This is the Snapchat filter that teaches sign language
This article was translated from our Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process.
Called Alphabet Lens , they teach you how to spell your name with your fingers, practice the alphabet of sign language and test your skills through various games, all using technology that captures the movement of your hands.
Thomas Trutschel | Getty Images
“We’re constantly working to expand the ways Snapchat users can express themselves and connect through our camera,” Snapchat stated. The creation of these glasses was supervised by the hearing-impaired members of the team.
In a world in which social inclusion is given more and more importance, linguistic inequity is still a reality, hence the importance of developing this type of technology that is committed to bringing together a community as important as the people. deaf and hard of hearing.
“We think it can help evolve the way we communicate,” Snap said on its blog. “We look forward to learning more from our community as we continually try to improve everyone’s experience on Snapchat.”
In addition to these glasses, Snapchat had already joined forces with SignAll before, because during the International Deaf Week last September, they launched several stickers and three augmented reality glasses that helped the learning the basic spellings of sign language. According to the application, this launch is part of the constant work they do “to expand the ways in which Snapchat users can express themselves and connect through our camera.”
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424949
How Dr. Muneeb Shah (Derm Doctor) Grew a 14-Million-Strong Following on TikTok
With more than 12 million followers, Dr. Muneeb Shah (@dermdoctor) is one of the most influential creators on TikTok today. If you’re among his massive fanbase, you know that Shah’s content is as entertaining and as it is informative. “This all started as just a way to have fun,” Shah told Entrepreneur during a recent IG Live interview. “But I soon learned that this content is a way to bring healthcare education to millions of people who lack the resources to get it otherwise.”
Derm Doctor
Shah, whose content can also be found on Instagram and YouTube, spoke with Entrepreneur director of social media Sana Ali to break down the creative, educational and business aspects of what he does and provide inspiration and behind-the-scenes tips for future viral stars. You can watch the video here and read the takeaways below, which have been edited for length and clarity.
How he got started
“In the early days of the pandemic, I became a TikTok consumer. TikTok is super addicting, and there are all these trends and sounds that help you be really creative. So I actually just started creating content for fun, and then the videos started to take off. It was definitely something unintentional. At one point, I made an educational video and realized from the positive response that there was a huge white space for good information on skincare and dermatology.”
“During the pandemic, people were spending a lot of time on Zoom, looking at their own face, thinking, ‘Okay, I have this extra time. How can I actually get healthier skin?’ And instead of focusing on covering things up, I think a lot of people were trying to actually heal their skin. So you saw just a huge spike in interest in skincare at the same time that I incidentally started creating content about skincare.”
His advice for newbies
“I actually left my old videos up just so that people could go back and see how it all started. I was holding the mic piece to my iPhone and basically just using a lamp in front of me as my front light. There was no thought process about production values at all. I was just having fun and creating content that I thought would resonate with people. So I would advise people to just create whatever they think is good for them and good for the community around them. In the beginning, it’s the best time because you can totally be yourself and be free.”
When it became something more than a hobby
“There is a real access issue in the United States with healthcare. In certain areas, you cannot see a dermatologist; you don’t have access to the types of physicians you need…so there is this massive gap of information that needs to be filled. So when I started to create content that went viral about specific diseases, that’s when I realized that I can educate so many people. My mentor said, ‘You just educated five million people about hidradenitis suppurativa, which would take a lifetime to do in person.’ That’s when I realized that this is really important and something to integrate into my life long-term. That’s when I kind of pivoted to actually making a real platform out of it and expanded into YouTube.”
“I recently went to the American Academy of Dermatology conference in Boston. Dermatologists from around the world go to it, so I met doctors from places like Brazil, Panama, Paraguay and Chile. And they said, ‘Our patients showed us some of your videos and were asking questions about some of the things that you were talking about.’ It really is fascinating to see the reach that you can have as an educator on these platforms — how you can get information out around the world that a lot of people have trouble accessing.”
On his process
“There’s content that can take me four hours to create, and some that just takes a few minutes. It depends on what it is. So there’s a video I did — and it was only like a minute long — where I went to LA. That involved hours of me personally using Adobe Premiere to make all those sounds line up and all the images just to hit on the beat and everything. But if you ever see me wearing a headband in my video, that means that that video was made with me in bed, about to go to sleep, and I saw something that I felt like I needed to react to or respond to. And I literally roll out of bed, shoot the video in like 20, 30 seconds and then go back to bed.”
Why YouTube matters
“We are investing a lot of energy in YouTube. We like it because it’s searchable. So if viewers around the world have a question like ‘How do I treat acne?’ they can type it in and videos will come up. So we create videos that go through very systematic, evidence-based ways to approach different skin conditions. That YouTube stuff will take you like eight hours, nine hours to make per video.”
On his impact
“There’s been a lot of comments on my videos that have been amazing. Someone will tell me that they went to get a mole checked out because of something they learned from my videos. They’ll tell me, ‘It ended up being an early melanoma, and I would’ve never gone in if you didn’t make that content.’ And so that to me, it is like, ‘Wow!’ It is incredible. If I read a comment like that at a time where like I’m feeling a little discouraged or tired or exhausted, it makes me feel like, ‘Okay, this, this actually has the purpose, and I need to keep going.’”
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424898
Meta Is Prioritizing Reels, but Advertisers Aren’t Biting
Meta has made it clear it’s prioritizing its short-form TikTok competitor, Reels. Yet, so far, advertisers are not committing with such vigor.
Social Media Engagement Is Where the Magic Happens for Your Business
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Social media has become a must for most businesses. Why are more brands than ever interested in engaging on social media? Because more than half of the world’s total population now uses social media. 3.96 billion peopleuse social media today, accounting for roughly 51% of the global population. This means that more people now use social media than do not, and that number is growing. There are almost 12 new users signing up for social media accounts every second.
Perhaps because more people are working from home, we’re seeing more interaction on social media. Clients want to do even more on social, because they see a connection between increasing visibility, engagement and sales.
To be successful, it’s not just about posting. It’s also about actually engaging — you know, being social. That’s a GOOD thing, because when you engage with your followers on social media, that’s where the magic happens. That said, you can’t always measure the value of social media, and brands need to get comfortable with that. A lot of the value comes from lurkers. Some studies say up to 90% of your audience may be lurkers.
One of my clients measures the value of its social media program based primarily on the fact that the executives at its parent company have noticed its efforts there — without “liking” or “sharing” a thing — and that makes it stand out from the other companies it owns (who aren’t active on social media). It’s a differentiator for my client.
If you’d like to be more active on social media, what can you or your brand do to be more engaging?
Post consistently
It’s not enough to just have an account. You should post regularly. It’s disappointing to look up a company on social media only to find it hasn’t posted in a year. If you need help with consistent posts, tools like Buffer can be preloaded with content that you can schedule to post on your behalf. And remember that you don’t need to be active on every social media platform. That’s just setting yourself up to be overwhelmed. Choose the ones where your audience spends most of its time, and focus on those.
Be sure to follow other colleagues and industry leaders on social media, and respond to their posts. If they comment on yours, be sure to acknowledge that. On Twitter or LinkedIn, for example, you can engage in some thought-provoking conversations and obtain so much valuable information.
Curate content
It’s better to curate some of the content you post from other sources. If you only post content created by your organization, your followers are bound to get tired of you constantly talking about only yourself. Instead, spend a little time each day or week checking trusted sources of information like blogs, trade publications and news outlets for stories that might be relevant to your audience. Add your brief take on each, and voila, you have some great content to add to your feed.
Pose a question to your followers to help spur activity. You can also use a poll to engage your audience. This can help start conversations and help you learn more about your audience. Additionally, you can ask people for their opinions on a specific topic, pose hypothetical questions, or even host a Q&A session.
Start a Twitter chat
I can’t stress enough how much I’ve gotten from Twitter chats. I’ve met people, made friends, found collaborators, stayed on top of trends, located sources for articles I’m writing and learned from every chat I’ve participated in. I found them so valuable, in fact, that I even started my own (#FreelanceChat). Participants look forward to “seeing” people at the chats they frequent — it’s one place they’re sure to run into each other. Now, Twitter has rolled out Communities, which, in Twitter’s words, “give people a dedicated place to connect, share, and get closer to the discussions they care about most.” And in this time of greater isolation for many, community matters more than ever.
Social media can pay off for your business, if you’re willing to interact and engage there. Remember, if more than half the population is hanging out there, maybe your business should be, too.
5 Tips for Creating LinkedIn Posts That Will Drive Valuable Engagement
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
There’s little doubt LinkedIn is the best platform for professional networking, but sometimes getting meaningful engagement out of your posts can feel a bit like a puzzle.
The potential attention is present, as 91% of marketers cite LinkedIn as the best platform for finding professional content related to their field. These aren’t just idle hands either, as four out of five LinkedIn members directly drive businesses decisions and wield 2x the buying power compared to the average web audience.
There’s plenty to be gained from being active on the platform, but to stand out from the pack, you’ll need to follow a few tested tips and tricks. Getting your audience engaged won’t magically happen overnight but as a result of effective action taken over time.
1. Post consistently
A consistent posting schedule is a foundation upon which the rest of a content strategy can be safely built. Post too little and you’ll get lost in the shuffle; too much and you run the risk of annoying your connections.
Finding that “Goldilocks zone” of just right is the name of the game.
Posting once a week results in a profile receiving four times the number of clicks per share compared to those who do so less frequently. This kind of return is huge for driving engagement, as each post is an opportunity for a connection to interact with you.
Of course, there are limits, and posting multiple times a day can quickly wear out your digital welcome. So ensure each post is quality and gives value first and foremost, but then provide an appropriate amount of spacing between them so they have room to breathe.
While there’s plenty of success possible with the classic text-only updates, the LinkedIn algorithm these days loves it when users shake up their post format.
In particular, videos have stormed onto the social media scene over the past couple of years, and this holds true on LinkedIn as video posts receive three times more engagement than text or image-based ones. This means they are far more likely to start a conversation with your audience, which is precisely the kind of result users should seek from their posts.
These don’t have to be full-length feature films either, as 15 seconds or less seems to be the sweet spot for the platform. Crafting short, impactful videos for your brand helps you stand out and serve as a natural springboard for user engagement.
3. Add a call to action
Even the most intriguing post will fail to generate a response if it lacks a call to action. This can be a simple open-ended question at the end of the post like, “What do you think?” Consider it a welcoming mat for users to leave their opinion, and use strong, active verbs here for the best results.
Adding a call to action doesn’t take much, but it’s an essential component of driving engagement with your posts. If you want to maximize the effect of the content you have already decided to create or share, then a call to action is needed in every post.
Tagging is a powerful tool on LinkedIn, as it can associate your posts with people and organizations from around the world. When done in conjunction with quality content, it creates a web effect that can draw in all kinds of attention from afar.
When creating your post content schedule, add a shortlist section of individuals who would be a good match as a tag. They need to be relevant to the topic of the post and relatively few in number so it doesn’t feel spammy.
A good rule of thumb is that at least 50% of tagged connections respond to the post. If you aren’t hitting this metric, it’s best to rethink your tagging targets and strategy.
5. Turn on Creator Mode
LinkedIn rolled out its “Creator Mode” feature in March 2021. Activating it on your profile is an easy way to encourage engagement with your posts.
In essence, it shifts your profile to be more content-focused than the default mode, and it will prominently display your recent posts, associated topics, and a suite of other options. It is designed to build your community more around followers than connection, an audience who is listening and eager to hear from the experts in their field.
It tends to favor those who create their own posts rather than share, so be aware of this change before making the shift. For those looking to become thought leaders in their field, though, it’s an important step that adds legitimacy and reaches a profile.
Driving engagement on LinkedIn might feel like an uphill struggle for some, but once you internalize and act with these simple tips in mind, you’ll be skating along smoothly and gathering up all kinds of valuable connections.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/393269
For Brands That Join the Conversation, the Pros Outweigh the Cons
Conversations are powerful. They lead to incredible innovation, problem-solving and creativity, and add to the richness of our lives; they can challenge misunderstandings and deceit. Ultimately, conversations can be the antidote to problems when people truly seek to listen, learn and understand.
A survey confirms what we thought: TikTok is the favorite social network of teenagers
This article was translated from our Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process.
Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have done everything possible to remain the kings of social media platforms and although numerically they have succeeded (according to StatistaFacebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are among the five networks with the most users) there is a player that bothers them : TikTok . The social network, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance , has had impressive growth in recent years (the application was downloaded 850 million times in 2020), has been able to position itself above all among the younger audience and has shown that it has much more to offer you superfluous content.
SOPA Images | Getty Images
Meta has tried to make Instagram the favorite social network of teenagers, but according to a study conducted by the company Piper Sandler , it has not been successful. The survey answered by 7,100 teenagers in the United States between March 16 and 22, 2022 shows that TikTok is the favorite social network with 33% of mentions, followed by Snapchat with 31% and Instagram with 22%. Only 3% of those surveyed mentioned Facebook as their favorite network and 2% Twitter.
According to the survey, Gen Z youth spend an average of 4.2 hours daily using social media platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg has referred to TikTok repeatedly. According to Bloomberg in a virtual meeting in which he recently participated virtually, he mentioned that the company is facing an “unprecedented” level of competition.
The young public is essential for any platform, because unlike adults, they have not yet selected their favorite brands and are more receptive to advertising messages.
Some other data from the survey
The Piper Sandler survey not only presents data on the use of social networks, but also on consumption habits in different areas.
Teens’ favorite clothing brands include: Nike (30%), American Eagle (7%) and Lulemon (5%). Among cosmetic brands: CeraVe (41%), Cetaphil (8%) and The Ordinary (6%). Footwear brands: Nike (60%), Converse (8%) and Adidas (8%). Bag brands: Coach (17%), Michael Kors (15%) and Louis Vuitton (14%).
The favorite celebrities are Ryan Reynolds and Zendaya and the topics that concern them the most are Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the environment.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424124
Twitter user asks his followers for their opinion on his favorite Spider-Man logo and, besides going viral, he teaches us a great lesson
This article was translated from our Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The iconic Marvel Comics character, created by Stan Lee in 1962, is one of the public’s favorites and we have seen his story told over and over again in print and on various screens (cinema, television, tablets and cell phones). Each treatment brings with it something new and just as each actor imprints something of his personality on it, the isotype of the spider in the superhero‘s costume also evolves.
In recent days, a Twitter user called The One Above All published a post with eight different isotypes and asked his followers which was their favorite. The images of the spiders correspond to those that can be seen in the most recent Spider-Man tapes: from the film starring Tobey Maguire in 2002, to No Way Home , the most recent film of the character with Tom Holland .
To date, the tweet has more than 64,000 likes and 2,073 comments in which users give their opinion about the spider printed on the suit. Although it is difficult to find a trend in the comments to choose a winner, there are many users who suggest that the vote be expanded beyond the movies.
Others give their opinion without speaking, simply uploading a photograph of their tattoos and some ask that the image of the spider on the back of the suit also be included.
My favorite was always the spider on the back of the Raimi suit, if only because it was such an easy improvement over the “tick” that’s somehow still used in the comics today pic.twitter.com/PZUIHEZsmm
What is evident is that, beyond choosing a winning spider, what users who give their opinion are looking for is to join a collective conversation.
NEVER FORGET THE POWER OF A GOOD CONVERSATION
Although the survey doesn’t come to a definitive conclusion, it does serve to remind us how much the followers of a social media profile like to engage in a good conversation. A well-thought-out question can unleash a wave of comments and reactions that will help us better understand our community. The wisdom of Spider-Man’s spider tweet is to ask people directly what they think about a topic they’re passionate about.
This helps increase engagement and opens the possibility for meaningful conversations between followers that can contribute to the virality of a message.
Elon Musk knows how to do it very well. In many of his posts, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and now the majority shareholder of Twitter, uploads polls to find out the opinion of his followers. They answer him, challenge him, celebrate him and applaud his occurrences.
Social networks are about generating conversations; The One Above All got it and look what he accomplished with his tweet.
If your networks are off, you already know what you have to do: ask.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424121
Meta can’t buy TikTok, so it hired GOP operatives to run a smear campaign
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto
If you can’t beat ’em, smear ’em.
That appears to be Facebook’s approach when it comes to countering the threat from TikTok, according to a new report in The Washington Post. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has hired Targeted Victory, a large Republican consulting firm, to place stories in op-eds in local newspapers and on local TV newscasts around the US, according to the report.
TikTok poses perhaps the most existential challenge to Meta and Facebook yet. The video-based social media platform has gained users at a swift pace, and it’s especially popular among younger users, a demographic that Facebook and Meta’s other platforms have struggled with in recent years.
In an earnings call in February, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg all but acknowledged that TikTok was to blame for the company’s recent headwinds. For the first time, Facebook lost around 1 million daily active users last quarter. “People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly,” Zuckerberg said. Facebook’s own research, revealed by whistleblower Frances Haugen, shows that teens were using TikTok two to three times more than Instagram.
Around that same time, a Targeted Victory director emailed campaign operatives, exhorting them to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat, especially as a foreign-owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using.”
A staffer replied: “Bonus point if we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills/proposals aren’t where [state attorneys general] or members of Congress should be focused.”
The consulting firm also helped coordinate op-eds and letters to the editor that were placed in local and regional newspapers, including ones that were markedly similar that ran in The Denver Post and the Des Moines Register. The op-eds said that TikTok was harmful to children’s mental health and claimed that “many people even suspect China is deliberately collecting behavioral data on our kids.” In neither case did Targeted Victory disclose its involvement.
“We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told The Washington Post.
Targeted Victory pitches itself as being at “the intersection of politics and business,” saying that it brings a “right-of-center perspective to solve marketing challenges.” The company also says it “start[s] at the hyperlocal level” and creates campaigns that “scal[e] from the neighborhood level all the way to a complete national rollout.” Targeted Victory was founded in 2009 by Zac Moffatt, who ran digital operations for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
The firm’s “hyperlocal” focus is apparent in the emails seen by the Post. Targeted Victory staffers “urged partners,” the Post said, to find stories that would link TikTok to ominous-sounding stories about teen behavior. “Any local examples of bad TikTok trends/stories in your markets?” a staffer asked. “Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids.’”
Targeted Victory also attempted to pin blame for scary teen trends on TikTok, including the “devious licks” challenge, in which students can be seen vandalizing schools. Yet, that challenge reportedly originated on Facebook, not TikTok, according to an investigation by the podcast Reply All.
Meta’s apparent smear campaign against TikTok likely comes from the fact that Meta’s options for dealing with the new competitor are limited. It launched Reels, a copycat feature that it’s pushing heavily in Instagram, though it’s still too early to know whether the feature is stealing any significant attention from TikTok.
If Meta were facing a different competitor in an earlier era, it might have tried to buy the company out as it did with Instagram and WhatsApp. But the social media giant is now under increasing scrutiny of its behavior, making large deals harder to close. TikTok also poses a unique challenge in that it’s owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance. It’s highly unlikely that Chinese regulators would ever sign off on a merger or acquisition by an American company.
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1844747
Russia bans the use of Facebook and Instagram and calls them extremists
This article was translated from our Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process.
The tension increases with each passing day. The armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine is about to be a month old and there are still reactions in various fields: companies leaving the Russian market, franchises that cannot stop their operations and social networks whose services are limited. After Meta (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) announced a relaxation in the restrictions on hate speech with which its social networks operate in Eastern Europe, a judge at the Tverskoi district court in Moscow ordered a ban for Both social networks operate in Russia, considering that they promote “extremist activities” .
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV | Getty Images
On March 11, a Meta spokesperson stated in a statement: “We have made temporary concessions for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, such as violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders’…although we will not allow credible calls to the violence against Russian civilians”. Although the measure originally applied to several Eastern European countries, Meta narrowed it down so that it was only valid in Ukraine; Despite this, the Russian government requested the complete revocation of the measure and given the refusal of the company owned by Mark Zuckerberg, the Russian court decided to veto the two social networks immediately throughout the Russian territory.
Although since last March 14 Roskomnadzor , the body that regulates communications in Russia, had blocked the services of Facebook and Instagram, now the networks have been branded extremist , the same term that the Russian court has labeled the Taliban, the Witnesses of Jehovah and Alekséi Navalni , Vladimir Putin’s opposition leader and who is currently in prison. The court accused Meta of fostering the creation of an “alternate reality” in which hatred of Russia is fomented.
WhatsApp , an application that also belongs to Meta, continues to operate normally as it is considered a messaging tool and not a means of communication. The label attached to Facebook and Instagram also serves as a warning to YouTube , a Google-owned platform that was accused last Friday of spreading threats against Russia.
FOLLOW ENTREPRENEUR’S SOCIAL NETWORKS IN SPANISH: FACEBOOK + TWITTER .
Thomas Trutschel | Getty Images 
