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For many of us, there’s a dream where we can just travel the world, post our photos on Instagram and get paid for doing so. While it sounds like a literal dream, there are plenty of people who make a living doing just that. These people are known as influencers, and they promote brands on a global scale through Instagram. Want to know how to become one? Follow these simple steps to start making money on your favorite app.

5. Build a Strong Bio

Any strong influencer that wasn’t famous before coming onto Instagram always has a strong profile and bio. Make sure that you have your profile picture set to something eye-catching and that you have your specifics filled out, including a business email so that potential clients can contact you. Use keywords that promote your interests and garner company attention, and include links to all your other social media profiles. Lastly, throw in a little bit about yourself and what makes you unique.

4. Caption This

Most people will hop on Instagram to post a photo or two and then put no caption behind it, which is absolutely fine. However, if you’re trying to become an influencer, you have to use a lot more than a one word caption for each of your photos. Make the caption as storytelling as possible, and use hashtags where necessary. This will get you more attention from people who don’t even follow you, allowing you to grow your brand. This is also a green flag for those looking for influencers to market their products.

3. Engage With Your Followers

Another sign for a company that a particular account is worth using as an influencer is the fact that they’ll engage with their followers. Sure, there are people like the Kardashians and Jenners that don’t have to reply to any comments to have their influence felt, but we’re not at that level yet. For now, try to respond to as many people as you can. This is a sign to companies that you know their product and can do a little PR work that they don’t have to in the long run.

2. Always Be Posting

There’s almost no chance that a company will be betting on an influencer when a person only posts once or twice a month. Growing your brand and getting the attention from companies that you need requires you to frequent Instagram as much as Norm frequented Cheers. Get familiar with what your most popular posts are and what time they were posted and find yourself a good rhythm/schedule. It’s ideal to post at least once a day to go down the influencer path, but more is better.

1. Pick the Right Endorsements

Alright, so you’ve developed your big following, you’re posting almost every day and you’re ready to start making money. Now’s the time where you have to be selective of what companies you’re sponsoring. Don’t just blindly fall into a deal with the first offer that you get. There could be a lot of hidden details that hinder you and the company’s reputation may be subpar. Have another set of eyes to help you out in the process so that you’re selecting what’s right for you.

In the course of United States history, only three presidents have been impeached. The first came when Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 and we didn’t see it again until Bill Clinton 130 years later. Then, Donald Trump made history when he became the third president to be impeached, and the first president to be impeached twice.

It seemed that so many things went wrong during the Trump presidency, but he was still able to keep almost all of his loyal following. So much so, in fact, that his contingency was willing to believe that his reelection bid was stolen from him and advanced on the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. So how did someone known for real estate, reality television and no prior political history develop such a strong following? The marketing, of course. More specifically, Trump knew how to play the social media game.

Before Trump came along, most politicians would be very selective with the words they used on social media, with many simply having a social media management team to post for them. Not Trump, though. Trump would let loose any thought that came to his head and let people know how he felt on any and every subject from the economy to sports. 

This helped to establish Trump as someone who was not part of the establishment. He was sending out tweets on an almost hourly basis in the same way that your average Twitter user would do. This made him more accessible to people on the internet and relatable. Although you might not agree with what he was saying, nobody has been able to establish the kind of presence that Trump did leading up to his Twitter ban in 2021.

It wasn’t just Twitter that saw a massive uptick in Trump interest, as Facebook users (who tend to skew older these days than when it was first introduced) were able to garner him a lot of monetary support. His social media manager, Brad Parscale, said that advertising on Facebook made it so that Trump wasn’t spending all of his own money on his campaign. This was able to bring in nearly $300 million in funds. “Facebook allowed us to do that in alarming numbers,” Parscale said. He added that the Facebook campaign got the other social media platforms interested in having Trump related coverage to bring in more money.

Nobody purchased more advertising in their 2016 campaign than Jeb Bush at $82 million, while Trump spent just $10 million, which placed him eighth overall for any candidate. Trump’s grassroots campaign and social media coverage spread like wildfire, though, generating an estimated $1.9 billion in free advertising. Hillary Clinton was second on that list…at $746 million.

Trump followed what was known as ‘big seed’ marketing in the fact that he already had a lot of followers, and many of them shared the same opinions as him. Because of this, there was no such thing as “bad press.” All Trump had to do was tweet, and he would be talked about ad nauseum for what he said rather than any specific policies. This is what caused the saturation of Donald Trump, and led to him being the most visible candidate and won him an election. 

“I really believe that fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with (social media), I think it helped me win all of these races where others spent much more money than I spent,” Trump said. “I think that social media has more power than the money others spent…I proved that.”

Back when it started in 2005, YouTube was a fun way to post videos of you and your friends just hanging out and doing goofy stuff. Now, it has evolved into the second most visited website on the internet (behind only Google, which owns YouTube) thanks to the countless amount of content and can even make you money. YouTube changes by the day, but there are some major trends to keep an eye on now. Here are five of those trends that you need to know about.

5. ASMRevolution

Autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR for short, is something that’s been around forever, using it as a science is something that’s fairly new. We started seeing ASMR videos pop up on YouTube about a decade ago and in the past year or so, we’ve seen a tremendous boom. Now, there’s a massive variety with YouTubers dedicating their entire channel to ASMR as the videos are long in length (great for revenue) and draw millions of viewers. Younger generations are coming to ASMR videos in droves, with over 80 percent of Gen Z’ers watching ASMR.

4. Meme Accounts

We all love memes, but especially younger generations. This isn’t something new, either, as short meme videos have been popular since the days of Vine, but trends are cyclical and we’re right back to the short form videos on top. Perhaps this is thanks to the emergence of TikTok and YouTube’s response to it, but accounts that are dedicated to meme videos are taking off. Add in the compilation channels that show memes and you’ve got yourself a nice combination of an easy way to make a channel take off.

3. Celebrity Vlogs

Thanks to their built-in audience, there are a lot more celebrities that are taking to YouTube to earn themselves extra revenue in their free time. We’ve already seen people like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Will Smith, Ryan Reynolds and more create their own personal vlogs on YouTube, and that list only grows longer by the day. This is also good for their PR to make them more relatable, as we’re seeing early on the celeb wave.

2. Revenue Boom

When YouTube first introduced ads, it was a nice way to get their parent company, Alphabet, some pocket change. Now, it’s a big source of revenue that has reached billions of dollars. In the first quarter of 2022 alone, YouTube brought in $6.86 billion in ad revenue, and that still somehow fell short of expectations. Once conflict in Eastern Europe/Russia cools down, expect the ad numbers to skyrocket. Creators are finding ways to maximize revenue after things were cloudy on what was allowed and what wasn’t at first.

1. Live Streaming

Microsoft tried and failed to get into the live streaming game to try and topple Twitch, but YouTube has proven to be the biggest competitor to the Amazon subsidiary. YouTube has a focus on gaming, but live streams any topic including sports, talk, news and more. Because of this, YouTube live streaming has seen tremendous growth, and now with ways to donate to streamers expects to be a major player in the years to come. This is especially true thanks to the likes of streamers like Mr. Beast, PewDiePie, Dr .Disrespect and more.

When it was first started more than 15 years ago, Facebook was a way for college students to connect and post updates about what they were doing and finding new friends. Since then, Facebook has evolved into a do-it-all service that’s become a titan in the technology sector, far outreaching its social media beginnings. Mark Zuckerberg has been at the helm through it all, and the changes that he’s made seem to be never ending. There are certain trends that catch on with Facebook, and here are five that you need to know about now.

5. Into the Metaverse

Sure, there was some criticism upon the initial announcement that there would be a name change in late 2021 from Facebook to Meta, but it’s a change that is here to stay. Zuckerberg has called the Metaverse “the next evolution in social connection and the successor to the mobile internet.” It’s a massive undertaking that the company is going through, and it includes more than just social media. Meta platforms will include work and school apps, gaming, shopping and just about everything else you can imagine. Which leads us to our next topic.

4. A New Reality

One of the biggest aspects of the Metaverse is the use of augmented and virtual reality. Facebook sees this as the new platform for social media and the internet as a whole, and is at the forefront of the movement. In 2012, virtual reality company Oculus started, and seven years later was acquired by Facebook. Since then, Facebook has used this platform now called Reality Labs to make VR more accessible.

3. Reel Potential

If you’ve been on Facebook in the past couple of months, you may have noticed something new on your news feed. It’s called Facebook Reels and allows people to create videos in a very similar way to Instagram stories. Not only that, but people can actually make money through their reels via ad revenue and stars that can be purchased from viewers. The ability for the average person to make money will make Reels a highly coveted service in the coming months and years.

2. Talk to Bots

For those that are growing a business, Facebook offers some powerful tools so that you don’t have to be on top of customer service 24/7. Among those that have been the most helpful is the Chatbot, which can answer any FAQs that businesses have. Even if you want to set up your own page that isn’t really selling anything, you can cut out a lot of the hassle by having AI filter out any questions that can be quickly answered before coming directly to you with any issues.

1. Live Streaming Future

When it comes to live streaming video games on the internet, Twitch is still the king on the block, but that doesn’t mean that others haven’t tried. Microsoft gave it a go with the now defunct Mixer, and now Facebook is taking its turn with Facebook Gaming after Mixer integrated its services into the Metaverse. While it might take some time to really catch on, Facebook is also notable for its Facebook Live feature. As of right now, this non-specific service is more widely used and appears to have a bright future with more users each day and more viewers for each stream.

There once was a time where Instagram was a website where you’d basically just see people posting photographs of their food and calling it a day. Now, Instagram has become a way of life and a massive moneymaker for celebrities around the world, especially. Instagram has evolved a lot since it was first introduced over a decade ago, and is now a staple of every smartphone that you see. What can we expect to see from Instagram in the near future? Here are five trends that you should know about.

5. In-App Shopping

While suggested posts and advertising is nothing new on Instagram, the ability to shop directly from the app is a concept that’s catching on. Starting in May 2020 during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Instagram introduced shops that allowed people to purchase products without ever having to leave the app. The fact that it didn’t redirect to a third party site helped Instagram see the potential with in-app shopping and they’ve been promoting it ever since. Expect this to be a trend that continues to grow in the coming years and becomes a massive staple for the app.

4. Ads on Stories

In the same way that Snapchat rolled out advertisements in their stories, Instagram has done the same thing to maximize revenue. Now the average person can create their own organic ad with just a few clicks and have it seen by hundreds, thousands and even millions of people depending on how much they want to spend. These ads are lightning quick as they pop up between photos and videos, and you’re likely to see longer ones filling up the gaps in the coming months.

3. More Augmented Reality

Another lesson that Instagram has learned from Snapchat is the use of augmented reality. The filters that Instagram has been using are getting more creative and detailed, and it’s only going to become more extravagant in the future. One main reason for this is because Instagram is part of the Meta platform, which was formerly known as Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has talked at length about extending the use of augmented and virtual reality on Meta, and Instagram plays a big part in that.

2. Reely Cool

Another integration between Facebook and Instagram, Reels videos are a great way to share short form content a la TikTok where the maximum is 90 seconds. There has been some backlash, however, as some of Instagram’s most notable users have called Reels a knockoff, but Meta has insisted that the app feature is here to stay. “We’ll continue to build features that make it easier and more fun to create and share Reels on Instagram,” the app said in a blog about the experiment that is still a work in progress.

1. Affiliate

Have you developed a decently sized following on Instagram but haven’t used it to make yourself some money yet? Now, there’s a way where you can capitalize on your popularity through the Instagram affiliate program. All you have to do is set up the affiliate program through your dashboard and select which companies you want to endorse. From there, you can generate revenue based on sales that were made through clicking on your link, and voila, you have earned yourself affiliate cash.

YouTube is one of the most visited sites on the internet, and for good reason. YouTube gives us all of the entertainment and news we could want in video form, and allows us to get it in an instant, as well as suggested videos from the advanced algorithm. YouTube, in its infancy, was acquired by Google and has been run by the tech giant ever since.

Because of this, Google and YouTube share many of the same privacy settings. There are some things about YouTube that are specific to the site compared to Google in general, though. For starters, YouTube keeps a watch history by default, but you’re able to turn that off whenever you want. You can also pick and choose what videos actually appear in your history or wipe the history altogether. The same is also true for your search history.

As for Google’s link to YouTube, there are a couple of nuances. Google tracks your website and app activity, as well as your location. With this, Google is able to track what would make a good fit for you in terms of advertising. You can turn off web activity, location history and ad personalization through your Google account so that these aren’t tracked.

According to Google, they collect your information to see what ads would be most useful, suggested YouTube videos and people you may want to connect with. Even when you’re not signed into Google, they can still track your history and location to suggest more personalized ads. While it might be scary to hear about how much Google collects while you’re browsing without even knowing it, the information tends to be well secured. Always check your passwords, though, to make sure you were never compromised.

When it comes to who can see your videos, YouTube allows you to change things up a bit instead of having every video be available to the public. You can set your videos to private or unlisted. There’s a slight difference between the two privacy settings of videos.

Unlisted

If someone clicks on your YouTube channel, they won’t be able to see any videos that are unlisted at first. Instead, you’ll have to directly send them a link (or post it online on sites such as Twitter, Reddit, etc.). The only way that someone can see your video without the link is if somebody creates a public playlist and adds your video to that list. This is ideal if you have a video where you’re trying to avoid getting a copyright strike.

Private

Setting a video to private takes things to the next step on YouTube. Like unlisted videos, these videos won’t appear on your public YouTube page, but you can still select who gets to see them. When you upload a video and set it to private, click on the menu on the left side of your screen and select ‘edit.’ From there, you can add a list of email addresses that are able to see your video as a link will be shared with them. Commenting is turned off for private videos, though comments can still be enabled on unlisted videos.

Perhaps more than any other company, Facebook has been at the forefront of internet security and privacy. Who can forget the time when founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke to Congress about the website and its privacy matters. One senator, Ed Markey, even said to Zuckerberg that “Your time of invading our privacy, promoting toxic content and preying on children and teens is over.” This made a lot of people very aware of their privacy on Facebook, and probably caught your attention, as well. So what do you need to know about your privacy and Facebook? Here are some quick facts.

You’re Tracked Even When Logged Out

Have you ever been scrolling through Facebook and you see an advertisement for something that’s almost completely random? That’s because when you’re agreeing to the terms and services for Facebook, you’re consenting to the website tracking your browsing and search histories. This allows them to cater advertising that’s very specific, and you’re likely to see a lot of Amazon links to items that you were thinking about. Even if you don’t have a Facebook account, the company is still able to track that as part of their analytics dealings.

Limit What People Can See

If you only want your closest friends to see what your new Facebook status is or the photos that you’re sharing, you can restrict content from your profile. This is a great tool for those that are in a job hunt and don’t want recruiters seeing pictures of you drinking too many mai tais on your most recent vacation. While on your Facebook profile, click the settings gear in the upper right. From there, choose ‘view privacy shortcuts’ and then ‘see more privacy settings.’ Lastly, click on ‘limit who can see past posts’ and confirm who exactly sees what on your profile.

Two-Factor Authentication

You’ve likely gotten a Facebook Messenger alert from someone that you haven’t talked to in a very long time and the message contains what appears to be an obvious virus link. That’s because countless people have their accounts compromised on Facebook every day to the point where it can be nauseating. No fear, though, as Facebook does have a two-factor authentication option. With this, you’re pretty much guaranteeing yourself that you won’t be hacked and won’t have to start over. Setting it up is easy and can be accessed from the settings tab on your Facebook page.

Avoid the Tag

One of the worst parts of early Facebook was that when someone tagged you, everyone could instantly see it. Whether it’s a bad picture or someone saying something unsavory and including you in the post for some reason, nobody wants to be tagged without knowing. Thankfully, Facebook has a feature where you can review each tag. Head to the privacy tab and then click ‘profile’ and ‘tagging’ to get started. Like that picture of you and your friends having dinner? Go ahead and approve to have it on your profile.

Still worried about where your data might be headed and how it’s going to be used? It’s always going to be a point of conversation when it comes to Facebook. As Zuckerberg once said, though, “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”

When it comes to privacy on the internet, there are certain people and platforms that fall under intense scrutiny. For many years, it was Google and the Facebook (now Meta) platforms. Now, TikTok has emerged to become one of those heavily criticized apps when it comes to your personal data. Owned by ByteDance, TikTok is a Chinese-based app that lets you post short videos to share with friends and followers. It seems harmless enough, but there’s a lot of data collected from TikTok.

In their privacy policy, TikTok says that they collect information that includes how you process payments. That alone makes people nervous as it means the card (or PayPal account) that you use can be accessed easily by TikTok. Then, there’s some of the more standard information that TikTok collects including advertising based data such as location, search history and more. These may all sound alarming, but it’s no different than a lot of the information you’re sharing with Facebook, Google, Instagram and more.

In short, TikTok knows where you are pretty much at all times unless you’re turning off all of the data on your phone and not sharing location information. However, this information can be pulled from other devices that you own and have TikTok installed. This has caught the attention of lawmakers in the United States. “This is a security concern,” said Virginia senator Mark Warner. “It is, quite frankly, a business advantage to the Chinese overall.”

TikTok is one of the many social media platforms that has been at the center of attention for biometric data. This evaluates your physical features from your fingerprints, facial recognition height, weight, and more. Shortly before an executive order was passed in June 2021, TikTok updated their privacy policy to be clear about what information they were obtaining from users. This included images, audio and video, as well as “the existence and location within an image of face and body features and attributes.” While the app’s owners have said that they don’t share the information with the Chinese government, many are still apprehensive. Among all social media sites, TikTok was ranked fourth in terms of data collected.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data,” ByteDance said. “That’s why we hire experts in their fields, continually work to validate our security standards, and bring in reputable, independent third parties to test our defenses.” How effective they truly are at protecting your information and what it’s used for outside of the US is still questioned by many, especially with some that have worked for the company even going as far to say that they don’t know where that data goes.

With that in mind, always be very mindful of what you’re posting on TikTok. Though it’s unlikely for any small user to have their data collected for something sinister, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Senator Warren added when talking about TikTok that “My hope is the (Federal Trade Commission) will respond and we can put in place the kind of privacy protections that, right now, are just not being provided to Americans.”