Archives par mot-clé : video

Trump delivers ultimatum to House Republicans: Pass health-care measure on Friday or he’ll move on

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President Trump delivered an ultimatum to House Republicans on Thursday night: Vote to approve the measure to overhaul the nation’s health-care system on the House floor Friday, or reject it and the president will move on to his other legislative priorities.

The president, through his aides in a closed-door meeting, signaled that the time for negotiations was over with rank-and-file Republicans who were meeting late at night on Capitol Hill to try to find common ground on the embattled package crafted by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

The move was a high-risk gamble for the president and the speaker, who have invested significant political capital in passing legislation that would replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act. For Trump, who campaigned as a skilled negotiator capable of forging a good deal on behalf of Americans, it could either vindicate or undercut one of his signature claims. If the measure fails, it would be a defeat for Trump in his first effort to help pass major legislation and it may also jeopardize other items on his wish list, including a tax overhaul and infrastructure spending.

Defeat would also mean that Obamacare — something that congressional Republicans have railed against for seven years — would remain in place.

“Disastrous #Obamacare has led to higher costs fewer options. It will only continue to get worse! We must #RepealANDReplace. #PassTheBill,” Trump tweeted from his official presidential account as the meeting was wrapping up Thursday night.

It was far from clear, however, that Ryan and Trump have the votes to muscle the package through the House after several members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus refused to back it following a marathon session of negotiations Thursday with Trump and other top aides.

Post-meeting, a handful of Republicans announced they would back the legislation. But a larger number said they were still opposed or had yet to make up their minds.

“For seven and a half years we have been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace this broken law, because it’s collapsing and it’s failing families,” Ryan said. “And tomorrow we’re proceeding.”

But the speaker refused to answer shouted questions from reporters after the meeting about whether he had the votes for passage.

“They’re going to bring it up, pass or fail,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).

In the meeting with House Republicans on Thursday night, according to Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told his former colleagues “the president needs this, the president has said he wants a vote tomorrow up or down.”

“If for any reason it’s down, we’re just going to move forward with additional parts of his agenda,” Collins described Mulvaney as saying. “This is our moment in time.”

View Graphic How health care amendments appease GOP moderates and hard-liners

A key moment inside the session, several lawmakers said, was when Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a freshman lawmaker who lost both his legs in 2010 while serving as an Army bomb disposal technician in Afghanistan, rose and called on his colleagues to unite behind the bill in the same way he and his comrades fought in battle.

A rowdy group of Republicans burst out of the meeting like explorers on a quest for glory. “Burn the ships,” one Republican shouted to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), invoking the command that Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, gave his men upon landing in Mexico in 1519.

The message was clear, to the GOP leaders now and the Spaniards in 1519, there was no turning back.

“Only way to do it,” Scalise told a packed elevator of lawmakers.

Leaders continued to plead with individual lawmakers to support the measure well into Thursday night, with the House Rules Committee slated to meet early Friday morning to consider the proposed changes.

Ryan got down on a knee to plead with Rep. Don Young, an 83-year-old from Alaska who is the longest-serving Republican in Congress and remains undecided.

When the speaker finished with Young, he spent about 10 minutes in an animated discussion with Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), one of the bill’s most outspoken critics. At one point, the speaker took his own arms and held them up, his hands at face level, then slowly lowered them to his waist — presumably trying to demonstrate his belief that the bill will lower costs.

The ongoing effort to whip the vote, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) said at one point, involved “back-patting and butt-kicking.”

“Democracy’s messy,” he added.

Ryan had intended to bring up his plan for a vote Thursday. But criticism — mainly from conservatives — caused that strategy to unravel after Freedom Caucus members rejected Trump’s offer to strip a key set of mandates from the nation’s current health-care law. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Trump chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon trooped up to Ryan’s office to make the case personally, warning recalcitrant conservatives that the only alternative would be to accept the ACA as the law of the land.

By evening, leaders adopted the proposed change conservatives had rebuffed earlier, eliminating the law’s “essential benefits” that insurers must offer under the ACA in an effort to reduce premium costs. Those benefits include covering mental-health treatment, wellness visits, and maternity and newborn care, and states would have the option of adding them back next year.

They also added one sweetener for moderates, a six-year delay in repealing a 0.9 percent additional Medicare tax on high-income Americans who earn above $200,000 if filing individually, or $250,000 if married and filing jointly. By keeping the tax in place, GOP leaders could provide an additional $15 billion to the states to help cover treatment for mental health and substance abuse issues, as well as maternity and infant care.

Meanwhile, a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office released Thursday evening showed that changes House leaders made to the bill Monday do not alter a projection that 24 million more Americans would be uninsured by 2026 under the bill. In addition, the updated bill would cut the deficit by $150 billion over the next decade — nearly $200 billion less than the earlier version of the legislation.

The changes include a couple of conservative overhauls to the Medicaid program and language directing that $85 billion be used to help Americans ages 50 to 64 obtain coverage.

It was unclear how the new CBO score would affect legislative support for the bill.

But it was lawmakers on the right eager to dismantle the current health-care law who remained GOP leaders’ biggest problem.

“I’m still a ‘no’ on the bill,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who chairs the Freedom Caucus. “I think it’s the president leading, and I applaud him for leading.”

Some key moderates are also against the bill. Rep. Dan Donovan (R-N.Y.), who has known Trump for decades and whose Staten Island district swung heavily toward the Republican candidate, left the meeting committed to voting no.

“I’ve got to think about the 744,000 people I represent,” he said. Asked about the White House’s message that killing the bill would leave no more chances for repeal, he shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said during an appearance Thursday night on Fox News that the president remained confident the bill would pass.

“At the end of the day, this is the only train leaving the station that’s going to repeal Obamacare,” he said, adding that Trump always knew winning a majority would be tough.

“I think we’re going to see the same level of success” as in last year’s campaign, Spicer said. “He’s left nothing in the field.”

Trump devoted much of his day to personally lobbying members. Speaking to a group of trucking executives and employees at a White House event aimed at showing how the ACA had driven up the industry’s costs, Trump joked that he did not have much time to mingle.

“I’m not going to make it too long, because I have to get votes,” Trump said, sparking laughter. “I don’t want to spend too much time with you. I’m going to lose by one vote, and then I’m going to blame the truckers.”

This high-wire balancing act, in which Republicans are catering to conservatives in the House with the knowledge that they still must woo moderates to get legislation to Trump’s desk, could not only reshape the nation’s health-care system but could also have uncertain electoral repercussions for the new majority.

GOP leaders can afford only 21 or 22 defections, depending on how many Democrats are present Friday.

But with failure not a viable option, Ryan and Trump have been working furiously to win over the large voting bloc of conservatives who control the House bill’s fate.

Passage of the bill would represent a major political victory for both the White House and House leaders, although the ultimate fate of the legislation hinges on the Senate. There are at least a dozen skeptics of the bill among Senate Republicans, who maintain a slim 52-to-48 advantage, and many of them want to maintain some of the current law’s more generous spending components.

Democrats relished the GOP’s predicament. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who had scheduled a 4 p.m. rally against the bill, turned it into a short-term declaration of victory.

“Remember, they wanted to have their repeal and replace ready when Trump was inaugurated,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). “Now, here we are — they don’t have it, again. They’re looking for a sweet spot, and they won’t find one.”

Former president Barack Obama, for his part, issued a statement noting that more than 20 million Americans have gained coverage since he signed the law in 2010, while the rise in health-care costs has slowed. The statement came on the seventh anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act — a day that Republicans had hoped to mark by dismantling it.

“So the reality is clear: America is stronger because of the Affordable Care Act,” Obama said, adding that Republicans are welcome to work with Democrats to improve the law. “But we should start from the baseline that any changes will make our health-care system better, not worse, for hard-working Americans. That should always be our priority.”

[A question about the impact of the ACA and beyond elicits almost 1,200 answers]

David Weigel, Kelsey Snell, John Wagner, Paul Kane, Ed O’Keefe and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

AT&T, Verizon, other US brands join Google blacklisting

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Dive Brief:

  • ATT, Verizon, Johnson Johnson and other major U.S. companies are pulling their advertisements from Google and Google’s YouTube video portal over issues with the platforms’ brand safety assurances, according to USA Today and a number of other media outlets. Ads have continued to appear alongside extremist content featuring terrorists, hate speech and acts of violence, especially on YouTube. 
  • Last week, Havas Worldwide, the world’s sixth-largest ad holding group, halted all of its Google ad spend in the U.K., joining the U.K. government, major media organizations like The Guardian and the BBC and brands including Marks Spencer.
  • On Tuesday, Google apologized for its failures to ensure brand safety and said it was enacting a tougher stance on offensive content and ads appearing next to illegitimate creators on YouTube. The tech company suggested it would provide new tools to advertisers and is hiring « significant numbers » of people to bolster the content review process.  

Dive Insight:

While Google’s brand safety backlash initially appeared contained to the U.K. and European ad market, the announcements from major U.S. brands indicate it’s spreading quickly, which might spur the company to take more significant action or enact broader policy reviews.

Earlier this week, Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser, writing in an investor note that downgraded Google parent Alphabet’s stock, suggested that the movement against Google would have global repercussions, with those forecasts coming true perhaps faster than expected. 

Google is the world’s largest digital advertising platform. Research from industry bellwether eMarketer suggests the company will command 40.7% of all U.S. digital ad revenue this year, with dominance in key areas like search and display advertising continuing to grow. If more advertisers — and especially U.S.-based advertisers — continue to put a freeze on Google spending, however, those prospects could be damaged, perhaps considerably. 

Though Google has promised to introduce more tools for advertisers and admitted it doesn’t always get things right, some critics have viewed its reactive measures as inadequate for addressing what’s clearly an industry-wide problem. 

Matt Brittin, Google’s head in Europe, was recently given several chances to state his company would actively seek out extremist content rather than solely investigating content flagged by users as inappropriate, but declined to commit to such a policy.

Ask the Pro: Video Marketing Campaigns

Video Marketing,

Q: I want to start a Video Marketing Campaign, but I’m not sure where to start?

A: KUDOS to you for being on top of what leading marketing companies predict to be the most effective way to reach consumers in 2017. Digital Marketers predict that by 2020, 75% of all video will be viewed on the Internet, surpassing TV. So, where do you place your video ad? The answer is easy, where there is an audience. Here are a few options:

1) YouTube – This platform reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any other cable network in the U.S.  With over 1 billion users, the audience views hundreds of millions of hours of videos DAILY. YouTube offers a “True View” campaign, meaning you’re guaranteed a set number of videos viewed completely. Something to keep in mind, YouTube announced in February 2017 that by early 2018, they will eliminate the 30-second unskippable ads and the only unskippable ads will only be 6- or 20-seconds length. Another alternative is to channel target, which allows you to target users searching within your business category.

2) FACEBOOK – Facebook video posts have increased 94% annually in the U.S. and nearly 100 million hours of video is viewed DAILY. Much of this increase is due to the Facebook LIVE feature. Best practice is a sponsored video post. Something to note, Facebook also announced a few changes coming in 2018. First, they’ll launch videos with automatic sound (right now, you don’t have sound unless you tap the video). Second, they will add a feature allowing in-view thumbnail videos to play in the lower right corner as you scroll (similar to YouTube) and finally, Facebook is testing mid-roll advertisements within LIVE videos.

3) NATIONAL NETWORK PRE-ROLL – One thing is certain with the WEB, there are NO geographic boundaries, which means the next “viral” video could come from anywhere. With this network, you can run a pre-roll video ad on across various national websites/apps, like Fox News, and WebMD, but geo-target it to serve to viewers in your market only.

4) LOCAL NEWS MEDIA SITE – Finally, you can reach a LARGE local audience using the local news media sites. The Herald Review’s website is a perfect opportunity to reach a large audience as we have over 350,000 unique users each month that view over 100,000 pages DAILY. Your video ad runs mid-story or as pre-roll and you’ll reach a very engaged LOCAL audience.

MORAL OF THE STORY, perhaps it really is true that VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR. But don’t sit by and weep about it, embrace the change and beat your competitors to the table. Call me today, even if you don’t have a video ready, we’ll get it ready.

*Statistics: businessinsider.com (Feb 2017) YouTube.com (Feb 2017)

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A Modern Guide to Social Media Content Marketing, Part 4: Facebook

Video Marketing,

This is the fourth installment in a five-part series of articles focusing on best practices to up your content marketing game on the “big four” of social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Catch up on the first, second and third  installments, and stay tuned for the final Instagram installment. Share your own favorite tips in the comments—we’d love to hear from you.

Facebook is the Goliath of social media networks. It has the broadest reach of any social network—79 percent of Americans use it, and more than 1 billion users globally log in every day.

Here it’s crucial to cut through the clutter. That’s something you can achieve with consistent messaging and branding, by leveraging Facebook’s unique features, and with effective ad targeting.

Images and video are more important on Facebook than status updates, with more than 100 million hours of video watched every day.

Some products and services lend themselves to visual marketing more than others, but there is always an angle. Even if you aren’t selling something tangible, show someone using or explaining it.

Many brands are also starting to incorporate Facebook Live to reach larger audiences in real-time with live question-and-answer sessions, webinars or product demos.

The features beyond likes that can work for you

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the service and tools offered by Facebook, but these are a few unique features that can help marketers make their brand stand out:

  • Social customer service: Nothing looks worse on a brand’s Facebook page than a series of unaddressed complaints from users. Failing to address questions and complaints frustrates customers and leaves a detailed record of how poorly you performed. Facebook’s Bots for Messenger is a social customer-service tool that helps to answer questions quickly, freeing up staff resources and making customers happy. Marketers can program chat bots to answer common customer questions, essentially creating an automated customer-service page.
  • Dark posts: Although they sound ominous, “dark” just means that these posts don’t appear on your Timeline and only get inserted into the News Feeds of users you picked based on the demographics you’re interested in. This provides the opportunity to create highly targeted messaging to each of your segments without spamming followers with a multitude of posts. For example, even in a general segment of “qualified sales leaders,” you can split that segment into subsegments by gender, age or geography, and create ads designed for each group. You can then test multiple versions of ad copy and imagery to determine which version performs best with whom.

Ad objectives

There are many metrics that Facebook offers to show you that a post or ad campaign is “working.” Reach, click-throughs, impressions, comments and likes are all metrics used to evaluate social media success. However, rather than just chasing likes, it’s important to ensure that your ad objectives are aligned with what your actual business goals are.

As far as targeting goes, Facebook’s pixel and custom audiences allow you to gain rich insights about how people use your website, measure results better and build audiences for targeting. After installing the pixel on your site, Facebook will start building a pool of people who have visited your site. These audiences are created separately from your ads, so you can choose when and who to advertise to.

Facebook also allows you to input a user list or pull data from people who interact with your page and find others who are just like them—this is called a lookalike audience. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of ad targeting, but you should make sure to compare the results from lookalike campaigns with other types of targeting.

Note: be wary of interest targeting, which is essentially the social version of a cold call. Likes and clicks can be made by a user for any reason—it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are interested in those particular pages or ads.

Ad formats

Facebook offers a variety of creative ad options you can select. Here’s a rundown of which option to select based on your campaign goals and the audience you’re trying to reach:

  • Carousel ads: This ad offers up to five clickable cards per ad, providing the opportunity to play with imagery, copy links and calls to action. The best part is that you can select the option to automatically put the best-performing images first.
  • Single image: Single-image ads are simple, straightforward and get results. They are also a fast way to draw attention and require little production.
  • Single video: 47 percent of a Facebook video’s value is delivered in the first three seconds, so you have to make an impression fast to hold a viewer’s attention. Also, 85 percent of videos are watched without sound, so focus on telling your story through compelling visuals.
  • Slideshow: This ad option allows you to use stock images, sound and text, and it is a great way to produce a video without equipment or editing experience. Slideshows also require less cellular data to play, which makes them a good choice if you’re targeting users in areas with slower wireless connections.
  • Canvas: These mobile-optimized ads are immersive and interactive, and they expand to the entire mobile screen when clicked on. If you have the design resources, here’s your chance to truly make your brand stand out on mobile.

Whoever you are and whatever your brand seeks to sell or do, if it isn’t on Facebook, it might as well not exist. When it comes to social, Facebook is king. How will you use it to your advantage?

Next up: Instagram.

Ulrik Bo Larsen is founder and CEO of social media management software-as-a-service platform Falcon.io.

Effective Digital Marketing Approaches For Growing Your Business

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Business growth is directly proportional to profits recorded. Traditional marketing approaches are fading away. However, you can now count on current digital marketing methods for your business to gain traction. To get the best from digital advertising services, you need to turn to professional firms or agencies. Such agencies specialize in marketing brands and products digitally.

Clients always expect results when they invest in a service. Professional marketers understand this need. Therefore, the first step in delivering their services involves interviewing you to understand your business model and needs. This approach lays the perfect groundwork for developing a comprehensive, integrated and specific approach to an effective marketing strategy. The following strategies will aim at improving your return on investment.

Search Engine Optimization

You must have encountered the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) if you are venturing into online space. This strategy for cementing your online presence as a business plays a big role in a successful SEO campaign. SEO is broad and entails many aspects. However, a reputable SEO expert like LeadtoConversion.com will be sure to develop and follow a well-defined step-by-step approach in optimizing your website for search engines.

The initial steps involved in using SEO as a digital marketing strategy include an evaluation of your website and analysis of your competitors’ sites. These steps determine how to conquer your competition using other SEO steps. For instance, the information gathered in the initial steps will help in keyword research, social media optimization, link development, page optimization and the creation of high-quality content through blogger outreach services. The correct combination and execution of these steps will lead to a successful SEO campaign as you watch your website record high ranking, impressive traffic and increased online visibility.

Video Marketing

The use of videos for marketing products and improving website ranking has seen a boom recently. This could be because of shifting online marketing approaches. A closer look at video marketing would show a high possibility of engagement from the target and potential clients. Such interactivity results from the ease of video integration on websites and the addition of social media sharing buttons.

Working with professional marketers also increases the chances of boosting your search engine ranking. For example, the production phase ensures the video quality and content are impressive. Uploading such videos to established video sharing platforms will help your business capitalize on their ranking power to leap over your competition.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

The aim of marketing and advertising your products and services is to generate sales. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising can help your business achieve that objective.

To achieve the best results with PPC advertising, your hired experts will rely on various approaches. Initially, using different approaches will make it possible to determine those that are most cost-effective while recording conversions. Thus, your business will be in a position to continue using the most effective PPC advertising method and can eliminate the rest.

Content Marketing

Content marketing still plays an important role in gathering highly targeted traffic. While content marketing might leverage video marketing, social media and sometimes SEO to push informative content, the fact that you are adding value to your niche and not necessarily making a sale makes it quite different.

You will be counting on the easy to distribute and share content to build you reputation in your market. The idea behind content marketing is using all the other marketing platforms to push your high quality content to a specific audience with the hopes of attracting a loyal following.

To succeed, you will need rigorous market needs research to ensure that you know what your target audience is or would be interested in. After this, write engaging content that addresses all the neglected problems under that topic in an interesting and authoritative way. You want to create a memorable experience, one that will push your brand beyond.

Noteworthy, other digital marketing methods also exist. They include:

  • Email marketing
  • Content marketing
  • Social SEO
  • Local SEO

Having a sit-down with a marketing agency forms the basis for a successful push for your business online. Tangible return on investment will justify the decision to hire experts to market your brand.

Social Media Marketing

At a time when social media seems to cut through every aspect to potential clients, social media marketing should be very beneficial. Professional marketers will use this strategy to propel your business or brand to the next level. The main idea behind this strategy is to establish a strong social media presence and to develop creative ways of encouraging interaction.

To succeed in this strategy, expert digital marketers understand how to develop and fine-tune contests and promotions on different social media platforms. This approach relies on the viral nature of spreading information among social media users. Since the fine-tuned and custom campaign revolves around your business, the results will be in terms of measurable ROI and an increased customer base.