Daily Archives: May 9, 2022

By William Henry, Content Marketing Manager at Feathr

As any association knows, growing membership, promoting events, and boosting revenue is easier said than done. Pressure to succeed in these areas often falls on marketing executives, who face the daunting task of capturing human time and attentionboth scarcities in a digital era rife with communication overload.

For a shot at success in this brave, new world, association marketers must employ digital advertising strategies that keep members and prospects continuously engaged.

Thats where retargeting comes in. This common form of online advertising keeps associations front and center through the use of cookies, or small pieces of data stored in a users browser.

Youve probably seen retargeting in action online, even if you dont recognize it by name: Youre browsing Amazon for a colorful pair of running shoes one day. The next day, youre scrolling through your newsfeed for interesting articles. There, alongside the article you click on, is an ad for the same pair of shoes that previously caught your eye. By providing you with additional touchpoints, Amazon keeps the shoes top-of-mind and increases the chance that youll convert.

Retargeting is the perfect antidote to the hesitation inherent in online transactions. Research in the consumer world shows that over 95 percent of first-time website visitors are not ready to buy. That could explain why in March of 2021, online shoppers worldwide abandoned 80 percent of their shopping carts, according to Statista.

But not all hope is lost: By harnessing the power of retargeting, marketers can effectively nudge visitors after theyve left a website, recapturing traffic they would otherwise lose. In the association space, ad retargeting provides opportunities to boost event registration, recruit prospective members, and re-engage current members as they travel across the web.

Best yet, with the right tech partner, campaigns are easy to set up, deploy, and analyze. Some providers even offer affordable campaign management services, creative assistance, and consulting recommendations.

For the Association of Nutrition & Foodservice Professionals (ANFP), retargeting provides an avenue for reminding website visitors about pathways to earning the Certified Dietary Manager, Certified Food Protection Professional (CDM, CFPP) credential as well as continuing education opportunities.

A lot of our marketing efforts are focused on touting the benefits of the credential, and then spreading awareness about member benefits, including educational offerings and live events, said Emmy Bender, marketing manager at ANFP.

When ANFP signed up with Feathr, a digital marketing platform, in late 2019, the marketing teams intention was to drive live event registrations. Because of the pandemic, we pivoted and used our retargeting platform to focus on certification and education, Bender said.

Retargeting campaigns in both certification and education led to significant increases in ROI, and ANFP began to run them monthly. We have continued to see great success, Bender said. Its demonstrated in front of me every month when Im looking at the analytics for these campaigns and consistently seeing positive growth.

Now that in-person events are back, ANFP has begun using its retargeting platform to promote its Annual Conference & Expo and two regional meetings. In March, we ran a campaign promoting our Nashville regional meeting, Bender said. A $50 retargeting investment brought in almost $2,000 in registrations.

Bender said that todays digital marketing platforms make retargeting campaigns a breeze. Theres not a lot of work to do other than narrowing down your audience segments, determining who youre going to target and how you will target them, she said.

With the right technology, users can segment digital audiences based on various activities and attributes and correlate them with specific marketing messages. Associations can then tailor advertisements to different audience segments or use existing engagement data to run campaigns at times of the day when they know a particular segment is active online.

Youll also need to figure out what constitutes a conversion, Bender said. With our certification campaign, for example, an exam registration or a certain amount spent on study materials would count as a conversion. From there, its just uploading the creative, hitting deploy, and watching the conversions come in.

Associations can also leverage outreach tools like geofencing to drive visitors in particular locations to their sites. Geofencing is great for events, Bender said. If you know that a related association has an event going on, you can send ads for your association out to people in that specific area.

Other tools enable users to reach people who are searching for similar offerings through keywords or who have similar interests as existing audience members.

Ultimately, by becoming more targeted in outreach, associations can ensure their campaigns provide relevant messages to the right people at the right timea cardinal rule of effective digital advertising.

The team at Feathra marketing platform that helps associations serve up highly-targeted ads based on interests and behaviorsthanks Emmy Bender, marketing manager at ANFP, for sharing her experience working with Feathr. For more information on how associations can increase awareness, grow membership, promote events, and create new revenue, visit feathr.co/solutions/associations.

See the article here:

Boost Online Visibility and ROI with Retargeting - Associations Now

Nothing I've seen has captured the strange experience of being a teenage girl on the internet as perfectly as new indie horror movie We're All Going to the World's Fair.

It taps into a very specific type of teenage dysphoria, one where identity is a malleable, shifting thing. Who you are is a mix of your reality, the 'you' that you create in your mind and the one you're designated by the strangers who find a way through the boundaries of your private world. It's a feeling that time-traveled me back to the arrival of the internet in the family home, and the entire world of strangers, communities, and fandoms that appeared instantly like a magical kingdom I'd found in the back of a wardrobe.

We're All Going to the World's Fair, which is available to stream now, opens with a simple but spooky premise: Isolated teenager Casey is recording vlogs in her room and is about to attempt the 'Worlds Fair Challenge'. It's a YouTube viral trend that involves a Candyman-style incantation with supposedly occult results. To participate she has to repeat "we're all going to the world's fair," whilst watching a video (which we never see, but lights her face ominously), after which she will begin to change.

Based on the videos uploaded by other players, which the film periodically shows us in montages, the exact nature of how the player is changed varies wildly, presumably based on their creativity in video editing apps. Because it's all just a game, right? But as Casey begins to report her own findings to her audience about the effects of the game, she's contacted by a man called JLB with a dire warning and an offer to help.

You wouldn't expect a horror movie from 2022 to bring back the days of AOL and ICQ, but the emotions are the same. Being a teenage girl in those early days of the internet was liberating and empowering in a way that was intoxicating. It was before TikTok and YouTube, when sites were mostly plain text, chatrooms flourished and webcams were unheard of in a normal family home. You might be a kid with a cellphone, but it didn't have a camera, and uploading a photo meant buying a scanner and forcing a vacation picture from the family album through it.

Weird girls that loved books and wrote bad poetry could thrive, creating perfect personas where they became the darlings of the chatrooms. With a cute moniker and our A/S/L, we weren't turning ourselves into catfish, we were becoming mighty sea monsters.

While We're All Going to the World's Fair is very much about the internet of now, recreating that feeling of ignoring your body's pleas for sleep to let some streaming site pour endless videos into your eyeballs. It perfectly distills that feeling of teenage transformation. As Casey uploads a variety of increasingly unhinged videos, it's never clear how much is pure performance and how much is genuine distress, or when one suddenly becomes the other. It also took me back to that time when you suddenly realize men don't see you as a child anymore, but something else, which was both exciting and terrifying. Online in the late '90s you could get high on the at-a-distance attention of people you never had to meet, while still wrapped in the cotton wool of your childhood home.

Casey's sinister savior appears like every man you met in those chatrooms. Patriarchal one minute, wheedling the next, building as much of a fiction from his own desires as any glorious lie you typed into a chatbox. He's fascinated with Casey and she has a power over him even as he's trying to play the role of the rescuer.

Hiding just beyond that though, like some mid-'40s Slenderman in the woods, is the knowledge that if they were to meet in real life his protective spiel would turn into something else entirely, and any sense of control would slip through her fingers.

In the early chatrooms days, once you'd declared your A/S/Ldeclarations that were taken as gospel because what else was there?it was never long before the men in the chatrooms started to target you with questions or compliments or attention, marking territory with verbal cues as if you couldn't just disappear with the click of a mouse, change your handle, and be back as an entirely new girl in minutes.

The real casanovas might present you with the chatroom equivalent of a rose, @},. In private messages, the men that wanted to talk about our sexual experience, how they wanted to "cybersex" with us, to ask us questions we only understood because we'd read got hold of mom's bonkbuster novels, were 10 a penny. The ones that were stranger and scarier were the ones that started that way and then quickly descended into confessions about their wives, their jobs, their children, swearing we were the only ones that understood them. The need came off them in waves, and felt more dangerous and suffocating than the sexual nonsense we heard shouted on school buses and playgrounds anyway.

In the movie, JLB feels like a stand-in for every guy called Fred who wanted me to tell them it was all going to be OK. Everyone wants to shock you with filth when you're an adolescent girl, but being asked to be the whore and the angel and the therapist by a man who is the same age as your dad was truly shocking.

For teenage girls, for women, for anyone the world wants to berate and possess, the online world has changed and become something else entirely in 2022. The creepy ARG-inspired moments of We're All Going to the World's Fair have already happened with Slender Man, while hoaxes like the Momo challenge sent parents into a pearl-clutching panicand honestly, you should worry more about your offspring eating Tide Pods for clout than vaguely demonic online rituals.

Having a personal brand starts as soon as you get your first smartphone and upload a selfie. From that moment there's no escape, your peers, your predators, and the world can reach you through the internet at any moment of the night or day. For Casey, there's very little sense of a life beyond the one she's uploading in chunks for her unquantified audience. No parent intervenes beyond a single angry rebuke shouted up the stairs, no friends stop by to giggle over the weirdness of it all, and she's not texting or scrolling through Instagram. Both her real life and her online life have narrowed to focus entirely on the World's Fair Challenge.

Whatever your gender identity, age, or familiarity with social media trends, We're All Going to the World's Fair should be essential viewing for horror fans. Beyond its personal resonance for the ICQ veterans among us, it's one of the few movies about the internet that doesn't entirely embarrass itself by the end. I'd never want to spoil the movie, but it never does what you expect it to, and never takes the easy, obvious path to its conclusion.

In the end we're just another of Casey's viewers, whether we're seeing the videos Casey makes, her interactions with JLB, or raking our eyes across the bedroom in the background, looking for clues to who she is away from the icy glow of her laptop screen. The truth is that you won't find her identity there, or in the videos she makes. She's still building it one idea at a time, and you'll only ever see what she wants you to see.

Excerpt from:

We're All Going to the World's Fair is the online experience of a teenage girl in horror movie form - PC Gamer

When it was first announced that the first teaser trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water was coming attached to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it was only a matter of time before the footage was uploaded online for the world to see.

Based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters mind-blowing opening weekend haul of $450 million, Disney must have decided that enough people had seen Sam Raimis sequel to justify uploading the Avatar 2 footage, even if it doesnt play anywhere near as well on a computer or phone screen.

Having spent the last 13 years painstakingly crafting the follow-up to a revolutionary technical marvel thats become the highest-grossing film in the history of cinema on two occasions after reclaiming its crown from Avengers: Endgame, it would be an understatement to say that The Way of Water comes bearing massive pressure.

However, James Cameron has made a career out of proving his detractors wrong, and dont bet against him doing it again. Following the release of the teaser, a batch of fresh Avatar 2 images have now arrived for your perusal, which you can check out below.

Plot details remain largely under wraps, but its obvious that family will be the driving theme of the second installment. The underwater motion capture looks incredible, and weve barely even seen a glimpse of what Cameron has under his sleeve.

Could Avatar: The Way of Water become the industrys first-ever $3 billion hit? It sounds fanciful, but we definitely cant bet against it with any degree of certainty.

Go here to see the original:

Return to Pandora with stunning 'Avatar: The Way of Water' images - We Got This Covered

New Delhi, May 8 (PTI) Even retired Delhi police officials can now access their various key documents like discharge certificates and pension payment orders through Digilocker, thanks to the departments decision to link those credentials to the countrys online digitalization service.

The extension of service, which was available only to the serving officials with their I-cards etc linked to the Digilocker till now, to the retired officials would rid them of the hassles of running from pillar to post to access their key documents, said police on Sunday.

According to the standard operating procedure issued by the Delhi Police on May 2 on the issue, in order to facilitate retired police personnel access their documents anytime and anywhere, the police districts and its various units shall upload discharge certificates, pension payment orders and retirees identity cards on Digilocker.

The retired police personnel can subsequently access these documents from the Digilocker using their user ID and password, it said.

With the Delhi police providing its former officials access to their various key documents on Diglocker, they would be readily able to download a copy of any of their documents in case they lose or misplace it.

Digilocker is an online Indian digitalization service and flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and IT under the Digital India Programme which aims at Digital Empowerment of the citizen by providing access to authentic documents in citizens digital document wallet.

Besides discharge certificates and pension payment orders, other documents that former Delhi police officials can access on their Digilocker are retirees identity cards and senior citizen cards.

Aadhar Card is mandatory for Digilocker application for the verification process. One has to ensure the Aadhar Card number of the retired officer is uploaded along with his date of birth, name and registered mobile number, the SOP for the purpose said.

With this service, the retired police officials will easily access their digitally verified important documents through mobile apps and web interfaces and even secure cloud-based platforms for their storage.

This service will also provide them with the digitally acceptable documents under IT Act, 2000 from their originating department, said officials.

Special Commissioner of Police (Welfare) Shalini Singh said a meeting was held with office bearers of the Delhi Police Retired Gazetted Officers Association and those of the Delhi Police Mahasabha during which some changes were formulated based on suggestions by retirees.

This was the first of a kind meeting with the office bearers of both the organisations, she said.

She said the move followed after it was realized during the meeting that if a retired officer living away from Delhi needs some of his misplaced documents, it would be a great hassle for him to come all the way back and approach the police headquarters here.

Keeping these factors in mind, the Digilocker facility has been extended to retiring as well as retired officers from this financial year onwards, she added.

We are uploading documents of those who are retiring or have retired so that they can access it from anywhere and. If his ID card or pension-related documents are lost, he need not apply for it again, he can just download it from the Digilocker, she added.

The retired officers of the Delhi Police have also appreciated the move and said they are happy that it has been implemented within a month after the meeting.

Retired DCP, G S Awana said usually there is a difference between the ID cards of serving officers and those of retired officers and they are often asked for proof even though they share their post-retirement ID cards.

Now with Digilocker, the ID cards of retired officers are also verified and uploaded on it. This is as good as any digital document. It also enhances their authenticity. I also downloaded it from Digilocker and it was easy, said Awana who joined the force in 1982 and retired in 2018.

We will not have to carry all documents now as everything is already uploaded, he added.

Appreciating the move, former ACP Ved Bhushan said this step is quite helpful and if he goes abroad and loses his documents, he can always download them from his Digilocker and show it to concerned authorities.

World is going digital so we need not carry all these documents everywhere. Also with age, we tend to lose our memory. This way, we know our documents are safe and can be availed at any time required be it my pension papers, Aadhar Card or anything. It could be even my property papers, said Bhushan, who joined the force in 1983 and retired in 2018.

The Delhi Police SOP on the facility said the Digilocker is an intra-DP assisted system and shall be monitored by the IT Cell of the PHQ while the Pension Cell and Pension Cell staff of PHQ shall monitor the uploading of the pension-related documents.

Concerned Pension Cell and Head Assistant Character Roll (HACR) of district police and its other units shall be responsible to upload the documents from time to time.

The uploading process has already started from April 30 this year and will continue, it stated.

The SOP further stated that additional DCsP-II of districts and units DCsP shall ensure that the documents are uploaded without delay.

The Provisions and Logistics Unit shall be responsible for uploading identity cards of retired police personnel on the Digilocker while the Senior Citizen Cell of all police units shall be responsible for uploading senior citizen cards of retired police personnel, it reads. PTI AMP RAX RAX

This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

Continue reading here:

Retired Delhi police officials to access their departments key documents on Digikocker - ThePrint

Fivio Foreign isnt in the mood to chat. Its morning in New York City, where the rapper grew up and continues to live, and he was up late last night in the studio. Never mind that his debut album dropped only a week ago; relaxation isnt on the agenda. After all, collaborations with Nicki Minaj, Drake, Alicia Keys, and Kanye West dont materialise through rest. Theyre the product of day-in, day-out grinding. Im in the studio every day, he says over Zoom, his camera off. I just woke up. His baritone voice, typically heard growling over a club sound system, is heavy with sleep.

Crazy is how Fivio describes the release of BIBLE, his Kanye West-produced debut. Offering a softer side to drill, the album trades in catchy choruses and R&B inflections, which make it accessible to masses beyond the genres most hardcore demographic. It might be just the thing to finally take drill mainstream. The 32-year-old, real name Maxie Lee Ryles III, is in a similar state of shock over the fact West wanted to work with him. I didnt believe it at first. But then, the way my career is going, man, anything is possible. BIBLE is the latest chapter in Fivios fast track to hip-hops upper tier. In short order, Fivio found his feet with the 2019 ad-lib Big Drip. He then went viral on a remix of Body by UK rappers Russ Millions and Tion Wayne. Over the next few years, he released tracks with Nas, Drake, and French Montana. He held his own on Wests DONDA and Nicki Minajs recently released We Go Up.

Along the way, Fivio has emerged as the new voice of Brooklyn drill, a descendent of the Chicago-born rap style with links to gangs and violence. Melding punishing drum patterns with hectic basslines, the genres sound is just as ominous and menacing as the lyrics.

Drill, named after the Chicago slang for kill, made its way to New York via London when British producers began uploading their take on drill beats to YouTube, free for the taking for burgeoning rappers such as Fivio.

Up until recently, Brooklyn drill was associated with another name: Pop Smoke. The 20-year-old big-hitter behind tracks including Dior and Christopher Walking was poised for an international breakthrough when he was killed in February 2020. Although Fivio was around a decade older, the pair were good friends. Pop tried to convince the label that signed him to sign Fivio too. After he died, Fivio was one of few potential successors to the throne. On BIBLEs lead single, he proclaims that coronation complete: Welcome to the city of gods/ Pop was the king of New York/ Now Im the n***a in charge. Fivio sees the album as a tribute to his late friend and teacher. I definitely want to continue his legacy. Thats my brother, so I got to keep his name alive, he says. I learnt a lot from him. I might not have asked questions but Im always watching.

It helped that Pop and Fivio were on the same side of the Brooklyn gang war. Their music, at least to begin with, was tightly bound to those violent roots. Lyrics in drill the brutal threats and the hyperlocal specificity of those threats have been linked to real-life acts of violence. Law enforcement and politicians in cities like Chicago, London and New York have connected the rise in popularity of drill with a surge in knife crime and shootings. Fivio is on a mission to sever that association. Though vague on the subject, he is passionate about ensuring that his chosen genre is not reduced to a monolith. Think about it. Its the violence that comes first, not the music. Its the same with anything. Heartbreak comes first, not music about heartbreak, he says. Like any musician, a drill rapper takes inspiration from their surroundings. For the lyrics to change, ultimately the surroundings need to as well. But in the meantime, Fivio is working tirelessly to prove that drill is not inherently violent.

Im a strong person. I dont like to depend on anything, even if its drugs

(Fivio Foreign)

There is evidence of that aim all over BIBLE, a drill album notably lacking in the genres typical idiom of guns and gangs. The Fivio who once penned bloodthirsty threats on tracks like Blixky Inna Box a blicky is a gun, and Blixky (the x is silent) is the name of a rival crew is no more. Those days are definitely behind me, he says. Outside of the studio too, Fivio is making inroads. In February, mere days before Pop was killed, Fivio was one of many rappers to meet with New Yorks mayor Eric Adams to discuss the role that drill plays in fanning the flames of gang rivalry. While it was reported that Adams had organised the summit, it was, in fact, Fivio who reached out to him. I mean, I just feel like I got a responsibility so I gotta let it be known, ya know? As for what was said in the meeting, Fivio is characteristically opaque but says that the mayor didnt want to ban drill music as much as people thought he did.

It helps that this aim of Fivios goes hand in hand with his other ambition: go mainstream or to use his favourite catchphrase, go viral. On his debut, creative decisions have been made with crossover appeal in mind. There is a feature from the young R&B artist Chlo Bailey; a collab with Ne-Yo; and a radio-ready Destinys Child sample on Whats My Name, which Fivio needed to change the lyrics to in order to clear (Beyonc thought it was too vulgar). The City of Gods chorus comes courtesy of pop duo The Chainsmokers. There remain some references to Fivios controversial past (Left Side nods to his affiliation with the Crips), but theyre sparse and subtle. And while the rapper says he is inspired by everyday life, he clarifies that any illegal activities featured in his rhymes are of course, not true.

Out of necessity for work and life, Fivio is making a quieter life for himself. He has a smaller group of people around him and has hired a professional security guard. He also relocated with his three children to the far side of the Hudson river and has eased up on the partying. Im saying I want to focus up more. Im saying I want to be more natural, he says. Im a strong person. I dont like to depend on anything, even if its drugs. Is it hard to maintain part-time sobriety in an industry renowned for partying? Nah, he says nonchalantly. Although admittedly too busy to go to church, Fivio stays in prayer. Speaking about his career, and the sometimes unbelievable path it has taken, Fivio says, Whatever happens, thats Gods plan-type s***.

From the outside looking in, Fivios rise seems to have happened overnight; a Cinderella story helped along by some of the most powerful co-signs in the industry. But to Fivio, success has felt gradual and hard-earned. I worked every day and I felt it every day and I thought about it every day and I went through the s*** every day so this s*** dont feel sudden to me, he says. To me, this s*** felt like a real thing.

BIBLE is available to listen to on all streaming platforms

See the article here:

Fivio Foreign: Pop Smoke was my brother I have to keep his name alive - The Independent

It's tricky for folks to realise the actual narrative underlying just an image when your entire career is predicated on Instagram and social media content.

Even though the wild world of influencers is still a fairly young sector that several individuals fail to grasp, it has grown to be worth an estimated $7 billion or more per year. Becoming an influencer is much more than just uploading a snapshot and witnessing the revenue pour in, regardless if it isn't a conventional 9-to-5 employment.

Instagram has grown into a global social media standard since its inception over a decade ago, aided by its relationship with Facebook. However knowing the ideal days and times to post on Instagram isn't enough; you also need to know how to leverage your skills to become a must-follow!

Several of the bloggers you see today provide an example of self-sustenance and acts as an inspiration for businesses on how to establish their brand on Instagram. As it is said "It will not happen overnight, as with all good things. It shouldn't, because you're attempting to improve your skills, not just do it."

Today, we meet with Anureet Sandhu, a vivacious and ever-smiling Punjabi influencer who has defied all difficulties to get to where she is today. Positive energy radiated from her flamboyance and confidence as she entered the room.

Her videos are based and thought around fashion, skincare, fitness, dressing up is one her favourite content bucket to work on.Anureet is a Lifestyle and fitness influencer who strongly believes in quality content over quantity.She quotes Knowing what's going on in your sector is essential for creating amazing content that genuinely resonates with your target audience. As well as the finest content creators explore the internet for industry news and trends, not simply read them.

Ms Sandhu is a simple and sweet girl with an engineering background, but her passion for clothing, fashion, and beauty inspired her to take the next step and pursue a career in content production. Her life hasn't always been a piece of chocolate cake, as she recounted with us, beginning with being harassed and fat shamed for being overweight by not just her classmates and friends, but also her dearest relatives, who would look down on her and make jokes about her appearance. It took her over 5 years to overcome her obstacles and demonstrate to the world that the additional inches, angles, and colour of her skin do not define a person's talents.

Anureet isn't simply a content producer for the sake of fame and followers; she's on a mission to tell her experience and encourage all the ladies who have faced similar challenges to rise up and prove their value to the world. She is certain that no one will know you or your gift unless you return it to them. A weak heart would lock itself in a room and sob at the circumstance, but a strong heart with a focused mind would jump out the window and dig their road to victory.She further revealed with us her skill in the foreign language of French, for which she has been working as a precovid tutor. Apart from that, she enjoys shopping and getting into her car for a good warm cup of coffee, which she modestly admits she enjoys. Travelling is one of her adventurous streaks; she is a major solo traveller, and she feels that travel offers you perspective and experience, which moulds your personality and allows you to absorb real-life lessons.

Anureet is definitely an astounding and happy soul, we loved the conversation with her over her favourite cup of coffee and cookies.

Do follow and check her out for some amazing snaps, which brighten your day.

https://www.instagram.com/anureetsandhu0007/

Read more from the original source:

From Being Persecuted To Acquiring Over 35k Admirers, Anureet Sandhu Recounts Her Pathway To Be An Influencer - Outlook India