December 2022 - Page 2 of 9

Episode 1952 Scott Adams: Everything You Suspected About Twitter Was True And Worse Than You Thought

Content:

Kyrsten Sinema quits democrats
TikTok worries 2/3 of the public
Brittney Griner prisoner swap
Bari Weiss Twitter Files report
Twitter shadowbanning
Ted Lieu’s word salad
If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

10 Most Popular Psychology Studies Of 2022

Happy holidays to all PsyBlog readers!

Many thanks to everyone who has supported PsyBlog over the years.

Paid memberships mean PsyBlog can keep exploring the science of the mind, as straightforwardly as a complex topic will allow.

So here, dear readers, are the 10 most popular members-only articles from PsyBlog in 2022.

This is what you voted for with your clicks over the year — and very good (if unconscious) choices they are too!

Happy holidays to all PsyBlog readers!

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What it Means to be “A Good Person” in Business

Thanks to the popular clothing line, you’ve probably seen this shirt admonishing anyone who sees it to be a good person. (What exactly it means to be a good person takes much more than a sentence to explain or understand, but It is a nice sentiment.) I’m not sure how many bad people are converted when they see the shirt but it is at least a good reminder.

There are many ways to be a good person, but how might that apply in the world of business and work?

“He is a good person” or “She is a good person.” When I say that about someone I’m doing business with, that is high praise so I’ll explain what I mean:

First, a good person is good at what they do. They are competent and more. They know the work they do, and they do it well consistently.

Second, they are good at who they are. They have a good heart. They are civil, kind and caring. It goes beyond courteous, which can be done rotely. Their demeanor demonstrates that they have a positive disposition toward the people they work with and serve.

Simple, yes. But increasing, these two things seem to be an uncommon combination.

I encounter nice people who can’t or won’t do their jobs. If they can’t, shame on their employer for having them in the wrong role or not providing the right training. If they won’t, shame on them for thinking that being nice is enough and gives them a free pass from the need to be competent.

Then there is the competent person who gets the job done which makes you happy, but when you no longer have to interact with them you are even happier. They lack humanity. You don’t get a sense of warmth, of being nice. Their basic orientation communicates that it is only about the job, not the people they interact with.

If you’re an employer, you want to find and hire the good person. If you’ve got competent employees, you need to focus on not just the job they do but how they do it and how they make people feel. If you’ve got nice people not getting the job done, help them become competent or free them to pursue other opportunities where they can be both courteous and competent.

If you’re a leader, service rep, sales professional–whatever you do–focus on both the job your do and the humanity you bring to your interactions with others. Not only will you be more valued and appreciated, but you’ll likely find that a better way to do business that enriches your life, too.

Be a good person wherever and whenever you can, but start by being a good person at work.

Mark Sanborn is an award winning speaker, leadership strategist and Leadership Expert in Residence at High Point University, the Premier Life Skills University. He also advises executives and professional speakers on how to speak more powerfully. For more information about his work,…

Episode 1953 Scott Adams: Let’s Talk About Those New Twitter Revelations. Were Laws Broken?

Content:

Twitter Files & cognitive dissonance
Twitter throttling & suppression
Making up rules on the fly
Bad analysis to Twitter Files
Were crimes committed?
If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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5 Essential Skills to Include on Your Digital Marketing Resume

Digital marketing specialists are in high demand, making 2023 the year to kickstart your digital marketing career. According to LinkedIn, five out of ten jobs posted on the platform are in the digital space.
But, whether you’re a seasoned digital marketer or at the beginning of your career, you’ll need to showcase the following five critical digital marketing skills on your resume to secure a job in 2023.

1. Digital analysis

Digital analysis involves tracking and measuring the performance of a digital marketing campaign by leveraging data. It’s the only way you can tell which marketing strategies are working and which ones you need to course-correct.

There are numerous different digital analytics tools out there to help you perform such analyses and optimize your digital marketing strategy. In 2023, you should have a working knowledge of top analytical tools such as:

Google Analytics
Hotjar
Adobe Analytics
Clicky
Hootsuite

Digital analysis is key to making informed, strategic marketing decisions, so list these tools in your skills section when you make your resume to ensure that hiring managers immediately see that you fulfill the basic requirements of the role.

2. Graphic design

Graphic design skills like creating infographics, animations, and visuals empower you to present content in different engaging formats. Graphic design gives you an additional creative channel to incorporate more visual content in your marketing campaigns. It’s why over 50% of digital marketers say that visual content is very important to their marketing strategies.

And with more companies looking to integrate visuals into their online marketing campaigns, having basic graphic design skills increases your competitiveness on the job market.

Graphic design skills also come in handy when designing social media presentations to pitch to new clients or to present to an audience at a conference.

Use platforms like Canva, Domestika, or Udemy to brush up on your design skills.

3. Strategic planning

Given the dynamic and fast-paced nature of online marketing, you must first lay out a strategy before initiating a campaign. Any successful digital marketing campaign is grounded by a well-thought-out digital marketing strategy, and strategic planning involves:

Setting and defining SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals
Audience research
Reviewing past and current campaigns
Integrating data into your approach

If you’re an experienced digital marketer, use your resume’s experience section to provide employers with examples of fruitful digital marketing campaigns you’ve completed in the past. Make sure to emphasize how strategic planning contributed to their success.

Or, if you’re new to the field, give examples of times when you applied your strategic planning skills in previous positions to achieve positive results. Look at digital marketing cover letter templates online to get a better idea of how to frame your experience…

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The Vitamin Deficiency That May Double Cognitive Decline Risk

Those in the study with lower vitamin levels at the start were at double the risk of significant cognitive decline.

Low vitamin D levels increase the risk of cognitive decline and impairment among the elderly, research suggests.

Those in the study with lower vitamin D levels at the start were at double the risk of significant cognitive decline.

Older people with low vitamin D levels were also at two to three times the risk of going on to develop cognitive impairment later on.

Vitamin D is primarily produced in the body by the action of sunlight on the skin.

Vitamin D is important in maintaining healthy bones and muscles, as well as brain function.

It may be that vitamin D protects against neuron damage and loss.

Other studies have also linked low vitamin D levels to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative problems, such as dementia.

The conclusions come from a study of over 1,000 people in China over the age of 60.

Their vitamin D levels and cognitive abilities were assessed over two years.

The study’s authors write:

“In conclusion, our longitudinal study indicates that low 25(OH)D3 [vitamin D] levels are associated with subsequent cognitive decline and cognitive impairment.

Despite the lack of conclusive results from intervention studies, the weight of this and other epidemiological studies reinforce the importance of more intensive investigation on the effects of vitamin D supplements on cognitive decline.”

The study found the same link between low vitamin D levels and cognitive impairment regardless of age and gender.

Professor David Matchar, the study’s first author, said:

“Although this study was conducted on subjects from China, the results are applicable to regions in Asia where a large proportion of the elderly are ethnically Chinese, like Singapore.”

Getting enough vitamin D

During the darker months, taking 10 mcg of a vitamin D supplement is often recommended.

Another option is to ensure that your diet has enough vitamin D in it.

Foods that contain relatively high amounts of vitamin D include sardines, salmon, mackerel and herring.

Other foods high in vitamin D include egg yolks, liver, mushrooms and red meat.

Cereals and spreads are also typically fortified with vitamin D.

The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences (Matchar et al., 2022).

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Why Content Marketing is the Only Marketing Left

With more people using ad-blocking software to shut out unsolicited ads, the future looks bleak for marketers. But content marketing is the silver lining. And there are many reasons why the future is bright.

Traditional marketing relies on outbound systems. It’s about reaching out to consumers to interest them in your product. This approach subjects consumers to marketing messages they don’t want.

Content marketing is inbound. It’s about creating and sharing content that helps consumers achieve their goals without asking for anything in return. Who can say no to free help?

Consumers can now research their challenges online, increasing content’s value. When you share information that helps consumers live better, they will keep coming back for more. And when they need a product or service you deal in, they’ll naturally choose you over your competitors.

What’s the Purpose of Content Marketing?

The purpose of content marketing depends on the brand and where the consumer is in their customer journey. Here are some of the things content marketing does.

Gives Consumers Information They Need

The right content can help clarify a consumer’s thoughts so that they can make an informed decision. Regardless of the content type, the goal should be to feed your audience the information they need to get out of a jam or crush a milestone. Do this long enough, and your audience will see your brand as a source of truth.

Creates Brand Awareness

Content marketing increases your reach. Consistently sharing your knowledge and resources will improve awareness of your brand.

Some consumers of your content will share your posts with their family and friends. Some will share them on their social media channels and in their communities.

Brand awareness is your first step toward converting prospects because nobody buys from a brand they don’t know.

Generates Interest in Your Brand and Products

Many entrepreneurs expect the world to jump at their businesses when they launch. But your business won’t get traction if you don’t work to generate interest around it. Content marketing gives you the power to do that.

While sharing content that makes life better for your audience, find natural opportunities to show how your products or services will help them achieve their goals.

Inspires Audience Engagement

Once you start sharing valuable content on your blog, social media, or newsletter, responses will follow. While not everyone will agree with what you post, sharing your knowledge will engage your audience, which keeps your brand top of mind.

Increases Sales

Once your content marketing strategy and execution are effective, it’s only a matter of time before the attention you’re garnering starts translating into sales. The more people know and engage with your brand, the more value they’ll attach to your content, and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you.

Why is Content Marketing So Important?

Content marketing is…

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Learning To Love Your Body Can Triple Weight Loss

This vital weight loss technique is nothing to do with diet and exercise.

Learning to love your body, however it looks, can triple weight loss efforts, research finds.

Dieters in the study learned to be less concerned about their size and weight and other people’s opinions of them.

They were also encouraged to think that how their body looks is not as important as they think.

Happily, the researchers found, people with an improved body image, automatically eat more healthily.

The study shows that hating your own body is one of the biggest barriers to weight loss.

It is well-known that people who are overweight often have body image problems.

Overcoming these problems — especially worrying about what other people think — is hugely beneficial to weight loss.

For the study, 239 overweight women followed a standard program of diet and exercise for one year.

Half were given a special course designed to improve their body image.

This included sessions on the emotional aspects of losing weight.

This is because some overweight people tend towards emotional eating.

Emotional eating means that negative moods trigger bouts of eating to feel better, rather than eating to satiate hunger.

The women were also encouraged to love their bodies, whatever its size and shape.

The results showed that those who improved their body image lost an average of 7 percent — more than triple the weight loss of the control group.

Dr Pedro Teixeira, study co-author, said:

“Body image problems are very common amongst overweight and obese people, often leading to comfort eating and more rigid eating patterns, and are obstacles to losing weight.

Our results showed a strong correlation between improvements in body image, especially in reducing anxiety about other people’s opinions, and positive changes in eating behavior.

From this we believe that learning to relate to your body in healthier ways is an important aspect of maintaining weight loss and should be addressed in every weight control program.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (Carraça et al., 2011).

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3 Ways to Trust Yourself

Learn to not trust yourself.

Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman teaches you can’t trust yourself.

“… we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”

Trusting yourself is reliable when addressing personal values. Other than that, don’t trust yourself. Self-distrust protects you from cognitive bias.

Don’t trust yourself most of the time.

Daniel Kahneman quotes:

“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”

“The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.”

“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”

“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”

“An unbiased appreciation of uncertainty is a cornerstone of rationality–but it is not what people and organizations want.”

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”

3 ways to trust yourself:

#1. Practice confident self-doubt.

Consistently whisper to yourself, “I could be wrong.” or, “They could be right.”

#2. Summarize your position before discussion.

Before teams discuss an issue, ask each member to write a summary of their position. “The standard practice of open discussions gives too much weight to the opinions of those who speak early and assertively, causing others to line up behind them.” Kahneman

3. Develop three options.

Eliminate the practice of binary decisions. “Yes or no,” speeds simple decisions. Decisions become choices when you develop several options.

“… when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.” Kahneman

How might people practice healthy self-doubt?

Self-Deception: Feeling Right and Being Wrong

Why Leaders Don’t Think Straight

Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

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What Services Should I Offer As a Copywriter?

Copywriters are a rare breed of freelancer. Not only do we have extensive knowledge of marketing but we geek out on the principles of human psychology, and have a flair for the written word in a way that allows us to sell in a cool and sophisticated way…

And because of that… we tend to sort of be good at… a lot of things? Or at least that’s what your clients probably think.

If you think about it, sometimes the actual role of a copywriter can get a little fuzzy at times. With clients expecting you to act as a copywriter one day, a content writer the next day, and a full-blown marketing strategist the day after that!

So the question is this: where do you draw the line?

As a copywriter, what jobs should you actually be doing?

Well, the great thing about being a freelance copywriter is that you can offer whatever you want… or don’t want to do!

When I started my business I often offered additional services above and beyond copywriting to get my foot in the door. Today, any clients who hire my agency get copy and consulting, that’s it.

So while your goal might be to get to a point where ALL you do is write words in documents and send them over to your clients, it’s entirely possible to expand your job scope to gain experience and build client relationships.

So in this article I’m going to be breaking down the common roles and responsibilities that a copywriter fulfills, BUT I’m also going to share the additional services that you can take on as a copywriter…

To not only better serve your clients, but to also put more of dat money in your pocket!

Hey Posse, it’s Alex! Coming at ya this week with another blog by request!

My DMs are typically full of messages from my community and I often get asked these TWO questions…

The first typically comes from people who haven’t taken the plunge into copywriting just yet, and are wondering what exactly it is that a copywriter does…

And the second comes from relatively new copywriters who are dealing with clients that expect them to be a jack-of-all-trades, and they’re wondering what exactly they should be doing…

So if you fall into one of those two categories… then leave me a comment up below, because this blog is for YOU.

And if you’re new to the crew – WELCOME! I put out a new marketing, copywriting, or mindset blog every single week. So leave your email below to get more articles like this one.

So if you’ve ever wondered what a copywriter actually DOES or what freelancing services you can offer clients as a beginner copywriter, here are 16 ways you can start making more money in your business.

Take out a pen…

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