Facebook and ForLawFirmsOnly Marketing

A letter to our clients: The groups - the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense - asked “large Facebook advertisers to show they will not support a company that puts profit over safety, and Facebook’s long history of allowing racist, violent and verifiably false content to run rampant on its platform.”  You can read about that announcement here:  https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/facebook-instagram-rei-patagonia-north-face-brands-join-stophateforprofit-boycott/ and for an up to date list of companies that have pulled their advertising on Facebook and Instagram you can read that here:  https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/business/facebook-ad-boycott-list/index.html. ForLawFirmsOnly Marketing and its third-party advertising partners have decided to support this movement.  Although we are not a major advertiser like the ones listed, our combined annual spend on Facebook ads is over $1.5 million.  We believe even small advertisers will have a cumulative effect and ask our friends and competitors who spend money with Facebook to pause their campaigns. I understand the consequences of this action.  Facebook and Instagram directly and through our influencers, account for a large number of quality leads that funnel into our mass tort and personal injury attorney clients as signed cases allowing us to keep our per signed case fees low.  The result will be a longer period of time for us to complete campaigns and a higher cost of acquisition for us.  We feel the solidarity and message outweigh the cost of potentially lost business and higher cost of advertising on other media. We also hope that you join our efforts by pausing any of your other Facebook campaigns.  It is time for Facebook to wake up.  Hurting their bottom line may be the only way to do it. Edward Lott, Ph.D., M.B.A. President and Managing Partner ForLawFirmsOnly Marketing, Inc. Ed can be reached at (or visit his website) edl@forlawfirmsonly.com 855-943-8736 ext. 101 www.ForLawFirmsOnly.com

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/facebook-and-forlawfirmsonly-marketing/

Why Google Ranks Singular and Plural Keywords Differently via @martinibuster

Google explains why the algorithm may rank singular and plural keywords differently. The post Why Google Ranks Singular and Plural Keywords Differently via @martinibuster appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/why-google-ranks-singular-and-plural-keywords-differently-via-martinibuster/

How to Choose the Most Link-Worthy Data Source for Your Content Posted by Domenica

Posted by Domenica Fractl has produced thousands of content marketing campaigns across every topic, and for the past seven years, we’ve been keeping track of each and every campaign in order to refine and improve the content we produce on behalf of our clients. In my last post for Moz, I explained how to set realistic digital PR expectations for your content based on your niche. In this topic, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the data and share insights about how the source of your content can be just as important in determining how your content will perform. In this analysis, I looked at 1,474 client content campaigns across six different data source categories:

• Client data
• Social media
• Participatory methods
• Publicly available data
• Survey
• Germ swab

It’s important to note that there are countless other data sources that we use for content campaigns every day at Fractl that are not mentioned in this article. In this analysis, each category has at least 20 campaigns, while some categories have several hundred campaigns. It’s also important to note that averages were collected by excluding upper outliers. For campaigns that went “viral” and performed well above the norm, we excluded them in the calculation so as not to skew the averages higher. In addition to sharing link and press averages, I will also be walking through how to produce pressworthy, sharable content from each data source and providing examples.

Managing expectations across content types

Across the entire sample of 1,474 campaigns, a project on average received 24 dofollow links and 89 press mentions in total. A press mention is defined as any time the content campaign was mentioned on a publisher’s website. There were some individual data source category averages that were on par with the sample average, while other categories deviated greatly from the sample average.

Publicly available data

For almost any niche out there, you can bet there is a publicly available data set available for use. Some examples include data from the CDC, the U.S. Census, colleges and universities, the WHO, and the TSA. The opportunities really are endless when it comes to using publicly available data as a methodology for your content. While free data sets can be a treasure trove of information for your content, keep in mind that they’re not always the simplest to work with. They do require a lot of analysis to make sense of the massive amount of information in them, and to make the insights digestible for your audience. Take for example a campaign we produced for a client called Neighborhood Names. The data was free from the US Census, but in order to make any sense of it, our researchers had to use QGIS, Python, text-mining, and phrasemachine (a text analysis API) just to narrow it down to what we were looking for. And what were we looking for? Looking at neighborhood names across America seems boring at first, until you realize that certain words correspond to wealth. I was the outreach specialist for this project, and by using the wealth angle, I was able to secure two notable placements on CNBC as well as a press mention on MSN. The project quickly made its way around the internet after that, earning 76 dofollow links and 202 total press mentions by the end of our reporting period.

Survey

Unlike scouring the internet for free data, using a survey as a methodology can be more costly. That being said, there is one major advantage to using a survey to shape your content: you can find out anything you want. While publicly available data will tell a story, it’s not always the story you want to tell, and that’s where surveys come in. Of course, when it comes to surveys, anyone can create one without paying attention to research method best practices. That's one of the problems we need to address. With “fake news” in the forefront of everyone’s minds in 2020, building trust with journalists and editors is of the utmost importance. As content creators, we have a responsibility to ensure that content is not only attention-grabbing and entertaining, but also accurate and informative. Survey campaigns, in particular, require you to analyze responses through a rigorous methodological lens. When collecting data for surveys, be sure to pay close attention to ethical upholdance, data validity, and fair visual representations.

Germ swab

From my own personal experience, germ swab content campaigns are the most fun, and often, the most disturbing. Fractl did some research a while back about the emotions that make content go viral, and oftentimes, germ swab campaigns hit all of the right emotions in the viral equation. Negative emotions like disgust are often evoked when reviewing the results of germ swab campaigns. Our study found that when negative emotions are paired with emotions like anticipation or surprise, they can still achieve viral success (internet viral, not germ viral). What is more surprising than finding out the airplane tray table is dirtier than a toilet seat? Publishers around the world seemed to think the content was surprising, too. This campaign performed above the norm for a typical content campaign earning 38 dofollows and 195 total press mentions — and this was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participatory methods

Participatory methods are campaigns that require active participation for the methodology. These are unique ideas — no two are alike. Some examples of campaigns that fall under the participatory methods category are when we had team members do a 30-day squat challenge, asked respondents to draw brand logos from memory, or when we literally drove from D.C. to NYC with a dash cam to record traffic violations. These campaigns have a certain level of risk associated with them. They require a lot of upfront effort and planning without the promise of any return — and that’s scary for clients and for our team who put in tremendous effort to pull them off. As you can see from the chart above, however, these ideas collectively performed right on par with other campaign types, and even better than survey methodologies for both the number of dofollow links and press mentions. In order to reap big benefits, it seems you need to be willing to take a big risk.

Social media

Social medIa as a data source is almost a no-brainer, right up there with survey methodologies and publicly available data sets. Unlike participatory methods campaigns, you don’t have to leave your computer in order to produce a campaign based on social media data. Through our seven years of content creation, Fractl has produced campaigns based on data scrapes from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, and more. From this experience, we know firsthand what kinds of social campaigns work and which ones fall flat. The best thing about using social media as a source for content is that it can be applied to all verticals. The biggest lesson we’ve learned from producing content based on social media data is that the methodology is typically subjective, so you need to keep the project lighthearted in nature in order to earn major coverage. For example, we produced a campaign for a client in which we looked at Instagram posts with the hashtag #sexy and a geolocation. From this, we were able to glean the “sexiest” countries in the world as well as U.S. states. While it would be impossible to learn what the actual sexiest places in the world were, (what does that even mean?) we were able to produce a fun campaign that used geo-bait to appeal to lighthearted publishers, like Glamour, E! Online, Women's Health, and Elite Daily. Make sure that no matter the topic, whatever you produce contributes to an ongoing conversation. Statistics that don’t point to anything meaningful won’t be relevant for writers actually trying to add to the conversation.

Client data

Client data is often the most underappreciated data source for content marketers. You may be sitting on a wealth of actionable industry insights and not even know it. You might think of internal data as only being useful for improving your internal processes at work, but it can also be valuable outside of your organization. Unlike publicly available data, internal data is never-before-seen and 100% unique. Journalists eat this up because it means that you’re providing completely exclusive resources. Think of this article, for example. This article is filled with data and insights that Fractl has gleaned after producing thousands of content marketing campaigns. An added bonus of using internal data to craft your content is that, according to our analysis, it performs on par with surveys. Unlike surveys, though, it’s completely free.

Conclusion

No matter what methodology you’re using or vertical you’re creating content for, it’s important to realize that as content creators, we have an ethical and moral responsibility to create with an audience in mind. With “fake news” on the forefront of everyone’s minds, building and maintaining trust with writers and editors is of the utmost importance. All of the content you produce and promote must be assessed through a rigorous methodological lens to ensure that content is accurate and informative as well as eye-grabbing and entertaining. Regardless of your methodology, if you don’t take the proper steps to make sure your data sources are accurate, you are contributing to the fake news epidemic.   Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/how-to-choose-the-most-link-worthy-data-source-for-your-content/

Scandals, compensation programs lead Catholic clergy sex abuse complaints to quadruple in 2019 By Michelle Boorstein

By Michelle Boorstein  June 26, 2020 at 5:51 p.m. EDT

The number of allegations of Catholic clergy sex abuse of minors more than quadrupled in 2019 compared to the average in the previous five years, U.S. church officials reported this week, in part the result of new church-run compensation programs for victims as well as survivors driven to come forward by several major clerical abuse scandals.

The annual audit of nearly 200 dioceses and church entities across the country has been done since 2002, when reports of clergy abuse and coverups exploded and U.S. bishops approved reforms, including a yearly review of complaints and compliance. The reform package is often called the “Charter."

The report released Thursday by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the 2019 report — which covered July 2018 through June 2019 — counted 4,434 allegations of clergy sex abuse against minors. That number was 1,451 in 2018, 693 in 2017, 1,318 in 2016 and 903 in 2015.

Of the 4,434 allegations covered in the report, about half — 2,237 — were deemed credible by the church.

Thirty-seven of the 4,434 allegations came from people who were minors during the time period the report covered — eight of which the church-run bodies deemed substantiated, according to the report. In recent years, that’s about average for substantiated, past-year claims. There are about 37,000 diocesan and religious order priests in the country.

The complaints the church deemed credible were analyzed further by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a church-affiliated research center on the Catholic Church. CARA found that of those whose time frame could be determined, 57 percent of credible allegations that came in 2019 happened before 1975, 41 percent between 1975 and 1999, and 2 percent since 2000, the report said.

Church officials said the fact that there remains such a small number of claims of recent abuse shows that their reforms are working and that the jump in reporting of older claims reflects confidence complaints will be taken seriously.

“It reflects the same pattern we’ve been seeing — there hasn’t been a real uptick in cases since the Charter,” said Francesco C. Cesareo, the chairman of the National Review Board, a committee created by the Catholic Church in 2002 to oversee the implementation of the Charter. “I think the data is out there to show that the Church has been the one institution that has really taken an institutional approach to this and put in place policies and protocols that have resulted in a much safer environment within the Church."

Some survivor advocates saw other things in the report. SNAP, a clergy-abuse survivors’ organization, emphasized the report’s finding that the status of 863 allegations is “unknown” and another 956 are ongoing.

“Church officials pretend they’re reporting on a past problem when in fact thousands of proven, admitted and credibly accused clerics who have committed or concealed child sex crimes remain ‘under the radar,’ living and working among unsuspecting neighbors, friends, co-workers and even relatives,” SNAP wrote. The Church, it said, should be focusing on locating all still-living child abusers to protect from future abuse and “punishing the still-living ‘enabling’ clerics who are ignoring or hiding those criminals.”

Cesareo wrote in a letter attached to the report that the Church needs to allow a more in-depth and truly independent audit. While the report uses the word “independent” six times, the nature and scope of the audit is determined by the bishops, as are the questions. The audit is done by StoneBridge Business Partners, using information given to it by dioceses. The dioceses also determine which allegations are credible.

A more independent process is needed “if the bishops hope to regain the credibility that has been lost among the laity,” Cesareo wrote.

The report says the spike in numbers is in part due to the fact that multiple dioceses around the country created compensation funds for victims whose cases had passed the statute of limitations in their states to sue, as well as lawsuits and diocesan bankruptcies. The report says such cases account for 37 percent of allegations.

Catholic provinces and dioceses that responded to the CARA survey said they had paid out a total of $282 million related to allegations the came in between July 2018 and June 2019.

Chieko Noguchi, a spokeswoman for the USCCB, said researchers believe there are many additional factors, including “the news of high-profile revelations that also prompted people to step forward.”

In June 2018, the Vatican announced the suspension of then-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a popular U.S. church leader who was archbishop in Washington before he retired to serve as a part-time global diplomat for the Vatican. He was accused of child sexual abuse and then, later, of sexually harassing seminarians and young clergy. He was defrocked last year.

Michelle Boorstein

Michelle Boorstein is a religion reporter, covering the busy marketplace of American faith. Her career has included a decade of globe-trotting with the Associated Press, covering topics including terrorism in the Arizona desert, debates on male circumcision, Ugandan royalty, and how strapped doctors in Afghanistan decide who lives and who dies.

Originally Published in the Washington Post

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/scandals-compensation-programs-lead-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-complaints-to-quadruple-in-2019-by-michelle-boorstein/

Challenge eyed to class action plan for Bayer Roundup settlement

A plan to delay any new Roundup cancer claims for years and shift the key question of whether or not the weed killer causes cancer from a jury to a hand-picked panel of scientists faces potential opposition from some of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who initiated and led the mass tort claims against Roundup maker Monsanto, sources close to the litigation said. Several members of the lead law firms who won three out of three trials pitting cancer patients against Monsanto are considering challenging the terms of a proposed “class action” settlement negotiated between Monsanto owner Bayer AG and a small team of  lawyers who have not previously been at the forefront of the Roundup litigation, the sources said. The class action settlement proposal is an element of the sweeping $10 billion Roundup litigation settlement Bayer announced June 24. In each of the trials held to date, juries found that the weight of scientific evidence proved that Roundup exposure caused the plaintiffs to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and that Monsanto covered up the risks. But under the proposal that question would go to a five-member “science panel,” not a jury. “It’s basically depriving a plaintiff of their constitutional right to a jury trial,” said one source close to the litigation. The proposed class settlement would apply to anyone exposed to Roundup who had not filed a lawsuit or retained a lawyer as of June 24, 2020, regardless of whether or not that person already had been diagnosed with cancer they believe was due to Roundup exposure. The plan was put together by Bayer and the law firms of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein; Audet & Partners; The Dugan Law Firm; and lawyer Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. The agreement was reached after nearly one year of “unrelenting efforts” of negotiations, lawyer Elizabeth Cabraser said in a declaration to the court supporting the proposed class settlement. It would set a “standstill period” in which plaintiffs in the class cannot file new litigation related to Roundup. And it calls for class members to release “any claims against Monsanto for punitive damages and for medical monitoring related to Roundup exposure and NHL.” Notably, the plan states that rather than go forward with another jury trial, a panel of scientists will first be set up to determine the “right answer” to “the threshold question” of whether or not there is a causal link between Roundup and NHL. The plan calls for Bayer to pay up to $150 million for the fees and costs of the attorneys’ involved and “class representative service awards” up to $25,000 to each or a total of $100,000. Overall, Bayer said it would set aside $1.25 billion for the arrangement. The money would be used to compensate class members diagnosed with NHL for the “effects of the delay” in litigation, and to fund research into the diagnosis and treatment of NHL, among other things. A motion seeking preliminary approval of the class settlement was filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to be handled by Judge Vince Chhabria. Chhabria has been overseeing numerous Roundup lawsuits that have been bundled together as multidistrict litigation. In shepherding a large number of the lawsuits already filed, Chhabria oversaw one of the Roundup trials, as well as what is known as a “Daubert” hearing, in which he heard days of scientific testimony from both sides and then decided there was sufficient scientific evidence of causation for the litigation to proceed. The class settlement proposal was negotiated separately from the main settlement made with the lead law firms. In the main settlement, Bayer agreed to provide $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to resolve roughly 75 percent of the roughly 125,000 filed and unfiled claims brought by plaintiffs who blame exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup for their development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  Lawyers representing more than 20,000 additional plaintiffs say they have not agreed to settle with Bayer and those lawsuits are expected to continue to work their way through the court system. Even though Monsanto lost each of the three trials held to date, Bayer maintain the jury decisions were flawed and based on emotion and not sound science. Science Panel Selection Bayer and the lawyers for the proposed class would work together to select the five scientists to sit on what would be a “neutral, independent” panel, according to the plan.  If they cannot agree on the make-up of the panel then each side will choose two members and those four members will choose the fifth. No scientist who acted as an expert in the federal multidistrict Roundup litigation will be allowed to be on the panel. Notably, neither will anyone who “communicated with any expert” in the litigation about the subject matter. The panel would have four years to review scientific evidence but can petition for an extension of time if necessary. The determination would be binding on both sides, the plan states. If the panel determines there is a causal link between Roundup and NHL, plaintiffs can go forward to seek trials of their individual claims. “Knowledge is power and this Settlement empowers class members to hold Monsanto accountable for their injuries if and when the Science Panel determines that general causation is satisfied,” the plan states. The filing with the federal court requests a preliminary approval hearing within 30 days. The post Challenge eyed to class action plan for Bayer Roundup settlement appeared first on U.S. Right to Know.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/challenge-eyed-to-class-action-plan-for-bayer-roundup-settlement/

Download the SEO's Local Search Cheat Sheet! Posted by MiriamEllis

Posted by MiriamEllis What a juggling feat your SEO agency pulls off every day! On your best days, you’re keeping:

• Team members and clients
• All the moving marketing parts

...in constant, useful motion. On your worst days, though, mistakes happen when:

• Communication breaks down
• Standard procedures aren’t understood company-wide
• People feel rushed

No local SEO agency or in-house SEO wants to waste time and resources on a scenario like building a GMB listing for a business model that’s ineligible, pushing out incorrect NAP because it wasn’t vetted by the right department, or having to contact a client multiple times because the onboarding process wasn’t thorough enough to get all the information needed in a single step. Maybe worse yet, giving the wrong advice to a client is embarrassing and undermines retention. Nobody’s perfect, and the best SEOs will drop a few balls here and there, but it helps build confidence to know you have the answers to marketing FAQs at your fingertips.

Share a sheet — save time and hassle!

Whether you’ve just made a new hire at your agency, or your team simply wants to save time by having the most common local SEO resources, FAQs, and solutions all in one spot, the SEO’s Local Search Cheat Sheet is free to download and easy to print and share. Maybe your agency is just starting to move into the local search marketing space, and this resource can be a supportive guide for the path ahead. Tack it up in your workspace, put it on the company fridge, or include it in your training process for incoming employees. It’s amazing how a visible reminder can jog your memory and prevent avoidable mistakes, plus make work faster and easier.

Download the SEO's Local Search Cheat Sheet

How your team will get value from this sheet

I’ve been working in the local SEO space for more than fifteen years. My head sometimes feels like an overstuffed filing cabinet of marketing protocols. I can’t remember absolutely everything, and the amount of information you have to keep track of to market your local clients is pretty staggering. From Google’s guidelines and their continuous release of new features, to general best practices for listings, websites, and reviews, to managing client to-dos, SEOs have to bring great presence of mind to every team meeting and every client consultation. What I’ve done in this cheat sheet is create a basic aid that covers the practices and questions that land on my desk with the greatest frequency. Pin this up by your own desk as a handy reference covering:

• Client onboarding checklist
• Google My Business eligibility/ineligibility at a glance
• Top Google support and reporting links
• Website checklist
• Reputation and review tips
• Ranking failure troubleshooting steps
• Key local SEO concepts, explained
• And more!

By consolidating all of this information into a single resource, I hope you can reduce vital tasks being overlooked, mishandled, or even just taking longer than they should. Moz knows that organization is key to every agency’s success, and we hope you’ll distribute this cheat sheet widely to make local SEO work simpler and better for everyone on your team.

Download the SEO's Local Search Cheat Sheet

Love cheat sheets? Check out our updated Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet as well!

  Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/download-the-seos-local-search-cheat-sheet/

2020 Mid Year Update: Mass Tort and Class Action Litigation Outlook

While many courtrooms across the country were closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are several mass torts that continued making significant progress despite the legal hiatus. Two of these were cited in our 2020 forecast: JUUL The JUUL MDL (Northern District of California) has continued to move forward since the end of 2019. The judge has appointed plaintiffs’ attorneys to leadership roles, and the steering committee is starting to organize. Key appointments include:

• Co-lead counsel: Sarah London, Dean Kawamoto, Ellen Relkin, Dena Sharp
• Plaintiffs’ federal/state court liaison counsel: Khaldoun Baghdadi, Leslie LaMacchia
• Plaintiffs’ government entity liaison counsel: Thomas Cartmell
• Plaintiffs’ steering committee: Rachel Abrams, Erin Dickinson, Michelle Drake, Jonathan Gdanski, Adam Gutride, Bradly Honnold, Emily Jeffcott, Kristine Kraft, Esfand Nafisi, Matthew Schultz, Sabita Soneji, Joseph VanZandt, Mikal Watts, Michael Weinkowitz.

Look for this mass tort litigation to gain momentum in the coming months. Talc The other newsmaker is the Johnson & Johnson talc case, which recently made headlines when the company pulled its baby powder from the market. Although not an admission of guilt, this permanent discontinuance of the company’s flagship product may prompt the plaintiffs’ bar to seek out more claimants, and we believe J&J will continue to fight what is likely to be a growing number of cases. Other companies, including L’Oreal and Chanel, are also being sued for selling OTC talcum powders allegedly contaminated by asbestos; this may ultimately pull them into the same type of mass tort litigation. New MDLs Zantac A new MDL has been formed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and leadership has been appointed. It is forecast to be one of the largest MDLs in recent history, given the fact that the heartburn drug has been on the market since the early 1980s, with around 20 million prescriptions written every year. The makers have allegedly been aware of the carcinogenic properties of its active compound for decades, with numerous studies linking the chemical to cancer. Judge Robin Rosenberg has made a strong effort to appoint a more diverse leadership than is typically found in many other MDLs. The diversity issue—across gender, age, ethnicity and race—has long been discussed in legal academic circles. She also created a “leadership development committee” to give younger lawyers an opportunity to immerse themselves in the logistics of a major MDL while learning from experienced mentors. Evolving Mass Torts COVID-19 and Nursing Homes Despite the complexities involved with the potential for multiple defendants, we foresee the lawsuits against nursing homes due to COVID-19 deaths leading to an MDL or consolidated litigation. In addition to the various nursing homes involved, other entities, including healthcare workers, cleaning companies and home health agencies that came into the facilities to provide a service, may also be held accountable and could potentially become defendants or involved in the litigation.  Certain state governments are signaling they may grant immunity for civil and criminal liability to state-run facilities, but it remains to be seen what will happen at the plaintiffs’ bar, given the public and political pressures around these deaths. Boys Scouts of America The sexual abuse litigation against the Boy Scouts of America is now permitting tort claimants to submit a claim within a larger bankruptcy proceeding, in which the national organization filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to stay individual lawsuits brought by sexual abuse survivors. The full scope of the liabilities is not yet known, but a bankruptcy court has set a November 2020 deadline by which abuse survivors must file a proof of claim. It is anticipated that any plan of reorganization approved by the court will involve a settlement mechanism resolving claims brought by abuse survivors. Elmiron The drug Elmiron, which treats interstitial cystitis, bladder pain and osteoarthritis, is being linked to permanent eyesight damage, including macular degeneration and pigmentary and retinal maculopathy. A number of studies dating to 2018 have revealed risks associated with long-term use of Elmiron. Mass tort law firms are looking for claimants now. Elmiron was developed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary). For information on how Verus’ Case Management and Medical Review services can apply specifically to the Mass Tort cases above, click here. To contact us, fill out this form or email us at info@verusllc.com and we will reply immediately. |CONTACT US| |REQUEST PROPOSAL| The post 2020 Mid Year Update: Mass Tort and Class Action Litigation Outlook appeared first on Verus.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/2020-mid-year-update-mass-tort-and-class-action-litigation-outlook/

Roundup cancer attorney pleads guilty to extortion attempt

A Virginia lawyer who helped represent the first Roundup cancer plaintiff to take Monsanto to trial pleaded guilty on Friday to trying to extort $200 million from a chemical compound supplier to Monsanto. Timothy Litzenburg, 38, admitted to a scheme in which he and another lawyer threatened to inflict substantial “financial and reputational harm” on the supplier unless that company paid the two attorneys $200 million disguised as a “consulting agreement.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Litzenburg allegedly told the company that if they paid the money, he was willing to “take a dive” during a deposition, intentionally undermining the prospects for future plaintiffs to try to sue. Litzenburg was charged with one count each of attempted extortion, conspiracy and transmission of interstate communications with intent to extort. He pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting interstate communications with the intent to extort. Lawyer Daniel Kincheloe, 41, pleaded guilty to the same charge for participating in the scheme.  The men are scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. “This is a case where two attorneys blew well past the line of aggressive advocacy and crossed deep into the territory of illegal extortion, in a brazen attempt to enrich themselves by extracting millions of dollars from a multinational company,” Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement. He said that the plea shows that “when crimes are committed, members of the bar, like all members of the public, will be held accountable for their actions.” Litzenburg was one of the attorneys for Dewayne “Lee” Johnson leading up to Johnson’s 2018 trial against Monsanto, which resulted in a $289 million jury award in Johnson’s favor. (The judge in the case lowered the verdict and the case is currently under appeal.) The trial was the first of three that have taken place against Monsanto over allegations that the company’s glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Monsanto, and its German owner Bayer AG, have lost all three trials to date but are appealing the verdicts. Though Litzenburg had helped prepare Johnson for trial, he was not allowed to participate during the actual event because of concerns about his behavior held by The Miller Firm, which was his employer at the time. The Miller firm subsequently fired Litzenburg and filed a lawsuit in early 2019 alleging Litzenburg engaged in self-dealing, and “disloyal and erratic conduct.” Litzenburg responded with a counter-claim. The parties  negotiated a confidential settlement. The criminal complaint against Litzenburg did not name the company Litzenburg tried to extort, but said that he contacted the company in September of  2019 year stating that he was preparing a lawsuit that would allege the company supplied chemical compounds used by Monsanto to create Roundup and that the company knew the ingredients were carcinogenic but had failed to warn the public. According to the federal charges, Litzenburg told a lawyer for the company he was trying to extort that the company should enter into a “consulting arrangement” with him so as to create a  conflict of interest that would prevent him from filing the threatened litigation. Litzenburg wrote in the email that the $200 million consulting agreement for himself and an associate was “a very reasonable price,” according to the criminal complaint. Federal investigators recorded a phone call with Litzenburg discussing the $200 million he was seeking, the complaint states. Litzenburg was allegedly recorded as saying: “The way that I guess you guys will think about it and we’ve thought about it too is savings for your side. I don’t think if this gets filed and turns into mass tort, even if you guys win cases and drive value down… I don’t think there’s any way you get out of it for less than a billion dollars. And so, you know, to me, uh, this is a fire sale price that you guys should consider…” Litzenburg claimed to be representing roughly 1,000 clients suing Monsanto over Roundup cancer causation allegations at the time of his arrest last year. The post Roundup cancer attorney pleads guilty to extortion attempt appeared first on U.S. Right to Know.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/roundup-cancer-attorney-pleads-guilty-to-extortion-attempt/

New Boys Scouts Lawsuit Shows Longtime Issue

A legal action recently filed in Montana against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) accusing it of failing to prevent the sexual abuse of scouts. The plaintiff claims he was subjected to sexual abuse at a BSA camp decades ago. In this case, the alleged abuser was criminally charged and plead guilty in the 1970’s, but he served no jail time.   The defendants include the Montana Council of the Boy Scouts of America and two sponsoring agencies. They were filed in District Court in Great Falls, thanks to a Montana law passed last year that gave a year for plaintiffs missing the statute of limitations to file legal claims, reports the Associated Press. At least two others have brought legal action against the BSA and the Montana Council. They claim they were sexually abused by scout leaders who were not adequately supervised by the defendants. Plaintiff Christopher Ford stated he told his parents about the abuse he suffered at a Scout outing near Libby in 1974. A year later, assistant Scoutmaster John David McBride plead guilty to 15 felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon several boys and deviate sexual conduct without consent. McBride was given a three-year deferred sentence, according to a 1977 letter from the Lincoln County sheriff that Ford said he obtained from McBride’s “ineligible volunteer” file kept by the BSA. Ford said he learned McBride never served any jail time. The BSA kept ineligible volunteer files almost since its inception, according to Seattle attorney Michael Pfau, whose firm represents the three victims. BSA files released in other cases estimate 7,800 perpetrators had molested more than 12,000 boys. Pfau says BSA failed to put in place effective policies and procedures to protect children. These files show the organization was aware of the problem and knew pedophiles used Scouting to get access to children. Criminal injustice system often leaves convicted pedophiles in the public Although many child molesters serve jail time, it’s not a uniform punishment. A civil lawsuit may be a way for a victim to force the BSA to accept responsibility after the criminal justice system failed to take their abuse seriously. Benjamin Lawrence Petty plead guilty to first-degree rape, forcible sodomy, and rape by instrumentation in 2018 after raping a 13-year-old girl at a church-run camp in 2016. Petty worked as a cook at the Falls Creek camp in southern Oklahoma. The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma ran it. The Washington Post reports a plea bargain agreement was agreed to by the victim’s parents and the judge in the case. In it, Petty was sentenced to 15 years of probation, using an ankle monitor for two years, and a lifetime on the sex offender registry. The fact Petty is legally blind was given as a reason he didn’t have to spend time in jail. Time magazine reports that documents released in 2014 showed that five years earlier, a Delaware judge sentenced a wealthy heir to the DuPont chemical company to probation after he admitted he raped his daughter, who was three at the time, saying he would “not do well” in prison. The daughter of Robert H. Richards IV told her grandmother in 2005 of the abuse. She said her father told her it was their “little secret” but she didn’t want “my daddy touching me anymore.” Richards accepted a plea deal and with good reason. He plead guilty to fourth-degree rape charges, which usually results in more than two years of jail time. Prosecutors sought only probation and Judge Jan Jurden agreed. Richards was sentenced to an eight-year prison sentence but commuted it all to probation. Jeremy Schwer pleaded guilty in 2016 to felony child molesting after he sexually abused his then six-year-old daughter while she was recovering from a brain tumor in 2013. The deputy prosecutor in the Indiana case wanted Schwer to be imprisoned for at least nine years in prison, reports the New York Daily News. He was sentenced to 12 years of probation. Schwer’s wife, who was divorcing him at the time, asked the court not to sentence him to prison because she needed his financial support for her children. The prosecutor didn’t agree, stating Schwer had been out of jail for a year before pleading guilty and had not financially supported his family during that time. Does your firm represent sex abuse victims? Want the best way to get more and better cases? A civil lawsuit can’t put those responsible for Boy Scout abuse in jail, but it can create some accountability for the trauma and suffering inflicted on victims. How do you compete against other firms to get Boy Scout abuse cases that can result in substantial settlements? You hire ForLawFirmsOnly Marketing. Avoid all these hassles and budget-busting marketing and advertising. Connect to potential clients ready, willing, and able to retain your services. We use our energy and expertise to obtain the highest quality leads for our clients. We use highly sophisticated marketing and advertising campaigns so you won’t have to. Get started before your competitors do. We can help a limited number of clients. Contact us for a quote. Call 855-943-8736 or use our Request A Quote form. Edward Lott, Ph.D., M.B.A. President and Managing Partner ForLawFirmsOnly Marketing, Inc. Ed can be reached at (or visit his website) edl@forlawfirmsonly.com 855-943-8736 ext. 101 www.ForLawFirmsOnly.com

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/new-boys-scouts-lawsuit-shows-longtime-issue/

Preparing E-Commerce for the Post-COVID Bounce Back Posted by MrLukeCarthy

Posted by MrLukeCarthy COVID-19 has switched up life as we know it, and it’s unlikely to stop doing so for some time. E-commerce shopping is a perfect example of how things have changed, and in a number of ways. If you feel like Shopify has been dropping huge, disruptive news bombs practically each week now, you’re right! And who’d have guessed that in the UK, the exclusively online supermarket, Ocado, is now worth more than brick-and-mortar grocers Morrisons, Sainsbury's, and Marks and Spencer combined. The speed of transformation in e-commerce since the COVID-19 outbreak (an already fast-paced industry) has been savage. Supply chains are under strain for many brands selling online (especially where demand is high and supplies are low). How do you best manage expectations and maximize every opportunity to sell to your target audience? With your consumers now relying on the world of online shopping more than ever, how can you be sure you're getting your fair share of that online retail pie? Well, this post is designed to help you answer precisely these questions. Whether your sales have taken a hit or you have “off the wall” levels of demand, here are some ideas to help you navigate that bounce back and to help customers stay in love with your brand.

Pay close attention to changing on site search behavior

Your site search is a goldmine of insight, especially right now. Seriously. Frequently checking in to understand how and what your customers are looking for once they get to your store can reveal a bunch of opportunities. It's possible that before COVID-19 took a stronghold on everyday life, customers had different contexts in mind when searching for your products. For example, searches for “gloves” today vs. in January are likely to be visitors searching for two separate products entirely. It's important to ensure that you're serving today's customer sufficiently and addressing their context correctly to remain relevant and to improve conversion. Here's an extreme example, but it's a poignant one nonetheless. For context, Holland and Barrett are a popular, high street healthcare retailer with a strong web presence here in the UK. When searches for “coronavirus” had skyrocketed and demand for hand sanitizer and Paracetamol (another brand of acetaminophen, like Tylenol) were painfully high, what I found incredible was that searching for “coronavirus” on their website yielded no results. This seemed particularly jarring for a retailer that, first, sells items that have been scientifically proven to kill and help prevent the spread of the virus and, second, is a dedicated healthcare business. Not only does this throw a huge wrench in the works when it comes to CX and customer perception, this tiny yet costly oversight is likely to have cost them sales and customers too. Customers are also searching for products that aren't typically associated with a certain brand or online store due to exhausted stocks elsewhere. For example, the top three search terms for one of my e-commerce clients are now "Mask", "mask", and "PPE". The search terms “mask”, “PPE”, and close variants were practically non-existent prior to mid-May. Kit and Ace, a clothing retailer, has responded to precisely this changing behavior. After seeing a huge spike in the number of site searches for masks, they're now introducing a new, premium, scientifically-derived mask that also fits their brand. They’re donating 100% of profits from the masks, but this tactic will likely to drive more sales in their other categories too. This is a great move, especially since apparel sales have shrunk during this time. It's important to find emerging opportunities when typical product lines are no longer in demand. The point I'm trying to make here is that, in order to succeed coming out of the other side of this pandemic, you need to ensure you're fully in tune with the wants and needs of today's customer — whatever that looks like for you. Using site search can absolutely give you a huge window into their demands and interests.

If products are out of stock, offer excellent alternatives (where possible)

As touched on earlier, supply chain management is going to be increasingly challenging — especially in areas where demand is outstripping supply — yet so many retailers miss out here. For some products, it doesn't matter how hard you try, every retailer has them listed as “out of stock.” For branded items that have stock issues globally, being the retailer that offers a perfectly good alternative could be enough to win over that visitor and win the sale that other retailers have lost. To use a specific example, FTX is a manufacturer of radio-controlled cars, and is a brand sold on Europe e-commerce site Wheelspin. There's an FTX item that you cannot get before the end of June (for love nor money) on any website due to COVID-19. The pandemic has forced factories to close and that disrupts production for many goods. Specifically, in this example, it's the FTX brushed motor that's become victim to supply chain issues. However, there's a brand that has a perfectly suitable alternative item that's identical in specification, and it’s in stock: Proactively offering solid alternatives with as few compromises as possible can be a great way of winning sales and delighting customers in a way that your competitors likely won't be.

Add an “in stock only” filter

Continuing on the topic of store stock and managing a turbulent supply chain, a simple but welcome feature is to add an “items in stock” filter. It goes without saying that allowing customers to browse items they’re able to get their hands on quickly will go down well and could help improve conversion on your website. Another benefit of adding such a filter is the ability to bring light to other lines that are typically overshadowed by more popular (but now out of stock) items. Taking this a step further, you could also help your customers experience by adding a filter for products expected to arrive within a certain timeframe, or filter out those that can be backordered.

Add an “email me when back in stock” CTA

If you're a retailer struggling to get stock of popular lines, there's a good chance you're not the only retailer with that problem. Although it may not be possible to get stock any quicker than your competitors, you can absolutely ensure that you're the first to let potential customers know that it's back in stock.

Sweeten the deal by personalizing the back-in-stock email

Letting a potential customer know that the item's back in stock is great, but why not suprise and delight your customers by taking the opportunity to personalize this email too? Offering personalized cross-sells of the item that's now back in stock can be a great way to not only give them the good news, but give them additional reasons to visit your shop and potentially increase basket value simultaneously. It's certainly a win, win here.

Remarket to people when items are back in stock

People are spending more time online — fact. So it makes sense to reach your audience where they're most likely to be spending time for the foreseeable future. Depending on the popularity of an item (and how much traffic is going to it whilst it's remained unavailable), you could create a retargeting list based on visitors that expressed an interest in it now that it's back in stock. This can prove to be a great way to reach people, say on social media, that aren't particularly responsive to email but are spending increased amounts of time on their favorite social platforms. Although this may not be scalable, or at least I haven't found a way to make it so, doing this across your top-selling lines or lines with greater margins could prove to be a successful way of pulling engaged and semi-invested visitors back to your site.

Don't be afraid to increase prices where necessary

Let's not forget the basic principles of commerce, right? High demand (coupled with low supply) increases prices. Businesses shouldn't feel guilty for increasing prices, but of course, there's a difference between a justifiable increase and straight ripping people off (as demonstrated below): For context, four tins of 400g Heinz Spaghetti Plus Sausage would retail at around £4 in UK supermarkets (that’s about $5 at current exchange rates). Think about this scenario for a second: You and your staff are potentially working in environments that could pose serious health risks. Plus there's additional costs to consider in order to keep people safe. PPE, cleaning products, masks, sick pay for unwell staff, etc., all these factors will push up the cost per sale and erode your margins. Equally, there are no guarantees right now. Those all-time high levels of sales could come slamming to a fierce halt at any time. Whether that's caused by a change in demand, decrease in stock, or your business is no longer able to fulfil orders due to an internal COVID-19 outbreak. Increasing prices fairly to better protect your business against these mostly uncontrollable factors is not a bad thing. In my opinion, it's just good business sense. You've got to ensure your business is as robust as it can be when faced with these potential eventualities. Increasing your prices fairly can help to better protect it.

Discover creative ways to connect with your audience

As the saying goes, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. It's a huge cliché, but it absolutely rings true and remains a powerful statement today. Finding ways to be creative, cut through the noise, and engage with your audience is essential to staying relevant. Especially if your customer's cash is heading elsewhere right now. Here's an example of a potentially powerful idea that I've been working on for a client in the world of apparel — one of the more fiercely affected industries during the pandemic. People are spending less on fashion, and even less at the luxury end of the scale. So, why not let your audience build themselves a virtual dream wardrobe? Something they'd consider buying for a night out, things they'd have in their suitcase for a summer vacation, etc. It's a fairly simple idea, but let's think about the impact this could have for both customer and business: You're throwing down a few slices of “feel good”So many people miss going out, right? Heading to bars, clubs, celebrating a milestone, going on a vacation, or even just getting back to the office, so many of us associate buying new outfits as part of those moments. Allowing your loyal fans and customers to pick out their money’s-no-object dream outfits based on some predetermined wardrobes (office attire, night out, summer holiday) is naturally going to invoke some positive emotions and memories — especially if you inject a social element into it by allowing people to share their collections. But other wins can be extracted from such an idea too: You're collecting valuable user data: You're getting some valuable insight into the sort of clothing people may buy when lockdown policies begin to wind back. This could help to get a better understanding of demand so you can work on reinvigorating your supply chain successfully. Plus, you're getting an idea of what items visitors would put together to help educate new fashion trends and inform “recommended for you” personalization. You're helping to alleviate boredom: In some ways, this kind of activity is adding an element of gamification to apparel. With so many people stuck indoors experiencing high levels of procrastination and boredom, it can help to cut through and detach from the realities of lockdown. You’re creating an opportunity to welcome sales when things pick back up: Offering an incentive (say 15% off your dream collections) once we're on the cusp of restoring “normality” could be a really powerful way of encouraging and helping to re-energize apparel and fashion spend online. It's also a great way to celebrate the comeback. Last but not least, you're building brand affinity: I've said it before, but it's extremely important, so I'll say it again: remaining relevant and keeping marketing efforts up is essential to ensure you remain in good shape when society heads towards the new normal. Having your audience resonate with your brand and remember your positive actions whilst they're away will be a major influence on your ability to maintain and deepen those customer relationships post-pandemic.

Final thoughts: the rise of big brands diving into D2C eCommerce

What's amazing to see is a huge move by big household names and brands. They're now setting up their own direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce outfits, and on the surface, appear to be going head-to-head with supermarkets. To highlight a few of my favorite examples, there's snacks.com — created by Frito-Lay — shipping their brand’s snacking staples across North America. Then there’s Heinz to Home, delivering popular Heinz products to households in the UK. How these new D2C e-commerce brands fare in the long term will be interesting to see, but what’s certain is the pandemic is accelerating and evolving e-commerce in a way that's not been seen before. As a final note, to those of you hit hard by COVID-19, may I wish you a speedy recovery — personally and professionally.   Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/preparing-e-commerce-for-the-post-covid-bounce-back-posted-by-mrlukecarthy/

Big Ag groups argue court cannot tell EPA when to ban dicamba

The heaviest of Big Ag’s heavy hitters told a federal court it should not try to stop GMO cotton and soybean farmers from using illegal dicamba weed killers through the end of July, despite the court’s order earlier this month for an immediate ban. Six national trade associations, all of which have long-standing financial ties to Monsanto and the other companies selling the dicamba products in question,  filed a brief on Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit urging the court not to try to interfere with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that farmers could continue to use the dicamba products through July 31. They also asked the court not to hold the EPA in contempt as has been requested by the groups that won the June 3 court order issuing the ban. “America’s soybean and cotton growers would risk severe financial harm if prevented from using Dicamba Products this growing season,” states the brief filed by the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, National Cotton Council of America, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Corn Growers Association, and National Sorghum Producers. Separately, CropLife America, an influential lobbyist for the agrichemical industry, filed a brief  stating it wanted to provide “Helpful Information to the Court.” CropLife stated in the filing that the court has no authority over how the EPA proceeds to cancel the use of pesticide products such as dicamba weed killers. The moves are but the latest in a dramatic flurry of events that followed the Ninth Circuit ruling, which found that the EPA violated the law when it approved dicamba products developed by Monsanto – owned by Bayer AG, as well as products sold by BASF, and DuPont, owned by Corteva Inc. The court ordered an immediate ban on use of each of the companies’ products, finding that the EPA “substantially understated the risks” those products pose to farmers growing crops other than genetically engineered cotton and soy. The EPA appeared to flout the order, however, when it told the cotton and soy farmers they could continue to spray the herbicides in question through July 31. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and other groups that originally took the EPA to court over the matter went back to court last week, demanding that the 9th Circuit hold the EPA in contempt. The court is now considering that motion. “EPA and the pesticide companies have tried to confuse the issue and try to intimidate the Court,” said George Kimbrell, CFS legal director and counsel for the petitioners. “The Court held the product uses unlawful and EPA’s manipulations cannot change that.” The order banning the company’s dicamba products has triggered an uproar in farm country because many soybean and cotton farmers planted millions of acres of genetically altered dicamba-tolerant crops developed by Monsanto with the intent of treating weeds in those fields with the dicamba herbicides made by the three companies. The crops tolerate the dicamba while the weeds die. The farm lobby groups said in their brief that 64 million acres were planted with the dicamba-tolerant seeds this season. They said if those farmers cannot spray over their fields with the dicamba products they will be “largely defenseless against weeds resistant to other herbicides, causing potentially significant financial consequences from yield losses.” When Monsanto, BASF and DuPont/Corteva rolled out their dicamba herbicides a few years ago they  claimed the products would not volatize and drift into neighboring fields as older versions of dicamba weed killing products were known to do. But those assurances proved false amid widespread complaints of dicamba drift damage. More than one million acres of crops not genetically engineered to tolerate dicamba were reported damaged last year in 18 states, the federal court noted in its ruling.

“The EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment…” said National Family Farm Coalition board president Jim Goodman. “Their contempt for this mission could not be more clearly expressed than their flagrant disregard of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling to stop over-the-top applications of dicamba immediately to prevent millions of acres of farmers’ crops from being destroyed.”

In February, a Missouri jury ordered Bayer and BASF to pay a peach farmer $15 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages for dicamba damage to the farmer’s orchards. The jury concluded that  Monsanto and BASF conspired in actions they knew would lead to widespread crop damage because they expected it would increase their own profits The post Big Ag groups argue court cannot tell EPA when to ban dicamba appeared first on U.S. Right to Know.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/big-ag-groups-argue-court-cannot-tell-epa-when-to-ban-dicamba/

The State of Local SEO Industry Report 2020, Announced Posted by MiriamEllis

Posted by MiriamEllis Moz’s very warmest thanks to the 1,453 respondents who volunteered time to contribute to this second installation of our industry survey. It’s rewarding to have such a large survey group; as this report details in high relief, the work of marketing a single business location can pass through a dozen hands. Owners, staff, in-house SEOs, agencies, creative directors, webmasters, project managers, and consultants may all be contributing to promoting just one local company. By capturing their hands-on experience, we get the big picture of local SEO as an effort not confined to experts, but rather, requiring all hands on deck. In this report, you’ll find insights to share with coworkers and clients on:

• Company infrastructure
• Local ranking factors
• Tool & software usage
• Gaps in the marketplace
• High ROI strategies and tactics

Get the full report!

A window in time on local business marketing

The data in our survey depicts the local SEO industry both before and during the public health emergency. As such, it’s an eagle’s eye view of both the status of marketing priorities up to the present and a gauge of preparedness for change. Change has always been the only constant in local SEO — our industry is accustomed to an environment that can turn on a dime, literally overnight. This challenging setting toughens businesses for tough times. No one knows yet how COVID-19 may ultimately alter consumer behavior, but in the short term, one good sign which has emerged from the State of the Local SEO industry report is that local businesses were strongly embracing organic assets prior to the pandemic. Not long ago, you might have encountered narratives about websites being “dead” due to the dominance of local packs, zero click SERPs, and other Google features. Fortunately, our report indicates that many marketers have wisely ignored such schools of thought and have continued to promote the vital role local business websites play in connecting with communities. For now, if connection is curbside or delivery instead of foot traffic, local businesses which have been thoughtfully maintaining their websites own a strong platform for next moves — perhaps implementing local e-commerce, or taking orders via form submissions, or hosting gated video consultations. Access to the State of the Local SEO Industry’s data will enable you to do your own analysis of the sum total of marketing knowledge up to the present with an eye to future strategy. Here’s a preview of 3 emergent narratives that particularly caught my eye.

Proximity falls to third as a local ranking factor

Our 2019 report cited user-to-business proximity as the dominant influence on Google’s local pack rankings. So has every Local Search Ranking Factors survey since 2017. This is a surprising departure. Download the report for further analysis and view the numbers in the light of how Google might adjust proximity based on new factors like curbside pickup and local delivery. YOY, 19% more respondents are involved with offline marketing 94% (up from 75%) of our survey group are consulting with clients at least some of the time on topics like real-world customer service and consumer policies.This statistic professionally delights me, because of my years of advocacy here on the Moz blog for local search marketers to care deeply about what happens in real time between consumers and brands. Some enterprising agency should consider doing a webinar or eBook on the history of brick-and-mortar marketing so our industry can engage in deeper levels of learning and make informed decisions about future offline marketing strategy.

COVID-era customer fulfillment strategies are here to stay

51% of respondents intend to permanently offer amenities like home delivery, curbside pickup, and video conferencing. Now is the time for innovative marketing agencies to put in the work researching the best possible solutions for clients for the long haul. Will it be in-house delivery fleets, or outsourcing to third parties like Instacart and Doordash? Which e-commerce platform is the best, not just for UX but for SEO? Many brands swiftly cobbled together new services to meet the state of emergency, but as time goes by, consumer feedback and marketing analysis will point the way to thoughtfully choosing the best transactional methodologies and platforms. All of these technologies predate the pandemic, but the year ahead is going to see them much more fully tested. Please accept our invitation to download the free State of the Local SEO Industry Report 2020, with 30+ timely questions on topics that impact how you work, what to offer, and how to improve your strategy for the year ahead whether you own a local business or are in the business of marketing local brands!

Get the full report!

  Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/the-state-of-local-seo-industry-report-2020-announced-posted-by-miriamellis/

Panicked chemical giants seek leeway in court ban on their weed killers

Citing an “emergency,” chemical giants BASF and DuPont have asked a federal court to allow them to intervene in a case in which the court earlier this month ordered their dicamba herbicides to be immediately banned along with a dicamba product made by Monsanto owner Bayer AG. The action by the chemical companies follows a June 3 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had violated the law when it approved the dicamba products developed by Monsanto/Bayer, BASF and DuPont, owned by Corteva Inc. The court ordered an immediate ban on use of each of the company’s dicamba products, finding that the EPA “substantially understated the risks” of the dicamba herbicides and “failed entirely to acknowledge other risks.” The EPA flouted that order, however, telling farmers they could continue to spray the herbicides in question through the end of July. The consortium of farm and consumer groups that originally filed the case against the EPA rushed back to court last week, asking for an emergency order holding the EPA in contempt.  The court gave the EPA until the end of the day Tuesday, June 16, to respond. Uproar in Farm Country The order banning the company’s dicamba products has triggered an uproar in farm country because many soybean and cotton farmers planted millions of acres of dicamba-tolerant crops developed by Monsanto with the intent of treating weeds in those fields with the dicamba herbicides made by the three companies. The “dicamba crop system” provides for farmers to plant their fields with dicamba-tolerant crops, which they can then spray “over-the-top” with dicamba weed killer. The system has both enriched the companies selling the seeds and chemicals and and helped farmers growing the special dicamba-tolerant cotton and soy deal with stubborn weeds that are resistant to glyphosate-based Roundup products. But for the large number of farmers who do not plant the genetically engineered dicamba-tolerant crops, widespread use of dicamba herbicides has meant damage and crop losses because dicamba tends to volatize and drift long distances where it can kill crops, trees and shrubs that are not genetically altered to withstand the chemical. The companies claimed their new versions of dicamba would not volatize and drift as older versions of dicamba weed killing products were known to do. But those assurances proved false amid widespread complaints of dicamba drift damage. More than one million acres of crop damage was reported last year in 18 states, the federal court noted in its ruling. Many farmers initially celebrated the court ruling and were relieved that their farms and orchards would be spared this summer from the dicamba damage they’ve experienced in prior summers. But the relief was short-lived when the EPA said it would not immediately enforce the court-ordered ban. In a filing made Friday, BASF pleaded with the court not to enforce an immediate ban and told the court that it will need to close a manufacturing facility in Beaumont, Texas, that currently “operates 24 hours a day nearly continuously through the year” if it is not able to produce its dicamba herbicide brand called Engenia. BASF has spent $370 million in recent years improving the plant and employs 170 people there, the company said. Noting “significant investments” in its product, BASF also told the court that there is enough of its product currently throughout its “customer channel” to treat 26.7 million acres of soybeans and cotton.  BASF has an additional $44 million worth of the Engenia dicamba product in its possession, enough to treat 6.6 million acres of soybeans and cotton, the company said. DuPont/Corteva made a similar argument, telling the court in its filing that the ban “directly harms” the company “as well as the many farmers across this country that are in the midst of the growing season.”  It will damage the company’s “reputation” if its herbicide is banned, the company told the court. Moreover, DuPont/Corteva expects to generate “significant revenues” from the sales of its dicamba herbicide, called FeXapan and will lose that money if the ban is enforced, the company said. Monsanto was active in the case supporting the EPA approvals prior to the ruling, but both BASF and DuPont asserted wrongly that the court case applied only to Monsanto’s products and not to theirs. The court made it clear, however, that the EPA illegally approved the products made by all three companies. Led by the Center for Food Safety,  the petition against the EPA was also brought by the National Family Farm Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action Network North America. In asking the court to find the EPA in contempt, the consortium warned of the crop damage to come if the dicamba products are not banned immediately. “EPA cannot get away with allowing the spraying of 16 million more pounds of dicamba and resulting damage to millions of acres, as well as significant risks to hundreds of endangered species,” the consortium said in its filing. “Something else is at stake too: the rule of law. The Court must act to prevent injustice and uphold the integrity of the judicial process. And given the blatant disregard EPA showed for the Court’s decision, Petitioners urge the Court to hold EPA in contempt.” The post Panicked chemical giants seek leeway in court ban on their weed killers appeared first on U.S. Right to Know.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/panicked-chemical-giants-seek-leeway-in-court-ban-on-their-weed-killers/

How to Network Online Like a Champ Posted by cheryldraper

Posted by cheryldraper This conference season feels a bit different, doesn't it? Where we're usually globetrotting from event to event, this year most conferences have either postponed their dates or switched to online, remote-friendly formats, offering video sessions by top-notch speakers or live streams with open chats. But what about everyone's favorite bonus during conference season — networking? Thankfully, all is not lost! With a little ingenuity and virtual elbow grease, you can still forge new professional relationships over an internet connection rather than a cocktail. (And hey, nothing's stopping you from enjoying a nice, frosty Mozcow Mule or tasty mocktail in your home office space, right?) In our current reality of social distancing, marketing conference networking will look different, but it's not going anywhere. Read on for tips on how to effectively network while remote!

Step 1: Look for networking opportunities

Depending on which virtual event you attend, the networking opportunities will look different. Keeping a creative eye out for opportunity is key to your success!

Live chats

Much like during regular conferences, there are bound to be live chats happening. They may happen on the actual event platform, or they may take place on social media. Some events will use a platform like Zoom that allows viewers to chat with each other within the platform, while others may have more of a broadcast format where chats happen on Twitter with a hashtag.

Joining Q&As

A super valuable aspect of conferences is being able to speak to presenters after they give their talk. Sometimes this happens during a predetermined time slot, such as right after the presentation, or it may happen when you catch them in the lobby or at an event later on. Either way, this time to ask questions about their expertise is a huge value-add to the experience. With conferences going virtual and live chats happening publicly during the presentations, this Q&A time has shifted a bit. Instead of having to wait for the presentation to be over, in some cases, presenters will reply to questions from the live chat as they're speaking. Some panels are pre-recorded, giving speakers a chance to interact on various platforms during the event itself. Some events will even have specific “presentations” that are more like facilitated Ask Me Anything-style interviews or panels where questions are taken from the audience and posed to the speaker(s).

Birds of a Feather discussions

Many conferences will offer some sort of industry or concept specific conversation facilitation. For instance, at MozCon, we host Birds of a Feather discussions. These discussions are headed up by an industry professional and have predetermined topics such as EAT, AI, Gutenberg, etc. Other times, these conversations may be organized and headed up by attendees. In a virtual setting, these will likely be smaller breakout groups using some sort of video chat software. Zoom, specifically, has created a way for conferences to organize these “breakout sessions” in advance. Birds of a Feather conversations are one of the best ways to connect as there is a common ground established from the get-go. These. Are. Your. People. Connections here will likely be the most valuable.

Step 2: Get active

No matter where the chats are happening, be sure you're a part of them! The more you interact, the more likely people are to recognize your name when you reach out after the event. The only caution here is that you have to be sure your interactions are meaningful — don’t just comment clapping hands. Add something to the conversation.

Add insight

The best thing about people is that we're all different and have fresh perspectives to bring to the table. Don’t be afraid to add on to someone’s thoughts. Let's use a fun example. If someone says that the best mascot hug ever was from Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, you may jump in and ask if they’ve ever met Roger MozBot, famed hugger and robot dancer extraordinaire. Or you could build on the thought by saying something like, “Mickey is a great hugger, I think it’s because he goes over instead of under!” In both of these instances, you’ve joined the conversation and added value.

Add clarification

Speakers often try to fit a lot of information into a relatively short timeframe. That said, questions will likely arise in the live chats. This could very easily be your time to shine! If you've got knowledge to share, feel free to answer the question to the best of your ability and try to add clarification. This is absolutely one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert and form a relationship with someone you’ve never met. It allows you to prove you’re knowledgable and give the person something they value for free.

Add sources

Whether you are asking a question, answering a question, or just chiming in with added insight, adding resources in conversation is extremely beneficial. This could mean that you recommend a tool, a person, or an article link. These resources for the other viewers can be extremely beneficial and help you establish your credibility. Now, we don’t suggest trying to come up with a source for everything, but if you have one right off of the top of your head, dropping a link in the chat may really help someone.

BONUS: Add people on social

While this one's not necessarily about adding value per se, it is about adding. Adding influencers, presenters, or other attendees after interacting with them (even if briefly) may increase your chances of getting a follow-back or accepted request as you'll still be top of mind. Try to add people no later than 24 hours after your last interaction, and consider sending a friendly "hey!" with a note about what you spoke about to keep the connection fresh.

Step 3: Perfect your follow-up

After connecting with people during the online conference, you'll want to follow up with them and stay in touch. The most important part of following up is the first impression. You don’t want to come right out of the gate with a request of any sort. Instead, look to build a relationship first. This could mean shooting a quick follow-up message recapping your conversation with the person, telling them that you appreciated their time and that you look forward to more conversations. After sending your initial follow-up, be sure to interact with the person at least once a week to stay top-of-mind. This is easiest on social media as you can like, comment, share their content, and ensure that your name is showing up in their notifications. However, direct messages, emails, and even phone calls are sure to be more impactful. The best thing you can do when following up is to stick to what you're most comfortable with and be consistent while continuing to add value.

Have fun and be yourself!

The number-one thing you have to offer is yourself. Your experiences make you unique and others can learn from that! So when you are connecting with others, just remember to be yourself. And lastly, have fun! Networking is meant to be fun as it gives you the opportunity to connect with others and build a community. Embrace that connection and enjoy it.

Networking at MozCon Virtual

Every year, we hear from attendees about how networking is one of their favorite parts of the conference. We made sure to keep it an integral part of this year's virtual event, too — check out all the ways you can connect with speakers, industry experts, attendees, and thought leaders at MozCon Virtual 2020!

In-session Q&A chat

Mid-presentation, pop into the Q&A chat with your real-time questions and get them answered by speakers. You'll also be able to chat with other attendees about the content, provide your own insights, and participate in real-time virtual convos about the session and topic. Speakers will be available to answer questions during their scheduled session times, so it's a perfect opportunity to get clarification, further insight, or forge those all-important connections!

Customizable profiles: Interests, personal bio, tags, and more

Attendees can search for like-minded folks with similar interests based on what you add to your profile when signing in. You can choose to upload your photo, create your biography, add specific interests and tags, and reach out to those you'd like to follow up with.

Create your own "Want-to-Meet" list

Browse attendee profiles and click "want to meet" when you find someone you'd like to reach out to later. With your personal contact info safely hidden, this is a great way to find and get found by those looking for new talent, professional partnerships, debate buddies, and more. Build your list ahead of time, then review in-platform and reach out when you're ready!

Schedule 1:1 meetings

After connecting with someone, you can easily send a meeting request to the folks you've connected with to chat live outside of the bigger group discussions. Your invited guest can choose to accept or decline the invite, and all 1:1 meetings occur directly within the conference platform's meeting rooms, making for easy facilitation!

Birds of a Feather "table" discussions

Birds of a Feather lunch tables are one of the biggest MozCon hits year after year, and we didn't want anyone to miss out! We'll facilitate 30-minute-long group discussions each day of the conference for you to connect with those interested in specific topics via video and audio chat. Each discussion will be led by an industry leader, giving you all the opportunity to say "hey" to the folks whose work you admire and collaborate with them on ideas, theories, obstacles you've faced, and more. We're super excited about all the networking opportunities at MozCon Virtual — at $129 per ticket, it's an incredible value for growing your digital marketing skillset and your career:

Get my ticket to MozCon Virtual!

Let us know your own best virtual networking tips in the comments. We hope to see you at MozCon this July 14 & 15!   Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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