Dear Media: Please Publish Nothing That Kanye West Says. You Know Why. Remember It.

For The Media:

Dear Media: Please publish nothing that Kanye West says. You will aid him in splitting the vote and keeping Trump in. Please. The amount of air time that you gave a Trump during his first election got him elected. It was actually your fault. Please don’t repeat your mistake. Report on anything else. There is so much to report on!

For Everyone Else:

Tin Shingle has never been into dreaming of PR from celebrity PR from the Kardashians. No no. You must ignore this now. For regular people: for your social media: nothing. No stories about Kayne West. No spreading the word of caution.

If they get no spread from us, he doesn’t exist. Focus your energy on Kamala. And how to vote. Because that sh*t is getting crazy.

Is The Facebook Ad Boycott Still Happening? And Should It Be Forever?

During the past week, more than 500 companies, like The North Face and Rei, joined the campaign of boycotting Facebook ads with the intent of placing pressure on Facebook to take a stronger stance against hate speech.

The current boycott is like nothing Facebook has experienced before. The Anti-Defamation League launched a #StopHateForProfit campaign asking companies to stop their advertising. “Let’s send Facebook a powerful message: Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence,” the campaign’s site reads. Hundreds of companies joined in. “When we re-engage will depend on Facebook’s response,” Levi Strauss CMO Jen Sey wrote in a blog post.

This began in June after advocacy groups and others began pushing for Facebook to refrain from sharing hateful content such as ads featuring nazi symbols from President Donald Trump and white nationalist content from Red Ice TV. More specifically, calls were spurred by posts from President Trump responding to the demonstrations against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, including one in which he suggested the “THUGS” protesting should be shot.

Owner & Co-Founder, Katie James, shared that,

“Facebook Ads have long been censored. The reason that they state is that the content is too controversial or divisive. In my experience, this has been for an inter-faith group meeting after a church received white supremacy flyers posted onto their church in October 2017, and most recently, an article about Beacon’s Mayor giving his decision about moving a memorial bench. Both were declined to be paid.

So for Facebook to say that they are not into censorship is false. They do censor. And they should censor. All media publications should and do censor. One cannot possibly publish everything, so natural censorship happens all of the time when left on the cutting room floor. But to not censor hate speech of the president of the United States is bias and wrong. Clearly they support it, if they will not censor it.”

Tin Shingle has always advocated not to put all of your eggs into one basket. Right now, Facebook is not only controlling the levers with which you can reach people, but it is developing the feeling of a bad taste in your mouth. They’ve had that stigma for years, but their recent lack of censorship added to the amount of frustration that people unleash on that platform, leaves it all gross. Do you really want your brand to be there?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees: "My guess is that all of these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough," according to The Information.

Trump Campaign Ads Removed From Facebook After Features Of "Nazi Hate Symbol"

A few weeks ago, Facebook reported that they had taken action against ads run by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. The ads featured an upside down red triangle, a symbol described as “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups”, once used by Nazis to identify political prisoners.

The post on the Team Trump Facebook page shared the message, “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem. They are destroying our cities and rioting — it’s absolute madness.”

Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman, said, “We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate,” “Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol.”

The ads were used to attack antifa, calling on Trump supporters to back the President's calls to assign the group a terrorist organization. “Please add your name IMMEDIATELY to stand with your President and his decision to declare ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization.”

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign responded to criticism of the ad earlier Thursday, and told The Washington Post that “the red triangle is an Antifa symbol.” The ADL said that some antifa activists have used the symbol, but it is not particularly common.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was criticized last month for not taking action on a Trump post that said "looting" leads to "shooting," amid racial unrest across the country. In a related article HERE, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan say they are "disgusted" by President Donald Trump's remarks on the nationwide protests against racial injustice.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, compared the use of the symbol to those seen everyday, including yield signs and in cable network stock tickers. She wrote on Twitter that Facebook’s decision was “insane.”

[PR] TuneUp: When Your Facebook Gets Compromised, Who Do You Call? And What Happens To Your Life And Business?

OMG, She Got Facebook Compromised And Lost Everything

Sabina Hitchen, a Public Relations Strategist & Expert, as well as an on-air TV personality for Wow-Worthy Small Biz Discoveries, had her Facebook compromised. Sabina runs part of her business coaching businesses about PR on Facebook in a Community Group. And let's not forget all of her new baby photos that she feeds her friends with daily.

When her Facebook account got hacked, she lost control of it and was unable to access her business Community Group or those baby pictures. Sabina is the former business partner and co-creator of Tin Shingle. She generously is pulling the curtain back to reveal her traumatic experience in order to help others avoid the same fate.

Change your passwords as often as you change your toothbrush! And that means that you must remember to change your toothbrush! Every 3 months is recommended.

Today we found out:

• When it happened.

• How she knew.

• What she did right after.

• If there was anyone to call.

• No one to call? So who did she call?

• What she has learned since.

• The impact her Instagram.

• If any other platforms, banks, emails, were impacted.

Sabina told us allllll about the dark web (well, as much as she learned), getting in touch with any facebook support, etc.

HOW TO WATCH

Anyone can watch a Tin Shingle TuneUp from their computer, mobile phone or tablet. The process is different for premium members and the public.

MEMBERS OF TIN SHINGLE (FREE)

Stream any TuneUp Webinar anytime with your Tin Shingle membership. No need to purchase it, this TuneUp is ready to play from this page! When you are logged in, you will see a big screen.

NON-MEMBERS ($65)

Once you buy a TuneUp, you own it forever. The video or audio recording will appear on the TuneUp page that you just purchased from, and all you need to do is press play.

Instagram's New "Restrict" Tool; Possible Removal Of "Likes;" And What This Means For Businesses

Instagram released a new tool to softly reject someone’s bullyish or ugly Comment. “Restrict” is pretty simple to use, and the person who Commented doesn’t know you deleted the Comment, or restricted their future Comments. What will this mean for businesses?

When I was first hired to consult on a company’s social media strategy, I was conflicted about it. The whole thing felt like the Emperor’s New Clothes. How can you really tell if social media is working? All of these numbers of Likes and Comments and Shares of a social post or article were the way in measurement of the success of a social media campaign, or company in general.

At the end of the day, social media totally works, but what does that success look like? The easiest way is in the numbers and comments. Both of those are on their way out now, as Instagram rolls out its new “Restrict” feature, and as both Instagram and Facebook consider removing public-facing “Likes” from their platform.

Instagram Rolls Out The “Restrict” Feature - A Softer, Invisible “Block”

Instagram’s new “Head of Instagram,” Adam Mosseri, (don’t call him the CEO), has been on an interview circuit, like this one with the Today Show, to talk about how Instagram wants to be the leader in ending bullying online. One of their steps was to hear from people using Instagram and learn what would make them feel safer on the platform. Why couldn’t they simply use the “Block” feature?

The answer was “Because when we Block someone, they know it, and it escalates. They try harder.”

The “Restrict” tool is one that people can use after a Comment is posted, and they want it removed, but they don’t want the author of the Comment to know that. They can Swipe-Left on the Comment to Restrict it, and then all future Comments from that person will require approval from the person who is the Instagram account. The person Commenting will see their Comment there, and not know that it has actually been removed.

Muahaha.

More Emperor’s Clothes! But perhaps these invisible clothes are good.

The “Following” Tab Is Gone

Adam announced via Tweet that the “Following” tab is gone in Instagram. This showed you who of your friends Liked or Commented on what. You could find it in your Heart tab, which was annoying because presumably only things Hearting you were in that tab. This is a good move, as it reduces people obsessing over each other, and is one less thing to be distracted by. Read more about it in this Buzzfeed article.

Hiding “Likes” - It’s Coming

The next step will be removing “Likes.” This will make marketers crazy, and Influencers might totally freak out, as some of them use these numbers as proof to their marketing clients who pay them to post. However, everyone knows that bots can be bought to artificially Like things and drive up the popularity algorithm. Smart businesses won’t rely on such numbers to measure success, and instead will look to see if their bottom line is on the rise - with sales.

In Adam’s quest to make Instagram the leader in removing online bullying, he seems committed to creating a less toxic atmosphere. “The big idea is to try and make Instagram feel less pressurized, to make it less of a competition," Mosseri said during the Today Show interview. "So, you can spend a little bit less time worrying about how many likes you have and a little bit more time connecting with people or things that inspire you."

Facebook has also confirmed that they are testing removing Likes from their platform, as reported by TechCrunch. It should be noted that Adam Mosseri used to work at Facebook and is noted as developing the News Feed, which created this whole popularity obsession in the first place. When Instagram’s creators and co-CEOs resigned last year, Adam moved into his head position with Instagram.

What This Means For Businesses Who Pay Advertising Dollars To Social Media Influencers and Media Outlets

At first blush, not having these numbers will mean that advertisers can’t tell how their advertising investment is doing. But it doesn’t end the power of social media. It just throws a wrench into these measurement areas:

• Harder To Measure ROI (But Can ROI Really Be Measured?)

• MYTH BUSTED: ROI Really Can’t Be Measured By Like Counts Anyway!
  Major buyers or clients may not ever Like something at all, but may hire you for a job worth thousands of dollars. Totally un-measurable.

• Harder To Know What Of Your Content Is Popular
  When you publish something, and get engagement, it’s nice to know how the content is going over so that you can provide more of it, or switch tactics.

• MYTH BUSTED: Algorithms Make Knowing What Content Is Popular Impossible
  Here’s the thing. Algorithms mean that no post is posted and seen by the followers. Nothing is organic. Nothing works like an off and on switch (except for targeted PPC pay-per-click campaigns). If you put up a personal post in Facebook, and link it to a website, there’s a chance it won’t fly, simply because it has a link. If it’s talking about a currently sensitive topic, it also may be suppressed. Because Facebook is building math into its censorship of everyone - all of us - no post is created equal. If one post gets a ton of likes, and another doesn’t, it simply could mean that the unpopular post simply never saw the light of day for certain algorithmic reasons.

• Faking It Can’t Happen Anymore
  Those considering paying a social media influencer or news media outlet will need to really get to know that outlet’s social handles that they are about to invest in, to see if it’s a good fit. Numbers alone won’t guarantee you sales. Relationships do.

How Do Businesses Measure The Un-Measurable?

If you can’t trust numbers to give you a simple answer, how can you measure your success rate? Pay attention. As you’re sharing photos and musings in social media, pay attention to who percolates to your inbox, your text, or your shopping cart, and when. You’ll wake up prospective buyers, or keep them loyal, with your consistent messaging.

When Instagram Goes Down - What Are Your Next Marketing Moves?

Instagram Withdraw Symptoms Are Real

Instagram and Facebook went down on Sunday morning. The rest of the day will do what it does, maybe the platform will stay up until the next time it goes down, for hopefully only a short time.
The Internet goes down sometimes. It happens. In Twitter's early days, the big blue Fail Whale was common (that was for overcapacity, which is not the same problem Facebook has been dealing with with its suite of social networks). But Instagram? Facebook? They came after that, backed by loads of money, so the idea that they wouldn't work sometimes is incomprehensible. Worse, if all of your marketing eggs are in those baskets, you have no way to connect with your people - immediately - when you need to.

What Do You Do When Instagram Goes Down?

Feel the feeling. Remember this feeling, and how your brain is scrambling in order to think of how else you are going to reach your people to market to them right now. What are those tools you have?

• BLOG | Benefits: People who subscribe to your blog via RSS will automatically get updates of your new blog post; the SEO value is real, and your digital footprint will be larger than you realize; people who are traveling all over your website will see these past pages more than they will see old (yet very important and valuable) Instagram posts.
  
  

• NEWSLETTER | Benefits: Instant Inbox. You can email your people.

Plan B

Today's newsletter was going to feature a very well done Instagram account for a private seller of a townhouse, to show you a new style that real estate people could use, but....Instagram was down when we ran production, and we couldn't get the pictures. Plus, nothing would be on the other side of links. But, this is a new timely window of opportunity to get this message to you that we wanted to send the last time Instagram went down!

Our Next TuneUp Is Perfect For This

Last April, 2018, after Facebook's creator Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. lawmakers and the U.K. lawmakers, where more was revealed of how lax Facebook was (and continues to be) with our privacy, Tin Shingle's owner deleted Facebook from her phone. Both the personal and business page apps. She uses Facebook on desktop only now.
Since then, she's been following Facebook news to learn how our business websites, phones, and personal details are extremely exposed and vulnerable by Facebook.
As an extreme digital marketer and teacher of how to use Facebook, could she exist and market on Facebook while not having it so easily accessible on her phone?
Yes. And she learned a few things about the Facebook experience that will help you continue to market there - but better. Register now for Wednesday's live broadcast of the TuneUp.

Facebook Buys Shop-By-Picture Tech Company

Photo Credit: Tin Shingle

Facebook just bought a shopping tech company, GrokStyle, that was a shopping tool created for the visual search space, and was used in Ikea’s mobile app. The way it worked was, a person could take a picture of a piece of furniture, and the technology would match it to similar pieces of furniture that the person could buy.

Deep dives by the media (social or print/digital brands) into shopping integration with online content continues. As StarOnline pointed out in their article, GrokStyle stated that they were shutting down as a company, but would continue on in team and technology. The statement did not include that the team would be at Facebook.

Screenshot of GrokStyle’s announcement of winding down the company as it’s known now.

According to every article that published a story about this, they credited Facebook’s statement announcing this purchase including Bloomberg News, quoting Facebook’s spokesperson Vanessa Chan: "We are excited to welcome GrokStyle to Facebook. Their team and technology will contribute to our AI capabilities."

How Facebook Benefits By The Shopping-By-Picture Feature

Print media began adopting shopping into its print and digital pages, by way of picture scanning, like at Seventeen, and via good old fashioned affiliate links like with GQ, or that time in 2012 with Nordstrom sales. Facebook replaced Craig’s List with its group selling groups, where you could post a picture into a Buy/Sell group, and get immediate response as to if you had a buyer.

Then Facebook released Marketplace, where this buy/sell activity could begin happening instead. Simultaneously, visibility of anything posted at the then old Buy/Sell groups got slow. Instead, Facebook suggested ways to share the post (ie more work for me, and to keep me on the website), which is an attempt to increase activity on their website. I used to use the feature quite a lot. People in Buy/Sell groups moved to Marketplace, and is now is the place where people can have instant garage sales. Brands can also have a shop on Facebook and sell that way. Anyone can start Donation pages. Collections for birthdays, etc.

Facebook is trying to hook the next generation. The children. But the kids these days see Facebook as a Grandma and Parent Hangout, and don't want to hang with their parents. If Facebook can’t lock in teens and kids by way of whichever strategies they are attempting at the moment, Facebook is trying to lock it in with shopping. It must be hard to appeal to all of the people in all of the world all of the time. That’s a big customer base!

In Other News, Facebook Snuggles With Cryptocurrency…$$ To Buy The Stuff? Or Kill It…

Bloomberg also pointed out that Facebook acquired a blockchain technology company earlier this year. “The GrokStyle purchase marks the second reported acquisition by Facebook this year. Earlier this month, the company bought the team behind blockchain technology company Chainspace for an undisclosed sum. The company purchased at least four firms last year, including startups focused on messaging and AI.”

Interestingly, Facebook had blocked ads related to cryptocurrency, stating that the crypto marketplace is too high risk. This done in Facebook’s attempts to step away from being the vehicle people use to guide people down a bad - or wrong - path. In June of 2018, Facebook reportedly lifted that ban on cryptocurrency ads a little bit.

However, since that time (November 2018, actually), Tin Shingle wrote an article about cryptocurrency when we highlighted a blogger, Digiconomist, who covers cryptocurrency in depth. Facebook blocked our ability to Boost that article on their platform in November 2018.

Insert: Thinking Emoji…

First Response to Mark Zuckerberg's Testimoniy: Facebook's Problems Will Persist

Many thoughts are percolating after Mark Zuckerberg's historic first testimony yesterday before a House Committee. I'm preparing Tin Shingle's TuneUp on a Facebook Backup Plan for marketers and business owners, but below are my thoughts as first published to my own friends on Facebook, as I also prepare to scale way back on emotional moments I put into Facebook, and the photos of my family that I plan to remove:

Mark Zuckerberg’s Achilles Heel is that he thinks that data and the computing of that data can solve everything. He has a developer’s mind with a brain that works very much like a database, and that landscape is what he understands. When presented with the question today of if Facebook is a Tech company or a Publishing company, he picked Tech (I’m not even sure what “tech” means because all tech produces something outside of itself).

Facebook is a publishing company. People self-publish. There is no filter. No editor. Aside from a very few admins of groups, and still, selection is then up to their ethics and positions on censorship and filtering for good health.

Then, there are machine editors in the algorithms, and that circles back to data. Facebook is a publishing company. People publish to it largely uncensored. People become cannibals of their own minds by beating themselves up in their own minds, and beating each other up outwardly - but silently - semi-privately - on groups - or people’s pages or business pages. Facebook lets people become social cannibals, destroying each other. Even the good ones get inward and throw stones. Zuckerberg started Facebook as a place to rate people’s “hotness”. It started as a judgement zone. It remains so.

Businesses who are on to disseminate information are siphoned by Facebook and need to pay to play. But even those rules are skewed, and the people who want to see our businesses can’t when they want to. Unless they dig into Facebook settings to require that they see the information first. Same for friends and family.

I don’t see Facebook’s problems getting solved anytime soon because Zuckerberg is too database/computer driven, and not thoughtful enough. He has a responsibility as a publisher. He’s hands off, but he’s the enabler. Sheryl Sandberg is not empathetic enough to understand either. She learns with life experience, sadly, like the lesson she learned about bereavement leave when her husband passed. And Zuckerberg will too when his child gets addicted to Facebook or videos or to headlines the way all of us have. And then Zuckerberg will understand. But not until then. His choices, in the meantime, while well-meaning, are not ones I trust.

Don’t get me started on listening speakers. All I can tell you is - don’t let a talking speaker in your home. From any of them. Amazon. Facebook. Google. It’s an open listening device that can be tapped into, or more of your words sold for advertising and retargeting to market to you. Smart, machine-based marketing, but lazy marketing that trades on privacy currency.