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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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@fuyunoakegata

#reblogging now that I've actually had time to sit down and give this proper attention and take it all in#and damn i love that you managed to get through all of this and never veer off topic into Deathwing#:)

*snorts* You give me too much credit. Deathwing was absolutely on the to do list for that post, he was just in the part I never got to because I hit my ‘oh right, physiological needs are a thing’ threshold and was like fuck it, I’ll do that later.

Kalen’s Razor: Never attribute to willpower what can be better explained by him just running out of steam.

But I mean tbh, he was in the part I delayed for another time because I didn’t want to like.....shortchange the importance of that part and how much attention and thought I gave it. Because like, I don’t actually think he’s off topic at all. I think he’s absolutely central to the topic, and in fact, he’s part of the thing I TRULY despise about this whole mess of a story and DC’s actions in regards to it. Faaaaaar more than their failure to call it rape or the victim-blaming, and you KNOW how much I love me a good ‘how dare they’ victim-blaming rant. So.

Still don’t quite have the time or spoons to dig into all that just yet, but I mean.....I think it definitely also needs to be acknowledged that Mirage was raped by Dick’s future timeline evil doppelganger like, right after she did it and before the wedding issue even.....with the timing being really sketchy. Like, its literally just a handful of issues after her rape of him.....in fact, given the timeline publishing works according to and taking into account the lagtime between scripting/art and then to printers and then actual publication....its pretty damn clear they had to have started writing THAT storyline basically the month AFTER Mirage’s reveal that it was her Dick slept with hit stands. Ie, the month they would have started hearing reactions to that story.

So like.....there’s pretty much no way in hell that the Deathwing story WASN’T written specifically in response to that earlier story, or more specifically to REACTIONS to that....which leaves literally only two real options for WHY they would have felt the need for that. One would be as a ‘just desserts’ type thing, like if it was meant as a punishment - which ugh, no, that would not be any better for a whole host of reasons I don’t have time for right now.....but tbh, that doesn’t really track because if that was the reason for that direction you would assume they WOULD bring up what she did to Dick again as relevant. Like that direction literally only makes sense IF you WANT to focus on what she did and why it was fucked up. Which....they clearly didn’t, since they never did that.

Which leaves the only other real likely option....that it was done in an attempt to drum up sympathy for her character and distract from what she’d done, as for whatever reason DC was still interested in keeping her as a hero and eventually a full time Titan, and they’d only realized after the fact that where they had previously had taken her was now making that damn near impossible without ‘damage control.’ And I deeply resent the fuck out of that, and using rape as a ploy to drum up sympathy for a character, particularly one who only needs sympathy drummed up because of doing basically the same damn thing, like....ugh. Fuck you DC. Its cheap, and manipulative, and compounds the refusal to address Dick’s rape as rape now juxtaposed to the rape of his rapist, which in contrast they have ZERO problem addressing as rape.

But unfortunately, its really hard to see any other possible reason they would have gone that direction since it marked the point at which they REVISITED the others’ reactions to what happened with her and Dick and had Kory, who had previously expressed forgiveness and more of a focus on her anger at Mirage....THIS was the point where Kory reversed course and characters en masse started only addressing what Dick ‘had done’ as an active act of cheating. As well as being the point past which no character again brought up to Mirage any mention of her role in that, and the focus around her switched entirely to the ongoing storyline of her pregnancy due to Deathwing’s rape and his ensuing fixation on her and the baby, with a TON of focus on his obsession with HIS unborn child....all of which is basically tailor made to keep the narrative context around her actively sympathetic and further and further distant from what had happened with Dick. Culminating of course in the point where Julienne was born, Deathwing was in a coma and never talked about again, and Mirage left the team and the book to go raise Julienne.

Except there’s one thing that has driven me fucking bonkers for years, because its the part that never made ANY sense and seems entirely contradictory with their seeming desire to never actually address what happened with her and Dick and keep her at least as firmly separate and distanced in readers’ minds....from him and her actions there as possible.

Like, if that was the goal, I would THINK that they would go out of their way to leave as little wiggle room as possible as to who Julienne’s father actually was. I mean, right? If you don’t want people ever thinking or focusing on what she did to Dick and her connection to HIM rather than Deathwing.....I would think the LAST thing you would want is for people - characters OR readers - to have any reason to doubt that Deathwing was the baby’s father. Instead, its like they went out of their way TO make wiggle room for that very thing? Which makes NO sense.

But that’s exactly what they did. What happened with Dick and then what happened with Deathwing were mere issues apart and given the context of everything else happening, was at MOST a few weeks apart. Which isn’t a big deal, logistically, until you factor in that when they did reveal Mirage’s pregnancy a good twenty (maybe more) issues or so after THAT point.....they made a point to reveal that Mirage had used her powers to hide her pregnancy for some time. With it specifically pointed out that she went out of her way to hide it from her teammates as well as Deathwing. Like.....the ONLY thing that particular plot point really accomplished OR was ever brought up in context of.....was in terms of how it literally made it impossible to ever know for sure how long Mirage actually spent pregnant....ie, when exactly she got pregnant.

And THEN, on TOP of that......after Deathwing being firmly established as Dick’s future timeline counterpart for actual YEARS at that point, real world time....at the very end of his appearances, once in his coma and right about when Mirage gave birth.....they for whatever reason decided to reveal that actually, Deathwing had never been any version of Dick Grayson at all. That he was only brainwashed to THINK he had the backstory he had...by whomever had selected him for how similar he appeared to the real Dick Grayson and then surgically altered him to further the impression.

And this was pretty much the last time the pre-Flashpoint version of Deathwing ever appeared or was even referenced, just kept at S.T.A.R. Labs in his coma from that point on and never revisited.....which again makes it like....WHY? Why go to that trouble? Like especially because if you DIDN’T actually want anyone ever really being like ‘hey has anyone ever considered Julienne might be Dick’s? Like do we know for sure, like, the two events DID happen awfully close together”.....like, if that’s what you DON’T want ever happening, then it actually works BETTER if Deathwing is Dick’s evil alternate counterpart? Because then there’s literally no element that can ever be brought up or introduced to suggest that Julienne is actually Dick Grayson’s daughter.....that CAN’T be dismissed with “well yes, and Deathwing WAS, technically, Dick Grayson, that explains that.” It effectively makes the question of who is Julienne’s true father impossible to ever conclusively answer.....which in turn basically makes it an irrelevant question. There’s no reason to ask that question instead of just accepting the narrative that its Deathwing....because what’s the point when the only answer that can ever be found is still always going to be “Dick Grayson” either way?

But making a point to reveal that Deathwing ISN’T a version of Dick and never was....is what actually ALLOWS for doubt and creates a reason to make the real Dick Grayson relevant to the subject of Mirage and Julienne again....AFTER the comics just spent the last thirty or so issues doing every other thing possible to make Dick IRRELEVANT to their storyline. Because only NOW, after that specific reveal, is there an actual reason characters might some day revisit the matter and actually raise the question of Julienne’s parentage....because only NOW does it become a question that would require a conclusive answer of one or the other, Dick Grayson or Deathwing...where a definitive answer that is NOT Deathwing, is actually a viable prospect.

I just....*pulls hair and eats it* I don’t understand what they were going for. Its entirely counter intuitive, and both elements - the pregnancy timeline and Deathwing specifically not being a genetic double of the real Nightwing - are entirely SUPERFICIAL to the entire storyline they created for Mirage and Julienne. There is absolutely ZERO reason to bring those things up or focus on them at all, nothing is added to the story BY bringing those up. And literally every other thing they did with both Dick and Mirage over the course of like, the entire last couple years of Mirage’s regular appearances before she left the team to raise Julienne....every other thing they did follows a clear pattern of deliberately putting as much distance between the two and their shared storyline as possible....

Except for these two specific details that they never needed to put in and ONLY serve one singular purpose: to throw the otherwise clear picture and timeline into question, and bring the possibility of Dick being the true father BACK into the equation that they’d just spent umpteen issues writing him OUT of.

Ugh. Its one of those things that’s always gonna bug me even though its never going to matter at this point. Hell, even with the Mirage story obliquely mentioned recently in the Batman B&W story and continuity being open season, like, I’ll be pretty surprised if they ever actually bring Mirage back into the picture, but I’d be stunned if they ever even reference Julienne again. Like, as far as canon goes at least, its literally never gonna matter, but its such a weird unnecessary little discrepancy that I’ve always just wanted to track down one of the writers involved and be like....”can you walk me through that? I really just want to understand what your logic was there” lolol.

#rape tw #yes that was me still not actually digging into it yet #shut up #you know I can dig deeper than that dont act surprised

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kendrixtermina · 5 years ago

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Assorted House of Feanor Thoughts

I wrote this as a reply to someone, but then realized that this should be a post of its own.

Line between extrapolation, interpretation & headcanon is going to be fluid here

Long post under cut

The seven sons in general:

all moody, fierce, intense and brilliant, each in various different ways

none of them can really stand to be cooped up in one place for long

F R E C K L E S you will not convince me otherwise

Apart from the ones explicitly described as pretty (ie, Maedhros and Celegorm) they’re actually relatively plain by elf standards, or at least sort of rugged-looking, especially compared to their part-Vanyar cousins - I mean, figures that some would turn out more like Miriel or Nerdanel both of which were supposedly more average.

all are very resourceful having spent most of their lives helping out with their parent’s projects, exploring the wilderness, or (save for Celegorm) hanging out in Aule’s halls. Most can probably whip up a steampunk or magitech solution to basic war-related problems

Because of this they’re a very tight-knit group

growing up, they did not know many children their age; Ironically the most contact they had was with their cousins because Feanor paid semi-regular visits to Finwe. Apart from Turgon (and Orodreth if you place him in the second rather than the third post-journey generation) the cousins really dug the adventure stories. (Galadriel pretended not to be interested and offered plenty of critiques, but listened anyways)

more survival skills and just a lot more casual than your average princes

They’d all been adults for a good while by the time of the rebellion; the twins are a tad older than Aredhel, Galadriel and Argon; Caranthir and Angrod are about the same age. Curufin is younger than Aegnor.

They all look back at that trip to the lightless shore of the outer sea as a cherished family memory

Also I don’t think Feanor disciplined his sons very much after all his own father let him get away with everything. In his eyes the brats can do no wrong especially not Curufin and to a lesser extent Amrod Nerdanel tried her best to counterbalance this and it kind of worked on some of them, but the three middle ones were a lost cause

I think a lot of the weight behind the oath comes from how Feanor made them promise him to see it through on his deathbed. It was his literal last wish.

Maedhros:

The Leader™, the most strong-willed and the deadliest fighter by a huge margin. What the orc under your bed has nightmares about.

Obviously a very competent diplomat, strategist, and the sort to put constructive results over personal glory; resilient, formidable, unpretentious and tough as leather

but not at all overconfident, and the type who is not blind to the flaws of the people he loves. He knows very well that Feanor wasn’t perfect and does many things that his father would not have agreed with - at the same time he has a strong sense of obligation, honor and loyalty which turns out to be his fatal flaw in the end when being loyal and keeping his word increasingly requires him to do dishonorable things

if there was a definite breaking point it was the fiasco with Dior’s sons

Stoic but courteous and eloquent; From Finwe’s death onwards increasingly grim, grizzled and not very hopeful, though he’s the sort to give his all and try to be noble even when there’s no reward or even thanks or respect.

Despite this, he has as a dry sense of humor and at times uses it to defuse tense situations or disarm people he’s negotiating with (see the scene with Thingol’s message) - does have a streak of gallows humor to him especially after the Thangorodrim incident

As the heir Feanor actually let him in on trade secrets and scientific speculation; Their relationship is probably the most equal; I do think Feanor was capable of actually appreciating that Maedhros got a mind of his own and isn’t afraid to stand up for himself. Feanor values independent thought, even if he’s not always good at really living that value with his tendency to take things personally and see others as taking sides for or against him.

Can’t really craft stuff to the same degree without his right hand. He then focussed on more abstract/mental pursuits which were perhaps his forte, to begin with but it still bothers him more than he lets on, especially since he still retains, or swiftly regained, his skill at making things dead.

He may or may not qualify as a cinnamon roll but he definitely looks like could kill you

Maglor:

Maedhros might have been the token responsible sibling, but Maglor was the understanding, comforting one and always had a nurturing streak - hence why he was the one to take in the kids.

Sensitive Artistic Type™ - goes from quirky and passionate back in Valinor to melancholy & tormented as the war drags on

one of those people who despair over & get self-critical over their work even when it’s regarded as masterpieces

Like Feanor and Miriel before him, he tends to get super absorbed in his work/art and just plain disappears for days

Now some ppl hold that he didn’t start having second thoughts until near the end, but judging from how he comes along to Fingolfin’s party or to hang out with Finrod, I’d hold that he was always ‘the nice/gentle one’, but not solely in a positive way; Unlike Maedhros he did not stand up to Feanor about the thing with the ships and indeed lets Maedhros talk him out of turning himself in at the very end, so he’s probably somewhat lacking in assertiveness

Even so, he’s probably one of the better fighters, given the difficult territory he gets, that he’s the one to kill Ulfang, and how long he survives. He probably feels ambivalent about this.

I imagine him having an agility-based fighting style

Probably codified the heroic epos as a specifically Noldorin art form

Celegorm:

A lot of ppl focus on the barbarian aspect, but I’d say he actually has some degree of ‘subverted prince charming’ going on, with how he sweet-talks Luthien at first before throwing her in the dungeon, and how he seems to have been one of the more accomplished ones, joining a respected order and all

He’s actually pretty elegant and perhaps playfully gallant, but it’s a facade; He’s an animal underneath; though his instincts are probably somewhat nobler than what ends up happening when he gets roped into Curufin’s schemes

usually, the first to react and leap into action when something happens.

Herculean strength, daunting presence

also a fairly efficient general, if a bit of a glory hound and pretty fearless in the pursuit of victory

very much has an ego and doesn’t like being humbled at all

Strikes me as the sort of person who would take badly to the realization that they can no longer return to the glory of the past or being judged unworthy, not that he’d respond with anything but defiance

Wrestles giant monsters barehanded

Always low-key wished to fight creatures of darkness before the rebellion to test his might against them; Orome and the Maiar members of the hunt would have told stories of them

though he gets his pretty face from Daddy, his strong build comes from Nerdanel, possibly somewhat accentuated by his being a dude

Caranthir:

grumpy, moody, no filter, likes his alone time, shows his feelings mostly through actions, also somewhat pragmatic

the quartermaster; Actually one of the smarter ones, if not outright the second smartest after Curufin, though he has more a logistic/administrative sort of intelligence

generally one of the more prosaic, practical family members, or maybe he’s just more subtle about his dramatic side or has a harder time expressing it. Definitely has Hidden Dephts™

I mean, putting your hideout on the slope of a mountain near a deep, dark lake circled by mountains? Goth AF. A+ aesthetic there.

Hosts the family get-togethers at his fortress. Has most certainly shoved Celegorm and Curufin in the lake at some point

has a certain respect for strength, valor and skill even in ppl he doesn’t necessarily like; Not at all diplomatic or polite, but also not finicky or fastidious, so actually forged a whole lot of alliances on a “everyone’s money/swords are equally good and we don’t have to set conditions” basis and seems to have been pretty successful at this

started out haughty but definitely learned to be more open-minded/ broaden his horizon over his time in Beleriand - but as no good deed goes unpunished, Ulfang happens

Whereas Curufin and Celegorm can put up a noble veneer but will totally stab you in the back if provoked, Caranthir’s sort of the opposite, in that he’s rude and quarrelsome on first contact but has a good heart deep down (see the Haladin incident) and doesn’t keep grudges long term once he��s done grumbling where Celegorm is sore loser and Curufin a spiteful twerp.

though personally, I don’t see Caranthir as trying to reign himself in. He wouldn’t really be known as “the harshest” in that case. Who was gonna teach him to behave himself, Feanor maybe? kek.

Curufin:

We have a lot of actual dialogue & description for him - he has this characteristic little defiant smile, is often coldly contemptuous in tone, some level of ruthless pragmatism

has mild/vague foresight - nothing as impressive as what Finrod and Galadriel have, but he has it more or less to the degree that Feanor did.

actually pretty insightful, thought-through and political-minded in some ways, too bad he shares Feanor’s tendency for unwarranted suspicion and factionalism, as well as a tendency to just act on his own without checking with anyone

always either filthy from work or fully blinged-out and impeccably groomed, no in-between

more calculated and subtle than Feanor - not that Feanor ever needed calculation or subtlety since he could get by on sheer awe or intimidation. Celegorm and Maedhros have that same quality in spades and Curufin’s a little bit jealous

Not actually that much older than the twins, but always acted older than his age, especially once he heard that Feanor was the same

collects weapons, loves fancy horses, the most traditionally aristocratic of the seven

Got married relatively young; saw it as a matter of honor to further his family’s line

continued his scholarly pursuits in Beleriand; this is part of why he elected to share a territory with Celegorm

The last Celebrimbor ever heard of him was a magically sealed box filled with research notes he sent out in case he didn’t make it out alive

Did not take his parents’ estrangement well and is stubbornly salty toward Nerdanel (though deep down he misses her as much as his brothers if not more)

Frequently the Bad Influence/ Shoulder Devil to his brothers.

But when he gets excited about his research/craft he’s got this “exited cocky little boy” side to him that’s surprisingly pure.

Only Nerdanel and possibly Celebrimbor’s mom are allowed to call him ‘Atarinke.’ His brothers might still use it when they’re teasing or scolding him.

The Twins:

Every time a fic does something else with them than “generic prankster redheads” I cry with joy

We don’t have that many data points on them, but most of them suggest they’re every bit as fierce as their brothers

they’re somewhat aloof & mostly do their own thing;

As kids they’d mostly sit in a corner and play with each other. Possibly deliberately played up their identicalness as a kind of emo fashion statement / to fuck with people (”Should we do this Ambarussa?�� - ”I don’t know, what do you think, Ambarussa?”)

never really gave up their semi-nomadic ways

Compared to Celegorm they probably more on stealth and precision than strength and bravado. They suddenly appear in front of you, and bam! You’ve got an arrow poking out of your face. Probably the ones scouting the perimeter of the camp.

Amras is a bit sassier, but it’s actually Amrod who’s a little bit braver.

Hardly ever argued until their parents’ estrangement; That led to quite a few quarrels between them.

For all his faults, Feanor made a point of doing things with each of them individually.

quietly nursing some level of pent-up despair and frustration until they push for the assault on Sirion

In the version where one of them dies, and then no one ever talks about it, - I imagine that the remaining one ended up cynical in a “let’s just get it ever with we’re already doomed after all’ kind of way

Bonus:

Celebrimbor

“Curiosity killed the cat but the second mouse gets the cheese” incarnate. He’s a sweet, excitable, deeply good guy, but Curiosity is the strongest force within him, besides maybe “think of the potential”

very bold in his thinking, not held back by any conventional boundaries. This is partially why he ended up more independent than his father and uncles but ironically that might in a sense make him more similar to grandpa than any of them

Really looks like Feanor. Like, Arwen and Luthien level of resemblance. It takes ppl a bit to notice because of how different his general demeanor and surface-level personality is.

Very scattered and absent-minded, prone to sudden flashes of inspiration, often shows up in some form of disarray

spent his adolescence at Formenos. Retained a certain affinity for wintery places ever since

He sensed something fishy about Sauron before long, but between wanting to avoid the family propensity for unwarranted suspicion and being tempted by all the possibilities of what he could do with that power/knowledge even if it did come from a fishy source, he didn’t act before it was too late - he can't have been fully clueless since he hid the three; There was definitely just a bit of actual seduction/forbidden fruit appeal in place there, whether to use the word “hubris” probably depends on your philosophy.

He drops the ‘th’ once he renounces Curufin, but slips right back into the old habit when excited or exasperating. At some point during his rule of Eregion, he stops bothering to hide it - A similar thing happens when he’s talking Sindarin with his northeast Beleriand accent.

I know this is a very popular old hat headcanon, but... His other name is also “Curufinwe”. Everyone called him Telperinquar from the start, lest all three come running and grumble about being distracted from work, but after the Nargothrond debacle, he had other reasons for not using it. But really, Telperinquar/Celebrimbor is just another more metaphorical way to say “this baby shall be good at working with his hands” so yeah

My HC for where he was between the Finrod incident and the second age is as follows: He departed for war with Gwindor’s troupe (this is someone who tried to engineer a way around entropy - not a “do nothing” sort of guy) and fled the battlefield with Turgon. (hence some of the passages that place him in Gondolin can still be made to work. He totally made Earendil’s baby-sized mail coat) He fled with Idril’s party. Had she not tipped him off somehow he would probably have died with the rest of the smith’s guild. Or perhaps he grabbed all the valuable records he could find and ran for it because someone needed to preserve them. As living surrounded by the survivors of Doriath would have been awkward to say the least, he went to the isle of Balar to offer his skills and service to Gil-Galad. This is where he befriended/ reconnected with Galadriel and Celeborn.

Finrod once told him the “faithful stone” legend from Brethil. It would be an inspiration to him much later. Generally credits Finrod with being a good influence on him.

Judging by the stars on the doors of Durin his stance on his family probably softened over the years. He essentially attained their original new dream of exploring distant lands and building unparalleled new realms, at least for a while - also definitely has a similar “screw destiny!”/ “I defy you stars!” attitude. Perhaps he wanted to see their vision done right.

But on some level, I think he also wanted to associate himself with their fame eventually especially once his own accomplishments grew. His feelings were probably always very ambiguous because he must have admired and envied their great works but also lived getting weird looks whenever he did what he’s best at and loves doing most in the world because it associates him with these very ambiguous people whom many hated... at one point in the past he must have really admired his father and grandfather, I mean, he came with them across the sea.

Nerdanel

She got Feanor the apprenticeship / gave him the idea after they met on their travels.

Were seen as something of an eccentric hippie/ hipster couple in the early days

She’s tough, confident and definitely quipped/ yelled back at times. Definitely described as ‘strong-willed’ and individual. Like this was a ‘kindred spirits’ thing before everything went to hell

it counts for something that even during the ugly bitter parting scene the worst Feanor could say was “someone must’ve turned you against me because you definitely cared once” rather than “you’re a traitor” for all that everything else in that scene made him very punchable

Their relationship dynamic, as I see it, is that she’s the one person who just sees and treats him like a normal dude. No apprehension, no fawning. He’s not “the greatest” or a tainted aberration to her, he’s simply a like-minded friend. So she’s pretty chill about his idiosyncrasies and doesn’t see them as a big deal, but on the other hand, she’s not overawed and will not take bullshit

Since she is good at understanding people she probably usually gets where he’s coming from even when he’s not being reasonable

possibly invented abstract art; was most certainly influential.

the elves who serve Aule probably have their own little traditions. She might’ve imparted some of those on her descendants

Also ppl tend to forget that she also does metalwork. Again, it’s quite possible that she got him into it and that if they’d never met, he might have landed in a completely different discipline

I think it says a lot about Feanor that he chose her for being smart, creative and independent-minded. It shows that he actually values these things and that it’s not just a rhetorical device; he’s not a hypocrite, he failed at what he was genuinely trying to aim for.

She had Finwe won over the moment she mentioned that she likes children. To Feanor’s chagrin, she proclaimed that his then-tiny half-siblings were the cutest thing ever but since he was trying to impress Nerdanel, he actually kept his composure there.

She was totally buds with Earwen and Anaire.

I really like those fics where she played some part in the reconstruction efforts. She’s already renowned for her wisdom and has some familiarity with the court, so why wouldn’t Finarfin make her an advisor?

Miriel

She was described as having “silver” hair like what the teleri sometimes have, but that was for lack of a better world. It’s actually pretty close to pure white. It was an unprecedented anomaly. Celegorm got it. Though overall Maglor might be the one who most looks like her. Or maybe Caranthir.

Well, her tendency to refuse to eat her words no matter what has certainly proven highly heritable

Canonically one of those ppl who talks very fast

Feanor doesn’t look very much like her at all, but he talks like her and is similar in his body language etc. The shape of her hands, however, has made it all the way to Celebrimbor in an unbroken line. Maglor’s got em too.

She was the only one of her family to make the great journey. That’s why “the names of her kin are not recorded”. You see, they tried to convince her not to go, and that only made her more determined.

Miriel and Indis used to have this thing where Miriel would sing while Indis plays the instrument. First time Indis caught Maedhros and Fingon doing something similar she got very emotional about it. She told them how she and Miriel also used to have a sort of odd friendship despite their opposite looks and personalities. Maedhros had at this point never even heard that they used to be friends. She proceeded to tell him some fun stories from Miriel’s youth and encouraged the two to spend time together.

We’re told that Miriel and Finwe only got together in Valinor; Since Indis had a thing for him since before the Vanyar moved out of Tirion it’s fully possible that Indis actually liked him first. Maybe she actually introduced them to each other, like she wasn't confident enough to ask him on a date so she brought her friend, only for the two to be immediately smitten with each other. Poor Indis decided that she had no chance and moved out of town when Ingwe did.

Miriel definitely expresses her love/admiration in the way of “You! You’re perf! I must make art of you!”

Since his arrival in the halls of Mandos, Feanor has made several of Vaire’s Maiar cry with his critique of their tapestries, but he holds that his mom’s are best.

Feanor himself

In general, I hold that while he said many things that were not right, there’s a lot of what he prophecied that was not quite wrong and does come true in a kind of way, even if not necessarily for himself and his family. They sort of pave the way as Promethean figures. The second mouse gets the cheese (it’s usually some Nolofinwean)

Though he’s also the ultimate example of “you are not immune to propaganda”. Literally the smartest man in the world; Still touchy enough to be an easy mark for emotional manipulation.

I think a lot of ff undersells what a polymath he must’ve been and that part where he worked on many different topics and was “the most learned”.

You know the type of author who has a bazillion unfinished wips going and jumps wildly from topic to topic? Feanor’s research notes are exactly like that, especially the tendency to disintegrate into cryptic jottings and notes right before the most interesting part. Just like the unfinished texts from HoMe Just like Gauss or Euler, having invented everything a hundred years ahead and 40% more discoveries buried that he never felt ready to publish. (I can also definitely see the sons – especially Maedhros and Curufin – spending the better part of the siege of Angband compiling some of it into a presentable format. Celebrimbor would then be the one to stumble upon implications /corollaries that had somehow been missed for thousands of years.

For all that I enjoy fics where they’re all smoll and adorable as much as the next person, canonically we’re given every indication that he was an adolescent or young adult by the time the remarriage occurred. The published silm has him “well-nigh full-grown” by the time Indis started having kids; In the HoME passage detailing the romantic meeting on the mountain it’s said that he was “wandering in the mountains” (ie, old enough to do so on his own) at the time. He moved out as soon as he could, so he and his half-siblings never actually spent any significant time in the same household

I mean, he reacted like a teenager would, and IMHO neither his character nor Finwe’s make any sense if this wasn’t a single parent situation early on.

Personally, I really don’t like that headcanon that he was nicer to the sisters for no reason. I don’t think his relationship with Fingolfin was ever much better than the sort of “awkwardly tolerating” we saw at the reconciliation scene; At the same time, I don’t think things would ever have escalated to that degree if Melkor hadn’t gone mucking things up.

In the same vein, I don’t think he always had beef with the Valar. He used to hang out in Aule’s halls and let Celegorm study with Orome after all and studied their language. - he certainly seems to have had some romanticism for the Hither Lands evident in his speeches, he traveled far past the well-lit areas, made crystals that shine in starlight etc. so he was probably always somewhat independent-minded and he certainly knew, better than anyone, that the Valar are imperfect and can’t fix everything (they couldn’t heal Miriel after all) - but it’s a long way from healthy skepticism and understandable disappointment to asserting bad intentions where there are none.

There’s a long way between not wanting a relationship with someone, and pointing stabby objects at them. Feanor was always difficult and never the type of person to be easily satisfied but at the same time, he clearly had his “delight” in his work and life as it was pre-Melkor. He could’ve gone on as an inventor and author of strongly worded opinion pieces; perhaps the elves were even “meant” to go back & come into contact with the Edain for a brief while, just without all the murder.

The thing about Melkor’s lies is that they made a complicated situation conveniently easy in a way that he (and Fingolfin!) would want to believe. It’s not really either of their fault that they both exist, but if your rival is actually out to get you then suddenly all your negative feelings are justified

Personally, I don’t think it the remarriage made that much of a difference - Miriel would still be dead. What Feanor’s really mad at is the inherent unfairness of the world. But he can’t fix or fight that, so in a misfire of his engineer’s mindset that thinks in terms of simple cause and effect and wants the world to be logical and controllable, he blamed something tangible (Indis.)

I think Melkor hates him so much because he’s kinda what Melkor wishes he was or likes to think he is. They’re both the mightiest of their respective kinds and don’t really fit in, but Feanor’s actually extremely creative. He goes and does his own thing, and maybe errs in overlooking that no man is an island and that all works are built on those of others, but, look at Melkor who wants all the scale of a group project but none of the “cooperation” part and basically can’t make anything of his own. “You’re like me, yet you’re successful? I cannot allow it!”

In a sense you have classic Satan and Miltonian satan in the same setting, and they can’t stand each other

#silmarillion #house of feanor #sons of feanor #feanor #nerdanel #maedhros #maglor #celegorm #caranthir #curufin #amrod #amras #celebrimbor

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keyofjetwolf · 7 years ago

Text

Jet Wolf Summarizes Act 30

The manga and I kind of hate each other. This is unfortunate, but still, I’m determined to come out of this with something. Rather than spend energy on a liveblog that’s increasingly negative, I’m reading each manga act (mostly) silently, and then writing up summaries at the end. I won’t pull my punches. There’s going to be criticism and snark about the manga, either wholesale or in details. If that isn’t a thing you feel like reading, please skip this post!

Mimete is dead, and while nobody’s specifically celebrating that, I like to think they are in their true hearts. They’re mostly preoccupied with the appearance of Uranus and Neptune, a move which seems to have particularly shaken Minako, which might be interesting if anything else were done with it, but of course, it won’t be. I quite enjoy this panel out of context, though:

It’s like even though they just met three seconds ago, Rei and Minako immediately realize they will never be as gay as these two giant gay losers.

Michiru, who is also there, manages to further fuck up the entire concept of a secret identity by constantly flashing her mirror around, to the degree that THE TEN-YEAR OLD puts the pieces together. Fucking seriously, this issue goes on about how Uranus and Neptune are supposed to be all distant and secret, and literally ALL HARUKA AND MICHIRU HAVE DONE is throw themselves at the Inners and say “DON’T FOLLOW US DON’T INTERFERE WE WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU”. They’re fucking Luke Skywalker saying “DON’T FOLLOW ME” and leaving a map, yet somehow even more dramatic because they’re shoving the map at fucking strangers.

Everyone has a round of saying “The mirror is a talisman?!” (seriously it’s three times on one fucking page), and then Haruka gets super threatening again, because the only thing she loves wearing more than mustard is asshole. Then Michiru plays her violin (IT’S HER THING YOU SEE), and does it so badly that everyone crumples in pain. It’s here that Mamoru recognizes Neptune as Michiru, making him a good five minutes behind the first grader. I hope that Michiru takes personal offense that what triggered him to recognize her was AGONIZING MUSIC. Haruka, always a creature of subtlety, smacks everyone with a World Shaking, and they fuck off.

Usagi wakes up later in her bed with the other Senshi crowded around her. Luna and Artemis fill in some Outer Senshi backstory, while also claiming to know nothing, and I’m pleased to announce that this will not be the first time this contradiction shit happens in JUST THIS ISSUE. Usagi does her Usagi thing:

But the best part is the panel immediately after with Minako:

Who not only is like “okay and you’re basing that on what, exactly?” BUT IS HOLDING HER SWOLLEN AND BANDAGED FACE. It disappears immediately after this, and I don’t trust Takeuchi’s ability or interest at all for this to be more than “ooo mysterious strange Senshi whose side are they on?!” Still, it’s nice to see someone not only directly challenging Usagi, but even being a little pissy about it. It’s a whole lot easier to believe people won’t hurt you when you get to wake up in a comfy bed without a mark on you surrounded by your bloodied and bruised bodyguards.

Chibs is walking with her past parents, and says much the same as Usagi, but at least she’s basing it on her actual experiences, rather than Usagi who wants to ignore every conversation and encounter she’s had with them. Later, at Mamoru’s, he watches Chbis and Usagi sleep. ISN’T USAGI STILL FOURTEEN AT THIS POINT DON’T HER PARENTS EVER WONDER WHERE SHE IS AT NIGHT AND HOW DOES SHE ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS. Mamoru then has a full page dramatic premonition dream.

Later, Usagi’s waiting for Mamoru at the park, but nope, it’s Haruka instead. Michiru is NOT also there. Usagi please, Haruka is kind of creepy, everything is very “ba-dum”, and then Mamoru interrupts the whole thing. Haruka runs off. ANY BETS THAT SHE’S GOING TO MICHIRU TO CONFESS AND APOLOGIZE? NO?

Chibs arrives at Crown looking for Mamoru (CAN I HAVE EVEN ONE FUCKING PARAGRAPH THAT DOESN’T DEPEND ON THE WHEREABOUTS OF FUCKING MAMORU JESUS WEPT). Mako is weirdly mean about the whole thing, which is so confusing and unnecessary. Then everyone makes fun of her clay art project, and I can only assume it’s because they’ve all given in to the hate and bitterness now, and I’m finding it difficult to blame them.

THEN SHIT GOES OFF THE FUCKING RAILS

Chibs says she wants to make a holy grail. Tiny Kitten, fulfilling every cat’s sacred duty by just popping up to provide exposition, explains that:

I fully prepare for this to be a translation error, but it sounds like NQS is a fucking vampire right now, and I have to be honest and say that would not surprise me in the slightest. But okay, hold up. Because I thought it was the ginzuishou that kept them immortal? So is the Holy Grail just basically Crystal Tokyo’s version of Covergirl Simply Ageless? I’M NOT SAYING I WOULDN’T BELIEVE NQS COULD BE THIS VAIN I’M JUST QUESTIONING THE LOGISTICS. But then it gets even worse.

OKAY NO

FUCK YOU AND ALSO NO

I CALL UTTER BULLSHIT ON THIS BECAUSE I JUST HAD TO SIT THROUGH AN ENTIRE FUCKING MANGA ARC ABOUT NQS AND CRYSTAL TOKYO GETTING ROYALLY FUCKED NOT ONCE BUT TWICE IN EVENTS NQS UTTERLY FAILED TO PREVENT

AND WAS SPECIFICALLY TOLD MORE THAN ONCE THAT IT WAS THE ONLY SPOT OF TROUBLE IN THIS “UTOPIA” FOR NEARLY A THOUSAND FUCKING YEARS

You don’t spend an entire arc hammering that bullshit into me only to turn around in the next and act like NQS is saving the world every other Thursday by splashing on a little Holy Grail foundation. I mean can you whip up a batch of headcanon spackle to patch these holes? Sure, of course you can. BUT I’LL BE FUCKED IF I’M GIVING THE MANGA A SINGLE GODDAMN SECOND MORE TIME OR ENERGY THAN I HAVE TO. This is lazy and sloppy, and it’s SO EASILY AVOIDED if the manga weren’t so fucking determined to try and sell me on NQS and Crystal Tokyo as these visions of perfection. You can’t have Death Phantom/Wiseman as the only blips in an otherwise harmonious and perfect nine hundred years and then turn around and also have this. Fuck you. Fuck you and no.

THEN IT JUST GETS WORSE, as Chibs and Tiny Kitten suddenly know nothing the second they’re asked a plot-relevant question

Including bonus Distressing Parental Hints like NQS forbidding her only daughter INTO HER ROOM, and Tiny Kitten apparently having no affectionate means of referring to her parents at all. Then Chibs suddenly knows a lot again, as she reveals she and Tiny Kitten snuck into her mum’s room A WHOLE LOT (proving once again that NQS is the worst parent ever by never noticing it, never being in the room herself, and also not knowing what a fucking lock is). Then as all these thoughts make her homesick, she admits she wishes she could go home, but can’t because NQS made her promise she wouldn’t go home until Chibs was a strong and powerful Senshi, at ten until whenever-the-hell, for a world so peaceful it shouldn’t need child soldiers anyway.

Good fucking god I hate Neo-Queen Serenity.

Meanwhile, at Mamoru’s (THERE IT IS AGAIN RAAAAARRRARRGH), he and Usagi have coffee and intense uncomfortable silence. He watches tv and says nothing, which is always an A+ way to resolve any personal conflict, I find. Usagi is about to bring it up when Chibs bursts in. With Mamoru in full earshot but ignoring them I guess, Chibs demands to know why and how Usagi pissed him off and then is like “Did you cheat on him?!” and this entire sequence of events could only be more painful if one of the cats came in to explain it to us. Usagi angsts about this and we’re supposed to care a whole lot I guess, but then Chibs demands help with her holy grail assignment from both of them. Mamoru, happy to be a pompous ass yet again, tells us what a holy grail is, and this whole thing is like four endless fucking pages. After Chibs passes out from all that grail-making, Usagi and Mamoru Have A Moment, by which I mean it’s another three excruciating page. As it so happens, you cannot simply wish for death and have it visited upon you.

God, let’s get it over with. Usagi apologies and says that she was super jealous to see Mamoru having a conversation. Mamoru then says he was really jealous of Haruka, “but I’m sure you have your reasons”. Fooorr ... also have a conversation? BECAUSE NOTE USAGI HAS SAID FUCK ALL ABOUT THE KISS YET NOR WILL SHE. Then Mamoru’s like “I think those two must be going through a rough patch together”, though I feel maybe this is mistranslated? Whatever, they’re basically blaming everything on Haruka and Michiru having relationship problems that I’m going to bet you a shiny nickel we’ll never actually see, AND I’D LIKE TO REMIND EVERYONE BY THE WAY THAT MICHIRU HAS LITERALLY DONE NOTHING BUT BE IN PLACES. Ugh, whatever, they make up I guess, and then start making out, and Chibs peeks out from under the blanket from two feet away all “tee-hee, they could be conceiving me right now!’ and I have seen the fire-licked face of hell itself and it is the Sailor Moon manga.

Then it’s the contractually obligated Hey Remember We Have Other Characters portion, this time featuring Ami! It’s possible you guys didn’t know this? But Ami’s smart. No, like, super smart. ONE MIGHT EVEN SAY GENIUS. AND WILL. OFTEN. She’s going to prep at the new Infinity Cram School, and I’m sure nothing will go wrong. The top student at the cram school takes particular interest in Ami. What do you mean it’s one of the other Witches?! I DID NOT SEE THIS TWIST COMING. Ami gets recruited for death, basically, courtesy of Viluy and Viluy’s boobs.

Seriously, those are magnificent.

In a rush to ruin everything, Ami runs through like twelve “DO NOT ENTER” doors, followed by Haruka. Michiru is also there. All three are captured with the plan for them to be turned into “hosts”, but Ami cut punches two brainwashed students and throws herself out of the thirteenth storey window while transforming. IT’S ACTUALLY KIND OF BAD ASS. So much so that Haruka and Michiru do it too, only they don’t need to transform because they’re cooler.

Viluy finds Mercury and is wrecking her shit when the other Senshi show up. Again Usagi evokes NQS, which is really starting to irritate me. JUST USE THE FUCKING TOY USAGI. Viluy is tough, but Haruka literally slices her in two, so I guess maybe not all that tough. Goodbye, Viluy’s boobs. I’ll treasure our time together.

Finally, at a university that does not actually for this moment contain Mamoru nor mention him anywhere, Motoki tries to get Reika to go for drinks, but she’d rather study rocks. SUCKS TO BE YOU MOTOKI. Reika wanders around and sees someone moving into the office next to hers. IT’S MAMORU

Sort of.

#JW reads Sailor Moon #sm manga infinity #sm manga act 30 #jet wolf versus the manga #jet wolf summarizes the manga #a novel by jet wolf

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xhostcom · 6 years ago

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Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently. Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around) Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter. Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three. So he wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

Nowadays, plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best). They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, I like Crowdfire. Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, Crowdfire allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and Crowdfire will manage the rest. You can still post immediately , but there is a scheduling option aswell. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas Crowdfire will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. Additionally, Crowdfire has a content curation feature for related articles, and also if you hook up your YouTube channel, it will select your videos and you can post them to the likes of Linkedin etc, which helps spread the distribution of them, you might notice in your YouTube account there is no option to share the video to Linkedin, & given Linkedin has the highest median salary of all social media channels, at approximately double the others, and over 500 million users, it could be an important aspect of your marketing.

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them. Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories. Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online. “Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.” They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs. “The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week. The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got spare cash, too. Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

WP Engine, a managed WordPress hosting company, also uses uses relevant threads and the likes of Quora ads. Staff jump in to conversations about hosting and pass out tips with links, to drive traffic, targeting different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests.

Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen? “There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up. Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”) Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.” Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%. If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’” “Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests. We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic. There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples. Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire: His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’ But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences. Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on. And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into custome Summary Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it. Post by Xhostcom Wordpress & Digital Services, subscribe to newsletter for more! Read the full article

#content

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toothextract · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

…Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook’s organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

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!

from https://dentistry01.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/5-real-examples-of-advanced-content-promotion-strategies/

0 notes

atakportal · 6 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://adz.cloud/2019/01/16/5-real-examples-of-advanced-content-promotion-strategies/

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

…Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook’s organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

Source link

0 notes

circusbenny · 8 years ago

Text

Writing memories. The assignment for class was literally to write memories and uh. Kin memories came out. But it just said to write for 30 minutes and start with “I remember”! It never said it had to be factual! I mean, this is factual, but. Uh. That’s complicated.

I used Michael as a placeholder name. I still don’t know if I think it’s accurate. I have no idea! I can remember all of this, stuff like this coming in clearer and clearer, and still I don’t know what his name was but good god at least I finally remembered my own.

Anyway. I’ve written a little about this night before, but I dived into more detail this time.

If you’re my teacher googling a line from my assignment and you find this, uh, hello. This sure is awkward.

I remember a cold crisp winter night. I’m not sure why we were there that night, it seems too late for us to be there. There were mostly no other cars in the parking lot, although maybe that shouldn’t have been surprising for a building that had been sitting for sale for months.

I wondered why we were there, but I didn’t immediately ask. Michael had a way of telling me things in his own time, and I was too nervous to ask him. I’ve never been good with people, conversation, or anything like that – I stumble over words, I’m too blunt, I say strange things unnecessarily. I’m aware of all of this, but with Michael so far my strange quirks hadn’t been a problem. He would laugh and works around them, or even seem to appreciate bluntness where others would recoil. It was probably the only reason we were standing where we were together right then.

Where we were standing was just in front of Michael’s car. It was cold and my breaths were coming out in puffs of visible air, frozen for a moment before dispersing. I had a coat but I wished I had brought gloves. Michael hefted himself up to sit on the hood of his car, and I glanced over my shoulder towards him, watching as he fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette and a lighter. He put the cigarette to his lips, lit it without trouble in the breezeless night, and took a drag.

I don’t smoke, but it didn’t bother me that he does. He seemed to savor it for a moment, exhaling in a breath much more visible than mine with the smoke, and then turned his gaze towards the building.

I didn’t come down that way very often, so I hadn’t seen this building and its “for sale or rent” sign before, or if I had, I didn’t recall it. I thought I knew why we were there, but for all I knew, Michael could have just picked this spot to pull off and have a smoke.

Not that he didn’t smoke in the car, because he did.

“What do you think?” he asked me, and jut his chin towards the building. I’m thinking a lot of things – mostly about the weather and about my present company. I tried to shuffle those thoughts away and throw them into a box I could shove into my mental closet, clearing the way for more relevant things. It’s not a tactic I’m very good at.

“Uh,” I said, stalling, as usual. In writing I can sound verbose, but in speech, it’s stilted and awkward. “The building? It looks pretty new.”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed, and mentally, I was relieved that he didn’t seem to react negatively or find what I said to be strange or off-topic or not what he was looking for in a response. “It was built just about five years ago, or something like that. There was a restaurant here, a family owned place, but there were issues with liquor licensing or something.” He flicked his cigarette ashes, then took another puff. When he exhaled, he added, “Dad told me about this location.”

That got my attention. Michael’s father was who brought us together, more or less, and I considered the building now in a new light. “Well—it looks big. And this part of town, the rent’s probably pretty high.”

Michael laughed. “Yeah, no kidding. But I got us a good deal.”

The past tense he used eluded me for a moment. I didn’t immediately ask, and my expression must have given away my confusion because he slipped from the hood of his car, crushing his cigarette under his shoe, and grinned, turning to face me with his arms spread out.

“I bought it! Just a couple hours ago! Turns out dad knows the guy who was selling it and got a good deal ��cause the guy liked the old business so much!”

My stomach jumped into my throat, and I was happy – really, I was! But at the same time, I was overcome with an intense amount of anxiety, and part of me was a little annoyed. Michael and I were supposed to be partners, so why wouldn’t he talk to me about this before buying the building? I had started to feel a little unsure of myself lately. The basic concept and the animatronics were coming from Michael’s father’s business, and now he’d gone and bought the building without even consulting me first. What was my role in all of this? What was I there for?

“You wanna go check it out?” Michael asked. His arms lowered a bit, and he looked annoyed. Probably by the fact that I hadn’t really replied. I quickly answered “yes,” trying to inject some enthusiasm, and he grinned again. Michael smiled a lot, more than anyone else I knew.

“Good. I just got the keys before I picked you up. Let’s get the hell out of the cold, huh?”

I couldn’t argue with that. I got back to my feet (I’d been leaning against the car before) and started walking, and Michael turned, pulling a small key ring from his pocket.

“We might have to do a little renovating,” he warned. “I saw the inside last week, but this place has sat untouched for two years now, if you can believe that. The carpet definitely has to be replaced, and we’re going to want to make the kitchen better suited to our needs. But let’s take a look!”

I walked in after Michael, taking a look around. He went immediately to a panel at the wall, beginning to flip switches to illuminate the building. The florescent lighting in the ceiling hummed above our heads, but a few didn’t turn on immediately or flickered.

“I had an inspection done and the wiring is fine,” he promised. “Just some bulbs and stuff that need to be replaced.”

I finally decided to say something. “Why didn’t you tell me you were looking at this place?” I asked. “I mean, you said a week ago—“

“What? Are you mad?” Michael was looking at me with an incredulous expression, his eyebrows raised. “I thought this could be a good surprise! You’ve been stressed about all the logistics and shit, I thought I could just take care of it. Don’t worry about the numbers, it’s all within what we already talked about. Take it easy, Theo.”

It wasn’t worth fighting about. He probably meant well, right? It was better than having to build our own place, that’s what I’d been worried about. That would mean hiring architects, dealing with planning and layouts, costly construction, and a whole host of other issues. Michael had been hasty, but his heart seemed like it was in the right place. I couldn’t really get too mad about it.

Especially without seeing the place beyond its entryway. I nodded, ducking my head a little, and Michael turned back around, clearing his throat.

“And here we have the main entrance and dining area!” He had taken the air of a tour guide. I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets, still hoping to warm up a little. It was warmer inside, but not significantly. The dining area was pretty large, but tables had been taken out. That was probably fine. Our concept was going to require larger tables than most restaurants used regularly. “We’ll have to build a stage area here, probably towards this back wall.” Michael stepped quickly towards where he was referring, and I followed, trying to picture it. “Which means we’ll need a control panel for the stage off to the side.”

I nodded, thinking it over. It was easy to picture the stage in my head, but hard to picture what the cost associated with that would be. Still, the area was large and so far it seemed like the place had a lot of promise.

“Now this way, this way, down the hall.” Michael continued with a spring in his step, a little giddy, and I had to admit, his excitement was infectious. For better or worse, this building was ours now, and we’d taken a giant step down the path we’d set ourselves on a few months ago. It was hard not to be excited about that. The dining area turned into a hall, opening up into more rooms. We’d need an office, storage, maybe one or two private party rooms?

Instead, when Michael turned into one dark room and flipped the switch, the room that greeted me was clearly an arcade. Complete with pinball machines and arcade cabinets, humming to life with the sudden jolt of electricity.

I stood at the threshold of the room, my mouth agape.

“See?” Michael said. “I told you it’d be a surprise.”

“All of this came with the building?” I asked. I started to wander down the aisles with childlike wonder, but I was somehow afraid, as if touching anything would make the entire place disappear into a poof of smoke.

“They threw it in for a little extra,” he said. “Some of them need repair, but most of them work. We’ll need to get them fitted with ticket machines.”

“This is incredible,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. Suddenly, I was overcome with gratitude that Michael had handled this, because what he’d managed to do was incredible.

#phoneguy #memory

2 notes · View notes

we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

0 notes

readersforum · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

New Post has been published on http://www.readersforum.tk/5-real-examples-of-advanced-content-promotion-strategies/

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

…Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook’s organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

0 notes

tracisimpson · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

#The Moz Blog Blogger

0 notes

swunlimitednj · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

from Blogger http://bit.ly/2DdF3fY via SW Unlimited

0 notes

tranlinhlan · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

via Blogger http://bit.ly/2TYju8N

0 notes

isearchgoood · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

via Blogger http://bit.ly/2ARzzpp #blogger #bloggingtips #bloggerlife #bloggersgetsocial #ontheblog #writersofinstagram #writingprompt #instapoetry #writerscommunity #writersofig #writersblock #writerlife #writtenword #instawriters #spilledink #wordgasm #creativewriting #poetsofinstagram #blackoutpoetry #poetsofig

0 notes

neilmberry · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies published first on http://elitelimobog.blogspot.com

0 notes

christinesumpmg · 6 years ago

Text

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

(image source)

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

(image source)

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

(image source)

Conclusion

http://bit.ly/2RPSv1K

#5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

0 notes