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coaffiliatemarketing · 5 years ago

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Strategies for Effective Snapchat Marketing

It has 2020--and Snapchat even now has about 188 million active daily end users.

Nevertheless, it is also even now dwarfed by Instagram--that has 500-million daily end users and probably always is.

And that begs this query: why if a firm devote in capturing attention and constructing an audience on Snapchat, the demonstrably popular platform?

Allow me to explain.

As of 2018, about 4-5 percentage of all Snapchat end users are 18 -- 2-4 years of age and 71 per cent are below 3-4 years of age. That means Snapchat continues to be tremendously popular among Millennials. Thus in case your goal would be always to engage a more youthful demographic, Snapchat can become a effective supply of engagement.

Resource: ComScore

Also, Snapchat end users create 3 billion videos a day, investing an average of half an hour onto this platform. The amounts --combined together with Snapchat's striking audience targeting capabilities--indicate enormous options for brands and marketers.

Do not have a Snapchat to get Organization account?

Let us place up you...

Reward: Download a free guidebook that reveals the measures to create habit Snapchat geofilters and lenses, and suggestions about the way best to make use of these to market your company.

The best way to Prepare a Snapchat for Organization account

In the event you opt to advertise on Snapchat, you are going to require a enterprise account.

In the event you have an account, create one the following . Subsequently fill on your own enterprise details.

Like many actions on Snapchat, creating a enterprise account is straightforward and intuitive. As soon as your company is established, you're going to be motivated to create a campaign. Clearly, that will be optional. As a company, that you never will need to advertise to the platform to garner attention, construct an audience, and make an impact.

Onward.

7 essential Snapchat marketing Strategies for company

Yesallocating expend to a own content will soon enhance its own reach.

That saidthere are additional strategies you can utilize to maximize your marketing on Snapchat. All these are timetested, recognized tactics and fundamentals social media marketers can apply to cultivate virtually any brandnew.

When you are new to Snapchat, don't forget to read our newcomer's guidebook . This can allow you to learn the technical abilities necessary to apply those strategies.

But should you already understand the fundamentals, stay stuck. You are in the proper place. This advice may allow you to make the most of one's own presence.

Let us proceed:

1. However, your audience isn't everyone.

Your audience will be a set of men and women that all share exactly the same want. And, maybethey all share a particular combination of characteristics. By way of example, your audience may dwell in a certain location; your own audience may speak a certain language; your own audience may make a particular earnings.

The greater you understand that these characteristics, the higher you will end up at creating fantastic backup and art that captures attention, incites attention, creates appetite, and pushes action.

You may already understand that your audience, at which case you are ahead. However, if you should be working on understand that to target, utilize Snapchat Insights. Here really is actually the platform's built in analytics application, and that, among other statistics, can inform you

Your audience count weeks, months, and years

Your audiences' age, location, sex, and also pursuits

Your audiences' attention span (i.e., just how many individuals watched your own articles before the end)

In addition to revealing your one of a kind perspectives, watch instances, and end rates, Snapchat Insights can inform you the articles's fall-off rate and screen-shot rely.

These statistics can simply help you understand what your audience wants.

2. Establish goals

You are utilizing Snapchat. However, are you currently getting accomplishment? Maybe. Maybe perhaps not.

You'll not be able to share with whether a material investment would be well worth the funds if you don't establish clear goals.

Very good social media marketers always place goals for their . However, the finest social media marketers establish S.M.A.R.T. goals: special, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely goals.

Let us break it down:

Make it"Distinct"

As an example, it is perhaps not sufficient to say,"that I want to increase my Snapchat reach"

Instead, you need to say,"that I want to increase my Snapchat audience to 4000 followers"

As an example, it is perhaps not sufficient to say,"that I want to increase engagement on Snapchat."

Instead, you need to say,"that I want to induce my own screen-shot count upward with 12% and also my fall-off rate down by 5 percent "

As an example, you can't say,"We have never ever done it but that I want such a material to induce 100 new Millennial followers a month"

Instead, you have to say,"Introducing such a content material added fifty Millennial visitors into your own account, and that if we double-click this particular content every month, then we will be on track to add 100 new female followers"

As an example, in the event that you want to utilize Snapchat to cultivate your own mailing list, then it will not make sense to create aims around screen-shot counts.

Instead, it makes sense to concentrate on forcing followers for your internet site, at which they can register for the newsletter.

The latter is far more relevant and applicable for your own business goals.

As an example, it is perhaps not sufficient to say,"we will have these changes executed in Q 2."

Instead, it really is better in the event that you say,"we will have these changes executed by May 15."

The S.M.A.R.T. goal framework is going to make sure that you remain honest and targeted as you create marketing aims.

In the event you want to learn where you are progressing and exactly where you are falling quick, review the competition.

That is, run a competitive analysis by analyzing the accounts and activities of all different brands on your space. Here is the way to do that, incremental:

Measure 1: Describe your competitors

The very optimal/optimally way to recognize a competition would be by simply analyzing your audience.

Who is your own audience after? Do any one of these brands resemble your own personal? The ones that are looking forward to the prospective customers' attention. Although perhaps not every rival brand will be worht analyzing.

Start with creating a lengthy checklist, then pare down it again. Choose four or three strong competitions to benchmark your self against.

Measure Two: Participate in

Now it is Time for You to research, taking several alterations in to consideration, for example:

Existence

Are the competitions active on each and every social networking? Or simply a few

After

Just how many men and women are after your competitions? And quickly would be each after growth?

Cadence

How do your competitions article?

Engagement

Just how many enjoys, re tweets, shares, and opinions perform your competitions' average?

Now it is the right time and energy to analyze that raw data.

Measure 3: SWOT

Strengths

Analyze to understand what your competition are succeeding on Snapchat? Are the articles timely or smart or interesting?

Weaknesses

Analyze wherever your rivals are falling quick. Can that their cadence inconsistent or slow? Are the articles self-serving?

Possibilities

Considering your opponents' strengths and weaknesses, wherever can you differentiate your self? As an example, if there is absolutely no comedy within the landscape, can you add a few?

Threats

Anything that can fail, will fail. Describe those instances and become prepared for them.

And you also really don't will need to do all this manually.

There are applications you can utilize to make the procedure easier, faster, and much more successful.

Share great articles

Far more specifically, share great Snapchat testimonies.

A tale can be a video or photograph that resides in Snapchat to get twenty four hrs, and then disappears.

Adding articles into your narrative is so straightforward:

Measure 1. Navigate for a camera perspective

Measure Two. Tap the camera button to take a photograph OR tap and maintain the camera into capture a video

Measure 3. Add components, such as stickers, text, and doodles

Measure 4. Tap the blue arrowthen pick"My Tale"

But creating articles great content material is hard. It truly is hard to capture attention, create envy, and induce folks to maintain watching.

The optimal/optimally Snapchat testimonies are typical nonetheless unexpected. Nevertheless they may be also surprising, providing comedy or amusing or educational value. In any case, audiences really should walk away out of the tale pleasantly amazed, and joyful .

To create this impact, many organizations create"behindthescenes" testimonies, supplying content material associates might never find. You can also ask issues, create surveys and run interviews to engage audiences.

Whatever material you opt to create, be sure to be sure it stays mild and, obviously, authentic. Snapchat end users appreciate authenticity. This is the reason many started utilizing the platform at the very first place.

Document size.

Document format.

Full display screen canvas. Construct Your audience

Snapchat will not have"recommended consumer" lists such as Instagram, that makes it harder to construct an audience.

As a firm, don't forget to publicize your existence with your handle and Snapchat icons that connect back into snapchat.com/add/yourusername. You might also utilize a exceptional, scannable Snapcode.

Listed below are the top Five places to Market your Snapchat:

Your site

Your own Snapchat icon ought to go into your internet site's header, footer, and sidebar. It must also be found to your own"Contact" page.

Conventional wisdom says that the 2nd most read part of an email--after which the thing line--would be your signature. That's because 1) a lot of folks would immediately scroll into the underside of an email to observe who composed it and two ) it visually stands outside to the page.

This means that your email signature is excessively observable, that makes it the right place to display your Snapchat icon.

Again, your Snapchat icon ought to go from the header or footer of one's newsletter. It ought to be observable and notable.

This consists of digital and publish ads. Display your Snapcode anyplace.

Your occasion stalls

In the event you attend trade shows or conventions, make certain that your Snapcode is someplace accessible, at which people can view and scan it (e.g., then shoulder-height in your own booth).

It is also important to note always and at the proper moment. Snapchat end users check about 20 days every day, averaging about thirty minutes every day over this platform. Utilize Snapchat Insights to determine whenever your audience is the most active, subsequently place regularly at that moment.

Want to cultivate faster?

Additionally, there are a whole lot of Snapchat hacks out-there, tiny hints and features that can make a significant difference if you employ them precisely and always.

Listed below are the top 5 hacks that you Ought to Know about:

You can draw impressive detail by turning in your phone's zoom feature

Drawing really is hard. Drawing to a phone by means of your finger is much harder. This Snapchat hack can assist you always color inside the traces --and some...

The Way to do it upon I-OS:

Proceed to Configurations

Pick out General

Tap Accessibility

Underneath the Eyesight segment, enable Zoom

Pick out Demonstrate Controller

Opt for your Zoom Area taste (Window or Full-screen )

Establish Maximum Zoom Level into 15x

The Way to do it upon Android:

This can allow you to draw the way that you want a stylus.

Reward: Download a free guidebook that reveals the measures to create habit Snapchat geofilters and lenses, and suggestions about the way best to make use of these to market your company.

Obtain the free guidebook at this time!

By way of example, that the"0" creates a wonderful oval border and also the"A" can provide you a fearless triangular edge.

The Way to do that

You can pin an emoji onto a shifting target

Straightforward, interesting, and engaging.

The Way to do that

Document a video that concentrates to a transferring item

Once you are finished filming, then tap on the emoji icon at the Summit of the preview display and Pick exactly the one you want

Resize that the emoji until you pin down it

Tap and maintain the emoji to drag it Within the transferring target (that Ought to Be suspended at the stage )

haul it Within the item to get a Minute

Snapchat will reload on the video, and also the emoji must follow along

You can edit things from your own Snaps using Magic Eraser

Amazing! You captured a great chance... with the exception of that one, minor item.

The Way to do that

The application is not ideal, but naturally. Nonetheless, it functions exceptionally well in plain, uncomplicated backgrounds with reliable colors.

This will be interesting.

The Way to do that

Document a video Snap

Tap the speaker in the underside left-hand corner of this display

Opt for the voice filter you want to add for Your Snap

All these are just 5 essential hacks. Listed below are thirty longer .

7. Measure outcomes

Utilize Snapchat analytics to measure your final results and, subsequently, establish your yield on investment (ROI).

Snapchat analytics may allow you to understand that your audienceand learn what material works well, and detect vital engagement instances. The greater you realize that information, the easier it will likely be to gain a competitive advantage on the market.

Here is how you can access and utilize Snapchat analytics:

Measure 1. Open up Snapchat. Tap the icon to automatically start it.

Measure Two. Proceed into your house display screen. Tap your bitmoji from the top-left corner.

Measure 3. Tap"Insights" beneath"My tale."

You will Observe a dashboard that resembles that:

Listed below are the Leading Five analytics that you ought to think about:

Unique viewpoints

This may be actually the total quantity of those that opened the very first video or image to your own Snapchat narrative and watched it to get at least one moment.

You can watch your one of a kind perspectives each week, month, and year.

View the time

This may be actually the total quantity of seconds that your audiences watched your Snapchat narrative.

Similar to Specific Perspectives, you also can watch that your look at Time per month, week, or year to gauge the achievements of one's content within that time period.

Assessing this data can allow you to understand 1) that day of this week is most appropriate for one really to article and two ) just how long that your narrative needs to really be.

This can be the way many audiences watched the full narrative from starting to stop.

You can observe this information divided by day--and you also can put it to use in order to analyze how nicely your articles will be resonating along with your audience.

This will definitely let you know exactly when audiences quit watching your narrative.

It has an amazingly powerful in sight that may allow you to spot material that is not doing work and replace it.

Demographics

This really is a breakdown of the percentage of guys and ladies who watched that your narrative. You can also discover age range of one's own viewers.

You can take advantage of this information to understand age, pursuits, and locations of one's audience, all which can in form the form of articles that you share.

Want far more neat Snapchat hacks, hints, and features?

Take a look at our article Snapchat hackshints, hints, and features you probably did not recognize about.

8. Try out Snapchat ads

In case your audience is not rising as fast as you possibly want (or desire ), then Snapchat ads may assist you to acquire followers at a faster clip.

There are several Sorts of Snapchat ads to Pick out of:

This is really a fullscreen, vertical video ad that lasts 10 minutes or not.

You can put it to use in order to connect folks for your site, to install an app, or only to watch a branding video.

This really is an ad variety that allows end users alter their images--usually selfies--together with your branded filters and logos.

Users try so because it really is interesting. And once they share, your brand will get vulnerability. It is a Winwin situation.

Approximately 1 billion Sponsored Snapchat Geofilters are observed each and every day, or so the potential for vulnerability is outstanding.

This could be actually the cheapest, easiest, fastest way to receive started using Snapchat advertising.

It truly is similar to a Sponsored Geofilter, but can be utilised within an ultra-tight area, such as, for instance, a town block. You can create one at a second --and pay as few as 5 dollars to drive it all live. It truly is an outstanding choice for small organizations.

Snapchat is also a easy, easy-to-use platform. However there are many nuances to advertising to this platform.

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khalilhumam · 4 years ago

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New Projects to Tackle Human Trafficking and Promote Ethical Recruitment in the Philippines

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/new-projects-to-tackle-human-trafficking-and-promote-ethical-recruitment-in-the-philippines/

New Projects to Tackle Human Trafficking and Promote Ethical Recruitment in the Philippines

Manila – IOM Philippines recently launched two projects aimed at increasing access to ethical recruitment and reducing the prevalence of human trafficking among Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), through funding from the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) and the US Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP). Aligning Lenses Toward Ethical Recruitment (ALTER) aims to increase access to ethical recruitment channels for OFWs by supporting wider adoption of ethical recruitment principles in the Philippines, and creating an enabling environment for employers and recruiters to commit to and practice those principles. Multiple complementary workstreams will bring together the Government of the Philippines, Philippine recruitment agencies (PRAs), the hospitality industry, and civil society organizations (CSOs) dedicated to migrant worker protection. Led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), ALTER will be implemented by a consortium that includes the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, Diginex, and the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance. The consortium will improve recruitment industry practices by supporting and incentivizing the effective, sustainable adoption of ethical recruitment in the Philippines, with particular emphasis on hospitality workers. The Improving Migrant and Community Preparation and Awareness to Counter Trafficking (IMPACT) project takes a community-driven, grassroots approach towards prevention and mitigation of risks of Trafficking in Persons (TiP) and labour exploitation. The project focuses on the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), recognizing that the region is a major sending location of OFWs with a higher prevalence of human trafficking. IMPACT will build awareness of risks and drivers of human trafficking through community-driven initiatives and information campaigns on TiP issues, targeting at-risk communities across BARMM. It will also work on the localization of the existing pre-departure orientation (PDO) modules and materials for BARMM-origin prospective labour migrants, along with capacity building of the PDO service providers, so that the migrants have access to contextualized information and that enables better-informed, safer migration practices. Both projects officially commenced in August 2020 with a series of government launches, with the first phases of IMPACT and ALTER focusing on the evidence building through desk research and baseline assessments, as well as development of various knowledge products. The projects will run for an 18-month period until January 2022. “ALTER is looking to sustainably reduce the prevalence of TIP among OFWs by empowering the Government of the Philippines and civil society to create an environment for more employers and private recruitment agencies (PRAs) to practice ethical recruitment and provide safer employment alternatives overseas,” said Kristin Dadey, Chief of Mission IOM Philippines. She added, “IMPACT is really about a multifaceted approach to build awareness of trafficking among the most at-risk communities of BARMM. This will be achieved through capacity building and awareness raising in a localized context based on evidence and behavioral change.” In particular, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing wide-scale job loss with little prospect of immediate employment opportunities, ALTER and IMPACT will play a critical role in the recovery effort by ensuring the redeployment of OFWs will be compliant with relevant regulations and consistent with international standards of ethical recruitment while also increasing resilience of vulnerable BARMM communities against risks and drivers of human trafficking, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The projects will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – particularly Goal 8: decent work and economic growth; and Goal 10: reduced inequalities. For more information, please contact Natsuko Kobiyama Yoshino at IOM Philippines at Email: [email protected].

Language English

Posted:

Monday, November 23, 2020 - 11:01

Image:

Region-Country:

Philippines

Themes:

Counter-Trafficking

Default:

Press Release Type:

Local

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luxuryt-shirt · 4 years ago

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Im A Simple Camping Flip Flop And Dog shirt

Unfortunately Im A Simple Camping Flip Flop And Dog shirt . There is some fly by night LASIK chop shops. You hear the ads on the radio: $250 an eye. Stay away from those. If you have it done make sure it’s a very reputable surgeon. Serious problems can and do occur. The unbearable pain some people are left with have caused major depression and suicide (as the case with a recent newscaster) Unless I’m so blind corrective lenses are not powerful enough to correct my vision, LASIK is not and has never been an option for me. My father was one of the unlucky ones who spent almost 2 years blind in his bedroom due to a botched LASIK procedure. I’ve seen the side first hand. Today, he can see without corrective lenses. Not 20/20 but clear enough to not require glasses or contacts, but was it really worth it? Im A Simple Camping Flip Flop And Dog shirt, hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

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tshirttrend · 4 years ago

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Im A Simple Camping Flip Flop And Dog shirt

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Long Sleeve

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unifiedsocialblog · 6 years ago

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Snapchat for Business: The Ultimate Marketing Guide

It’s 2019—and Snapchat still has about 188 million active daily users.

But it’s also still dwarfed by Instagram—which has 500 million daily users—and probably always will be.

And that begs the question: why should your business invest in capturing attention and building an audience on Snapchat, the demonstrably less popular platform?

Let me explain.

As of 2018, about 45 percent of Snapchat users are 18 – 24 years old and 71 percent are under 34 years old. That means Snapchat is still extremely popular among Millennials. So if your goal is to engage a younger demographic, Snapchat can be a potent source of engagement.

Source: ComScore

Also, Snapchat users create 3 billion videos a day, spending an average of 30 minutes on the platform. Those numbers—coupled with Snapchat’s impressive audience targeting capabilities—suggest big opportunities for brands and marketers.

Don’t have a Snapchat for Business account?

Let’s set you up…

Bonus: Download a free guide that reveals the steps to create custom Snapchat geofilters and lenses, plus tips on how to use them to promote your business.

How to set up a Snapchat for Business account

If you choose to advertise on Snapchat, you’ll need a business account.

If you don’t have an account, create one here. Then fill in your business details.

Like most actions on Snapchat, creating a business account is simple and intuitive. Once your business is established, you’ll be prompted to create a campaign. Of course, this is optional. As a business, you don’t need to advertise on the platform to garner attention, build an audience, and make an impact.

Onward.

7 essential Snapchat marketing tips for business

Yes, allocating spend to your content will improve its reach.

That said, there are other strategies you can use to optimize your marketing on Snapchat. These are time-tested, proven tactics and principles social media marketers can apply to grow virtually any brand.

If you’re new to Snapchat, be sure to read our beginner’s guide. It will help you learn the technical skills necessary to apply these strategies.

But if you already know the fundamentals, stay put. You’re in the right place. These tips will help you make the most of your presence.

Let’s go:

1. Identify your audience via Snapchat Insights

As a marketer, your audience is everything. But your audience is not everyone.

Your audience is a group of people who all share the same want. And, maybe, they all share a unique blend of characteristics. For example, your audience may live in a specific location; your audience may speak a specific language; your audience may make a specific income.

The better you understand these characteristics, the better you’ll be at creating good copy and art that captures attention, incites interest, creates desire, and compels action.

You may already know your audience, in which case you’re ahead. But if you’re still working to understand who to target, use Snapchat Insights. This is the platform’s built-in analytics tool, which, among other statistics, can tell you:

Your viewer count over weeks, months, and years

Your viewers’ age, location, gender, and even interests

Your viewers’ attention span (i.e., how many people watched your content until the very end)

In addition to showing your unique views, view times, and completion rates, Snapchat Insights can tell you your content’s fall-off rate and screenshot count.

These statistics can only help you better understand what your audience wants.

2. Set goals

You’re using Snapchat. But are you finding success? Maybe. Maybe not.

You wouldn’t be able to tell if your content investment is worth the resources unless you set clear goals.

Good social media marketers always set goals for themselves. But the best social media marketers set S.M.A.R.T. goals: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely goals.

Let’s break it down:

Make it “Specific”

For example, it’s not enough to say, “I want to increase my Snapchat reach.”

Instead, you should say, “I want to increase my Snapchat audience to 4000 followers.”

Make it “Measurable”

For example, it’s not enough to say, “I want to increase engagement on Snapchat.”

Instead, you should say, “I want to drive my screenshot count up by 12% and my fall-off rate down by 5%.”

Make it “Attainable”

For example, you can’t say, “We’ve never done it before, but I still want this type of content to drive 100 new Millennial followers per month.”

Instead, you have to say, “Introducing this type of content added 50 Millennial followers to our account, so if we double down on this content next month, we’ll be on track to add 100 new female followers.”

Make it “Relevant”

For example, if you want to use Snapchat to grow your mailing list, it doesn’t make sense to create objectives around screenshot counts.

Instead, it makes more sense to focus on driving followers to your website, where they can sign up for your newsletter.

The latter is far more relevant and applicable to your business goals.

Make it “Timely”

For example, it’s not enough to say, “we’ll have these changes implemented sometime in Q2.”

Instead, it’s more effective if you say, “we’ll have these changes implemented by May 15.”

The S.M.A.R.T. goal framework will keep you honest and focused as you create marketing objectives.

3. Conduct a competitive analysis

If you want to know where you’re excelling and where you’re falling short, study your competitors.

That is, conduct a competitive analysis by analyzing the accounts and activities of other brands in your space. Here’s how to do that, step-by-step:

Step 1: Identify your competition

The best way to identify a competitor is by analyzing your audience.

Who else is your audience following? Do any of those brands resemble your own? Those that do are vying for your prospects’ attention. But not every competing brand is worth analyzing.

Start by creating a long list, then pare it down. Choose three or four strong competitors to benchmark yourself against.

Step 2: Dig in

Now it’s time to research, taking several metrics into consideration, including:

Presence

Are your competitors active on every social network? Or only a couple?

Following

How many people are following your competitors? And how quickly is each following growing?

Cadence

How often do your competitors post?

Engagement

How many likes, retweets, shares, and comments do your competitors’ average?

Now it’s time to analyze this raw data.

Step 3: SWOT

SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Strengths

Analyze to understand what your competitors are doing well on Snapchat? Are their posts timely or interesting or clever? What strategies can you borrow?

Weaknesses

Analyze where your competitors are falling short. Is their cadence slow or inconsistent? Are their posts to self-serving? What can you avoid?

Opportunities

Given your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, where can you differentiate yourself? For example, if there’s no humor in the landscape, can you insert some?

Threats

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Identify these instances and be prepared for them.

And you don’t need to do all of this manually.

There are tools you can use to make the process easier, faster, and more effective.

4. Share great content

More specifically, share great Snapchat Stories.

A Story is a video or photo that lives in Snapchat for 24 hours, then disappears.

Adding content to your story is simple:

Step 1. Navigate to your camera view

Step 2. Tap the camera shutter button to take a photo OR tap and hold the shutter to record a video

Step 3. Add elements, including text, stickers, and doodles

Step 4. Tap the blue arrow, then select “My Story”

But creating content—great content—is hard. It’s hard to capture attention, create intrigue, and compel people to keep watching.

The best Snapchat Stories are typical yet surprising. That is, they follow a standard narrative arc: rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. But they’re also unexpected, delivering humor or suspense or educational value. In any case, viewers should walk away from your Story pleasantly surprised, delighted even.

To create this effect, many businesses create “behind-the-scenes” Stories, providing content followers would otherwise never see. You can also ask questions, create polls, and conduct interviews to engage audiences.

Whatever content you choose to create, remember to keep it light and, of course, authentic. Snapchat users appreciate authenticity. It’s the reason many started using the platform in the first place.

Users also appreciate high-quality imagery. Here are several important Snapchat specs to follow:

File size. Maximum 5MB image and 32 MB video.

File format. Image .jpg or .png. Video: .mp4, .mov, and H.264 encoded).

Full screen canvas. 1080 x 1920 px. 9:16 aspect ratio.

5. Build your audience

Snapchat doesn’t have “Suggested User” lists like Instagram, which makes it harder to build an audience.

That’s why it’s important to make your Snapchat account as discoverable as possible.

As a business, be sure to promote your presence using your handle and Snapchat icons that link back to snapchat.com/add/yourusername. You could also use your unique, scannable Snapcode.

Here are the top 5 places to promote your Snapchat:

1. Your website

Your Snapchat icon should go in your website’s header, footer, and sidebar. It should also be present on your “Contact” page.

2. Your email signature

Conventional wisdom says that the second most read part of an email—after the subject line—is the signature. That’s because 1) most people will immediately scroll to the bottom of an email to see who wrote it and 2) it visually stands out on the page.

This means your email signature is extremely visible, which makes it the perfect place to display your Snapchat icon.

3. Your newsletter

Again, your Snapchat icon should go in the header or footer of your newsletter. It should be visible and prominent.

4. Your advertisements

This includes digital and print ads. If your goal is to amass as many Snapchat followers as possible, don’t be shy. Display your Snapcode everywhere.

5. Your event booths

If you attend trade shows or conferences, make sure your Snapcode is somewhere accessible, where visitors can see and scan it (e.g., shoulder-height on your booth).

It’s also important to post consistently and at the right time. Snapchat users check-in about 20 times per day, averaging about 30 minutes per day on the platform. Use Snapchat Insights to figure out when your audience is most active, then post regularly at that time.

Need to grow even faster? Consider Snapchat ads.

6. Master the little-known features

There are a lot of Snapchat hacks out there, little tricks and features that can make a big difference if you use them properly and consistently.

Here are the top five hacks you should know about:

1. You can draw in impressive detail by turning on your phone’s zoom feature

Drawing is hard. Drawing on a phone with your finger is even harder. This Snapchat hack will help you consistently color in the lines—and then some…

How to do it on iOS:

Go to Settings

Select General

Tap Accessibility

Under the Vision section, enable Zoom

Select Show Controller

Choose your Zoom Region preference (Window or Full Screen)

Set Maximum Zoom Level to 15x

How to do it on Android:

Go to Settings

Select Accessibility

Tap Vision

Tap Magnification Gestures

Enable Zoom

This will help you draw the way you would with a stylus.

2. You can use characters to frame your snaps

It’s a frame but designers call it a mask…

For example, the “0” creates a nice oval border and the “A” will give you a bold triangular border.

How to do it:

After you’ve taken your Snap, create a one-letter caption with the largest size text (tap the T icon)

Enlarge it so that it creates a border around the picture

Position it until you have the frame you want

3. You can pin an emoji on a moving target

Simple, fun, and engaging.

How to do it:

Record a video that focuses on a moving object

When you’re finished filming, tap the emoji icon at the top of the preview screen and select the one you want

Resize the emoji before you pin it

Tap and hold the emoji to drag it over the moving target (which should be frozen at this point)

Hold it over the object for a moment

Snapchat will reload the video, and the emoji should follow along

This is a great way to capture attention—and keep it.

4. You can edit stuff out of your Snaps with Magic Eraser

Nice! You captured a great shot… except for that one, little thing.

That’s what the Magic Eraser is for.

How to do it:

Capture a Snap

Tap the scissors icon

Tap the multi-star button

Trace the outline of the object you’d like to erase and it will disappear

The tool isn’t perfect, of course. But it works exceptionally well on plain, simple backgrounds with solid colors.

5. You can distort audio with Voice Filter

This is fun. More importantly, it captures attention.

How to do it:

Record a video Snap

Tap the speaker button in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen

Choose the voice filter you’d like to add to your Snap

These are 5 essential hacks. Here are 30 more.

7. Measure results

Use Snapchat analytics to measure your results and, in turn, prove your return on investment (ROI).

Snapchat analytics will help you understand your audience, learn what content performs best, and discover key engagement times. The better you know this information, the easier it’ll be to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Here’s how to access and use Snapchat analytics:

Step 1. Open Snapchat. Tap the icon to open it.

Step 2. Go to your home screen. Tap your bitmoji in the top-left corner.

Step 3. Access Snapchat Insights. Tap “Insights” below “My Story.”

You’ll see a dashboard that looks like this:

Here are the top 5 analytics you should consider:

1. Unique views

This is the total number of people who opened the first video or image on your Snapchat story and viewed it for at least one second.

You can see your unique views per week, month, and year.

2. View time

This is the total number of minutes your viewers watched your Snapchat story.

Similar to Unique Views, you can see your View Time by week, month, or year to gauge the success of your content over that period of time.

Studying this data will help you understand 1) which day of the week is best for you to post on and 2) how long your story should be.

3. Completion rate

This is how many viewers watched the entire story from beginning to end.

You can see this information broken down by day—and you can use it to analyze how well your content is resonating with your audience.

4. Fall-off rate

This will tell you exactly when viewers stopped watching your story.

It’s an incredibly powerful insight that will help you identify content that isn’t working and replace it.

5. Demographics

This is a breakdown of the percentage of men and women who watched your story. You’ll also find the age range of your viewers.

You can use this information to understand the age, interests, and locations of your audience, all of which can inform the type of content you share.

Want more neat Snapchat hacks, tricks, and features?

Check out our post on Snapchat hacks, tricks, and features you probably didn’t know about.

8. Try Snapchat ads

If your audience isn’t growing as quickly as you want (or need), Snapchat ads will help you acquire followers at a faster clip.

There are several types of Snapchat ads to choose from:

Snap Ads

This is a full-screen, vertical video ad that lasts 10 seconds or less.

You can use it to funnel people to your website, to install an app, or just to watch a branding video.

Sponsored Geofilters

This is a graphic overlay for Snapchatter to place on their snaps

Approximately 1 billion Sponsored Snapchat Geofilters are viewed every day, so the potential for exposure is incredible.

On-Demand Geofilters

This is the cheapest, easiest, fastest way to get started with Snapchat advertising.

It’s like a Sponsored Geofilter, but can be used in an ultra-tight area, like a city block. You can create one in a minute—and pay as little as 5 dollars to push it live. It’s an excellent option for small businesses.

Snapchat is a simple, easy-to-use platform. But there are many nuances to advertising on the platform.

Be sure to master the Snapchat advertising fundamentals before diving in.

Bonus: Download a free guide that reveals the steps to create custom Snapchat geofilters and lenses, plus tips on how to use them to promote your business.

The post Snapchat for Business: The Ultimate Marketing Guide appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

Snapchat for Business: The Ultimate Marketing Guide published first on https://getfblike.tumblr.com/

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thepeacefulnomad · 6 years ago

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Gratitude>pride Kindness>guilt

The way in which we interpret our circumstances sets the tone for the way in which we develop our behavioral intuitions and build our character. Sometimes these interpretations ride on the surface of our perspective, constantly exposed to new inputs and feedback, making us vulnerable to new insights and giving us the opportunity to change our mind. These surface level lenses might include our political orientation, social values, financial priorities, etc. It’s not that it’s easy to develop a new framework around these issues, but that opportunities to do so are constantly presenting themselves in the form of competing viewpoints and fresh commentary.

But sometimes, these interpretive methods sit at the core of our behavioral patterns and pull the levers of our most fundament instincts. They define our philosophical and metaphysical worldview and frame the way we interact with our surroundings and our environment on a deeper and more subtle level. They formulate our identities and drive us to make sense of our inner lives. They are the fountainhead for all the cascading properties and features that make up our personhood.

An effective way of making contact with these deep-seated understandings is to ask questions that require us to look behind the behavior rather than just at it. Pulling back the curtain like this means looking at the “why” and the “how” lurking in the shadows of the “what.” One particularly useful question could be “How did I come to be this way?”

When sincerely asking this question, we are invited to open all the doors to our identity and investigate the qualities that define our personalities and compose our behaviors. One such door that consistently fascinates me leads to the root of our social reflexes - Why is she so kind? How could I be so selfish? Why would you lie? How can I be more forgiving? These are the inquiries that, when wholeheartedly pursued, will divest us of the stories we’ve concocted about ourselves in an attempt to embrace our virtues and hide from our vices.

Often, we like to think that our redeeming prosocial qualities are primarily the product of our diligent efforts to “be a good person” and “do the right thing,” acts of discipline used to overcome the temptations of selfishness and other antisocial behaviors. We love to take credit for these respectable principles and the psychology behind them because it feels like we worked for them, sometimes against great odds and challenges. Consequentially, the implication is that those who behave contrary to these ideals didn’t put in the necessary work, and are to blame for their shortcomings. Ironically, it’s how we rationalize our most destructive and divisive crimes against each other. This is a trap of false cause, and many of us are caught in it without ever even knowing what it is or how we got here.

The reason this trap is so effective is because it feels good to get a pat on the back for the manner in which we find ourselves; it shields us from harsh self-criticism in a world dominated by thousands of organizations spread across dozens of industries pouring billions of dollars into campaigns convincing us that we are not good enough. And it only sweetens the deal when we can further congratulate ourselves on our disposition by putting others down for exhibiting behaviors that we have overcome.

But, there is another way. When looking closely, we can see that the totality of efforts we made to build our character and worldview were simply the effects of previous causes, causes that themselves were effects of even more previous causes. They were literally the only actions that occurred to us at the time given our grasp on reality and understanding of the world (There’s more than enough philosophical literature on determinism widely available online to further sell this point).

The important takeaway is not a fatalistic decay into nihilism or disregard for our behavior. The takeaway is that instead of greeting our “good” characteristics with pride, arrogance, and ego, we can greet them with gratitude. Why not express thanks for the circumstances that were entirely beyond our control that formed the psychological ecosystem in which we learned to be kind, honest, and considerate? Maybe those circumstances were loving parents and teachers who passed on these values through patience and love. Maybe those circumstances were dominated by household abuse, selfishness, and indifference, where we learned how not to be through torment and heartbreak. And of course the other side of the coin demonstrates that we can use kindness to make sense of behaviors that we regard as immoral and problematic instead of blame and shame. Of course, kindness doesn’t mean encouragement, it means seeing the long chain of causality behind the activity and realizing that we learned the only lessons available to us at the time given the complete situation.

Gratitude can be our first instinct to a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, rather than pride and self congratulations. We can be grateful that life has led us to the lessons we needed to learn and prepared us with the faculties to grow through our experience, challenging or otherwise.

0 notes

krisrampersad · 7 years ago

Text

Royal Wedding in Toronto upstaged when Fairy Godmother Educator oins our Journeys into the Imagination

Dear Lizzie, Cover Girls edge Meghna-Prince Harry off front page! Centuries into the women's liberation movement, it may still be everygirl's dream to marry, and to a Prince, but who would think that the Royal Wedding mania that has gripped Canada through Toronto could be upstaged by a revolution! Toronto is gripped with pride as the city that intiated the romance and the upcoming nuptials of Prince Harry and the Hollywood actress Meghan Markle, the latest edition of the Monarchy to which Canadastill owes its allegiance , despite becoming independent of British rule more than a century before my birth! Just when we thought it may be impossible to turn heads that are glued from the unfolding drama and melodrama of the Royal to-do, enters our fairy godmother-educator to give flight to our Reading Revolution to transform the cinderalla art of reading into headliner for equity, progress and sustainable development. The intervention turned heads glued to the fairytale romance to the real life fairytale of women in education and development who have set the foundation for women's education, women as a force in the workplace, in business, in politics, in Hollywood, towards creating a more equitable society. The cindergirl and the fairy godmother educator became Cover Girls of Independence and the headlines of the Independent Newspaper, voted the Best Digital Newspaper in Canada by the Media Council of Canada and the Canadian Ethnic Press. It promises a happily ever after to those independent-minded who still celebrate the independent spirit of women and are stemming the tide of regression of centuries of suppression of the independent spirit of women. As we wish Meghan Markle andHarry MontbattenWindsor - my Jahaji Bhai - a happily ever after, we look to our own happy endings. Join us after the wedding for the grand nuptial celebration in our continuing LiTTribute to ToronTTo: A Reading and A Roti at Windies Restaurant, Scarborough from 3 pm on Sunday May 20, 2018 for this and much more food for thought! Rethinking Development. For books and bookings and to partner and sponsor with our developmental efforts, email [email protected] or see images and videos this page for details or contact us on soccial media: Twitter @lolleaves FaceBook LiTTscapes and Leaves of Life Meet Caribbean Literary Salon It's our royal wedding of island and continental culture. Spicing up appetites with creative conversation our LiTTribute to the Americas Canada Section continue LiTTributes to ToronTTO with our global journeys through the Landscapes of Fiction at @Windies Restaurant, Scarborough Toronto this Sunday May 20, 2018 from 3 pm. What is the role of the Royal Ontario Museum and like arts, film, music, performance and culture institutions in advancing post colonial societies? How can the media in both mainstream and ethnic communities better represent the multicultural spectrum of Canadian diversity? How can we better utilise the vast numbers of cultural arenas and mechanisms to bridge cultural

divides and create the connected world touted by the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau with his multisectrum Cabinet?

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How can they better serve the array of cultural communities through the multicultural policy directions of Canada and our connected global diasporas? The continuing saga of our global LiTTributes move to the Windies Restaurant in Scarborough this weekend from 3 pm Sunday May 20 2018 as we connect East and West silk, spice, slave and indentured immigrant routes in an exploration ofmulticulturalism through intercultural dialogue. Drawn from the concept of LiTTributes to recognise heritage institutions along with lifestyles and pasttimes, our LiTTribute to ToronTTo will engage creative conversations on the intertwining of the now global game of cricket with the heritage of food along with other cultural forms and expresiions through their representations through the literatures of the Commonwealth and the Caribbean, and the roots and routes of our societies in the Americas.

Inspired by LiTTscapes - Landscapes of Fiction, these interactive engagements bridge generation gaps, promote youth to engage in meaningful considerations of cultural continuity while promoting respect and understanding of the range of cultural traditions beliefs and practices that have become intrinsic to modern living. Enter our discussions through the portal of LiTTscapes which features a number of writers out of Canada as Neil Bissoondath, the nephew of Nobel Laureate Sir Vidia Naipaul who has himself challenged the impact of Canadian multicultural policies, Ramabai Espinet, Shani Mootoo, Ismith Khan, Samuel Selvon and others.

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Meet us at the Windies Restaurant Scarborough Toronto Ontario Canada from 3 pm May 20 2018. See images this page for further details. Our Creative Conversation - synergies between the literary and performing arts in the spirit of Exploration, Entertainment Education and Empowerment through Novel lenses with music, song, dance, and recitation. Engaging generations. All ages. All interests. Tailor made to your events and special occasions. By Request Only. Learn more. Next stop Toronto. #LiTTributeToToronto Join our LiTTours or Request Your Own Global education statistics suggest that boys lag behind in reading in a campaign #Don'tForgetTheBoys.

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The experience of our boys are different. Our efforts look beyond the statistics and engage boys and girls of all ages to appreciate reading in novel ways through culture-specific forms as we promote inclusive societies. We are redefining multiculturalism to bridge the gaps between generations, between cultures, between genders and scaling walls that create inequity and discrimination through literacy and literary elderly and intergenerational appreciation. Our LiTTribute series re-tailor your events to suit your environment, inspired by LiTTscapes - Landscapes of Fiction by Kris Rampersad, in partnership with global diasporas.

Following our LiTTributes To The Americas, the Republic, To LondonTTown, To the Mainland and To the Antilles, in our next chapter we being our LiTTributes to Toronto, in association with Zoomers Association and the Independent Newspaper of Canada on May 13, 2018 at the Erin View Residence Hall in Mississauga Toronto from 1 pm and at Windies Restaurant from 1 pm on May 20 2018 in association with the Independent Newspaper - voted the best digital newspaper by the Media Council of Canada and the National Ethnic Press. See images this page and contact our partners for bookings. Since our launch many mothers, fathers, guardians and community organisations who have come into contact with our initiative have commended our efforts. Ours is an all encompassing journey of Exploration, Entertainment, Education and Empowerment. .... find out more from our LiTTributes, LiTTscapes and LiTTours. Want to partner or sponsor an event, book a tour or purchase books for your schools or communities? Email [email protected]. Find us on social media: Twitte:r @lolleaves; Facebook: LiTTscapes Sharing some images of our engagement activities for your better understanding. Join us at LiTTributes 2018 to find out more ...

Follow our Literary journeys: LiTTribute to the Americas LiTTribute to LondonTTown LiTTribute to the AnTTiles LiTTribute to the Mainland LiTTribute to the Republic...and more

LiTTscapes

Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago by Kris Rampersad is….

LiTTscapes offer Novel Approach to Sustainable Cultural Heritage Development & Education

LiTTscapes, a full colour compendium of Trinidad and Tobago as represented in its fictional literature against actual photographs of the landscapes, lifestyles and living heritage, has been acclaimed as a groundbreaking initiative to stimulate our nation “to heal our self-schisms”.

“No one book can set out to achieve everything that a text can do for its people and its nation; but whatever you say one book can’t do, this one almost does,” says head of the Guyana Prize for Literature and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana of LiTTscapes. It has also been hailed as a ‘labour of love’ in the Commonwealth Journal and ‘like a good fete” by Soca News UK.

LiTTscapes was conceived as a mechanism for expanding appreciation of national heritage and engaging and connecting cultures, restoring self appreciation and esteem to peoples of all ages through creative synergies while focusing on sustainable development of the tourism, heritage and education sectors. LiTTscapes is a pictorial, yet encyclopaedic compendium of the lifestyles, landscapes, architecture, cultures, festivals and institutions of Trinidad and Tobago as represented in more than 100 fictional works by some 60 writers from earliest to modern times, including both award winning Nobel laureates as well as lesser known writers.

It has been ‘translated’ and transmitted through interactive interfaces, exposition and performance as LiTTributes and through tours that offer unique insights into public places called LiTTours – Journeys Through the Landscapes of Fiction.

LiTTributes have already been enacted at launches nationally and in the wider Caribbean and our diasporas, LiTTributes to the Republic in Trinidad and Tobago, LiTTributes to the Mainland in Guyana, LiTTribute to the Antilles staged in March in Antigua; LiTTribute to LondonTTown among others. Upcoming LiTTributes2018 will focus on the Americas.

Publication of LiTTscapes which is also associated with the LiTTours – Journeys Through the Landscapes of Fiction of Trinidad and Tobago, has been widely endorsed as an effective means of engaging the national and international communities in appreciating our built, natural and cultural heritage towards enhancing social and cultural development and diversification and all to promote literacy and heritage appreciation among youths from ages 3 to 103.

Acclaimed as a groundbreaking encyclopaedic yet coffee-table style compendium of the lifestyles, landscapes, architecture, cultures, festivals and institutions of the Caribbean as represented in more than 100 fictional works by some 60 writers, LiTTscapes is geared to stimulate interest in reading, literacy and connect the Caribbean with other continents through synergies with the creative sectors.

Stating that LiTTscapes, though easy to read, is not easy to describe “given its multi-tasking nature and its wide reach,” Head of the Guyana Prize for Literature Professor Al Creighton has called it “a work of art…a documentary, a travelogue, a critical work with visual and literary power.”

He said, “It is a quite thorough artistic concept…a portrait and biography of the nation of Trinidad and…is attractively, neatly and effectively designed.” He noted that it reflects “a considerable volume of reading ranging from…the dawn of Caribbean literature” in such early writings as of Walter Raleigh, through the 1930s period of literary awakening with the Beacon group, Alfred Mendes, CLR James and others, to present.

“It takes us on a tour of the country, giving some exposure to almost every aspect of life…no tourist guide can give a better, more comprehensive introduction to Trinidad. It entices and attracts just as the glossy tourist literature.

“Photographs of several sections of Port-of-Spain are accompanied by the descriptions and literary excerpts: this treatment is given to the capital city, other towns, streets, urban communities, villages, historic buildings and places, vegetation, animals, institutions, culture and landscape. There is considerable visual beauty, what Derek Walcott calls “visual surprise” in his Nobel Lecture; an impressive coverage of social history, geography, and politics, but also a strong literary experience. It is a survey of Trinidad’s landscape and of its literature.”

Creighton noted Rampersad “has done the painstaking work analogous to that of a lexicographer, of sorting out their several hundred references to her subjects…. with memorable passages of real literary criticism” capturing the writings of VS Naipaul, Ian McDonald, Michael Anthony and others.

He said, “Rampersad’s Littscapes does achieve an innovative approach to literature in bringing it alive in the description of landscape, life, culture and people. It encourages people to take ownership of it, see themselves, their home or familiar places in it and accept it as a definer of identity.”

LiTTscapes is associated with customized LiTTours - Journeys Through the Landscapes of Fiction.

LiTTours - bring these ‘scapes’ to reality through interactive engagement with the national landscape. LiTTours are available on request and along any subject, theme or location route related to user interest as entrepreneours, investors, industrialists or general cultural enthusiasts and have been held for Carifesta and the jubilee year of Independence through the capital and other cities and across the East, West, North, Central and South Trinidad and Tobago.

LiTTributes are events that blend holistic appreciation for Trinidad and Tobago in the many dimensions of built, natural and cultural heritage with literary and creative talents of its people, as well as to connect the Trinidad and Caribbean diasporas with our international communities.

The first LiTTribute to the Republic took place in Trinidad and Tobago in commemoration of the Jubilee year of Independence, hosted by the First Lady of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Jean Ramjohn Richards and the author of LiTTscapes at the 19th century Knowsley Building in Trinidad’s capital and the August 2012 launch of LiTTscapes at White Hall – one of Trinidad and Tobago’s Magnificent Seven buildings.

LiTTribute to the Mainland, Guyana – February 2013: in collaboration with Heritage building, Moray House and Guyana Drama Guild (dances & performances)

LiTTribute to the Antilles/ Antigua March 2013 (young poets, Antigua Museum)

LiTTribute to LondonTTown, 2013 (BBC, Commonwealth Foundation, filmmaker and writers)

LiTTribute to AuTThors, UNESCO, Paris 2015;

LiTTribute to Los Conquistadores, Barcelona Spain 2015

LiTTribute to the Americas, Florida, April 2018

LiTTribute to ToronTTo, Canada, May 2018

Dr Kris Rampersad is an international sustainable development, UNESCO facilitator, journalist and educator in Caribbean literature, culture and heritage. She is a founding member and director of the International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, the Arts and Tourism and promotes literacy and literary appreciation through various endeavours as Leaves of Life.

For more than three decades she has been actively involved in interactive futuring, analysing, assessing, critiquing and defining the development agenda for Caribbean societies through its cultural forms, educating communities and leveraging the international community.

See: Youtube short video: LiTTscapes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgE69wgUgw

About Dr Kris Rampersad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isKQt2LOXIM

LiTTscapes album on Facebook: https://ift.tt/2HQXuXG

Dr Kris Rampersad Profile:https://www.linkedin.com/in/krisrampersad/

LiTTours/KrisRampersad Google Searches: https://goo.gl/BmavVF; LiTTscapes:https://goo.gl/9Bc6wm; LiTTributes: https://goo.gl/LkY9dh

Related Links:

Bridging Gaps in reading education entertainment exploration and empowerment for literacy appreciation. LiTTribute to ToronTTO. See link https://goo.gl/jLHTBE

The Triumph of Gollum in the Land of Shut Up Suicide of the Fellowship of Partnerships Book 11. A Sequel Futuring the Agenda Forward https://goo.gl/HU3rp3

Celebrating Jamettry The Sacred and the Sacriligious

https://goo.gl/oCk1PB

Yo Ho Ho Piracy and Heritage: https://goo.gl/TvXOHU

Demokrissy https://goo.gl/FHs3Fr

Arresting the Tears Hayti I’m Sorry https://goo.gl/6sy3y6

Noble Tears of a Nobel Bard https://goo.gl/WXbMpv

Towards State of the Art Museum: https://goo.gl/FfHfJL

Jurisprudence An Ode https://goo.gl/Gmn7l0

Ah Drinking Babash https://goo.gl/GhMncz

The Human face of constitutional reform https://goo.gl/6escjj

Lagahoo-tribute-to-independent-spirits https://goo.gl/P6gP2Q

Murder and the Museum http//goo.gl/FHs3Fr

Woman in the mirror https://goo.gl/pvnX9d

Murder and the Museum http//goo.gl/FHs3Fr

Celebrating Nationhood But Can new Save the Nation https://goo.gl/qSqJtT

my-discoverie-columbus-lost-and-found https://goo.gl/ixGu7y

Death of Knowledge & Social Conscience

Pat-bishops-last-struggle-killings https://goo.gl/tQUySt

Them-red-house-bones

A-tale-of-two-skeletons

Arresting-tears-for-us-and-haytian-globe:

Yo Ho ho and a bottle of rumhttps://goo.gl/TvXOHU

Demokrissy https://goo.gl/FHs3Fr

Changing the World with Ideas goo.gl/Pa6jAk

Lagahoo-tribute-to-independent-spirits Nationhood in contestation with globalisation: http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2017/08/nationhood-in-contestation-with.html https://goo.gl/KWdUtx

https://ift.tt/2vv44gW

http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-world-inspired-littscapes-turns-3.html https://goo.gl/J1EFn5

https://ift.tt/1vYaD4K /from-beirut-to-port-of-spain-how-west.html

The-price-of-passion-awards-and-rewards

https://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-price-of-passion-awards-and-rewards.html

Exploring a World Through MultiCultural Lenses https://ift.tt/2veR3ei

Power Failure Media Blackout Brets Muffled Threats and Ransoming Father:https://goo.gl/YjbBgx

Jurisprudence-rip-obituary-walcott.html

my-date-with-narendra-modi-dat-merkel affair

Of-diasporas-migrations-arrivals.

Elixirs-of-entrepreneurship-The Emperor and I

Ah-drinking-babash-in-this-fo-rum

Nobel-tears-of-and-for-nobel-bard

Things-that-make-me-go-steups-stars https://ift.tt/2haopDO

The Walcott Files LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles A LiTTribute at UNESCO Inscription by UNESCO of Poems Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told World in a Fishbowl A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities

Breezes-of-tropical-arab-spring

In-war-and-peace-from-hiroshima-to-home.html

A-path-out-of-mayhem-and-murder

Turning-our-dreams-to-shame-rip-asami

Focus-resources on real crime

jus-call-me-cooligan

The world-in-fishbowl

The-other-magnificent-seven

Tribute-to-literary-mentor

The-human-face-of-constitutional-reform

The-ghost-of journalism past

OverCopulation - The Archbishop The Priest The Politician & The Journalist

Ask About LiTTscapes,

Ask about LiTTours and LiTTributes

Diplomats get stimulating LiTTour

Murder She Wrote: Death Written in Stone in Dana Seetahal Assassination Creating Centres of Peace in Trinidad and Tobago The Price of Independence:#DanaSeetahalAssassinationConceive. Achieve. Believe Demokrissy: Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's ... Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2 Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ See Also:

Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ... Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Related: Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ... Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2 Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ See Also: Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ... Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Related:

Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ... Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Others: Demokrissy: Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 ... Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2 Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's New ... Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an ... Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 10:36 AM ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Carnivalising the Constitution People Power ... Feb 26, 2014 This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Envisioning outside-the-island-box ... - Demokrissy - Blogger Feb 10, 2014 This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Futuring the Post-2015 UNESCO Agenda Apr 22, 2014 It is placing increasing pressure for erasure of barriers of geography, age, ethnicity, gender, cultures and other sectoral interests, and in utilising the tools placed at our disposal to access our accumulate knowledge and technologies towards eroding these superficial barriers. In this context, we believe that the work of UNESCO remains significant and relevant and that UNESCO is indeed the institution best positioned to consolidate the ..... The Emperor's New Tools ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/ Demokrissy: Cutting edge journalism Jun 15, 2010 The Emperor's New Tools. Loading... AddThis. Bookmark and Share. Loading... Follow by Email. About Me. My Photo · Kris Rampersad. Media, Cultural and Literary Consultant, Facilitator, Educator and Practitioner. View my ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

Text

Reporting from Yemen

Iona Craig won a Polk Award for her investigation of a SEAL team raid that killed women and children in Yemen. Here’s how she did it.

Peter Maass, The Intercept, February 24 2018

A little more than a year ago, on January 29, 2017, Iona Craig was at the tail end of a month-long reporting trip to Yemen. On that day, special operators from the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team 6 launched a surprise raid in a remote part of Yemen, apparently trying to capture or kill an Al Qaeda leader. This was the first covert assault of the Trump era, and the White House, which was not challenged in the U.S. media, hailed it as “highly successful.”

Except it wasn’t.

Craig, who was based in Yemen from 2010-2015 and had continued to make reporting trips to the country since a civil war broke out, quickly learned from local media that the raid killed civilians. As she began planning for an arduous and risky journey to the site of the assault, local sheikhs she knew from her previous work in the country told her that the U.S. was getting the story wrong. A large number of women and children had been killed, and the targeted village did not appear to have had a standing Al Qaeda presence.

But these accounts were just words that had yet to be confirmed. Craig had to go there to find out first-hand.

Craig was in Yemen to report a story for Harper’s Magazine about suicide bombers, and she had received a travel grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Once the raid happened, she got in touch with The Intercept--she is a regular contributor--which gave her the financial backing to extend her stay and work on this new story. Earlier this week, the story, which was published by The Intercept last March, won the 2018 Polk Award for Foreign Reporting, the most prestigious U.S. honor for excellence in international journalism after the Pulitzer Prize.

What follows is a description of how Craig reported the story, which was both a major expose that revealed the Trump administration lied about its first major military engagement, and an epic 1,000-mile journey through desolate parts of Yemen, where Craig and her Yemeni companions faced lethal risks. She was not only the first foreign journalist to report from al Ghayil, she remains the only one to have done so. It is a demonstration of how independent journalists are able to uncover important truths missed by traditional reporters who rely too heavily on official accounts coming from Washington.

In ordinary times, the car journey from Aden to al Ghayil, where the raid occurred, would have taken eight hours and been relatively simple. But the war in Yemen, which has spiraled into an international conflict pitting Houthi rebels against a Saudi-U.S. bombing campaign, has divided the country into no-go zones controlled by one side or the other. The direct route to al Ghayil would have crossed contested frontlines and veered into territories controlled by Houthis and other forces that are especially hostile to Western reporters. It would almost certainly have ended with Craig’s arrest, and probably worse for the Yemenis she would travel with.

The best option, Craig decided, was to take a ridiculously roundabout four-day route that kept her within territory controlled by the government and the Saudi-U.S. coalition, but still entailed potential encounters with Al Qaeda and Islamic State forces. In the risk assessment forms she provided to The Intercept before setting off, Craig described the potential hazards as “Detention and/or kidnap. IEDs, small arms fire, air strikes.” She assessed the likelihood of those hazards occurring as “medium to high.” Trained in first aid, she would be traveling with a full medical kit to treat injuries that she or her Yemeni traveling partners might incur. She provided The Intercept with proof-of-life information that could be used in the event she was kidnapped.

She could not travel openly as a Westerner. As Craig explained in a lengthy interview published last year by Poynter, for the entire journey she dressed as a Yemeni woman in an all-black abiya and niqab. Her camouflage included black gloves, so that the pale skin on her hands would not give her away. She also wore brown-tinted contact lenses to cover her green eyes. Though she was able to camouflage herself, the ruse was not foolproof, and if the wrong people recognized her, the consequences could be dire.

First, Craig made a 350-mile journey along the coast from Aden to Mukalla on a public bus (which ran out of fuel en route), a trip that took 10 hours. Then, after staying overnight in Mukalla, she and a Yemeni friend drove off before dawn for Bin Aifan, which was five hours away (they took the precaution of packing Jerry cans filled with extra fuel). In Bin Aifan, she joined another Yemeni friend who would serve as her translator, driver, and companion for the rest of the journey to al Ghayil.

She and this friend drove west for 230 miles over flat desert to Marib. Once there, her camouflage took on an added element--she was now posing as the wife of her friend, because they would need to stay in a hotel in Marib. If Craig registered under her own name, local security officials would be notified. Yemeni women cannot stay in hotels with a man who is not their husband or a family member--so Craig’s companion became her husband, and she his wife, at least as far as the hotel staff were concerned.

Once in Marib, she checked with senior sheikhs in the village where the raid took place and asked for permission to visit them the next day; their agreement would constitute a guarantee of safety while she was with them. They agreed but told her to wait a day. This was a bit inconvenient, because Craig did not want to be found out; on her undesired layover in Marib, she had to be careful to not speak English in public and did her best to avoid speaking Arabic anywhere, lest her accent give her away.

Some of the territory ahead of her was controlled by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Craig had negotiated travel access with the group for previous stories, so she did that again, in the manner that had proved wisest: She informed her Al Qaeda contacts of where she wanted to travel, but not when, how, or even if she would go. In the event Al Qaeda forces found her, someone along their chain of command would know that she wasn’t trying to sneak into their territory without authorization.

Craig established a careful security protocol for the final leg of the trip to al Ghayil. Every hour, she checked in via cellphone or satellite phone with two Yemeni contacts, one of whom ran a small security firm. Those contacts were in touch with The Intercept. If Craig missed a check-in, her Yemeni contacts would immediately get in touch with The Intercept and everyone would scramble to find her.

Her travel was complicated by the fact that, until she finally reached al Ghayil with a driver sent by a local sheikh, she didn’t know the village’s exact location. The raid had been widely reported as taking place in “Yakla,” yet that refers to a wider district, not a village. Once she reached al Ghayil, Craig used her satellite phone to map her GPS coordinates. This proved crucial for, among other things, finding satellite imagery that showed the village, whose location the U.S. military knew but had not shared with the public.

AT 5:30 in the morning on February 9, 2017, Craig left Marib with her Yemeni “husband” and two local activists. They traveled in an SUV because of the difficult off-road conditions. The journey was expected to take three hours, but it took more than twice that, partly because a rock hit the undercarriage of their SUV and burst its oil line. They were about an hour away from al Ghayil at that point and far from any cell phone towers, so Craig used her satellite phone to call a local sheikh who sent someone to fetch them. They waited in the shade of bushes on the side of a river bed for an hour, facing mountain ridges controlled by Al Qaeda and Islamic State fighters, until a pickup truck arrived with 30 bullet holes in its windshield--from the SEAL Team 6 raid, Craig was told.

One of the least-appreciated dangers of working in war zones is the seemingly mundane possibility of car accidents. Roads tend to be in particularly terrible shape due to disuse or overuse and lack of maintenance, and the vehicles correspondents travel in are generally not well maintained, because little is well-maintained in wartime except the machines of war. Travel is often rushed to avoid being on the roads after nightfall, when dangers multiply. If there is an accident, medical attention is usually far away. Craig’s ride in the truck with 30 bullet holes was particularly perilous, winding through rocky gorges on what was little more than a donkey track, with a reckless local driver who nearly collided head-on with a camel stuck in a gorse bush.

Once in al Ghayil, Craig met with more than a dozen survivors and witnesses. Adults were interviewed separately to capture each individual’s account rather than a collective memory of what happened. She also toured buildings that had been bombed and shot during the raid, and she took pictures. She only had three and a half hours in the village before she had to leave for Marib in the hope of returning there before dark. Staying overnight in al Ghayil was out of the question because the area was unstable and word could filter out to the wrong people that a Western journalist was poking around.

Even though darkness was catching up with Craig long before she reached Marib, she made a detour to a hospital where she hoped to interview survivors of the attack. As it turned out, they had already been released. Craig and her Yemeni partners arrived back in Marib well after midnight. The journey from Marib to al Ghayil and back had taken 22 hours, including 14 hours of off-road driving through mountains and dry riverbeds.

Craig’s story destroyed the Trump narrative of an effective raid that, despite the death of a Navy SEAL, resulted in an important capture of intelligence information. This narrative had been repeated by major media outlets, which had not taken the time and effort to investigate, on the ground, what really happened. Craig learned from the eyewitnesses she interviewed that U.S. forces had tried to storm al Ghayil but had come under fire from villagers who thought Houthi forces were attacking. The U.S. troops called in air support.

“In what seemed to be a blind panic, the gunships bombarded the entire village, striking more than a dozen buildings, razing stone dwellings where families slept,” Craig reported. At least six women were killed, as were 10 children under the age of 13. “The first to die in the assault was 13-year old Nasser al Dhahab,” Craig wrote. Her account continued:

Nesma al Ameri, an elderly village matriarch who lost four family members in the raid, described how the attack helicopters began firing down on anything that moved. As she recounted the horror of what happened, Sinan tapped her on the arm. “No, no. The bullets were coming from behind,” the 5-year-old insisted, interrupting to demonstrate how he was shot at and his mother gunned down as they ran for their lives. “From here to here,” Sinan said, putting two fingers to the back of his head and drawing an invisible line to illustrate the direction of the bullet exiting her forehead. His mother fell to the ground next to him, still clutching his baby brother in her arms. Sinan kept running.

As a consequence of Craig’s story, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA and the Departments of Defense, Justice, and State. The ACLU is now suing the Trump administration to enforce that request, which asked for records including the legal basis and decision-making process used for the raid, as well as assessments of civilian deaths.

After the Polk Award was announced, Jeremy Scahill, a co-founding editor of The Intercept, noted that Craig’s work was unique.

“The war in Yemen--with its unspeakably catastrophic human toll--has been a scandalously under-reported story,” Scahill said. “No Western journalist has done more to document the human consequences of U.S. drone strikes and raids in Yemen than Iona Craig. She is a rare combination of fierce, brave, empathetic, and brilliant. She is also incredibly generous to reporters new to covering Yemen. Iona’s reporting always puts front and center the stories of people who have no voice in the U.S. and British media despite the crucial roles both countries have played in the collective punishment of the entire nation of Yemen. The only side she takes is that of truth. Giving Iona the George Polk Award is a great tribute to the life and legacy of the reporter for whom the prize is named.”

Craig, in comments to The Intercept, gave credit to, among others, the Yemenis who helped arrange her journey and travelled with her. They cannot be named for the sake of their own security, because coalition forces, including ones on the ground from the United Arab Emirates, do not look favorably on her work. Political opponents and others who are critical of their role in the country have been victims of enforced disappearance.

“For me, the real importance is that such a prestigious prize gives recognition to the voices of the civilian victims that are so often drowned out by powerful government institutions thousands of miles away,” Craig said. “Official accounts will always go unchallenged in the absence of any other evidence, and Yemen isn’t always the easiest place to gather that evidence. The current conflict makes it an even greater challenge. There were calculated risks involved in getting the story. But it was worth it and receiving such an award hopefully means greater awareness of not only what happened that night back in January 2017 and in the months after, but also of the consequences of such military operations for both the U.S. and locally for Yemenis. Although there’s only one byline on the story, I’m in a very fortunate position to have a small but extremely important team of Yemenis who go out of their way (quite literally by many hundreds of miles in the case of this story) to keep me safe and to make this kind of reporting possible. This investigation, the recognition for it, is very much down to them and the people of al Ghayil who so warmly welcomed a stranger into their village in the days after the raid.”

Some of the villagers Craig met on her visit to Al Ghayil were killed weeks later when U.S. aircraft returned to repeatedly bomb and strafe the village over four consecutive nights.

#Yemen #Yemen raid #Iona Craig #Al Ghayil

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