For the third year in a row, Socially Aware co-editor Aaron Rubin and I attended SXSW Interactive, which arguably has become the premier annual gathering for the global tech community. But this year, SXSW Interactive had a very different vibe to it than in the prior two years. In the past, a spirit of boundless optimism infused the event. A sense existed that there is no problem that could not be solved through technological…

Donald Trump’s successful road to the White House was fueled by heated rhetoric against free trade deals and U.S. companies engaged in offshore outsourcing. Underpinning his slogan “Make America Great Again” was a premise that millions of jobs lost to other countries should and could return to the United States. The president’s ambitious goals include the creation of 25 million new jobs over 10 years. Central to the plan is adjusting trade policies—either scrapping them…

This Friday, January 13, in New York City, Socially Aware will be co-sponsoring and attending Influence + Engage 2017, a conference hosted by The Social Edge that will explore the intersection of social influence and audience engagement. With a keynote to be given by one of the world’s highest profile social media influencers, George Takei, the conference will include panel discussions on cutting-edge social-media-marketing issues such as how to manage the consequences of algorithms and filter bubbles…

We’re delighted to publish our Social Media Safety Guide for Companies, which highlights key considerations to keep in mind in using social media to promote your company’s products and services and to engage with customers. Social media has been referred to as the greatest development for marketers since the printing press, but the benefits of social media are not risk free; indeed, many companies have run into serious legal problems in their rush to take…

Earlier this year, I helped moderate a lively panel discussion on social media business and legal trends. The panelists, who represented well-known brands, didn’t agree on anything. One panelist would make an observation, only to be immediately challenged by another panelist. Hoping to generate even more sparks, I asked each panelist to identify the issue that most frustrated him or her about social media marketing. To my surprise, the panelists all agreed that online trolls…

The Internet contains over 4.6 billion Web pages, most of which are accessible for free, making content that we used to have to pay for—news, videos, games—available without having to hand over a credit card number. What makes all of this possible is online advertising. As Internet industry commentator Larry Downes has noted, “If no one views ads, after all, advertisers will stop paying for them, and without ads the largely free content…

Social media has allowed aspiring authors, musicians, filmmakers and other artists to publish their works and develop a fan base without having to wait to be discovered by a publishing house, record label or talent agency. And that seems to have made at least modest celebrity easier to achieve. The financial rewards that we usually equate with fame, however, might be just as elusive as they were in the pre-Internet age—perhaps even more so, in…