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An analysis of 300k domains found LLMs.txt file adoption is low and has no measurable link to AI citation frequency. The post LLMs.txt Shows No Clear Effect On AI Citations, Based On 300k Domains appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. I'm a big fan of Aura's digital picture frames. They look great, and it make it easy to casually see all of the pictures that might otherwise get lost in your Photos app. Ahead of Black Friday, some stores are selling Aura frames at a pretty steep discount. That includes Amazon, which has the Aura Carver Mat frame for 22% off. That means you can buy it right now for $139, down from $179. Aura Digital Picture Frame $139.00 at Amazon $179.00 Save $40.00 Get Deal Get Deal $139.00 at Amazon $179.00 Save $40.00 There are a couple things that I really like about Aura's frames in particular. First is the ease of use: You can add your photos to the frame via Aura's app, which is convenient for adding new pictures as you take them. In my house, we usually add new photos after parties, weekends away with friends, or long trips. It's nice to walk into the kitchen and see the pictures you just took, alongside your usual favorites. If you've gifted the frame to someone else, the app lets you add pictures to their frame from afar. The Aura frame also just looks nice. You won't be tricked into thinking this is a real picture frame, mind you. However, it doesn't just look like a mini computer screen on your desk. It looks and feels classy, and the image quality is excellent. I also appreciate how the backlight compensates for the lighting in your room: When the sun's bright, your frame gets brighter. As the sun sets, your frame dims as well. And when all the lights are out in your room, the frame automatically turns off. My favorite feature, however, is the small touchpad at the top of the frame. This is an easy feature to miss: If you run your finger along the top edge, you can swipe back and forth between photos. It's great if you want to see another photo that Aura recently swapped out, or you want to skip one you don't feel like looking at right now. Plus, it's tucked away, so the frame doesn't clutter itself up with buttons. Speaking of which, the touchpad doubles as a button if you long-press it. You'll be able to choose whether to exclude a photo from the current collection, or to turn off the frame entirely. While I personally love my Carver Mat Aura frame, Amazon has early Black Friday deals on a host of different Aura models, if you're looking for something different. Our Best Editor-Vetted Early Black Friday Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $219.99 (List Price $249.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $279.99 (List Price $349.00) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $69.99 (List Price $139.99) Sony WH-1000XM5 — $248.00 (List Price $399.99) Blink Outdoor 4 1080p Wireless Security Camera (5-Pack) — $159.99 (List Price $399.99) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $24.99 (List Price $49.99) NEW Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones — $298.00 (List Price $429.00) Shark AI Ultra Matrix Clean Mapping Voice Control Robot Vacuum with XL Self-Empty Base — $249.99 (List Price $599.00) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $349.99 (List Price $399.00) Western Digital 14TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive — $169.99 (List Price $279.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

In our consumer driven culture, where the cost of goods is soaring, one of the most radical things you can do this Black Friday is not to buy anything. That’s the message from “Mass Blackout,” a coalition of grassroots groups that are protesting the The President administration’s policies and urging you not to participate in this year’s extended Black Friday sales. starting the day before Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26) until the day after Cyber Monday, (Tuesday, December 2). There’s also a second boycott underway targeting Amazon, Target and Home Depot called “We Ain’t Buying It” around the same time. Don’t think boycotts work? Just look at Target, which just reported another lackluster quarter and declining sales, partially due to customer backlash and a boycott from customers after a rollback of DEI policies. The idea of buying locally, or from businesses aligned with your politics, isn’t all that radical. In fact, many Canadians have started to banning American products, and only buying “locally,” as the “Buy Canadian” movement has drawn record participation as a reaction to The President’s high tariffs on their country’s goods.) What’s happening with the ‘Mass Blackout’ protest? “NO SPENDING. NO WORK. NO SURRENDER. The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed—for the wealthy,” according to the Mass Blackout, a nationwide economic action, organized by a coalition of grassroots organizations is calling Americans to: Stop online or in-store shopping (except for small businesses) Stop streaming, cancel subscriptions, no digital purchases Stop work (if you can) If you must spend: support small, local businesses, and pay in cash. “We’re not targeting small businesses or communities—we’re targeting the corporate systems that profit from injustice, fuel authoritarianism, and crush worker power,” their website explains. The boycott also includes: avoiding non-essential travel, restaurants and normal consumer behavior; staying off ad-driven platforms unless organizing; halting spending; logging off entertainment platforms; and donating to Feeding America to support those refusing to work. What’s happening with the “We Ain’t Buying It’ boycott? The “We Ain’t Buying It” campaign targets three companies: Target, Home Depot and Amazon, and is made up of a coalition of progressive groups including the No Kings Alliance, and Indivisible, behind the protests earlier this year. It is asking Americans “to withhold their purchasing power from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday (Nov. 27-Dec. 1) to protest three retailers who, they argue, are cooperating directly with the The President administration in these ways: Target, for its rollback on DEI Home Depot, for working with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) which has been arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants Amazon, for funding the The President administration to secure corporate tax cuts “When corporations align with cruelty and authoritarianism, they must understand that our purchasing power matters,” LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, a member of the “We Ain’t Buying It” coalition, said in a statement. “Economic noncooperation is a powerful, nonviolent tool for a free people, and we plan to use it to make America better for all of us – not just the wealthy few.” Why are these Black Friday boycotts happening now? The boycotts come as the gap between the richest and poorest Americans is widening in what’s increasingly bifurcated economy and target billionaires and businesses supporting the The President administration, which they argue is eroding civil rights, labor protections, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and weakening the United States’ democratic institutions. Its both a political and economic boycott. View the full article

Earlier this year Pepsi purchased probiotic drinker maker Poppi, and now the soda giant is introducing a new prebiotic cola drink in its quest to capture Gen Z drinkers: Pepsi Prebiotic Cola. The drink drops on November 28 and will be available at Walmart, on Amazon, and TikTok shop, as well as in select markets on Kroger.com, DashMart, and GoPuff. The “Unbelievably Pepsi” drinks will be available in two flavors: Original and Cherry Vanilla and contain 30 calories and five grams of sugar. They also have three grams of prebiotic fiber. Still, the drinks are highly marketable, given they’re a soda alternative, and appear to offer some health benefits. As many Americans have turned to weight loss drugs like Ozempic, options that fit into their new diets are more desirable. That may be especially true when it comes to drinks that contain protein, a trend which Pepsi has also jumped on given Americans are desperate to consume more protein. According to the brand, 71% tried to up their protein intake last year. In the wake of the protein craze, the brand introduced a ready-to-drink Starbucks protein coffee and a protein water by Propel. “We want to redefine the protein conversation,” Ram Krishnan, CEO of PepsiCo’s U.S. beverages business, previously said in an interview with Fast Company. “Everybody in the country is talking about protein, but it’s actually crowded and confusing and the consumers really don’t understand all of the science behind protein.” Previously, Pepsi has offered healthier alternatives. Back in 2016, the brand partnered with KeVita, which makes sparkling probiotic drinks and kombucha. At the time, the brand said it was “continuing to evolve” its “health and wellness offerings to meet consumers’ changing needs.” Of course, Pepsi isn’t the first brand to launch a “healthier” soda option. There’s been a surge of prebiotic and probiotic sodas appearing on shelves in recent years. In addition to Poppi, Culture Pop and Olipop are also well-known brands that claim to have gut-boosting benefits. But while prebiotic and probiotic sodas are typically lower in sugar content and have fewer calories than regular sodas, some critics have questioned how beneficial the sodas are, given they don’t have the same variety of good bacterias that fermented foods do. “Here, you’re only getting the type of prebiotic that’s added in, while you’d likely benefit more from the variety of prebiotics in fiber-rich foods,” says Amy Keating, RD, a Consumer Reports (CR) nutritionist, per the outlet. “At Pepsi, we are experts in great tasting cola – and have been for decades. The launch of Pepsi Prebiotic Cola marks a significant moment in our brand’s history and the cola category,” Gustavo Reyna, VP of Marketing at Pepsi said in the release. “This breakthrough innovation upholds the iconic taste of Pepsi that people love, now with no artificial sweeteners, lower sugar and functional ingredients. It’s an inimitable taste – designed to meet the demands of cola lovers, cola newcomers, and everyone in between.” Pepsi’s new cola will drop on Black Friday and be around “until supplies last”. According to the release, you can check out the drink during Amazon Prime Video’s Black Friday Football game. It said, “the spot will bring bold flavor and feel-good refreshment to homes nationwide – with the ability to shop it live, right from your TV screen.” View the full article

A reader writes: Sending in a question I truly never thought I would have to ask: what are some things that my organization, as an employer, can do to help ensure staff safety in areas of increased and contentious ICE action? We have staff of Hispanic heritage (“present” Hispanic, names clearly of that background if ID or car registration were checked) who are frequently on the road for our organization. This includes many areas where they are an ethnic minority and which have colloquial reputations for profiling (but staff do not report previous issues) — and areas with increased, visible, concerning ICE enforcement. We’re talking large scale “operations” which seem to have very broad goals, many agencies, masked agents. Staff are often on the road solo, in their personal vehicles. Our staff are authorized to work in the U.S. but we certainly see from media reports that people are not given the chance to even establish their status in these raids. We spoke today with those potentially impacted by concerns about ramp-ups in the area. In some situations, staff members come from families/communities with many undocumented individuals, where those families may be limited in their safe ability to get involved. I am struggling what we can do to help support safety and very open to suggestions My thinking so far: * We have a lot of flexibility on when/where we decide staff will take these trips (we’re talking about attending events with partner orgs, not service provision to a specific population) — so for us, conveying that they can always flag if a trip doesn’t work for them based on their needs (and they don’t need to spell out this issue as the concern!). * OFFER the opportunity to have another staff member check in with them to ensure they have arrived at destinations for any trips they want (all, some, whatever), and have a plan for what to do if they do not pick up. (For example: call once, call 15 minutes later, call 30 minutes later, then authorized to call their emergency contact to check in.) * OFFER location-sharing for any trips they’d like with a similar plan — if you’re not at the location you had planned to be at within a certain time frame, begin calling. * Have an informal leadership plan of what we would do next if there was a situation where we believe the staff member may be in trouble, including a contact for legal counsel and a list of detention centers in the region for inquiries. How are folks handling this? I want our staff members safe, period, but feel a particular concern when they are going out into the world specifically to do the work of our org! I checked in with the community organizer in Chicago who offered advice earlier this month on what to do if ICE comes to your workplace. She said: This person already has a pretty solid safety plan in place! I’d want to emphasize a point I included in my original letter: don’t make risk judgments for people. Give them information and resources, but don’t tell people they can’t take trips to specific places based on their last name, ethnicity, etc. It might also be good to have contacts within the partner orgs who can handle things locally. If someone needs to be picked up from detention, for example, it’s better to have someone who’s at least somewhat trusted and known to the employee than not. Otherwise, though, I think they already have a really good plan in place. She also notes, “The main Border Patrol force has left Chicago and is now terrorizing Charlotte, N.C., and a lot of groups doing this work anticipate seeing similar patterns — one or two cities getting very aggressively targeted, while many other locations have much smaller ICE or Border Patrol deployments. So these kind of resources are going to become increasingly important as these agencies spread across the country, unfortunately.” I checked with another person who works in this field and they offered this: Personally, I think this employer’s first impulse to make work travel completely voluntary is the best thing they can do. Employees could know all their rights, and employers could have the perfect safety plan, but if law enforcement or ICE disregard someone’s constitutionally-protected rights or attempt to fast-track their deportation without due process — even if they have legal status — the consequences for employees and their families can be absolutely devastating. If that’s not a risk the employees want to take, and the travel isn’t necessary, then making the travel voluntary is probably the best thing employers can do to help mitigate that risk. Some additional resources that may help: Know Your Rights Pages: Immigrants’ Rights: This has some specific information about your rights if you’re stopped and questioned about your immigration status, including advice about being stopped by police, ICE, or Border Patrol while in transit. Enforcement at the Airport: This has specific information about encountering law enforcement at the airport, if that’s part of their work travel. Safety plans: The ACLU of DC has a hub of really useful resources — in particular, see the advice on “preparing for immigration enforcement actions” and “preparing for ICE raids,” which both have bullet points about preparedness and creating an emergency plan. The post how to protect employees traveling to areas with increased immigration raids appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A media calendar template is a crucial tool for anyone looking to streamline their content planning across various platforms. It outlines publication dates, content types, and team responsibilities, making it easier for you to coordinate efforts and maintain consistency. By using this template, you can avoid the chaos of last-minute content creation and guarantee your posts align with audience engagement peaks. But how exactly can you create and utilize a media calendar template to maximize its benefits? Key Takeaways A media calendar template organizes and schedules content across various platforms, enhancing collaboration and workflow efficiency. It includes essential details like publication dates, content types, and responsible team members to prevent overlaps and gaps in posting. By allowing for advanced planning, it helps maintain consistency in posting and reduces last-minute content creation. Performance metrics integrated into the calendar enable tracking content effectiveness and inform future content strategies for better engagement. Customizable templates can be tailored to specific needs, incorporating organizational branding and various content types for streamlined management. Understanding a Media Calendar Template A media calendar template serves as an essential tool for anyone looking to effectively plan and manage their media content. This structured tool helps you organize and schedule various content types across platforms, ensuring a strategic approach to delivery. Typically, a media calendar template includes critical details like publication dates, platforms, content types, titles, and the team members responsible for each task. By using a drop calendar template or an event planning calendar, you can improve collaboration among your team, providing a clear overview of upcoming content and deadlines. This clarity reduces confusion and boosts workflow efficiency. Moreover, tracking publication dates and performance allows you to analyze engagement metrics, refining your content strategies for better results. Benefits of Using a Media Calendar Template Using a media calendar template brings several notable benefits that can greatly improve your content strategy. You’ll notice improved consistency in posting, as it helps you plan and schedule content in advance, ensuring you stay on track. Furthermore, it boosts organization by clearly laying out your content across various platforms, making it easier to manage deadlines and maintain a streamlined scheduling process. Improved Consistency in Posting When you implement a media calendar template, improved consistency in posting becomes an achievable goal. This structured approach helps you plan your content, ensuring a steady flow of posts that engage your audience. Here are three key benefits: Scheduled Posting: By setting specific dates and times, you align your content with peak engagement periods, maximizing visibility. Variety in Content: Organizing different content types and themes prevents repetition, keeping your audience interested through diverse formats. Reduced Scrambles: Planning ahead eliminates last-minute rushes, allowing you to maintain a regular posting schedule that cultivates trust and familiarity among your followers. Using a media calendar template not only improves your posting consistency but also reinforces your brand’s presence across social media platforms. Enhanced Content Organization Improved content organization is one of the primary advantages of adopting a media calendar template, as it creates a structured framework for planning and scheduling. This template helps you account for all content types and platforms in one cohesive document, enhancing team collaboration and productivity. By clearly defining publication dates, content types, and responsible parties, it reduces confusion and guarantees timely delivery of your content. In addition, using a media calendar allows for effective performance tracking, enabling you to document and analyze publication dates and content effectiveness. This leads to data-driven strategy improvements. Moreover, it promotes accountability within your team by assigning tasks and deadlines, resulting in smoother workflows and more effective content management aligned with your marketing goals. Streamlined Scheduling Process A media calendar template greatly improves the scheduling process for content teams, allowing you to visualize and manage your media posts across various platforms effectively. Here are three key benefits of using a media calendar template: Streamlined Workflow: It helps reduce last-minute content creation and prevents missed deadlines, saving you time and resources. Enhanced Collaboration: With a centralized location for content details, deadlines, and responsibilities, team members can communicate more effectively, reducing confusion. Consistent Posting: The template guarantees a regular posting cadence, vital for maintaining audience engagement and retention. Key Features of a Media Calendar Template A media calendar template offers centralized content organization, allowing you to schedule and manage your publications efficiently. With improved collaboration tools, team members can easily coordinate their efforts and stay aligned on deadlines. Furthermore, performance tracking features help you monitor the effectiveness of your content, ensuring you can adjust strategies as needed to meet your goals. Centralized Content Organization Even though managing content across various platforms can often feel overwhelming, a media calendar template provides a structured solution for centralized content organization. This template allows you to track publication dates, platforms, and content types in one cohesive document. Key features include: Essential Columns: Post copy, approval status, and assigned team members keep everyone informed about responsibilities and deadlines. Consistency in Messaging: Aligns content with marketing goals and audience engagement strategies, enhancing your overall communication. Visual Overview: Helps prevent overlaps and gaps in posting schedules, ensuring a steady flow of communication with your audience. Enhanced Collaboration Tools When teams use a media calendar template, they gain access to improved collaboration tools that streamline content management and communication. This centralized platform allows team members to view, edit, and comment on scheduled content, ensuring everyone stays aligned on messaging and deadlines. Features for tracking approval statuses let you see which pieces are awaiting review, facilitating a smoother feedback process for content production. Customizable roles and responsibilities clarify accountability for each piece, promoting a sense of ownership within the team. Furthermore, integration capabilities with project management tools improve coordination across platforms, as shared access and real-time updates reduce miscommunication. Together, these features enable teams to adapt quickly to changes in content strategy or scheduling. Performance Tracking Features Incorporating performance tracking features into a media calendar template improves your ability to monitor essential metrics like engagement rates, impressions, clicks, and conversions. This integration helps you guarantee that your content aligns with organizational goals. Here are three key benefits you’ll find: Data-Driven Insights: Identify which types of content resonate with your audience, allowing you to adjust future campaigns effectively. Visualization Tools: Access graphs and charts that illustrate performance trends over time, making it easier to analyze content effectiveness. Accountability: Track approval statuses and deadlines, guaranteeing timely performance evaluations and a streamlined content creation process. With these features, you can facilitate regular reviews, optimizing your content strategies based on audience feedback and engagement patterns. Types of Media Calendar Templates Media calendar templates come in various forms, each customized to meet specific needs in content planning and scheduling. Social media calendars help you schedule posts across different platforms, outlining publication dates, content types, and engagement strategies to keep your online presence consistent. Editorial calendars cater to writers and publishers, focusing on deadlines and themes to guarantee timely submissions and drafts. Marketing calendars have a broader scope, coordinating email campaigns, events, and content efforts to align with your overall business goals. Finally, campaign calendars track activities related to individual marketing campaigns, making sure all elements are synchronized and executed according to the planned timeline. Each type of template serves a distinct purpose to improve your content strategy effectively. How to Create a Media Calendar Template To create an effective media calendar template, start by defining your objectives, so you know what content needs to be scheduled. Next, choose a template that suits your needs, whether it’s a simple spreadsheet or a more detailed document. Finally, schedule your content strategically, considering publication dates, platforms, and assigned team members to guarantee everything runs smoothly. Define Your Objectives Establishing clear objectives is crucial when creating a media calendar template, as it provides direction for your content strategy. Start by defining measurable goals that will help guide your planning and execution. Consider these three key objectives: Engagement: Aim for specific interaction rates, like comments and shares, to gauge audience interest. Reach: Set targets for the number of impressions or unique views across platforms to expand your audience. Conversions: Identify desired actions, such as sign-ups or purchases, to measure the effectiveness of your content. Incorporate flexibility in your template to adjust for real-time trends or unexpected events. Regularly review and update your calendar based on performance metrics and audience feedback to stay aligned with your marketing goals. Choose a Template Creating an effective media calendar template requires attention to several key components that boost organization and clarity. Start by defining elements like publication date, platform, content type, title, status, and assigned team members. These components help streamline your workflow and provide clear insights into your content strategy. Use spreadsheet software or project management tools to format your template, guaranteeing it features clear headers and an organized layout for easy navigation. Improve functionality by incorporating campaign tags and performance metrics, allowing you to track content effectiveness over time. Regularly populate the calendar with upcoming content and specify details for each entry to maintain a consistent posting schedule. Consider integrating automation tools to simplify the content approval process and guarantee timely updates. Schedule Content Strategically When you schedule content strategically, it’s essential to contemplate the layout of your media calendar template, as a well-structured design boosts your ability to plan publication dates and times effectively across various platforms. To improve your content strategy, consider these key elements: Content Types: Specify diverse formats, like blog posts, videos, and social media updates, to engage different audience segments. Deadlines and Responsibilities: Assign tasks and set deadlines within your template to promote accountability and meet production timelines. Performance Metrics: Regularly update your calendar with engagement data, allowing for data-driven adjustments to your strategy. Steps to Optimize Your Media Calendar Optimizing your media calendar is essential for maximizing audience engagement and improving your overall content strategy. Start by regularly reviewing and adjusting posting times based on engagement metrics. Incorporate a mix of content types, such as images, videos, and infographics, to cater to diverse preferences. Use performance tracking tools to analyze past posts for data-driven adjustments. Collaborate with your team through shared visibility in the calendar, streamlining the approval process. Finally, establish a routine for quarterly audits to identify content gaps and assess performance trends. Action Frequency Purpose Review posting times Monthly Maximize visibility and interaction Mix content types Ongoing Cater to diverse audience preferences Analyze past performance After each campaign Make data-driven adjustments Audit media calendar Quarterly Identify gaps and assess trends Integrating Your Media Calendar With Other Tools How can integrating your media calendar with other tools improve your content strategy? By connecting your media calendar to various platforms, you can streamline your workflow and boost collaboration. Here are three key integrations to contemplate: Project Management Tools: Use platforms like Asana or Trello to track content development and deadlines in one centralized location. Social Media Management: Link with tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite for seamless scheduling and monitoring of posts across all channels. Analytics Tools: Integrate with Google Analytics or social media insights to track performance, allowing you to make data-driven adjustments in real time. These integrations guarantee that your team stays organized and responsive, eventually improving your overall content strategy. Best Practices for Using a Media Calendar Using a media calendar effectively requires adherence to several best practices that can considerably improve your content strategy. First, define clear goals and target audiences to tailor your content, enhancing audience engagement. Regularly review and update your media calendar to stay responsive to changing trends and preferences, ensuring your content remains relevant. Incorporating deadlines and assigning responsibilities within the calendar promotes accountability and boosts team collaboration, leading to more efficient content production. Furthermore, utilize analytics to track performance metrics of your published content, which will enable you to make data-driven adjustments. Common Challenges and Solutions As you develop a media calendar, it can considerably improve your content strategy, but it’s not without its challenges. Here are some common issues and their solutions: Inconsistent Posting Schedules: A media calendar provides a structured framework, helping you plan and organize content across platforms consistently. Content Overload: Utilizing the template allows your team to visualize your strategy, ensuring you prioritize quality over quantity in your posts. Publishing Errors: Incorporating approval workflows within the calendar mitigates risks, ensuring all content aligns with brand standards and messaging. Measuring the Success of Your Media Calendar Measuring the success of your media calendar is crucial for refining your content strategy and guaranteeing that your efforts yield tangible results. A media calendar template helps you track performance across different platforms by documenting engagement metrics like likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates for each published piece. By analyzing this data, you can identify which content types and formats generate the highest engagement, enabling you to make data-driven adjustments to future strategies. Regularly reviewing these metrics allows you to recognize trends and patterns, informing ideal timing and frequency for posts. Additionally, integrating performance tracking guarantees accountability among team members, leading to improved outcomes and insights for your upcoming projects. Examples of Media Calendar Templates Several effective media calendar templates can help streamline your content planning and scheduling process. Here are three examples that you might find useful: Social Media Calendar: This template includes sections for publication dates, content types, and platforms, ensuring a consistent posting schedule across channels. Email Campaign Calendar: It organizes your email content, including subject lines, send dates, and audience segments, to improve engagement and brand visibility. Marketing Materials Calendar: This template tracks deadlines for brochures, flyers, and digital ads, allowing for better collaboration among team members and accountability. How to Customize Your Media Calendar Template Customizing your media calendar template can greatly improve your content planning process, making it both efficient and tailored to your specific needs. Start by adding columns for post date, platform, content type, post copy, and approval status to capture all crucial details. Tailor the design to your branding by incorporating your organization’s colors, fonts, and logos. Consider including sections for campaign tags and performance metrics, which will help you track and analyze content effectiveness across platforms. To improve collaboration, share the template with team members so they can add comments and suggest edits. Finally, integrate deadlines and reminders to streamline your workflow and guarantee timely content production and publication. Resources for Further Learning After fine-tuning your media calendar template, you might want to explore additional resources that can further improve your content planning skills. Here are some valuable options to reflect on: Online Template Libraries: Websites like HubSpot and Canva offer free and customizable media calendar templates, allowing you to choose one that fits your needs. Content Marketing Courses: Platforms such as Coursera and LinkedIn Learning provide courses particularly focused on content planning and marketing strategies, enhancing your comprehension of effective media management. Industry Blogs and Webinars: Follow marketing blogs or attend webinars from experts to stay updated on best practices and new trends in media planning. Utilizing these resources will deepen your knowledge and streamline your content management processes. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Benefits of Creating a Calendar Template? Creating a calendar template offers numerous benefits for your planning and organization. It helps you streamline your scheduling process, ensuring you maintain a consistent posting routine across various platforms. You’ll allocate resources more effectively, clarifying team responsibilities and enhancing productivity. Furthermore, a calendar allows you to track performance metrics, making it easier to analyze engagement trends and refine your strategies. Flexibility in your planning enables real-time adjustments, keeping your content relevant and timely. What Is a Media Calendar? A media calendar is a strategic tool that helps you organize and schedule all your media-related content and activities. It includes key details like publication dates, content types, target audiences, and assigned team members. By centralizing this information, you can reduce last-minute scrambles and guarantee consistent messaging across platforms. A media calendar additionally improves team collaboration, as everyone can see tasks and deadlines, ultimately enhancing your content delivery and productivity. What Is a Social Media Calendar Template? A social media calendar template is a tool that helps you plan and organize your social media posts effectively. It outlines post dates, platforms, content types, and team responsibilities, ensuring your content aligns with marketing goals. By providing a structured approach, it improves consistency and audience engagement as well as reducing last-minute stress. You can find customizable templates online, making it easy to adapt to your specific needs and streamline your content management process. Why Is Creating a Social Media Content Calendar Beneficial? Creating a social media content calendar is beneficial since it helps you organize your posts effectively. You can plan content in advance, ensuring consistency across platforms and reducing last-minute stress. This structured approach improves collaboration among your team, allowing everyone to track responsibilities and approval statuses easily. Furthermore, it supports performance analysis, enabling you to adjust strategies based on audience engagement. In the end, encouraging brand loyalty and trust with your audience over time. Conclusion In conclusion, a media calendar template is a crucial tool for organizing and streamlining your content strategy. By clearly outlining publication dates, content types, and responsible team members, it improves collaboration and efficiency. Utilizing this template helps you maintain consistency and align your content with ideal engagement times. Whether you’re new to content planning or looking to improve your existing process, implementing a media calendar can greatly contribute to a successful media strategy. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is a Media Calendar Template and How Can It Help?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

A media calendar template is a crucial tool for anyone looking to streamline their content planning across various platforms. It outlines publication dates, content types, and team responsibilities, making it easier for you to coordinate efforts and maintain consistency. By using this template, you can avoid the chaos of last-minute content creation and guarantee your posts align with audience engagement peaks. But how exactly can you create and utilize a media calendar template to maximize its benefits? Key Takeaways A media calendar template organizes and schedules content across various platforms, enhancing collaboration and workflow efficiency. It includes essential details like publication dates, content types, and responsible team members to prevent overlaps and gaps in posting. By allowing for advanced planning, it helps maintain consistency in posting and reduces last-minute content creation. Performance metrics integrated into the calendar enable tracking content effectiveness and inform future content strategies for better engagement. Customizable templates can be tailored to specific needs, incorporating organizational branding and various content types for streamlined management. Understanding a Media Calendar Template A media calendar template serves as an essential tool for anyone looking to effectively plan and manage their media content. This structured tool helps you organize and schedule various content types across platforms, ensuring a strategic approach to delivery. Typically, a media calendar template includes critical details like publication dates, platforms, content types, titles, and the team members responsible for each task. By using a drop calendar template or an event planning calendar, you can improve collaboration among your team, providing a clear overview of upcoming content and deadlines. This clarity reduces confusion and boosts workflow efficiency. Moreover, tracking publication dates and performance allows you to analyze engagement metrics, refining your content strategies for better results. Benefits of Using a Media Calendar Template Using a media calendar template brings several notable benefits that can greatly improve your content strategy. You’ll notice improved consistency in posting, as it helps you plan and schedule content in advance, ensuring you stay on track. Furthermore, it boosts organization by clearly laying out your content across various platforms, making it easier to manage deadlines and maintain a streamlined scheduling process. Improved Consistency in Posting When you implement a media calendar template, improved consistency in posting becomes an achievable goal. This structured approach helps you plan your content, ensuring a steady flow of posts that engage your audience. Here are three key benefits: Scheduled Posting: By setting specific dates and times, you align your content with peak engagement periods, maximizing visibility. Variety in Content: Organizing different content types and themes prevents repetition, keeping your audience interested through diverse formats. Reduced Scrambles: Planning ahead eliminates last-minute rushes, allowing you to maintain a regular posting schedule that cultivates trust and familiarity among your followers. Using a media calendar template not only improves your posting consistency but also reinforces your brand’s presence across social media platforms. Enhanced Content Organization Improved content organization is one of the primary advantages of adopting a media calendar template, as it creates a structured framework for planning and scheduling. This template helps you account for all content types and platforms in one cohesive document, enhancing team collaboration and productivity. By clearly defining publication dates, content types, and responsible parties, it reduces confusion and guarantees timely delivery of your content. In addition, using a media calendar allows for effective performance tracking, enabling you to document and analyze publication dates and content effectiveness. This leads to data-driven strategy improvements. Moreover, it promotes accountability within your team by assigning tasks and deadlines, resulting in smoother workflows and more effective content management aligned with your marketing goals. Streamlined Scheduling Process A media calendar template greatly improves the scheduling process for content teams, allowing you to visualize and manage your media posts across various platforms effectively. Here are three key benefits of using a media calendar template: Streamlined Workflow: It helps reduce last-minute content creation and prevents missed deadlines, saving you time and resources. Enhanced Collaboration: With a centralized location for content details, deadlines, and responsibilities, team members can communicate more effectively, reducing confusion. Consistent Posting: The template guarantees a regular posting cadence, vital for maintaining audience engagement and retention. Key Features of a Media Calendar Template A media calendar template offers centralized content organization, allowing you to schedule and manage your publications efficiently. With improved collaboration tools, team members can easily coordinate their efforts and stay aligned on deadlines. Furthermore, performance tracking features help you monitor the effectiveness of your content, ensuring you can adjust strategies as needed to meet your goals. Centralized Content Organization Even though managing content across various platforms can often feel overwhelming, a media calendar template provides a structured solution for centralized content organization. This template allows you to track publication dates, platforms, and content types in one cohesive document. Key features include: Essential Columns: Post copy, approval status, and assigned team members keep everyone informed about responsibilities and deadlines. Consistency in Messaging: Aligns content with marketing goals and audience engagement strategies, enhancing your overall communication. Visual Overview: Helps prevent overlaps and gaps in posting schedules, ensuring a steady flow of communication with your audience. Enhanced Collaboration Tools When teams use a media calendar template, they gain access to improved collaboration tools that streamline content management and communication. This centralized platform allows team members to view, edit, and comment on scheduled content, ensuring everyone stays aligned on messaging and deadlines. Features for tracking approval statuses let you see which pieces are awaiting review, facilitating a smoother feedback process for content production. Customizable roles and responsibilities clarify accountability for each piece, promoting a sense of ownership within the team. Furthermore, integration capabilities with project management tools improve coordination across platforms, as shared access and real-time updates reduce miscommunication. Together, these features enable teams to adapt quickly to changes in content strategy or scheduling. Performance Tracking Features Incorporating performance tracking features into a media calendar template improves your ability to monitor essential metrics like engagement rates, impressions, clicks, and conversions. This integration helps you guarantee that your content aligns with organizational goals. Here are three key benefits you’ll find: Data-Driven Insights: Identify which types of content resonate with your audience, allowing you to adjust future campaigns effectively. Visualization Tools: Access graphs and charts that illustrate performance trends over time, making it easier to analyze content effectiveness. Accountability: Track approval statuses and deadlines, guaranteeing timely performance evaluations and a streamlined content creation process. With these features, you can facilitate regular reviews, optimizing your content strategies based on audience feedback and engagement patterns. Types of Media Calendar Templates Media calendar templates come in various forms, each customized to meet specific needs in content planning and scheduling. Social media calendars help you schedule posts across different platforms, outlining publication dates, content types, and engagement strategies to keep your online presence consistent. Editorial calendars cater to writers and publishers, focusing on deadlines and themes to guarantee timely submissions and drafts. Marketing calendars have a broader scope, coordinating email campaigns, events, and content efforts to align with your overall business goals. Finally, campaign calendars track activities related to individual marketing campaigns, making sure all elements are synchronized and executed according to the planned timeline. Each type of template serves a distinct purpose to improve your content strategy effectively. How to Create a Media Calendar Template To create an effective media calendar template, start by defining your objectives, so you know what content needs to be scheduled. Next, choose a template that suits your needs, whether it’s a simple spreadsheet or a more detailed document. Finally, schedule your content strategically, considering publication dates, platforms, and assigned team members to guarantee everything runs smoothly. Define Your Objectives Establishing clear objectives is crucial when creating a media calendar template, as it provides direction for your content strategy. Start by defining measurable goals that will help guide your planning and execution. Consider these three key objectives: Engagement: Aim for specific interaction rates, like comments and shares, to gauge audience interest. Reach: Set targets for the number of impressions or unique views across platforms to expand your audience. Conversions: Identify desired actions, such as sign-ups or purchases, to measure the effectiveness of your content. Incorporate flexibility in your template to adjust for real-time trends or unexpected events. Regularly review and update your calendar based on performance metrics and audience feedback to stay aligned with your marketing goals. Choose a Template Creating an effective media calendar template requires attention to several key components that boost organization and clarity. Start by defining elements like publication date, platform, content type, title, status, and assigned team members. These components help streamline your workflow and provide clear insights into your content strategy. Use spreadsheet software or project management tools to format your template, guaranteeing it features clear headers and an organized layout for easy navigation. Improve functionality by incorporating campaign tags and performance metrics, allowing you to track content effectiveness over time. Regularly populate the calendar with upcoming content and specify details for each entry to maintain a consistent posting schedule. Consider integrating automation tools to simplify the content approval process and guarantee timely updates. Schedule Content Strategically When you schedule content strategically, it’s essential to contemplate the layout of your media calendar template, as a well-structured design boosts your ability to plan publication dates and times effectively across various platforms. To improve your content strategy, consider these key elements: Content Types: Specify diverse formats, like blog posts, videos, and social media updates, to engage different audience segments. Deadlines and Responsibilities: Assign tasks and set deadlines within your template to promote accountability and meet production timelines. Performance Metrics: Regularly update your calendar with engagement data, allowing for data-driven adjustments to your strategy. Steps to Optimize Your Media Calendar Optimizing your media calendar is essential for maximizing audience engagement and improving your overall content strategy. Start by regularly reviewing and adjusting posting times based on engagement metrics. Incorporate a mix of content types, such as images, videos, and infographics, to cater to diverse preferences. Use performance tracking tools to analyze past posts for data-driven adjustments. Collaborate with your team through shared visibility in the calendar, streamlining the approval process. Finally, establish a routine for quarterly audits to identify content gaps and assess performance trends. Action Frequency Purpose Review posting times Monthly Maximize visibility and interaction Mix content types Ongoing Cater to diverse audience preferences Analyze past performance After each campaign Make data-driven adjustments Audit media calendar Quarterly Identify gaps and assess trends Integrating Your Media Calendar With Other Tools How can integrating your media calendar with other tools improve your content strategy? By connecting your media calendar to various platforms, you can streamline your workflow and boost collaboration. Here are three key integrations to contemplate: Project Management Tools: Use platforms like Asana or Trello to track content development and deadlines in one centralized location. Social Media Management: Link with tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite for seamless scheduling and monitoring of posts across all channels. Analytics Tools: Integrate with Google Analytics or social media insights to track performance, allowing you to make data-driven adjustments in real time. These integrations guarantee that your team stays organized and responsive, eventually improving your overall content strategy. Best Practices for Using a Media Calendar Using a media calendar effectively requires adherence to several best practices that can considerably improve your content strategy. First, define clear goals and target audiences to tailor your content, enhancing audience engagement. Regularly review and update your media calendar to stay responsive to changing trends and preferences, ensuring your content remains relevant. Incorporating deadlines and assigning responsibilities within the calendar promotes accountability and boosts team collaboration, leading to more efficient content production. Furthermore, utilize analytics to track performance metrics of your published content, which will enable you to make data-driven adjustments. Common Challenges and Solutions As you develop a media calendar, it can considerably improve your content strategy, but it’s not without its challenges. Here are some common issues and their solutions: Inconsistent Posting Schedules: A media calendar provides a structured framework, helping you plan and organize content across platforms consistently. Content Overload: Utilizing the template allows your team to visualize your strategy, ensuring you prioritize quality over quantity in your posts. Publishing Errors: Incorporating approval workflows within the calendar mitigates risks, ensuring all content aligns with brand standards and messaging. Measuring the Success of Your Media Calendar Measuring the success of your media calendar is crucial for refining your content strategy and guaranteeing that your efforts yield tangible results. A media calendar template helps you track performance across different platforms by documenting engagement metrics like likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates for each published piece. By analyzing this data, you can identify which content types and formats generate the highest engagement, enabling you to make data-driven adjustments to future strategies. Regularly reviewing these metrics allows you to recognize trends and patterns, informing ideal timing and frequency for posts. Additionally, integrating performance tracking guarantees accountability among team members, leading to improved outcomes and insights for your upcoming projects. Examples of Media Calendar Templates Several effective media calendar templates can help streamline your content planning and scheduling process. Here are three examples that you might find useful: Social Media Calendar: This template includes sections for publication dates, content types, and platforms, ensuring a consistent posting schedule across channels. Email Campaign Calendar: It organizes your email content, including subject lines, send dates, and audience segments, to improve engagement and brand visibility. Marketing Materials Calendar: This template tracks deadlines for brochures, flyers, and digital ads, allowing for better collaboration among team members and accountability. How to Customize Your Media Calendar Template Customizing your media calendar template can greatly improve your content planning process, making it both efficient and tailored to your specific needs. Start by adding columns for post date, platform, content type, post copy, and approval status to capture all crucial details. Tailor the design to your branding by incorporating your organization’s colors, fonts, and logos. Consider including sections for campaign tags and performance metrics, which will help you track and analyze content effectiveness across platforms. To improve collaboration, share the template with team members so they can add comments and suggest edits. Finally, integrate deadlines and reminders to streamline your workflow and guarantee timely content production and publication. Resources for Further Learning After fine-tuning your media calendar template, you might want to explore additional resources that can further improve your content planning skills. Here are some valuable options to reflect on: Online Template Libraries: Websites like HubSpot and Canva offer free and customizable media calendar templates, allowing you to choose one that fits your needs. Content Marketing Courses: Platforms such as Coursera and LinkedIn Learning provide courses particularly focused on content planning and marketing strategies, enhancing your comprehension of effective media management. Industry Blogs and Webinars: Follow marketing blogs or attend webinars from experts to stay updated on best practices and new trends in media planning. Utilizing these resources will deepen your knowledge and streamline your content management processes. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Benefits of Creating a Calendar Template? Creating a calendar template offers numerous benefits for your planning and organization. It helps you streamline your scheduling process, ensuring you maintain a consistent posting routine across various platforms. You’ll allocate resources more effectively, clarifying team responsibilities and enhancing productivity. Furthermore, a calendar allows you to track performance metrics, making it easier to analyze engagement trends and refine your strategies. Flexibility in your planning enables real-time adjustments, keeping your content relevant and timely. What Is a Media Calendar? A media calendar is a strategic tool that helps you organize and schedule all your media-related content and activities. It includes key details like publication dates, content types, target audiences, and assigned team members. By centralizing this information, you can reduce last-minute scrambles and guarantee consistent messaging across platforms. A media calendar additionally improves team collaboration, as everyone can see tasks and deadlines, ultimately enhancing your content delivery and productivity. What Is a Social Media Calendar Template? A social media calendar template is a tool that helps you plan and organize your social media posts effectively. It outlines post dates, platforms, content types, and team responsibilities, ensuring your content aligns with marketing goals. By providing a structured approach, it improves consistency and audience engagement as well as reducing last-minute stress. You can find customizable templates online, making it easy to adapt to your specific needs and streamline your content management process. Why Is Creating a Social Media Content Calendar Beneficial? Creating a social media content calendar is beneficial since it helps you organize your posts effectively. You can plan content in advance, ensuring consistency across platforms and reducing last-minute stress. This structured approach improves collaboration among your team, allowing everyone to track responsibilities and approval statuses easily. Furthermore, it supports performance analysis, enabling you to adjust strategies based on audience engagement. In the end, encouraging brand loyalty and trust with your audience over time. Conclusion In conclusion, a media calendar template is a crucial tool for organizing and streamlining your content strategy. By clearly outlining publication dates, content types, and responsible team members, it improves collaboration and efficiency. Utilizing this template helps you maintain consistency and align your content with ideal engagement times. Whether you’re new to content planning or looking to improve your existing process, implementing a media calendar can greatly contribute to a successful media strategy. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is a Media Calendar Template and How Can It Help?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Back in May, ResiClub teamed up with Stessa, an asset management and accounting software for real estate investors, to survey real estate investors about how they were navigating the rental market. Over the past month, we teamed up with Stessa again to survey real estate investors about their market conditions, portfolio plans, and property management strategy. Investors who own at least one single-family investment property were eligible to respond to the Stessa-ResiClub Real Estate Investor Survey—Q4 2025, fielded between October 24 and November 16. In total, 211 single-family investors/landlords completed the survey. Here are our topline findings: 44% of U.S. real estate investors say they plan to grow their portfolios in the near-term, holding steady from the 45% of landlords that said they plan to grow in the near-term in Q2 2025. Two-thirds of real estate investors (65%) say the most frustrating part of the buying process is finding deals that cash flow—that share is even higher among landlords based in the West (75%). About six in ten real estate investors (59%) say they are not willing to buy a property unless the cap rate is at least 6.00%. 63% of surveyed real estate investors said they’d only accept a mortgage rate of 6.00% or lower on their next purchase. 51% of real estate investors say they self-manage their properties. 21% of real estate investors say they first look at off-market deal sources. 19% of real estate investors who currently self-manage say they would consider switching to professional property management in the next 12 months. The big picture: Even as nearly half of investors say they want to grow their portfolios, today’s buyers are disciplined—insisting on strong cash flow, cap rates at or above 6.00%, and deals that pencil even with 6.00% mortgage rates. The result is an investor landscape that’s still expansion-minded, but far more selective and operationally focused than in prior years. Let’s take a deeper look at the results: View the full article

Your brand shows up in ChatGPT answers more often than you think — and those mentions influence how people see you. This guide explains how to track and improve that visibility with Semrush. View the full article

Even with this week's increase, mortgage rates have remained within a 13 basis point band since mid-September, with industry pundits saying that's where they will stay. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Ever since Google introduced its Chromebook Plus program in 2023, which promises a certain amount of power and screen resolution for your device, it's been trying its best to get people to game on their Chromebooks. There are Chromebooks with OLED screens, high refresh rates, and even light-up keyboards, but no matter how many bells and whistles you slap on a Chromebook, it's still not going to have nearly as much raw processing power as a more traditional laptop. That's where cloud gaming comes in. This lets you stream games from the cloud, if you're willing to put up with a certain amount of video compression and input delay. One of the most popular cloud gaming services is Nvidia's GeForce Now, which lets you play select free-to-play titles and PC games you already own using the company's own data centers. The catch is that you either have to watch ads or pay up—but today, Google's Chromebooks are getting an exclusive new tier of GeForce Now that fixes both of these issues. Called GeForce Now Fast Pass, this version of GeForce Now is sort of like an expanded version of the existing free tier. You'll still be limited to playing at 1080p and 60fps—higher specs will require you to pay—and you won't have access to GeForce Now's "Install-to-Play" games, which means the library of compatible titles will be closer to 2,000 than 4,000. But unlike the free tier, you won't have to watch any ads, and you won't have to wait in a queue to start playing. Nvidia says the typical free-tier queue is only two minutes long, but hey, the sooner you can hop into the action, the better. Starting today, all new Chromebook purchases will come with a free year of GeForce Now Fast Pass, but there are some caveats. The big one is that you only get 10 free Fast Pass hours per month, although up to five unused hours will roll over to the next month. That means you'll still have to keep track of your time while playing, even if you don't have to watch ads. A Google spokesperson told me over email that once your Fast Pass hours are up, you'll be downgraded to the basic, ad-supported free tier, or you can purchase more Fast Pass hours a la carte. I wasn't told exactly how much these hours will cost, but given that a day pass (meaning 24 hours of play) of GeForce Now with no ads and higher specs than Fast Pass costs just $3.99, I can't imagine they'll be too expensive. As for when your year of Fast Pass is over, I'm still waiting for an answer on how to renew. I'll update this post once I hear back. I've also asked whether users that already have Chromebooks will be able to sign up for GeForce Now Fast Pass. One last bonus for Fast Pass, though, is that you don't have to actually use it on your Chromebook. You'll need a Chromebook to sign up (I'm also still waiting on exact steps for that), but once you've redeemed the offer, you'll be able to use it on any GeForce Now compatible device, like a phone or tablet. Overall, it doesn't exactly seem like something I'd go out of my way to buy a Chromebook for, but it could be a decent way to get good enough performance to play through about one short game per month, all without having to pay for GeForce Now or deal with ads or wait times. Combine that with the free games that sites like Epic give out on a regular basis, and you could essentially game casually for a year without buying anything other than your Chromebook. View the full article

U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in September, the highest since October 2021 and up from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. The unemployment rate rose partly because 470,000 people entered the labor market—either working or looking for work—in September and not all of them found jobs right away. The increase in payrolls was more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast. But Labor Department revisions showed that the economy lost 4,000 jobs in August instead of gaining 22,000 as originally reported. Altogether, revisions shaved 33,000 jobs off July and August payrolls. The data, though late, was welcomed by businesses, investors, policymakers, and the Federal Reserve. During the 43-day shutdown, they’d been groping in the dark for clues about the health of the American job market because federal workers had been furloughed and couldn’t collect the data. The report comes at a time of considerable uncertainty about the economy. The job market has been strained by the lingering effects of high interest rates and uncertainty around The President’s erratic campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth. But economic growth at midyear was resilient. Healthcare and social assistance firms added more than 57,000 jobs in September, restaurants and bars 37,000, construction companies 19,000 and retailers almost 14,000. But factories shed 6,000 jobs—the fifth straight monthly drop. The federal government, targeted by The President and billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE cost cutters, lost 3,000 jobs, the eighth straight monthly decline.. Average hourly wages rose just 0.2% from August and 3.8% from a year earlier, edging closer to the 3.5% year-over-year increase that the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters like to see. The latest reading on jobs Thursday makes a rate cut by the Federal Reserve at their next meeting in December less likely. Many Fed officials were already leaning against a cut next month, according to minutes of their October meeting released Wednesday. Steady hiring suggests the economy doesn’t need lower interest rates to expand. The September jobs report will be the last one the Fed will see before its Dec. 9-10 meeting. Officials are split between those who see stubbornly high inflation as the main challenge they need to address by keeping rates elevated, and those who are more concerned that hiring is sluggish and needs to be supported by rate reductions. Economists expected to see a continuation of what was happening in the spring and summer: weak hiring but few layoffs, an awkward pairing that means Americans who have work mostly enjoy job security – but those who don’t often struggle to find employment. The job market has been strained this year by the lingering effects of high interest rates engineered to fight a 2021-2022 spike in inflation and uncertainty around The President’s campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth and on specific products—from copper to foreign films. Labor Department revisions in September showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of just 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. President Donald The President’s crackdown on illegal immigration is expected to reduce the number of people looking for work, which means that the economy can create fewer jobs without sending the unemployment rate higher. With September numbers out, businesses, investors, policymakers and the Fed will have to wait awhile to get another good look at the numbers behind the American labor market. The Labor Department said Wednesday that it won’t won’t release a full jobs report for October because it couldn’t calculate the unemployment rate during the government shutdown. Instead, it will release some of the October jobs data—including the number of jobs that employers created last month—along with the full November jobs report on Dec. 16, a couple of weeks late. —Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report. View the full article

A reader writes: I’ve been looking to move to a new company for many months now, and recently a personal connection was able to introduce me to several high-level contacts in my desired industry. Through this contact I have spoken to senior/executive-director level people at several firms that I would love to work with. However, with the exception of one conversation where we directly discussed openings at their organization, these conversations have generally been networking/informational interviewing. My connections who referred me to these contacts always seem a little surprised that the conversations have not led directly to at least an interview, but I’ve been very wary of being too demanding of these senior-level people who have taken time to speak to me. I’ve asked them in-depth questions about their work and projects, but I haven’t asked if they can refer me to specific positions. Am I doing something wrong in these conversations? Is there a tactful way to follow up with a request to know about any suitable openings in their organizations? I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. The post my networking meetings never lead anywhere appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A shadow looms over the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) program, as a recent scandal reveals fraudulent activities that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions. The fallout has ignited a call for substantial reforms aimed at protecting legitimate small businesses and ensuring fair access to federal contracting opportunities. U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is at the forefront of this movement, advocating for a thorough reassessment of the SBA’s 8(a) program, which is designed to assist socially and economically disadvantaged businesses. Ernst’s call to action follows revelations of a widespread “pass-through” contracting scheme that not only siphons off taxpayer dollars but also corrupts the integrity of a program intended to uplift deserving small business owners. Ernst’s concerns are amplified by a recent investigation by the Department of Justice, which uncovered a staggering $550 million bribery scheme linked to the 8(a) program, with multiple executives pleading guilty. “It is obvious that the Biden administration’s indifference toward meaningful oversight in the 8(a) program allowed swindlers and fraudsters to treat federal contracting programs like personal piggy banks,” she stated, highlighting the urgency for accountability and reform. For small business owners, understanding the implications of these developments is critical. The SBA 8(a) program is meant to open doors to federal contracts that can drive growth; however, the current issues undermine that purpose, potentially discouraging legitimate enterprises from participating. The proposed reforms aim to strengthen oversight and accountability, ensuring that the program benefits those it was designed for. Key benefits of these reforms could include: Increased Oversight: Scrutinizing how funding is allocated could lead to a more transparent system where only deserving businesses are supported. Fair Competition: Enhancing accountability might level the playing field, allowing genuine small businesses to compete for contracts without facing unfair competition from fraudulent entities. Restored Trust: Successful reforms could restore confidence among entrepreneurs that government programs prioritize their needs rather than allowing abuse. However, small business owners should also consider the challenges that may accompany these changes. Increased regulation and oversight might create additional bureaucratic hurdles, making it more difficult to navigate the procurement process. Some small enterprises might find themselves unprepared for heightened scrutiny and may need to invest in compliance measures to meet new regulations. Ernst has reached out to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler and the SBA Office of Inspector General, urging them to conduct a comprehensive review of the program. “After years of complaints about fraud in the 8(a) program, I am glad the veil has been lifted,” she emphasized. While many businesses might welcome the prospect of reform, the transition could pose challenges. Small business owners are urged to remain informed and actively engage in the dialogue surrounding these developments. This could involve leveraging resources available through the SBA or participating in community discussions to better understand how their voices can shape future policies. As the conversation around the SBA 8(a) program evolves, small business owners should keep a close eye on the changes that may arise. Engaging with local business networks and staying updated on policy developments will be key to navigating this potentially transformative landscape. For those looking to dive deeper into the situation, more details can be found in the original statement from Senator Ernst. The urgency of the issue may represent a pivotal moment for small businesses aiming for fair access to government contracts, making it essential for entrepreneurs to advocate for effective and equitable reform. To read the original press release and learn more, visit the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s website. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Senator Ernst Urges Major Overhaul of SBA Program Amid Fraud Scandal" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

A shadow looms over the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) program, as a recent scandal reveals fraudulent activities that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions. The fallout has ignited a call for substantial reforms aimed at protecting legitimate small businesses and ensuring fair access to federal contracting opportunities. U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is at the forefront of this movement, advocating for a thorough reassessment of the SBA’s 8(a) program, which is designed to assist socially and economically disadvantaged businesses. Ernst’s call to action follows revelations of a widespread “pass-through” contracting scheme that not only siphons off taxpayer dollars but also corrupts the integrity of a program intended to uplift deserving small business owners. Ernst’s concerns are amplified by a recent investigation by the Department of Justice, which uncovered a staggering $550 million bribery scheme linked to the 8(a) program, with multiple executives pleading guilty. “It is obvious that the Biden administration’s indifference toward meaningful oversight in the 8(a) program allowed swindlers and fraudsters to treat federal contracting programs like personal piggy banks,” she stated, highlighting the urgency for accountability and reform. For small business owners, understanding the implications of these developments is critical. The SBA 8(a) program is meant to open doors to federal contracts that can drive growth; however, the current issues undermine that purpose, potentially discouraging legitimate enterprises from participating. The proposed reforms aim to strengthen oversight and accountability, ensuring that the program benefits those it was designed for. Key benefits of these reforms could include: Increased Oversight: Scrutinizing how funding is allocated could lead to a more transparent system where only deserving businesses are supported. Fair Competition: Enhancing accountability might level the playing field, allowing genuine small businesses to compete for contracts without facing unfair competition from fraudulent entities. Restored Trust: Successful reforms could restore confidence among entrepreneurs that government programs prioritize their needs rather than allowing abuse. However, small business owners should also consider the challenges that may accompany these changes. Increased regulation and oversight might create additional bureaucratic hurdles, making it more difficult to navigate the procurement process. Some small enterprises might find themselves unprepared for heightened scrutiny and may need to invest in compliance measures to meet new regulations. Ernst has reached out to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler and the SBA Office of Inspector General, urging them to conduct a comprehensive review of the program. “After years of complaints about fraud in the 8(a) program, I am glad the veil has been lifted,” she emphasized. While many businesses might welcome the prospect of reform, the transition could pose challenges. Small business owners are urged to remain informed and actively engage in the dialogue surrounding these developments. This could involve leveraging resources available through the SBA or participating in community discussions to better understand how their voices can shape future policies. As the conversation around the SBA 8(a) program evolves, small business owners should keep a close eye on the changes that may arise. Engaging with local business networks and staying updated on policy developments will be key to navigating this potentially transformative landscape. For those looking to dive deeper into the situation, more details can be found in the original statement from Senator Ernst. The urgency of the issue may represent a pivotal moment for small businesses aiming for fair access to government contracts, making it essential for entrepreneurs to advocate for effective and equitable reform. To read the original press release and learn more, visit the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s website. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Senator Ernst Urges Major Overhaul of SBA Program Amid Fraud Scandal" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

The national median payment applied for by purchase applicants fell to $2,039 in October from September, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. View the full article

Are you acquiring or recruiting? There’s a difference. By Anthony Zecca Leading From the Edge Go PRO for members-only access to more Anthony Zecca. View the full article

Are you acquiring or recruiting? There’s a difference. By Anthony Zecca Leading From the Edge Go PRO for members-only access to more Anthony Zecca. View the full article

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on gathering some informed opinions from people trying out Google’s new Gemini 3 Pro AI model. I also look at another “circular” AI investment agreement. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan. What smart people are saying about Google’s Gemini 3 The so-called generative AI boom is only about three years old. It has been characterized by some breakthrough moments, chief among them the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022. A relatively small number of AI labs have been competing to release frontier models that beat all others. The top spots on the rankings of benchmark test scores seem to change names every six months or so. But the release of Google’s new flagship Gemini 3 Pro model (in preview), along with its impressive benchmark test scores, seem like a moment we’ll remember. Now, people—many of them developers—who immediately began testing the new model are beginning to weigh in on how well Gemini 3 performs in real-world use. Here is a selection of their impressions. Thumbs-up “Gemini 3 . . . shows significant gains in reasoning, reliability in multi-step agent workflows, and an ability to debug tough development tasks with high-quality fixes. In early evaluations, it improved Warp’s Terminal Bench state of the art score by 20%.” –Zach Lloyd, CEO of Warp “I simply asked Gemini 3 Pro to diagnose and fix its own code. It reasoned through the problem in exactly the way I would expect from a thoughtful junior engineer…” –game developer Josh English on Medium “Best creative and professional writing I’ve seen. I don’t code, so that’s off my radar, but for me the vibes are excellent. Intelligence, nuance, flexibility, and originality are promising in that distinct way that excites and disturbs me. Haven’t had this feeling since 11/30/22.” –Brett Cooper on X “Gemini beat my own previously unbeaten personal test. The test involves a fairly long list of accurate to year information, ordered properly, many opportunities for hallucination and then used to achieve a goal. I need a new test, so yeah – I think Gemini’s impressive.” –Richard Knoche on X “It’s a great model, as far as LLMs go, topping most benchmarks, but it’s certainly not AGI. It’s haunted by the same kind of problems that all earlier models have had. Hallucinations and unreliability persist. Visual and physical reasoning are still a mess. In short, scaling isn’t getting us to AGI.” –AI skeptic Gary Marcus on Medium “I found the answer, and it’s actually terrifying (in a good way) … The uptake of Gemini has been wild … We are talking about a model that is delivering rich visuals, deeper interactivity, and ‘agentic vibe coding’.” –CodeToDeploy on Medium “[We] created the first open-source evaluation framework to test how leading AI models respond to self-harm and mental health crisis scenarios, and the results were alarming,” said Sean Dadashi, cofounder of the AI journaling app company Rosebud. “Gemini 3 [is] the safest AI model we’ve seen yet.” Thumbs-down “Thoroughly benchmaxxed (optimized to do well on benchmark tests), very mid model. Makes so much errors, I have strong doubts they are serving the model they ran the benchmarks on.” –Infrecursion on X “My experience with the Gemini [command line interface] has been dreadful. It craps out at least half of the time. When it works it is ridiculously fast so I keep trying it. But it has proven very inferior to the Claude code experience in my usage.” –Reddit user dinkleberg “Was much worse than GPT-5.1 for ‘find me research on [x]’-type queries. It kept trying to do my thinking (synthesis) for me, which is not what I want from it. It gave me individual research results if I explicitly asked but even then it seemed to go way less wide than GPT-5.1.” –Robert Mushkatblat on X The free-for-all continues: Anthropic takes $15 billion from Microsoft, Nvidia, with strings Someone on Twitter (X) said it best (Peter Wildeford): “After the breakup, both Microsoft and OpenAI are seeing different people . . . also Nvidia is sleeping with everybody.” In other words, after doubling down on its bet on OpenAI, Microsoft has begun investing in other AI model developers too. Anthropic is the most recent. On Tuesday, Anthropic announced it would be taking a new $5 billion in investment money from Microsoft and $10 billion from Nvidia. As part of the deal, Anthropic will purchase about $30 billion of compute capacity from Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, which is powered by Nvidia chips. Anthropic says it’s now the first frontier model to be available within all three major cloud services—Microsoft Azure, Amazon’s AWS, and Google Cloud. Anthropic will work with Nvidia to optimize its models to run well on Nvidia chips. In September, Anthropic raised another $13 billion in funding, after which it was valued at $183 billion. So, as it has done with OpenAI, Microsoft becomes both an investor in, and a major supplier to, Anthropic. In a less direct way, so does Nvidia. It’s the latest example of the kind of “circular” financial arrangements that have become commonplace in the world of big AI. In September, Nvidia announced a $100-billion investment in OpenAI, which the chip supplier will pay in installments that are contingent on OpenAI buying a certain number of chips from Nvidia. So Nvidia gets guaranteed chip sales and a 2% share of OpenAI. “These investments might be circular and raise related party concerns, as Nvidia may own shares in a customer that will likely use such funds to buy more Nvidia gear,” Morningstar equity analyst Brian Colello wrote at the time. OpenAI struck a similar deal with Nvidia rival AMD in early October. OpenAI agreed to buy large quantities of AMD’s Instinct AI chips on a set schedule over the next decade. If it keeps to the schedule, it’ll get the option of buying a 10% stake in AMD. The group of companies pouring billions into the coming AI revolution isn’t really getting any bigger, and many of the participants seem to be placing bets on each other. The big spenders are Nvidia, Microsoft, Oracle, Meta, Google, Amazon, and some big financiers like Softbank. A larger and more diverse set of players would give confidence that the burgeoning AI industry isn’t just a big hype bubble. Survey: Trust in AI is breaking along class divides Edelman is out with a new survey report, titled Trust in AI report, AI Trust at a Crossroads, which finds that humans’ trust of AI isn’t growing quickly, and that trust levels break along class lines. Edelman surveyed 5,000 people in the U.S., Brazil, China, Germany, and the U.K. More than half of low-income respondents (54%) feel they’ll be “left out and left behind” in the move toward AI, the survey finds. That’s compared to the 44% of middle-income, and the 31% of high-income people. The study found a strong connection between higher trust in AI tools and higher usage of them. Low trust in AI stems from worries over how the systems will use — and whether they will protect — personal data. People, especially in developed countries, also worry about how they might be manipulated by AI. At work, only a quarter of non-managers use AI tools weekly, versus 63% of managers. Tech (55%) and finance (43%) employees are most open to AI at work, while adoption is lowest in healthcare (28%), education (25%), food & beverage (23%), and transportation (20%). Across all countries, 62% of younger people ages 18 to 34 say they generally trust AI, while 57% of people ages 35–54, and 40% of people 55 and older say they trust it. Interestingly, only 40% of 18-to-34 year olds in the U.S. say they trust AI. More AI coverage from Fast Company: Gemini 3 may be the moment Google pulls away in the AI arms race Misinformation sites have an open-door policy for AI scrapers AI browsers need the open web. So why are they trying to kill it? A battle against the AI oligarchy is brewing in this wealthy New York district Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium. View the full article

A beloved Christmas tree tradition is returning to Manhattan for the holiday season next week. No, it’s not the towering spruce at Rockefeller Center, which is lit in early December. The comparatively smaller Origami Holiday Tree that’s delighted crowds for decades at the American Museum of Natural History opens to the public on Monday. The colorful, richly decorated 13-foot (4-meter) tree is adorned with thousands of hand-folded paper ornaments created by origami artists from around the world. This year’s tree is inspired by the museum’s new exhibition, “Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs,” which chronicles how an asteroid crash some 66 million years ago reshaped life on Earth. Talo Kawasaki, the tree’s co-designer, said the tree’s theme is “New Beginnings,” in reference to the new world that followed the mass extinction. Located off the museum’s Central Park West entrance, the artificial tree is topped with a golden, flaming asteroid. Its branches and limbs are packed with origami works representing a variety of animals and insects, including foxes, cranes, turtles, bats, sharks, elephants, giraffes and monkeys. Dinosaur favorites such as the triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex are also depicted in the folded paper works of art. “We wanted to focus more not so much the demise of the dinosaurs, but the new life this created, which were the expansion and the evolution of mammals ultimately leading to humanity,” Kawasaki explained on a recent visit. The origami tree has been a highlight of the museum’s holiday season for more than 40 years. Volunteers from all over the world are enlisted to make hundreds of new models. The intricate paper artworks are generally made from a single sheet of paper but can sometimes take days or even weeks to perfect. The new origami pieces are bolstered by archived works stored from prior seasons, including a 40-year-old model of a pterosaur, an extinct flying reptile, that was folded for one of the museum’s first origami trees in the early 1970s. Rosalind Joyce, the tree’s co-designer, estimates that anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 origami works are embedded in the tree. “This year there’s a lot of stuff stuffed in there,” she said. “So I don’t count.” —Joseph B. Frederick and Philip Marcelo, Associated Press View the full article

Your Mac now has a built-in clipboard manager, which means that it can finally remember everything you've copied. This feature is disabled by default, but you can enable it pretty easily and start keeping track of the text, photos, and other files that are in your clipboard. The catch is that you need to be running macOS 26 Tahoe to use the built-in clipboard manager, which isn't an option for those with older Macs. Also, Apple's implementation of the clipboard manager is pretty basic, and if you need more features, you're going to have to use third-party alternatives. With that in mind, here is how to pick the best clipboard manager for your Mac. Spotlight search: The best clipboard manager for most people Credit: Pranay Parab Not everyone needs an advanced clipboard manager. For most people, an app that does the basics is good enough, and it's even better if that app ships with your Mac. As long as your Mac is running macOS 26 Tahoe, you can use the built-in clipboard manager. I wrote about using Spotlight as your clipboard manager recently, and it's been super convenient. You need to enable it by going to System Settings > Spotlight > Results from Clipboard, but after that, you're all set. Spotlight will log everything you copy, except sensitive information such as passwords. You can then access all of your clipboard entries by pressing Command-Space (or clicking that magnifying glass in your Mac's menu bar) and then Command-4. This feature is good enough to get started with clipboard management, but it doesn't sync clipboard history across devices or support features like categorizing copied items by type. If you need advanced features to speed up your workflow, you'll have to rely on third-party apps. It's also worth noting that if you use Spotlight alternatives such as Alfred or Raycast, those apps ship with clipboard managers, too. You don't have to switch back to Spotlight just for this feature. Maccy: A simple, free clipboard manager for older Macs Credit: Pranay Parab If you can't install macOS Tahoe on your Mac, or if you use an older Mac that isn't supported any longer, you can download Maccy to get a fast, free, and open source clipboard manager that's just as good as Apple's built-in feature. Maccy is a lightweight menu bar app that displays clipboard history when you click its icon. It also lets you quickly search through your clipboard entries and functions reliably without getting in the way of your work. Plus, you can set up a list of applications to ignore, which means that you can stop it from storing data when you copy from sensitive apps such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, among others. Download: Maccy (free via GitHub, also available for $10 on the Mac App Store, or for $5 via Gumroad). PastePal: A great paid clipboard manager Credit: Pranay Parab I bought PastePal a year ago, and it has served me well ever since. This app is available as a one-time purchase at a reasonable price, and it has pretty much every feature you could ask for. In addition to basic clipboard management, it lets you automatically remove tracking URLs from links, or transform text between upper case and lower case. I also love that it lets you edit items you've copied, which makes life a lot easier when you've accidentally copied a few extra characters with your text. PastePal also supports sequential paste, which means that you can copy a bunch of items and paste them one-by-one. This is great for speeding up repetitive tasks such as copying from one window and pasting in another. My only complaint with this app is that its interface is not super intuitive. If you like your apps to be pretty, you will be disappointed here. While PastePal has all the features you need, you'll have to spend some time digging through settings to make the most of them. That's an acceptable compromise for me, but it may not be for others. You have the option of buying PastePal direct from the developer or from the Mac App Store. The App Store purchase also unlocks the app on iPhone, iPad, in addition to Mac. Download: PastePal ($15 via Mac App Store or a direct purchase) Paste: Pricey, but the best clipboard manager overall Credit: Pranay Parab I think Paste is the best clipboard manager for Apple devices overall. It's feature-packed and has the best interface that you could ask for in this kind of an app. It reliably handles your clipboard history, lets you choose which apps to exclude from its tracking, allows you to organize and pin items, and supports advanced features such as extracting text from images and sequential pasting. It also uses a rather simple and intuitive keyboard shortcut (Command-Shift-V) to open or close the clipboard history panel. Plus, there are extra touches, such as letting you view a preview of a webpage when you've copied a link to it. This makes it easy to check if a link is working before you paste it into an app. It's an overall neat and thoughtful app that's well worth recommending. Paste is available on the Mac App Store, but its premium tier requires a subscription fee. This unlocks the app on all devices and lets you sync your clipboard history easily. I think it's a bit pricey, but if you want the best clipboard manager that money can buy, this is it. Download: Paste ($4/month or $30/year; one-time purchase fee is $90) View the full article

It’s time to transform your services. By Jackie Meyer Go PRO for members-only access to more Jackie Meyer. View the full article

It’s time to transform your services. By Jackie Meyer Go PRO for members-only access to more Jackie Meyer. View the full article

Today's Bissett Bullet: “All it takes for an accounting practice to stagnate is capable, talented partners to take up a position of ‘my clients,’ ‘my fees.’” By Martin Bissett See more Bissett Bullets here Go PRO for members-only access to more Martin Bissett. View the full article

Today's Bissett Bullet: “All it takes for an accounting practice to stagnate is capable, talented partners to take up a position of ‘my clients,’ ‘my fees.’” By Martin Bissett See more Bissett Bullets here Go PRO for members-only access to more Martin Bissett. View the full article