The TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This newsletter and podcast provides a weekly compilation of curated information for small business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers to grow their business and online presence.
Hello, I’m Jim Person and welcome to the TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This is Episode (12) for the week ending Friday, March 25. Today’s podcast is brought to you in part by NameCheap. Buy a domain and everything else you need at NameCheap. Popular domains are just .99¢. Go to jimperson.com/namecheap to get started. That’s jimperson.com/namecheap.
TODAY’S CELEBRATIONS
Today is Friday, March 25 and it’s No Homework Day, International Waffle Day as well as Pecan Day. Interestingly, that’s a word with a couple of different pronunciations – pee-can or pee-khan. I grew up pronouncing it as “pee-can.” Then one Sunday my family and I went out brunch. After the meal it was time for dessert and I was tempted by and ordered the pecan pie. The waiter repeated our order back and said pee-kahn, to which I humorously replied pee-can. We had a funny back and forth to which he then said, “I grew up in the south and my granparents had an outhouse (outside toilet if you will). What do you do in the middle of the night when you have to go to the bathroom but don’t want to get out of your warm bed on a cold night. And you have a can [pee pot as it used to be called] nearby. You’ll pee in the can, right?” So he went on to add, “I don’t want to eat ‘pee in a can’ (pecan) pie, that’s why I say pee-khan.” And, after a little bit of visualization on my part, I must agree. Anyway, regardless of how you pronounce it, pecans do make an excellent pie!
Saturday, March 26 is National Spinach Day, Solitude Day, Legal Assistants Day and Purple Day, while Sunday, March 27 is World Theatre Day, National Joe Day and International Scribble Day.
FEATURED CONTENT
The Kids Are Online: Gen Z Is Poised To Become the Most Connected Generation, for Now
Gen Z is getting older and steadily moving toward becoming the most digitally connected generation. By 2024, U.S. Gen Zers will surpass millennials in regular internet use, and they’ll do the same with smartphone penetration in 2026.
- Internet use and smartphone adoption among Gen Z in the US is practically ubiquitous. This means penetration rates don’t reflect if Gen Z will get online so much as when individuals will be old enough to do so with regularity.
- In 2024, when US Gen Z internet penetration will jump to 99.1%, Gen Zers will be between 12 and 27 years old. Millennials, who will be fully into adulthood (ages 28 to 43), will stagnate at 97.4% penetration.
- Even the youngest Gen Zers will be teenagers by 2026, and penetration of those who own smartphones will reach 96.9% as younger kids who may be using tablets or borrowing smartphones mature
Looking ahead: By 2026, 99.6% of Gen Zers will be regular internet users. Meanwhile, as digital literacy increases and data plans become more affordable, the average age of digital connectivity will likely decrease in the coming years.
This story comes to us from eMarketer.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TIP
12 Important Image SEO Tips You Need To Know
Decoding all the various image formats can feel like your first time ordering at Taco Bell right. There’s JPG, PNG, and even something call WebP images. Think about the last time you uploaded an image to your website. Chances are you downloaded it from a stock photography site, uploaded it to the backend of your website, and then inserted it to the page. This makes a shining example of image optimization, right? Not quite. You’ve added a giant bowling ball weight to your site that’s slowing down the page speed. And, search engines can’t read your images without alt text. Without proper image optimization, you’re wasting a valuable SEO asset. Image optimization creates many advantages such as better user experience, faster page load times, and additional ranking opportunities. And, it’s becoming an increasingly more important role. In this Search Engine Journal article, they outline the 12 steps you should take with your images to optimize your search engine optimization.
This tip is just one of the tips provided each week in my TNT Report newsletter. Subscribe at https://jimperson.com/tnt.
IN NEWS
In 2022, 19 Million People Will Be Online Sports Bettors in the U.S.
eMarketer forecasts there will be 19.0 million online sports bettors in the U.S. this year. That’s 7.9% of adult U.S. internet users and a 31% increase over 2021. The Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting in May 2018. Many states have since legalized online sports betting, but specific regulations vary considerably from state to state. Some states, including California and Texas, still prohibit online sports betting. While we’re forecasting through 2023, the future of online sports betting has the potential to vary greatly as the legal landscape changes. This is an emerging market with little historical data to trend from, so it’s possible there will be unexpected volatility over the next couple of years. Legal online sports betting platforms are on the rise: Some of the most popular ones are FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM and Caesars.
Justice Department Weighs In On Web Accessibility
Disability Scoop reports that more than 30 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) took effect, many websites remain unusable for people with disabilities even as they have become integral to nearly every facet of day-to-day life. For the first time in nearly two decades, federal officials are issuing guidance on how the Americans with Disabilities Act applies online. The U.S. Department of Justice released a document late last week spelling out what websites need to do to be accessible as required by law. The guidance covers websites for state and local governments as well as businesses that are open to the public. It includes information about when the ADA requires content to be accessible and tips for doing so, all written in plain language so that it is useful to people without a legal or technical background, the Justice Department said.
Podcast Listening Continues to Grow
According to the latest Edison Research Infinite Dial survey, as reported by the Podcast Business Journal, 62% of the United States population, or 177 million people, have now listened to a podcast. That number is up from 57% from Edison’s 2021 survey. Tom Webster presented the new Edison research on Wednesday at Podcast Movement’s Evolutions. Listening to podcasts in the car is also up – 32% of those age 18+ who have ridden in or driven a car in the last month now listen to podcasts in-car, compared to 30% last year. While the upper age demo is listening more, podcasting’s biggest challenge is amongst the young, which makes perfect sense being that so many kids are living in a Tik Tok world. Webster even pointed out, during the social media portion of his presentation, that Tik Tok is the fastest growing social media platform. 38% of the 12+ in the U.S. are monthly podcast listeners in the current study, down from 41% in the Infinite Dial 2021, but still higher than 2020 (37%) In the 35-54 demo, 43% are now monthly podcast listeners, up from 39% in 2021.
And in other new headlines this week:
For links to these stories and more, visit jimperson.com/ episode12.
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TOOLS
Get one-on-one advice and feedback from high-profile individuals and industry experts that help you get unstuck.
Text Blaze (Chrome extension)
Create smart text expansions to get more done and streamline your work. Billions of keystrokes saved! Save time and get more done! Save text snippets and templates and insert them anywhere on the web using keyboard shortcuts. Tired of typing your signature? Just type in the shortcut ‘/sig’ instead and it will be immediately expanded. Tired of copying and pasting a form letter to send to people? Just type the shortcut ‘/letter’ and have the letter generated automatically.
Those were just two of the tools I covered in this week’s email newsletter. See all of the tools at https://jimperson.com/tnt, the newsletter dated March 25, 2022.
FRIDAY FREEBIE
If you’re a subscriber to the TNT Report, you know it’s more than just tips, news, and tools. Since the newsletter is published on Friday afternoons, I also include a “Friday Freebie.” And today’s “Friday Freebie” is “Mastering the Art of Rain Photography” from Shutterstock. Sometimes, the light on a rainy day is spectacular. Soft, luminous, diffuse. But it can be technically challenging to coax your camera into recording what your eye sees so clearly.
Photos of rain can evoke a sense of mystery, drama, romance, calm, melancholy, and more. However, capturing the poetic essence of rain from behind the lens can be something of a challenge. Pulling it off requires not only the right gear, but also creative and technical insight. Fortunately, a little patience and know-how can completely elevate your rain photography, helping you transform an otherwise dull subject into something visually stunning. This quick tutorial from Shutterstock offers great insights in to how to take great photographs in the rain. Get the link to the Shutterstock blog article (above) at jimperson.com/ episode12.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe at jimperson.com/tnt-podcast. You can also find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart and numerous other podcast apps.
BONUS CONTENT
Now for some “bonus content” for you as a podcast listener. This is something not included in the weekly TNT Report newsletter.
2022 World Happiness Report
Finland was found to be the world’s happiest nation for a record fifth year in a row in the annual World Happiness Report. The report analyzes life expectancy, GDP per capita, and levels of social support, trust, and corruption to determine its rankings. Despite two years in a global pandemic, the report found an increase in global averages of benevolence, including more volunteering and charitable donations. Eight of the top 10 happiest countries are in Europe, and five of the top 10 are Nordic countries.
- The United States ranked 16th out of the 146 countries analyzed (up from 19th a year ago).
- Levels of worry and stress globally appeared to be on the decline from their 2020 highs.
- Life satisfaction was found to have risen the most for those over 60, while it fell the most among young people.
Learn more
about the World Happiness Report at worldhappiness.report.
Alright. I think that’s going to do it for this week’s TNT Report Podcast. You can find links to all the resources and news stories mentioned in this podcast at jimperson.com/ episode12. Thanks for listening – have a great weekend, and a profitable week. And if you’re looking for a book for the weekend, I recommend Audiobooks Now. Save 50% off your first digital audiobook. Just go to jimperson.com/audiobooks. That’s jimperson.com/audiobooks to get half off of your first digital audiobook.
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