In Brief: Emma Raducanu Is a Marketer’s Dream; Facebook Has a Misinformation Problem

Rising Tennis Star Emma Raducanu a Marketer’s Dream, Experts Say

After her improbable run to win the U.S. Open on Sept. 11, British tennis star Emma Raducanu could earn millions through sponsorship deals, experts predict. 

As the BBC reports, the 18-year-old athlete already has sponsorship contracts with Nike and Wilson, but “The sky is the limit for her,” said Nigel Currie, a sponsorship and marketing consultant. “She is very personable, very bright. She says the right things — from a marketing point of view, that is a dream.” 

Raducanu has an “inspiring young image” that businesses will want to capitalize on, said Trevor Watkins, a sports industry lawyer. “The power of the personality to drive value is a huge factor for her,” as long as “she makes the right choices,” he said.

In addition, marketers point to her unique heritage. She was born in Canada to a Chinese mother and Romanian father before moving to the United Kingdom when she was two years old.

“Global brands will seek her endorsement…given her appeal as a Canadian, Romanian, Chinese, British citizen of the world,” Allyson Stewart-Allen, CEO of International Marketing Partners, told CNN.

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Facebook’s Ongoing Misinformation Problem

During the 2020 election, misinformation spread faster on Facebook than factual news did, says a new study by researchers at New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France. 

As The Washington Post reports, news organizations known for publishing falsehoods received six times the number of likes, shares and interactions on Facebook than trustworthy news sources did.

The findings “add to the growing body of evidence that, despite a variety of mitigation efforts, misinformation has found a comfortable home — and an engaged audience — on Facebook,” said Rebekah Tromble, director of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at George Washington University.

Pages trafficking in misinformation on both the far left and the far right generated much more engagement from Facebook users than did factual pages of any political slant, the researchers found. A Facebook spokesman challenged the report, saying it “looks mostly at how people engage with content, which should not be confused with how many people actually see it on Facebook.”

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How Should Ambitious Employees Navigate Hybrid Work?

As many offices prepare to reopen but allow hybrid schedules, some companies will let employees decide which days they’ll work in-person, The Wall Street Journal reports. For ambitious employees, that means strategizing how to get noticed and advance their careers. 

Managers and leadership coaches predict Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays will be peak days for office “face time.” But for ambitious employees, “Your boss’s schedule is your schedule,” says Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Workers with the most in-person access to leaders will have better chances for promotions, he says. 

When bosses see you in the office, “it’s a visual reminder you exist in the company outside of your team,” says Francis Ndicu, a product manager at HubSpot, a marketing software company. “You’re closer to the top of their mind than others.”

Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, recommends employees use in-office days to have coffee chats with managers, power lunches and project powwows with co-workers.

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Survey: Roughly Half of Americans Finding COVID-Vaccine News on Social Media

Amid debates over social media’s role in spreading falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines, roughly half of Americans say they’ve been receiving some (30 percent) or a lot (18 percent) of news and information about the vaccines on social media, a new survey from Pew Research Center finds. The other half (51 percent) say they’ve been receiving little or no vaccine news on social media.

Just 6 percent of those surveyed say social media is the most important way to receive news and information about coronavirus vaccines, while 33 percent say it’s important but not the most important way. The majority of Americans surveyed (60 percent) say social media is not an important way to keep up with news about COVID-19 vaccines. 

Younger Americans and women are more likely than older Americans and men to receive news about COVID-19 vaccines on social media, because they’re more apt to use social media for news in the first place, Pew finds.

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