Online Marketing for Local Business
Uncategorized
“Facebook Depression” Appearing In Young People
14 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
Taking another quick break from web content and e-marketing topics, to shine a light on a harmful side effect of our nation’s current fascination with social networking services:
Add “Facebook depression” to potential harms linked with social media, an influential doctors’ group warns, referring to a condition it says may affect troubled teens who obsess over the online site.
Researchers today disagree on whether it’s simply an extension of depression some kids feel in other circumstances, or a distinct condition linked with using the online site.
But there are unique aspects of Facebook that can make it a particularly tough social landscape to navigate for kids already dealing with poor self-esteem, said Dr. Gwenn O’Keeffe, a Boston-area pediatrician and lead author of new American Academy of Pediatrics social media guidelines.
With in-your-face friends’ tallies, status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times, Facebook pages can make some kids feel even worse if they think they don’t measure up.
It can be more painful than sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down, because Facebook provides a skewed view of what’s really going on. Online, there’s no way to see facial expressions or read body language that provide context.
The guidelines urge pediatricians to encourage parents to talk with their kids about online use and to be aware of Facebook depression, cyberbullying, sexting and other online risks.
Abby Abolt, 16, a Chicago high school sophomore and frequent Facebook user, says the site has never made her feel depressed, but that she can understand how it might affect some kids.
“If you really didn’t have that many friends and weren’t really doing much with your life, and saw other peoples’ status updates and pictures and what they were doing with friends, I could see how that would make them upset,” she said.
“It’s like a big popularity contest — who can get the most friend requests or get the most pictures tagged,” she said.
Also, it’s common among some teens to post snotty or judgmental messages on the Facebook walls of people they don’t like, said Gaby Navarro, 18, a senior from Grayslake, Ill. It’s happened to her friends, and she said she could imagine how that could make some teens feel depressed.
“Parents should definitely know” about these practices,” Navarro said. “It’s good to raise awareness about it.”
The academy guidelines note that online harassment “can cause profound psychosocial outcomes,” including suicide. The widely publicized suicide of a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl last year occurred after she’d been bullied and harassed, in person and on Facebook.
“Facebook is where all the teens are hanging out now. It’s their corner store,” O’Keeffe said.
She said the benefits of kids using social media sites like Facebook shouldn’t be overlooked, however, such as connecting with friends and family, sharing pictures and exchanging ideas.
“A lot of what’s happening is actually very healthy, but it can go too far,” she said.
Dr. Megan Moreno, a University of Wisconsin adolescent medicine specialist who has studied online social networking among college students, said using Facebook can enhance feelings of social connectedness among well-adjusted kids, and have the opposite effect on those prone to depression.
Parents shouldn’t get the idea that using Facebook “is going to somehow infect their kids with depression,” she said.
14 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
Of all the things that make me sad or sentimental about the continuous march of technology, one of the worst is probably the demise of printed words…whether they be in newspapers, magazines or actual, non-Kindle books. Sure, looking up fantasy baseball stats every morning at the breakfast table from the Sports section was a lot less convenient to logging on at any time and getting them instantly…but in retrospect, maybe a bit more fun…and more of an “experience”. This recent news:
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Newspaper advertising in the U.S. has sunk to a 25-year low as marketing budgets followed readers to the Internet, where advertising is far cheaper than what publishers have been able to command in print.
Advertisers spent $25.8 billion on newspapers’ print and digital editions last year, according to figures released Tuesday by the Newspaper Association of America. That’s the lowest amount since 1985 when total newspaper advertising stood at $25.2 billion.
After adjusting for inflation, newspaper advertising now stands at about the same level as nearly 50 years ago. In 1962, newspaper advertising totaled $3.7 billion, which translates to about $26 billion today.
Print advertising has fallen in each of the past five years, dramatically shrinking newspaper publishers’ main source of income. Even as the economy has gradually improved since 2009, newspapers are still bringing in less revenue as advertisers embrace free or cheaper Internet alternatives that aim to deliver the messages to people most likely to be interested in the products being pitched. The shift has accelerated in recent years as more readers abandoned newspapers’ print editions for the Web.
Newspapers have been mining their digital editions for more revenue. Online ads generated $3 billion for newspapers last year, an 11 percent increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, print ads dropped 8 percent to $22.8 billion. Before the slump began in 2006, print advertising generated about $47 billion in annual revenue for newspapers.
To cope with the upheaval, newspapers have cut their staffs, raised their prices and, in the most extreme cases, filed for bankruptcy protection to lighten their debt loads.
Many publishers are pinning their comeback hopes on delivering more news to the growing audience on mobile phones and tablet computers such as Apple Inc.’s iPad.
Tablets, in particular, could create new moneymaking opportunities because early research indicates that their users tend to spend more time reading stories and watching video on those devices than they do on laptops and desktop computers. That trend could help newspapers charge higher rates for ads on their tablet editions than they do on their websites and perhaps make it easier to sell subscriptions to digital editions. With the exception of The Wall Street Journal and a few other newspapers, most publishers have given away their content on the Web — a factor that contributed to their financial woes in recent years.
Publishers would settle for any sign of overall ad growth after 16 consecutive quarters of decline from the previous year. The severity of the slide has been easing since 2009 as the U.S. economy has gradually recovered from the deepest recession since World War II.
Newspaper advertising totaled $7.3 billion in the last three months of 2010, down 5 percent from the prior year. The quarterly decreases have been getting progressively smaller since the July-September period of 2009, when newspaper ad revenue plunged 29 percent from the previous year.
Online ads were the bright spot again in last year’s fourth quarter, rising 14 percent to $878 million. The Internet now accounts for about 12 percent of newspaper’s ad revenue, up from 4 percent in 2005.
“Quarter after quarter, newspaper advertising has shown signs of a continued turnaround and an essential repositioning,” said John Sturm, the Newspaper Association of America’s president.
Is Groupon Good or Bad For Retailers?
14 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
This social coupon craze has become a big thing. For retailers, the question is whether it’s a good thing or bad thing. Sites like Groupon and the many clones that have sprung up (the local newspaper, the Post Dispatch, now has a similar service) can certainly drive traffic into stores. But many are not prepared for the onslaught – creating negative customer experiences.
And these services are also creating what we call the “Famous Barr syndrome”. (For those not familiar, Famous Barr was a Midwestern U.S. department store chain, since absorbed into Macy’s). They had “big sales” and offered large discount coupons so often that people became reluctant to shop there unless there was a current promotion. Sites like Groupon do the same thing, training people to expect that they can get a coupon for almost anything.
Coupons have of course been around for years, and have been available on the Internet since the earliest days. But now there are so many services and websites offering discounts, the customer is becoming trained to never, ever pay full price. This pricing model works well for some businesses, not so well for others.
And whether a retailer or other merchant makes money depends on many factors, such as if the new customer spends more than the face value of the coupon; how many current/existing customers purchase a coupon – and now pay less for something they paid “full price” for in the past; what percentage of the discount customers become regular customers; and the cost of delivering the additional sales created from the coupons.
The truth is, when you charge some (current, satisfied, loyal) customers full price…and other (brand new) customers half off, you make some people happy and others unhappy. And you are making the wrong category of customer happy!
Regulars may be upset because they feel they’ve overpaid; the discount customers are happy, though it’s likely that many will not return to pay regular price.
When you decide to offer a daily deal, you are potentially training your existing customers to wait for the next coupon. And research shows that brands which discount themselves can easily do damage to their image through aggressive discounting. Does that sound like a recipe for success?
Think before you join the coupon herd. Bottom line, busier does not always mean more profitable.