Welcome to a new week – for most of us the second full week of being remote from our routines and surrounded by COVID-19 fears and insecurities. Government continues to move at a blistering pace in response but not without, apparently, some typical speedbumps. Highlights in today’s digest are the federal stimulus bill, federal (but not [...]
The Melwood Daily Digest – Volume I SBA Disaster Declaration:Massachusetts business owners will have until Dec. 18, 2020 to apply for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration, after the agency approved Gov. Charlie Baker's request for a disaster declaration and assistance. SBA assistance will be available throughout the state and in contiguous [...]
For eons, it seems, the news media has been neck deep in the trial and error business. Since long before I left daily journalism 13 years ago, the media, mainstream newspapers in particular, were trying and failing to be something they weren’t – purveyors of celebrity gossip, click baiters, partisan hatchet sheets and worse. At every [...]
For many politicians and their communications teams, Instagram is frequently viewed as an afterthought social media platform where grainy photos are posted at irregular intervals. It’s time for them to commit to a new Instagram strategy as part of their New Year’s resolution. Need more convincing? Consider this. Users under 35, better known as Millennials, now [...]
You may have noticed some changes to your Facebook newsfeed this year. There’s a reason for that: According a post by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has shifted focus from promoting branded content to promoting content that generates discussion and interaction. This has had an immediate effect on business and pages that use Facebook to communicate their message. [...]
Soon enough, we will be swiping right for our news content. Earlier this month, the female-led dating app Bumble announced that it would be diving into the world of content creation by establishing its own media brand. This isn’t necessarily a surprise, given that the app has expanded in recent years to offer networking opportunities and [...]
On the Internet, we aren’t people, organizations, or companies: We’re brands. Whether you are a startup, an established name, a for-profit business or a nonprofit venture, you are being Googled, and what searchers see is what (they think) you are. A lot of things can come up when someone searches your company. It can be a [...]
Last night, Twitter rolled out 280 characters for all users, doubling their previous 140-character limit. Twitter Product Manager Aliza Rosen explained the decision stemmed from data suggesting Twitter users frequently abandoned posts before hitting the "tweet" button because they were over 140 characters. We won’t know for a while if this was a smart business move [...]
It’s easy to bash the media these days and, for sure, they give a lot of reasons for many to do so. But the last two weeks have brought a fresh round of criticism over new social media policies put forward by the leaders of the print pack, The New York Times and The Wall Street [...]
It seems like fake news is everywhere you look and it runs the gamut from hurricane shark to websites full of blatant lies and clickbait. It’s no surprise that people are getting a bit wary about where their news comes from. What may be a surprise, though, is how wary journalists are becoming. Journalism is, at heart, the pursuit of [...]
