#but actually i can just embed spotify links

[usagiverse]

https://i.imgur.com/pd9jhLg.png

How did you call? secret art?

Bunnon, *giggles* a friend helped me

GUYS BUNNON GAVE PERMISSION TO POST !! Celebrate Vince being short, ohhh yeaaahhh!!

Oh and Bunnon, I think I will respond to your recent ask using this one, and I wanted to start by saying I TOO am dense, bunnon, you are fine, it's okay, don't worry ~

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! May your next year be filled with good luck and fortune, my anonymous friend! I do celebrate, but you don't have to! Especially if you didn't have time, I certainly wouldn't want to overwork you, don't worry! Even just stopping by was a present for me <3

I said template because I couldn't find the proper way to call it LOL please don't stress about that, I know some tiktoks of similar format, which is where I perceived the reference.. [ example ]

Don't be sad, Bun. I will be here, Vince will be here, and all of the Usagi family will be here when you have time away from the boring adult stuff. We support you, and are here for you, and we will cherish you, always. You're home when you're here, even if for a brief moment, you're home with us.

If you ever want to have a real time conversation-- a conversation not held so long after posting your ask, or through tumblr where your identity may be at risk, you (anyone reading this, really) can always reach out to me and chat on discord. I don't mind being so close to followers and mutuals, if you guys need someone to talk to or vent to or just infodump and share your passions to, I can listen (this is also just where i live online so i will not . accidentally leave your messages unread for days haha). If you don't want me to respond, I won't. If you do, I will, and ohhh you can believe i will talk so much to you if that's what you would like from me !

Conversations.. they're hard.

With you, I feel.. it's a bit easier.

You understand, little Bun, how hard it is to just be open and... I guess because of that, you make it easier for me to try. Thank you for finding my blog, and living this silly character we (somewhat) created together. Thank you for always being so positive and for being so enthusiastic about my work. Thank you, sincerely, for your holiday wishes especially, and I hope you come back soon.

Vesper

[technicontrastron]

Totally objective Tumblr audio post ranking

mp3 upload <3: The one and only. Humble, inobtrusive, doesn't depend on third party web services being reachable, fun to collect, works with mobile, can post multiple in one post, and without taking up the entire dash, proves your're a true musichead, with a collection to match, doesn't take you away to another site, works in reblogs, clear rules on what can be uploaded (files smaller than 10mb - i'm using this to downsize to exactly 9mb), can use the remainder of the space for posting album art (a dying art!)

bandcamp embeds: still quite humble, direct link to support the artists, bugs out quite often

soundcloud embeds: i don't understand how people get mp3s to not get taken down there or even how to find them but it works i guess and the posts are aesthetically pleasing. negative points for forcing you to login at some point

mp4 upload: i mean, i guess it counts. better than youtube links at least.

youtube embeds: ugly, bulky, subject to the whims of youtube (who will keep compressing media more and more as time goes on), doesn't force you to login though. as of yet. and did i mention they're ugly. like i don't get what makes them so different from mp4 posts but youtube embeds on tumblr are so aesthetically unpleasing i don't want them on my blog.

lyric posts. and pretend you're bopping your head. do do, pi do, do do, pi do. no audio is still better than ...

sp*tify embeds: UGLYYYYYYYYY, needlessly big, thinks it's the center of the world, will only hand you a snippet, singlehandedly responsible for the decline of music culture, like really so many people don't even know how to get mp3s anymore, and give up when facing a song that can't be found there - can you imagine just not hunting down a song you heard once and is now forever stuck in your head, forces you to login exclusing half the userbase, tries pushing you towards spotify premium, keeps demonitizing songs so you might pirate them as well anyway or better yet go to bandcamp, GEOBLOCKS, presents a force to stay in its ecosystem - like try getting off that shit when you've abandoned your local media library - though it's doable. let the purple bird take you up into the music sky, 404s all the time, won't exist forever and then all the links are broken, which is an actual danger since so much of music sharing on the internet relies on spotify now that content ID discovery systems are ubiquitous - think of all the dead links in ten years, like jesus christ STOP USING SPOTIFY cool tumblr users have the spotify tag that it automatically adds blocked.

[sootonthecarpet]

are u doing the spotify thing hesed? if so, 7, 14, 21!

oohh that's a satisfying number set! lemme check. ok I don't remember how to embed songs so I might have to just link em. ok wait I figured it out. wait the exact same method stopped working after the first time I embedded it and I accidentally deleted the first one so I can't just copy the html so I'm just gonna link. dammit.

7: Hash Pipe by Weezer. There were a lot of horny songs about drug use in my top ten (to say nothing of the year I've had) and I think this one may actually be the tamest by a pretty long shot. I don't think this is a song that needs much commentary bc many people have heard it before and already know how they feel. I like the bass riff.

14: Truth and Reconciliation by Tok. Oh man. Ohhhh man. This thing is good. it's really sexy (good bpm too) and it layers up gradually and I don't think the band had very good microphones. there's a decent amount of Tok on this list and I'm really glad we hit one. I just started listening to them like a year ago and I really vibe with their style and, when I can understand what they're fucking saying, their lyrical content. I think this is actually my favorite song of theirs even though a different Tok song wound up as this year's #1.

21: Negative Creep by Nirvana. look, I think this one would've been a respectable 60-80-range pick on my list except for last spring I had a not atypical but particularly stressful encounter in the park with a suburban mom or auntie/young grandma or something. her kid was about to go through the picnic area (where I was) to get to the playground area, and she saw me and immediately rounded him up to leave the park (while staring at me the whole time and uhh, her body language changed completely to acting like she saw some kind of terrifying beast and had to back away slowwwwly) and she specifically told him like, 'i think you want to go home now' even tho he clearly wanted to join the other kids on the playground equipment. now, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I try not to read too much into why well-dressed older white women periodically see me and assume I am a danger to their children or themselves, but as I was having a really rough time already that day (had actively fought thru and reasoned with a bunch of of 'theyre going to think I'm dangerous and scary if I go out in public' type thoughts, for one), the encounter sucked absolute asssssss. I wound up listening to this song one thousand billion times in the subsequent week. thank u Kurt.

[pudding-parade]

Music Meme 2: Electric Boogaloo

@papermint-airplane and @simsdastra tagged me again for this, so apparently they, at least, want more from me. There's no accounting for taste, folks! ;)

🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, and publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) ✨🎶

I'll use YouTube embeds this time, just because it's easier than copypasting links and because ya girl doesn't have a Spotify account. (Well, technically, I do, but I forgot my login and idc enough to recover it.) Anyway, since embeds are huge plus I babbled as usual, I'll put them behind a cut.

And I guess I'll tag more peeps, so here you go: @twinsimming, @rollo-rolls, @ninjaofthepurplethings, @suratan-zir, @fluttereyes-ts3-blog, @danjaley, @unsimspirational, @lilidebergerac, @stargazer-sims, and @parystrange. And if anyone reading this wants to do it, too, consider yourself tagged, too. Feel free to ignore, as always. No pressure.

Here we go…

This one reminds me of my rave days. Man, I miss those rave days… I listen to a lot of ambient, trance-y electronic stuff whether I'm high/tripping or not. It tends to fuel creativity in me, and Delerium is always at the top of my list. I love the combination of dark ambient and ethereal female voices that most of their tracks have.

More belly dance music. Yes, I am really into belly dance. I've been taking lessons for….eight?…years now, and I'm good enough now to perform as well as teach beginners. In fact, I'm teaching my very first actual beginner's class this spring, and I'm very excited because 8 people (including one guy and one kid, which is awesome) have already signed up. SQUEE! :D I love everything about belly dance. It's excellent exercise and gives you amazing muscle control, which is great for inherently clumsy people like me. I love the music. I LOVE love that it makes me feel sexy and ultra-feminine and that there's no pressure for dancers to be super-skinny. (In fact, belly dance looks better if you aren't skinny, although lamentably I am skinny because of health issues.) But most of all, I love the outfits. The fabrics, the sweeping skirts, the colors, the BLING. ✨ ✨ ✨

ANYWAY! This piece is one that I have performed to. I prefer pieces that are all/mostly darbuka (That's the drum), and this guy is a master.

You wouldn't think that this combo would work as a duet, but it really, really does, despite the fact that, according to my first husband (who was a recording engineer and eventually a producer), Donna was hung-over as fuck during the (single!) recording session. Can you imagine singing like that while hung-over? I can't.

Ironically, I played the shit out of this song when my first husband left me. LOL I still play it a lot nowadays when I want to sing and dance like an idiot.

I wouldn't call myself a metalhead by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like metal quite a bit. My favorite metal genre is symphonic metal, which probably isn't surprising since I'm a classical musician. :) But yeah, give me all the Nightwish and Epica and, indeed, Within Temptation. This is arguably my favorite song of theirs.

And since I haven't put anything from my favorite band of all time on these lists…time to fix that. :) Though it definitely isn't my overall favorite song of Queen's, this is my favorite song from Queen II, which is my favorite Queen album. It's the height of their fantasy-theme phase. It's also their "heaviest" album, so I thought that something from it was a good song to follow Within Temptation. :)

[lilolilyr]

URL songs

Thanks for tagging me @viharistenno! <3 love that I can do a music tag thing while I'm listening to Dolly Parton's rockstar album for the first time! :D

Rules: Pick a song for every letter of your url and tag that many people.

L

I

L

O

L

I

L

Y

R

A

(do yourselves a favor and watch it.)

E

( I have reached the limit of how many embeds I'm allowed to add to a post apparently! But YouTube is here)

Tagging, only if you want to do it of course, @lavendelhummel , @die-schwanenkoenigin , @purlturtle , @squishmittenficfan , @galadriel1010 , @mrtroi , @pandemoniumonwheels , @my-gaydar-is-on-point , @katieswain123 , @verajasmijn , @lesbianlotties :)

Sorry that some of the SoundCloud versions are shite, couldn't find all originals and I'm not gonna add Spotify links that won't even play directly in tumblr and don't play properly at all if you don't Have Spotify, so. I do link to YouTube as well, at least that one plays for everyone even when you don't have the app! Edit: fucking SoundCloud won't play the full songs anymore either??? The fuck. Capitalism can bite me. Anyway YouTube embeds it is!

Love love love Dolly's rock album, so as you can fell there's a lot of that on here, basically everything with fitting song initials xD and then a bunch from my usual playlist. And it's a pity my url hasn't got a j in it, because while I did manage to get a song from okdanketschüss on this, I was actually bingelistening to 'Joel' before this, a song where Joel snogs a guy in the gay club but doesn't go home with him because he is too romantic for one night stands, and instead goes home to tell his roommate (the singer) all about it. And the song just slaps!

[hoodiedeer]

genuinely really miss when i would see my mutuals just posting music on here regularly

back like 8 years ago i think, you could embed a spotify link and it would actually let you play the whole song right on your dash, i think you didnt even need a spotify account? then they changed it so you can only play like 30 seconds or make it open in the spotify app so everyone stopped using it

around the same time you could also just upload music in audio posts and not worry about copyright detection not even letting you hit post. nowadays finding music as audio posts is a super rare treat and theyre always dated to like 9-12 years ago and have like 2 notes

[callmeblake]

Made this playlist because the songs need the damn dots.

And it only seems to work "right" on my desktop version.

I was only able to access this old one because someone had embedded one of them back before everything changed to just Frank Iero and I didn't think to click the actual album link until I was halfway through looking for old embeds on the internet!! ha ha

There is an old version/display view of Stomachaches with the dots you can access but it won't show them in the video clip like this (or scrobble them that way no matter where you are).

Yeah I own it I just, missed having them look right on spotify when I go over there.

I made playlists of the others too.

[7grandmel]

Blog Update - 29/06/2023

TL;DR: Poll below regarding if Bandcamp embeds should become the standard of the blog or not, due to the YouTube player's poor playback on mobile Tumblr.

Hope everyone is enjoying Voiceless Week! Its been a lot of fun rediscovering the different ways the theme is still celebrated on the channel and I hope you've enjoyed reading about it and reminiscing as much as I have. During this writing though - which I often do on my phone, fun fact! - I encountered a few little issues I'd like to discuss with you.

The ideal way I've envisioned engaging with this blog with has always been one where you read my thoughts at the same time as you listen to what's being discussed. Audio is pretty hard to nail down in words without providing examples, and the obvious reason I provide the YouTube links to each rip featured (aside from making posts visually appealing) is to allow you as readers to listen to rips as you read.

This kind of presents a problem on mobile, though - due to Tumblr's shenanigans, the video player simply borks out if you scroll too far below where the YouTube video player is. This is obviously not a problem on PC, as its both better optimized and lets you open multiple tabs of listening in the background on browser. Althesame - it sucks to me that such a big way to engage with Tumblr just doesn't work properly with how I've envisioned the blog.

There is, however, a solution to this: Bandcamp embeds.

This image is a screenshot directly from my phone from my posts on Battle! The Trainer Inside Your Head!. As you can see, I'm on the bottom of the post, yet the music keeps playing throughout! This is because audio-only embeds such as Bandcamp or Spotify actually work as they should on Tumblr, meaning you can read the blog as I originally envisioned. Because of this, I'm heavily considering adding a Bandcamp Link embed to the daily posts from here-on (and of course retroactively adding them to older posts, as usual). You can see an example of the updated formatting on today's post.

As usual, I want to know your thoughts before I commit to a change. Its possible you all don't care as much about the proper playback on mobile, and care more about the posts being as visually clean as they've been before. So let me know what you think through this poll, please!

[rosszulorzott]

Hi @boomonster-rawr long time no see but always cherished friend! :) Thank you for the tag. I'm happy to play if I can just ignore some of the rules. It's not like I'd get spanked for that 😇

First, I don't actually "listen to music" anymore. There is music in my head, there are youtube links I hoard. But it's not like it used to be. Plus I don't use spotify so links you'll get, let's see how many.

this is the song that gets me wiggle my bum and yes it is from one tree hill

is that not glorious? I mean, these kids

Neil Young - Heart of Gold (video would not embed)

no explanation is needed for this one other than "I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound"

four! that's close enough. I'm tagging @ventraman @magpie-69 @docileyieldingobedientlovingsoul if you are in the mood to share some of your music :*

🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) 🎶✨

@lillithaurelia tagged two(!) of my sideblogs (thanks, comrade!) in this thread, and y’all know I like throwing zany tunes together, so: 

I’ll tag: @lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers @stardrifting @soot-and-silk @drunkwingtip @visionsofmysoul @derdra @guapxxx @boomonster-rawr  @bivampir @thecheekbonesthepower 

[anchoviesinthenightsky]

Outside of Luca what’s one of your favorite animated movies? I loved Don bluth thumbelina, 😭 they’re so stinking cute

Oo Thumbelina!! I haven't watched it, but the Don Bluth animated movies are so gorgeous and the screen caps of thumbelina are so precious 😍

In terms of my favorite movies: I actually really love stop motion, and, in particular, I really love the Laika Studio. I think their most visually stunning movie is Kubo and the Two Strings.

But my favorite of their films is Paranorman.

It was the studio's second film (their first was Coraline), so it's not quite as visually striking as Kubo or Missing Link are. But I just really love it. I'm a huge fan of media that toes the line between wholesome and horror, and this is one of those movies that does it well. It's got zombies and curses and a kid who can see and talk to the dead. But also it's about friendship and letting go and it's just lovely. I think the story is fun, the animation is beautiful, it's got a great fall/Halloween vibe, and the soundtrack! God, I love that sound track. "Norman's Walk" is one of my most played songs on Spotify.

But thinking outside of stop motion: some of my favorites are Into the Spider-Verse, Coco, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Lilo and Stitch

I think most of my favorite movies (and tbh book too) fall into one of three categories: it's sci-fi, it involves some element of grief, and/or it's queer.

(I haven't actually watched many Don Bluth movies or Studio Ghibli movies, which is why there aren't any of the list.)

Here's an embed of Norman's Walk if you want to listen to it!

[soundsof71]

So, considering you are a passionate fan of music released in 1971, I feel justifiably obligated to ask you what you think of Buffy Sainte-Marie's 'She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina' album. 😂 (Also, it would make me beyond happy if you could post more about Buffy, my friend! Thank you! ❣)

Buffy Sainte-Marie + Crazy Horse - what’s not to love? LOL I confess that it was the Crazy Horse connection that caught my attention first. I had a general idea who Buffy was, had seen her on TV a few times, but I was a big Crazy Horse fan. News that they were her backing band for this album was easily enough for me to scoop it up.

They weren’t doing anything much with Neil Young in 1971 (other than this album, on which Neil also appeared!), but they had released a tasty solo album in February 71, produced by Jack Nitzsche (who also produced this, and would later marry Buffy), and featuring Ry Cooder (also featured here, although did not marry Buffy). 

(btw, the first place that Buffy, Ry, and Jack worked together was on the Nic Roeg film Performance, starring Mick Jagger. People obviously remember Mick in that, but musically, Buffy was the best part!) 

She Used To Wanna... also features Jesse Ed Davis, a Native American guitarist and singer who was a frequent “usual suspect” at these sort of “sure, invite everyone!” jam albums of the era, and played a prominent role at 1971′s biggest concert (at least in the US), The Concert for Bangladesh on August 1.

(I know you know  RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World, the documentary about indigenous music’s influence on rock and roll, which has chapters on both Buffy and Jesse Ed. I just watched it again recently, and love it! A reminder of Buffy’s pivotal role in classic rock history. Not mentioned in the film: she relentlessly championed the work of her fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, helping them get their first record deals.)

I haven’t listened to She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina for a while, so I definitely need to do that, along with posting more pictures of Buffy.  (I can’t believe I’ve only posted two!) 

But I’ll tell you what still stands out to me about that record years later. “Smack Water Jack” is an underrated track from Carole King’s Tapestry that got a ton of airplay at the time. Quincy Jones did an instrumental cover as the title track for his terrific 1971 album, too, but it has somehow faded to obscurity since then. Buffy takes a playful trifle, and turns it into a powerful fable of men of color who explode into violence in response to the violence visited upon them, and self-satisfaction of whites in authority who answer their demands for better living conditions by killing them on the spot. 

No need for a trial when you can murder them in the streets, right? “You can't talk to a man when he don't wanna understand / And he don't wanna understand” hits different when Buffy sings it, and in 2020 for that matter. 

It’s also just a terrific performance whose combination of soul and rock and roll and driving piano in a sort of Old West-sounding context would have made this sound right at home on a record like Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection  or something by The Band. I’m limited to five video embeds per post so I can’t embed it here, so I'm linking instead: anyone who hasn’t heard this definitely needs to.

Her cover of Neil’s CSNY track “Helpless” has things I like even better than Neil’s original, including Merry Clayton standing in for CSN. Buffy’s version is more muscular (thanks again to Crazy Horse), and taps even more deeply into the isolation of the song that the star power of CSNY somewhat obscured. 

Buffy’s version also made a brief but memorable appearance in the 2018 film Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster. A weird little movie that I loved maybe more than it deserved LOL but I recommend nonetheless:

I know that this album gets attention because of the unusual number of covers, including one by Leonard Cohen, and a cover of a cover that Leonard had made famous on top of that, called "Song of the French Partisan” (hers is the far superior version imo, a song of French resistance to Nazi occupation from the perspective of a woman hiding a resister), but there are a couple of standout originals too. 

I love the title of this record, and the title track is a delightful little stomper that playfully cautions against equating the intentions of grown women with the childhood fantasies they’ve grown out of. More Merry Clayton goodness here on backing vocals too. 

“Soldier Blue” is a powerful song first written for the 1970 film of the same name, billed at the time as “The most savage film in history” -- and maybe it was. It used the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre as a metaphor for Vietnam, and it's still shockingly brutal. It was the third-highest grossing movie in the UK in 1971, though, and the single became a top-10 hit for Buffy there. 

It didn’t do as well here, either the song or the movie. Perhaps not shockingly in retrospect, Soldier Blue was pulled from American theaters after a few days, the Vietnam metaphor not at all lost on the Nixon administration. 

As horrifying as it was, this is about when I was reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (first published in 1970), and Soldier Blue resonated with me in a whole lot of ways. Here’s the song in the opening credits of the movie.

I was also really struck by “Moratorium”, which is the story of “Universal Soldier” (from her 1963 debut, but a bigger hit for Donovan in 1965), coming from the opposite direction. In the earlier song, she blamed war on the soldiers who think that fighting is honorable, but here, she has empathizes with the young men, boys really in many cases, who’ve been lied to by their countries, their parents, and even their friends. They’re not vainglorious. They’ve been duped by people they trusted. 

(I don't think she takes enough into account how many men sign up to fight because they want to embrace and celebrate their worst, most violent impulses, which was of course an undercurrent of “Universal Soldier”, but I appreciate her empathy here. More than one thing is true at a time.)

Buffy goes even farther, though, calling on soldiers to support and validate demands for peace as explicitly supporting them, summed up in the unforgettable cry, "Fuck the war and bring our brothers home!" 

1971 was the peak of antiwar demonstrations in the US, with the biggest crowds ever seen in this country until the 2017 Women’s March. The May 1971 demonstrations pretty much shut down Washington, culminating with Vietnam Veterans Against The War throwing back their medals on the steps of the US Capitol, incredibly powerful stuff to see on TV in my formative years, and Buffy was right there in it. Anti-war songs were a cottage industry for sure, but nobody was writing with the nuance and empathy that Buffy was.

Here’s a 1972 performance of “Moratorium”, Buffy and a piano, and more emotionally bare than that:

There’s obviously lots more to say about Buffy, far outside the realm of protest music that was actually just a small part of her musical palette -- her pioneering experiments with electronic music, her educational philanthropy starting in her 20s, Sesame Street, you name it. Her commercial peak was still in front of her, and while I can’t say that this is my favorite of her records, it does have some of my favorite songs of hers, and 1971 and She Used to Wanna Be A Ballerina is definitely where I went from knowing who Buffy Sainte-Marie was to being a fan. 

I'll also note as I do now and again that while this blog started as an offshoot of a book on 1971 that I’d started but abandoned, I mostly listen to music released now. That’s always been my policy, including in 1971. When 1972 rolled up, I was mostly listening to music from 1972, music from ‘80 in ‘80, ‘91 in ‘91, 2018 in 2018, etc., to name just a few other favorites. (Plus The Beatles, okay? LOL I still listen to The Beatles every day. No apologies.) Honestly? It took me until 2011, in my fifties, when a whole bunch of 40th anniversary editions of 1971 albums got released all at once that made me think, “Wait a minute, this was maybe THE pivotal year in classic rock history!” 

So yeah, the historian in me dug into 1971, but even though I happened to be alive and enthralled by music in that year, what I’m doing here has nothing to do with nostalgia, or any idea that that was the *best* year in music, even if for the narrow slice of music that is classic rock, yeah, it absolutely is. For soul/R&B too, and for the explosion of women artists outside the even narrower confines of pop as well. This is not subject to debate. No year like it, before or since. It's just that classic rock is a such a narrow slice, and I like my slices wide. LOL Which is also why my blog has less and less 1971 content as I go along. 

While my general policy is that my favorite year for music is THIS year, this particular year hasn’t left me as much energy as usual for listening to music. Some of it is These Trying Times™, some of it is my bipolarity and schizophrenia getting the better of me in waves, as is the way with these, uhm, things. (Keep taking those meds, kids!) I listen to music and post about the people making it as a creative act, not a passive or reflexive one, and I just haven’t felt as creative as usual.

(This is also has everything to do with why so many Asks have been piling up unanswered. I apologize if you’re one of the many kind and indulgent souls who’s gotten in touch, but I swear I’m gonna get to ‘em all!)

To get an idea of what I’m ACTUALLY passionate about right now, my “to be edited later” running list of 2020 favorites randomly added to a playlist as I encounter them, to be properly curated later, is at Spotify, cleverly entitled “2020″ -- 94% women, which is about right. LOL 

But since I do in fact listen to old stuff (by which I mean 2019 LOL), I made a list of mostly 2020 bangers from women rockers with some tasty treats from 2019 that I haven’t been able to let go of just yet, inspired by a post I saw at tumblr saying that punk music by women is just plain better (also beyond debate), called “Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam”. I’ll be posting an essay with a YouTube playlist soon, because god forbid that I only talk briefly about anything LOL and most of these women need to be heard AND seen.

Like Buffy Sainte-Marie, whom you'll both see and hear more often on my blog soon. Thanks for the reminder! Always a pleasure to hear from you and be challenged by you. :-)

Peace, Tim 

[bananban-feature]

My Top Pentagon Songs

I’ve already mentioned before that Pentagon has great songs, personally written by the members themselves. I’m also still not shutting up about their live vocals because they're literally at the top of my list among all the kpop groups I follow. They deserve so much.

I hope you watch all the videos cause they are all great.

1. Daisy (2020)

The queen. This song earned them their first win, and a lot people became Pentagon fans because of this song, including me. This song about fake love and heartbreak was written by Hui and Wooseok! 

Even though I didn’t understand the Korean lyrics, Daisy really pulled my heart and played with my ears the first time I heard it. Watching the MV gave me an even more intense feeling seeing the emotional scenes and the lyrics translation. It’s like I really felt the pain they had. What a powerful song!

Classical & jazz musicians reacted to this, and I love how they explained the technical side of the song. (CLICK HERE��FOR THE VIDEO!) Like one of the reacting musicians said, this song was intelligently written! Great job, Hui, Wooseok, and producer NATHAN. Beautiful arrangement.

Favorite parts: Wooseok’s whole verse (ugh, I can’t stop fangirling about this 0:28-0:38). The drop and the boom before Hui’s chorus (1:01-1:04) and the chorus itself. The part of Yanan’s verse (1:39-1:42). Just the MV, but the silence + eerie sound and then Kino falls (1:59). The bridge where everyone sings! (2:32-2:46)  And the rest of the parts after that, especially Yanan and Hui’s contrast (2:50-2:55).

***Ok, I take back what I said about Yanan’s vocals in my previous post. I really love him here.

Versions (click bold title for link): 

Acoustic Version (<-click for video)- I’ve already shared this in my first post! Their vocals totally shine more, and the beauty of the arrangement shines more. You can hear even the low and rap voices of Wooseok in the bridge. The whole thing is beautiful. (Seriously, even the way Yeoone sighs after his part is beautiful.) I totally went wild after seeing this video.

Rock/Band Version  (<-click for video) - A different feel, but obviously, I love the live versions. They sang really well! They covered Love Sick Girls as well, it’s a good one. 

2. Shine (2018)

This is mostly written by E’Dawn, but other members participated as well. It’s a masterpiece, a very catchy song about admiration and confession of love. The fun sound will dwell in your ears. I love it when they do a fun dance! Honestly, E’Dawn’s charm is accentuated and his vocal rap sound is so good.

Favorite parts: I love the choreo. I really love their dances in fun songs. E’Dawn in this whole thing is a big vibe. The chorus, especially “Jijiri, jijiri” part. The “Yuto da” line also always becomes my favorite in any Pentagon song, and then he did a great rap! Jinho, being the legend he is at 2:49, absolutely beautiful.

Versions:

Acapella Remix - I was seriously mind-blown after watching this. I mean, what other kpop group does it like them? They harmonize so well! Clearly, the best vocals. I’m a HUGE HUGE fan of this, and I think this video is criminally underrated. Since I love it so much, I’m gonna post it below. DAMN that talent.

Acoustic Version - Yes, live acoustic versions of Pentagon are lovely! They actually have a few slips here, but it just proves this is completely live. And they all sound so good live!!!

3. You Are (2016)

This is another beautiful song written by Hui. (I keep telling you, Hui is a genius.)

I honestly couldn’t pick the best video to embed here cause they’re all good. All the videos of this are live performances. But this specific video is so emotional and just shows how good they are at live singing. (There’s a loud backing track of course, but they were literally crying and yet they sounded good.) Jinho, the legend, was crying and he still nailed his high note beautifully. I am in awe.

And to think they were ROOKIES here!!! They literally JUST DEBUTED and this is one of their first songs! Just king things.

Favorite parts: In general, the melody and their beautiful harmonization. Jinho’s high note, obviously.

Not many versions of this song but here’s (another live performance. (CLICK HERE) This one is a fan cam (CLICK HERE).

4. Nostalgia (2020)

*Unfortunately, I can’t add anymore embedded videos to this post, so here are links to the song. They don’t have an MV yet, and not a lot of content on this song since it’s new.

Youtube Link , Spotify 

OMG. This is written by maknae Wooseok. This is a B-side track in the same album as Daisy. But wow this deserves more. It’s a very catchy and fun tune. I really hope they make an MV and more content with this song.

Favorite parts: The whole song is gold, but I do especially like Wooseok’s part from 1:24-1:35. It blows my mind everytime. HE. IS. ON. FIRE. And I always love it when they sing all together.

Versions:

Live Version - I’ll embed it below (the video of 3 songs from WE:TH album in acoustic at a beautiful field of daisies.) The whole video is beautiful!

Concert Version (<-click for video) - It isn’t really a different one from the original, but this clip is just fun. This was from their online concert yesterday. They had finished singing Daisy, and then they came back to do this encore. After a very long and tiring concert performing without seeing an audience, it was really hard for them. Surprise, surprise! The look on their faces when they see Universe on the screen and hearing them sing along is so cute!

WE:TH ALBUM LIVE

(Spotify Link for WE:TH ALBUM) I like the song You Like from this album too.

[theaceman42]

Examining Youth Culture

For my first assignment in Media & Society, I was told to watch 5 different movies centered around youth culture. These movies were Euphoria, The Breakfast Club, Mid90s, KIDS, Mean Girls.

1.  Which character in any of these stories do you identify with the most and why?

In all honesty, I can’t really find one character that I can relate to the most, because most of them seem to be eerily similar in their problems. The two that are closest for me however are Caty Heron from Mean Girls and Claire Standish from The Breakfast Club. Both characters suffer from two things: friends and peer pressure. Caty is a new student at high school but is relatively new to public school in general due to being homeschooled by her parents and living in Africa for over 12 years. She has trouble making friends, and lacks the social skills of other students until she meets the “Plastics”. This was a group of popular mean girls whom she ultimately befriends: Regina, Gretchen, and Karen. On top of that, Caty also befriends Janis, a social outcast who was Regina’s former best friend turned rival. Not even halfway into the movie, you can already tell that the Plastics are influencing Caty. They tell her a bunch of ridiculous rules she has to follow, such as wearing pink on a specific day and not being allowed to wear hoop earrings at all. Caty doesn’t see anything wrong with this as she’s not used to being with other people, let alone having friends. Eventually halfway into the movie, Caty ultimately agrees to help Janis sabotage Regina’s popularity. This results in the latter losing her friends, and Caty unwittingly recreating herself in an image of Regina. But by the end, Caty returns to herself and the Plastics disband. 

For Claire, we don’t actually see her problems unfold, instead they are told. Much like Caty and the Plastics, Claire is a popular girl and suffers from peer pressure from her friends. She agrees with them constantly because of this all in order to keep her popularity up. However this ends up with her in detention in the film, as her friends pressured her into going shopping rather than going to school. On top of that, she’s constantly used by her parents as a bargaining chip to get back at one another. To summarize, Claire is a victim of social life and has never really made any of her own decisions until the end of the film, where she breaks her pristine image by kissing John Bender. 

For me, the reason I relate to these characters the most is through my time in middle school. Ever since junior year, I’ve also considered middle school to be this “buffer limbo period” where kids have to figure out who they are as a person and where they stand in the world.  No one’s the same when they leave middle school, you enter in a kid and leave as a teenager. I myself had to go through this ordeal and I remember it thoroughly. Sixth grade felt normal in some ways, but I could tell it was only the tip of the iceberg. It wasn’t until seventh grade where I started to have internal conflict and problems with making friends. I went through about three friend groups in middle school. One of them seemed good to me until I realized they honestly couldn’t care less about me. Since then up until I’d say the end of my freshmen year, I had a lot of distrust towards people, I couldn’t tell who wanted to be my friend and who didn’t. This would come crashing down in eighth grade, when I got into a fight with another student, who hung out with the people I was with. The student got in my face and in an attempt to get them away from me, I pushed them. They in retaliation punched me in the face. However during that time, I was forming a bond with other students who knew each other without me even knowing, all while I tried to make friends being someone who I wasn’t. I came out of middle school with a group of friends I’m still in touch with today. Throughout high school I also formed friendships with other people and respect with others who were mean to me and other students.

2. Identify three (3) common themes that are present in these stories and elaborate if they are relatable to contemporary youth culture. Draw from your personal experiences and elaborate on how these themes may have impacted your adolescent life

Three common themes throughout these stories are choice, redemption, and fear. Choice is an important aspect of our lives where we pick something that can affect us in any way shape or form. 

Euphoria is a prime example of this, Rue the narrator and one of the show's main characters talks about the choices she made that made her take drugs. She explains how it made her feel great, like there was nothing wrong with her. This would lead to Rue falling unconscious and taken to the hospital and ending up in rehab. 

Another good example of this is Mid90s, Sunny Suljic plays the role of Stevie, a 12-year old boy living in 1990s Los Angeles, who’s abused by his brother. Stevie then meets a group of older teen boys who are skateboarders and become part of their group. As the story progresses, Stevie eventually begins doing drugs, smoking, and drinking. By the end of the movie, the choices Stevie and his friends make end with them in a car accident and the former injured. I had to make a lot of choices in life, and I think everyone can say the same. What kind of ice cream do I get? What shoes to wear? Choosing who and who not to hang out with, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Because I didn’t know what would happen to me. The movie ends with them all reconciling with their internal issues, but it's unclear whether or not they will change. Redemption is something that everyone seeks. When anyone, even yourself, does something wrong, you might regret it and try to apologize for what you had done. Caty in Mean Girls is a good example of this, after the events of the Burn Book were revealed to the entire school, the Plastics turned on one another, and everyone was angry at her actions. Caty ultimately apologized for what she had done and opted to say that everyone was beautiful in their own way. I can relate to this, just not in the way Caty did. I’ve lied in the past, either to my friends and to my own parents, sometimes about grades. When they found out, I tried to apologize and they often accepted it...to some extent. Then there is fear, the fear of what could happen and of the unknown. Sometimes fear can stem into our choices. Let me iterate, I had to choose who I would hang out with, which was very hard. Why? Because I was afraid of what would happen to me. How would I turn out in the end? Would I be evil? If I chose poorly and ended up doing something I shouldn’t then I would end trying to seek forgiveness. 

3.  First, explain how a soundtrack of a film/TV series impacts the narrative of a story. Second, create an Apple/Spotify playlist of songs that best define your adolescent experience, and embed this playlist onto your blog. 

Since the invention of the story, the play, and entertainment in general. Music has been a central part of all of it. When the first movies came out, the only sound people could hear was just the background being played, as there was no way to record or hear one’s voice at the time. Music basically takes what a story is telling, and adds depth to it. Allowing people to get a feel of what’s going on, and adding the setting. 

A good example of this is the movie Dunkirk, which tells the story of the British evacuation of France during World War II. What makes this movie different from others, is that it doesn’t rely on dialogue. There is little to no dialogue said at all, as the director and writer of Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan wanted to tell the story through music and cinematography. One tool Nolan used greatly alongside this was suspense. Here’s one scene from the film that shows music combined with suspense. 

The music used in this scene is just amazing. It shows the tension and fear of the Germans trying to stop the British from leaving.

Here is a link to some music that I can relate too and my adolescent years.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Hs6iqrwosis1UU7TCu9KJ?si=4ebaac892a434305

[victorluvsalice]

. . .I can’t figure out how to embed the actual playlist. ^^;

But yes, today for Song Saturday we have something a little different -- I do actually have a Spotify account now, and I have done a tiny bit of playing around with playlists there. So I figured I’d link you guys to the one I made for my Fallout of Darkness verse! These are just songs that make me think of the verse or Fallout 4 in general for one reason or another. They are:

1. Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier -- This one was on @dont-offend-the-bees‘s Valice playlist, and naturally the name made it a shoo-in. It suits the love story of this Victor and Alice, carrying on and catching feelings for each other out in the nuclear wasteland.

2. Carry On Wayward Son cover by Neoni -- Covered this one before! Just something about the haunting nature of the cover makes me think of Victor pushing himself through the Commonwealth, making himself carry on throughout all his rather screwed up adventures.

3. Fallout by Unsecret, Neoni -- Admittedly this one kind of made it in based on name alone. XD But it’s a good song about the world ending, which makes it very appropriate for this verse.

4. Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time by Panic! At The Disco -- Another one I’ve previously covered! Something about it makes me picture the progression of Victor and Alice’s relationship in this verse -- specifically from meeting in that raider camp after she drains a raider, to defending the Castle together from the Institute. Good times!

5. Shelter by Greenwheel -- Also previously covered (though the video I linked to seems to have gone walkabout). As per that post, this was grandfathered in because the chorus repeating “Tell me where to find shelter” inspired the ORIGINAL name of the verse -- I ended up swapping it to “Fallout of Darkness” after it became the Malkavian!Alice crossover. *shrug* It’s a good song, and it just makes me think of the verse now.

6. Radioactive cover by Pentatonix and Lindsey Stirling -- Again, previously covered. Another one that could have made it in on name alone, but the whole song really does suit Sole Survivor Victor waking up to the Commonwealth and its radioactive nature. (If you’re wondering why I don’t have the original song by Imagine Dragons, I heard this version first and I prefer it.)

7. I’ll Be by Edwin McCain -- Talked about this one semi-recently! As stated there, it’s a soft bittersweet love song well-suited for a Victor who lost his previous loves and an Alice who literally fought her way back from the dead. Plus the whole “rain falls angry on the tin roof” makes me think of them in a settlement!

8. A Place For Us by Fitz and The Tantrums -- I don’t actually recall where I heard this one, but when I did, for some reason it immediately made me think of all the Fallout 4 companions, getting recruited by Victor and forming their weird little post-apocalypse family. *shrug* I dunno, it just seems to suit!

9. I Still Believe by The Call -- The most recent one talked about on this blog! Like I said there, the general beat of the song -- pushing through hard times, still believing in hope and all that -- really suits my Sole Survivor Victor, and I really love it. :)

So yeah, enjoy! Hopefully one day I can figure out how to do the embed thing. :p

[dramataste9]

A Few Straight Forward Procedures to Connect your Devices at your Residence

Science fiction has long established the expectancy that we might inevitably have the ability to make a call from any device, to any individual on this planet, with just the flick of a hand. But not any experienced publisher forecasted what precisely that would truly suggest, circa 2019: Setting up 6 separate messaging programs on your mobile phone and 5-6 video-calling tools, non-e which interact. For certain we can easily video call, Future-style, however, we need to decide whether we are calling on Skype, Messenger, Snap, WhatsApp, or a brand new program. find out here now The magic of technology brought all of us the opportunity to invite a car on the internet and drive with a unfamiliar person to any destination, but I actually still can’t figure out in the event that I’ll ever be able to get my personal mum to call myself on Google Duet rather than FaceTime, as I’ve transferred to Android and FaceTime is not readily available in my smartphone. Our smartphones have become overrun with walled gardens, such that deciding on a phone now means being locked in to an entire environment of gadgets and services around that, and getting blocked via anything that is not sanctioned. Corporations like Apple have also did start to find ways to extend their very own reach to other systems in an effort to a person in their environments. All of us were required to come to terms with some versions from this clash for many years now, naturally. Way back in 2012, Instagram obstructed Twitter out of featuring embeds of the photos at the service, mainly to gain extra clicks to its own software. Twitter, in return, blocked Instagram out of using its own API to look for your contacts in the service. But since the word wide web starts to slide into our homes in innovative ways, through gadgets like HomePod, Google Home, Alexa, and a numerous of different smart devices, the market has shifted. Now seems as if we now have no answer but to lock ourselves into a principal ecosystem, placing our most confidential spaces to become defined by that choice. Take intelligent speakers, inside the top path for technical companies’ challenge over your own home. Products like Alexa or perhaps Google Home will be quite often the original intelligent devices customers will invest in, and since any smart products you buy next must be appropriate for your audio, which one you select is remarkably essential. A wonderful case in point of the repercussions of that decision may be seen in two of the world’s best messaging apps: both from Facebook Whatsapp and Messenger. Both these applications are being used by billions of customers, yet they are plainly missing from popular smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home, which can be selling a lot. Why? To be honest, Facebook must have a piece of the smart home assistant action to implement its own Portal gadget. If you would like to generate a video call up with WhatsApp or Messenger through a intelligent speaker, it is advisable to have a Portal gadget. It is easy to operate your Google-owned Nest temperature control system via your Google home assistant by just expressing "set the temperature to 76 degrees" aloud. But, best of luck making it work together with an Apple HomePod. Speaking of the Apple HomePod: You’d better believe Apple’s intelligent speaker helps to make it very unlikely to use Spotify, Apple Music’s leading contender.

Alternative choices , for example, the Alexa Show and Nest Hub Max should not have any problem using WhatsApp or Messenger, just as Apple almost certainly wouldn’t have a very hard time more effortlessly bringing in Spotify. These are not technical limitations, they are bottom line hurdles. You can see evidence of this phenomenon even among the most elementary of product lines. The headphone industry has not customarily been subjected to walled back gardens because there is only so much power a corporation can master over the 3.5 mm audio jack, which has been the niche standard for several years. And this helps discuss why Apple removed the jack from the cellphones starting from the iPhone 7 unveiled in 2016 exactly 3 months before the wireless AirPods launch. Apple argued that getting rid of the head-phone plug allowed for extra internal parts space, it set a plastic material pressure port there, but it also coincidentally ensured that you could not connect your headsets in without needing a dongle. Maybe that made you more likely to purchase wireless BlueTooth headphones instead, and probably you wanted the alternate option with extra features designed exclusively for your brand-new iPhone: the AirPods. AirPods can certainly perform quite a lot of amazing stuff, like share music with a close friend’s set, or in no time link up to a new gadget without playing with wireless BlueTooth menus, nevertheless you require an iPhone for almost any of this to succeed. Even though AirPods can easily officially work as typical wireless Bluetooth earbuds on numerous components, they are at their best every time they take advantage of the exclusive system Apple built with a unique headphone processor chips, enabling these additional product features. In the mean time, Sony’s most recent headphones can read out your emails and other notifications proactively with Google Assistant, but as long as you use a Google device. If you buy one of these devices and end up looking to switch to iOS, you will be restricting a significant volume of overall performance. (However, at least the Sony headphones let you use Amazon’s Alexa helper on both Android and iOS.) It’s not that vendors technologically lack the ability to make everything play nice, it’s that their unique devices could be made stickier by wrapping up end users in. If you cherish the AirPods, maybe you might not switch from iOS to Android OS. descargar gratis espiar whatsapp uptodown Your Nest thermostat previously works perfectly; why swap from a Google Home to an Apple HomePod, and sacrifice most of that seamless effectiveness? If you value WhatsApping together with your older brother, Facebook Portal is the choice over an Alexa Show. Fortunately, some companies are killing the pattern toward walled gardens. Sonos, for example, has struggled to enable their smart speakers to swap between speech assistants, supplying both Alexa and Google Assistant within the same unit. IKEA is trying to get their toes wet in the smart family home market with products like smart lights, but it’s ensuring that their products are compatible with any device that might want to use them. content Tradfri, Ikea’s smart lights brand, works together with both iOS and Android however makes use of open specifications. Also, there are physical adjustments too, for everyone who do not want to employ a smart gadget in any way. However, the norm for the most successful tech vendors is usually to search for industry dominance by cutting off their rivals. This sets the responsibility on consumers to maintain openness in the house. Reflect on each of your purchases very well, and check out the environments they work in. Or else, you may be losing crucial features at home to the choices tech giants make for you. And no one likes to dump their mixer mainly because Apple’s HomeKit would not support it.

[bfxenon]

6 Ways to Build Brand Authority With Content Marketing

Posted by amandamilligan

Becoming an authoritative brand is no easy feat, but the massive benefits are worth the effort.

When you’ve built authority, potential customers and clients begin to count on you and trust you — and it’s hard to imagine that trust not leading to a sale (at some point).

But how exactly can a brand begin to build, or build upon, their authority? Content is an excellent way, and in this article, I’ll go through my tips on how it can be done.

1. Answer your audience’s questions

If you’re not doing this, there’s virtually no way you’ll become an authority. People grow to rely on brands when those brands provide the information they’re looking for, so if your content marketing doesn’t incorporate those answers, you’re not demonstrating to your audience why they should trust you.

By building on-site content that provides this kind of value, you can build authority while simultaneously building more awareness for your brand. In other words, you can position yourself as an expert for those who don’t already know you.

Search is a huge component of why this content tactic works. Google does a significant amount of curation for users, choosing what it thinks is the most appropriate results for a particular query. When users see that you’re ranking at the top for a certain keyword or topic, there’s an assumption you made it through the algorithm for good reason and know what you’re talking about.

As an example, I searched “shoe size chart,” which, according to Keyword Surfer, gets 49,500 monthly searches in the U.S. alone. Here’s one of the top results from Famous Footwear:

Presumably, people are searching for this because they want to buy shoes, but they’re not sure what size to get. If they click this result, not only are they now on the website, but they recognize that this brand provided the answer they were looking for. Perhaps they’ll even browse for shoes while they’re on the site.

How to execute this strategy: Find out what your target audience is curious about by talking to your customer service representatives, performing keyword research, and using tools like Answer the Public and BuzzSumo’s Discover Questions feature. Then see what content already exists and if you can do better. If you can, get to creating!

2. Create newsworthy reports and studies

One of the best ways to demonstrate your authority is to show your continued interest in unearthing new information and insights. You can do this by prioritizing original research.

When you create your own studies, surveys, and reports (aka perform data journalism) based on new data or unveiling new insights, you not only provide value to readers, but also have something you can pitch to the media.

This gives you double benefit: Getting media coverage (and building even more brand authority) and earning high-quality backlinks, which signals to Google that you’re an authority.

We’ve used this strategy for our clients since Fractl first started up in 2012, and we’re convinced it’s one of the best brand authority strategies.

Let’s look at a study we did for The Interview Guys, as an example, which involved analyzing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Requirements Survey to identify the highest-paying jobs that require the least amount of experience. Here’s one of the graphics from the report:

The study got media coverage on CNBC, Reader’s Digest, MarketWatch and more, earning extremely high-value dofollow links. But take a look at how The Interview Guys are mentioned in the articles:

By supplying new insights, The Interview Guys are positioned by the writers as the source of the information, which is an extremely authoritative way to be referenced.

How to execute this strategy: After doing the first tip and analyzing questions, zoom out a bit and consider what general questions in your industry still need answers. How can you answer them with data? Once you’ve created a report that reveals new information, utilize digital PR to pitch writers.

3. Utilize the authority of in-house experts

Some brands are built entirely around a particular persona, like Steve Jobs with Apple, but those examples can intimidate people. Smaller companies and newer companies alike can benefit from a similar strategy if they have subject matter experts (or SMEs) who can show their authority.

A great example of this is Headspace and how it features its founder, Andy Puddicombe. There’s a page all about him on their website where they explain his credentials but also provide what are called authority signals (which I’ll explain more in the next section) and embed his Ted Talk, so you can see for yourself what he knows.

Why is this smart? Headspace probably realized that as the literal voice behind Headspace (Andy does much of the meditation audio himself), Andy started building trust with audiences. It makes sense to double-down on that trust by helping people get to know who he is, and by having him explain even more concepts directly through Radio Headspace and their YouTube channel. After all, if people trust Andy, they’re more likely to trust the Headspace app.

How to execute this strategy: If your internal experts have never shared anything with the public, see if they’re comfortable contributing blog posts or quotes to your website. Pitch them to be on podcasts, or use Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to pitch them as sources for relevant news articles. Help them demonstrate their knowledge in ways that are useful to audiences.

4. Highlight reviews, case studies, and other proof of expertise

There are dozens of types of authority signals, from testimonials to reviews to social media share counts. The key is identifying which ones make sense to highlight for your products or services, and figuring out the best placement for them.

Your goal is to show people you know what you’re talking about by leveraging third-party validation. Your audience doesn’t just have to take your word for it that you know what you’re doing — other people can confirm that you’re great, too!

I like how SquadCast tackles this. On their homepage they have a few authority signals they provide, including testimonials that match with each user persona, which I think is really smart.

Then when you scroll further, they throw in the fact that household names like Spotify, Microsoft, Starbucks, and ESPN trust them.

If you look at the Fractl site, you’ll see we use a similar strategy. Not only do we have case studies showcasing the results we’ve gotten for clients, but we also have logos showing some of the clients we’ve worked with and the publications where our thought leadership appears.

All of this content says to a site visitor: “Others trust us, and you should too.”

How to execute this strategy: If you don’t already have this type of content, ask yourself how you can best collect it. Reach out to your best clients and ask them for a quote. Pull the best reviews you’ve ever gotten for your products. Call out any media mentions you’ve received. Then put this information on your homepage, but also on conversion pages to instill confidence when and where it counts.

5. Associate with other authoritative brands

You know the phrase, “Show me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are?” That can apply in marketing, too.

If you align with other brands you respect and that are doing right by their customers/users, it’s possible some of that same trust will transfer to you if that company’s respect is reciprocated. Additionally, if you collaborate, you’re getting your brand name in front of a new audience.

So, think about which brands it makes sense to collaborate with. There are ways to do this outside of content marketing, like referral programs, but there are content-specific ways to work together, too.

This is an amazing example from Auntie Anne’s and Samuel Adams, who teamed up to create an at-home Oktoberfest kit, complete with Samuel Adams Octoberfest beer, Auntie Anne's DIY Pretzel Kit, recipe book, a "Prost from Home" playlist you can stream, and more.

This isn’t purely a content strategy, but you can see the overlap between product and building more of an experience. People who love and count on Auntie Anne’s pretzels are exposed to Samuel Adams and vice versa. Through a collaboration like this, fans of one have the potential to become fans of the other, as you can see in this review:

This is a more fun example, but you can also execute a collaboration based on studies and surveys by partnering with organizations interested in answering the same questions or solving the same problems as your brand.

How to execute this strategy: Brainstorm which brands you may have a natural alignment in objectives or values with. How can you work together to provide something of value to both of your audiences?

6. Give away some of your secrets

This can be scary for a lot of marketers and especially for the C-suite. Why should you give away what makes you great?

It’s a valid question, and it won’t always apply. But in some cases, especially for service-based businesses, sharing information and breaking down exactly how you achieve that greatness can actually build trust.

Marcus Sheridan has a wonderful example of this. When my colleague attended Inbound last year, she was impressed by Marcus’s presentation in which he described a single blog post that earned him $2 million in sales. (Heidi Cohen has a great write up about it.)

Why did it work? Because he shared information no one else wanted to share: the actual cost of a fiberglass pool. Rather than hiding the information and revealing it later in the sales process, he was forthright and answered the question people wanted the answer to. Clearly this strategy paid off.

We use the same philosophy at Fractl, explaining exactly how we go about doing our work and building our clients links and brand awareness. There are process details we haven’t disclosed, but all and all, we’ve been very transparent about how we operate, and it’s worked well for us.

In fact, people still recall an Experts on the Wire podcast interview with Kerry Jones, our previous marketing director, in which she walked through our strategies. I’ve had marketing folks tell me that this is how they heard about Fractl in the first place. Years later, it’s still featured on the podcast’s main page:

People appreciate when you’re open and honest. In our case, even if people knew our strategy, clients often partner with us because they don’t have the bandwidth to execute the strategy at scale, as it requires a lot of time and resources. So by knowing how we work, they can trust us to handle it for them.

How to execute this strategy: Consider what information you have that you can share, even if (sometimes especially if) your competitors haven’t shared it. You can leave a big impression of you’re open about your industry in a way others aren’t. Of course, don’t do something that will jeopardize your company, but consider the question and see what might make sense.

Conclusion

The very act of investing in content marketing is a big step in building more brand authority. By creating content that’s beneficial for your audience, you’re demonstrating your own knowledge and utilizing your expertise.

By continuing to build on your strategy with the above tactics, you can greatly improve the chances your audience will not only remember your brand, but begin to trust your brand. Additionally, it’s likely the Google algorithm will recognize your authority, as well, especially after building an impressive link portfolio, and your results will rise in the SERP ranks.

Good luck amplifying your strategy, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!

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