Digital Media

Over the past few years, especially more recently, I have noticed a shift in people’s opinions and posting habits on social media.

As I have been combing my journal and timeline page, one thing has stood out, why aren’t post formats more popular?

While social media is a great way to connect with others and share content, I wanted full ownership of the information and content I was producing.

I am not going to lie, I resisted downloading TikTok for the longest time. Working in digital content, I am used to trying out new platforms and technologies, but for some reason, I was not interested in checking them out.

Each day, the average person gets dozens of emails in their inboxes.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has increased the use of video calls and meetings in both our personal and professional lives.

I usually do not shy away from new technology and will generally try things early on if I feel it fits my lifestyle.

Blogging has been a part of my life since middle school.

Every business or brand wants to know your opinion about its product or service. Many will provide a web survey to get feedback on your experience.

Web surveys are a great way to get an overview of how you are performing as a brand or business. The temptation with surveys is to stuff them with unnecessary questions or ones that you can easily find elsewhere.

Always, whenever possible, keep your surveys as short as possible. If you can get everything you need with a single question, do it. You will get better responses, better results, and have an easier time analyzing the responses.

Here are some other reasons why you should keep your survey questions as short as possible:

1. Forces you to have a clear goal for your survey. By having a clear goal for your survey, your survey will generate better results for the question(s) you are seeking from your visitors. Having clear goals will also allow you to better analyze the survey responses and determine the next steps depending on your survey objectives.
2. You will ask better questions. Every question in your survey must have a purpose that supports the goals of your survey. If they do not support the overall goals and objectives of your surveys then it is taking up space for a better question. Limit open-ended questions and the number of options for closed-ended questions. Also, avoid asking questions that you can find the answers to in other ways like your analytics reports or other surveys. In many instances, individual demographic data won’t help you draw bigger-picture conclusions and becomes more of a barrier for people completing your surveys.
3. More people will complete it. If you ask too many questions, especially long-form answers, you will likely find people skipping the survey altogether or not completing all the answers. People completing the survey are doing so to help you get a better picture of your brand, product, or business. You have to give them a reason to want to fill out the survey because, in many instances, they are not getting anything in return. Here is a basic rule, if it appears someone has to do a lot of work for little or nothing in return, many people will opt to skip it. Make it easy, quick, and to the point and more people will complete the survey.
4. You will get more accurate results. Having a clear goal for your survey, asking better questions, limiting the number of questions, and keeping your survey simple will give people more of an incentive to complete the survey. If you have fewer open-ended questions you will get more direct answers than if every question required a long-form response. This, in turn, will give you more accurate results.
5. It will help you analyze survey results. Since shorter surveys require you to be more deliberate with your questions, it will be easier to analyze the results. You will be able to easily measure them against the goals of the survey. If you have a lot of questions, some of the results may provide more confusion or lack clarity. the survey may trigger you to ask more follow-up questions or provide the next steps.

It is no secret that everything you do online is being tracked and analyzed.

Most websites collect basic aggregated information about their website visitors including location, browser, operating system, time spent on-site, where visitors came from, what they clicked on, page visited, how they got to your page, and other similar information.

This information is helpful for website managers because it can help determine what information and content people are looking for on your page. It can also help you spot issues or problems with your information or links.

Due to regulations in the European Union, websites have to ask permission to store certain information about you. As a best practice, website owners should always disclose what information they collect, how that information is used, what steps are being taken to protect that data, and the process for obtaining and deleting this information.

While analytics provide a basic understanding of who your visitors are and what they are looking for, that information is also used to determine what advertisements you are most likely to click on.

If you know someone who is looking for a particular product based on a website search then you can begin showing them advertisements based on that product or similar products. I am sure you have noticed this in action whenever you are searching for something and then go on to Facebook or Instagram and see posts related to that search.

With so many of us using smartphones and apps, our activities can also help serve better advertisements to us. Advertisers use a random device identifier (IDFA) assigned by Apple to deliver targeted advertisements. Using this random identifier prevents advertisers from seeing personal information, but still being able to serve targeted advertisements.

App tracking transparency allows an individual to make a decision on whether they want advertisements to be delivered based on what they do online. App tracking transparency requires an app to ask your permission before tracking you on other apps and services it does not own.

Facebook has been the most vocal opponent of Apple’s app tracking transparency. Facebook argues that this will prevent businesses from being able to reach their audience or potential customers. It will also hurt their bottom line. Apple argues that you should have control over what companies and apps do with your data.

App tracking transparency is a real threat to Facebook and apps that track users across apps and websites on their devices. According to a survey by AppsFlyer, opt-in rates to allow app tracking could be as high as 39%.

The true effects of app tracking transparency will depend on how many people opt out of app tracking. Since many apps and social media platforms rely on this data to serve ads this feature will undoubtedly have some effect on advertising revenue.

App tracking transparency is limited to iOS devices.