influencer, marketing, , teen influencers

How Teen Influencers Impact Social Media Marketing

Social media brought with it a new form of marketing — influencer marketing by teen influencers. An influencer is a person who has a large following on social media platforms and can influence his or her followers to buy the products that he or she promotes. Since a significant portion of social media users are ...

Raven Montmorency

A social media teen influencer.

How Instagram Started (+Cool Insta Facts)

Considered by some the most engaged social media platform in the world, Instagram has more than 1 billion users, half of them using Instagram Stories every day. If tweets are mostly male-dominated and pins are female, Instagram is the more evenly distributed member of the fraternity. Two nerds from Stanford started Instagram Bourbon and whiskey ...

Armin Auctor

The Instagram logo.

Lure of TikTok to Global Young Raises Concerns

According to a report by the United States research firm Sensor Tower on April 29, the social platform TikTok, known as the international version of the Chinese short video app Douyin, is a global hit and has been downloaded 2 billion times worldwide. In the first quarter of this year, TikTok generated the most downloads ...

Michael Segarty

The TikTok logo.

CCP Virus Outbreak: How China Uses Social Media to Shift Blame

The Chinese government uses numerous social media accounts to spread disinformation to boost its image in front of the world. With the CCP virus damaging its reputation, Beijing has gone into overdrive, putting out post after post praising the Chinese Communist Party for its “timely action” in dealing with the viral outbreak. Propaganda spread over ...

Jack Roberts

Social media apps.

Reddit CEO Says TikTok Is Parasitic

Steve Huffman, the co-founder and CEO of Reddit, had some harsh words for the Chinese app TikTok during a recent conference of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors. He accused the app of being parasitic due to its invasive nature. The dangers of TikTok When discussing the feature innovations of TikTok, Huffman took a strong stand ...

Armin Auctor

Steve Huffman.

Ex-Google Ethicist Warns About the Looming Dangers of Tech

Tristan Harris, an ex-ethicist at Google and the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, has warned that the entire digital space has become a “dark infrastructure,” with tech products and culture being intentionally designed for mass deception. This is one of the looming dangers of tech. He was speaking to a U.S. House Subcommittee ...

Jack Roberts

Tristan Harris.

How Social Media Has Evolved

Social media is today an unavoidable necessity for most people. Almost a decade back, it was just making its mark in people’s lives. The fact that it has become such an important part of daily life in such a short time is an incredible achievement. It also makes us wonder how social media is going ...

Armin Auctor

A moobile phone with Facebook and tiles spelling social media.

Social Media Vs. Freedom of Speech

Once, freedom of speech and respect among people with different opinions existed in the Western world: Then, something changed and went terribly wrong. Where did that liberty go? Social media made it simple to express one’s thoughts and easier to widely share opinions, but years down the track, they turned into an ugly trap. When ...

Laura Cozzolino

Social media on a smartphone.

WeChat: A Tool of Authoritarian Control?

“This WeChat account has been suspected of spreading malicious rumors and has been temporarily blocked…” is the message BBC reporter Stephen McDonell received earlier this year, after posting photos of a live event on his WeChat account. No commentary. Just a few shots of Hongkongers commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre — a ...

Max Lu

Chinese WeChat.

Cynical Social Media Voices Can Erode Trust in News Media

Amid rising concerns about low public trust in mainstream news media institutions, a Rutgers study found that real-life and online social media interactions can strongly influence a person’s trust in newspapers, TV, and online journalism — but when it comes to online social media interactions, cynical views are the most influential. The study, published in ...

Troy Oakes

Social media.