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kanralovesu · 3 years ago

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Your daily reminder that Auteur Theory is B.S. and you don't need to suffer for your art, re: Pompo the Cinephile

I should have expected this anime-movie-about-movies to bow down before the dangerous claims of Auteur Theory (the idea that a singular person can infuse a creative work with enough zest that they deserve godlike reverence). This type of thinking is pervasive in Hollywood so you'd be hard pressed to find a “movie-about-movies” that doesn’t fall into this trap.

What surprised me more is Pompo’s glorification of suffering for your art. While this is present in many similar movies, most portray it as an obstacle the character must overcome, the source of the tension in the movie. Few outright state that you need to work yourself to death to be an artist, because well, most people would say that’s a very obviously bad take.

Spoilers Below!

The movie very clearly wants us to see the parallels between Gene and the titular Maestro in the movie he’s making (they practically beat you over the head with it). Gene’s movie even subverts the standard cliche character arc of the disgruntled old artist learning to love again by having said artist stay isolated at the end of the movie but just make good art this time. A more standard arc would involve the Maestro reconciling with his past mistakes (like abandoning his wife and kids) and becoming a better person. This feeds into why I think Pompo the Cinephile is not just a movie I disagree with, but a badly written movie: Gene and the Maestro have no character arc. They do not change over the course of the movie. Both of them start the movie sacrificing everything to become Auteurs, and they end the movie just being better Auteurs. In The Maestros case its because he had a little camping trip but in Gene’s case there isn’t an impetus to this change he was just always awesome and he was finally able to obtain enough power to show everyone how awesome he is.

I would have much rather the movie dive deeper into several other interesting themes that it entertained for a single scene and then threw out:

The need to “kill your darlings” shown when Gene cuts both his favorite scene and the scene that he ad-libbed from the final movie. The reason for this is never expanded on besides its ties to “suffering for your art”. Because of course the reason you need to “kill your darlings” is just because being an artists is all about feeling bad!

The spontaneity of film making when Gene and co adapted to the rain and the goat situation. Again there was no dissection of why this is a good thing just an expectation that we all know this is a cool good thing that directors do and thus evidence that Gene is a cool good director.

The lack of differences between B-Movies and True Kino (as said by Pompo herself). In a similar vain, the meaning behind the phrase “Its easy to make a tear-jerker movie but its difficult to make a silly movie”. Again this is just kind of thrown out there without any explanation.

Most of all I wish the movie dove deeper into its claim that shorter movies are better because good directors can convey their messages concisely. I think this is a really cool perspective that I have complicated feeling on. On one hand, a concise vision does seem good but on the other hand there are several great longform TV shows. I really want to engage more with this discussion so I’m sad that its almost totally unexplored in the movie!

And that’s my scathing review of Pompo the Cinephile! Overall it was still a decent movie and visually stunning. I’d much rather watch it than a “boring” bad movie. In that way I agree with Pompo herself! The boardroom scene certainly felt like a true B-Movie Jump the Shark moment! In fact, its almost perfect parody that Gene ended up winning so many Oscars for his Oscar-bait movie and similarly I ended up lured in to Pompo the Cinephile by pandering depictions of the film industry I love so much. Final verdict: An entertaining 6/10.

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bisluthq · 4 years ago

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YOU GUESSED IT... SWIFTIESLEUTH IS REBRANDING

Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I started a Tumblr called Swiftiesleuth to talk about my long-standing belief that mega famous pop star Taylor Swift could be a teensy liiiil bit of a fruitcake (/affectionate) and that the 2017 album Reputation is likely inspired by more than one muse.

It was a pretty simple concept for a fandom Tumblr tbh born out of a deep rooted boredom in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But because I am canonically fucked in the head, instead of it being a normal ass Tumblr blog, this project soon became this:

Which is to say this very straightforward concept for a fandom Tumblr blog evolved to also to talk about a whole lot of other things like: celebrity culture in general and the messy shit famous people get up to and politics and the concept of fame and the weirdness of fandom and conspiracy theories and the fluidity and complexities of human sexuality and life advice and lyrical analyses and Riverdale and funny anecdotes from my life and just... the random stuff that pops into my head that I - and as it turned out others - appeared to find interesting.

I began by shouting into the void, but then the void shouted right back.

And so here we are.

...

We’re rebranding.

Swiftiesleuth is no more.

We’re Bislut HQ now.

How did I get to the name? Here’s the most simple origin story. Here are more thoughts on it.

Basically some people on a forum known as The L Chat were r00d about me and it kinda did the opposite of what they were aiming for because it made me feel inspired and empowered and actually made me want to make other people feel the way I was feeling in that moment. So that’s what’s happening. We’re making bisluts a thing now.

And to be clear: being a bislut is very much a state of mind rather than a sexual orientation. It’s like being a Derry Girl. It means you’re embracing the culture. You’re challenging heteronormativity and monosexualities as defaults, even if you know you yourself are fitting into those molds. You’re challenging societal norms and slut shaming and a golden number. You’re challenging the binaries of gender. You’re even challenging allosexuality. Ace folk are 100% valid and 100% bisluts if they feel so inclined. Like I say… It’s a state of mind.

And so you’re all invited.

Is it just a name change? Why the big fuss?

NAH. It isn’t just a name change. It’s also part of a rollout of fun new projects and brand new types of content to keep you engaged and entertained and interested and - on occasion - even educated.

Firstly, we’re launching a website!

Secondly, we’re using that website to launch a SUBSCRIPTION BASED WEEKLY NEWSLETTER called Dispatches from Bislut Culture.

What’s Dispatches from Bislut Culture?

Dispatches is a weekly newsletter that will include:

Original content that’s either too wild or too speculative for this Tumblr.

Longform op eds that we feel won’t receive much engagement here and will wind up buried by asks, and should rather be read on a leisurely Sunday arvie.

A highlights reel of the activity on the Tumblr - I know lots of you have lowkey complained about how insanely active this page is and how it’s hard to keep up so guess what? I’m gonna do it for you.

AND BECAUSE WHY TF NOT:

Agony AuNAT UNCHAINED AND UNCESORED EDITION - if you have stuff to ask that’s… ya know… WILD… email us at [email protected] with the subject as AGONY AUNAT UNCHAINED and I’ll answer subscribers, either formally in the newsletter or if it’s like… THAT WILD I’ll reply to the email (but only if you’ve subscribed).

How much is this gonna cost? For now, it’ll be $5 per month for 4 comprehensive weekly newsletters and sundry content I throw in.

My dudes [/slur] that’s less than ordering lunch.

That’s $1.25 a week.

And you’re gonna get all of the above + SURPRISES!

Why are you moving to a paid content model?

I am a professional writer. I spend a huge amount of time that I could spend pitching and crafting work for other avenues working on this... every single day, no weekends. And while it obviously brings me joy, it’s also… something I’m good at because it is my real world job and I work really hard at it. So at a certain point it’s just about being practical.

I would honestly much rather do this than write stuff I don’t care about. I would much rather work on this than write B2B advertorials. But I also need to eat tbh. It’s kind of that simple.

While I will always provide free content for you - on both the Tumblr and tbh the new website - I’m going to start charging for things that I HOPE YOU WANT.

If you have suggestions, complaints or general issues feel free to reach out to the email I’ve mentioned: [email protected] and I’ll try to get to them.

In the meanwhile, I hope you check out the new website and sign up for the newsletter and additional members only content by subscribing!

The first newsletter will be in your inbox on Sunday morning (or afternoon depending on timezone… or Saturday… idk timezones are weird man, you’ll get it dw).

And there’ll be some sneaky, fun ass members-only content up on the website ALREADY UP TODAY for those who do sign up.

xxx

Nat & Sim

#nat talks swiftiesleuth #swiftisleuth signing out

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copperbadge · 6 years ago

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mangy-mongrel replied to your post “Hey, so I was thinking about how I give Kudos on AO3 and I'm really...”

Also I find it interesting to read that you don't actually read much fanfic! Out of sheer interest, how much media do you typically consume in say a month?

I mean, I suppose it depends on how we’re defining media and to an extent possibly how we’re defining “consume”.

I consume a LOT of nonfiction -- I listen to probably at least an hour a day of nonfiction podcasts, mainly when I’m commuting but also sometimes at work. I do a lot of reading for my job, which is exclusively nonfiction; news in the morning for our news aggregation project, research across a variety of topics for my daily document prep. And lately we’ve had to read a lot of woo-woo office-improvement nonsense because of the management shift.

On Tuesdays in particular, for Stream, I watch a lot of nonfiction visual entertainment, cooking videos primarily but also stuff like the Hydraulic Press Channel and How It’s Made style videos, which aren’t necessarily super educational but are “real life” stuff. I don’t watch much traditional TV -- my recent NCIS all-seasons watch was in part for background noise, and since then I’ve been watching my mother’s favorite show, When Calls The Heart, but that’s off-and-on and again, often background noise (which Hallmark is pretty good for), but that’s about it. I go to the movies about once a month, though I haven’t been lately because April was hectic and May was expensive. (I go more often in the early part of the year after my parents have given me the traditional Christmas Arclight Giftcard :D).

I also read a lot of longform journalism, and of course here on Tumblr I read a lot of lifestyle and light political theory type stuff.

In terms of fiction, I consume far less than I used to in my late 20s and early 30s. I’ll read the odd novel here and there but so few of them are really worth the time that I’ll often stop a few chapters in. I’m still working on finishing reading all of the Nero Wolfe books, but because I read so much for work, reading for pleasure as well can be a bit exhausting, whether it’s fiction or fanfiction. And I don’t process fiction particularly well when I listen to it -- podcasts you can often drop in and out of, attentionwise, while audiobooks you really have to listen and remember a SHITLOAD of names. Often when reading fiction, even if I like what I’m reading, I find I get very sleepy, which limits the amount of reading I can do.

I used to have several AO3 tags in my RSS subscriptions, which was actually quite interesting because after certain movies you could see the demographic in those tags visibly shift -- I stopped reading Steve/Tony after Civil War because there was a rapid transition from romances to primarily divorce narratives, which are fine but not my thing, and I stopped reading Steve/Bucky and Steve/Bucky/Sam after Winter Soldier because so many of them just...weren’t very well written (understandable, I think a lot of young writers found Bucky extremely appealing as a romantic tragic figure and while that’s not a bad thing, young writers are young writers and aren’t always adept, I was the same when I was 14). It wasn’t that I stopped liking the ships, it was that I stopped wanting to wade through 100 fics I wasn’t interested in to find the one fic I was, and the volume of some tags became a little overwhelming. Which is why I mostly read fics now that my friends write or recommend, because I trust their skills/tastes.

I’d like to engage more with fandom, and I’d like to write more, but there are only so many hours in the day, and the cats and the ukulele sometimes occupy the spaces novels and fanfic used to.

#mangy-mongrel

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margaretbeagle · 4 years ago

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How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture

Content marketing is a challenging discipline. Content that’s engaging, entertaining, useful and informative grabs eyeballs, builds connections with potential customers, and establishes your brand as one that’s worth following. But doing this well is easier said than done.

Social media marketing spends reached 13.3% of global marketing budgets in February 2020, the highest they’ve been for the last two years, and they’re expected to keep on increasing by 62% over the next five years. But despite these elevated budgets, marketers are saying that social media marketing is not contributing significantly to their sales and revenue, indicating that a significant number of marketers aren’t finding the right ways to produce the right content and use it effectively for lead generation and nurture.

It takes a lot of time and money to create original content, which is a big part of why content curation is so appealing. You don’t have the resources to generate the huge amount of content that today’s consumers expect, plus you’ll appear churlish if you only ever promote your own work. Curated content helps you project expertise across a wider range of topics, while consumers also appreciate that your curation efforts help them to find valuable material among the serious overload of content that’s flooding their channels every day.

At the same time, you can’t neglect the need to publish a certain amount of original content. Owned media is what truly drives the customer experience and strengthens your SEO to keep high-intent organic traffic heading your way. The question is, then, how do you balance created vs. curated content for the best lead capture impact?

Maximizing Leads Driven by Created Content

Content creation for lead generation isn’t a one-and-done event. You need to keep promoting your content and nurturing the leads that it generates. Craft landing pages with the same effort that you invest in lead magnets themselves, ensuring that they are easy to complete, compelling, and grab the most important details from the visitor.

Original content establishes your thought leadership, but many marketers still haven’t mastered the art of lead generation with created content, with 79% saying that lead nurture is somewhat or very challenging. Usually, that’s because they aren’t using created content strategically.

It’s long been accepted that personalization is crucial for marketing success, and yet, 63% of marketers are still using generic lead nurture content without differentiating for different audience segments or stages of the funnel. The biggest factor in content marketing success is your ability to connect with the values, pain points, and interests of your audience, so use personalized popups and retargeting ads.

Borrow a trick from e-commerce abandoned cart campaigns and use retargeting ads to remind leads that they didn’t finish reading a longform piece, just like you remind them about products they left in their cart.

How to Use Curated Content to Generate Leads

We’re used to lead capture involving gated landing pages that gather details before leads access valuable original content, but it’s not possible to do that with curated content. Curated content needs a different approach.

There is a risk that curated content will “leak” leads to the original content creators, leaving you empty-handed. You can use e tools like Scoop.it to create hosted content hubs, turning your website into a destination for discovering and reading niche-relevant content published all around the web. You can also turn your curated content into a weekly email newsletter, or a custom “best of” roundup blog post.

Think of curated content as a relationship builder. Use content from allies in complementary industries that can boost your brand, or from third parties like academic research papers that relate to your field. Mention the original content creators in your posts, both out of courtesy to say “thanks” and to maximize reach among their followers as well as your own.

When you’re sharing curated content on social media, your profile becomes the main lead generation tool. Optimize your profile with links and CTAs that direct the reader to your website or blog. Better yet, you can use vcita’s customer communications suite to integrate a self-service client portal with your Facebook Page or Google My Business profile, so people can enter your funnel with minimal friction upon clickthrough.

Scanning the headline and hitting “share” isn’t enough to generate leads. You need to read the whole piece and summarize the insights and/or data it holds. Add a line or two to explain why this content is worth consuming, and include your own reaction to spark a conversation with your audience, as with the below example.

Adding your perspective helps your audience to connect you with the curated content. If you don’t make a connection between the content and your brand, the lead won’t give you the credit for your hard work and you won’t succeed in nurturing or generating new leads for your business.

Go one step further when you personalize curated content by linking it with your recent interactions with your lead, or with the lead’s interests.

The Struggle of Curated vs. Created Content

One of the biggest challenges associated with attributing lead capture impact to original vs. third-party content shares is that measuring social media impact is hard in general.

One-third of marketers say that they don’t know how many of their leads return for future nurturing, and one out of every five marketers isn’t certain that social content has driven any significant value, according to research from Buffer.

Make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of measuring your lead capture performance on a post by post basis, whether it’s created or curated content, because you’ll just miss the wood for the trees.

It’s incredibly rare for a customer to convert after seeing just one social post, no matter how awesome it is, and yet collectively, all your posts have an impact on the final purchase decision. You’ll need to be creative with your metrics to track that impact.

For example, people like to bookmark content links as a reminder to look into things at another date in the future. In cases like this, a given post may have assisted with conversion, but the lead didn’t engage with it in a measurable way. Or consumers screenshot an Instagram post and share it on WhatsApp with a recommendation for your business, encouraging a friend to go straight to your homepage and make an appointment. Someone might see your content on Facebook on their mobile, and then sign up for your email newsletter through their work laptop when they get to the office.

These are just a few of the ways that people are impacted by your content, but it doesn’t make it onto your radar.

A Better Way to Measure Lead Generation

There are many better ways to measure lead generation than last-click attribution, which doesn’t show any of the interactions that led up to the point of conversion.

Devesh Khanal of Grow and Convert recommends using first click attribution too, while bearing in mind that it’s still imperfect. “A prospect might find out about your company from reading a piece of content, and come back at a later point to convert,” he says. “If you were just measuring success by last-click attribution, you’d never know that your content influenced the conversion. First-click attribution gives us a broader picture of how content plays a role in acquisition.��

You should also look up to six months back in your feed to see which posts received the best response from your audience. Check for trends in audience engagement using social media analytics like Hootsuite or Buffer to help you compare likes, views, etc. between posts.

Buzzsumo also helps you see which posts usually get the best reactions from your target audience, and then compare those against the responses you receive. Scoop.it’s analytics can show you impressions and interactions across all posts associated with a specific topic tag, which is especially helpful.

After a few weeks, you should be able to start seeing parallels in trends.

Set up structured experiments by taking a baseline measurement of social media engagement statistics and creating a 90/10 mix of curated vs. created content. Let your new mix run for three weeks, then measure your metrics again. Next, flip the ratio to 90/10 created vs. curated content, and measure after another three weeks.

You might also do well to test run the 5-3-2 “recipe” developed by T. A. McCann.

Created and Curated Content Working Together

For effective lead generation and nurture, you need both original created and curated content, but you’ll also need strategy. Ensure that both curated and original content is personalized, relevant, and high quality. Add CTAs to your profile bio to help maximize the benefit you see from being a trusted destination for curated content. And make sure to use smart measurement techniques and experiment structures to track and compare the success of different content mixes to find what works best for you.

The post How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture appeared first on Scoop.it Blog.

How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture published first on https://improfitninja.weebly.com/

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devontroxell · 4 years ago

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How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture

Maximizing Leads Driven by Created Content

How to Use Curated Content to Generate Leads

Go one step further when you personalize curated content by linking it with your recent interactions with your lead, or with the lead’s interests.

The Struggle of Curated vs. Created Content

One of the biggest challenges associated with attributing lead capture impact to original vs. third-party content shares is that measuring social media impact is hard in general.

These are just a few of the ways that people are impacted by your content, but it doesn’t make it onto your radar.

A Better Way to Measure Lead Generation

There are many better ways to measure lead generation than last-click attribution, which doesn’t show any of the interactions that led up to the point of conversion.

After a few weeks, you should be able to start seeing parallels in trends.

You might also do well to test run the 5-3-2 “recipe” developed by T. A. McCann.

Created and Curated Content Working Together

The post How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture appeared first on Scoop.it Blog.

How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture published first on https://wabusinessapi.tumblr.com/

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aaronmaurer · 5 years ago

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Movies I Liked in 2019

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

Despite everything else going on in the world, 2019 was a pretty good year for movies! I saw a lot of things I really enjoyed (thanks AMC A-List!) and managed to avoid all of the live action Disney remakes. While it was hard to whittle down my list to a self-imposed/arbitrary 10, these stood out as efforts I can see myself returning to again and again.

10. The Public

This low-key release from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez is a deeply humanist look at systemic failures to address homelessness in American cities. During a bitterly cold winter in Cincinnati, a group of people decide to occupy a public library overnight rather than be forced onto the life-threatening streets, and media, law enforcement and politicians all attempt to shape the narrative. With a supporting cast including Michael K Williams, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright and Alec Baldwin, this one is worth seeking out (and has some great shots of Cincy as well).

9. Toy Story 4

Did Toy Story need a fourth entry? I wouldn’t have thought so, but leave it to the magicians at Pixar to find new ways to animate (eh? eh?) these beloved characters – and introduce some great new ones. With the additions of Tony Hale’s Forky, Keanu Reeves’ Duke Caboom and Key & Peele’s Bunny & Ducky, this is easily the funniest Toy Story to date. However, it still packs an emotional wallop as well: if you can get through Gabby Gabby’s final scene with dry eyes you may not have a heart.

8. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

While not nearly as successful at the box office as its predecessor, the LEGO Movie sequel is just as funny, engaging and surprisingly moving. While the real-world metanarrative is no longer a surprise, the shift from parent-child relationship to that of siblings provides ample storytelling fodder that I related to even more than the original. And for the record, this was the first major movie released this year to feature a 5-year time jump – and time travel shenanigans (looking at you, Endgame).

7. The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Chiwetel Ejiofor adapted this true story of a boy in Malawi who devises a way to save his village from severe famine (his writing and directorial debut). The film doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of life in under-resourced areas but also embodies hope and ingenuity that know no socioeconomic or geographic bounds.

6. A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

I’ll admit I was skeptical upon hearing Tom Hanks would be playing Mr. Rogers – he’s a great actor but doesn’t bear much of a resemblance in appearance or demeanor. However, his success in the part comes from not trying to technically imitate Rogers as much as embody his spirit of decency, sincerity and kindness. The fact that this is not a Rogers biopic, but rather a story of his impact on the life of a journalist who is wrestling with cynicism, anger and unforgiveness, also helps matters (what a year for movies based on longform journalism! See also: Richard Jewell, Dark Waters). The writers and director Marielle Heller take some interesting chances including a cheeky framing device and transitions using Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood-inspired miniatures that help make this film something {ahem} special.

5. The Current War: Director’s Cut

(Note: This film was originally set for release in 2017 and an unfinished version screened at film festivals that year to critical disdain. The Weinstein scandal mired it in development hell, but it got a second life in a new, finished version this fall as the “Director’s Cut.”)

This story of the “war of the currents,” as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse raced to electrify America at the turn of the 20th century, snuck into theaters under-the-radar at the end of the summer but I am so glad I had the chance to see it on the big screen. Far from a conventional biopic or historical epic, there is a beautiful lyricism on display here with sweeping camera movements, innovative shot compositions, gorgeous use of light and color and a enveloping musical score. For a film that tracks multiple characters and locations for over a decade, there are moments of touching poignancy and intimacy that prevent it from becoming impersonal. I found it utterly compelling and transporting, though your mileage may vary.

4. Avengers: Endgame

It’s a rare Hollywood blockbuster that allows its characters time to grieve and process trauma, and even acknowledges the futility and emptiness of revenge. Endgame manages all that before launching into a time travel adventure and an ultimate showdown that pays off the 21 Marvel films that came before over the past 11 years. I’m sure it doesn’t make sense at all as a standalone, but for fans of these movies it was a satisfying conclusion to this era of the MCU, filled with humor and heart.

3. Little Women

I have no connection to the source material at all, having never read Louisa May Alcott’s book or seen any other screen adaptation, so I cannot compare it to anything that’s come before. I can say Greta Gerwig’s follow-up to Lady Bird is simply fantastic, with an engaging cast and beautiful cinematography that radiates warmth. I’ve read that the novel’s chronology is linear and this movie rearranges it with flashbacks, creating juxtapositions that reveal a great deal about characters, choices and the passage of time. It all leads to a somewhat meta finale that serves as a salute to the creative voice.

2. Ad Astra

As with the likes of Gravity and First Man in recent years, James Gray’s Ad Astra recognizes that traveling to our inner spaces is as transformative as venturing to the stars. Set in a near future where the moon is a rundown spaceport and Mars has been colonized, Brad Pitt plays an astronaut tasked with finding out what happened to his father’s missing mission to Neptune decades earlier. Atop a fascinating backdrop of space futurism, the film is a meditation on the loneliness and isolation of space and the meaningfulness of community and connection.

1. Knives Out

This relentlessly entertaining murder mystery from Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom, The Last Jedi) not only satisfies from a plot and character perspective, but delivers a level of social commentary and critique of white privilege akin to Get Out without feeling didactic about it. The cast is terrific all-around, but Daniel Craig’s starring turn as thickly drawling Detective Benoit Blanc is note-perfect, especially as he chews his way through Johnson’s hilariously meaty dialogue.

Bonus! Honorable Mentions:

Apollo 11 – Comprised of newly discovered and restored NASA footage of the first moon landing, this fresh and immediate documentary brings history to vivid life without leaning on talking heads or narration. (View alongside last year’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man for an even richer experience.)

Spider-Man: Far From Home and Captain Marvel – two more solid additions to the MCU that are honestly probably in my Top 10, but it seemed excessive to give 3 slots to Marvel and Endgame was the clear standout. That said, Gyllenhall’s performance as Mysterio was all types of fun (see also: his gleefully unhinged turn as “Mr. Music” in Netflix’s John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch special) in the former and directors Bowden and Fleck bring warmth and humanity to a great buddy comedy in the latter.

A Hidden Life – Terrance Mallick’s best work since Tree Of Life tells the true story of a rural Austrian farmer who refuses to swear a loyalty oath to Hitler and is arrested for treason. The three-hour run time could have probably been trimmed but its thought-provoking meditations on resistance and conscience get under your skin.

Klaus – A Netflix original that presents an origin story for the legend of Santa Claus sounded a bit rote to me, but its story contains surprising emotional weight (that honestly brought me to tears a few times) and it’s gorgeously animated in a style that finds a groundbreaking medium between 2D and 3D.

#film

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trashthebreadburnthecircus-blog · 5 years ago

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001. Content: The New Global Religion

One central thesis, as I look over my list of topics, that seems pretty clear throughout is that content and entertainment really are a new religion. And I don't mean this in some kind of glib way. The book and subsequent TV series American Gods examines this very idea. If religion ever really could've been considered the opiate of the masses, our current Beloved and Precious never-ending stream of Content is pure, Grade-A Oxycontin, and we don't even need a prescription for the shit.

Think about this: a person who grew up in a Judeo-Christian framework might say, as they are going through a hard time, that Jesus is with them. But we all know that this is a metaphor, that they mean the spirit of Jesus is with them, not an actual person standing right next to them. And this could apply to any number of faith-based religions. Even if you include the tangible goods of a faith– a prayer rug or a cross are the first two that jump to mind – to ground metaphor and spirituality into something you can touch, these will be left lacking against our New God, Content.

Cause Content doesn't care what faith you subscribe to. Content is there for you in a very real, very tangible way (as tangible as video streams and bandwidth might be). You can pull out your phone, or your computer, or watch your TV, and there's Content, only asking for your time and attention (and some small amount of money, of course) as tithes. Your house of worship is wherever you have a signal. You don't have to go anywhere, because it'll come to you. Where religious faith is stuck in the past and can only try and comment on current events in the framework of ancient texts, Content is ever malleable, ever responsive, always new, always fresh (even when it's a remake). Movies, shows, music, social media posts (and all they can encompass) – Content can and will change forms, as long as you stay engaged and sacrifice your eyeballs.

You can easily be polytheistic nowadays. Content doesn't mind if you worship Allah. Just make sure you have room to worship the Algorithm as well.

And I don't mean this any of this as a scold. Hell, I'm as guilty of this shit as anyone reading this. I've binged series, read Twitter Threads, watched and liked IG videos, read the newest longform oral histories, gotten lost in YouTube K-holes, and throughout it all Content has smiled at my appreciation and disdain equally. After a day of work, be it hard, mind-numbing, or any combination of the two, and the d-needs of Maslow's hierarchy are all up in your shit, what do you wanna do: interpret some old-ass religious texts and figure out how they apply today? Or you want to take a more passive role and let someone else examine the world for you? To say nothing of the fact that it'll give you social status and possibly even An Interesting Take on The World (more on this in a future post).

The craziest thing about all this is how subtly it happened. Can you imagine the idea that TV stations in the past would at some point just run test patterns, because there wasn't any content to fill that space? To return to a previous metaphor, if media was like an opiate in pill form, at first, we only took one pill a day, per the doctor's orders. But over the past 70 years, we graduated to 20, 50, 100 pills every couple hours, baby, and keep em coming, cause we can't get enough.

So what, you might say? The world is hard, and complicated, and we all need to turn off our brains sometimes. I don't totally disagree with that (another future topic will address this in greater depth). But all this is a preface so that we might figure out the following: is Content a panacea, or a placebo? Can it lead to opening people's minds, or even actual progressive action, in the real world? And on the flip side, can it – has it – idealized some of our worst possible behaviors, and simply presented them as The Truth, not just in the fake world of Content but the actual, real world?

The next two posts will examine these ideas. Until then–

#bread #circuses #media #entertainment #content #writings

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d4advancedmedia · 6 years ago

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How Much Organic Traffic Can Content Marketing Generate? https://ift.tt/2SqWxtz

We at D4 Advanced Media produce razor-sharp, results-driven content marketing. Part of our formula is delivering attractive copywriting that advertises products and services while simultaneously invigorating brand awareness. Our content writing stimulates multipage website exploration and brand engagement via educational and entertaining articles. We’re never satisfied with our understanding of content marketing. We constantly research industry trends and new techniques for producing better content. In this article we look at the relationship between great content and organic traffic growth through the lens of content-juggernaut, TransferWise.

Who Is TransferWise, and Why Are They A Content Creation Powerhouse?

As we stated earlier, our hunger for information about content marketing is robust and ongoing. As such, we regularly read, watch and listen to industry other experts to learn what caused them to fail and what caused them to succeed.

We enjoy the Marketing Scoop Podcast on SEMrush.com. The podcast is hosted by internet marketing thought-leaders, David Bain and Judith Lewis. They co-interview industry experts about various digital marketing and SEO topics with the aim of delivering actionable tips to the audience.

We found a ton of benefit in their season 2, episode 19, podcast entitled “How TransferWise Reached Over 1 Million Organic Visits Per Month”. The guest was Fabrizio Ballarini, head of Organic Growth & SEO for TransferWise.com.

During 2018, TransferWise.com reached over 1,000,000 organic visits per month. The company specializes in international money transfers, but they also produce content on currency, travel, finance, business and more. They attribute their 1,000,000+ organic visits per month to longform articles and exhaustive how-to guides. They produce approximately 300 articles / month in 5-6 different languages. They employ 10 to 15 people on their editing and production team. That team uses a highly-detailed formula alongside professional writers to create actionable content that users find irresistible.

How Did TransferWise Shatter the Limitations of Content on Organic Traffic Growth?

In the next section of this blog, we relay questions and answers from the subject podcast. This section includes paraphrases and direct quotes from the podcast. We adapted some of the questions for brevity and clarity. We did our best to capture the intent of the interviewers and the guest.

According to Ballarini, one SEO and a few developers started the Organic Growth and SEO team at TransferWise. They started with 15k visits per month with a few well-performing articles, but no real team driving those articles. Initial traffic was primarily branded, but as word of mouth spread, they started shifting their efforts to organic traffic.

Extensive content marketing didn’t really begin until TransferWise was four years old.

“We already had a very good product. We already had a very viral product as well. A lot of our customers were recommending TransferWise to their friends. Therefore, there was a lot of brand traffic when we first started this. But, pretty much the website was one page, the homepage, and a couple FAQ articles. The website was not ranking for anything that wasn’t branded. I guess our objective as a team was not to necessarily increase the brand search, but to just increase our coverage on non-brand. Because we had a lot of team [members] on the referral programs and other activities,” said Ballarini.

Does TransferWise produce thousands of articles that each draw in a bit of traffic, or does it have a few superstar articles that draw most of the traffic with other articles each drawing just a bit?

“There are certain topics that are high-performing within a breadth of articles. One key element of us growing was that we had a high authority domain, but we had no content. A key element was just nailing the publishing element and the keyword research, publishing and everything related,” said Ballarini.

“On day one beyond traffic, we didn’t know what was converting. We didn’t know what was actually driving customers. We pretty much had to carpet bomb a bunch of topics hoping that this was going to work. Slowly, we were getting content to rank, drive traffic and drive customers. [Then] we were refining topics and writing more about topics that were performing. I guess we kind of iterated this process at scale. Now we have 10+ people that are working on editing and publishing content. We have SEOs that look after these operations,” said Ballarini.

Why does TransferWise devote so much effort to organic search?

“Organic search is not necessarily the channel that can give you very fast and immediate results. But, at that time we understood that it was important, so we decided to invest for the long-run. Even when it comes to content, we are very focused on the long-term. Every investment that we do, we judge performance and payback on a 12 to 24-month basis, and then we iterate against those financial constraints. You need to have conviction around doing this for a good amount of time before you actually see results. The first 12 to 14 months of producing all that content, it wasn’t looking as rosy as it is now,” said Ballarini.

How did you persuade your company leadership to apply so many resources to organic search and content over such a long timeframe with few upfront results to justify the expenditure?

Ballarini advised that all the departments at TransferWise operate independently, so no justification between subordinates and superiors was required. That said, the company has financial constraints and thought was applied to not burning through money for the sake of doing so.

It wasn’t as though there were no upfront results. It was more like the first six months of results were looked at with a casual eye, and then they wrote subsequent articles using the well-performing aspects of the first batch. At this point, analysis of historic content has given them enough insight to expect x-growth based on article-type-x.

What characteristics do your most successful articles have? Are there commonalities in article length and keyword choice? How do you decide which topics to cover?

“At some point after starting and testing various topics, you get to some confidence around various topics and the impact of those keywords. That was one way that we used to prioritize.

You correctly mentioned we published last year, I think 1,300 articles in 5-6 languages. Obviously, the more we scale globally the more we can leverage insights from the English-speaking market. That is relatively easy.

When it comes to keyword research and topic research … most of our content team … [has a] background … [from] our customer support teams. They know the product quite well. Equally, we tend to work with teams to figure out use-cases that our customers [seek] …

To answer your question regarding the length, we don’t have very strict rules in that sense. Obviously, all our content is long-form-ish written content. We write a lot of guides to educate people on various financial decisions that they need to make. We let the editors and writers decide based on the topic and then [they use a] leveraging tool like SEMrush to expand on related keywords and expand on topics in a way that we find the best tool for that given series of articles.

We probably look at length and type of content by topics and series rather than saying everywhere on the blog needs to be 1,000 words or 2,000 words. That doesn’t necessarily make sense. We have series of content that perform really well with not too much content. There are other topics where we need to write exhaustive guides on “how-to-do.” Especially if you’re filing taxes abroad, you eventually want to get it right. [In those cases], we need to get someone who is an expert on the subject matter and get them to write really exhaustive content in that sense,” said Ballarini.

What are some of your general content tips, and what are your tips to target rich snippets?

Nail the structure

Nail the editorial guidelines

Certain mark-up tends to get picked up better

Certain content requires tables

Certain content requires lists

Establish your guidelines based on content-type

Instead of optimizing preexisting content, focus on writing new content that includes the bells and whistles

Large-scale businesses with tons of articles needn’t pay as much attention to optimization as small-scale businesses who produce many fewer posts

Try to automate the updating and removal of dated content with tools and widgets

Focus on creating evergreen content that doesn’t require updating or later removal aka content killing, but it’s also okay to create seasonal, topical and one-off type pieces. Just prioritize the evergreen content.

How large is the TransferWise content team, and how do they operate?

TransferWise doesn’t use any agencies, and the company has 10-15 part-time / full-time employees who edit, produce, publish, proofread and check content. These employees work with a network of freelancers who specialize in particular topics. “The actual writing is done by professional writers, and the actual production is done by content editors and then together with that, there are a few SEOs …” said Ballarini.

Many elements on their site are dynamically populated, but most of the long-form blogs are not. They need to be careful to monitor content such as exchange rates, because that information is subject to change quickly.

Does TransferWise use an SEO checklist for each article?

“We are very prescriptive in what we want, and that’s why these guys that work on producing content – they almost make the article. The only aspect that they don’t do is the writing. They are a speaker in their given native language, but they’re not professional writers,” said Ballarini.

Does TransferWise have an active link building strategy for its content, or is the domain powerful enough to be ranking by itself just with internal links?

When Ballarini took up his position, the company already was reaping the benefits of four aggressive years of PR and advertising. When he got to Transferwise, their domain was already authoritative. As such, no link building efforts were really required. They focused on producing new and better content instead of trying to get preexisting content to rank better.

What is one actionable tip?

“Pick something specific and try to stick to that thing for a certain amount of time. Let’s go back to content. It’s really important that instead of trying to get everything at the same time, you just cover one area. Think about ten topics; nail it down to just one. Try to do that one to its core, and then before you move on, make sure that you cover this topic really exhaustively. There could be a chance that it’s not performing just because you haven’t gone too deep on writing more about a specific … I think the process is key … Obviously you need to get it right.

You need to do the right thing, but often it’s an execution and operational thing together with knowing. You could know possibly all the SEO tips for your given industry, but if you’re not consistent in a specific operation you may still fail in delivering. And many brands do.

Many agencies, they are very frustrated about their trends not implementing what they want. This implementing stuff and being consistent about pushing things out is possibly what I guess could be the success,” said Ballarini.

D4 Advanced Media Delivers Holistic Digital Marketing

We at D4 Advanced Media love to showcase our highly-effective team. Each member of our staff brings a particular skills and expertise to every project.

Marketing strategy, web design, website development, website maintenance, website security, graphic design, print design, paid search advertising, social media campaigns, search engine optimization, keyword and traffic reporting and analysis, content creation and content marketing are all in our wheelhouse.

We regularly launch result-driven websites for clients who operate in a wide variety of industries. Here is a quick look at some of the industries that have benefited from our services.

Local service providers such as independent auto shops, home inspectors, locksmiths and attorneys.

Regional service providers such as third-party HR consulting and physician groups.

National service providers such as warehouse distributors and non-profits.

Local, regional and national product-based businesses such as restaurants, industrial product manufacturers, agricultural product manufacturers, custom-product manufacturers and a wide variety of ecommerce businesses.

We’re happy to service private, non-profit and governmental institutions alike.

Any person, company or organization requiring an exceptional website and outstanding marketing will benefit from one or more of our services.

Whether you and your team are just starting out, or you’re looking for help in elevating your already successful brand, we would be honored to quote your project.

Give us a call at 775-636-9986 or use our contact form to set up your first meeting.

#IFTTT #D4 Advanced Media | How Much Organic Traffic Can Content Marketing Generate?#web design #gra

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yung-fox · 7 years ago

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What Instagram’s IGTV Can Offer Brands

After taking on Snapchat with ephemeral content, Instagram is now vying for YouTube’s video throne. In late June, Instagram launched IGTV, its longform video platform. Users can now post videos up to an hour in length, and the videos are viewed vertically, the way we naturally hold our phones.

Instagram’s new venture raises some questions—namely, what sort of content can we expect from the platform, and how should brands get involved?

youtube

Who’s on IGTV right now?

Most of IGTV’s publishers are influencers posting the sort of content you might expect to see from YouTube regulars. Makeup tutorials, daily vlogs from influencers, interview segments, and dogs doing cute things already make up most of IGTV’s regular feed.

Certain brands have already realized IGTV has the potential to be more interactive than YouTube. Bacardi partnered with dancers Les Twins to create an interactive video campaign. The twins asked users for advice ahead of their music video shoot using polls in their own Instagram Stories— questions about lighting, choreography, and the length of the final product. Once the polls closed, the twins incorporated the feedback before releasing the final video on their own account and Bacardi’s IGTV channel.

What do audiences want to see?

According to Netflix, people want to watch an hour-long video of Cole Sprouse eating a burger. While this particular use of IGTV may not appeal to everyone, it did get Netflix 676,000 IGTV views and nearly 5,000 comments. Chipotle posted a video of someone pulling an endless stream of burrito and taco options out of a bottomless Chipotle bag. It’s clear that brands like Netflix, Chipotle, and Bacardi are experimenting with ways of using the platform that differ from the commercials we’re used to seeing on television.

“IGTV presents a unique opportunity to engage with users at a deeper level,” said Kinzi Sparks, the lead for paid social at iProspect. “When your customers are thoughtfully seeking and opting into a more in-depth viewing experience, there’s a stronger chance that your brand’s message will be received with welcome captivation.”

What’s next?

“One area that the Instagram team needs to focus on is ensuring that IGTV doesn’t simply become a place for stories to live,” warned Neil Waller, co-founder of influencer marketing agency Whalar. “It should not be a place where users simply post their stories, unless Instagram’s end goal is for IGTV to become a replacement for stories.”

Brands like Everlane and publishers like BuzzFeed have posted repurposed Instagram Stories to IGTV, but perhaps this is just an attempt to establish a presence until they have the resources to create new longform video.

Chipotle remains an outlier by hiring Day One Agency to produce its inaugural video. “It’s a different format, so we want to make sure we are designing specifically for longform and vertical content,” said Tressie Lieberman, Chipotle’s executive director of engagement marketing. IGTV seems built to entertain larger audiences, rather than offer the short personal and educational updates that we’ve come to expect from the stories feature.

Currently, IGTV isn’t showing ads, but that will probably change as the platform figures out the best way for its contributors to monetize their videos. If marketers and advertisers want to take advantage of the platform, for now they’ll have to work with brands that already have Instagram channels and explore longer content that tells engaging stories.

from http://bit.ly/2NOkkCD

#Online Marketing

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infinitesnow · 5 years ago

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so story time, i’m gonna share with you the first time i ever got negged because frankly i’m irritated by captain shares-a-lot barging into my shit uninvited and i’ve decided the most constructive thing for me to do rather than jump down his fucking throat is channel my irritation into longform storytelling

so backstory here: i worked at walt d*sney world for 2 and a half years. throughout that time i had such memorable encounters as

multiple people telling me, while i looked sweaty and haggard and Bad in the florida humidity, that i looked like snow white (which i do, but only occasionally at the best of times)

a guy’s family jokingly offering to set him and me up on a date, but i say “jokingly” in that i do not know to this day whether they were rassing him for being single or laughing at my expense

a man old enough to be my father asking me, apropos of absolutely nothing, if i was married

and i weathered most of those weird fucking one on ones with relative ease to the point where i now feel pretty confident in saying that i can handle a lot, but nothing ever made me physically angry like Baby’s First Neg.

see, wdw has a spot called d*sney springs which is just like a huge shopping plaza with some live entertainment and an amc movie theatre, which is great because a lot of the fathom events style special screenings happen there and i didn’t have to drive to Bumfuck Florida ( hint: most of florida is Bumfuck Florida ) to go watch a studio ghibli film

anyways this screening was batman mask of the phantasm and i was like aw hell yah because if you haven’t seen mask of the phantasm, it’s basically The Best Batman Movie, and i know that’s the kind of argument you’d expect to hear from guys who run Nerd Alert youtube channels with a level of unquantified self importance, but really it’s a solid watch if you want good batman that isn’t a three hour slog

and of course the audience at this screening is sparse, littered with the kind of guys you’d expect to run Nerd Alert youtube channels, but at this rate i really don’t care - nobody’s being loud and obnoxious even before the movie starts so if it’s a quiet screening? i can deal.

and then i make the critical mistake of pulling out my phone and checking my pokemon go account.

here’s the other nice thing about wdw: pokestops everywhere. i was playing at the time only because my place of employment made it convenient. i could walk into work and swipe at least three or four on the way on a daily basis. and when you’re sitting in a theatre surrounded by pokestops, yeah of course i’m gonna check and see if there’s anything good around, this movie doesn’t start for another ten minutes and i need to kill time.

“which team are you?”

i look to my right - there’s a guy about three or four seats over who’s noticed me playing. i answer “team mystic” just to be nice, because really? at this point i have no reason to not be nice.

“boo, team valor all the way!”

( excuse me? excuse me. )

i don’t give a fuck about teams. i picked mystic because i liked the ice bird. literally i do not care. and i do not answer. i do the half committal nod that is the universal code for “please do not talk to me anymore.”

“what level are you?”

oh, christ

“level 18.”

and, in a tone that is just laced with condescension: “don’t worry, you’ll get to level 40 someday!”

( and i wasn’t just projecting this onto him - this was not a guy whose innocent encouragement came off as a little more smug than intended. this was a guy whose clear subtext was that wanted me to know that he had, in fact, gotten to level 40 someday, and believed that i, being a person who played pokemon go on occasion, would ascribe more importance to him because of it, )

spoiler alert: i did not.

( DO I CARE? DO I CARE. ) ( IF YOU’RE LEVEL 40 GOOD FOR YOU I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHY ARE YOU CHOOSING TO TELL ME LIKE THIS. )

needless to say, the game got switched straight off. it stayed off for another two months. fortunately, the clock was rolling over to eight so the movie was about to start, right?

WRONG.

we sat there for TEN MINUTES waiting for the movie to begin in complete silence while i refreshed a tumblr dashboard that was straight up dead in some desperate attempt to engage with anything other than this guy’s fucking face. the minute the movie started my eyes were locked on that screen because if that very bad gut instinct that he was sneakily watching me was right, i did not want to make eye contact and if it was wrong, i didn’t want to be the person who was looking because thats just implies that his shitty neg worked

security at wdw is very good. in nearly every corner of the resort, you’re pretty reasonably safe. this knowledge did not deter me from booking it the fuck out of that theatre the minute the movie wrapped up.

and that was the first time i ever got negged.

#long post tw #story time

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jillmckenzie1 · 5 years ago

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Stories on Stage

I’m a sucker for storytelling: I have to be as I’m a theater reviewer, although I suppose that all of us humans are to some extent. Stories on Stage is to theater as rap is to music. The ongoing storytelling series happening in Denver and Boulder takes short stories or segments of longform works, puts them into the hands of charismatic actors, and brings them to the stage with no accoutrement of movement or props—just as rap takes the bones of rhythm and word and presents them without the trimmings of instrumental music. The effect for both is addictive.

I recently attended the performance at Su Teatro Cultural & Performing Arts Center on a cold night when, unfortunately, the heating had gone out in the building. The Su Teatro staff offered us complimentary hot drinks and we all wore our coats in the auditorium, which gave the audience an unexpected sense of solidarity and community. The program has a definite NPR-ish feeling, with a calm and understated presentation and a sense of brainy esoterism. Low-brow and rowdy, this is not. The program showcased three actors, each performing one solo story reading and then the finale with all three joining together in a group reading.

First to hit the stage was a winsome high school-age woman named Ryen Hilton. She delivered a reading from Jennifer Armentrout’s “The Dictionary of You and Me,” a young adult story about a nerdy library girl falling for the hot new guy at school. The reading was charming, but the story was a bit predictable. There was no sharp turn or unexpected reveal in the narrative. Young adult literature sometimes suffers from a bit of over simplicity; that is its inherent vice.

The show picked up a lot with the second reading. Seth Dhonau, a local actor and opera performer of some notable experience, made a *choice* by wearing capri pants and boat shoes to read Robin Sloan’s “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.” If I’m a sucker for storytelling, I’m an even bigger sucker for an attractive man reading me an irresistible tale. I enjoyed this piece very much. The story was a fantasy set in a bookstore, layered over with the unfathomable magic of Big Tech’s data science, and topped off with some historical fanfiction. Dhonau gave the engaging story a delightful energy, and I wished it would go on for much longer than it did.

The third piece was performed by Gabriella Cavallero, another accomplished theater performer and dialect coach with hair and voice like black velvet. She read a piece of Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, which is one of the few books that get the privilege of remaining on my bookshelf because I admire it enough to donate the space to it. Dialect coach that she is, Cavallero read the piece is a strong and clear Iranian accent, giving specific life to the words. I am deeply familiar with the story but enjoyed hearing the classic and oh-so-relatable themes of the struggle for autonomy and equality of women across the world.

The closing number of the show was the return of all three presenters to the stage to read selections from Jen Campbell’s sworn-to-be-totally-true account Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores, which was a great tie-in since this episode in the series was sponsored by the Tattered Cover, Denver’s iconic independent bookstore, and all of the selections were chosen by Tattered Cover guest curators. I enjoyed this bit. It was entertaining, but, speaking as a professional comedian, I have to say that it suffered a tad for its repetition. Each iteration of a weird thing a customer says in a bookstore was basically the same joke: “Customers are really ignorant about books.” It’s true and it’s funny, but it may be best left at three examples, not twenty. But again, the performers were engaging, and the overall effect was warm.

Each episode of Stories on Stage has different content and themes, so there’s reason to keep coming back every month. The series runs through the theater season, and you can find tickets and more information on the details and content of each performance on their website. The next episode, on April 11, promises to include “off-kilter narratives” accompanied by painting from Degas and other notable Impressionists. Sounds interesting, eh?

from Blog https://ondenver.com/stories-on-stage/

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margaretbeagle · 4 years ago

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How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture

Maximizing Leads Driven by Created Content

How to Use Curated Content to Generate Leads

Go one step further when you personalize curated content by linking it with your recent interactions with your lead, or with the lead’s interests.

The Struggle of Curated vs. Created Content

One of the biggest challenges associated with attributing lead capture impact to original vs. third-party content shares is that measuring social media impact is hard in general.

These are just a few of the ways that people are impacted by your content, but it doesn’t make it onto your radar.

A Better Way to Measure Lead Generation

There are many better ways to measure lead generation than last-click attribution, which doesn’t show any of the interactions that led up to the point of conversion.

After a few weeks, you should be able to start seeing parallels in trends.

You might also do well to test run the 5-3-2 “recipe” developed by T. A. McCann.

Created and Curated Content Working Together

The post How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture appeared first on Scoop.it Blog.

How to Find the Perfect Balance Between Content Creation and Curation for Lead Capture published first on https://improfitninja.weebly.com/

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fluentlanguage · 6 years ago

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9 of the Best Podcasts for Learning Spanish

Imagine what you would do if you could easily understand spoken Spanish.

You could finally travel to the Spanish-speaking countries you’ve dreamed of, watch foreign films and addictive telenovelas, or understand a paella recommendation from the _menu del día_on a Thursday in Valencia.

Best of all, you’d be prepared for real conversations with native Spanish-speakers. The only question is: how do you find the time to practice your Spanish listening skills?

Podcasts are a great way to add a little Spanish listening practice into your day-to-day life. They are free, and can accompany any part of your day: driving a car, washing your dishes, doing laundry, working out, reading, and more.

The Fluent Show

In addition to the Spanish podcasts you’ll find in this article, check out the Fluent Show. That’s my own show, co-hosted by Lindsay Williams, where we discuss languages, learning methods, and how to live a multilingual life.Click here to listen and subscribe.

Quick Primer: How Do Podcasts Work?

If you're curious about podcasts, but not quite sure how they work, here's what you need to know:

You can subscribe for free to podcasts on your phone, tablet, or computer.

If you use an iPhone or iPad, go to the Podcasts app. If you're on a Mac, use theiTunes directory.

On a PC or Android device, try theStitcher app for a quick and easy start.

Subscribing means you'll always have the latest episode ready and waiting for you as soon as it's published.

The 9 Best Spanish Podcasts for Learners

In this article, you’ll find:

Spanish Podcasts for Beginners

Spanish Podcasts for Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Spanish Video Resources

Story-Based Shows

A Special Tip for Advanced Learners

To help you target your Spanish learning goals, this list also specifies whether a podcast uses Castilian Spanish, Latin American Spanish, or offers options for both.

Spanish Podcasts for Beginners

Castilian Spanish

Notes in Spanish

Notes in Spanish is a podcast run by Marina, a native speaker from Spain, and Ben, an Englishman. Each episode is actually a conversation between the two. There are episodes dedicated to beginners as well as intermediate and advanced learners. For beginners, the hosts also go over key vocabulary, phrases, and basic grammar points both before and after their conversations.

Since Ben is also a Spanish learner, he offers a lot of useful tips for listeners while Marina often provides corrections and points out common mistakes. They speak clearly, making it easy for beginners to follow along.

Castilian and Latin American Spanish

SpanishPod101

SpanishPod101 from InnovativeLanguage covers the basic through advanced levels of Spanish. The episodes are exciting and immersive. Plus, you can find episodes for both Castilian and Latin American Spanish along with the differences between them. There are even episodes that explain some of the regional vocabulary from places like Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, and Spain.

The dialogues are presented by engaging hosts in a clear, concise way covering many grammatical features and cultural topics. On the website you can sign up for premium content to access spaced repetition flashcards, PDF lesson notes, and a community forum.

Spanish Podcasts for Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Castilian Spanish

Unlimited Spanish

Unlimited Spanish with Òscar Pellus uses a unique storytelling technique based on Òscar’s method of learning Spanish through exposure and repetition. Every episode includes a quick story followed by a question and answer session that encourages listeners to practice their speaking skills as well. It’s also a great option for anyone who doesn’t care for lengthy grammar explanations.

Podcast topics include various aspects of Spanish culture, including places and food, as well as social topics and situations. When necessary Òscar touches on some relevant vocabulary and grammar, but it isn’t overwhelming. The podcast is entirely in Spanish, but if you have any trouble understanding, you can download transcripts of every episode in PDF format.

Español Automático

Done entirely in Spanish, this podcast is meant to provide an immersive experience for intermediate to advanced learners. The host, Karo Martínez, is lively, engaging, and speaks both clearly and naturally.

There are over 100 episodes to choose from, some of which explore grammar concepts, offer tips to improve your pronunciation, or explain colloquial expressions. Other episodes talk about different parts of Spain or even how to learn Spanish with popular shows like Game of Thrones.

The Español Automático site offers episode transcripts along with additional guides and resources.

Latin American Spanish

15 Minute Spanish for Your Job

Though this podcast is directed towards those learning Spanish for work, its main goal is to help listeners get used to and understand native, spoken Spanish.

The host, Miguel Lira, is a native Spanish speaker from Mexico and a Spanish learning coach. Each episode goes over a particular conversation exchange in Spanish, such as conversations between workers or while simply ordering coffee. Miguel, as the sole host, uses a different tone of voice for each speaker, which is both entertaining and helpful as you follow along. There are also a few episodes on cultural subjects, like The Day of the Dead in Mexico.

In addition, the website offers notes, transcripts, and other resources to help you review the conversations.

Castilian and Latin American Spanish

News in Slow Spanish

News in Slow Spanish is an intermediate level podcast. This podcast covers world news, grammar, and expressions and slows down all the dialogue to make it easier to process what you hear. Every episode breaks down a point on grammar and vocabulary. It also lets you choose between Castilian and Latin American Spanish.

The audio is very clear and easy to follow. On the website, there are transcripts for each episode available with grammar, expressions, pronunciation, and quizzes.

Spanish Video Resources

Yabla Spanish

Yabla is a video-based learning platform with bilingual subtitles and integrated dictionaries. The subtitles are interactive, which is a really cool concept! Check out how Yabla works in detail by reading myfull review.

Yabla is great for all levels from basic to advanced. You can check out their podcast and choose between videos from Spain and Latin America for hours of entertainment.

Story-Based Shows

Castilian Spanish

Coffee Break Spanish

Coffee Break Spanish, a podcast from Radio Lingua Network, combines Spanish language lessons with a lot of useful information about Spanish food, culture, Spanish speaking countries, and so on.

My favourite part of the podcast is the chemistry between relaxed and charismatic host Mark from Scotland (who is fluent in Spanish) and Spanish learner Kara from Scotland. Mark guides both Kara and listeners through Spanish grammar, conversation, culture, and society.

The dialogues are presented in a clear, concise way, covering many grammatical features and cultural topics. On the website you can sign up for the premium content to access spaced repetition flashcards, PDF lesson notes, and a community forum for a subscription fee.

Latin American Spanish

Duolingo Spanish Podcast

The Duolingo Spanish Podcast tells real-life stories from all across Latin America. Some of the stories are uplifting and inspiring while others are suspenseful and heartrending. Either way, they really make you want to hear more!

The stories are done partially in Spanish and partially in English, which makes it a great option for more advanced beginners who want to get used to spoken Spanish while still understanding what’s going on.

Advanced Learner Tip: Native Spanish Podcasts

If you’re interested in a more immersive experience, there are plenty of podcasts intended for native Spanish speakers available.

One great option is the Radio Ambulante podcast. Radio Ambulante is a longform journalism podcast that shares real-life Latin American stories. There are stories about language, sports, education, events, and more. Plus, there are both English and Spanish transcripts available for every episode.

If you want an easy way to access even more Spanish podcasts, go to iTunes and switch your country setting to Spain, Mexico, or any other Spanish speaking country. There’s no restriction on your switch and you’ll be able to access all podcasts in the same way that listeners from those countries can.

This article was written by Cassie Wright and me. She’s a freelance writer who loves languages. Thanks Cassie!

Looking for more Spanish resources?

Click here to get my top tips for Spanish learners.

Which podcasts do you listen to for practicing your Spanish? Leave a comment below and share your tips.

#reviews #podcasts #9 of the best #listening skills #spanish

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kidsviral-blog · 7 years ago

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Here's What People In Media Are Excited About In 2015

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/heres-what-people-in-media-are-excited-about-in-2015/

Here's What People In Media Are Excited About In 2015

New books, new blogs, new Vines, and new competition. It’s going to be a good year.

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Wilfredo Lee / AP Photo

Fusion’s Alicia Menendez and her production team taking selfies

2. Alexis Madrigal, Silicon Valley bureau chief, Fusion:

I’m excited to see digital networks metastasizing into other mediums, from TV to live events. People who have been forged by the speed, inclusiveness, and oddity of working on the internet are moving off the web in fascinating ways, and I can’t wait to see what happens when they do. Maybe it will be a train wreck? Or maybe the new distillations that result from the pressures and possibilities will produce wildly creative reporting, live events, magazines, companies, and TV shows.

3. Summer Anne Burton, editorial director, BFF:

The thing I am most excited about in media next year is diversity. We have a long way to go, but I’m so optimistic about 2015 after the changes I saw start to happen this year. There’s a snowball effect when media organizations broaden their recruitment networks and see that true diversity in many areas helps them do better work and reach more people. Plus, platforms like Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and YouTube have actually made it possible for reporters, writers, and entertainers to prove themselves and make their voices heard without the necessary connections, degrees, or the approval of the gatekeepers. I’m excited about this because it’s right, but even more so because I’m bored of sameness. I think the greatest chance we have for truly fresh, experimental, creative, and challenging media is for the people creating that work to come from a variety of backgrounds and be able to tell many different kinds of stories. I can’t wait to read, watch, and listen to them!

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5. Hazel Cills, Rookie writer:

I’m excited, going into 2015, by all the women in top music and culture writing positions. Jessica Hopper’s EIC at the Pitchfork Review, music writer Julianne Shepherd is heading it at Jezebel, Naomi Zeichner is EIC at The Fader, Lindsay Zoladz is pop critic at NY Mag, Dodai Stewart is leading culture at Fusion, Caryn Ganz has been killing it all this year at RollingStone.com, etc. I love reading what these women have to say about music and culture, but when they’re calling all the shots at the publications they write for, even better.

6. Emily Gould, author of Friendship and co-owner of Emily Books:

Great new books were a bright spot of terrible 2014, for real, and 2015 is poised to be even better. Elisa Albert, Maggie Nelson, Gabby Bess, Nell Zink, Kate Atkinson, and, oh right, Jonathan Franzen all have new books coming out this year, and HarperCollins is finally republishing my favorite book O.A.T., Eileen Myles’ Chelsea Girls. !!!!

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Getty Images Rabbani and Solimene Photography

Tavi Gevinson

8. Jessica Hopper, editor-in-chief, The Pitchfork Review (and former Rookie music editor):

I am really excited about all the books and projects and developments that Rookie writers, contributors, and readers have coming out this year. So many people think of Tavi as, like, this one exemplary extraordinary teenager — this fluke of a go-getter (and maybe Lorde as the other). But there is a huge wave of young women coming up behind them that have been inspired and given a sense of permission, a sense of path, and alllll have shows, books, zines, bands, power, and are coming for our jobs. I am psyched for all of them to blaze past us.

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Amber Gordon

10. Jazmine Hughes, contributing editor, The Hairpin:

Nothing excites me more than seeing incredibly-smart-capable-and-driven-women-getting-shit-done, which is why the thing I am excited about most in 2015 is the continual rise of Femsplain, Amber Gordon‘s love letter to the female voice and experience, launched this past October. But Jazmine, you run a different lady blog! Why would you be excited about another one? Well, random internet dissenter, all the ladyblogs are friends — yes, men, we all gather at the water cooler of the internet and laugh at you, and sometimes BeyoncÃ© FaceTimes in — and I’m happy to welcome Gordon’s self-made site into the group. Femsplain runs purely off of sweat, sass, and volunteers, and in a few short months has already carved out a space for women to be unabashedly honest and true; Gordon’s project is, I hope, just a harbinger of what is to come: a sea of spaces where women are welcome to be themselves. From us to you: Welcome to the club, Femsplain.

11. Lockhart Steele, Vox Media editorial director:

I’m excited for — and no, not at all terrified about — the all-out war for the digital space set to explode in 2015. It’s shaping up as a year of peak competition as the planets align for nearly every player at every major digital shop: BuzzFeed and Vice continuing massive hiring sprees at bureaus blanketing the globe; Gawker Media, with Tommy Craggs at the editorial helm and John Cook back on staff set to marshal a powerful scoop troop; Joe Weisenthal, Josh Topolsky & Co. cooking up something major in the kitchen at Bloomberg; Gabe Snyder plotting a new New Republic; the team at Fusion planning to unleash whatever the hell Felix Salmon, Anna Holmes, et al are planning to unleash; and A.J. Daulerio launching Ratter just to keep us all on our toes. It’s going to be a year of truly insane competition — and that’s exciting. (Not at all terrifying.)

12. Stacy-Marie Ishmael, editor, BuzzFeed news app:

MOBILE! Not just because it’s where audiences are, but because what publishers can deliver on mobile is getting better and more interesting and more immersive as the infrastructure — from bandwidth to ubiquitous Wi-Fi to operating system and device upgrades — improves.

Facebook Post.

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14. Fiorella Valdesolo, writer, editor of Gather Journal:

I’m excited for the Bjork show retrospective opening at the MOMA in March because, well, BJORK.

15. Naomi Zeichner, editor-in-chief of The Fader:

The end of music criticism and a renaissance of music news. The wave of podcasts that will crop up in Serial‘s wake. Or the staff writers who will become better reporters in Serial‘s wake, because Serial made the mundane parts of reporting seem more sexy and writing up scoops usually makes more sense than podcasting them. The increasing obviousness that newsroom diversity “isn’t an ethical imperative, it’s a business one.” The New York Times Magazine‘s redesigned longform templates for web. And BuzzFeed’s news app, which will teach us all (or BuzzFeed, at least!) a lot about how readers behave on mobile.

16. Kate Ward, managing editor of Bustle:

I’m excited for the media to continue to be considered a flourishing business just years after we were knocked down by the recession in 2008. Since then, we’ve learned that creativity and innovation can help us overcome any obstacle and — even better — that readers expect creativity and innovation out of an industry that was once considered as dated as a Chumbawamba reference. I’m excited to see the landscape of media one year from today. Oh, and cats. I’m excited for more cats.

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Adrian Tomine’s 2007 graphic novel Shortcomings

18. Jeet Heer, Canadian cultural critic:

Peering into the crystal ball of promised delights for 2015, there is much that is tantalizing (new Toni Morrison! Jonathan Franzen! George R.R. Martin! Zadie Smith! Star Wars!), but I want to single out a title I know nothing about: Adrian Tomine’s Intruders. I’m assuming that Intruders will be a graphic novel, Tomine’s first novel-length work since Shortcomings in 2007. Tomine is an increasingly powerful cartoonist, notable for his razor-sharp character studies and ability to capture moments of excruciating awkwardness and unease. I have high hopes for this book.

19. Alissa Walker, urbanism editor, Gizmodo:

I can’t wait to see how this whole Uber thing plays out.

20. Adam Serwer, national editor, BuzzFeed News:

I came up as a blogger, at a time when it was a medium with a lot of direct interaction between writers and a lot of competition that, while sometimes nasty, pushed people to be better. I think almost every media outlet has realized that the presumption that the internet always rewards the cheapest or least thoughtful material isn’t true. And I think that we are all now competing on the assumption that there’s a huge audience for journalism that deeply engages a story or an idea, and that can only push all of us to be better.

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amazon.com

22. Amanda Fortini, freelance writer and contributing editor, Elle magazine:

Next year is a good one for autobiographical literary nonfiction by women. I’m particularly excited about Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness, a fragmented, book-length essay about memory and time, and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, a personal-theoretical work about queer family making that explores the limitations of language when it comes to writing, talking, and thinking about gender. Both books are wildly original, and both are from Graywolf, which is publishing so much I want to read these days. I’m also looking forward to Heidi Julavits’ The Folded Clock, a diary she kept for a year as an adult. Julavits is such a smart writer; I’d read her to-do lists. Finally, there’s Sarah Hepola’s Blackout, a dark, funny, honest-to-the-bone account of getting sober. Hepola is a friend and former editor of mine, but even if she weren’t, I’d be eagerly awaiting this book.

23. Jenna Wortham, staff writer, New York Times Magazine:

I’m excited to watch this develop.

24. Alex Balk, co-founder of The Awl:

2014 was the year in which we were stepping all over each other to declare the rebirth of personal blogging, newsletters, and podcasts. If all of these things really did experience some kind of renaissance, the inevitable follow-up has to be the revival of people letting their blogs die, giving up on their newsletters, and finding something better to do than bathe the world in the audible comfort of their own voices. Hopefully, 2015 will be the year in which everyone shuts up. I could not be more excited.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/heres-what-people-in-media-are-excited-about-in-2015

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minnievirizarry · 7 years ago

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9 Reasons Why Your Brand Needs More Journalists & Less Marketers

It’s a sad thing to admit, but trust is a scarce commodity these days.

Faith in institutions, from government and media to businesses and NGOs, has hit an all-time low across the globe. Meanwhile, only 16% of Americans trust the news that they read on the internet.

In an age when readers question everything, how can you tell your brand’s story in a way that is both credible and entertaining?

As the content manager of a branded blog with more than a million unique visits a year, we get a good amount of feedback from readers on a weekly basis. When we first started it two and a half years ago, most comments were along the lines of, “Hey, I found this really useful.”

This year, we began venturing into the new territory of provocative, long-form content and started to get a lot more comments like this, “Thanks for this interesting piece, but how can you make point ‘so-and-so’ based on just one study?”

This is when I knew it was time to put my journalist cap back on.

From that point on, I didn’t just commit to thoroughly fact-checking all submissions, but also applying other skills I learned as a reporter that have vastly improved my work as a content marketer.

And I’m not the only one. Some of the most successful branded content creators have also drawn from their experience as journalists: Ann Handley began her career as a business journalist before becoming one of the world’s most influential content marketers; Tomas Kellner was a business reporter at Forbes before becoming the managing editor of General Electric’s online publication; Steve Hamm was a senior technology writer at BusinessWeek before joining IBM as a communications strategist; and the list goes on…

What is it exactly that makes journalists especially adept at creating content that resonates with audiences?

Here are nine things I believe give journalists an edge over marketers when it comes to creating compelling and credible content.

1. Journalists Put the Readers’ Needs First

Journalists pride themselves on their independence from political agendas and business interests, allowing them to put the reader’s needs first—at least in theory.

What if your brand could create content focused solely on your audience’s needs?

Microsoft’s Stories site did just that—and they came out winning. Besides earning widespread media attention as one of the best brand storytelling sites, they actually generated sales from interactive longform stories like “88 Acres,” which drew the interest of several real estate and Fortune 500 companies looking for a cost-effective way to turn any building into a “smart” one.

What audience-centered (and potentially profitable) ideas have been stifled within your company by the desire to cater to a specific ROI, above all other things?

2. Journalists Get the Facts Straight

Having worked as both a journalist and branded content creator, I can say that one of the main differences between the two is the level of commitment to getting the facts straight.

For a journalist, there is no detail too small that doesn’t need double (or triple) checking. From name and dates to statistics, calculations and quotes, everything has to be cross-checked with other sources and go through several pairs of eyes before publication.

To see how necessary these same fact-checking processes are in marketing, just take a look at some widely disseminated statistics which turned out to be not true, such as the fact that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text or that women control 80% of household spending.

While most branded content teams don’t have the resources to hire fact-checkers and copy editors, writers and editors can still take the time to fact-check all their work using a simple checklist like this one. This can go a long way in preventing marketing’s own epidemic of fake news and protecting your reputation in a field that relies almost completely on a relationship of trust with customers. As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

3. Journalists Make the Complex Simple

There are few things more off-putting to readers than an article full of complex terms and jargon. Luckily journalists are taught to make things as easy as possible for readers by using simple, straightforward language in place of opaque terms that make concepts inaccessible to the general public. Marketers would reach more people if they did the same.

Take a look at how this interactive story by the University of Minnesota keeps its audience engaged and steers clear of technical terminology, even when dealing with a scientific subject such as the effects of addiction on the brain.

4. Journalists Have a Nose for News

In a world suffering from content overload, the ability to find a news story even in seemingly ordinary events or information is an especially valuable skill for a marketer to have.

Far too many content marketers make the mistake of covering the same topic for the umpteenth time, while a good journalist would strive to find new, unconventional and provocative angles, even in “unsexy” industries such as finance or insurance.

An alarm system is usually not something that gets your pulse racing, but take a look at how this well-executed story by Nest grabs your attention in an instant and keeps it until the very end through a combination of media formats, including video, audio and interactive graphics.

5. Journalists Know How to Tell Stories

One of the marks of a good journalist is the ability to inform, inspire and entertain—all at the same time. The most effective way to do this is through storytelling based on facts.

Whether it’s through a human-interest story, a nuanced profile feature or a stunning multi-page photo reportage, journalists know how to capture their readers’ attention right from the outset.

Take, for example, this long-form piece for MEL, a digital magazine for men started by the Dollar Shave Club in 2015, now staffed with dozens of journalists and writers. Written in first person, it narrates the experience of buying a gun from the perspective of a person who would never own one otherwise.

6. Journalists Get the Story First-Hand

Instead of citing quotes and statistics gleaned from other sites and press releases, journalists practice (at least in theory) what is known as good, old-fashioned “shoe-leather” reporting. They go to the scene of the story; they interview those involved; they cross-check claims with other experts; in other words, they get the story straight from the horse’s mouth, not secondary sources.

Look at how this investigative online story sponsored by Amazon was put together using in-person interviews, original documents and other traditional reporting techniques used to cover murder investigations.

While marketers won’t need to become investigative journalists any time soon, learning a few reporting techniques may help to quell the spread of inaccurate claims, which is especially necessary in this age of fake news.

7. Journalists Strive to Be Objective

While some believe objective journalism is a myth (as humans can never be truly objective), the act of striving for impartiality is a fundamental part of the journalistic ethos.

Reporters may come with all kinds of subjective points of view, but the methods they use to report are in themselves objective. For example, journalists are taught to cover all sides of an issue equally and avoid adjectives, adverbs and any other words that may indicate even a hint of bias.

By the very nature of their work, marketers can never be impartial—and we shouldn’t expect them to be—but they can at least strive for greater transparency and authenticity in the way they cover company news, which may serve to build greater trust in the brand in the long run.

For example, in 2006, Robert Scoble, one of Microsoft’s well-known corporate bloggers, openly criticized the company for blocking the site of a Chinese blogger at the request of the Chinese government. Instead of censoring Scoble, the company accepted the criticism, which in the end was a PR win for Microsoft.

8. Journalists Use a Variety of Formats to Tell a Story

After The New York Times’ hugely successful “Snow Fall” piece was published in 2012, media companies everywhere followed in its footsteps by releasing their own interactive longform narratives.

Pretty soon The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Geographic, among many others, started to emulate this unique storytelling format, which seamlessly combines a variety of media (video, audio, images, interactive graphics) into one engaging piece.

The most innovative brands are also following suit with their own immersive interactive stories, such as this audio interactive piece sponsored by the car company SEAT. Take a look at how infinitely more engaging this is than a text-only article would be on the subject of innovation.

9. Journalists Are Always on the Lookout for New Trends

Finally, successful journalists always have an ear to the ground, ready to cover the latest trend, fad or juicy bit of information.

While this doesn’t mean marketers should become embroiled in industry gossip, many could benefit from closer monitoring of trends and active social listening to find out not only what customers are saying about their brand, but also what other topics of discussion are on their minds.

You never know, keeping a finger on your audience’s pulse may allow you to address a widespread concern or provide some much needed insight with a well-timed post or tweet.

Which of these journalistic practices has worked well for your brand? Anything we missed? Let us know in the comments section below.

This post 9 Reasons Why Your Brand Needs More Journalists & Less Marketers originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/journalistic-writing/

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