should use them whenever possible. Stay connected, become an active member on the social network of your choice, and you’ll start acquiring a following. If you’re getting started with social media marketing, the first step is to set up your accounts and profiles correctly. If you’ve already been in the game for a while, it’s probably time to take a look at the profiles you set up. Are there ways to improve what you already have online? Is the profile picture you uploaded last year still relevant? Do your bio or link need updating? Since it’ll be the first impression many people see, it’s worth spending some time to improve your social media presence and make it compelling and interesting. What strategies have you used to improve your social media profile? About the Author: Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Kikolani focuses on blog marketing, including social networking strategies and blogging tips.
Topic title: Diving Into TED2019, The State Of Social Media And Internet Behavior
Topic covered: media sociale, social media social, the top 10 social media sites, this new social network, which is a basic form of social media
