Tag: #socialmedia

Instagram launches new tools to stop abuse. #Instagram #SocialMedia

Instagram have announced a new way to protect people from seeing abusive DMs  as well as the ability to prevent someone you’ve blocked from contacting you from a new account. Social media has been under big pressure to tackle such and much more is still needed to be done here to curb this kind of behaviour this is a step forward and lets see what the future hold, see the Press release below.

A new feature to filter abusive messages

We understand the impact that abusive content – whether it’s racist, sexist, homophobic, or any other kind of abuse – can have on people. Nobody should have to experience that on Instagram. But combatting abuse is a complex challenge and there isn’t one single step we can take to eliminate it completely. For example, we know that many in our community, particularly people with larger followings, have faced abuse in their DM request inbox from people they don’t follow.

Because DMs are private conversations, we don’t proactively look for hate speech or bullying the same way we do elsewhere on Instagram. That’s why we’re introducing a new tool which, when turned on, will automatically filter DM requests containing offensive words, phrases and emojis, so you never have to see them. This tool focuses on DM requests, because this is where people usually receive abusive messages – unlike your regular DM inbox, where you receive messages from friends. It will work in a similar way to the comment filters we already offer, which allow you to hide offensive comments and choose what terms you don’t want people to use in comments under your posts. You can turn both comment and DM request filters on and off in a new dedicated section of your Privacy Settings called Hidden Words.

We’ve worked with leading anti-discrimination and anti-bullying organisations to develop a predefined list of offensive terms that will be filtered from DM requests when the feature is turned on. We know different words can be hurtful to different people, so you’ll also have the option to create your own custom list of words, phrases or emojis that you don’t want to see in your DM requests. All DM requests that contain these offensive words, phrases, or emojis – whether from your custom list or the predefined list – will be automatically filtered into a separate hidden requests folder. If you choose to open the folder, the message text will be covered so you’re not confronted with offensive language, unless you tap to uncover it. You then have the option to accept the message request, delete it, or report it.

This new feature is designed to help protect you from potentially offensive or abusive DM requests, while also respecting your privacy. All message filtering will take place on your own device, which means this feature won’t send any message content back to our servers. Using this feature doesn’t share the content of your DM requests with us, unless you report them.

We’ll start rolling out this feature in Ireland and a number of other countries in the coming weeks and will look to expand to more countries over the next few months.

A new way to protect you from unwanted contact 

We’re also making it harder for someone who you’ve already blocked from contacting you again through a new account. With this feature, whenever you decide to block someone on Instagram, you’ll have the option to both block their account and pre-emptively block new accounts that person may create. This will be available globally in the next few weeks.

This is in addition to our harassment policies, which already prohibit people from repeatedly contacting someone who doesn’t want to hear from them. We also don’t allow recidivism, which means if someone’s account is disabled for breaking our rules, we would remove any new accounts they create whenever we become aware of it.

Continuing our work to combat offensive comments

As well as using our proactive detection technology to help catch violating comments, we offer a number of tools to help you control abuse in your comments. If you have a public account, you have the option to only allow comments from people you follow and/or are following you.

We’re also starting to hide common misspellings of offensive words from your manual comment filter list, so that even if a word you don’t want to see is accidentally or deliberately spelled wrong, you still won’t see it in your comments.

We know there’s still more we can do, and we’re committed to continuing our fight against bullying and online abuse. We’ll keep working in partnership with experts, industry organizations, teens, creators, and public figures to understand their experience on Instagram and how we can evolve our policies and products to protect them from online abuse.

Easy Ways Of Getting More Interactions On Your Instagram Site

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, there isn’t a person on the planet that doesn’t know all about social media. Social media has become an essential tool for every business regardless of its size. You need it to increase brand awareness, connect with current and potential customers, show authenticity, and boost your leads and sales. Instead of heading down to the mall every few days, customers use social media, such as Instagram, to learn about sales, new collections, view availability, and more. Instagram has above 1 billion active users, and most of them interact with businesses of different sizes every day. Instead of searching for ways to buy real Instagram followers, If you allocate some time and use Instagram correctly, it can do wonders for your business. Here are easy ways that will help you get more interactions on your Instagram account.

Engage for Engagement

One of the easiest yet effective ways to boost your Instagram interactions is by engaging with similar accounts in your niche. Instagram’s algorithm is highly built on engagement; the more you engage, the higher the chance that you will be seen. When you boost your account’s visibility, more of your visitors will interact with you. However, keep in mind that the quality of your interactions is just as important as how frequently you do it. This is why you should be mindful and selective when it comes to choosing certain accounts to interact with. For instance, if you’re in the beauty industry, you should interact with beauty brands, influencers, inspiration, and other industry-related accounts. This will help you appear right in front of the right audience- interacting with a fitness guru won’t cut it. 

 

There are several ways in which you can find the right accounts to interact with. The simplest method is to scroll through your explore feed, which is usually filled with content that you may like, or the “recommendations by category” banner that’s right below the search bar. You can also search for specific keywords related to your industry in the search bar, which will generate many results. You can also search for niche-related hashtags which will show you related hashtags as well. Another great way to boost your interactions would be by interacting with your competitor’s audience. Go through the accounts that like and comment on their posts. 

Social Media Manager

The best way to ensure that your social media needs are taken care of is by hiring a social media manager. The social media specialists at https://www.socialproof.xyz/ suggest that social media managers are always on top of any algorithm changes. This way, they can always adopt new strategies and tailor the content to suit these changes. They will also come up with great strategies that will translate your organizational goals into a social media campaign, resulting in better engagement, leads, and results. Social Media managers play a great role in setting and protecting the business’ reputation and bringing in new perspectives. 

Long-Tail Hashtags

Long-tail hashtags are very carefully selected hashtags in terms of word choice and detail; to be more precise, long-tail hashtags perfectly describe the content’s context. Even though long-tail hashtags have fewer linked posts, it increases your chance of being visible and interacted with. When you use regular one-word hashtags, your post will keep getting pushed down every second as more posts use the hashtag. Besides, unless you have a huge account, it’s impossible to become featured in the hashtag’s “Top Posts.” You can still use general hashtags though, but make sure to mix in a few long-tail ones. Relying on general hashtags will not help you much in regards to discoverability. 

Quality Captions 

Coming up with a caption for every post is usually a headache- however, captions still play a huge role engagement-wise. Instagram’s present algorithm prioritizes the posts according to the engagement level. Good captions give the content context; whether you decide to tell a story or offer a different take on your image, it’s a good way to keep your audience engaged. You can also ask a question or raise controversy in your caption and encourage your audience to partake in the discussion. This way, you will ensure that the comments keep rolling in. 

 

Instagram has become a key platform for businesses of all kinds and sizes. Whether you are a start-up or a well-established business, Instagram is among the best way to reach current and potential audiences nowadays. While it can feel impossible to stand out among all the popular accounts in your niche, there are ways in which you can boost your engagement. 

Social Media Council will help Ireland Combat Online Disinformation, say Experts. #KeepItReal #Article19

ARTICLE 19, an international organisation that works to defend and promote freedom of expression and access to information throughout the world, concluded its #KeepItReal campaign with a virtual event exploring the impact of online disinformation on freedom of expression in Ireland.

The campaign started a conversation with young people in Ireland to ensure their voices are heard in debates around “fake news” and how decisions are made about what is allowed on social media.

Joined by young people from all over the country, expert speakers David Kaye, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Aoife Grace Moore, Political Correspondent at the Irish Examiner, Siobhan Cummiskey, Director of Public Policy, Campaigns and Programmes EMEA at Facebook, and Pierre François Docquir, Head of Media Freedom at ARTICLE 19 explored topics such as the role of government and social and traditional media’s responsibility to counter harmful disinformation while protecting free speech online.

ARTICLE 19 also spoke on the organisation’s proposal to establish a Social Media Council (SMC) in Ireland.

Inspired by the experience of press councils, this proposed self-regulatory mechanism would be the first initiative of its kind and would fit within the legal framework of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, currently under consideration. It will be a forum where measures to deal with disinformation and other problematic content can be discussed, fine-tuned, assessed or reviewed.

As the SMC is envisioned to enable broad participation from social media companies, media and civil society among others, it would also be used as a forum to elaborate a common understanding, not only about the types of content that should be moderated but also about the appropriate and realistic technical approaches to moderation. It would provide an appeals mechanism where users would have access to an independent, external body that can make decisions on disputes related to content moderation. The decisions would be based on international human rights law in order to preserve the right to freedom of expression and other fundamental rights.

Speaking on the need to protect freedom of expression, keynote speaker, former UN Special Rapporteur of Expression and ARTICLE 19 board Member David Kaye said: “Disinformation, when amplified at the scale possible on social media, threatens the public’s ability to sort fact from fiction. And yet government action to counter it, particularly but not only in authoritarian environments, threatens freedom of expression itself. We need to develop mechanisms to address this vast problem without undermining fundamental rights, and social media councils provide one innovative way to do so.”

“At the root of the Social Media Council is the idea that we don’t necessarily want government to be telling companies or individuals what is or is not appropriate speech. However, we do want transparency, because social media platforms are incredibly opaque, so we know very little about how they make content moderation decisions about what’s appropriate on their platforms. We want tools that allow for a public grievance… but also most importantly, providing a kind of civil society, human rights orientation to decision making around online content. This is the thrust behind Social Media Councils and the thrust behind public ownership behind these kinds of decisions and these kinds of questions around platforms. These are hard questions. They are in some respects some of the biggest, most important for our democracies in a digital age.”

Pierre François Docquir, Head of Media Freedom at ARTICLE 19, said : “To make informed decisions on any particular case of content moderation, a robust understanding of the local context is absolutely necessary : the language – the languages, even – the culture, the politics, the history… Social Media Councils at the national level provide a space where local voices can be heard in relation to content moderation decisions that impact them. SMCs also provide a space where all local stakeholders can collectively design balanced and flexible approaches to content moderation issues, such as disinformation.”

“Ireland has been the ideal place for this campaign, and we believe a Social Media Council would work very well here.  Not only does Ireland host the headquarters of social media companies in Europe and have a successful history of self-regulation with the likes of the ASAI and the Press Council, but it is also in the middle of a vibrant and ground-breaking debate on platform regulation and online safety with the current consideration of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill and the formation of the Media and Online Safety Commission. We believe the SMC could work well within the future regulatory framework in Ireland.”

“I was extremely pleased to see the interest of young people throughout the country during the span of this campaign. They have seen the recent, real world effects of disinformation first-hand with the false narratives around the pandemic and the vaccine continuing to threaten public health, so this really is an interesting and fascinating time. At ARTICLE 19, we’re very grateful for their involvement in the campaign, and we believe they deserve the opportunity to have a voice in the debates about content moderation. “

Social Media for Gamers: Useful Instagram Tips.

Thanks to gaming celebrities like PewDiePie, and a couple of billion dollars the mobile game industry has reached recently in revenue, gaming has become one of the most lucrative gigs these days. Who would assume that something considered only a fun pastime would actually provide a nice living and be considered a profession. 

As the competition is growing, the stakes are getting higher. The modern-day gamer has to work twice as hard to break through the noise and achieve success in 2020. 

Enter Instagram as the perfect visually-oriented platform gamers can find tons of opportunity to promote on. Add the ridiculous popularity of Instagram amongst the perfect demographic – younger folks, and you’ve got the ideal scenario to promote your brand. 

 

If you’re looking for ways to promote your gaming channels through Instagram, we’ve got just the guide for you. For additional info and some advanced hacks, you can read more about instagram growth hacks. 

 

Know your lane

Breaking into the gaming Instagram world is similar to any other niche on the platform in the sense that it requires picking a niche and sticking to it. 

There’s nothing wrong with being the jack of all trades; however, it can be overwhelming trying to incorporate it all at once and succeed. It’s best to pick something you’re great at and add a little personal touch, or a twist, if you will.

For example, you can stream or screen record a specific game and narrate your personal, fun stories as you play. Or, give advice to your target audience on the topics they are most interested in. 

 

Be on-brand

Define your brand colours, logo, fonts, and all the other visual elements and sync it across all platforms. Let your Twitch and YouTube audience easily recognise and follow you on Instagram.

Aside from nailing those recognisability points, you’re also building credibility as a brand by investing in your branding. This also allows for great merch opportunities as you grow your audience. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1s-P-FHAQy/

 

Don’t forget the hashtags

Hashtags are the number one most powerful tool to grow your following on Instagram. And we’re not talking just any following, but a specific, targeted following that would want to engage with your content. 

To achieve this, naturally, you would have to include your niche hashtags, the ones your targeted audience uses. The winning formula goes something like this: use 10% of the super popular ones, 80% of niche-specific, and the remaining 10% should be your branded or super-specific hashtags. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYFulTBRX0/

 

Use your Bio wisely

More specifically, the link in your Bio. The only clickable link on Instagram gets the most attention, so it’s crucial to be smart about it.

It’s an ideal opportunity to connect your Twitch or YouTube channels if the majority of your content is there. However, you can change it for the purpose of specific promotion on your website or if you want to direct your audience to buy your new merch. 

 

Test and analyse

Finally, behind any successful Instagram strategy, there are several that didn’t work. So, don’t be shy about trying different things and track their success. 

Experiment with different content, collaborate with influencers and different gaming brands and see what your audience responds to. 

The Instagram Insights provide a solid overview of all the data you need to track, such as reach, interactions, and followers. Of course, you have to switch to a business account to be able to access this feature. 

Over time, as you learn about your audience, you’ll be able to define the right posting schedule and content formats that work best. Until then, be prepared for some trial and error.

You can now change your Instagram app icon here is how to change it. #Instagram #SocialMedia

Instagram have dropped a nice little easter egg today which allows you to change the app icon which is pretty neat and this is something perhaps that could be done with other apps and gives you a bit more customisation to your home screen on your smartphone, the new change is on both Android and iOS and is simple to change and you have 10 options to pick from including the current one we all know.

All you need to do is go update your device and have the latest software at hand and go to settings then drag the screen down and you will then see the new change, All you do then after that is select the app icon you want and you are done, check the video below..

How To Find Anyone Online Not Knowing Their Name..

Trying to find somebody online can be a hassle if you don’t know their full name. Perhaps you only have a first name or last name to go by, a photograph, or contact details like an email address or telephone number. It may seem surprising, but nowadays, we can find anything we want from the comfort of our own homes, from assignment help online for all sorts of information about anyone we want. Either way, searching through thousands of Google search results for one person when you’re not even sure if you’ve got their name right can be a pain. Thankfully, there are several options out there that you can use to find out more about a person if you have part of their name or don’t even know their name at all.

Some of these can include using a free reverse phone number lookup or a third-party app. Let’s dive right in!

Try Nuwber:

Nuwber is an online people search service that allows you to find out more about a person using just their telephone number. If you have somebody’s telephone number but don’t know their name, all you need to do is search for it on the site and it will bring up the details associated with the owner of that particular number. This can be very handy if somebody keeps calling you and you don’t know who they are, or if you suspect that your spouse is talking to somebody behind your back but only have a phone number to go by. You can also use services like Information.com to find other details if required.

Social Media:

Social media can be easier to use if you have somebody’s full name, but there are ways to find someone without knowing all their details. For example, if you have somebody’s email address or telephone number and it is associated with their social media profile, you can type it into the search bar on Facebook or Twitter and it will bring the profile up, and you’ve found who you are looking for. Another option, although a little more tedious, is looking through the friend lists of people who you know are mutual friends with the person you are looking for to try and find them. 

LinkedIn:

If you know where somebody works but don’t know their full name, LinkedIn might be able to help. Simply search for their employer and if they have a LinkedIn profile and have stated that they work there, you may be able to connect to their profile through their employers’ profile. 

Google What You Do Know:

If you have a lot of information on somebody but simply don’t have their name, you might be able to use the information that you already have in order to find them with a Google search. Put everything that you know about them, such as part of their name, their hometown, employer, associates’ names into Google and see what comes up. Don’t hesitate to include details that seem insignificant at first sight. Does the person like birdwatching? Or maybe they are a keen gambler and a known frequenter of Solitaire Golden Prairies and similar platforms? Chances are, if they have a combination of these things listed on a social media profile, it may well come up as a result and you will be able to find who you are looking for

 

Try Known Usernames:

Remember that people don’t tend to be very creative when it comes to thinking up usernames, and chances are that if they have one username for Twitter, their Instagram is probably going to be the same or very similar. If you have access to somebody’s social profile or email address but don’t know their name, try searching for that same username, or a username similar to their email address on other social networks to see if you can find any more profiles associated with them.