Media
How Jewellery Brand Mejuri Stays Relevant on Social Media – Canadian Business
If social media has one constant, it’s change. Platforms come (BeReal, anybody?) and go (rest in peace, Vine). Algorithms are as capricious as influencers’ sponsored-post rates, and the churn of content is so rapid that it’s practically guaranteed that a trend will be stale by the time key stakeholders approve a brand’s attempt to catch the viral bandwagon.
At the same time, social media is where customers are—and where they are making purchasing decisions. According to a 2022 study by Sprout Social, two-thirds of consumers have purchased directly through social media. For brands, getting left behind—lingering too long on a platform that’s past its prime or losing followers because content isn’t fresh—could make the difference between whether the business lives or dies.
Most brands recognize the importance of social media for bottom lines: Shopping directly on social is expected to double in the United States by 2025 and reach US$99 billion. That’s why Mejuri, a Canadian fine-jewellery brand, employs three full-time employees whose job is to ensure that the company retains its strong social presence. (Mejuri has a million followers on Instagram alone.) Launched online in 2015 before later opening bricks-and mortar stores, the company has prioritized social media since day one; its target demo—women aged 20 to 40 with disposable income—tend to be among the most active social-media users.
Staying relevant on social media is a never-ending task, says Majed Masad, president and co-founder of Mejuri, explaining that the social team logs a minimum of six hours of screen time daily, consuming content from other brands and creators in order to identify trends. Within the team, everyone has a specialization—one person is more focused on TikTok, for example—but staff pitches in across platforms as needed. This constant monitoring means Mejuri is attuned to changes in its audience’s tastes.
“In the past year, we felt like we needed to shift toward content that was less curated and more ‘real’ and ‘in the moment,’” says Masad. Previously, Mejuri would post more professionally shot product photos. The brand’s feed now features photos of customers and staff sporting Mejuri goods in unfiltered images that look like they were shot on an iPhone.
Mejuri also introduced more video, knowing that this is what younger social-media users are gravitating toward, regardless of the platform. (Eighty-eight per cent of social-media users want more video from brands, according to Sprout Social.) Keeping up with the less curated aesthetic, this means lo-fi Reels instead of the professionally shot campaign videos that once pulled in the likes. Now, the team produce a lot more “on the fly” video content, like footage of staff opening a new store or talking about their favourite items.
“There is purpose behind everything we post,” says Masad. The goal might be attracting new customers or promoting a holiday sale. Sometimes, this looks like an in-depth product explainer for a new drop. Other times, it’s hopping on a trending TikTok sound, which helps content land on users’ “For You Page,” leading to a massive boost in the number of people who see the post. One of Mejuri’s most successful TikTok posts from December—a short video of sparkly rings accompanied by a clip of the popular song “Miracles Happen” from the movie The Princess Diaries—got more than 835,000 views.
Mejuri also uses a tool from Dash Hudson that generates analytics, which can be used to inform future posts. Reach—the number of people who see a post—is a key metric for Mejuri, but so are things like comments or how successfully something leads to a conversion—that is, a sale either directly through a platform like Instagram or a click-through to their e-commerce site.
“Our social strategy is driven primarily by what we predict our target demo is looking for and wants to engage with based on our data analysis,” says Masad. He says the company also draws intel from its in-house consumer-insights team, which tracks purchasing patterns and broader market trends. But it works both ways: “Understanding the type of content our demo interacts with on social media provides insights into their shopping behaviours and decision-making processes.”
Brands often make the mistake of using the same strategy across all social platforms. Content has to make sense for the nuances and particularities of each channel. “TikTok tends to skew younger, and there is more freedom to experiment,” says Masad. “Instagram, on the other hand, tends to be more aesthetics-driven.” The brand’s team tailors its approaches based on what each platform is used for and what the audience likes.
The one thing brands can’t afford to do is just sit back and pray that the algorithm will smile on them. “Similar to any marketing strategy, we constantly have to revisit our approach,” says Masad. “And we have to evolve as platforms and consumers evolve.”
This article appears in print in the winter 2023 issue of Canadian Business magazine. Buy the issue for $7.99 or better yet, subscribe to the quarterly print magazine for just $40.
Media
Henry Winter’s surprise exit a sign of the fracturing evolution of the football media – The Guardian
For more than three decades, English football media was a Winter wonderland. An eternal Winter. Winter extending an icy grip over the landscape. But even Winter, it seems, can end up being frozen out. Given the cold shoulder. It’s time to wrap up for Winter, now this particular Winter’s tale has reached its final chapter.
That, with apologies, was the opening paragraph to a column about Henry Winter’s dismissal by the Times, written in the style of Henry Winter for the Times. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible you haven’t the faintest idea what, or who, I’m talking about. Which to an oblique and probably self-defeating extent is actually the point.
Winter is the chief football writer of the Times, at least until he was suddenly made redundant last week. It was the dismissal heard around the world, if by “the world” you mean “the WhatsApp groups of newspaper sports journalists”. And in a low-key, navel-gazing sort of way, a move that actually tells us quite a lot about how, and through whom, we consume football these days.
Because over his 35 years at the Independent, the Telegraph and the Times, Winter probably became the closest thing football journalism has ever had to a celebrity. Players know him. Managers know him. He was ubiquitous, respected, pretty much untouchable. When the Times hired him they announced the signing with a lavish television advertising campaign. And though he rarely set out to ruffle feathers, when he pursued a cause – the Hillsborough survivors’ fight for justice, or his distaste at the cross on the recent England kit – his voice invariably lent that cause extra weight.
Winter and I were colleagues at the Telegraph for seven years, but our interactions were brief. Invariably he was out on the road: notching up hundreds of games a season, thousands of miles, match reports by the kilo, interviews by the ream, pre-season tours, under-21 tournaments, Friday night Championship games: every waking second of every waking day funnelled into this existence, a career that became a life, and vice versa.
On the writing side you might even describe him as a kind of personal inspiration: a reminder of the timeless virtues of simple, elegant prose. Extremely short sentences. Like these. No unnecessary adjectives, no undue nuance, no pun too excruciating. Barcelona v Chelsea is “the Catalans among the London pigeons”. Birmingham 0-7 Liverpool is “seven-up for Liverpool, grapes of wrath for Steve Bruce”. Mario Götze’s winning goal in the 2014 World Cup final becomes “Mario de Janeiro.” The fans are invariably “wonderful” or “magnificent”.
And what was this existence? Perhaps from a non-industry perspective, the most macabrely fascinating aspect of Winter’s career is the way it represents one of the media’s last concerted attempts to embody what you might term “the authentic voice of football”: authoritative, omniscient, unaffiliated, gospel. Ultra on the streets, Shakespeare on the sheets. And by extension the idea that this sport is a common space, a singular space. That when we watch football we are all essentially watching the same thing, together.
This is, in case you hadn’t noticed, an idea that has been in recession for quite some time, a process that largely mirrors the evolution of the football media as a whole. But for decades it was the way we all received the game: through the giants of television and radio, the doyens of Fleet Street, camel-coated men who offered not so much opinion but judgement. When Alan Hansen said something on Match of the Day, or Brian Woolnough opined in the Sun, it became truth by the very dint of being uttered, by the sheer absence of alternative or dissenting voices.
More latterly that role was assumed by Twitter, a website where – as a friend once memorably described it – journalists could pretend they were celebrities and celebrities could pretend they were journalists. Naturally Winter, with his million-plus followers, was at the vanguard of the migration, holding court in the digital town square, still road-testing those puns, still toasting those magnificent fans.
But, under the surface, the terrain has been fracturing for years: attention and influence draining away not just from traditional newspapers, but from everybody. Even television has lost its power to unite us: its live action now mostly paywalled, its pundits now invariably partisan, its content disposable. What once constituted our shared football space has splintered into a million galaxies: forums and fan media, podcasts and YouTube channels, blogs and specialist websites, Reddit and TikTok, the curated feeds that allow us to view a game through whatever filter we choose: tribal, social, banter, fantasy team.
The old world – a drowned world of traditional gatekeepers and newspaper dukes and lukewarm Gareth Southgate quotes embargoed until 10.30pm Friday – is gone. And perhaps the last people yet to notice are the dwindling few still inside it.
What might an “authentic voice of football” sound like in 2024? What kind of journalist could meaningfully speak to all the sport’s various silos? They would need to be an expert in men’s and women’s football, the game’s social and historical context, geopolitics and finance, transfers and tactics, analytics and sports science, banter and rage, all the major European leagues and quite a few others besides. And, of course, they would be conversant in all the dizzying new languages of visual media, across all conceivable formats and platforms. That person, in case you’re wondering, doesn’t actually exist. It’s all football. But increasingly, it’s too big for any one entity to conceive, let alone cover.
And for the avoidance of doubt, none of this is necessarily a bad thing. For all its inequities and inefficiencies, the landscape of football media is broader and richer place than it has ever been. You have Fabrizio Romano for transfers, Grace Robertson for tactics, Versus for football culture, Stadio podcast for the global game, Mark Goldbridge for performative rants about Erik ten Hag, the Guardian for chin-strokey think-pieces written by the guys picked last at PE. In a way, there has never been a better time to consume football. The garden is blooming. But for spring to begin – and yes, you know it’s coming – first winter has to end.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Media
Pakistan says it blocked social media platform X over ‘national security’ – Al Jazeera English
The platform remained inaccessible to users, but government officials refused to acknowledge any restrictions, until now.
Pakistan blocked access to social media platform X around the time of elections in February, the interior ministry said, citing national security concerns.
Users had reported problems using the platform, formerly known as Twitter, since mid-February, when jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party called for protests against a government official’s admission of vote manipulation.
At the time, both the government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the state regulatory body, refused to comment on the outages that were also widely reported by internet watchdog groups.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Interior mentioned the shutdown in a written court submission.
“It is very pertinent to mention here that the failure of Twitter/X to adhere to the lawful directives of the government of Pakistan and address concerns regarding the misuse of its platform necessitated the imposition of a ban,” said the report, seen by the Reuters news agency, which confirmed the long-suspected shutdown.
“The decision to impose a ban on Twitter/X in Pakistan was made in the interest of upholding national security, maintaining public order, and preserving the integrity of our nation,” the ministry said, according to the report submitted to the Islamabad High Court in a challenge to the shutdown.
It additionally said the platform had been reluctant to resolve the issue.
Activists challenging the ban said it was designed to quash dissent after the February 8 general elections that were marred by widespread opposition claims of vote rigging and protests.
The authorities had shut down mobile services on the day of the elections, citing security concerns. NetBlocks, an internet monitor, also reported that users could not access X on February 10 while the country was awaiting the results.
The decision to temporarily block X was taken after considering confidential reports from Pakistan’s intelligence and security agencies, the report said.
It claimed that “hostile elements operating on Twitter/X have nefarious intentions to create an environment of chaos and instability, with the ultimate goal of destabilising the country and plunging it into some form of anarchy”.
The Sindh High Court on Wednesday ordered the government to restore the platform within one week, the AFP news agency reported, citing lawyer Moiz Jaaferi, who launched a separate challenge against the ban.
Access to X has been sporadic, occasionally available for short cycles based on the internet service provider, forcing users to use virtual private networks, said Alp Toker of NetBlocks.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party is the most prolific user of social media platforms, particularly after the country’s traditional media began censoring news about the former cricket star and his party in the run-up to the polls. Khan has 20.6 million followers on X.
Media
Biden’s dig at Trump Media stock plummet draws laughs from crowd – CNN
Biden’s dig at Trump Media stock plummet draws laughs from crowd
CNN’s Sara Sidner speaks with investigative journalist David Cay Johnston about the latest drop in value of Trump Media stock.
-
Sports16 hours ago
Team Canada’s Olympics looks designed by Lululemon
-
Tech24 hours ago
Motorola's Edge 50 Phone Line Has Moto AI, 125-Watt Charging – CNET
-
Politics21 hours ago
Political interference in Canada’s pension funds is wrong
-
Business15 hours ago
Firefighters battle wildfire near Edson, Alta., after natural gas line rupture – CBC.ca
-
Sports21 hours ago
‘BOTTCHER BOMBSHELL:’ Alberta curling foursome set to move forward without skip
-
News21 hours ago
Freeland tables her fourth federal budget — this time with a tight focus on housing
-
News17 hours ago
Richard Chevolleau Short Film “Marvelous Marvin” Set to go to Camera
-
Investment18 hours ago
Stephen Poloz will lead push to boost domestic investment by Canadian pension funds