Operations:
https://www.notion.so/taxproper/TaxProper-is-Hiring-Property…
Software Engineers: https://www.notion.so/taxproper/TaxProper-is-Hiring-Software…
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32858405
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Category: Business News
Business News
Diversion (YC S22) Is Hiring
Article URL: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/diversion/jobs
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32862998
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Book banning in America: Censoring literature in US dates back centuries, but this time is different: experts
Thomas Morton, an Englishman who traveled to Plymouth Colony in 1622, wasted no time in clashing with his strait-laced Pilgrim neighbors, leading a nearby village called Merrymount of fellow English miscreants and Algonquian Indians.
Dubbed the “Lord of Misrule” by Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford, Morton and his followers affixed antlers to the top of an 80-foot maypole, around which they hosted a festival with dancing and drinking that was no doubt sinful by Puritan standards.
After being banished from the colonies multiple times and traveling back to England, Morton wrote the “New English Canaan” around 1633 about his travails across the pond, a book that offered a scathing critique of the Pilgrims and is widely considered to be the first banned book in America.
Morton returned to the colonies 10 years later, but his reputation preceded him, and Massachusetts leaders exiled him to what would eventually become Maine due to the “mocking accusations Morton had hurled against them in print,” University of Southern California history professor Peter Mancall writes in “The Trials of Thomas Morton.”
While it’s been nearly four centuries since Morton’s magnum opus was banned, the urge to censor has not disappeared in America, and has erupted in K-12 schools during the 21st century.
The American Library Association reports that nearly 1,600 individual books were challenged or removed in libraries and schools in 2021, the highest number since the ALA started tracking bans three decades ago.
“There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of challenges reported,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, told Fox News Digital. “We are receiving multiple challenge reports on a daily basis when we used to maybe get two or three reports a week.”
Most of the challenges in recent years have come from conservative parents who object to LGBTQ content and topics that cover racial issues in a way that they see as divisive.
Book bans come from across the political spectrum though.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” – the 1960 Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Harper Lee that has been a staple in high school classrooms for decades – was #7 on ALA’s list of the most banned books as recently as 2020.
The classic American novel was removed from the 9th-grade reading list by a Seattle-area school board earlier this year for its use of the N-word and what some community members see as an antiquated portrayal of racial issues.
In other instances, book bans cut both ways. A school district in Texas temporarily removed 41 books from library shelves last month that were challenged by community members. Among the challenged titles were books with LGBTQ themes like “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” but also “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” and even the Bible.
“Whether you’re liberal or conservative, you need to understand that that that ax swings two ways,” Will Creeley, the legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Fox News Digital. “No matter what your values are, teaching a generation of students to call the proverbial speech police if they encounter ideas they don’t agree with – that’s setting ourselves up for problems down the line.”
UTAH STATE SCHOOL BOARD APPROVED CHANGES THAT GIVE PARENTS MORE OF A VOICE IN THE CLASSROOM
Some view this new front of the culture war as a symptom of America’s one-size-fits-all education system, which forces parents to send their kids to certain public schools for seemingly arbitrary reasons like the zip code where they reside, as opposed to the educational values they aspire to.
The implementation of school choice polices, which allows parents to decide how taxpayer funds for their children’s education are spent, would allow families to pick and choose schools that are more closely aligned with their values, according to Neal McCluskey, the Director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.
“It fundamentally changes what the education money does or how it’s allocated. Right now, what happens is people get taxed at the local, state, and federal level and that money goes to public schools, so that if you want to use that money, you have got to use those schools. But that means diverse people are all being pushed into one school, and that’s what leads to conflicts,” McCluskey told Fox News Digital.
“Choice says: Let’s have the money follow kids. A corollary to that is let’s give educators the autonomy to start different schools, run different schools.”
School choice is an umbrella term that refers to the many vehicles for transferring power from state boards to parents. Vouchers allow parents to put public funding that was set aside for their children’s education toward private school tuition. Education savings accounts take things a step further, allowing families to use those funds for anything from tutoring to curriculum used at home.
“What that does is it ends the conflict, at least it ends the need for conflict. Instead of saying you all have to fight to grab the brass ring, it says go seek whatever ring you want, go find a school that is consistent with your values,” McCluskey said.
“Everybody gets to do that, rather than everybody has to be put into an arena to battle for control of a single school.”
THE SECRETS OF SAVING MONEY ON BACK-TO-SCHOOL ITEMS AMID TODAY’S HIGH INFLATION
While battles over book bans have mostly brewed at the local and state level, First Lady Jill Biden chimed in on the issue last week.
“All books should be in the library. All books,” she told NBC News. “This is America. We don’t ban books.”
Former First Lady Melania Trump had her own brush with challenges to books in 2017, when she sent a collection of 10 Dr. Seuss books to schools around the nation for “National Read a Book Day.”
Liz Phipps Soeiro, a school librarian at Cambridgeport Elementary School in Massachusetts, rejected the books and sent them back to Trump, writing in the Horn Book Blog that her library didn’t need them and that “Dr. Seuss’s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes.”
Battles over book bans exist along a sliding scale, from a librarian rejecting books, to a school district pulling books challenged by parents, to state legislatures implementing policies outright banning specific titles.
Caldwell-Stone, the head of ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, said that government-mandated censorship is the most concerning category.
“Any individual, any parent has the right and the ability to raise concerns about a school assignment or a book,” she said.
“That’s the First Amendment right to petition a government agency, but we are deeply concerned about efforts by elected officials, governing bodies that are governed by the First Amendment, that are censoring materials based on their viewpoint, or because they deal with a controversial topic in a way that they may not always agree with.”
Philadelphia voters say Fetterman's health won't impact their vote, citing Biden's age and health
Philadelphia voters shared whether they were concerned about Lt. Gov. John Letterman’s health if elected to the Senate and if it would impact their vote in the midterm elections, with some citing President Biden’s health as reassurance.
“He might not be healthy mentally, but he seems healthy,” Devon, from Philadelphia, said.
“Look at Joe Biden. He’s an older guy,” he continued. “You know he has his health problems, and he’s still able to run the country.”
But Kevin, living in Philadelphia, said he’s concerned about Fetterman’s health and lack of campaign engagement.
MEDIA PUTS MORE EMPHASIS ON FETTERMAN’S HEALTH AS PENNSYLVANIA ELECTION HEATS UP
“You can’t run for office telling people you’re okay if you’re not okay,” Kevin said. “If something shows up he should be providing some kind of documentation that he has a clean bill of health.”
Fetterman, serving as the 34th Lt. Gov of Pennsylvania, suffered a stroke in May, undergoing surgery on May 17 – the day Pennsylvania voters elected him as the Democratic candidate for Senate. Fetterman returned to the campaign trail in August and recently agreed to debate his opponent, Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, scheduled for Oct. 25.
“I have no issues with his health all, because I still think he’s able to do his job,” Betty, from Philadelphia, said. She said speech issues are expected after a stroke and mentioned Biden stammers in his speeches.
Loreal, living in Philadelphia, said she has been less concerned about Fetterman’s health than Biden’s and older leaders.
Joe Biden became the oldest president ever elected to office when he won in 2020, and will be 80 in November. Some Congressional leaders within the legislative branch are even older, including Senator Dianne Feinstein at 88, whose been reported to show signs of memory loss.
“We’ve had older people who’ve had other serious health concerns that have certainly been ones to be concerned about, but they’re doing just fine,” Loreal said.
In the 2020 presidential election, Philadelphia, a strongly left-leaning city, was crucial to Joe Biden winning Pennsylvania. Yet Fetterman statewide only leads Oz, 52% to 47%, in the Pennsylvania Senate race, according to the latest CBS News poll.
2022 MIDTERM ELECTION NEWS AS REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS RACE TO NOVEMBER
“It looks like he’s recovering,” Will, from Pennsylvania, said. “I’m gonna trust what he’s telling us.”
“Even if it’s gonna take him a little bit of time while he’s in the senate to get it all the way back he’s by far the best option,” he said.
How NFL decision-makers such as the Chiefs' Brett Veach navigate post-trade risk, criticism, second-guessing
Brett Veach shook up the Chiefs this summer, trading Tyreek Hill. NFL GMs all cross a similar bridge at some point, but how do they manage moves of that magnitude?
The post How NFL decision-makers such as the Chiefs' Brett Veach navigate post-trade risk, criticism, second-guessing appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
The Chargers and the quest to keep the Super Bowl trophy in L.A.
Will the Chargers’ aggressive offseason maneuvers help them shed a reputation for heartbreak?
The post The Chargers and the quest to keep the Super Bowl trophy in L.A. appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
Influencer Marketing for Small Businesses
You know that today’s market demands every advantage you can get for your organization to succeed.
So what can you do to gain an edge?
Dive into the world of influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing for small business is one of the most powerful marketing methods available for small companies. With more than 4.26 billion social media users across the world in 2021, it’s no wonder that influencers are used by small and large businesses alike to promote their products.
But what is influencer marketing, and how can it actually help your business?
Goal Setting for Small Business Influencer Campaigns
Influencer marketing is the process of working with well-known social media personalities to promote your business. Before you get started with an influencer, first ask yourself: what are my goals?
When it comes to influencer marketing, the biggest mistake you can make is to have an unclear campaign goal.
Think about it: if you post without a plan, you’ll have a hard time explaining to an influencer what you want to accomplish, let alone analyzing your campaign’s success afterward.
That’s why it’s a good idea to understand the purpose of your campaign. What are your marketing goals? If your purpose is to increase followers, the strategy will look different than if you want to boost engagement or generate leads.
Physical goals, like higher sales or increased traffic to your business, should be included in your campaign plan. Remember, the whole point of influencer marketing is to help you make more money.
Once you have clear campaign goals, it’s time to connect with influencers.
Influencers: Not Just for Big Businesses
You don’t have to own a giant corporation to benefit from using influencers in a marketing campaign. In fact, influencer marketing can be a huge boost to your small business campaign!
Build awareness around your brand by allowing influencers to use their voices to spread your message. Through their own pages, each influencer has cultivated audiences with similar interests. With 10k-100k followers, even a micro-influencer can help grow your base at a reasonable price.
By working with influencers, you also gain access to new audiences at a fraction of the price of traditional marketing banners.
How much more effective is influencer marketing? On average, brands earn over $5 for every $1 spent on an influencer marketing campaign. That’s 11x the ROI of using traditional banner advertisements!
Finding the Right Influencers for your Business
So you’ve got your campaign goals set. Now what?
The next step is to find the influencer that fits best with your campaign. When researching influencers, the best influencer marketing platform for small businesses is Instagram, with 79% of brands considering it the most important platform for them. However, Tik Tok is a rising star in the social media world and could eventually become the next top dog. As of January 2022, Tik Tok has 1 billion monthly active users who spend an average of 850 minutes on the app each month!
With so many influencers online, it can appear overwhelming to find one to work with. Don’t let that hold you back, though! There are a few easy ways to narrow down your search.
Search your own social media pages:
- People who are already interested in your brand will be more passionate about collaboration.
- It will also have a more natural feel when a collaboration is announced.
- Look for people who consistently comment on your posts.
- Check and see if your account is tagged in posts. Anyone who regularly engages with your brand is a potential candidate.
- Don’t be afraid to ask your audience.
- Framed in the right way, like with a question sticker or poll, you can find an influencer and increase follower engagement at the same time.
Search hashtags related to your business:
- Don’t have a big following? That’s okay! Influencers in your niche are already broadcasting their interest in products similar to yours.
Peek at the competition:
- Work smarter, not harder! If you have competition, look through their social media accounts for influencers.
Review Your Influencer Options
By now, you’ve combed through your account, searched hashtags, and even took a peek at the audiences of the competition to find influencers. Are you ready to reach out? Not quite yet.
Before contacting your list of influencers, you take some time to inspect their accounts on a deeper level. Also known as influencer targeting, being selective with who you choose to work with is key to any successful influencer marketing campaign.
Make sure that the influencer’s audience is similar to yours. What is their geographic location? What is their age? Do they speak the same language as your market demographic? The goal here is to discover where your audiences overlap with each other.
Next, confirm that your potential influencers are legit. This is one of the few instances where the phrase ‘fake it till you make it’ is counterintuitive. Currently, followers can be bought to artificially inflate audience numbers. Thankfully, there are a few ways to detect “fake” followers:
Demographics. Look at where an influencer’s followers are located. Overall, are they in the same place as the influencer?
- Check how many of their followers have profile photos. How many followers have names that consist solely of random numbers and letters? These are all indicators of a phony following.
Engagement. In addition to the size of an influencer’s audience, you need to pay close attention to engagement rates.
- A huge following is useless unless that audience is engaged. High engagement rates mean followers are tuning in and taking action.
- To calculate an engagement rate, take the number of likes or comments on an influencer’s posts, divide it by their number of followers and then multiply by 100 to get a percentage.
- In general, you want to see at least 2-3% engagement for a worthwhile influencer. 5% engagement is considered great, while anything above 10% is viral and likely some stellar content creation.
Content. The last thing you want to double-check is the content style and quality of the influencers on your list.
- Do they align with your brand?
- Which influencers deliver high-quality content?
- What are their videos like?
- Are they high-end videos, or do they look like they were put together by an amateur?
- Ask questions like these when considering using influencer marketing for your small business.
Influencer Marketing Platforms for Small Businesses
As influencer marketing grows in popularity and scale, it can be difficult for small businesses to navigate these waters alone. That’s why so many companies are turning to influencer marketing platforms for small businesses
These platforms are designed to take the legwork out of the influencer review process.
Right now, the best influencer marketing platform for small business is Upfluence. Upfluence has tons of information on influencers and their relevant statistics. Users can search for influencers easily with their followers, interests, and engagement all available in one spot.
Don’t worry if Upfluence isn’t for you: there’s more than one influencer marketing platform for small business: in fact, there are quite a few! Sparktoro is a great audience research tool. Brandbassador is another influencer marketing platform for small e-commerce businesses, connecting them to potential influencers that can serve as brand ambassadors for their product, increasing their reach.
Another potential option is influencer engagement marketplaces, where businesses can post the type of needs they have and influencers can reach out if they think they can be a good fit.
Don’t want to deal with the hassle at all? I don’t blame you. Thankfully, there are full service influencer marketing agencies for small businesses as well!
An influencer marketing agency for small business works at all levels of the influencer collaboration process, including:
- Set the target audience for your campaign.
- Locate the right influencer for the job.
- Build a relationship with the influencer
- Set ideal campaign goal strategies
- Help influencers to create better content
- Monitor the campaign
Whether you go with an influencer marketing platform or agency, or if you decide to work in-house, you’ll still benefit from knowing how to reach out and work with influencers.
How to Start Working with Influencers
Now that you or your agency has found influencers to work with, it’s time to reach out.
A good rule of thumb is to check their account or webpage for an email contact. Make sure you introduce yourself personally so that they feel like they know who they’re talking to. This should make them more comfortable and willing to ask questions about your project.
Most professional influencers have a media kit of some kind. Asking for one is a great way to see if you are working with a serious influencer.
Once you’ve made introductions, talk about your campaign. Explain the direction of the campaign and be as transparent as possible about the timeline for the project, important dates, and rates.
What to Avoid When Reaching Out
As with any endeavor, there are certain practices that should be avoided when pursuing influencer marketing for a small business. For example, never use a bot to contact influencers. They come off as impersonal at best and spam at worst, pushing away potential collaborations. Instagram also penalizes bot behavior, which is why it’s best to avoid this practice.
Never reach out via a comment on a post. It’s unprofessional, so instead, stick to email or direct messages.
Another thing to do is never copy and paste the exact same message to every influencer. Again, it comes off as spammy and unprofessional. A better way to approach outreach is to add a few personal touches to your introductory message for each influencer.
Want to go that extra mile? Add some details about their page or their work. To get influencers to work with you, emphasize how they personally would be a great asset to your campaign. Trust me, it goes a long way.
The last thing to avoid is unrelated influencers. What good does talking to a cooking influencer do if you are running a campaign about 3D printing?
When it comes to the world of influencer marketing for small business, unrelated influencers are a waste of time! Confirm that potential collaborators fit your brand.
Best Practices for Small Business Influencer Campaigns
By now you’ve set up your campaign, found an influencer and are ready to start collaborating. Here are a few tips to help your campaign flourish.
- As you enter into negotiations, you’ll want to remain as open and transparent as possible. While rates vary, clear expectations of the influencer should always be made.
- How much you will pay, tasks and deadlines are mapped out ahead of time to avoid confusion down the road.
- Especially with larger projects, think about creating a formal contract for your influencer that outlines the requirements of the project.
- Share your resources! The easier you make it for influencers, the better results you’ll get. If you have a brand style guide that contains your logo, brand colors and taglines, influencers can use that to hit the ground running.
- Communicate your campaign goals, as well as any frequently asked questions about your campaign to streamline things.
- Track campaign metrics to ensure your project is reaching the goals you set out to achieve.
Once your campaign is complete, share the results with your influencers. This not only strengthens professional co-working relationships but can also get influencers to work with you in the future. In addition, you might also get insightful feedback from your influencer team. Used wisely, this can consistently improve future campaigns!
You should note that the FTC requires disclosures of endorsed relationships with businesses any time there is a material connection. This includes payments and gifts. When developing campaigns, make sure you are compliant with all laws and regulations.
FAQs
What are the types of influencers?
Influencers can be broken into groups by follower size. Nano-influencers have 1k-10k followers. Micro-influencers have a 10k-100k audience size, while macro-influencers are followed by 100k-1M people. The largest type is a mega-influencer, which is a person with over 1 million followers.
Can I pay an influencer with products if I don’t have a big budget?
That’s not a problem at all! Gifting products through ambassadorships or referral programs is pretty common among smaller brands. Brandbassador is a prime example of an influencer marketing platform for small business that helps manage ambassadors for your brand.
What is the benefit of using an influencer for my small business?
Working with an influencer can boost your campaigns, increase brand awareness, give you access to new audiences and expand your base.
What should I be cautious of when working with influencers?
When it comes to using influencers for your brand, do your research! Make sure you are working with an influencer who has a real following, aligns with your brand, and has the skills needed to reach your campaign goals.
What can the expected ROI be when working with influencers?
On average, brands earn over $5 for every $1 spent on an influencer marketing campaign. That’s 11x the ROI of traditional banner ads!
Conclusion
Adding influencers to your marketing campaigns can be the next big game changer for your business. However, with so many moving parts, it can be tough to even get influencers to work with you.
Let our agency know if you want help with your next influencer marketing campaign and we’ll be your guide.
Which influencers in your audience fit your brand?
Trubisky: Steelers offense needs 'killer mindset'
Quarterback Mitch Trubisky said Wednesday that the Steelers’ offense has to have “that killer mindset” to take teams out of games.
The post Trubisky: Steelers offense needs 'killer mindset' appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
NFL: Concussions drop 50% with Guardian Caps
Compared to the previous three-year average, concussions dropped more than 50% among NFL players who wore Guardian Caps this year.
The post NFL: Concussions drop 50% with Guardian Caps appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
New comment by jackdbd in "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (September 2022)"
SEEKING WORK | Location: Italy | Remote Only
Skills:
– frontend: JS/TS (11ty, React, Flareact, Svelte) or CLJS (Reagent, re-frame)
– backend: JS/TS if you target Node.js, Clojure if you target the JVM
– cloud: I am a certified Google Associate Cloud Engineer
Technologies I can work with: Node.js, Clojure, Python, Zig, WebAssembly.
Contacts:
– GitHub: https://github.com/jackdbd/
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giacomodebidda/
– Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/users/3036129/jackdbd
– Website: https://www.giacomodebidda.com/ (includes my resume)
– Email: giacomo[at]giacomodebidda.com
– Free 30m consultation: https://calendly.com/giacomo-debidda/free-consultation
Rate: €400/day. Open to flat-rate pricing for well-scoped projects.
Please mention this thread when contacting me.