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TikTok to set up office in Kenya after meeting with President Ruto
TikTok has agreed to set up a Kenyan office for better content moderation and African operations. Despite existing legal troubles around content moderation in Kenya, the president’s statement about the meeting ignores TikTok’s involvement with one of the key parties, Majorel.
After meeting with President Ruto William, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has agreed to set up a TikTok office in Kenya to coordinate its operations on the continent. The meeting was held on Thursday, August 24, 2023; it was a timely conversation given the recent debate about banning the platform due to explicit content posted by users. President William Ruto said the move will ensure that content on the platform is moderated to fit community standards.
There are many difficulties around content moderation, and earlier this year, former content moderators sued Meta and Majorel for wrongful dismissal. A court ruled that Meta can be held liable for labor rights violations despite the moderators being employed by third-party contractors like Majorel. As the lawsuit gained attention, an internal TikTok document leaked
, showing that the company was preparing for investigations into its treatment of outsourced content moderators in Kenya.
The president’s statement about the meeting also says nothing about improving Kenya’s monetisation of the platform. When announcing the meeting the day before, President Ruto said he would talk with Mr. Chew about extending monetisation channels to Kenyans. Currently, no African country can earn money directly from the platform, only through influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, or the marketing of their goods and services. Ruto said he had previously interacted with social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter concerning monetisation strategies. However, it remains unclear if those conversations influenced the decisions of YouTube and Facebook to enable monetisation in Kenya.
While he claims that his talks with YouTube have led to the East African country is one of the only four African countries that gained access to the platform’s monetisation program last year, news reports dating back to 2015 show that Kenya and several other African countries have had access to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) for nearly a decade. YPP offers creators enhanced access to monetisation features, which are presently accessible to 12 African countries, contrary to President Ruto’s claims that only four countries have access to them.
Kenya is among the four African countries— Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa— that can monetise content through Facebook’s Ad Breaks feature, allowing video creators to earn revenue from advertisements. However, they gained access to it in 2019—when President Ruto was deputy president to Uhuru Kenyatta. It’s uncertain if he or the Kenyan government influenced the selection of these countries. In the first quarter of the year, Facebook announced the feature was now available to Kenya, the country ranked fourth among African countries for citizens’ social media usage, suggesting that the decision could have been data-driven.
President Ruto wants a similar monetisation arrangement between Kenyan content creators. There are direct monetisation channels such as Livestream gifts and the Creator fund, but they are not available in any African country. Africans on TikTok currently earn through influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, and possibly advertising their products or services.
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McDonald’s CFO: Bigger Burgers, More Meat Testing This Year
After months of testing and teasing dozens of modifications to its original burger, McDonald’s is now revealing one massive change that customers will notice — the size.
In a Tuesday call with analysts, McDonald’s Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden announced that the chain will be testing a larger burger this year in select markets.
“As we look to further build on our leadership in beef, our team of chefs from around the world have created a larger satiating burger,” Borden said during the call. “We’ll be testing this burger in a few markets later this year ensuring that it has universal appeal before scaling it across the globe.”
Related: McDonald’s Is Completely Changing Its Burgers in 2024
This isn’t surprising news for McDonald’s, as Borden hinted at the UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference last month that he believed there was a “significant” opportunity to create a larger-sized offering and noted the chain has attempted to do so in the past.
In the mid-90s, McDonald’s attempted to create “premium” burgers with different toppings and offerings (such as the Arch Deluxe, for example), instead of simply making a larger patty.
“We tried to get after this opportunity for a number of years because we thought the opportunity was about premium burger,” Borden said last month. “We weren’t successful.”
It’s been a long time coming for the chain, which laid out a massive growth plan in December that included creating a new version of its burgers with an estimated 50 modifications. The changes were first tested in Australia and select West Coast and Midwest markets in 2023.
Other changes included swapping the Big Mac’s sesame seed bun with “buttery brioche” and each burger coming with more of the cult-favorite “special sauce.”
McDonald’s reported positive Q1 2024 earnings on Tuesday, a 2% quarterly jump in global comparable sales growth, which marks the chain’s 13th consecutive quarter of comparable sales growth.
Related: McDonald’s in Connecticut Goes Viral For Astronomical Prices
“As consumers are more discriminating with every dollar that they spend, we will continue to earn their visits by delivering leading, reliable, everyday value and outstanding execution in our restaurants,” said CEO Chris Kempczinski.
McDonald’s was down just over 8% as of Tuesday afternoon.
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Gen Z Is Choosing Trade Schools as a Fast Track to Business
It’s no secret that Gen Z is entrepreneurial, with research showing that the majority would take a social media creator job over a standard 9-to-5. Nearly half are going the extra mile by starting a side hustle to be able to afford “the normal stuff.”
Now, new research shows that trade school could also play into Gen Z’s entrepreneurial aspirations, especially with rising AI capabilities and growing education costs.
According to a January National Student Clearinghouse report, vocational community college enrollment has grown 16% since 2018. Growth was concentrated mainly in cities and suburbs, which recorded 3.5% and 3.7% respective increases in students opting for trade programs.
Last year’s version of the report found that enrollment in programs across the construction, culinary, and mechanic trades increased 19.3%, 12.7%, and 11.5% respectively from 2021 to 2022.
“We’re seeing that 75% of Gen Z is saying they are interested in being an entrepreneur,” career coach and The Ramsey Show co-host Ken Coleman told Fox Business. “They want to work for themselves… trades offer a quicker, cheaper path to being able to work for themselves, create jobs for other people, and plug into—which is the real backbone of our economy—small business.”
While students were choosing trade schools in higher numbers, fewer were deciding to go for a four-year undergraduate degree.
A separate April report from the National Student Clearinghouse detailed that the number of students completing undergraduate degrees dropped by nearly 3% in the 2022 to 2023 school year — continuing an overall decline from the previous year.
In an NPR article published last week, Sy Kirby, a 32-year-old who owns a construction company, said he knew early that he was going to choose a trade school — and he has no regrets.
Kirby chose to work at a local water department when he was 19 years old rather than go to college, he told NPR. He calls Gen Z the “toolbelt generation,” a term also used by The Wall Street Journal.
“I was facing a lot of pressure for a guy that knew for a fact that he wasn’t going to college,” Kirby told NPR. “I knew I wasn’t going to sit in a classroom, especially since I knew I wasn’t going to pay for it.”
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This Set of Chef’s Knives Is Nearly $300 Off
Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.
Cooking at home can be great for busy professionals because it’s budget-friendly, easier to stay healthy, and meditative. Whether you’re a home cook or an entrepreneur on the hunt for a unique gift that could stand out to a colleague, potential business partner, or friend, this limited-time deal is well worth checking out.
This Seido Japanese Master Chef’s 8-Piece Knife Set comes with a gift box and is on sale for $109.97 (reg. $429). These high-quality knives are made with very durable and strong high-carbon stainless steel. Their forged construction incorporates a sloped bolster and acute 15° angles (compared to the typical 25° seen more commonly with Western knives).
This set includes the following knives:
- 8″ chef’s knife
- 8″ slicing knife
- 8″ bread knife
- 7″ cleaver
- 7″ Santoku knife
- 5″ Santoku knife
- 6″ boning knife
- 3.5″ paring knife
To add an air of high-class presentation to this deal, it also comes with a stylish gift box that can securely store the knives for travel or passing on to a business partner.
This set has an impressive 4.6/5 star average rating among verified purchasers. One recent perfect five-out-of-five star review reads, “Affordable price. Excellent workmanship. Fast shipment. Overall, great product that’s hard to beat.”
Discover the quality of a high-end set of knives to improve your home cooking, or gift them to someone you work with.
This Seido™ Japanese Master Chef’s 8-Piece Knife Set comes with a gift box and is on sale for $109.97 (reg. $429).
StackSocial prices subject to change.
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