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fourteen--steps · 6 years ago

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On big goldfish, and listening to each other

I apologize if the tone of this post is maybe a little more snippy than my usual ones. I’m usually very thoughtful with my words but I’ve had an incredibly rough physical and emotional week and I’m running low on spoons to devote to thinking things through properly. My frustration’s gonna bleed through here but I don’t want anyone to take it personal cause it’s really more me than you.

That said.

Remember that whole trend a while ago of “don’t give advice on animals you haven’t kept or deeply researched?” What ever happened to that? What ever happened to respecting the expertise and hearing out the opinions of people who actually have it in that field vs demanding you’re right because you’ve read some care sheets and seen some photos of worst case scenarios?

My whole life and world has been immersed in goldfish for the last several years. Keeping multiple breeds of both single tail and fancy, reading, researching, joining everything from casual hobbyist groups to those of serious breeders and highly respected names. I’ve moderated, built, and eventually owned my own care forum. I’ve spent hours reading vet manuals and scientific articles, as well as conducting necropsies on every animal I lose to better understand their inner workings and what’s gone wrong. I had the wonderful experience last summer of raising a small batch of someone else’s fry. I’ve experimented with all different kinds of food and filtration and maintenance and decor and enrichment.

I don’t know everything, nobody can. I’m not perfect, nobody is. But I can say with confidence I know a lot about the care and keeping of goldfish overall, and that my information is overall very solid and thought out.

So when someone comes in my inbox and asks my opinion on something goldfish related, my answer comes with all that experience and thought behind it. I often include caveats in my answers when I’m not 100% sure, or if I believe there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. I’m not so bigheaded as to believe that my way is absolutely always right and will work for every situation and every fish. But I answer in earnest and with confidence and reasoning.

But then my posts get immediately doused with comments from people who to the best of my knowledge have little to no experience with the species. The ones who do have experience tend to be polite in their responses, if not a bit misguided, although even then their knowledge tends to bottom out at keeping some orandas in a 40B or having tended a garden pond. Often the other comments are far more cursory and involve varying amounts of dismissal of my opinion entirely, insults, condescension, and most frustratingly, wild misinformation (much of which I’ve only heard echoed back and forth within the microcosm of tumblr, and never from a reputable outside source)

Like I’ve read a fair amount about bettas now both on here and elsewhere just cause they’re such popular fish and I’m a nerd and I’m curious. But I’ve never kept one, and I’m not an expert, and I’d never go be snappy on the advice post of someone who I know has a lot more practical and academic knowledge with them than I do? At the very least I could politely ask a question or voice a dissenting opinion with some of my reasoning, possibly acknowledging the deficits in my experience, but diving straight in with the vitriol just baffles me.

It’s come to my attention people are vagueing about me now and that’s just? So fucking childish and unnecessary. I’m also being accused of having stunted fish based on, among other things, the old eye proportion criteria, but btw that image of the ranchu that circulates as an example? Is heavily photoshopped and not a reliable catchall method to determine stunting.

For those who didn’t believe Zoom is as big as I said, I took this picture today. He’s not the most personable of my fish so he wouldn’t let me get him against a measuring tape but I measured my hand like that at about 4 inches, then pasted those identical bars on him (swear the blue bar is the same I just recolored so it’d stand out, not sure why it looks a little longer than the red). He’s just under 8 inches, nose to peduncle. Maybe even a tad longer cause he always curls a little when I flip him on his side (also why his side looks a little sunken here, he was getting ready to snap back and splash me in the face :P). When measuring goldfish you don’t include fins, by standard. If you wanna tack on the extra inch or so of tail go ahead and call him 9″

I also weighed him, he’s 109 grams which is a tad less than I’d like but I’ve been having issues with one fish in the tank needing a specialized diet so they’ve all been getting a little less protein than usual lately. The fish with the diet issue is probably going to be going back to @finefeatheredfish soon and I can pick up with weekly Worm Nights as usual again. His body condition is still good though rounded from above without being bloated, muscular rather than fatty, with a nice smooth taper head to tail and a bit of a belly. He’s not a very tall fish, but that’s more cause he’s a badly bred feeder fish who doesn’t fit the perfect common genetic standard than anything. Height isn’t about health, that’s a genetic characteristic that some fish just won’t achieve. In fact many tall “humpy” commons are not actually properly tall, but have large fat deposits along the tops of their bodies particularly built up behind the head which are an indicator of poor diet and overfeeding.

In fact if you want, here’s the US hibuna show standard! Take a look!

What about the eye thing? It’s huge compared to his head right? Well here’s a shubunkin posted by Gary Hater, currently one of the most well respected breeders in the US hobby, both for his fish quality and welfare standards. Who incidentally keeps most of his in aquariums and states that they normally reach 6-8″ indoors. This fish was from his “giants” tank, one of which he said was roughly 10 inches. This one in the video looked a little smaller than aforementioned Big Boy so I figure it’s around 8″ or so, like Zoom. and hey, look at that big googly eye! Almost like eye size can vary naturally in healthy goldfish and isn’t necessarily a sign of stunting without other important factors that are often much more subtle and far less textbook!

The last think I want to bring up, is that this whole “goldfish are ALL large” and by extension “NEED to be large” to be “right” worries me for another reason. I’m concerned there’s a mounting pressure that goldfish should be reaching these enormous sizes that they aren’t meant to, in far too short of a time. Many of the fish that do reach these sizes in captivity, yes even the ones in ponds, reach them due to powerfeeding. Intentional or not, these fish are put on high protein, high filler, sometimes high fat diets, and often fed a lot of it. Outdoor fish also gorge themselves on algae, insects, worms, snails, aquatic plants, sometimes other small fish, anything they can get their greedy little mitts on. Then their owner will dump in a large cup of cheap high protein pond conditioning food and they scarf that down too.

For aquarium fish, a nervous newbie keeper may see their young fish isn’t growing to the size they believe it’s supposed to and get a bigger tank, start feeding extra bloodworms, more meaty pellets, maybe turn the heater up a degree or two to boost their metabolism. They balance it out with lots of veggies so they think it’s okay, they just want their fish to be healthy and catch up to where it’s “supposed” to be! This leads to rapid and impressive growth, yes, but it comes with dangerous and potentially deadly consequences.

Some of you may remember Queenie. She was the largest goldfish I’ve ever personally encountered, 10-11 inches and fat fat with it. Her original owner surrendered her to our LFS and @finefeatheredfish immediately bought her with the plan that she’d move into my 150 when it was set up. She was healthy at the time, some kind of long bodied fancy mix and drop dead gorgeous, though she needed to drop some weight for sure. Too young to be that massive and visibly overweight. She was unquestionably a powerfed pond fish.

Cw for euthanasia mention, pet death, graphic descriptions, next 3 paragraphs

But about a month into her QT she began getting sick, infection-like symptoms but antibiotics didn’t do anything. We worked on her another month, did our best to save her. We probably should have euthanized her earlier in hindsight but we wanted so bad to get her through and give her a happy home. She was just so amazing you know? I took her for the last week of her life to try some last ditch treatment, she died about 3 days after this photo was taken.

I did a necropsy on her afterwards. Her vital organs were layered in fat. There was so much of it around her swim bladder that I thought it was another organ at first and got confused. I’m shocked it was still functional. Her liver was unidentifiable mush, suggesting chronic disease, and her gallbladder had simply exploded and spilled bile all over the surrounding tissue. Her body cavity was full of blood and fluid. The cause of death appeared to be the rupture of her gallbladder or liver and the tearing of some important vessel in that area, she bled out internally.

The chronic liver and gallbladder disease were entirely untreatable for home aquarists. What we thought was infectious dropsy was full on liver failure, she couldn’t balance the fluid and electrolytes in her body anymore which caused the swelling. Likely even if we had taken her to the vet there would have been little they could do. You can’t really remove a fish’s inflamed gallbladder, or transplant in a new liver to replace a failing one. Those conditions are linked to obesity in many species, and I have no doubt that Queen’s diet and obesity were the cause of the chronic conditions that lead to her slow death.

She was powerfed because someone wanted a large, impressive fish, and it killed her. She deserved so much better than that.

CW over

Powerfeeding and its results are not always that extreme, and I can go into more on the other risks and issues if anyone is interested, but this is long enough already. I wanted to include Queenie as a cautionary tale, and because I’m still so sad she never got to meet the rest of my little school. She was such a sweetheart.

I have a genuine concern with this normalization of 12-14″+ fish as average, that people are going to start pushing their pets to meet that. Most goldfish are not genetically capable of that growth. I’d go so far as to say most goldfish should not reach that size, at least not in any appreciably quick period of time.

Feed your fish well. Keep their water clean. Give them room to swim. They will grow on their own time, to their own size.

And lastly. I’m open to talking about this stuff, really. I love to learn new things and hear new sides. Just please, be friendly and mature and let’s have a real conversation? We can disagree politely. It doesn’t have to be black and white, mortal enemies, I know fishblr’s environment these days isn’t very conducive to that, and that’s part of why I’d left a few weeks ago. But I’m trying to give it another chance cause this community used to be really welcoming and wonderful. I’d really love for us to be able to step away from all this polarizing distrust and be open and considerate again.

My responses may be spotty because of the terrible week I mentioned at the beginning of this post but I’ll try and check back.

#I think I kept this mostly together and said most of what I want to say #goldfish #fishblr #long post #fishies #zoom #queenie #pet death mention

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lettersofsky · 7 years ago

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For the "Get to know the Author": all of them. Every single one. Because I adore you and love knowing more about you.

Get to Know You AuthorYou asked for it! And now have a lot of rambly answers! Under a read-more line because I’m still a decent person. 25′s probably longer than it should be but I just love that scene, I love it so much.

1) Isthere a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

The Later DEEPGROUND AUthing I wanna do; it’s got all the notes and plot points down include quickrough drafts of some ‘drama’ scenes, I’m just not really ready to start it yet?I’ll get there eventually though! There’s also my own thing which exists onlyin concept design and small character pieces and that I’m far too willing toadmit that I’m not ready to start yet.

2) Whatwork of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

I tend not to getembarrassed over my things because even if they’re not the best thing, I’ve atleast been able to get the idea down or I’ve tried something different aboutthe thing so they’re all experience and the chance for constructive criticism.

3) Whatorder do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenesfirst? something else?

It varies depending onwhat I’m doing; like some things I’ll start with a specific scene and thenwrite the build up for it, others I’ll write a scene I’m looking forward too,the afterwards of it and then the start, others will be chronological. The besttimes are when I write out notes for the thing then I can work out of orderwhile retaining all the few key points that I wanna touch on and where they’d fallin the timeline of the story.

4) Favoritecharacter you’ve written

Genesis is such adramatic, lit nerd and I love him. Writing him is fun because he’s just thisbig ball of conflicting thoughts and contradictions and I absolutely love him,especially the way I try to write him; kind of a more mature, softer, ‘realizedthat I’m never going to achieve this thing that’s completely out of my leaguebut hey! That doesn’t mean I don’t have achievements to be proud of!’ He’s alsoreally easy to angst!

5) Characteryou were most surprised to end up writing

I’d never thought that I’dwrite Rosso! Nobody cares to write about the Tsviets! But I am because she’s my murder girlfriend and I absolutely adoreher! She’s very much a femdom whenever I write her, it’s a thing

6) Somethingyou would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated tochange now

I don’t know? Because if Ireally have a problem with something then I can go back and redo it, which Ihave done in the past (not for anything I’ve posted here, but other things).

7) Whenasked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I’m neutral about it, Ithink? Not a lot of people around me would think to ask and the one’s thatwould already know because I’ve shoved things in their face to tell me if the wordsmake sense.

8) Favoritegenre to write

I love writing fluff! Cuteslice-of-life, romance stuff! Warm feelings in my chest as I break my face fromsmiling at my own stuff! Ecto’s probably calling me a liar right now because ofall the angsty stuff I write…

9) What,if anything, do you do for inspiration?

OTP Prompts are mysaviour, I would be left with character-centric things exploring ideas I haveabout them otherwise (read Truths and Crownless)

10) Write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Definitely backgroundnoise, I usually put on some music (I’ve been listening to Starset and NWTB alot lately) or a video (I like Plague of Gripes stuff, he goes a lot intocharacter development and worldbuilding). I can write around people, but I preferto be alone when I write, mostly because I kind of end up roleplaying thecharacters a bit, especially when I’m stuck on dialogue.

11) What aspect of your writing do you think has most improved sinceyou started writing?

I’d like to say that I canwrite dialogue better now but I’m not sure about that. I’ve definitely improvedwith my NSFW pieces, they’re apparently decent now!

12) Your weaknesses as an author

Dialogue is difficult. Plotsare difficult. A Decent Ending is difficult. Titles are hell.

13) Your strengths as an author

Hyper fixation on things Ilike. Willingness to completely abandon all of fanon to run with a characterizationI like. I can write dumb idiots being cute real good!

14) Do you make playlists for your current wips?

Not often, there are a fewthat I have but not many.

15) Why did you start writing?

It was a way suggested tome to help deal with depression by a councillor; they probably never expectedme to write about… what I currently do.

16) Are there any characters who haunt you?

Ravus Nox Flueret. He’s myabsolute favourite thing from FFXV and Crownless is my longest single thing fora reason! He just keeps creeping into my other FFXV stuff! Like an AU I’ve beenbouncing around, started one way and then I wondered what he’d be doing in itand the whole thing shifted to include him in the main narrative.

17) If you could give your fledgling author self any advice, whatwould it be?

Stop thinking and worryingabout the thing and just do them, it’s fine if not a lot of people see thestuff you’re doing someone definitely is and it’s probably put a smile on theirface and that’s good.

18) Were there any works you read that affected you so much that itinfluenced your writing style? what were they?

I don’t think so? Maybeand I just haven’t realized it? I used to have a very Victorian-style ofwriting (or so I was told) but I might have lost that somewhere along the way.

19) When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keeptrack of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

A document absolutely filledwith the information; that’s how I did it with my Bloodborne AU, just some 40pages of characterizations, backstory, weapons and their backstories, acomplete timeline of events and things to touch upon in the works. But yes, foranything that’s large and complex then I’ll just have a separate document (or two) tohave up that has all my ideas; for example, TSoaF, my Dragon AU, has the mainstory file, the info file, the draconics file – with all their designs, characterizationsand backstories, and a predecessor fic – which is only dot-points of plotpoints and will probably remain that way.

20) Do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Both, considering my moodand what I’m working on. If it’s a part I’m feeling up to like my smut bender lastweek then I can do the long sit-down, other times I can’t sit still and haveto get up every few minutes just to move.

21) What do you think when you read over your older work?

It pretty much boils down too,‘Oh! Look at my OTP being cute together! *heart eyes* I love them!’ or ‘… Oh,no! Why did I write that?! Now they’re crying and I’m crying and, god damnitme!’ It’s a fifty-fifty chance.

22) Are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Some of the more extremekinks or fetishes maybe? Other than that, I can’t really think of anything.

23) Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped yourwriting?

Unfortunately, myexperience as a nurse, both in age care and in the neurological section of ahospital, have not helped me with my writing at all. Damn you, four years of specializededucation!

24) Have you ever become an expert on something you previously knewnothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Not an expert, but I ammore versed in kink after writing for Kinktober than I ever thought I would be.I also looked up numerous method of torture for one of my Bloodborne fics, thatwas pretty fun.

25) Copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’reparticularly proud of

Genesis had liftedhimself to a seated position and had dropped his head into his hands, hisshoulders shaking with soft sobs. | Cloud dropped down to his knees next to theother, gazing at him in concern. “Genesis? What’s wrong?” He asked, voiceclearly distressed. | “I can’t,” Genesis whispered, voice thick with emotion. “I can’t do this anymore.” | “Genesis,”Cloud coaxed, pressing closer to the other man. “Talk to me.” | “I’ve tried so hard,” Genesis stressed, lifting his gaze to stare atCloud with wet eyes. “But I just can’t handle this anymore Cloud.” | Cloud didn’t understand what theother meant by that but whatever it was, it must have been important to causethis much distress in the other man. “Tell me about it,” he coaxed in a softvoice. “Let’s talk about it.” | Genesis shook his head sharply, a harsh noiseleaving his lips. “I’m trying to make it up,” Genesis told him, stressing hiswords in a desperate tone. “But I can’t handle having you like this anymore.”| Cloud was stunned silent, staring at Genesis’ face. | “And I know I don’t deserve to be picky,” Genesis continued, reachingout to grip Cloud’s arms in a tight grip. “You’ve been so kind to me, eventhough I don’t deserve it after I threw you away.” | Cloud felt hisbreath quickening as Genesis continued to speak, his eyes widening as he beganto realize what the other was talking about. | “I promised myself that I’d takeanything you gave me when I saw you out in the wastes. I promised that I wouldn’t interferewith your life any more than I already had.” Cloud swallowed heavily, his chestheavy as he continued to listen to the other’s ramblings. “But I can’t deal with this, I can’t handle you looking at me like I don’t mean anything to you.” | Cloudfound a harsh noise falling from his throat, interrupting Genesis’ ramblings.He dropped his own head into his hands, smothering the noises falling from hismouth. | A wounded noise left Genesis’ throat as he took Cloud’s face in hishands. “Look, I’m still ruining things,” he pressed his forehead to Cloud’s astears started leaking from his eyes once again. “I just keep hurting you, precious.” | Cloud shook his own head softly, pullingaway from the other’s hand to stare at his face, admitting in a soft, fragilevoice. “I had Mako Poisoning,” Genesis stiffened, freezing at his words. “I, Iforgot everything. I don’t remember ever meetingyou before.” | Another wounded noise left the other man before he was wrappedin a warm embrace and pulled into the other’s space.

I’m also really proud of AnOld Hurt (a KH fic) in general. I just really love how it came out and how Iwrote Xemnas in it, it’s really great.

#ask meme thing reply #missingmywing #Wings! I hope you're happy!#This is really long #I spent a lot of time answering these #After coming home from work

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neilmillerne · 6 years ago

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Fitness Infographics Crush On Instagram. Here’s How To Make A Great One.

You’ve seen it everywhere.

Your friends are doing it.

Your fitness colleagues are doing it.

You might even be doing it, but wanna get better.

Well, you came to the right place because today we’re gonna talk about …

…FITNESS INFOGRAPHICS!

I’m gonna teach you how to create fitness infographics for Instagram to make more money for your business.

Sound good? Good. Let’s just dive right in.

WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT

The great Mark Twain once said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

I love Mr. Clemens, but he never had an Instagram.

Plain n’ simple, infographics on Instagram work.

If done correctly, they are:

Easily discovered on the Explore page (attention-grabbing)

Simple to make after some practice

Digested quickly by your audience

SHAREABLE between other influencers (and followers)

VALUABLE to your audience

Yes, there are many people doing them (and many people NOT doing them), but most are really shitty.

Since you’re reading this article, your infographics may look shitty too, but that’s fine because everyone successful at making them had to go through that stage at some point.

As an example, I will use myself. On April 26, 2017, I had 1,319 followers.

74 likes, 18 saves, and 5 comments.

This was my first ever infographic on May 17th, 2017. Not terrible, but definitely not good.

The background needs to be white. Black background is harder to read (think newspapers – white with black letters).

My green checks are crooked.

My header letters are not big enough to grab your attention while scrolling through the Explore page/your feed.

Lots of writing; could be simplified and more concise.

Needs to be neater and more organized.

Like I said, not terrible. But we can make some improvements.

Let’s jump ahead a little over a year later and see what I’ve done differently.

1,039 likes. 1,300 saves. 15 comments.

2,114 likes. 1,400 saves. 158 comments.

A touch better, yeah?

Do all posts perform this well? Hell no. But it’s an improvement, for sure.

And as of writing this, I’m currently at 12K followers.

I haven’t gained as quickly as some others, but I’ve made progress and I’m happy with the audience I am creating.

I like to put my following in perspective by imagining if all 12,000 of those people were listening to me speak on a stage. That usually does the trick when I feel the need to compare myself to others.

And, let’s be honest, your follower count doesn’t mean dick if those followers aren’t buying shit.

The point is NOT to get more likes or followers.

The point is to make such a large impact on your audience that they are guilted into buying from you.

Again, to use my own clients and pure objective data, these are the stats pulled from all my client analysis forms:

Sure, I put more effort into Instagram than my other social media platforms, but the data is still ridiculous.

It shows you can convert followers into buyers if you market yourself well enough.

Which brings me to the meat and potatoes of this article: the 6 steps to infographic mastery.

STEP 1: Find a creation platform.

You have a few different options here.

If you’re super basic and have minimal graphic design skills, I’d highly recommend using Canva.

It will feel slightly overwhelming at first, but if you watch through the tutorials on the website and play around a little bit, you’ll get the hang of it. I’d also add that I prefer to make the graphics on my laptop. The app works fine, but fat fingers can make it difficult to create with precision.

Aadam Ali just gets it.

If you wanna get fancy or have more tech skillz than I, feel free to use Adobe Photoshop. I’ve never used it, but plenty others have and they love it.

Check out Aadam Ali’s Instagram (@physiqonomics) to see a master at work. I would honestly be doing him a disservice if I called his illustrations “infographics”. They are by far the best drawings on fitness on the Internet.

There is no wrong answer here, just pick one that best suits you and move to step 2.

STEP 2: Idea Creation – What’s the purpose of the infographic?

Alright, let’s not overthink this one.

Don’t get me wrong, you want to spend some time on this, but it can cause paralysis by analysis trying to figure out the PERFECT title for your infographic.

Some questions to ask yourself to overcome this:

What has worked for people similar to your brand/niche? Is there a way you can put a spin on it?

Do you wanna be a contrarian and go the opposite route of what most people say?

Do you want it to be funny? Entertaining? Informative?

Do you want to create a list?

To quote my man crush, Nate Green, before every post ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to say?” Then at the end of the post, “Did I say what I wanted to?”

If yes, you’re good to go.

The main takeaway with this step: just get started.

Have a rough sketch and start creating. You’ll mold it to your liking as you keep working and, sometimes, you’ll take it in a completely different direction than you intended.

Follow that muse.

STEP 3: Content Creation

There’s only so much I can say in this section. This is where you have to showcase your creative talents and bleed the infographic with your personal brand.

Meaning if you’re primarily targeting women who want to look and feel better, your infographics may look similar to Marci Nevin’s or Leslie Hooper’s:

I actually reached out to Leslie and Marci to give some tips on their success.

Here’s what they had to say:

Leslie Hooper (@hooper.fit) – “Keep it simple. The fewer the words the better. You have three seconds to grab the attention of your audience while competing with thousands of other posts. This may be the first time someone has read anything on your topic, so make sure it’s so basic a third grader could understand it. Bonus points if it elicits an emotional reaction using wit, depth, irony, etc. And please, for the love of god, make sure the text and images are spaced out and centered appropriately. Perhaps Sweet Brown said it best, when the infographic isn’t aesthetically pleasing, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” It doesn’t matter how mind-blowing the content is. If it’s an eyesore, no one’s paying attention.”

Marci Nevin (@marcinevin) – “My best advice is to keep the graphic as clear and simple as possible. You want it to be eye-catching, but also readable so that it keeps someone’s attention and is easy to digest. For example, “Great Foods For Fat Loss.” I find that lots of white space helps with that. Use a white background, simple graphics and only one or two different colors for the text. Make sure that the text isn’t too small and has enough space between lines. Also, concise lists seem to be really popular.”

But if you’re like me–I target younger men and women who are intermediate/advanced lifters; men are typically more drawn to my personality/brand/interests–you’re going to make infographics like this:

Despite the subtle differences between our content, you’ll notice some similarities:

Each infographic is visually appealing and grabs your attention immediately by pictures or text (BIG CATCHY TITLES) or both.

They are concise. There aren’t long paragraphs of texts. Each one mimics easy-to-read lists.

The images are clear (no borders around the images! Google .png files if possible) and relatable to what the infographic is trying to portray.

The words used are relative to the audience, i.e., most women don’t want to know how to “get big”.

I used green checks in mine, but green checks and red X’s can be useful to quickly distinguish between right and wrong.

Notice the amount of white space. It is even throughout and the infographic is designed efficiently.

This part will take a while to figure out how you want to structure your infographics, but it will develop over time.

Test and learn, test and learn, test and learn.

Step 4 – Refinement

This is where you have to bring out your inner neurotic OCD housewife (think Monica, from Friends).

People are going to give you about 2 seconds to grab their attention on Instagram. Even if the content is amazing, they are going to keep scrolling if you have poor spacing issues, grammar errors, and bland colors.

You’ll wanna match your font and colors to your own personal brand to make your feed aesthetically pleasing.

Make sure to add your watermark to each infographic (people WILL steal them if they’re popular). A good rule of thumb is placing one at the bottom and one in the middle (in case they cut the bottom one off).

These small details can often go overlooked because this is one of the last things you have to do before you’re done, but it is worth the extra time to take your infographic from good to great.

Step 5 – Captions: Where The Magic Happens

If you get anything right, it needs to be this part. This is where you need to be the most YOU possible.

People who absolutely CRUSH this part are Carter Good (@cartergood) and Jordan Syatt (@syattfitness).

If you put 10 captions in front of me from 10 different people, I could easily pick which one was written by Jordan or Carter.

With over 400K followers each, I think it’s a good idea to listen to what they have to say.

I asked them both what advice they would give to making better infographics and they were (not surprisingly) aligned:

Jordan & Carter – “You need to be able to look at the picture and not need to look at the caption to derive the value from the post. Keep the picture simple and use the caption to explain the nitty-gritty. Don’t be afraid to max out the captions. For metrics, look at saves over likes.”

You’ve gotta align your tone of the infographic in your caption: witty, intelligent, snarky, angry, kind, vulnerable, etc.

Always recall, “What am I trying to say? … Did I say it?”

And as I mentioned earlier, people literally spend less than 2 seconds on your IG post before they determine if they wanna keep going.

With that being said, which part of the caption do you think is mega important?

The very first line.

Think about something that would cause you to keep reading.

As for the rest: I challenge you to write a long, compelling caption. You want to prove you’re a good writer? This is the way to do it.

The caption is where people become invested in you and your personality. Not everybody will read to the end and that’s okay, because the ones who do are more likely to buy from you. That’s the goal, remember? The goal isn’t to appease to your childhood friends who are frustrated with your captions that “no one reads.”

Speaking of the goal, you need to write the caption from your perspective as a COACH.

I’m sometimes bad at this, but when I do it right it can be a huge push towards gaining leads. Mention how this infographic applied to a client, how you implement this technique as a coach, etc. It can be easy to just write about the infographic and elaborate what’s in the picture, but always remember the purpose of the post.

Some other tips for captions include:

Don’t write huge blocks of text. Break up each paragraph by only using a few sentences (notice how I’m writing this article).

Use periods or dashes to separate paragraphs in the caption. Quick tip on this: you cannot have any spaces between lines when you try to line break into a new paragraph.

Determine your emoji preference. Some people like to sprinkle in emojis here and there and some people (like me) rarely use emojis. This is your preference and will depend on your tone for the post.

Limit exclamation points. The overlord of this site has written adamantly about this topic.

Don’t overuse ALL CAPS. Again, this can get annoying and sound like you’re CONSTANTLY YELLING AT YOUR AUDIENCE. If it gets repetitive, you take away the emphasis from using a strategically placed all caps word/phrase when it matters.

Call to action. The algorithm changes all the time, but it almost always awards engagement. Asking your audience a question or encouraging a comment can improve impressions on your post. Every once in a while, sneak in a right hook and directly ask your audience to DM you about becoming a client or clicking a link in your bio.

Do your research on popular hashtags to your audience and play around with different amounts. The limit is 30 per post. Put them as your first comment to keep the caption cleaner.

Post to your Instagram Story. This is the icing on the cake. Instagram stories have been booming lately and this is where a large majority will discover your post. Just click the paper airplane icon under your picture (next to comment bubble icon) and click “Add post to your story.”

Do not underestimate the power of a compelling caption. Don’t purposefully try to make the caption long or short, just focus on making it fucking amazing.

Step 6 – Determine Your Frequency

People love to argue about quality or quantity and the answer is always both.

Posting three shitty posts will have shitty engagement. Posting one amazing post will be better than 3 shitty posts. I would recommend putting out as many posts as you can while keeping quality as high as possible.

At the end of the day, it’s gonna come down to how talented you are and prioritizing what your time is worth.

Let’s bring this shit home with another list because everyone likes a good list.

1x, 2x, 3x+ per day. This is going to be individual and you’ve gotta determine what your time is worth. Re-read above.

Leverage others. The great perk of infographics is their shareability. If you wanna post three times a day, try posting two of your own and one of somebody else’s. This also increases the likelihood they will repost yours (but don’t expect them to).

When inspiration and creativity are low, you can repost your old content that has performed well. If you’ve been doing it for a while, you should have a big bank saved up. You can also make tweaks and make them look better than the last time you posted.

Consistency is key. This is cliche, but I don’t care. This is the foundation of making these work.

Figuring the right frequency for you will take some time, but as long as you remain consistent you will find your groove.

The Part Where We Wrap This Up

Look, you don’t HAVE to do infographics.

Many people have great success on Instagram without using infographics.

But can they work for you and put more money in your pocket?

Absolutely.

It’s not going to be a shortcut to success or any shit like that, but if you follow these six steps and truly CARE about the audience you’re helping, it definitely won’t hurt.

Oh yeah, and before we go. Follow me and send me a DM if this helped you.

The post Fitness Infographics Crush On Instagram. Here’s How To Make A Great One. appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

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#Fitness Infographics Crush On Instagram. Here’s How To Make A Great One.

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joshuabradleyn · 6 years ago