#but this one is The One guys trust. by my months-based metric we only have 4 days left of summer

[mossflower]

maybe i can write actually

[kob131]

https://rwdestuffs.tumblr.com/post/616806790896680960

Ironwood: Yells, screams, rants extensively, shoots things, breaks things

He never screamed, he never ranted, he broke like one thing (a chess piece) and shoot one guy (who in his mind was trying to stop him from saving people).

Yeah, Ironwood is emotional. He’s a fucking veteran Huntsman fighting a war that he was lied about by the man he trusted and the allies he thought he had. He also kind of just had HIS ONE GOOD ARM FUCKING SCORTCHED AND HIS PARANOIA CONFIRMED. Pretty fucking understandable, you shouldn’t be misrepresenting him.

Fandom: Clearly this man is a rational, logical person who is making his decisions based solely on cold reason. RWBY is being too emotional.

Who the FUCK has argued that James is operating under cold logic? He’s not, of course he’s acting under emotion.

What are you even saying?

RWBYJNR: Lies, cheats, steals, rants about a politician trying to do his best to protect a kingdom from going to shit, and also harassed a kid when they’re lied to

You know, Psyga, it doesn’t help that not only are you ALSO misrepresenting shit (They never cheated, the stealing of one airship pales to the numerous DEATHS that would have been caused, they didn’t rant and ONE PERSON  messed with Oscar while the LEADER RUBY comforted him) but you yourself are guilty of this shit (Lying, cheating and stealing? Gee I wonder who else does that? *cough* RWDE *cough*)

Fandom: Clearly these group of well thinking, mentally scarred teenagers are rational, logical people who are making their decisions solely on reason. Ironwood is being too emotional.

Again, WHO IS SAYING THAT? Also, implying that Ironwood isn’t basically a walking mass of mental scars.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe grown men in charge of armies should be held to a slightly higher standard than teenagers, rather than the other way around?

Has it occurred to you that they’re both adults, they’re both fucking up and everyone screwed Salem’s pooch here? Honestly the only guy doing good is Ozpin. Yeah, he started this mess but he did some damn good work before Cinderella.

Also no Psyga, I am not supporting your hypocritical ass. “they’re taught to be pinnacles of man kind’’ By the headmasters....which includes IRONWOOD.

I laugh at the idea of James “A few city blocks”   Ironwood trying to do the best to protect his kingdom. Especially when he peaced out and decided to scarper not cos of Salem but due to a chess piece, all while ignoring the fact he had Salem agents on his stupid little rock already to instead focus on shrieking at RWBY a bout loyalty. 

The same James “I’ll promote you all to Huntsmen, I’m the one to tell my subordinates the truth first and I SUFFER FROM PARANOIA AND PROBABLY A HOST OF OTHER MENTAL SCARS” Ironwood right?

I mean you support Yang Tumblingxelian because ‘uwu vagin- I mean PTSD’ so SURELY you support Ironwood RIGHT?

Also, he freaked out about a chess piece because it’s SALEM’S SYMBOL. Its like saying “Oh its not Hitler it’s just his CALLING CARD”. And no shit James is calling out Team RWBY, he trusted them and they lied to his face. You know, the same position Team RWBY was in with Ozpin.

Plus Ironwood himself lies and steal in regards to supplies from Mantle and rants too, except unlike RWBY he doesn’t have nearly as good of an excuse save for the fact he’s surrounded himself with enablers and refuses to accept or seek out help. 

Amity? Yes.

Supplies? Where? Robyn says they should be going to Mantle, that doesn’t mean they’re Mantle supplies. Show me where it was shown, said or explained he TOOK the supplies.

Also, what enablers? People who put their trust in him? That’s like saying Team RWBY were enablers for Ozpin: it’s the Ace Ops and Winter’s fault for not looking out for their leader, just as it was James’ issue for not looking out for Ozpin.

Like seriously, nothing is ever done to show RWBY as unstable or irrational, at best they are uncertain which is frank;y better than Ironwood or Opzin’s “I know best” attitude because it means they are open to changing rather than breaking the moment they run into a problem their methods can’t solve. 

Changing, like going from opposing lying to lying themselves right AFTER knowing how bad of an idea that is.

This is the fucking Yang/Adam situation all over again, removing fault and agency just because you don’t like the other side.

We also literally see their rationales, they need to get he lamp to Atlas before either Salem’s agents find them or it potentially lures Grimm in. They make a good plan that only doesn’t work out cos the local general decided t bust out a super mech and prance around screaming and they still hung around long enough to help solve the problem that idiot created. 

Strange that you don’t their talk of telling the truth....

When it comes to Mantle their rationales for why its awful and Ironwood’s decisions are wrong are explained both morally and in terms of practicality, Ironwood sometimes listened but usually ignored them cos he’s an arrogant ass. 

Or, you know, he’s been lied to numerous times, he’s in immense physical pain right now, his mental issues are being played on and he’s in a rushed, fucked if you do fucked if you don’t situation.

You know, WHAT THE SHOW FUCKING SHOWS.

On one side is a pack of teenagers dragged into a lot of nightmarish shit they were in no way ready to deal with, who are trying to work together and find a way to save the world. They do this despite being horribly traumatized, physically dismembered in two cases, having to fight off their abusers (to the death in one case), all the while admitting they’re in over their head, they’ve made mistakes, and trying to fix them and generally improve things.

The other side is a military general blatantly abusing his political power to deprive a city of critical resources, leaving them exposed to man eating monsters, declaring martial law to stop the rest of the government from stopping him from outright abandoning the people of that city (and the rest of the planet) to those monsters, ordering the cold-blooded murderer of an elderly woman to steal her magical powers, ordering the arrest of a group of teenagers and one older man because SOME OF THEM vocally disagreed with these actions, then shot a teenage boy for politely disagreeing with him, with the intent being that the boy would die from either the bullet of the long fall that followed. He does all this while insisting he’s being logical, that he’s making the hard choices on everyone elses behalf, and that he is always right. While hallucinating, ranting and screaming about disloyalty, all of which because he failed once (And that’s ignoring how he backstabbed several supposed friends before that traumatizing incident.)

A. Ironwood is also dragged into this by the same metric.

B. James is ALSO in over his head. Everyone not named ‘Ozpin’ is and Ozpin BARELY qualifies.

C. And James is being abused and used too!

D. ‘physically dismembered in two cases’ One and *taps Ironwood’s metal arm*

E. To try and help EVERYONE he’s ‘depriving resources’ because shit ain;t infinite.

F. Aas opposed to the genocidal, ancient witch CONTROLLING the man eating monsters?

G. And the other option? Have everyone DIE in his eyes.

H. Cold blooded murder...that she agreed to of her own volition....

I. You misspelled ALL as SOME. As in, ALL of the protags disagreed with him.

J. ANd you know, trying to stop him.

K. You know, like literally everyone else

M. He never hallucinated, ranted or screamed

James Ironwood is a coward and a traitor to the Kingdom of Atlas. On top of that, he is an entitled little shit that neglected his responsibilities to the civilians of the Kingdom, and then was so fucking arrogant that he was actually OFFENDED that people were angry with him for not doing his job. Quite a lot of that can be blamed on the culture of the Atlas military, of the demands of blind loyalty and yes-men creating an echo chamber without him even noticing. But in the end, he made the decisions. He decided the people of Mantle are an expendable resource, months or even years before Cinder broke into his office. He decided to order the murder of an elderly woman, to overthrow his government, to arrest anyone that dared to disagree with him, and to personally shoot a boy in cold blood. 

You want to know the twisted part? I think those of us that admit Ironwood is in the wrong actually respect him more. We can see how he came to this point, the cultural indoctrination, the dangers of military culture, the PTSD he’s clearly suffered since Beacon... We can feel sympathy for a fallen hero. Those who support him continue to insist that he’s in his right mind, that all his decisions, from volume two onwards, have all been completely logical... And what kind of person would that make him?

Oh fuck you with that “Because I disagree that makes me better bullshit.”

You didn’t portray a fallen hero, you portrayed a flatter version of Adam, denying Ironwood’s reasons, glorifying Team RWBY and painted it black and white.

And before anyone claims I am supporting Team RWBY:

Actually look up my opinions of them on my blog. Or hell, this single post. I think both parties are at fault for the situation here for their own flaws. ANd I feel sad for both them.

The conflict in the fandom, however?

[adieka]

An SEO tool said my traffic worth is $600 a month, but I make about $4 using Google Adsense

Dennis Hi guys, according to Ahrefs my organic traffic roughly 1500 visitors a month to a niche is worth $600 a month. I make about $4 at the moment using Google Adsense. What am I missing?! Thanks! 16 👍🏽 5 🤭 21 📰👈

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[filtered from 20 Answers]💬🗨

Troy The estimate is usually based on the cost per click of the keyword and the estimated traffic received from your organic position. So it's saying if you were running Google ads, you would have to pay this much for your traffic from those keywords (based on their estimates) Martinez You can't take those projections seriously. They're nice to know about but the advertisers decide what they are willing to spend. Maybe your site is being rejected by advertisers even though you're in the network. Maybe you're using the wrong kind of ad units. The discrepancy between projection and reality can be due to many things. We have sites in our portfolio that double, sometimes triple their earnings in December and January over the rest of the year. We have sites that earn most of their money in the spring months. It takes time to figure out what works for you.

Breslin » Martinez Yes I totally agree with the above, could be price ticket of product, trust worthiness of brand, targeting issues, even sales outlets so for instance years ago I worked for a brick slip company had great rankings good traffic but little buying going on, when we made a competitor analyses project we realized the top 2 companies were advertising in specific construction site where architects and project managers could source multiple materials in the same place, logic said we needed to identify our ideal customer and understand his job role and responsibilities in order to understand how to advertise to him. This process may not be linked exactly to yours but is an example of how you have to map things much further sometimes to find out what's missing,

Logan Same problem. Same #s. Thinking my issue is that my products are hot for only a week and worth only $20 on average…then after a week nobody searches for them again. Daine This has nothing to do with how much your site is worth, but how much it would cost you in ad spend to drive the same estimated traffic from the same keywords using Google Ads. Friar As others have mentioned, that is not the amount you should generate, it's what it would cost a comparable amount of traffic through Pay-Per-Click (PPC). As for how much your site should be worth, the number I have seen is $10 per thousand users monthly in ad revenue. But I seriously doubt the people using that number are using ad sense, it's usually affiliate links plus an affiliate ad network.

Martinez » Friar 10,000 visitors to 1 site could generate 2-5X as much AdSense revenue as 10,000 visitors to another site. Any formula that projects earnings isn't worth much.

Christine I have a dead/abandoned website with only 8 articles (guides how to start an AirBNB articles). One article ranked and generated me several new hosts referrals (but I was only paid for 5 successful referrals because of terms and conditions, blah blah). The point is: - the blog is basically abandoned/dead/started but not continued - only took 1 ranking to generate income - income from 5 referrals: $200 x 5 Nowadays, it only has Adsense (for the sake of the few cents), but hey, it's passive lol. I'd focus on affiliate marketing if I were you. Generate referrals' fees/affiliate commissions relevant to your niche. P.S. i abandoned it because Airbnb paused/stopped their affiliate program and I haven't been airbnb hosting since Pandemic started (and therefore have nothing easy to blog about). I'm currently focusing on one Affiliate marketing site instead. Guzman You are missing the understanding of how these two tools work. Initially, Google tools metrics for Cost-per-click (CPC) and Search V. are way too different than third-party tools like Ahrefs. This alone is an indicator that what Ahrefs says cost 1USD CPC; Google might say for the moment, it's 0.5 USD CPC. So you cannot rely on the metrics of Ahrefs to calculate your AdSense revenue. The other thing is tracking, Ahrefs calculate the traffic value not based on click but based on keywords ranked positions. On the other hand, Google, via your tracking codes on one side and browser settings, among others. This is a superficial, basic explanation of what you are missing! Enzo Maybe Google is making $596 a month, and you make $4 🤭👍🏽8 Adrian Forget about Adsense. You lose your time and efforts. Try other option of monetization with CPA offers, try to sell something on your website.

Mark I couldn't agree more - at least "try" and find something better. This thread now has its answer.

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These may satisfy you: » Revenue per 1000 Views of an Adsense (RPM) » Elementor vs Gutenberg if a website is Adsense powered

[johnboothus]

Next Round: Stephanie Gallo and Bev Founder Alix Peabody on Canned Wine and Female Empowerment

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter chats with Stephanie Gallo, CMO of E&J Gallo Winery, and Alix Peabody, founder of canned wine company Bev. They discuss how Bev’s position as an unapologetically pink, women-owned, women-targeted brand is the crux of its success. Stephanie, an alcohol beverage industry veteran, and Alix, an industry newbie, talk about how their partnership is a learning experience for both women. Alix credits Bev’s popularity to her identity as a consumer first and a founder second. She knew next to nothing about the beverage world before diving into it, she says, and now she’s fussing over minutiae like the particular sound Bev’s cans make when they’re cracked open.

Tune in to hear about how Bev secured $21 million in investments in its infancy, and why you can expect to see more of it on shelves near you in the coming months.

Listen Online

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Or Check out the Conversation Here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a “VinePair Podcast” “Next Round” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations between our regular podcast episodes in order to give everyone a better picture of what’s been going on in the alcohol beverage industry this year. I’m really excited to be talking with Alix Peabody, the founder and CEO of Bev, and Stephanie Gallo, the CMO of Gallo, because they have a really interesting partnership that’s just begun. Stephanie and Alix, thank you so much for joining me. So before we jump into why you’re both on the podcast, I think everyone who listens to VinePair is probably well familiar with Gallo, but they may not be super familiar with Bev. So, Alix, if you could tell me a little bit about Bev and yourself, that would be awesome, to get us going.

Alix: Yeah, absolutely. Bev is a little bit of an enigma, I suppose. I think Stephanie would agree with me there. But it’s a crazy story — I started the company just about three and a half years ago, but honestly, it was a brand and a mission long before it was a product. I knew nothing about the alcohol beverage business whatsoever. I started the company actually out of a need to pay some medical bills because I was going through some health problems. I ended up throwing these parties that were really female-centric, female-focused. I come from a background and a history of being in very fratty places, male-dominated industries, and stuff like that. As I started throwing these events, I really loved the idea of what happens when you change the narrative a little bit around whose base that really is, and how do you make that more female-friendly and female-owned? I’ve never been an angry person by nature. I always like approaching these things with joy and unity and all that good stuff. So I started looking into different ways that I could spread this brand vision and mission before anything else. I landed in this industry by accident because I was like, “This is the lowest common denominator of any party you’ve ever been to, or any event.” I wound up making canned wine simply because I had some friends in the wine industry. I didn’t know much about it. I knew that it was going to be very hard to find some amazing supporters like Steph, given that it is such, it’s such a mysterious industry for a lot of people. I ended up picking wine because I figured that we needed to have some proof of concept and a customer base before we could really prove that there was a huge market for this. This was before canned wine was a big thing. So I cashed out my 401k at the time. I bought 300 gallons of rosé from — I don’t even know if Steph knows this — a guy I met on a dating app who just so happened to be in the wine industry, and then off we were to the races. And I got to meet Stephanie last year and it’s just been the best. I can’t say enough amazing things about Gallo and our relationship. I would call it a friendship at this point, too. It’s just been wonderful.

A: So tell me, why canned wine? So obviously, you were doing parties, but what made you see an opportunity in canned wine as opposed to bottled? I mean, now I guess it’s a little bit more obvious that RTDs are all the rage and things like that. What was it about canned wine that got you interested, and what specific brand did you want to create around canned wine?

AP: Oh, my gosh. It’s such a funny question because I get asked this a lot, like, “How did you know about the RTDs?” I knew nothing. My whole thought process behind it was, “Well, wine is the only product that I can sell direct-to-consumer. Therefore it’s the only product that I can understand who my consumer is. We can sell without distribution because I figured that was going to be really hard.” I was Googling three-tier liquor laws. That’s how little I knew at the time. I put it in a can simply because I had no money. I thought to myself it’s really hard to pour something into a glass and be able to identify what that brand is. You don’t know what it is if it’s in a glass. So I put it in the can because I was like, “If it’s cute, and if it’s marketable, and people want to take Instagram photos with it, it will start to market itself.” At the time, it was very hard to find someone who would even can wine, so I was just lucky.

A: Was the goal of the brand always direct-to-consumer?

AP: No, the goal has always been to be a mass-market product, and to be everywhere and anywhere consumers are. I just knew that we were going to need a proof of concept, and I knew that we were going to need to be able to show distributors who are looking at products in terms of scan data that there’s actually a market for this. There’s a customer, and I can tell you where that customer is. I just figured that it was going to be my only way to really prove the concept of a brand new product. I’m glad we did because it’s quite hard to launch a new product in the middle of a pandemic.

A: Did you find that also helped in fundraising?

AP: It did eventually. In the beginning, nothing really helped in fundraising. It was so much work. I mean, I’ve told Steph this, but I spoke to over 400 people just to get a few checks at the beginning, because it’s such a tough industry for people who know nothing about it. That’s something that hopefully Bev can start to make more approachable. I’m really excited that the Gallo team sees what we’re doing and values it, because trust me when I say it has been a long journey and that has not always been the case.

A: The beverage industry is really hard, and obviously Stephanie can tell you that. There’s a lot of ideas, and a lot of people trying to raise money. There have been some brands that are buzzy right now that we could talk about that are also DTC — some that I’ve had on this podcast — but a lot of them haven’t raised (and correct me if I saw different things) $7 million. Or $14 million?

AP: First 7, then 14.

A: So $21 million’s a lot of money to raise. What do you think is it about Bev, and your story, and what you were selling that caused these investors to say, “We will totally go in on this,” when a lot of other beverage companies cannot do that and have had a really hard time raising funds?

AP: That’s an awesome question. I think it was a few things. My grandfather always said luck falls on the shoulders of those prepared to receive it. There was a lot of preparation. Part of the reason that we were not able to raise capital in the beginning from traditional beverage or CPG funds is because they want to see metrics. They want to see traction. This is such a catch-22 for young brands because you have no metrics, you have no traction, and it’s a capital-intensive business, and you need the capital to to get it off the ground. I leveraged my relationships in Silicon Valley from my time working there, and we were very lucky to be the first-ever beverage and/or CPG product backed by Founders Fund. The only thing that was very difficult about it, that I think a lot of people don’t realize, is a lot of these funds that play in the fast and loose space or form of investing, they have vice clauses, so they’re not allowed to invest in an alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or sex toys. I don’t know why rosé is lumped in with firearms per se, but a lot of them just can’t even do it. So the number of people that you’re actually allowed to try to raise capital from is even smaller, which makes it even more difficult. I was lucky in that I was able to get someone who said, “I see your vision, I see your brand, I see your passion, and I’m going to invest in that,” pre-revenue. That was frankly crazy, but good on them. I am so grateful for that support. It wasn’t until we really started to show traction, metrics, and repeat rates, and get some major retailers behind the brand as well, that we were able to say, “Look, there is a real market for this,” and go to the more traditional sources of capital. I think that is one of the major issues. The major catch-22 for young beverage brands is that there’s not a lot of capital available for beverage companies without solid metrics.

A: I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are listening to this podcast right now, like you, who also have beverage brands, or who are thinking about beverage brands. We also have one of the most accomplished CMOs on this podcast with you, so I don’t want to only keep asking you questions, but I have one more before I come to Stephanie.

AP: She’s someone that knows all the good stuff — she’s the one to listen to.

A: Who was the market for Bev, and what did the growth look like? So when you first started going to market, what metrics were you looking for? Were you trying to go from 100 cases to 1,000 cases to 5,000 cases? Who were you targeting? I’ve read a bunch about the brand, but I don’t want to give away what I’ve read. Instead, I want you to tell the listeners who you thought the audience for the brand was, and were they the people that actually became the audience for the brand?

AP: Another fantastic question. I used to walk down a liquor aisle or a beer aisle or whatever, and you see all of these branded products that are highly emotionally branded and targeted towards the male consumer, or, in my opinion, the male consumer trying to buy drinks for the female consumer. It’s not necessarily speaking to and with the female consumer. Or you have fantastic brands that are more artisanal in nature where it’s really about the craft, it’s about the winemaking, all that kind of stuff. For me, there’s really nothing that a woman can hold in her hand in a can that’s almost like wearing a brand T-shirt that says, “This is what I stand for.” For us, it’s always been about exciting women to have not only the permission but the joy of celebrating themselves and being themselves. That’s what we hope to communicate. At the beginning, I thought given the bright packaging I’d get asked a lot like, “Well, why do you make it pink if you’re a feminist-forward brand and blah, blah.” I was like, “Because it’s my favorite color, and I don’t need to apologize for that, frankly. That’s why I did it.” Then I started putting in more of my favorite colors and stuff like that. I think the authenticity of the brand has really resonated with the consumer through and through. That said, the consumer base has been far more expansive than I expected. I was expecting us to really hit that sort of late-20s, maybe early 40s range. We’re seeing tails all the way up to women in their mid-60s pretty equally distributed, and also pretty equally distributed throughout the country, which has been very exciting. A lot of those people, they’re looking for it in stores. They’re looking on our store locator to find it. That’s where Steph comes in.

A: Thank you for that, Alix. So Stephanie — how did you first discover Bev? I understand, somewhat to your point, that there aren’t a lot of brands that are very female. But then you have other people who will say, “Isn’t that all of wine?” I’m wondering from Stephanie, who has so many brands and has been in this business for such a long time, I feel like that’s a stereotype that all wine is female-focused. That’s what I hear all the time from other winemakers: “How do I bring in men to my wine?” (I don’t know why I just did a weird Italian accent.) I hear more and more like, “How do I get men to drink Prosecco? Only women drink Prosecco.” So I’m curious if all of us are just wrong and we’ve all stereotyped wine for too long. Also, Stephanie, when did you discover it, and what attracted you to it in the first place?

Stephanie: On a personal level, I discovered Bev, believe it or not, through a mutual friend on Instagram where she actually went to go visit the Bev headquarters and talked about meeting Alix. I had been following Bev since its inception. During Covid, actually, my brother reached for it along the pitch deck and basically said, “Hey, I think this is something pretty interesting. Why don’t you follow up with Alix to see if there’s something here.” So personally, about three years ago. Professionally – Alix, what, about six months ago? Seven months ago?

AP: I didn’t know you knew us that early. I’m flattered.

S: I’ve been following Bev just as a regular consumer. To answer your question specifically, the reason why we were interested in Bev — and it goes back to what you were saying — is that from an innovation pipeline perspective, I have always wanted to develop a brand that was very not necessarily female-centric, but one that really spoke to a cultural trend that we’re seeing around women’s empowerment, around women founders and female entrepreneurship. I think that is something that is super on trend, and I think it’s here to stay. I really felt that authentically, Gallo, we didn’t have the permission to tell that story. So when we met Alix, I felt that if I were to create an organic brand, it would have been Bev. I think that what has always appealed to me about Bev is that it is extremely mission-driven. It has a very strong purpose, and I think great brands that are going to go ahead and accelerate in growth are ones with a strong purpose, combined with great mission, and with things that are culturally relevant.

A: First of all, explain to me what the partnership is, for those that aren’t aware. How did it come about?

S: So the partnership is pretty darn simple. Today’s the day actually— I texted Alix this morning at 6. Today is the day where the Gallo winery will basically be the distributor of Bev. We’re basically going into a distribution arrangement. Alex is going to continue doing what she’s doing. She’s still the owner of the brand. She’s still going to market the brand, and she’s going to continue doing what makes Bev successful, and Alix’s team will continue to run the operation.

A: OK, so you’ll be the ones getting it in-store. How will that work? Is Bev going to be able to take advantage, obviously, of Gallo’s access to great wine and things like that as well?

S: Eventually. But for right now, it’s working. When Alix and I talked about this partnership, I knew that she had a lot of opportunities and looked at many different arrangements. But I remember having a conversation with her and I said to her, “What makes Bev Bev is, quite candidly, the founder’s story and Alix’s involvement.” I think it’s critical to the success of this brand. For the health and success of what Bev stands for, we just think it’s absolutely critical that Alix and her wonderful team continue to stay involved and do what they do.

A: So what will marketing for this look like now? Alix, is that all of your team still running the message, running the Instagram, doing ad buys, things like that?

AP: Correct. One of the things that was so compelling to me about the Gallo team, and Steph in particular, is that she really believes (and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth) that us operating independently, and really being able to own that narrative and build the brand the way that’s created so much traction, is so important. When you talk to a lot of different strategics — for lack of a better word — and stuff of that nature, it tends to be like, “OK, great, you did this thing, I’m going to take it and I’m going to build it myself.” And the thing about the partnership with Gallo that’s just been so awesome is that Steph doesn’t believe that. She’s like, “What you guys are doing is working. It behooves the brand, and it would be painful for the brand to stop that.” I think partnership is the best word for what’s going on; it really is a partnership. We’re going to help every way we can in terms of having our ambassadors out there and stuff like that. But there’s no one better out there than Gallo when it comes to execution and wholesale. That’s a place that most brands falter, because it’s so expensive and it’s so difficult. Having that opportunity is just beyond… I get emotional when I talk about it.

A: So I will be honest; Stephanie is very famous for asking tough questions. So I have one for her, which is: So for the person that’s looking at this situation, is this like Casamigos? So is Gallo ultimately going to acquire Bev, and that this is sort of a middle position, where you guys can kind of see how it goes? Is this something separate? Is this a partnership that if you both don’t like it in a few years, you can walk away from? The first time I ever met Stephanie, she said to me, why haven’t you sold VinePair yet? I was like, “Because I’m not ready!” So, I mean, she asked me those questions. I have to ask her these questions.

S: Alix and I have had a lot of what we’re going to call “spiritual conversations” about this topic. For us, we’re just getting started. Ultimately, I think it really depends on what Alex wants to do with the brand moving forward. Right now — I honestly mean this — we’re very happy simply with the partnership around the distribution agreement. I think we have a lot to learn from Alix, and Alix has a lot to learn from us. I think that there’s value there.

A: That totally makes sense. Very good answer. So Alix, I think it’s interesting that you didn’t have a background in wine because I’m wondering if your experience around canned wine is actually the way we see most consumers experience it. I talked to somms who started canned wine brands. Every time we talk about the wine, they talk about how the wine is still poured into a glass. I think to myself, “I don’t know anyone who drinks canned wine that drinks from a glass.”.

AP: You’re speaking my language.

A: Like, no one drinks it out of a glass — come on, it’s canned wine for a reason. I’m curious, how are you seeing your consumer drink canned wine, and what do you think the wine industry is still getting wrong about canned wine? What are the stereotypes or the misconceptions people have about canned wine that are just flat wrong?

AP: It’s funny, because we joke in the office that our favorite compliment is, “Oh, it’s actually good.” We get this all the time. It’s funny because like I said, I had no money when I started out. So the can, in a way, was going to be our biggest marketing tool. I was like, “I need people drinking this out of the can. I need it to be directly consumed from the can because I need them holding the cans so that people can identify it and see and see what that is.” For me, it was a canned product from the get-go. Steph will probably roll over in her grave one day about this, but the first time that I went to a winery knowing nothing about anything I said the word I’m looking for is “chuggable.” I’ve since learned that the word I was looking for is “sessionable.” Anyways, I didn’t know any better. I think as someone who is simply a consumer, the way that we developed the product itself was just, I went to the store, I bought every rosé, every canned wine I could find, and I blind-taste-tested them. The results probably got significantly less detailed throughout that process of the tasting. It was just like, “What do I want to drink?” For our red wine, for example, I put that thing back into R&D three or four times because I was like, this, I don’t want to drink this straight out of the can. I don’t love this straight out of the can. Red is a tough one to crack. So I was like, “I need this to be one of the things that I want to drink every day.” Or every other day — it depends if Dad’s listening. So that was something that I thought was really important: what tastes good to me. We’re not vintage. We are the consumer of the brand. I think what a lot of people tend to miss in this category in general is that the can in and of itself is approachable. There needs to be an approachability to these products that are new in a way and that is fresh and that is really from the consumer’s perspective. I think that that was actually a huge edge that we had, in a way, because I didn’t even know what the three-tier liquor law was. I was Googling it. It’s very hard to find on Google. It turns out also it’s very hard to figure out when you know people who know everything about it. The other thing, too, is we did a couple tests, for example, with still canned wine. Ours is effervescent, slightly carbonated. We call it “a lil’ fizzy.” When we were trying different things, it was like, “Well, for example, people really expect that sound when they crack it open.” Things like that, where we really wanted it to be able to drink like something that you would normally drink out of a can, even though we’re still a still wine. When you pour it into a glass, that carbonation kind of goes away. I think that that’s the thing. People oftentimes are creating their canned wine as if they’re creating a bottled wine. To me, it’s a different category. I was asked a lot, especially at the beginning when there was not much of a market for canned wine, “What’s the market cap?” My response was, “Honestly, there was no market cap for energy drinks before Red Bull. Why should it matter what that looks like for us right now?” Because at the end of the day, if you do it right with the branding, if the product is delicious, you can create that market. I think that’s something that, together, we’re really going to be able to do.

A: So, Stephanie, I’m sure you see more new products than even I see. You’ve probably seen a ton of canned wine since the first ones started exploding five years ago or so with Underwood and stuff like that. Was it for you really about the brand, too, that made this such a compelling sell for you? Something that the wine industry — a lot of the wine industry besides, actually, your brands — don’t get: the understanding of brand. We think it’s just about the liquid in the bottle, or the can, etc., and that’s all that matters. But consumers love brands. So I’m curious if that is what caused Bev to stand out?

S: I think one of the hardest things about Covid — Alix and I talk about this all the time — is that we’re an organization that loves being what I call “boots on the ground.” Let’s get out. Let’s go talk to customers about it. Let’s go sense it firsthand. There are a lot of canned wine brands, but at the end of the day, based on the due diligence that we were able to accomplish, this one had the velocity that made it interesting for us in the accounts that they were in. I think that at the end of the day, it really does come back down to: It’s all about the brand. And the work that Alix and her team are doing to drive awareness in a very focused manner with the right audience. The rest is history.

A: As of today, because we’re recording this on March 1, you are saying you are now officially the distributor of the brand. Will we be able to find it pretty easily across the country soon?

S: It’s a great question. We are starting small, believe it or not, small for Gallo. So our aim is to expand the availability of these wines right now in targeted retail accounts and on-premise accounts in the United States. We have what we call a concentrate and breakthrough rollout. As far as we’re concerned, it’s still a very young brand. I think that Alix and our organization have a very common vision, and a shared vision, to grow in a responsible manner, and to grow where consumer demand is. And we’re able to identify where the consumer demand is based on the DTC sales that she’s been able to generate.

AP: If I can add to that super quickly: Small for Steph is huge for us. That’s what’s super exciting all around. I think the DTC portion is so interesting because it’s a new model — you don’t have to go in blind to these markets. That’s something a lot of brands don’t have the luxury of. It’s really awesome to see my team and Steph’s team work together and consume all of that information and be able to say, “Hey, we know we’re going to be successful in these places. Let’s go there.” That’s been really interesting. I think we’re learning on both sides, because I sure as heck don’t know how to execute like these folks do in the markets.

A: Well, this has been really fascinating. Alix, Stephanie, thank you so much for taking the time. I wish you great success in the near future as this thing really rolls out.

AP: Thank you. Thank you. And me, too!

S: Adam, all the best from the Gallo family. We appreciate all you do.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, please give us a rating on review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or whatever it is you get. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City, and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit.

Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible, and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Stephanie Gallo and Bev Founder Alix Peabody on Canned Wine and Female Empowerment appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/bev-canned-wine-gallo/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-stephanie-gallo-and-bev-founder-alix-peabody-on-canned-wine-and-female-empowerment

[dirtylevi]

The Mystery Lurker: Is It Eren?

Okay, so apparently me writing an entirely too long meta about why the lurker, long haired beardy man might very well be Eren based on a metric fuckton of speculation and the fan translation won out over waiting for the official translation. I will be putting this under a Read More due to spoilers and because it’s quite long. So first and foremost, before we even get started:

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal opinion. In no way am I stating what I say here is canon or completely accurate. if you disagree with my opinion, that’s perfectly fine! Everyone has a different point of view, but if you are going to send me messages trying to argue points of view with me or send me hate messages, do me a favor and please just don’t even bother.

Please try to read this with any other method outside of the mobile app because the app will butcher this post in the worst of ways. Also, I am far too tired to edit this ridiculously long ass post so sorry for any grammer or spelling errors. Now then, I’m am still on the the fence with this, but with each passing minute I lean closer and closer to truly believing this man is Eren, and for a ton of reasons too, but since I am always a slut for some imagery, let’s start this with some panels, shall we?

I won’t lie, when I first saw speculation that this mystery man may be a Paradis spy last month when chapter 93 dropped, I brushed it off immediately. Thinking that it was too easy and just kind of cliche. Also believing that maybe the armband being worn on the wrong side was a mistake. But, then we see this same man wearing his armband on the wrong arm AGAIN this month:

I have a lot to say about these panels so allow me to delve a bit deeper here:

1:) Falco just so happens to be the soldier that helps Myster Man, when at the beginning of the chapter, this kid seen silently thinking that he desires to free all Eldian’s. Not just the one’s on the mainland, but the one’s on the island too. He is also wondering if Reiner is thinking the same and if he can trust someone who was so dedicated to Marley and the iradication of those on Paradis island:

I have a lot to say about Reiner in this chapter too, but that’s for a different post when the official translation drops. For now, let’s focus on mystery man. 

Falco has been shown to think quite differently from his counterpart, Gabi. He’s sensitive to human life, even that of enemy soldiers that he blatantly tries to save on the battlefield in the midsts of war. He doesn’t see inheriting one of the titans as an honor. He see’s it as a burden, and he obviously hasn’t been so easily brainwashed into thinking he’s superior than those who share the same curse as him solely because they walk on different soil.

If Mystery Man is indeed Eren, he just stumbled right into a potential ally. 

2:) What Flaco says to Mystery Man. “You don’t have to fight anymore.”. That is one hell of a statement to make if it is Eren because if it is actually him, I imagine his entire reasoning for being there would be to scout for a way to fight and win. Foreshadowing, anybody???

3:) Mystery Man just so happens to be with mentally injured soldiers who have no family in the city. However, he seems quite calm compared to the rest walking in the line. Seems quite convienient. 

4:) He also happens to be walking into a hospital in the very city where The Owl spoke of a Doctor ally for the walled Edlian’s. 

5:) He’s seen wearing the armband on the wrong arm in two different chapters, not once showing his full face, and NO OTHER CHARACTER IS SEEN WEARING IT LIKE THAT. This character is obviously new to wearing military uniforms from Marley. 

On top of these things, It is painfully obvious Isayama is going out of his way to hide this character’s face. I’m sorry, but I do not see why he would do that for some random character we have never seen before (such as the elusive 9th titan shifter). Isayama might as well be planting a neon sign over this guy stating that he’s someone extremely important that we already know and probably doesn’t belong in Marley considering his armband is on the wrong arm and we’ve seen him lurking covertly in Reiner’s vacinity for two chapters now.

Logically, I can only pin this man as Eren. 

The last time we saw Eren, his hair had grown out considerably, and yet no other character’s hair had changed at that point in time. We see him pointing across the ocean with his long locks and asking if killing the enemy across the water would free them. 

He stares across the sea with this question heavy question and his newly grown out hair. Again, forshadowing anyone?! Eren is also the only known character with that hair style, and the ability to regenerate his limbs. Now, I’ve seen a lot of people debate over this so allow me to add my two cents. Titan regeneration abilities can be controlled or postponed. We’ve seen it before. 

Once with Reiner after his arm is bitten at Castle Utegard:

Once with Eren after his failed titan transformation in the well:

And once again with Annie as the female titan:

So this is easily probable for Eren to do after five years of using his titan ability and learning how to control everything he can and can’t accomplish while experiementing with Hanji. Plus, an injured soldier with no family in the city doesn’t draw much attention. It’s a perfect disguise. But this leaves us with two massive, burning questions so let’s start with question one.

Why would Paradis send Eren, one of their greatest assets, to an enemy nation?

I can think of a lot of reasons for this, but two ideas stick out the most. 

INFORMATION:

Something I notice a lot of people overlooking here is the fact that Eren is a member of the Survey Corps. The Survey Corps main duty as a military force is to SURVEY. Whether that be survey new territory, enemy forces, or search for truth; all apply to this situation. Scouting is their primary objective. Especially now that all of the titans that posed a threat on Paradis have been exterminated. 

Also remember that Hanji is now their Commander. This is the same individual who stated that the best way to defeat your enemy is to study them down to the finest detail until you find a weakness you can exploit for victory. I wouldn’t be surprised whatsoever if this was entirely Hanji’s idea and being followed through on her orders. Mainly because she isn’t one to simply sit around and consistently wait for the enemy to attack over and over again, but especially after fighting off a number of enemy battleships. 

They have taken out every single one of those ships and I’m positive they would have managed to capture a few soldiers on board for questioning. An opporation like this would be nearly impossible if they hadn’t, and Hanji isn’t one to miss out on a opportunity to gain knowledge, and an upperhand. This would also explain how Eren would have gotten his hands on a Marlian uniform, knew where to find Reiner, knew to pose as an injured soldier, where to go, and so on. 

But, why send Eren for information, right? Well, if that man is Eren, I doubt very, verrryyyyyyyy highly that he is there alone. Regardless though, Eren is the only one with access to memories that paint a vivid picture of Marley. He’s also one of two people with the ability to shift into a titan. If you were going to send one out of two of your greatest weapons to an enemy nation, probably best to leave the Colossal behind to deal with any enemy ships that may pop up, and send the one with the most information already at his disposal instead, yeah? Also best to send someone who can easily disguise themselves as an injured soldier in a believeable manner without permanent damage. Especially if part of their plan was to seek out a Restorationist doctor. 

Also, for those of you wondering how he would find said allies: 

All Eldian allies wear that scar, and Eren knows this thanks to Grisha’s memories.

COVERT OPPORATION:

I’m sure that after four years of taking out battleships without any shifters present aboard them, the Survey Corps knew that the clock was ticking on their end. Eventually, Reiner, Zeke, and Pony Titan would return along with whoever ate Ymir to attack again. Plus, since they are all aware of the 13 year life limit thanks to Eren having Grisha’s memories as well, after some basic math, they most likely quickly figured out that Reiner was running out of time. 

Personally, I believe they quite possibly sent Eren to the mainland for the sake of both information, and also for a covert opporation to take the power of any titan shifter within grasp before it could be passed off. Obviously this would need to be done very delicately, but pulling an opporation like this is the best chance they would have even though it is very risky.

No one in Marley would ever expect someone from Paradis to infiltrate their land, let alone their ranks in military. As far as most of them are aware, those on Paradis are still boarded up behind walls thanks to the hoards of titans they created from other Eldians. Plus, they are known to be very behind on tech and have no clue about how to build or steer ships. No one would even expect them to be able to get there. 

They had tried to kill Reiner a number of times and failed. Levi also failed to kill Zeke. However, if they could sneak in unexpectedly and catch them off gaurd at a point of weakness they discovered thanks to going undercover; game over. Taking the titan power’s away from Marley’s control would render them as a nation completely powerless which they would know by questioning enemy soldiers captured from the ships as I stated before. Not only that, but it would also grant Eren the ability to control the Coordinate. 

Eren has Grisha’s memories and his notes. He knows his father birthed a son with royal blood that was enlisted as a Warrior, and Eren figured out in chapter 90 that in order to control the Coordinate, he needed blood of the first king. Not wanting to risk harm to Historia, he kept this a secret, but I am positive Eren figured out that Zeke is his half-brother. Especially after Zeke’s little spill of how he knew Grisha, and that he would save Eren from their father’s brainwashing. Eren even saw the resemblance as he spoke to him. 

So not only does Zeke have the power to turn people to titans, to control pure titans, and have the ability to shift into the beast titan - which makes him a severe threat - but he also has royal blood which allows him a lot of his abilities. If Levi happened to be there with Eren, he could fufill his promise and Eren could gain another titan, and the full use of the Coordinate.  

Not then. Question two:

How in the ever-loving fuck did Eren get there?

Truthfully, I have no idea, but I have a couple of guesses. 

BY AIR:

This is an extreme long shot, but not impossible. I won’t rule it out entirely solely because it isn’t all that ridiculous to consider it an option. 

BY SEA:

This is the most likely option, but I see a lot of skepticism here too, but let me explain. It is entirely possible that in four years, those on Paradis could learn how to make a functioning ship using rubble from these Destroyers. Hanji made the thunder spears in a freaking month, and it’s been shown that Eren can build large structures extremely quickly in titan form. 

Though I doubt they would sail straight to Marley on one of their own ships. Too suspicious. The more likely option would be that they redesigned a new ship using scrap from the wrecks they caused, and pinpointed a good landing spot on the coast using info gathered from captured soldiers aboard the original Destroyers. 

                                            IN CONCLUSION

In all likelihood, the long haired beardy man is indeed Eren. I cannot, for the life of me, think of any other character that he could possibly be. If it was a character we hadn’t been introduced to yet, Isayama wouldn’t be so inclided to hide their face while still making it obvious they’re important thanks to thrusting him into two chapters with his armband on the wrong side. 

If my theory is correct (which you never know!), I imagine Eren’s purpose for being in Marley would be to seek allies within Marley’s ranks, to gather information about the enemy and pinpoint a weakness to exploit, and to snatch any of the four titan powers they have in their military pocession if at all possible without discovery.

Essentially, it would be to try and shred Marley’s hold of power from the inside out. Exactly like RBA did when they infiltrated the walls. It also aids Paradis to do something like this in the midst of Marley’s combat with another nation. Infiltrating Marley in the middle of a war would make it a LOT easier to get in unnoticed. Also a strategy RBA pulled to cover as citizens in the chaos of Shiganshina falling.

The greatest weapon against an enemy is another enemy. Especially when you don’t expect your first enemy to make a move against you while using your own strategy.

[decoding1432]

The Art Behind Manipulating & Guarding a Fandom (p. IV)

Part four, sorry it took to long guys...

NOTE: *Most of the posts I direct you to, are SHORT & in my opinion not too dense to read. In fact, the great majority are Q&As. I’ll identified every post with a letter, it means that throughout the various parts you’ll see them repeated, so no need to read one twice*

Previous parts:

The Art Behind Manipulating & Guarding a Fandom (p. I)

The Art Behind Manipulating & Guarding a Fandom (p. II)

The Art Behind Manipulating & Guarding a Fandom (p. III)

Astroturfing it’s not a conspiracy thing because...

Reason 1: *link H*

I mentioned I would bring up again this link. I’ll explain: Apparently the blog answering the question is someone that knows plenty about the industry, bla bla, bla but never claimed to be an insider that worked near the band. The thing is the 1D bloggers appreciate him/her a lot because it has helped them understand things better, etc, etc…

“You mentioned Twitter watchdogs in an answer so that prompts me to wonder how aware the 1D Management team is of the things that are discussed online…”

“I’d say that, yes, they’re very aware of what goes on in the social media world, both on Twitter and on tumblr. It would be bad business to ignore it, especially since the majority of their success has come as a result of fans on social media.

In terms of purely monitoring social media, the different platforms require different techniques. Twitter is fairly easy, as you can just search hashtags and scroll through mentions or search by keyword. Tumblr is a bit more of a difficult one to monitor, as it’s more newly popular and generally harder to control. The best way that I’ve seen to get a handle on tumblr is to set up what basically amount to burner accounts. You create a tumblr account with an unassuming username and do nothing to the actual account. You leave the layout at default, don’t change the icon, don’t make posts, and don’t reblog or favourite anything. But you use the account to follow the blogs that control the conversation in whatever fandom you’re trying to monitor. There are usually a handful of bigger blogs in a specific fandom, and they’re the ones who control the discussion. Keeping track of what they’re saying lets you keep track of what people are saying in general, for the most part.

As far as astroturfing goes, that’s definitely not a conspiracy theory. It happens in the industry, absolutely. I’m not sure how widespread it is within One Direction specifically, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t have at least a few dummy accounts set up to try and sway fan opinion in one way or the other, both on Twitter and on tumblr.”

I’m not choosing to believe in this concept of astroturfing because a random blog in the 1D side said it... NO, I don’t know if this person works in the industry or what, I don’t know if it’s a “plant blog” itself. But I’m certainly going to validate him/her the sentences that I put in bold.

It’s obviously no secret that they actually monitor us through our SM since that’s where a big part of Fifth Harmony’s success comes from. They need to keep an eye on us, in order to assure “brand loyalty” & guide us wherever they want in concern to the narrative.

Reason 2: *link R*

“Mark Hardy is the ex marketing director for Syco, here is what he had to say about social media monitoring...

‘Hardy explains that key performance indicators included number of Facebook likes, Twitter followers, retweets, as well as YouTube views, and interaction and engagement across social media platforms.’

“It was a bit like herding cats, you had to be on top of it all the time with constant monitoring.” he points out.”

No additional comments needed... on to the next one:

Reason 3: *link S*

Explained below is the importance of astroturfing fandoms here in Tumblr, courtesy of a directioner.

When I met with social media Rob the first time, he told me that our fandom was basically a “hostile market” then went on to explain that Tumblr in general is a hostile market place. Here is a nice little article into why Tumblr in particular is a hard market place to broach.  

Why historically tumblr is the best place to seed information in a seemingly organic fashion?

“It’s why Tumblr has been so loathe to embrace any sort of traditional display advertising, preferring to keep all posts “native.” It doesn’t even use the word advertising for its paid products, it’s all strictly “sponsored posts;” that is, content that looks like a regular Tumblr user could have made it, but that happens to be sponsored.”

Why target certain blogs?

“Engagement begets engagement: In order to give your posts a greater chance of getting reblogged, it helps to be a big reblogger of other users’ posts. Not only does it help your Tumblr page show up in more places, it also increases the chances of fellow users returning the favor.”

In the first paragraph it is mentioned the 1D fandom is a “hostile market”, IT IS ABSOLUTELY OUT OF THE QUESTION IF OURS IS TOO.

Reason 4: *link S*

“Understanding Social Media Campaigns:

3 SOCIAL MEDIA MODELS THAT WILL GUIDE YOUR BRAND INTO THE CONVERSATION LANDSCAPE– This article basically outlines what things to look for if you feel conversation is being swayed.

This article is more information pertaining to how to actively engage an audience in a sales campaign but what is very interesting is this little snip bit.

‘With social media, they even trust the opinions of some perfect strangers more than brand messages. This has important consequences in all kinds of relationships: buyers are more educated but so are journalists, potential future employees and everyone else in the social ecosystem of our business.’

Now what I would like to add to the conversation is how corporations successfully go about swaying an audiences conversation.”

Reason 5: The TED talk alone must make you believe (this one attached previously on part 1)

Video description: “In this eye-opening talk, veteran investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson shows how astroturf, or fake grassroots movements funded by political, corporate, or other special interests very effectively manipulate and distort media messages.”

Reason 6: *link T*

[NOTE: This is not the complete article]

Fake Twitter Followers: A Dirty Marketing Secret

A few weeks ago, I alerted readers to the growing problem of Twitter spam and now news comes that this is not the domain of underground players but one where large brands and stars may also be playing, purchasing fake followers to puff up their social media presence.

To understand how one identifies the presence of fake followers, a little pattern study must happen. In the case of someone who has purchased fake followers, the account generally sees a spike in user numbers followed by an equivalent drop in the number of followers about a month later.

But why would brands or stars do something like this? Since the early days of social media, the number of followers has been a key metric of value but getting there is tricky business. With services like Klout and PeerIndex, the raw number of followers has come to be equated, in the public mind as a measure of popularity. Agencies dealing with endorsement contracts, publishing deals, and even credit reports often take number of followers into account when figuring out who to go with and how much money should go in those deals. So having a large number of followers has come to be equated with a value of quality, which may be based on some flawed assumptions.

Reason 7: *link U*

[NOTE: This is not the complete article]

Social's Value Measured in Engagement Over Sales

Engagement, brand lift are leading social goals

“Marketers struggle to get the most out of their presence on social sites, and with brands’ continued tenure on the networks, their goals and the metrics they use to measure their performance have changed. According to a 2013 survey of US marketing professionals by Pivot Conference, which hosts leading social business events, consumer engagement and brand lift were the No. 1 goals of social media marketing, each cited by 67% of respondents. This was up significantly from 2011, when those goals were cited by about 50% each.”

In 2013 the goals were cited by 67% of respondents, now imagine 4 years later where we know SM presence in celebrities is practically vital.

“Last year, using social media marketing to garner positive sentiment was the leading goal, whereas this year it dropped to No. 4. Marketers may be finding that it is less important that their posts get a warm reception from social users and more important that they keep consumers posting, “liking” and sharing social content.”

In 5H’s case add to that last sentence “the marketers are definitely finding more important that they keep the social users making drama out of every little thing” LOL.

You might be wondering why reasons 6 & 7 are part of this. I included them mainly to show you the relevance of social media engagement to brands. Astroturfing is one of the various strategies implemented for this latter.

Reason 8:

I already show you this (if I’m corrected it was on p. II) but I’m bringing it back.

I think many of the bloggers here that surpass the standard number of followers have a handful dummy accounts or burner accounts following them…

Seriously in what world an inactivated account would follow you out of nowhere for the sake of it?!

Reason 9: *link V*

[NOTE: This is not the complete article]

Astroturfing: A question of trust

The practice of astroturfing – faking support for a product or cause – is on the rise on and offline. But how can it be stamped out?

“What do healthcare reform, climate change and financial regulation have in common? The answer is that they are all issues covered by astroturf, the practice of creating fake grassroots movements, usually by lobbyists and PR experts. These attempts to manipulate the media and public opinion seem to be on the rise – spurred on in part by the political mood and the reach of the internet.

"Astroturf front groups have been everywhere this summer, spreading misinformation about healthcare reform, carbon emission caps and financial regulation," says Timothy Karr, the campaign director for the US website freepress.net. "A healthy 21st-century democracy doesn't need phoney front groups. We need openness, accountability and real debate."

While the term astroturfing goes back to the mid-1980s, the practice began many more years ago. Unscrupulous marketers and lobbyists have long found ways to advance their paymasters' agendas – including manufactured mail campaigns, fake crowd protests and, increasingly, use of the web.

A "sock puppet" is a fake online identity created to support an argument – and, in many cases, they are untraceable. Richard Levangie, who writes about climate change astroturfing at the One Blue Marble website, says he first came across it in the mid-1990s. "I was passionate about slowing the rise of teenage smoking in my home province, and thought about starting an advocacy group that would work with teenagers ... that's where I first came up against astroturfing, in the form of smokers' rights groups who were ignoring the science about secondhand smoke, and who were trying to reframe the issue as freedom of choice." Astroturfing can range from a few forum posts or a comment praising a company to something closer to harassment, and from genuine disagreement and independent troublemakers to organised "trolls", all the way to the entirely fake campaigner.

Faked Reviews

Advertisement

Several authors have been found leaving glowing reviews of their own books on Amazon, while a bizarre case emerged in 2007 involving John Mackey, the chief executive of high-end US supermarket chain Whole Foods, who used a pseudonym to disparage competitors on message boards. More recently, a US PR company was found to have been writing fake positive reviews of a client's iPhone software.

The question of astroturfing comes up regularly in the world of public relations, says Jon Silk, the creative director of Lewis PR in London. "Clients new to online PR will often ask the question: 'Can't we just anonymously post positive comments?'," he says. "It takes time to explain how influence works – that it should start with a good product or service, and have a clear message that must be communicated to the right people in the right way."

Reason 10: *link W* (& last cause the list is endless tbh)

“Fake "grassroots" groups have started springing up like toadstools after a rain, and this time they're coming at us from every angle: they're on TV, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube… With all these corporate fronts coming out of the woodwork, how can citizens tell true grassroots organizations from corporate fronts operated by highly-paid PR and lobbying firms? Here are some tips to help readers spot this kind of big-business hanky-panky.

What is a "front group," really?

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party propaganda technique.

One of the best examples is Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), which claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to choose to eat, drink and smoke as they please. In reality, though, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide all or most of its funding. Not all organizations that engage in manipulative efforts to shape public opinion can be classified as "front groups," however.

The shadowy way front groups operate makes it difficult to know whether or not a seemingly independent grassroots group is really representing some other entity.”

What’s the 3rd party technique?

<“The third party technique has been defined by one public relations (PR) executive as, "putting your words in someone else's mouth.

PR firms have been known to put their words in the mouths of journalists by hiring reporters to write stories which favor their clients, or by funding tendentious university research which they then publicize as "proof" of their client's position....”>

 *cough* Written interviews are a prime example *cough*

<“Corporate-sponsored front groups often are created or used by PR firms to appear as "independent" third parties.”>

I’m really considering doing a separate post about the 3rd party technique, just from reading those short extracts I want to dive deeper into the concept. Anyway continuing with the main article...

Characteristics of a corporate front group

“A front group typically has some, but not necessarily all, of the following characteristics (decoding: I didn’t copy paste all of the characteristics, just the ones I consider relate to the fandoms situations):

Is set up, operated or maintained by another organization, particularly a public relations, grassroots campaigning, polling or surveying firm or consultancy;

Engages in actions that consistently and conspicuously benefit a third party, such as a company, industry or political candidate;

Effectively shields a third party from liability/responsibility/culpability by making statements a corporation cannot make, but that nevertheless advance a specific corporate interest;

Re-focuses debate about an issue onto a new or suspiciously unrelated topic, (for example, casting the secondhand smoke as an issue of property rights)”

Rolling back the astroturf

“Documenting the activities of front groups is perhaps the single most important step in helping roll back the rise of astroturf groups.”

Soooo...

The reasons listed above were primarily articles to solidify the main argument that astroturfing is not a conspiracy thing because it happens ALL OVER THE WEB.

It’s not about being completely paranoid about everything you read on the internet. Be smart. It’s about not believing every piece of info you get served on a silver plate.

From something as “seemingly innocent” as faking a simple comment/ review of a certain product to influence the consumer’s opinion on it & discredit the competition to something blatantly serious as sending misleading information about the healthcare reform that involves the common well-being.

This unethical & deceitful phenomenon extends to the entertainment industry (fanbase social networking) up to the political world (campaigns). IT IS REAL & IT IS HAPPENING.

Yes, this fandom is gullible af & a total pain in the ass. But no, it didn’t go downhill on its own. It was a separated & very badly influenced to serve of support to the label & mgmt’s antics with the narrative. They use the fans & each one of their accounts as their SCAPEGOAT. But no one ever blames them & that’s how MIS (new acronym for men in suits) take advantage of the situation & get away with their shenanigans.

DON’T BE NAIVE, KIDS ;)

P.S. I might add a fifth part to explain how to use the astroturfing protection tools (Statcounter, TOR, etc.) It’s important to start taking measures bloggers. 

[ralphlayton]

The SEO Trust Factor: How SEO Can “Maca” Difference

Some businesses are cautious about investing in SEO campaigns because they worry about the length of time it will take to see results or the difficulty of drawing a hard definition between the work put in and the return on investment. Others yet shy away from SEO projects because they have a hard time locating an agency or a specialist that places as much of a premium on communication and transparency as on results.

At 1DigitalⓇ Agency, we have always strived to provide clear results attributable to our efforts while at the same time remaining open and honest about the work we put into a project. Whether it is communicating with a client regarding proposed changes to site structure or collaborating with them on a keyword-rich blog post intended to generate traffic, our process is straightforward, transparent, and dependable.

There is a level of trust involved in any SEO campaign, as results take time to build, which is precisely the reason we so highly esteem transparency and communication. For The Maca Team, trust was a factor in the decision to pursue an SEO project with us.

The Maca Team is an online store that sells premium maca products, derived from the root of a unique root crop that grows only at high altitudes in South America. Maca has been used for thousands of years for a number of reputed health benefits, and so the market for it is well established. As is the case with any vendor online, however, high traffic and conversions are not well established.

Mark, CEO at The Maca Team, commented that “originally there was no need for SEO because SEO was easy. I knew what I was doing and it was easy to rank in my niche.” They experienced fair results in the past on their own without professional help before Google upped the ante with several updates that made it harder to rank without specific, technical expertise. After Google’s updates, The Maca Team worked with several other providers on SEO projects before landing with 1DigitalⓇ Agency.

To Mark, transparency and communication were key. He understood that it would take time to generate results as he had experienced firsthand how to perform basic SEO friendly operations in the past. That gave him some insight into what to look for in a provider.

As far as what he was looking for in a partner, Mark said he needed an “agency [that knows] what they’re doing in terms of Google’s proper SEO tactics for 2020. The barrier was finding an authentic company that had a transparent process so that I could vet it. That was the biggest thing for me choosing a partner at this time.” After several meetings with members of 1DigitalⓇ’s team, he knew that we were the agency for him and his business.

Previously, Mark had mixed results with communication from previous eCommerce SEO companies and specialists, the very reason that he was looking for transparency from 1DigitalⓇ. However, within only a few short weeks into the project, Mark reflected on the experience in a holistically, even effusive, positive light.

“First of all, transparency was really what sold me on starting and it’s been fantastic. The project base is great. There’s a weekly report that’s been good. What I love about 1DigitalⓇ is that I know what you guys are doing and what the team members are doing. It’s project-based so we can see the results. Our meetings are great because we can measure our efforts. Overall I’m super happy with 1DigitalⓇ’s efforts.”

And that was just the beginning.

Letting The Results Roll In

There are a number of ways to measure the success of an SEO campaign, with no shortage of metrics to look at. Therefore, there’s much more than one figure you can look at to determine the efficacy of a strategy. However, as most important figures deal with organic traffic, growth, sales, and conversions, we’ll take a look at a few of these.

Below you can see a chart tracking organic traffic to The Maca Team, covering a period from March 2020 to just about the end of June 2020 superimposed over the preceding period from November 2019 to February 2020. The orange line represents the earlier period and the blue line represents the most current period. Their campaign with 1DigitalⓇ Agency began right at the beginning of April and you can clearly see a steady increase in growth over the duration of the campaign so far.

What is significant about this is not one explosive rise in growth, but rather a pronounced, sustained increase in visitors to TheMacaTeam.com over the course of the project. That is what makes trust such an important component of the campaign. There often isn’t one single thing you can point to in order to indicate success in the short term, but the results convalesce out of the details over time. In The Maca Team’s case, their organic traffic nearly doubled since they began their SEO campaign with us.

However, organic traffic is only one way to gauge the success of an SEO campaign. Let’s take a look at the increase in new users to their website, which you can see represented in the image to the left.

Not only did their total number of users increase significantly, but their number of new users skyrocketed as well. In both cases, the number of visitors nearly doubled from the previous period – this time corresponds to the timeline represented by the graph above.

Of course, there’s more to take into account than simply the visitors that come to any given website. You can also look at hard figures for conversions, transactions, and revenue. With The Maca Team, as it turns out, not only did traffic increase significantly but so did these three metrics: eCommerce Conversion Rate, Transactions, and Revenue.

As you can see, during the same time period as their charts above, the eCommerce conversion rate for The Maca Team increased by nearly 17% during this period, but most significantly, the number of transactions and revenue both more than doubled. The Maca Team has not only seen more visitors and more sessions, but they have seen an increase in sales as well.

We’ve already shown how organic traffic grew tremendously and that this growth corresponded to significant growth in transaction and revenue, but how about their impressions and click-through rate? To give an impression – no pun intended – of the kind of reach The Maca Team achieved as a result of their campaign with us, take a look at the chart below.

This representation tracks total clicks, impressions, and click-through rate for the period from the beginning of April 2020, when their campaign began, through the end of June 2020. A steady upward trend is clear here, as it is in the representations above. What is most telling about this increase, however, is neither in their total clicks or impressions – which, by the way, are both respectable. The most telling figure here is the average click-through rate.

Without context, 5.9% might seem like a low, even a very low, figure. Yet, at the time of this publication, the average eCommerce click-through rate is hovering just above 2.5%. That means that The Maca Team’s average CTR is significantly outperforming the overall average, by a factor of nearly three.

The reason this is so significant is twofold. First, a click-through rate that high indicates some success in marketing strategies, positioning, or other effort. It means that the people who see their listing or their ads are interested in what they have to offer and thus follow-through, or click through and visit the website. The other reason it is so significant is that it means that 1DigitalⓇ Agency’s efforts in keyword research put The Maca Team right in front of the people who were searching for their products organically and thus only had to find them in order to become customers.

Considering our keyword research and our SEO efforts, we strategically targeted competitive keywords for which The Maca Team needed to see improvements to gain a more competitive edge. The initial keyword research phase of the project sets the stage for a lot of our on page optimization efforts and our backlink building strategy, and is critical to the success of a campaign. At the beginning of their campaign with us, The Maca Team was ranking for about 1400 keywords, with just over 100 in the top three spots. At the time of this publication, and only 3 months into their campaign, The Maca Team is ranking for over 2500 keywords, with more than 230 in the top three spots. In just three months, the volume of keywords for which they were ranking, and their possession of keywords in the top spots, both nearly doubled.

With The Maca Team, as with all of its projects, 1DigitalⓇ’s team of SEO analysts and experts took the time to become familiar with their industry in order to deliver the results that mattered for their business. It takes a lot of keyword and industry research, site structure optimization and content publication to pull it all together, but pairing some elbow grease with our years of experience in SEO best practices always gets the job done.

Mark at The Maca Team even reflected on the matter of trusting the process and the difficulty of getting results. “We had really good results on our own at first, but SEO has become difficult to tackle on your own. Updates have been really tough on a lot of industries and it pays to work with the experts.”

As for Mark, he trusted the process, and now he knows, as we all do, that SEO really can “Maca” difference, even in highly competitive, niche industries where visibility can be difficult to gain.

If your business is looking for inventive, creative ways to build awareness online, drive organic search trafficⓇ, and bolster sales, SEO may be the ticket for a long term, sustainable solution. We’ve garnered similar success stories for many clients in a surprising number of different industries. It goes to show that our experience and hard work pay off when it comes to creating customized campaigns for businesses in diverse industries facing unique challenges.

Check out some of our case studies on the success of various clients, and if you’re interested in generating high traffic, sales, revenue and conversions, contact our search engine optimization team today to get the lowdown on our eCommerce SEO services and see how we can put them to work for you. We offer BigCommerce SEO services, Shopify SEO services, and everything in between – including web development, eCommerce web design, and support services. If eCommerce websites have experienced it as a problem, 1DigitalⓇ can help you come up with a solution. Contact our team at info@1digitalagency.com or give us a call at 877-829-4013.

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The SEO Trust Factor: How SEO Can “Maca” Difference published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[jeffrmayhugh]

🔥MUST SEE FACT!!!🔥 309’033 BITCOIN BOUGHT BY WALLSTREET!!!💲

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In today’s episode we’re going to talk about this chart right here and this number right there three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three big corn were bought by Wall Street so far that a more intercepts sold also we’re going to have a look at the price of big point in some technical analysis it looks so far that big point is still be coupling from the traditional markets for the second consecutive day in a row a very interesting development and we’re going to have a close look at some on chain metrics and now let’s jump right into it and with that said what is going on over one sunny decree here and welcome back to another episode let’s start off on the big point the daily chart recently we have been talking a lot about this white trend line that you can see right here but we’re not really looking all too much and horizontal resistance and support levels and that is exactly what we’re gonna do today and how we’re going to do that we do that with the volume profile the volume profile is not aggregating volume by days in this case here on the daily chart like the candles that you can see on the bottom right now the volume profile is aggregating volume by price range and that is very interesting and a very good metric to see at what levels we can expect resistance but also support and if we zoom out in here a little bit and go back to the linear chart we can see that we currently have strong resistance and support exactly at the level where we are right now if you want to draw a rectangle in here real quick B. side that volume spike in here to bother bring spike in here you can see that we are currently trading exactly in that area where we have a lot of resistance but also support and that level would be between seven thousand three hundred and approximately sixty dollars all the way down to approximately seven thousand and fifty dollars so yes currently we are at a very important level and as long as we’re not breaking out significantly above seven. Eight thousand three hundred and fifty dollars to the upside I personally do not really expect significant moves to the upside or more significant moves to the upside and as long as we’re not falling below seven thousand US dollars again I do not really see lower prices right now in the short term as very likely so big point is still ranging for some of you that is not really big news for all the traders out there you’re probably missing the volatility already by now that is also why on social media people are getting a little bit bored again kind at least that is what it seems to me personally on the one hour chart you guys know we have a very close look how big one is correlated to the stock market and what we have seen yesterday already once the stock market going down correcting to the downside but big point was actually going sideways in this area right here and what we have seen today so far of course we have to see when a real spot market is actually opening up for S. and P. five hundred but forty futures right now we saw a rise in the futures but become was actually going down during the exact same time so right now it looks like that we have the second consecutive day in a row we’re big point is at least slightly decoupled from the traditional markets which would actually be a good sign although I mean we do not really like it when because it goes down in the stock market goes up but it’s just about the de coupling okay as long as big point is just another correlated asset well that it cannot serve as a safe haven so every couple of more every approach for any couple is positive news in my opinion and just real quick before we gonna continue if you guys like this kind of content in one support this YouTube channel for free make sure that you leave a like thank you guys very much for that if you want to support even more you can check out my affiliate links down below in the description and also comment section here for example can find the top three eight leverage exchanges I’m personally using wood all the best bonuses you can get one hundred twelve dollars on Pfenex one binds futures you get a ten percent discount and on by but you can get the regular ninety. Dollar bonus thank you guys very much for your awesome support and now it’s getting interesting and we’re going to start off with two charts from glass note and both of them are indicating once again that a pump in the price of bitcoin in the mid term is way more likely than a dump and I’m not even talking about the whole thing I’m just talking about some very interesting on chain metric and the first of one is well that’s actually not an on chain metric more and exchange metric which would be a second later but anyway the big coin balance on exchanges just reached a six month low and why are big coin held on exchanges well to sell them because everyone who is invested in big point already knows not your T. not your big coin so smart investors they’re not holding their big coins on exchanges and if we have a six month flow imbalances on exchanges means less investors are interested to sell big coin that’s great that doesn’t tell us anything about the miners and what they are doing but that tells us something about investors and the second glass no chart also very interesting the big coin number of addresses holding zero point one big point or more just reached an all time high not a local high and all time high of three million three thousand two hundred and fifteen addresses this is absolutely phenomenal a new all time high in addresses holding more than currently seven hundred dollars in also the lowest amount of bitcoin on exchanges since six months but now it’s getting to the Wall Street part so what we’re talking about is GBTC the grayscale bitcoin trust this is the only way for institutional investors right now to speculate on big corn on physical big corn on Wall Street and this trust is holding currently believe it or not three hundred and nine thousand big points how can we calculate that I’m going to show you that right now so those are the stats for the grayscale bitcoin trust you can find them on grayscale dot C. O.. Slash big point minus trust and as you can see here we have the amount of shares outstanding that’s a little bit more than three hundred twenty million and you can see the big points per share and investors obviously day can buy shares now if you multiply the shares outstanding with the big point per shares you get a starting amount of three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three physical big coin those are physical big coin not the relatives physical big coin held by the gray scale big coin trust so yes guys Wall Street is opening currently more than three hundred thousand big points now there’s a Paul popping up on top of his screen right now do you think that is good for big coin or do you think that is bad for big coin made up to long term I’m also very interested in your opinion down below in the comments section the most interesting part is that the accumulation from institutional investors is just going up I mean there’s so many people out there who are just saying well Wall Street is only interested in shorting bitcoin with the CME futures for example were they were announcing that they’re going to pay in bitcoin but this is the only big coin trust would physical bitcoin with over three hundred thousand big point in it and guess what you all probably remember to big drop in price that we have seen in March this candle right here the twelfth of March two thousand and twenty but if we go back to the gray scale Q. one report you can see clearly that even in March two thousand and twenty the grayscale bitcoin trust was going up so despite this big drop despite all the fear despite all the bears calling for one thousand two hundred dollars two thousand dollars or even sub one thousand dollars Wall Street institutional investors are ramping up heavily on big corn and so far overall they bought more than three hundred thousand big points and it does not look like that this growth in here which almost turns into an exponential growth if you have a. A close look at this chart is going to stop anytime soon a very interesting development and yes institutions are buying big coin now for those people are not that experienced or you’re in the market why is the price of bitcoin not going up then why is it not going up significantly well this is OTC trading over the counter trading the most BTC they’re not seeing the regular coin base or crack in spot market keep that in mind but that isn’t already for today’s episode just in case that you are an experienced trader and you’re looking to diversify your leverage trading platforms where you can leverage trade bitcoin Ethereum ripple chainlink tassels like corn and also gold make sure to check out the feminist platform be due to toil popping up by my side right now with my son to bring down below we can get up to one hundred twelve dollar bonus and you’re supporting the channel thank you guys very much for that and hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow in the next one bye.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-bought-by-wallstreet/ source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/616254706726109184

[heatherrdavis1]

MUST SEE FACT!!! 309033 BITCOIN BOUGHT BY WALLSTREET!!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In today’s episode we’re going to talk about this chart right here and this number right there three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three big corn were bought by Wall Street so far that a more intercepts sold also we’re going to have a look at the price of big point in some technical analysis it looks so far that big point is still be coupling from the traditional markets for the second consecutive day in a row a very interesting development and we’re going to have a close look at some on chain metrics and now let’s jump right into it and with that said what is going on over one sunny decree here and welcome back to another episode let’s start off on the big point the daily chart recently we have been talking a lot about this white trend line that you can see right here but we’re not really looking all too much and horizontal resistance and support levels and that is exactly what we’re gonna do today and how we’re going to do that we do that with the volume profile the volume profile is not aggregating volume by days in this case here on the daily chart like the candles that you can see on the bottom right now the volume profile is aggregating volume by price range and that is very interesting and a very good metric to see at what levels we can expect resistance but also support and if we zoom out in here a little bit and go back to the linear chart we can see that we currently have strong resistance and support exactly at the level where we are right now if you want to draw a rectangle in here real quick B. side that volume spike in here to bother bring spike in here you can see that we are currently trading exactly in that area where we have a lot of resistance but also support and that level would be between seven thousand three hundred and approximately sixty dollars all the way down to approximately seven thousand and fifty dollars so yes currently we are at a very important level and as long as we’re not breaking out significantly above seven. Eight thousand three hundred and fifty dollars to the upside I personally do not really expect significant moves to the upside or more significant moves to the upside and as long as we’re not falling below seven thousand US dollars again I do not really see lower prices right now in the short term as very likely so big point is still ranging for some of you that is not really big news for all the traders out there you’re probably missing the volatility already by now that is also why on social media people are getting a little bit bored again kind at least that is what it seems to me personally on the one hour chart you guys know we have a very close look how big one is correlated to the stock market and what we have seen yesterday already once the stock market going down correcting to the downside but big point was actually going sideways in this area right here and what we have seen today so far of course we have to see when a real spot market is actually opening up for S. and P. five hundred but forty futures right now we saw a rise in the futures but become was actually going down during the exact same time so right now it looks like that we have the second consecutive day in a row we’re big point is at least slightly decoupled from the traditional markets which would actually be a good sign although I mean we do not really like it when because it goes down in the stock market goes up but it’s just about the de coupling okay as long as big point is just another correlated asset well that it cannot serve as a safe haven so every couple of more every approach for any couple is positive news in my opinion and just real quick before we gonna continue if you guys like this kind of content in one support this YouTube channel for free make sure that you leave a like thank you guys very much for that if you want to support even more you can check out my affiliate links down below in the description and also comment section here for example can find the top three eight leverage exchanges I’m personally using wood all the best bonuses you can get one hundred twelve dollars on Pfenex one binds futures you get a ten percent discount and on by but you can get the regular ninety. Dollar bonus thank you guys very much for your awesome support and now it’s getting interesting and we’re going to start off with two charts from glass note and both of them are indicating once again that a pump in the price of bitcoin in the mid term is way more likely than a dump and I’m not even talking about the whole thing I’m just talking about some very interesting on chain metric and the first of one is well that’s actually not an on chain metric more and exchange metric which would be a second later but anyway the big coin balance on exchanges just reached a six month low and why are big coin held on exchanges well to sell them because everyone who is invested in big point already knows not your T. not your big coin so smart investors they’re not holding their big coins on exchanges and if we have a six month flow imbalances on exchanges means less investors are interested to sell big coin that’s great that doesn’t tell us anything about the miners and what they are doing but that tells us something about investors and the second glass no chart also very interesting the big coin number of addresses holding zero point one big point or more just reached an all time high not a local high and all time high of three million three thousand two hundred and fifteen addresses this is absolutely phenomenal a new all time high in addresses holding more than currently seven hundred dollars in also the lowest amount of bitcoin on exchanges since six months but now it’s getting to the Wall Street part so what we’re talking about is GBTC the grayscale bitcoin trust this is the only way for institutional investors right now to speculate on big corn on physical big corn on Wall Street and this trust is holding currently believe it or not three hundred and nine thousand big points how can we calculate that I’m going to show you that right now so those are the stats for the grayscale bitcoin trust you can find them on grayscale dot C. O.. Slash big point minus trust and as you can see here we have the amount of shares outstanding that’s a little bit more than three hundred twenty million and you can see the big points per share and investors obviously day can buy shares now if you multiply the shares outstanding with the big point per shares you get a starting amount of three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three physical big coin those are physical big coin not the relatives physical big coin held by the gray scale big coin trust so yes guys Wall Street is opening currently more than three hundred thousand big points now there’s a Paul popping up on top of his screen right now do you think that is good for big coin or do you think that is bad for big coin made up to long term I’m also very interested in your opinion down below in the comments section the most interesting part is that the accumulation from institutional investors is just going up I mean there’s so many people out there who are just saying well Wall Street is only interested in shorting bitcoin with the CME futures for example were they were announcing that they’re going to pay in bitcoin but this is the only big coin trust would physical bitcoin with over three hundred thousand big point in it and guess what you all probably remember to big drop in price that we have seen in March this candle right here the twelfth of March two thousand and twenty but if we go back to the gray scale Q. one report you can see clearly that even in March two thousand and twenty the grayscale bitcoin trust was going up so despite this big drop despite all the fear despite all the bears calling for one thousand two hundred dollars two thousand dollars or even sub one thousand dollars Wall Street institutional investors are ramping up heavily on big corn and so far overall they bought more than three hundred thousand big points and it does not look like that this growth in here which almost turns into an exponential growth if you have a. A close look at this chart is going to stop anytime soon a very interesting development and yes institutions are buying big coin now for those people are not that experienced or you’re in the market why is the price of bitcoin not going up then why is it not going up significantly well this is OTC trading over the counter trading the most BTC they’re not seeing the regular coin base or crack in spot market keep that in mind but that isn’t already for today’s episode just in case that you are an experienced trader and you’re looking to diversify your leverage trading platforms where you can leverage trade bitcoin Ethereum ripple chainlink tassels like corn and also gold make sure to check out the feminist platform be due to toil popping up by my side right now with my son to bring down below we can get up to one hundred twelve dollar bonus and you’re supporting the channel thank you guys very much for that and hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow in the next one bye.

Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-bought-by-wallstreet/

source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/must-see-fact-309033-bitcoin-bought-by-wallstreet

[scottmapess]

🔥MUST SEE FACT!!!🔥 309’033 BITCOIN BOUGHT BY WALLSTREET!!!💲

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In today’s episode we’re going to talk about this chart right here and this number right there three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three big corn were bought by Wall Street so far that a more intercepts sold also we’re going to have a look at the price of big point in some technical analysis it looks so far that big point is still be coupling from the traditional markets for the second consecutive day in a row a very interesting development and we’re going to have a close look at some on chain metrics and now let’s jump right into it and with that said what is going on over one sunny decree here and welcome back to another episode let’s start off on the big point the daily chart recently we have been talking a lot about this white trend line that you can see right here but we’re not really looking all too much and horizontal resistance and support levels and that is exactly what we’re gonna do today and how we’re going to do that we do that with the volume profile the volume profile is not aggregating volume by days in this case here on the daily chart like the candles that you can see on the bottom right now the volume profile is aggregating volume by price range and that is very interesting and a very good metric to see at what levels we can expect resistance but also support and if we zoom out in here a little bit and go back to the linear chart we can see that we currently have strong resistance and support exactly at the level where we are right now if you want to draw a rectangle in here real quick B. side that volume spike in here to bother bring spike in here you can see that we are currently trading exactly in that area where we have a lot of resistance but also support and that level would be between seven thousand three hundred and approximately sixty dollars all the way down to approximately seven thousand and fifty dollars so yes currently we are at a very important level and as long as we’re not breaking out significantly above seven. Eight thousand three hundred and fifty dollars to the upside I personally do not really expect significant moves to the upside or more significant moves to the upside and as long as we’re not falling below seven thousand US dollars again I do not really see lower prices right now in the short term as very likely so big point is still ranging for some of you that is not really big news for all the traders out there you’re probably missing the volatility already by now that is also why on social media people are getting a little bit bored again kind at least that is what it seems to me personally on the one hour chart you guys know we have a very close look how big one is correlated to the stock market and what we have seen yesterday already once the stock market going down correcting to the downside but big point was actually going sideways in this area right here and what we have seen today so far of course we have to see when a real spot market is actually opening up for S. and P. five hundred but forty futures right now we saw a rise in the futures but become was actually going down during the exact same time so right now it looks like that we have the second consecutive day in a row we’re big point is at least slightly decoupled from the traditional markets which would actually be a good sign although I mean we do not really like it when because it goes down in the stock market goes up but it’s just about the de coupling okay as long as big point is just another correlated asset well that it cannot serve as a safe haven so every couple of more every approach for any couple is positive news in my opinion and just real quick before we gonna continue if you guys like this kind of content in one support this YouTube channel for free make sure that you leave a like thank you guys very much for that if you want to support even more you can check out my affiliate links down below in the description and also comment section here for example can find the top three eight leverage exchanges I’m personally using wood all the best bonuses you can get one hundred twelve dollars on Pfenex one binds futures you get a ten percent discount and on by but you can get the regular ninety. Dollar bonus thank you guys very much for your awesome support and now it’s getting interesting and we’re going to start off with two charts from glass note and both of them are indicating once again that a pump in the price of bitcoin in the mid term is way more likely than a dump and I’m not even talking about the whole thing I’m just talking about some very interesting on chain metric and the first of one is well that’s actually not an on chain metric more and exchange metric which would be a second later but anyway the big coin balance on exchanges just reached a six month low and why are big coin held on exchanges well to sell them because everyone who is invested in big point already knows not your T. not your big coin so smart investors they’re not holding their big coins on exchanges and if we have a six month flow imbalances on exchanges means less investors are interested to sell big coin that’s great that doesn’t tell us anything about the miners and what they are doing but that tells us something about investors and the second glass no chart also very interesting the big coin number of addresses holding zero point one big point or more just reached an all time high not a local high and all time high of three million three thousand two hundred and fifteen addresses this is absolutely phenomenal a new all time high in addresses holding more than currently seven hundred dollars in also the lowest amount of bitcoin on exchanges since six months but now it’s getting to the Wall Street part so what we’re talking about is GBTC the grayscale bitcoin trust this is the only way for institutional investors right now to speculate on big corn on physical big corn on Wall Street and this trust is holding currently believe it or not three hundred and nine thousand big points how can we calculate that I’m going to show you that right now so those are the stats for the grayscale bitcoin trust you can find them on grayscale dot C. O.. Slash big point minus trust and as you can see here we have the amount of shares outstanding that’s a little bit more than three hundred twenty million and you can see the big points per share and investors obviously day can buy shares now if you multiply the shares outstanding with the big point per shares you get a starting amount of three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three physical big coin those are physical big coin not the relatives physical big coin held by the gray scale big coin trust so yes guys Wall Street is opening currently more than three hundred thousand big points now there’s a Paul popping up on top of his screen right now do you think that is good for big coin or do you think that is bad for big coin made up to long term I’m also very interested in your opinion down below in the comments section the most interesting part is that the accumulation from institutional investors is just going up I mean there’s so many people out there who are just saying well Wall Street is only interested in shorting bitcoin with the CME futures for example were they were announcing that they’re going to pay in bitcoin but this is the only big coin trust would physical bitcoin with over three hundred thousand big point in it and guess what you all probably remember to big drop in price that we have seen in March this candle right here the twelfth of March two thousand and twenty but if we go back to the gray scale Q. one report you can see clearly that even in March two thousand and twenty the grayscale bitcoin trust was going up so despite this big drop despite all the fear despite all the bears calling for one thousand two hundred dollars two thousand dollars or even sub one thousand dollars Wall Street institutional investors are ramping up heavily on big corn and so far overall they bought more than three hundred thousand big points and it does not look like that this growth in here which almost turns into an exponential growth if you have a. A close look at this chart is going to stop anytime soon a very interesting development and yes institutions are buying big coin now for those people are not that experienced or you’re in the market why is the price of bitcoin not going up then why is it not going up significantly well this is OTC trading over the counter trading the most BTC they’re not seeing the regular coin base or crack in spot market keep that in mind but that isn’t already for today’s episode just in case that you are an experienced trader and you’re looking to diversify your leverage trading platforms where you can leverage trade bitcoin Ethereum ripple chainlink tassels like corn and also gold make sure to check out the feminist platform be due to toil popping up by my side right now with my son to bring down below we can get up to one hundred twelve dollar bonus and you’re supporting the channel thank you guys very much for that and hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow in the next one bye.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-bought-by-wallstreet/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/04/must-see-fact-309033-bitcoin-bought-by.html

[cryptosharks1]

🔥MUST SEE FACT!!!🔥 309’033 BITCOIN BOUGHT BY WALLSTREET!!!💲

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In today’s episode we’re going to talk about this chart right here and this number right there three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three big corn were bought by Wall Street so far that a more intercepts sold also we’re going to have a look at the price of big point in some technical analysis it looks so far that big point is still be coupling from the traditional markets for the second consecutive day in a row a very interesting development and we’re going to have a close look at some on chain metrics and now let’s jump right into it and with that said what is going on over one sunny decree here and welcome back to another episode let’s start off on the big point the daily chart recently we have been talking a lot about this white trend line that you can see right here but we’re not really looking all too much and horizontal resistance and support levels and that is exactly what we’re gonna do today and how we’re going to do that we do that with the volume profile the volume profile is not aggregating volume by days in this case here on the daily chart like the candles that you can see on the bottom right now the volume profile is aggregating volume by price range and that is very interesting and a very good metric to see at what levels we can expect resistance but also support and if we zoom out in here a little bit and go back to the linear chart we can see that we currently have strong resistance and support exactly at the level where we are right now if you want to draw a rectangle in here real quick B. side that volume spike in here to bother bring spike in here you can see that we are currently trading exactly in that area where we have a lot of resistance but also support and that level would be between seven thousand three hundred and approximately sixty dollars all the way down to approximately seven thousand and fifty dollars so yes currently we are at a very important level and as long as we’re not breaking out significantly above seven. Eight thousand three hundred and fifty dollars to the upside I personally do not really expect significant moves to the upside or more significant moves to the upside and as long as we’re not falling below seven thousand US dollars again I do not really see lower prices right now in the short term as very likely so big point is still ranging for some of you that is not really big news for all the traders out there you’re probably missing the volatility already by now that is also why on social media people are getting a little bit bored again kind at least that is what it seems to me personally on the one hour chart you guys know we have a very close look how big one is correlated to the stock market and what we have seen yesterday already once the stock market going down correcting to the downside but big point was actually going sideways in this area right here and what we have seen today so far of course we have to see when a real spot market is actually opening up for S. and P. five hundred but forty futures right now we saw a rise in the futures but become was actually going down during the exact same time so right now it looks like that we have the second consecutive day in a row we’re big point is at least slightly decoupled from the traditional markets which would actually be a good sign although I mean we do not really like it when because it goes down in the stock market goes up but it’s just about the de coupling okay as long as big point is just another correlated asset well that it cannot serve as a safe haven so every couple of more every approach for any couple is positive news in my opinion and just real quick before we gonna continue if you guys like this kind of content in one support this YouTube channel for free make sure that you leave a like thank you guys very much for that if you want to support even more you can check out my affiliate links down below in the description and also comment section here for example can find the top three eight leverage exchanges I’m personally using wood all the best bonuses you can get one hundred twelve dollars on Pfenex one binds futures you get a ten percent discount and on by but you can get the regular ninety. Dollar bonus thank you guys very much for your awesome support and now it’s getting interesting and we’re going to start off with two charts from glass note and both of them are indicating once again that a pump in the price of bitcoin in the mid term is way more likely than a dump and I’m not even talking about the whole thing I’m just talking about some very interesting on chain metric and the first of one is well that’s actually not an on chain metric more and exchange metric which would be a second later but anyway the big coin balance on exchanges just reached a six month low and why are big coin held on exchanges well to sell them because everyone who is invested in big point already knows not your T. not your big coin so smart investors they’re not holding their big coins on exchanges and if we have a six month flow imbalances on exchanges means less investors are interested to sell big coin that’s great that doesn’t tell us anything about the miners and what they are doing but that tells us something about investors and the second glass no chart also very interesting the big coin number of addresses holding zero point one big point or more just reached an all time high not a local high and all time high of three million three thousand two hundred and fifteen addresses this is absolutely phenomenal a new all time high in addresses holding more than currently seven hundred dollars in also the lowest amount of bitcoin on exchanges since six months but now it’s getting to the Wall Street part so what we’re talking about is GBTC the grayscale bitcoin trust this is the only way for institutional investors right now to speculate on big corn on physical big corn on Wall Street and this trust is holding currently believe it or not three hundred and nine thousand big points how can we calculate that I’m going to show you that right now so those are the stats for the grayscale bitcoin trust you can find them on grayscale dot C. O.. Slash big point minus trust and as you can see here we have the amount of shares outstanding that’s a little bit more than three hundred twenty million and you can see the big points per share and investors obviously day can buy shares now if you multiply the shares outstanding with the big point per shares you get a starting amount of three hundred and nine thousand and thirty three physical big coin those are physical big coin not the relatives physical big coin held by the gray scale big coin trust so yes guys Wall Street is opening currently more than three hundred thousand big points now there’s a Paul popping up on top of his screen right now do you think that is good for big coin or do you think that is bad for big coin made up to long term I’m also very interested in your opinion down below in the comments section the most interesting part is that the accumulation from institutional investors is just going up I mean there’s so many people out there who are just saying well Wall Street is only interested in shorting bitcoin with the CME futures for example were they were announcing that they’re going to pay in bitcoin but this is the only big coin trust would physical bitcoin with over three hundred thousand big point in it and guess what you all probably remember to big drop in price that we have seen in March this candle right here the twelfth of March two thousand and twenty but if we go back to the gray scale Q. one report you can see clearly that even in March two thousand and twenty the grayscale bitcoin trust was going up so despite this big drop despite all the fear despite all the bears calling for one thousand two hundred dollars two thousand dollars or even sub one thousand dollars Wall Street institutional investors are ramping up heavily on big corn and so far overall they bought more than three hundred thousand big points and it does not look like that this growth in here which almost turns into an exponential growth if you have a. A close look at this chart is going to stop anytime soon a very interesting development and yes institutions are buying big coin now for those people are not that experienced or you’re in the market why is the price of bitcoin not going up then why is it not going up significantly well this is OTC trading over the counter trading the most BTC they’re not seeing the regular coin base or crack in spot market keep that in mind but that isn’t already for today’s episode just in case that you are an experienced trader and you’re looking to diversify your leverage trading platforms where you can leverage trade bitcoin Ethereum ripple chainlink tassels like corn and also gold make sure to check out the feminist platform be due to toil popping up by my side right now with my son to bring down below we can get up to one hundred twelve dollar bonus and you’re supporting the channel thank you guys very much for that and hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow in the next one bye.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-bought-by-wallstreet/

[meraenthusiast]

Cash On Cash Return: #1 Factor To Evaluate A Deal

Cash On Cash Return

Recently I wrote about how I lost quite a bit of money investing in a crowdfunding deal with RealtyShares a few years ago. This mistake was totally on me as I didn’t do my part to know what I was really investing in.

I put my trust in what their website was promoting instead of doing my due diligence.

If you haven’t read the story, you can so so HERE.

I’ve come to believe that things don’t happen to you, they happen FOR you. In my case, this financial mishap sparked me to not only learn more about real estate investing, but also to seek out and form relationships with full time real estate investors and developers.

It’s much different knowing that you’re dealing one-on-one with another human versus a generic website posting deals that are supposedly “good” because they said so.

One of the questions I sought out to answer was regarding how to best evaluate an investment that we’re considering investing in.

If you talk to twenty different people, you’re likely to get twenty different answers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re investing in syndications, crowdfunding, REITs, self-storage, commercial property, or rental real estate, being able to evaluate investment opportunities correctly is a top priority.

As someone that focuses on passive investing and teaching others about apartment syndications, two of the return factors that must be evaluated are the cash on cash return (CoC) and the internal rate of return (IRR).

Let’s get into why these are so important, how they’re calculated and why they’re relevant in apartment syndications.

What is Cash-on-Cash Return?

Real estate mogul Kris Krohn says that the cash on cash return (CoC) is one of the MOST important figures he looks at when evaluating deals before pulling the trigger.

He thinks about it like this: Cash In vs Cash Out

We want to know for every dollar we put into an investment, what do we get out in return?

The CoC is a factor that refers to the return on the capital that you’ve invested into the property.

It’s the relationship between a property’s cash flow and the initial equity investment.

Here’s the calculation:

Cash on cash return = net operating income (NOI)/total cash investment

NOI = annual rental income – the operating expenses

The net operating income is also known as the “cash flow.”

Whenever someone is wanting to invest in apartment syndications, usually the cash flow is referred to the profits remaining after paying the operating expenses and debt service.

In other words, it’s what you’re going to have left in your pocket after all expenses and debt is paid each month.

Here’s a brief video of Eric Bowlin from Ideal REI explaining Coc:

2 Different Cash On Cash Return Versions

With regards to apartment syndication investing, you’ll occasionally see that there are actually two different versions of the CoC:

1) Includes the profits from the sale of the complex – will show passive investors how much money they should expect to make from the project as a whole.

2) Excludes the profits from the sale of the complex – will show passive investors how much money they should to expect to receive for each distribution during the hold period, as well as an average annual return on their investment.

In order to calculate both CoC factors, you need:

initial amount of equity investment

projected annual cash flow

projected profit from sale for both the overall project and to the passive investors

Here is an example from Joe Fairless of how to calculate CoC return for an apartment project (note: CF = cash flow)

    Here is an example of how to calculate the CoC returns to the limited partners (LP) (investors) based on an 8% preferred return and 70/30 profit split after the sale:

    In this example, the average annual CoC to the Limited Partner (LP) is 8.33%.

Here’s the way it was calculated:

5.95% + 9.66% + 7.90% + 8.67% + 9.44%/5 = 8.33% annual return

This actually turns out to very good as it’s above the 8% preferred return originally offered.

The overall CoC for the five years is 185.72%.

In this case, if you’d have invested $100,000, you would have made $85,720 in profit.

Why the CoC is a Good Metric

Straightforward

I don’t know about you, but as someone that continues to see patients on a daily basis, I need to be able to look for deals and evaluate them in a straightforward manner.

To me, simplicity is key and I want to keep it as simple as possible. The CoC allows us to do that (especially us passive investors) as it’s easy to gauge what your return on the capital invested would be using the property’s net cash flow.

It’s no different than playing a slot machine. You put in a certain amount and then you get a certain amount back (hopefully) that will allow you to calculate your percentage return.

“Back Of Napkin” Analysis

I’ve got a patient that I see a couple of times a year that owns over 100 units in my area.

He loves to inform me about the latest “happenings” in our local market and frequently brings in a list of all of the recently sold property.

Most of the time he uses a CoC to quickly show me different investments that are for sale and what their average returns would be.

Occasionally he uses the “back of napkin” analysis because these types of calculations are quick to point out the properties with the highest returns possible.

Gauge Your Distance To FIRE

If one of your goals is to FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) or even better fat FIRE (retiring early while still living it up), consider reading how this guy did it at the early age of 38 HERE.

For those of you aspiring to do this as well, you’ll need to know what your annual expenses are in order to build enough passive income to cover them.

Using a cash on cash return evaluation is important to evaluate the different properties to invest in so you can meet these goals to become financially independent.

Why the CoC is a Bad Metric

Taxes

Taxes is a dreaded word among the doctor community but it’s a fact of life. We all have to pay them. Some of us “evil people” have to pay more than others.

No matter what type of investment you’re in, taxes play a role. Even though your specific tax situation may not impact the performance of the asset you’ve invested in, its performance will impact your tax situation (either directly or indirectly).

This could greatly affect your actual returns either positively or negatively.

The downside of using the CoC is that it doesn’t take taxes into account when trying to calculate the actual return on an investment.

Biggerpockets example

Here’s an example from Biggerpockets:

For instance, let’s say your annual pre-tax cash flow is $10,000, resulting in a 10% cash-on-cash return (assuming you invested $100,000).

If you’re in the 25% tax bracket, your after-tax cash flow is $7,500 resulting in a 7.5% actual return.

Further, we have to take depreciation and amortization into account. In the example above, if your depreciation and amortization amounts to $8,000 annually, then only $2,000 of cash flow is remaining to be taxed.

At the same 25% rate, our tax liability is $500. Since depreciation and amortization are “phantom” expenses, our after-tax cash flow is $9,500 ($10,000-$500), resulting in a 9.5% actual return.

Profit Potential Varies

Another reason the Coc isn’t the best metric is because it doesn’t take into account the principal portion of your loan payment (mortgage paydown).

We know that some of the payment goes to paying down the mortgage and the other goes towards the interest portion.

Also, more than likely the property will appreciate in value the longer it’s held. The Coc doesn’t calculate for this but you’ll have more in your pocket when the property is sold.

What Is A Good Cash On Cash Return?

Unfortunately, there’s no specific rule of thumb regarding what constitutes a “good” Coc. It all comes down to the individual investing in the deal.

Some seasoned investors feel that a projected CoC of 8-12% is good while others think that 5-7% is acceptable depending on the market.

Some people are nearer retirement and want less risk while others want to take on more risk as they still have several years (or decades) of work ahead of them.

Again, it’s all about a person’s specific goals.

If you only want deals over 10% then go for it. If you want 6%, then only focus on those. You have do it what’s right for you because only YOU know what your risk tolerance and investing goals are important to you.

You want to be able to sleep better knowing that you’re doing what’s right for you and your family.

The Bottom Line

My entire goal for this site is to educate you about the in’s and out’s of real estate investing. My main focus in on passive investing as most of us don’t have time to manage tenants. (Have you joined the Doctor Investors Circle?)

As I continue to learn myself, I plan on passing along my wins (and losses) to you so you can make an educated decision what’s best for your investment goals.

The first step in the vetting process starts with the numbers and the cash on cash return is an easy metric to start with.

The post Cash On Cash Return: #1 Factor To Evaluate A Deal appeared first on Debt Free Dr..

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[christiechritter]

My depression, it’s history, and my extremely long winded way of trying to help anyone who might need it by typing out my own reasoning so my own eyes can read it.

Thinking back on it now, I am pretty sure I had depression as far back as high school and maybe even middle school to an extent.  We were always moving.  I never was able to keep friends.  I was always the weird one in groups.  I was ok with that I think. But I remember how messy my room always stayed because even thinking of cleaning it caused me to shut down. Teenage angst it was called at the time.  Just being a teenager.  Those mood swings are just hormones.  I did have quite a bit of hormone trouble, thanks to PCOS.  When you have your period at the age of 17 that lasted 6 full months nonstop, your hormones will jerk you around.  But that is a story for a different time.

I met my husband my senior year of high school.  It was one of those “BUT I LOVE HIM” kind of things.  I didn’t know what I was doing. I never had a boyfriend and now there is this guy 10 years my senior that wants me?  He asked my fathers permission for my hand in marriage after only 3 months of knowing me. Dad said “yes, but only if you wait a year before marrying.”

My father was killed just 2 months later. I think maybe had that not happened, I might have eventually emerged from my depression maybe?  I don’t know for sure.  But that one single tragic happening basically cemented me into a way of life. I am still with the man that asked my father for my hand. And it isn’t a lie to say that the only reason that my husband and I lasted those next few years is because he knew Dad.  He talked with him.  Dad approved of him.  I was clinging to him.  And it was so very not easy those first 5 or so years, trust me.  But again, a story for a different time.

Life went on.

7 years ago today, I took my first real steps in managing my depression.  I had gotten to the point that I could physically and mentally tell that if something didn’t change, something was going to go bad.  So I made an appointment with a regular clinic doctor.  And I got on my first antidepressant.  

And today I sit here, literal tears streaming down my face as I write this. Because crying comes so easy.  As does the self-doubt.  The self-depreciation. The self-hatred.  And the outward hatred in general. Because the depression is still just as real as it was 7 years ago. 

In the ensuing 7 years, my depression has ebbed and flowed. I have been on a few antidepressants as I worked my way through them trying to find what worked and what didn’t.  Wellbutrin did the best.  Prozac almost destroyed me.  I still don’t remember whole chunks of time that I was on Prozac.  My memory became mush.  Not only did I stop remembering what I was doing minute to minute, what I ate for breakfast that day, or who I saw the day before.  I also started losing childhood memories.  Things I have always known were now gone.  Things I always prided myself in knowing how to do?  Disappeared.  I have tried therapy, both the in person kind once I got insurance and the BetterHelp.com option. The in person kind helped, as I could spend an hour ranting about anything I wanted to for a full hour to a person that didn’t know anyone or anything in my life and they sat there and took it.  There was a freedom in that release.  Then it stopped because I lost my job due to downsizing.  Again.

Today, my depression is almost at the same level as it was 7 years ago, when it had almost gotten to be too much. And it isn’t as easy to hide as it was 7 years ago or even 20+ years ago.  Hell, 7 years ago I would never have thought of sitting down and writing all this out.  Yet here I am, hiding tears away from my husband as I write about a subject that isn’t unique to me but I am feeling acutely.

So why am I writing this long ass diatribe on a platform I have no friends on today?

Because 7 years ago today, I was just starting on the work needed to get better.  And I am still working on that.  Except now, I am much more vocal about it.  I tell people I’m depressed without hesitation. Some understand.  They get a look in their eyes that is half empathy and half.. something else.  They know it.  Because they feel it.  Then others... well, they never experienced it.  They look at me like I grew a second head sometimes.  How dare I say something like that?  No, I’m just sad, they would say.  Get some sleep, you’ll feel better. What do you have to be depressed about? These words continue in 2019, but happen less so I think.  And that is good.

I also write this because maybe.. just maybe.. someone will read it.  And they will understand.  Or maybe someone who is struggling will read it and realize they are not alone. That someone out there is also struggling.  And that somehow makes them feel better in some sadistic but totally necessary way.

Having depression doesn’t make you a bad person.  Having depression doesn’t make you worthless.  Yes I know the voices are telling you differently.  I know, because my voice won’t fucking shut up.  ‘You’re house is a disaster because you are a shit person.  You should be embarrassed and ashamed to live like you do.  No wonder you don’t have any friends, you can’t invite them over. Why don’t you get up and clean something you filthy slob. Of course you aren’t good at your job, you can barely keep yourself together.  What makes you think you can perform at work at a pace that isn’t dumb?  Damn, are you always eating?  How fat can you possibly get?”

My voice inside my head exaggerates my insecurities. It amplifies my fears. It gives strength to everything that is wrong with me.

And trust me.. all of those things up there were thoughts I had today.  TODAY.

If you find yourself having these thoughts, you aren’t lost.  Find some time in between bouts of self-hate and depreciation to come up with a plan.

And that plan all revolves around small steps.  Physical examples of effort to combat the emotional thoughts brought on by depression.

House is a giant disaster area and the mere thought of all the cleaning that would need to be done just to get it to a level most people would consider “liveable” and leaves you exhausted just to think about?  Pick one thing and just clean it.  Don’t pressure yourself to have a whole room clean by the end of the day or it’s useless.  Clean the dishes.  Too many dishes?  Clean a plate.  Then another if you feel up to it.  Maybe a bowl.  Or switch focus. Dust your TV. Polish a mirror. Straighten pillows on the couch. Take out the trash.  Whatever you can mentally and physically handle, no matter how small, do it. That one step will help quieten that voice. Because you can look at that one small thing and say “See? It’s cleaner.  I know I can do it.  Just give me time.”

Feel like you don’t have friends?  Remember that you don’t have to invite people over to your house to be friends. You can be friends with people you have never even met on the internet.  Through my love of writing, I have met some of the best people I have ever known and I have never met some of them.  Not going to lie, it might be daunting to get started on that.  Where does one begin to even try to find a foothold in this gargantuan place called the internet?  Pick an interest that you love or want to know more about and Google it.  Find a message board to participate in.  Find a chat room with like minded people to talk to.  Like games?  Discord is an up and coming, quickly growing platform where people have whole servers based on players and games. Like books? Google “find friends who like books”.  Feeling adventurous and filled with courage? There is actually a Bumble for Friends.  Seriously.

Feeling like you are worthless at your job?  Good news is, there are metrics for that.  Find an area that you can tell you need improvement in and ask your supervisor for training.  Maybe your company offers its own sort of training program that you can sign up for without your supervisor, if that is too scary.  Find one thing you want to improve, one small thing.  And find the info.

Feeling too fat to care?  Or generally just hate yourself?  One small thing.. find 1 thing that you like about yourself.  One thing. Do you like the way your eyes are shaped, how they reflect your smile when someone manages to make you laugh?  Do you like the particular way a color of lipstick looks on your lips?  Do you like a particular pair of pants that make your butt just look damn good? It doesn’t have to be big and it doesn’t have to be life changing.  But you are not just your fat.  You are not just your stringy hair.  You are not just your pale skin or flat feet.  You are not just those things that you fixate on.  

Are any of these one small things going to magically make your depression disappear?  No, of course not. You may have stretches of time that you are sure that you are actually going backwards instead of making progress despite doing all the small things you can.  And that’s ok.  But those small things add up.  Eventually, that penny becomes a nickel.

Remember about 3 years ago when you started reading this extremely long post, I told you that I feel like I am almost at the same level I was 7 years ago when I started trying to get myself worked on?  I wasn’t lying or exaggerating.  A bus could hit me right now and I might actually appreciate the relief.  I have bitten my nails down to the quick over and over till they just about bled because I like the way the pain feels.  My own form of self harm.

I keep trying despite it. 

You can do this.  You can keep trying, despite it all.  Don’t ignore the voice as that is self-delusion.  But you can certainly scoff at it in disdain in between bouts of anxiety and times of stress. If you haven’t tried medicine, consider it.  If you haven’t tried therapy, I highly recommend it.  If you haven’t tried reaching out to a friend, swallow your fear.  If you haven’t written out an extremely long post on a forum that you have no followers or friends on and you barely use, try it. Because I tell you, my eyes have dried up. And I feel oddly... stronger. And extremely nervous that anyone is ever going to read this at all.  But let’s not dwell on that.

I don’t know you but I believe in you.  Actually, I might know you.  But I still believe in you. I want to help.  I need help. Maybe this has helped someone.

Now to go take that bath I have been screaming at myself about.

[thisdaynews]

Biden campaign confronts enthusiasm gap

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/biden-campaign-confronts-enthusiasm-gap/

Biden campaign confronts enthusiasm gap

Attendance at former Vice President Joe Biden’s launch rally paled next to some of his rivals. | Matt Rourke/AP Photo

2020 Elections

The former veep is leading the Democratic field in all the important categories except one.

He’s dominating in the polls, his fundraising is going gangbusters and he’s showing broad support from key political players in the early presidential states.

So where are the big energetic crowds, the lines around the block to get into Joe Biden’s events?

Story Continued Below

The question is no small matter in a party still recovering from a bitter 2016 defeat — a loss marked by a lack of enthusiasm for an establishment nominee in several critical states.

Attendance at the former vice president’s launch rally paled next to some of his rivals. In his first Iowa visit, he didn’t match the crowds that greeted Elizabeth Warren or even the less well-known Pete Buttigieg in their initial visits. So far, he’s kept his events to smaller venues where there’s little danger of empty seats.

In the eyes of Biden’s progressive critics — as well as President Donald Trump, who has publicly mocked him for it — the seeming lack of excitement or teeming masses at his events is a leading indicator of a lack of passion for his candidacy.

“I started to think the polls were wrong about Biden because it’s not what we’re seeing on the ground,” said Aimee Allison, founder and president of She the People, a national network devoted to promoting women of color.

“Inspiration is the X-factor and we’re waiting for the inspiration from Biden,” she said. “When the inspiration isn’t there, the turnout from the core of the Democratic base — women of color — isn’t there. And then we lose.”

To Biden’s campaign, attendance figures are a meaningless metric. Focusing on crowd size is Trump’s game, they say, an emphasis on style over substance that attempts to turn audience engagement into an argument about the 76-year-old Biden’s energy level.

Crowd size, after all, is an imperfect metric to measure a campaign’s vitality. While it can be a revealing indicator, it still lacks the scientific underpinning of polling or the fixed-dollar figures associated with fundraising. Nor does it account forthe judgmentof elected and influential Democrats across the country.

Just as critics doubted Biden’s popularity before he got in the race, his campaign is confident he’ll have the crowds when he needs them.

“We’re seeing enormous enthusiasm for Joe Biden’s candidacy across the country, beginning the very first day of the campaign when he got over 100,000 contributions — 65,000 of which were brand new to our lists — from all 50 states,” said Biden campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo.

Even so, since announcing his candidacy more than a month ago, Biden has yet to draw anything near the 20,000 people who showed in Oakland to cheer on Kamala Harris when she announced, or the 13,000 who turned out in Brooklyn for Bernie Sanders’ launch.

Last Saturday, when Biden held a rally for his headquarters’ opening in Philadelphia, his campaign estimated the crowd size was 6,000 — a count thatsome local observersthought might be generous. One local elected Democrat who supports Biden privately told POLITICO the rally was smaller and less energetic than expected.

The eventfell far short of the size his surrogates predicted in one of the nation’s largest Democratic cities. Just before Biden formally announced his candidacy last month, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped organize a fundraiser for Biden, had loftier expectations.

“He’s enormously popular here,” Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor, said in a late April interview. “We could get tens and tens of thousands of people … For one rally, I think we could do that.”

The crowd size was similar to what former President Barack Obama drew at a 2016 rally for Hillary Clinton at the same venue. As a candidate, however, in April 2008, some 35,000 people flooded Independence Mall to see Obama — before he was the nominee.

President Trump — for whom crowd size borders on obsession — seized on Biden’s Philadelphia launch, mocking the former vice president two days later at a rival Pennsylvania speech where he exaggerated the smallness of the crowd.

“We have thousands of people … look at the thousands and thousands of people we have,” Trump said at a Montoursville rally, for which his campaign declined to release an estimated crowd count. “They said [Biden] had 600 people … I’d say 150.”

It’s not the first time Trump has needled Biden over crowd sizes. In 2018, when the president and Biden held dueling Nevada rallies in the homestretch of the midterm campaign — and Trump’s Elko rally had more attendees than Biden’s Las Vegas rally — Trump used the occasion to point to Biden’s prior presidential race defeat and joked that Biden “was thrilled that’s one of the biggest crowds he’s ever had.”

It’s not just the size of Biden’s events that are modest,he’s also holding far fewerof them than his primary competitors. Since his launch, he’sonly visited Iowaonce. And while Democrats criss-crossed early presidential primary states during the long Memorial Day weekend, Biden took it off. (On Tuesday, he travels to Houston where he and his wife, Jill, will join an American Federation of Teachers town hall.)

There are signs that the theme could become more prominent as the campaign progresses. One of the president’s top surrogates, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, said Biden won’t have the energy to campaign full time once he gets off “the French work week campaign schedule” that the Democrat is currently on.

“He wants to make America bored again. It’s like he wants to put his audience to sleep,” Gaetz said.

“Trump’s rallies are big and raucous and enthusiastic. And the reason that matters is that in today’s politics, people want to be part of something,” Gaetz said. “Joe Biden’s rallies looks like an event where you would give a gold watch to the Democrat for a lifetime of service.”

James Carville, one of the masterminds behind Bill Clinton’s campaigns for president, said those criticisms miss an essential point about the kind of no-frills-no-thrills campaign he is running.

“He’s never been a candidate who has run on excitement. He has run on ‘you can trust me. I’m a good guy. My heart is in the right place. I’m human. You know me. I’m well-liked,’” Carville said. “Their theory of the case is people are tired of the circus. And it takes an experienced hand to settle everything down to get us back to some era of sanity.”

To that end, some Democrats say Biden’s sometimes listless crowds aren’t cause for concern, but merely reflective of the part of the electorate backing him: older, middle-of-the-road Democrats who are more likely to turn out to the polls than to boisterous mega-rallies.

Polk County Democratic Chair Sean Bagniewski said there weren’t lines around the block for Biden during his Iowa visit, but that at a local Democratic party dinner, the former vice president’s campaign dominated local chatter.

“The polls are picking up the people who might not be going to the rallies, might not be going to the meetings. But the polls can still be right,” Bagniewski said. “The rank-and-file can be reliable Democrats. They’re the people who have been around for awhile.”

Brian Fallon, former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, said that the Biden campaign isn’t going for big crowds and passion and is instead underpinned by “a very pragmatic argument. It’s not an argument designed to electrify. It revolves around electability … It’s not the type of message that inspires a movement. It’s very practical.”

There’s also the matter of Biden’s long tenure in politics. Crowds that flooded to Buttigieg or Beto O’Rourke in this cycle did so in part because they’ve never seen the candidates before.

Tad Devine, who part of Sanders’ insurgent 2016 campaign against Clinton, added that Biden doesn’t need the big crowds the way Sanders did in the last race because the former vice president doesn’t need to show he’s a legitimate candidate — he’s the frontrunner.

“Biden’s not a crowd candidate. He’s not Obama. He’s not Bernie,” Devine said. “Drawing big crowds is more important for Beto [O’Rourke] or Mayor Pete to get into the mix.”

Holly Otterbein, Daniel Lippman, Christopher Cadelago and Anita Kumar contributed to this report.

Read More

[daltonbus0]

How I Turn $20 Into $10,000+ Consistently

As business owners the bar is set incredibly low, ridiculously low in fact, for us to dominate our target markets. If you’ve gone through my Small Business Bootcamp, if you’ve heard me speak, or if you’re one of my clients you’ve heard me preach about Customer Acquisition Cost. It doesn’t matter if the customer was acquired via Facebook Ads, Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords, or your cousin’s girlfriend’s brother flipping a sign on the side of the road. All we’re concerned with is how much was spent to acquire one customer. Example: Marketing Expenses = $1,000 New Customers = 10 Customer Acquisition Cost = $1,000/10 = $100 per new customer

Over the last five years I’ve successfully bootstrapped businesses from $0 to the mid 6 figures and scaled businesses to 7 and 8 figures + using Customer Acquisition Cost as one of the main KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). Too many times we as business owners, as digital marketers, as strategists, focus on the Next customer, the Next transaction. Again, if you’ve heard me speak or if you’re one of my clients you know I call this “Spinning Tires” “Working for the Weekend” or whatever clever analogy I come up with in the moment.

You see in a consumer vacuum you would be able to scale your AdSpend and your Revenues ad infinitum, but that’s not where business takes place. Populations are finite, service areas are defined, and competition ever present.

*I know you came for the turn $20 into $10,000 trick, it’s coming I promise. The backstory is important stay with me*

Let’s change the conversation and look at Customer Acquisition Cost as a KPI for a metric I came up with in the parking lot after a dinner with one of my clients RAC (Relationship Acquisition Cost). My core philosophy is simple and every business I own is built on this premise, businesses are built on people. The people you serve and the people you employ. Take a moment and let that sink in. One more time for the people in the back Businesses are built on the people you serve and the people you employ. Do not forget it. Do not stray from it.

Instead of looking at each transaction as a one and done open and closed invoice. Let’s look at them as relationships. People by their very nature do not like change. I’ve been going to the same barber shop for 7 years now, using the same mechanic since I was 16, and so on. So, let’s use this to our advantage.

Here’s How I Consistently Turn $20 into $10,000

The large players in the service industries, rely on a consistent and steady stream of new customers and for the most part they have the budget to sustain that model. However, the strategy I implement for my businesses and clients is a little different. I’m looking to turn that new customer into a lifelong relationship, I’m looking to become their “guy.”

Here’s How You Do It.

Step 1: Answer your damn phone. (It’s half the battle, seriously not being able to get someone on the phone is the #1 complaint homeowners have) Step 2: Provide a quality service Step 3: Follow Up

Every. Single. Monday. I sit down and write, write not type, a thank you note to the customers from the previous week. I don’t care if they spent $50 or if they spent $10,000, because honestly it doesn’t matter.

Dear Ms. Johnson, I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your business. As a growing business in (insert your city) we rely on customers like you. If there’s anything you need call me directly at (phone #). We look forward to earning your business again in the future.

Sincerely, Alexander A. Laldin

Sometimes I include gift cards to Starbucks or local restaurants, but I always include 5 referral cards. You can offer a kick back if you’d like; experiment with what works.

So… How did I turn $20 into $10,000?

“In God we trust; all others bring data.” ― W. Edwards Deming

These numbers are based on one of my clients, that we’ve tracked over 12 months. (32) Thank You Cards – $4 (32) Stamps – $15.68 Total = $19.68

Clients Average Ticket = $375 50% of Clients Call Him Again = 32 * .50 = 16 * 375 = $6,000 50% of those clients call him 2 or more times = 16 * .50 = 8 * 375 = $3,000 10% of  clients referred AT LEAST one person = 32 * .10 = 3.2 * 375 = $1,200 50% Repeat = 3.2 * 375 = $600 50% 2 or more times = $300

Total = $11,100

I’m going to get all Jon Gruden on you guys for a minute and talk about the intangibles. This strategy snowballs, it starts small and gets large Fast.

1. By sending these cards, you increase the chances of receiving a positive review online while simultaneously decreasing the chance of a negative review. Our businesses are built on people and people aren’t perfect. Not every transaction will be a smooth one. Generally, people go online and leave poor reviews because they want to be heard. Our thank you cards give them a different avenue to be heard. 2. Your past customers will become your biggest advocate, become their person and watch the business come to you for years whether it be family members, friends, or themselves. 3. If the only thing you bring to the table is price, you will be out of business at the first economic downturn. Having quality reviews and recommendations from trusted sources allows you to charge a premium and that’s OKAY.

from https://northgeorgiapowerconnectors.com/how-i-turn-20-into-10000-consistently/ from https://northgeorigapowerconnectors1.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-i-turn-20-into-10000-consistently.html from https://northgeorigap.tumblr.com/post/182009719764 from https://daltonbusiness.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-i-turn-20-into-10000-consistently.html

[northgeorigap]

How I Turn $20 Into $10,000+ Consistently

As business owners the bar is set incredibly low, ridiculously low in fact, for us to dominate our target markets. If you’ve gone through my Small Business Bootcamp, if you’ve heard me speak, or if you’re one of my clients you’ve heard me preach about Customer Acquisition Cost. It doesn’t matter if the customer was acquired via Facebook Ads, Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords, or your cousin’s girlfriend’s brother flipping a sign on the side of the road. All we’re concerned with is how much was spent to acquire one customer. Example: Marketing Expenses = $1,000 New Customers = 10 Customer Acquisition Cost = $1,000/10 = $100 per new customer

Over the last five years I’ve successfully bootstrapped businesses from $0 to the mid 6 figures and scaled businesses to 7 and 8 figures + using Customer Acquisition Cost as one of the main KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). Too many times we as business owners, as digital marketers, as strategists, focus on the Next customer, the Next transaction. Again, if you’ve heard me speak or if you’re one of my clients you know I call this “Spinning Tires” “Working for the Weekend” or whatever clever analogy I come up with in the moment.

You see in a consumer vacuum you would be able to scale your AdSpend and your Revenues ad infinitum, but that’s not where business takes place. Populations are finite, service areas are defined, and competition ever present.

*I know you came for the turn $20 into $10,000 trick, it’s coming I promise. The backstory is important stay with me*

Let’s change the conversation and look at Customer Acquisition Cost as a KPI for a metric I came up with in the parking lot after a dinner with one of my clients RAC (Relationship Acquisition Cost). My core philosophy is simple and every business I own is built on this premise, businesses are built on people. The people you serve and the people you employ. Take a moment and let that sink in. One more time for the people in the back Businesses are built on the people you serve and the people you employ. Do not forget it. Do not stray from it.

Instead of looking at each transaction as a one and done open and closed invoice. Let’s look at them as relationships. People by their very nature do not like change. I’ve been going to the same barber shop for 7 years now, using the same mechanic since I was 16, and so on. So, let’s use this to our advantage.

Here’s How I Consistently Turn $20 into $10,000

The large players in the service industries, rely on a consistent and steady stream of new customers and for the most part they have the budget to sustain that model. However, the strategy I implement for my businesses and clients is a little different. I’m looking to turn that new customer into a lifelong relationship, I’m looking to become their “guy.”

Here’s How You Do It.

Step 1: Answer your damn phone. (It’s half the battle, seriously not being able to get someone on the phone is the #1 complaint homeowners have) Step 2: Provide a quality service Step 3: Follow Up

Every. Single. Monday. I sit down and write, write not type, a thank you note to the customers from the previous week. I don’t care if they spent $50 or if they spent $10,000, because honestly it doesn’t matter.

Dear Ms. Johnson, I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your business. As a growing business in (insert your city) we rely on customers like you. If there’s anything you need call me directly at (phone #). We look forward to earning your business again in the future.

Sincerely, Alexander A. Laldin

Sometimes I include gift cards to Starbucks or local restaurants, but I always include 5 referral cards. You can offer a kick back if you’d like; experiment with what works.

So… How did I turn $20 into $10,000?

“In God we trust; all others bring data.” ― W. Edwards Deming

These numbers are based on one of my clients, that we’ve tracked over 12 months. (32) Thank You Cards – $4 (32) Stamps – $15.68 Total = $19.68

Clients Average Ticket = $375 50% of Clients Call Him Again = 32 * .50 = 16 * 375 = $6,000 50% of those clients call him 2 or more times = 16 * .50 = 8 * 375 = $3,000 10% of  clients referred AT LEAST one person = 32 * .10 = 3.2 * 375 = $1,200 50% Repeat = 3.2 * 375 = $600 50% 2 or more times = $300

Total = $11,100

I’m going to get all Jon Gruden on you guys for a minute and talk about the intangibles. This strategy snowballs, it starts small and gets large Fast.

1. By sending these cards, you increase the chances of receiving a positive review online while simultaneously decreasing the chance of a negative review. Our businesses are built on people and people aren’t perfect. Not every transaction will be a smooth one. Generally, people go online and leave poor reviews because they want to be heard. Our thank you cards give them a different avenue to be heard. 2. Your past customers will become your biggest advocate, become their person and watch the business come to you for years whether it be family members, friends, or themselves. 3. If the only thing you bring to the table is price, you will be out of business at the first economic downturn. Having quality reviews and recommendations from trusted sources allows you to charge a premium and that’s OKAY.

  from https://northgeorgiapowerconnectors.com/how-i-turn-20-into-10000-consistently/ from https://northgeorigapowerconnectors1.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-i-turn-20-into-10000-consistently.html