#this was based on a twitter screenshot i saw on pinterest

[fizzlewizard404]

idol unit lineup but it's my faves

[cursedpinterest]

the thing that makes me so annoyed about pinterest is that its made up mostly of kids who were regarded as so funny in kindergarten for whatever reason and internalized that as their only personality trait and later saw tumblr screenshots and because they didn't have any actual natural humor they decided the real way to be funny is just to be insanely hostile and #random to complete strangers. if I have to see one more kid repeating the "theres a headless corpse in the dumpster behind payless" joke on random comments from people who don't care, i'm gonna explode. please. please just look into how to develop social skills. there are worksheets free online I promise its okay to use them.

part 2 of what makes pinterest annoying is that nobody on that website knows what bait is and takes everything completely seriously and at face value and has absolutely no critical thinking skills and doesn't know how to absorb information and create their own opinions based off of that, they just believe everything they're told as long as it makes a little bit of sense to them. it doesn't have to make sense in the real world (ex: people identifying as animesexual or furries demanding litter boxes in school bathrooms), it just has to be ridiculous so they can react strongly to the idea rather than the actual reality of it. its also a dangerous mindset when you get real deep into it because it means they take whatever bait they can - and that's a tactic. there's tons of people who comment stuff on tiktoks like "fat women can't pull off short skirts or crop tops" or "you can't dance i bet you can't do this provocative dance" and they take the bait so easily because they've been taught that its funny to #own bigots and idiots online, and being funny is more important being safe. its genuinely horrifying.

omg the bait thing is so real. like people just farm outrage clicks and comments to get more traction and views, you see this a lot on facebook and twitter too, like someone saying something very obviously egregious and millions of people flood the comments in a huff. or they do that thing where they're like "omg people are so stupid how do you not know that miami is the capital of florida", which is just BEGGING for people to go into the comments to correct them like "ummm actually the capital of florida is tallahassee so actually you're stupid", falling into the OP's engagement trap hook, line, and sinker. its very competitive, people don't know how to let things go, they HAVE TO correct and one-up others and feel smarter than them, even when other people have commented the same thing already. they have to let their voice be known, even if its saying the exact same thing as thousands of others. individualism at its finest.

and honestly, i get it. it's hard to pull away, see something batshit and not respond. its hard bc people on pinterest are so naïve, but that's just a symptom of having a userbase consisting of mostly older conservatives and very young teens that happen to intersect at times. it ties into whole the #owning bigots thing too, like they'd rather make fun of obviously terrible people then help or support people that are being targeted. like ok, you hate terfs. now what do you do to support trans people outside of making memes about how terfs suck? this is why that stupid harry potter game is still trending, bc people refuse to block, ignore, mute stupid terfs who are chomping at the bits for a fight and have to argue with them and make memes, which is only aggravating it's notoriety.

[echobx]

I hate that I joined the fandom late after the "tea" died down cuz I missed everything 😭 where did people find out about Elaine making advances? I saw the pic where Teo was with his parents and Elaine was with him but that's all I've seen.

(I'm sorry if this annoys you, I'm really nosy and idk where to find this stuff cuz I don't have twitter)

And if he didn't actually cheat with Elaine, it would make sense why Maddie wouldn't like him anymore and why Elaine would be insecure. But also some things still don't add up

oh babe, I've only been here since s2 bc I truyl didn't wanna watch another straight ppl centered show that wouldn't get renewed for a second season when s1 dropped, but my main info comes from finding pictures on Pinterest and thinking "wait, that's weird" especially his birthday pics where Teo is to the side and Elaine is leaning on him as if she's trying to claim him. so I started researching on their instas at first and that made it more and more fishy.

so, most of it is based off of bts eye witnesses who posted anons online that have long been deleted mostly, and most ppl (sadly I'm one of those) keep forgetting to take screenshots of things 😭 that's on me tho too, it's a mess. anyway,,, it's a mix of those anons and genuine blind items and what you can gather through context clues as you follow the cast. that's mainly it to me at least.

but I assure you, the tea is still scolding hot.

and you could never be annoying 😘😘

[73647e]

yay another anderperry fanfiction! this one is a short thing based off a twitter interaction that I saw a screenshot of on pinterest, though I took a ton of liberties. hope y'all enjoy!!

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, May 24 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles I came across since the early May report, although some may be older than that. Due to a need to get my taxes filed, and a continued busy jewellery business, I don’t expect to be able to do another update for a few weeks. You can follow me on Twitter for important breaking news, though! 

Have any topics you would like to see me cover in more detail? Drop me a line here on Tumblr, or email me through my website.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Small businesses can survive the pandemic and beyond, if they learn to provide what customers are now looking for. From desks to 3-D printed face shields, to including toilet paper on your takeout menu, to moving online, acting quickly has given these businesses hope. ABC also did a piece on this topic. [text & video; mentions Etsy & masks] Here’s another article discussing adapting to pandemic ecommerce “new normal”, with interviews with staff from Etsy, TechStyle and Zulily.

Ecommerce is about to get way more competitive (it probably is already), & arguably the retailers who will succeed are the ones who already put plans in action, including advertising plans. (mentions Shopify, Google Shopping & Etsy.)

Facebook and Instagram will now have “Facebook Shops”, which are free to set up. Sounds like it will be a slow rollout, though. Many take this as direct competition for marketplace sites such as Etsy, but it will probably also have a large impact on small website builder sites such as Indiemade. 

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy’s first quarter for 2020 was good, but April was astonishing by any standards; I covered it all here. 

Etsy Payments will soon be available to sellers in Turkey, Malaysia, & Mexico. This will likely be welcome news to sellers in Turkey in particular, who haven’t had an easy way to accept payment for Etsy orders since PayPal left Turkey a few years back. It looks like this move will be optional at the moment for those 3 countries, unlike those of us who are forced to use EP if it is available in our countries. 

Etsy gave some listing credits and ad credits to shops who had substantially lower than normal sales in late March through April; the credits don’t kick in until July, though. 

Etsy is beta-testing a new listing video tool. You can join here; if you want more info first, here are some details. Note that the videos must be quite short, and will not include sound. 

Etsy is still getting some good traction from the face mask initiative: “I would argue they were just in the right place at the right time," says Kodali. "When you think of who is able to consolidate the power of a million sewers in the country, the only answer is Etsy."  However, they are also getting some criticism for masks taking forever to arrive, if at all. The slow customer support is also annoying many of these new customers that the CEO was so happy to attract, with little to no response from Etsy. 

The Wall Street Journal did a well-received article on people buying food (mostly baked goods) on Etsy [paywall]. Other sources have picked it up, although some are a bit skeptical about safety. 

More trend info directly from Etsy: first, summer at-home ideas with Dayna Isom Johnson [podcast links with transcript]. It also covers what to do for socially-distanced celebrations. “[P]eople are taking what they would typically do for a birthday, but then doing it virtually. So many people love paint night parties and I've actually seen quite a few paint kits that Etsy sellers are creating. It’s a wonderful way to celebrate your birthday and still have that experience of expressing your creativity and having fun with your friends, but just through a screen.” Also, “tie-dye is blazing hot right now.”

Second, craft supply sellers get their own trend article for a change. Supply searches close to doubled in April, with “346% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “diy”. Many buyers are making their own masks with supplies from Etsy; “2,089% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “elastic”. Do read the whole article if you want to spin your shop in this direction, as there is a lot of good info included. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google pushed out a core algorithm update starting May 4, which finished rolling out on May 18. It seems fairly large, maybe the biggest in some time, and may have hit more areas than other recent core updates. They did take some criticism for releasing it during a pandemic. Possible targets aren’t agreed on yet by the people tracking it, but could include cryptocurrency, travel, real estate, health, tech, finance & dating. Or maybe we shouldn’t rush to pick winners & losers so quickly? News media changes may be affected by the regular algorithm reaction to people reading a lot more news these days, and some ecommerce companies had a boom that could affect their rankings. This article discusses Etsy among other companies, who might have benefitted from the update. [I’m not sure on the Etsy complaints, as I have been seeing multiple links for some searches for well over a year now.]

Link building is generally the hardest part of Google SEO, in part because you aren’t allowed to do any of the obvious things that might get you easy links. Anyone confused about the rules & the benefits should check out this guide for 2020. 

While you can learn a lot from general SEO guides, if you have a Shopify site, this guide provides some specific SEO tips. 

LinkedIn managed to de-index itself from Google on May 6, at least for the United States. Here’s one theory. Well-paid webmasters for major internet companies can still screw up, it turns out. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

If you are one of those organized marketers who plans their campaigns ahead of time, here are 5 content marketing ideas for June. 

With so many people not working as much as usual, this might be a good time to start a podcast. Gizmodo has compiled instructions on doing it cheaply.  

The best time to send an email depends on the purpose of the email. For example, “General site traffic emails have always been most effective mid-week — mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Mondays and Fridays tend not to perform as well” while “A general awareness campaign can be sent almost any time to be effective.”

Refreshing your evergreen content can be more productive than producing new content. That has some really good ideas for many types of businesses produce

Facebook bought Giphy, and while it will still be available to people without Facebook-owned accounts, it will be integrated directly with Instagram. 

Instagram is testing new fonts in its Stories feature. 

Twitter is enabling users to see how many people quoted a tweet, but so far only on IOS. They also have a new test where you control who can reply to your tweets. 

LinkedIn is rolling out both video events and polls, but maybe it is too late to get a big bump from either change? 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Online advertising can be expensive; here are some stats on the cost of various search engine ad clicks as well as a bit on social media. 

Google Merchant accounts now let you compare your prices to other sites and also look at trends in clicks. 

Here is a good brief overview of the new free Google Shopping listings, including the 3 main reasons the author believes Google made this change. Here is another much longer overview, with screenshots for those not in the US, and info on how to set this up for your website. The PayPal integration is now available. 

Online advertising clicks seem to be bouncing back from the worst of the pandemic, according to several sources, including this one. It is still far too early to tell if this will last, however. 

YouTube has re-conceived its premium ad program, now called YouTube Select.  

If you have ads that slow down people’s computers or drain batteries by being too “resource-heavy”, note that Chrome is going to begin blocking those in August. “Chrome will filter ads based on the following thresholds: 4MB of network data or 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30 second period, or 60 seconds of total CPU usage.”

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

Seeing all hits to one page in Google Analytics is a lot easier if you exclude the URL query parameters (but note that sometimes they are useful, such as for various pages on Etsy.) If you like the idea of filtering your GA results in general, here is another tutorial on that. 

If you want to do A/B testing on your website, here is a fairly straightforward introduction to Google Optimize, which is free to use. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

Many online companies had a good first quarter despite the pandemic, including Shopify, which beat income estimates and saw its stock rise 5% after its first quarter report. “New stores created on the company’s online platform jumped 62% between March 13 and April 24 as many brick-and-mortar businesses migrated online.”

Shopify rolled out software that allows its users to more easily do curbside pickup orders. “...Shopify was already in the process of redesigning its POS before the coronavirus, but decided to accelerate the development of a few new features, namely fulfilling curbside pick-up orders and home delivery. Shopify said that by the end of April, 26% of its merchants with a brick-and-mortar presence were offering local delivery or buy online, pickup in-store, compared to 2% in February.”

Rolling out for the US first, Shopify is also getting into financial products, offering a new debit card which you can use to receive your sales income on the same day you earn it. Shopify Balance can be described as “a merchant account with no fees and no minimum balances.” It’s also setting up an instalment plan feature for customers. 

Also new with Shopify: a Pinterest app for turning all your products into shoppable pins. 

An Amazon VP quit - very publicly - over the company firing several whistleblowers and labour organizers. “Amazon declined to comment.” The company is taking heat for those issues as well as poor management of and information about how many employees have tested positive at various warehouses. Several employees are known to have died of COVID-19 so far. 

Amazon has extended its order performance suspension exceptions for the pandemic to May 31. Which is a good thing, because it seems that buyers are leaving more bad feedback than ever before [soft paywall] “More than 11 percent of reviews left for sellers in the past 30 days are negative. That’s nearly twice the level of frustration vented by shoppers regarding Amazon’s third-party sellers during the holidays, when customer anxieties spike over not getting presents on time”. eBay extended some seller protection changes until July 19. [note: if you sell on these platforms outside of the US, lease check for your own country’s rules, as some of them are different.]

Amazon Handmade sellers from the US got a boost from a new local makers page and the accompanying blog post. [I was unable to find any similar promotions for other countries; seems like a missed opportunity]

Buyers in Canada and the US are trying to get class-action lawsuits certified against Amazon for their policy preventing/discouraging its vendors from offering lower prices elsewhere. This article includes the US class action complaint paperwork. 

If you are wondering about Prime Day, Amazon is apparently going to try for September, but there is no official announcement yet. 

eBay will be changing the fee structure for sellers using managed payments, including charging one fee on the entire transaction instead of separate commission & processing fees. 

USPS, complaining of deficits and being pressured by Trump, is reportedly reviewing its package delivery contracts with large companies such as Amazon. “According to the Washington Post, over the last few weeks the USPS has been seeking bids from consulting firms to reexamine what the agency charges companies like Amazon, UPS, and FedEx. Contracts are generally reviewed on a yearly basis, and analysts have repeated warned that suddenly raising package prices that drastically would cause more bad than good, not just for the USPS or Amazon, but for small businesses and individuals too.”

Square has created an easy online checkout option that works without being connected to a website/shop. (US only)

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Google has introduced a new Trends-like tool that covers recent top product searches by the amount of growth. Yes, it is free!

Gen Z wants to see “fun and exciting advertising” during the pandemic, because they are bored. They are apparently not really fond of “things are different now” ads. Also: “A survey taken seven weeks ago indicated that younger consumers were more likely than older adults to say they wanted to see purpose-driven advertising that showed how companies were helping others.” Actually, Gen Z isn’t alone in wanting something different from commercials right now 

Consumers want to see companies taking positive action and supporting their employees during the pandemic - and claim they will remember who did a good job, so they know who to support with purchases. 

Not surprisingly, mobile usage is up during the day time since the pandemic was declared, and people are also staying online later during the week. Web browser usage is up, and more serious news and information is getting attention. 

There will likely be many more bankruptcies as the effects of COVID-19 ripple through the economy, but some businesses don’t have enough cash flow to go bankrupt. [text & video]

Canadian retail sales were down 10% in March compared to 2019, but many things went up, including general merchandise stores (6.4%) and online retailers (40%). Note that the online numbers didn’t include sales made from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca and delivered in Canada, so ecommerce was actually higher than that. In the US, March retail sales were down 8.7%, but April looks like it turned around for many ecommerce sites. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

So-called “cookie walls” are not enough to comply with the EU’s privacy laws. “[I]n order for consent to be legally valid under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) there are specific standards to meet: It must be clear and informed, specific and freely given.  Hence cookie walls that demand ‘consent’ as the price for getting inside the club are not only an oxymoron but run into a legal brick wall.”

Website layouts (and even other elements) are starting to look like each other more & more.

[femmescripter]

To all of the Anti-Shippers, Whiners and Adam haters in VLD...

E-FUCKING-NOUGH!! Just stop it already! Stop it with the pairing wars, stop it with the death threats to the Voltron executives, stop it with the whining of not getting what you want and stop it with the hate on Adam. Just stop it all together! I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but I have seen so much of this foolishness come up on my dashboard that I can no longer ignore it. And since my friends and favorite artists are also being picked on over the recent drama in Voltron: Legendary Defender this makes me feel especially obligated. To make this post in defense of those people dear to me. So sit down and get your text books - because it’s time for a lesson. 

First of all, and I’m going to put this in bold italics so the people in the back can see it, YOU DON’T HAVE TO ABANDON YOUR OTHER SHIRO SHIPS JUST BECAUSE OF ADAM. Same as it is with Lotor, just because Shiro has a fiancé in the show doesn’t mean you have to delete that Shance artwork, revise that Shallura fanfic or edit that Shulaz comic. It really doesn’t. Also like I said in my post concerning Lotor the canon events of a series doesn’t define your pairing. It really doesn’t. That said there is no need to go around telling people they can’t ship Shiro with someone else just because it was revealed that he has a fiancé. A friend of mine actually had someone say this to them. And I’ve seen a lot of people get bashed over not “converting” to the Adashi pairing and dropping all of their current Shiro based ships. Seriously people? Are we really going to stoop that low? And I use the word “low” very loosely because people have gone beyond just telling folks that can’t ship one another with another or just bash them. There are twisted folks who actually tell people they should KILL themselves for so much as liking another pairing. How devoid of common sense and conscience can someone be to say that to another person? What’s even more concerning is that, even in terms of minority, there is more than just a handful of people who act this way and says stuff like that. I don’t know about you all but I find that very scary. But anyway, you can still ship Shiro with whoever you want to. No need to drop one pairing in favor of Adashi. If someone you thought was a friend stops talking to you because you didn’t “convert” then don’t lose sleep over it, because they are obviously not a real friend. And if you dropped whatever previous Shiro based pairing you had without someone telling you to then you have no one to blame but yourself. So don’t take it out on someone else who still ships Shallura, Shance, Shulaz or whatever else just because you’re feeling spiteful for giving up those or similar pairings yourself. Secondly, quit bashing on Adam already. You guys saw a glimpse of him in the trailer that lasted for a good three to five seconds. And now you suddenly know he’s abusive and unsupportive of Shiro? I sure hope you guys have tweezers to get that bullet out your feet from jumping the gun like that. You haven’t worked with the artists, scriptwriters, voice actors and showrunners to develop Adam. Y’all don’t know diddly squat about him so quit acting like you do. Besides as someone who, as the VLD creators themselves said, who has been with Shiro for so long I highly doubt Adam would suddenly turn unsupportive and abusive unless you he was mind controlled or blackmailed. So don’t go saying that he’s always been that way just to justify your other Shiro based ships. Yes I know that Adam broke off the engagement, but I’m not even going to give my opinion as to why he did that. It will only open up an even bigger can of worms. All I will say about it is that whatever reason Adam had for doing so must have been a valid one. And if you all don’t find it valid then that’s your problem. To that extent you shouldn’t lose sleep by racking your brains to figure out WHY Adam broke off the engagement. Just wait for season seven to come along and we shall hopefully get some of the answers then. Besides I’m sure you all have other, more pressing matters to think of. Like a chore you forgot to do or that important assignment you should have done two hours ago. If you haven’t done that yet then go do it now. Keep your hands and minds busy with someone else. Third, but must importantly of all...It. Is. A. God. Damn. CARTOON!! What boggles my mind the most about this is the fact that people are sending death threats and telling the real genuine fans to go kill themselves over a work of fiction. Now out of the ten reasons that come to mind as to why doing that is stupid, two main ones come up front and center. Reason number one because what you put out there is out there is out forever and WILL come back to haunt you. Even if you delete your mean comment someone can still reblog it or post a screenshot of it so people can see just how nasty your personality really is. And just because you delete the email you sent on YOUR end it’s still there on the other person’s end, and they can hold that over your head. Further more when you apply for a job that’s the first thing companies are going to check - any and all platforms of social media you use from Google+ to Tumblr to Pinterest to Twitter to Discord to Instagram to Facebook and everything else to see if you posted any malicious comments. After all no company is going to hire someone who says to some tween that their family wouldn’t miss them if they didn’t or sent a promise of fatal accident to somebody else. So think twice before you press that “send” or “comment” button or slip that envelope in the post office mailbox. Because in the long run the only person those words will hurt is you. And reason number two, the moment the series is over you have to pretty much fix all of your broken relationships or start new ones from scratch. Because if there’s one thing that people remember it’s who hurt them and how they were hurt. Do you honestly think your friends/acquaintances are going to act like everything is fine and let it slide that you told them to drink a cup of bleach because they told you they liked Mattor over Latte or Sheitor or Shiklance? Unless they develop a heavy dose of amnesia or have an saintly tolerance for bullshit, I highly doubt that. Having said that there is a very good chance that you’ll come out of the end of VLD with either little or no friends. Is that a price worth paying just for the sake of defending people who don’t even exist? I mean I can understand wanting to stick to your guns/principals/standards and while that’s admirable...there’s a fucking limit, y’all. It’s better to agree to disagree and let it go instead of browbeating the point at the risk of having people disassociate themselves with you because they’re tired of your argumentative personality and constant need to be right. And hold up - I didn’t forget about you people who are actually complaining about the LGBT representation we got with Shiro and Adam. First you were getting on the case of the Voltron: Legendary Defender creators for not having any LGBT characters. Now you have them and you actually nitpick it!? Come on - make up your minds! You guys should be more appreciative since the scriptwriters, voice actors, artists, and showrunners worked so hard to do this for you - the fans. It may not be Klance but it’s better than nothing. Alright - now having let all of that out I understand that my words will most likely fall on deaf ears with a majority of the people reading this. But if my words got through to at least one person and stopped them from doing something stupid that they will regret for a long time, then that’s good enough for me. In short ship whoever you want to ship Shiro with, give Adam the benefit of the doubt, never threaten or bash people and don’t let fiction rule your life. This really isn’t the end of the world, guys. Just breathe.

And that concludes me thoughts on the matter. I’m going to bed now. I’ll see you guys next time. Hopefully with a much happier post than this one. Toodles~

[engine51104-blog]

🎊 One Year Anniversary! 🎊

A year ago on March 11th, I was getting up to get ready for work. As usual, it was never a pleasant experience in regards to my anxiety, because I knew that when I went in, I was probably going to be left alone and given more tasks than I could handle. I was preparing myself for another cataclysm of terror; and as I went in to work that day, I had no idea the new web the universe was weaving for me. 

When I came home that night from yet another stressful day at work, my aunt and uncle were watching a show I had not an inkling of a clue about. I watched it briefly before going to bed because I was just so exhausted, being anxiety sucks every last bit of energy out of your body. 

Laying in bed as I was trying to fall asleep, thoughts of the peculiar show picked at the corners of my brain. The characters I saw on screen were desperately trying to draw me in with their unique personalities and differing smiles, and no matter how hard I tried to resist, I wound up following them. 

Little did I know that the men and women of both Station 51 and Rampart General Hospital were there to breathe new life into me that night. 

I just knew that I had to have more of it. I needed to watch more and see what it was really about; and I found myself sucked into a whole different world. A world of medicine, firefighting, friendship, brotherhood, trauma, and triumph. I’ve only ever seen trauma in my short years here on earth, so all of these were totally new concepts to me and a little overwhelming to take in at first.

But I quickly fell in love. Knowing that this was a piece of fiction meant to entertain while trying to stay as authentic as possible never bothered me in the slightest bit, because that’s not what I garnered from it. That’s not what millions of other fans garnered from it when they grew up and became firefighters, paramedics, doctors, ambulance attendants, and whatever else have you. 

I became so much more engrossed in this show that within a year’s time I have experienced so much that has literally changed me as a person. Finding the show was like hitting a gold mine, and when I found other like people with the same interest and passion as me, I really thought I had struck the biggest riches the world had to offer.

Quickly becoming involved in many groups and forums on Facebook, I met a lot of people and they got to know me fairly quickly. At the time I had Roy as my profile picture because he was the first one I became attached to (naturally since I’m just beginning to watch the show and it seems to be heavily centered around the two paramedics), and I was getting friend requests from people left, right and center. 

In the meantime, I was witnessing first hand how this fandom was run. You had the people who ran their own Facebook groups, and the people who ran their own Facebook pages. You had people who took screenshots from the show and modified them into beautiful works of art, or the people who took screenshots and made them into hilarious memes. You even had people who drew their own fan art!

Then you had the people who liked to write fanfiction based off of the show. Some of those people even took it a step further and brought it into role play, which is an art form in of itself. I used to role play my favorite movies and tv shows back when Myspace was still cool. 

I eventually meandered over here to Tumblr and saw what everyone here was doing with the show, and I just thought to myself, I really want to get involved with that! I want to make my own group, write my own fanfiction, start my own role play, run my own blog; all about my favorite show! How much fun would that be?!

Starting my own group was a cinch, and at first it was going great until I ran into my first trouble maker. I don’t dig confrontation at all, so when the problem occurred, my first instinct was to run and hide. For a night, that’s what I had done, and then the next day I enlisted more help to keep the group under control. 

All the while, I was working on my own fanfiction for the show which I thought was going quite spectacularly. I was really digging the storyline and I had it posted to WattPad, where lots of people were reading it and liking it also. But my group wound up getting so out of control with the drama, and with that one trouble maker, said trouble maker slandered my fanfiction so bad that I gave up on writing. 

Completely. My passion for writing was sapped out of me like the reaper yanking the soul out of body, and I was just nauseated at the thought of writing another word. I had taken a hearty blow that day, and I honestly wanted to give up Emergency. But that very day, the guys brought me back. What for?

I needed time to heal before I could even think of writing again, and while that happened, I found a group of role players that accepted me as one of their own. I admired their dedication, work, and imagination that went into their work and after a few months of reading what they were doing, I decided why not try and do that for myself? Maybe role playing will help get me back into writing again, you know, like dipping my toe in the water to test if I want to take the swim.

I full on had a crush on Mike Stoker at this point, Roy being a thing of the past lol. Once I found the quiet and handsome fella that barely showed face or voice, I just had to melt for him. I actually made my own role play account for him and tried working through some ideas, to which my friends didn’t like very much. I was disheartened and downtrodden so much again that I gave up my role playing account so they would be happy.

But in turn, no matter what I did, I couldn’t make them happy. So I gave up Twitter completely. I gave up my old Tumblr account that had over 60 followers, I closed down my Emergency! group, and I still didn’t want to write stories. 

They always say not to let people get to you, but when you’re sensitive and when something means so much to you as Emergency does to me, it tends to cut very close to the heart strings. I think I’ve had a few of my heartstrings severed and I’m still wounded to this day. I still can’t seem to let go of what was done to me thus far... and I really wanted to give it up this time. 

I wallowed in my sadness and wondered what in the hell I did wrong. I fell in love with a show. I joined the community. I met friends. People I thought were friends but turned out to be the opposite. So what was I supposed to do? I think the universe tried telling me that giving it up would have been the easy way out, that I would have been letting these people win.

I would have been proving to the world that slander on a major FB page could easily tear me down, in turn making me weak and afraid. That slander on a personal page of my fanfiction made me a chicken and unafraid to put myself out there in the world. And you know what, I believed those things until I had an epiphany. 

One that doesn’t happen just by somebody saying to you, “well I warned you about those people.” No. Some people have to learn by experience, and I’m one of them. So you know what I did? I got up from the floor, I brushed myself off, and I looked the devil right in the eye and said “watch this.”

I created a new Emergency! fan page on Facebook to post my screenshots on called Station 51 Enterprises. In conjunction with that, I have my Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr account all linked to the same name. 

I went right back on Twitter, created another personal account, AND created my own Emergency! RP accounts. I wasn’t going to allow somebody to tell me or guilt trip me into feeling like I shouldn’t do it out of their own insecurities. And it makes me sad for them because they do have talent.

With April coming up and that being the start of Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I have a fanfiction idea set up and ready to go, and that’s right... it’s for Emergency! 

There comes a time when you need to take charge and say “I’m not going to let these people rule me. They may have the opinions they have about what I’m doing, and that’s their right, but I get to choose how I react to it.” So with that motto, I will be doing what I love to do as being my own individual, independent fan of this show.

I’m going to write my fanfictions, I’m going to post my screenshots, I’m going to role play my role play; and nobody is going to stop me. 

These guys have continually lifted my spirits and pushed me through even the darkest bits of the tunnel, and they still continue to to this very moment.

Did you know that before I watched the show, I was deathly afraid of driving and getting my license? Now I’m taking driving lessons and I’ve already learned how to parallel park, do three point turns, and I drive around without barely feeling afraid. It is the strength in finding this show that has given me that power, and it’s truly remarkable. 

They’ve gone completely above the call of duty, and they’ve truly saved me. With all of this being said... If you’re running your own group, page, writing your own fanfictions, doing your own role play, etc... Run your group and page with an iron fist and keep it about the rival of memories of this brilliant and influential show. Write your fanfictions and play your role play with so much heart and soul that it will bring your readers to tears, or make them want to madly punch a wall. DO NOT LET ANYBODY TELL YOU OR BULLY YOU INTO THINKING YOU CAN’T DO IT.  Because you can. Not only I say that and believe it, but the guys do too. Station 51, 10-4, KMG-365.

[thelmasirby32]

Five social media trends that are shaping 2020

Every year the social media marketing community turns into fortune tellers — we collectively try to predict what trends, features, and innovations will take place in the upcoming year. Of course, trying to predict social media trends is much more trustworthy than fortune-telling even if you’re using astrology as a framework for that. 

Most social media predictions stand on the existing trends and research, which makes them highly likely to actually be accurate. It’s a common truth that social media platforms are constantly changing, they come up with new features, change algorithms, review their respective policies, and it all affects the way we do marketing on social. But it’s not like these changes come out of nowhere — they are all the results of social media company’s vision and business model or external circumstances. 

To identify trends that will dominate social media this year we need to consider all of these internal and external circumstances. And that’s exactly what I did to make up this list of five major trends that will be prominent in 2020. In addition to simply describing what to expect in 2020, I also give some recommendations on how to use these trends to your brand’s advantage.

1. Let data analysis lead your strategy

  Source: Screenshot from social listening tool, Awario

Knowledge is power, and social media companies want to empower their users and brands, or rather attract more investments. That’s why they are giving social media managers more and more access to insights and data analytics. Facebook is constantly expanding Creator Studio’s and Facebook Insights’ functionality, Twitter is adding more insights to Media Studio, and Pinterest is adding Pinterest Trends to inform brands on user behavior. 

This year we are likely to see more ways to access user trends on different platforms and tap into this data for marketing and social media research. At the same time, due to trend number three on this list, brands might have to change the way they used to do social media marketing, especially with targeted advertising. There are ethical and unethical ways to use data, and the upcoming year will probably be the time to rethink these terms. That may encourage brands to get more involved in the research of the publicly available data with the help of social listening, for example.

How to be on-trend

Make sure your social media strategy is based on insights gained through data research, not a blind guess. Use the insights provided by platforms like Facebook and Instagram Insights, Twitter Analytics, and so on to find what content performs best, when you should post, and what resonates with your audience. Your KPIs should respond to your goals – if you are raising brand awareness, pay attention to the number of followers, if you’re focusing on community building, keep track of the engagement metrics. 

Collect and analyze publicly available data, this is the most ethical way to conduct marketing research without invading anyone’s privacy. Social monitoring and listening tools such as Awario or Brandwatch break down the sentiment, reach, demographics, and user behavior trends behind any phenomenon you want to research on social media. 

2. Make your communication more private

In 2019 Mark Zuckerberg claimed that “the future is private”. This was a surprising turn of events for the company which started out as a service to meet people and connect strangers. Facebook’s CEO announced that from now own the platform will prioritize ways to build and sustain smaller communities and tet-a-tet communication meaning more focus on Groups and Messenger as well as WhatsApp. And it’s not just Facebook, social media apps have been introducing more privacy-driven features lately including Instagram’s “Close Friends” list, various updates to DMs functionality for Twitter and Instagram, more ways for brands to manage social messaging. With the upcoming redesign of Facebook feed (expected to be fully rolled out in Q1 and the new ability to limit replies to your tweets, it’s obvious that 2020 will be the year of private social media. 

The turn to private communication is, of course, motivated by user behavior. People simply got much more into messaging their friends and interacting in small interest-based communities. Social media companies took notice of that and are now giving people what they want. However, taking into consideration how many privacy scandals we had in the last couple of years, it’s easy to imagine that the turn to privacy was also prompted by the intent to improve ones’ reputation, especially when we are talking about Facebook. 

How to be on-trend

If you don’t have a Facebook group for your customers yet, it’s high time you start one. 

Use the “Close Friends” list on your Instagram account to share exclusive content with your most engaged followers. 

Go beyond the big three by looking into smaller communities on Reddit and Quora for better opportunities to engage with the audience.

3. Take up more social responsibility

Source: Twitter

This will probably be the most prominent theme in the news coverage of social media companies for 2020. Once again, it’s not a new trend — the pressure to sort out the issues with spamming, misinformation, manipulation of the algorithm, and the social media impact on users’ mental health has been there for a while. 

In 2020 we can expect more regulations on ads, more sophisticated algorithms for discovering spammers and bots, and more ways for users to control what they are seeing on the timeline. In 2019 we saw some actions taken not just by the platforms themselves but also by the state — there were several court cases around creating fake engagement and selling followers and likes that could become precedents for creating legislation around this matter. 

Both Facebook and Twitter CEOs publicly stated that the ultimate framework for dealing with misleading ads and handling users’ data should come from the governmental actors and independent expert committees, not the social media companies. California Consumer Privacy Act is the first attempt at such legislation. This will certainly affect the way brands advertise on social and conduct marketing research (see trend number one).

Social media companies also face a bigger challenge – how to avoid locking people in their own social media bubbles and creating echo-chambers that skew their view of the world? Admittedly, this is a broader challenge for our society in general. However, we can’t ignore the fact that social media contributes to exacerbating the political and social divide between people, and it might be the time for platforms to rethink the core functionality and algorithms behind them.

Another area where social media companies are encouraged to take on more responsibility is mental health. By now it is obvious (and confirmed by research) that social media can have a negative effect on users’ self-esteem and mental health, especially among teenagers, and social media companies need to take notice of that. Some platforms have already made steps in the right direction by informing users about how much time they are spending on the app. The next big change will concern vanity metrics (see below). In 2020, it’s expected that there will be more platform regulations that aim to protect users from abuse and bullying and more ways for users to filter the information they don’t want to consume.

How to be on-trend

Make sure your ads comply with the platform regulations.

Discard sketchy growth hacks such as buying followers or using third-party tools for follow-unfollow tactics in favor of genuine engagement and community building.

To make interactions with your audience actually genuine, understand when those interactions are welcome. The best way to start engaging with people on the internet is by commenting and replying to their public posts: and of course, your comments should be meaningful and relevant. You can find people and posts to engage through social media monitoring — simply monitor keywords and phrases appropriate for your niche.

Use social listening, competitor and hashtag research to find accounts related to your niche and engage them in the comments. Offer your expertise or start conversations discussing relevant topics. 

4. Focus less on vanity metrics

This trend is partly related to the previous one. In 2019, we saw several experiments around hiding vanity metrics, mainly like count, on Facebook and Instagram. Twitter’s CEO has also been vocal about his desire to move away from vanity metrics. Moreover, both Instagram and Twitter have slightly tweaked their design to put less emphasis on the number of followers an account has. The rejection of like count is probably motivated both by moral and practical reasons, comparing your number of likes to someone else’s is proven to damage one’s self-esteem.

Hiding vanity metrics from anyone could eliminate the pressure of competition people feel and make social media less stressful. Instagram has also revealed that during the tests they discovered that discarding like count leads to more content on the platform and that’s what any social media company wants. 

That’s the logical outcome of the previous point, if people feel less pressure to get the most likes, they will feel more at ease with posting. All in all, prepare to say goodbye to like counts in 2020.

How to be on-trend

For social media managers, discarding vanity metrics means new ways of doing competitor and influencer research. You can use Facebook’s native functionality (Brand Collabs Manager, Insights) or social media analytics tools to compare your brand with your competitors or find and evaluate influencers relevant to your niche. 

Track the number of followers, engagement rate, and ads placed on Facebook through “Pages to Watch” and “Ad Library”.

Use social listening to compare your social media Share of Voice with your competitors.

Source: Screenshot from social listening tool, Awario

5. Try TikTok

In 2019 TikTok became one of the most downloaded apps in the app store. The swift rise of the social media app drew a lot of attention from social media marketers, and will surely draw even more attention this year. The greatest thing about TikTok is its feed algorithm which allows you to reach a significant number of users right from the get-go, without having to gain followers for a long time. 

The platform is tailored for viral content: easy sharing, trends, and challenges enable you to easily create videos with a huge potential reach. Moreover, the platform is constantly developing its business capabilities, just recently TikTok rolled out the ability to run ads on the platform for everyone. 

TikTok is the app to keep an eye on, as it is one of the fastest-growing social media networks, it surely has bigger plans for the upcoming year.

How to be on-trend

If you’re not TikTok yet, create an account right now.

See what trends could be useful for your industry, check out what your competitors are doing, examine the latest trends. A lot of TikTok’s content is focused on viral songs, dance challenges, and certain editing techniques. So you should research those if you want to create popular content.

Try advertising on TikTok! TikTok Ads is not the only way to promote your product, you can also partner up with TikTok creators to reach new audiences.  

In conclusion

Social media trends don’t just pop out of nowhere and it’s not difficult to predict what will happen in the upcoming year. However, knowing something is only half the battle — you need to actually adjust your social media strategy to the ever-changing circumstances to get the best results. 

In this article, I tried to demonstrate the broader trends but also shared actionable tips to implement in your work. Some of the trends that will play out in 2020 may seem like an impediment for social media marketers, you can’t use targeting, you can’t see how many likes an influencer gets, and people are getting harder to reach since they are all hanging out in private communities. But it’s actually a chance for building genuine and trusting relationships with your audience — and you can do it by using these trends to your advantage.

Aleh is the Founder and CMO at SEO PowerSuite and Awario. He can be found on Twitter at @ab80.

The post Five social media trends that are shaping 2020 appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/03/11/five-social-media-trends-that-are-shaping-2020/

[makingscipub]

Epi-pins: Epigenetics on Pinterest

This post has been co-authored with Cath Ennis, University of British Colombia, Vancouver (author of Epigenetics: A Graphic Guide).

***

Cath and I are interested in how epigenetics is made public, for example through visual aids, such as drawings, photos, diagrams, infographics and so on. We thought one way to access such visuals would be by looking at Pinterest, an image-based social media network; but, as you’ll see below, looking at Pinterest actually brought us back to words rather than images.

Epigenetics has a long history and is still evolving, but it is safe to say that “[r]esearch in epigenetics today is primarily concerned with the investigation of changes in gene expression, where the mechanism for this is something other than a change to the underlying DNA. The focus of research is on the dynamics of chemical modification upon the DNA, which enhance, decrease, initiate or silence gene expression.” (Pickersgill et al., 2013)

Epigenetics in its current form, as part of molecular biology, began to flourish in the scientific literature after 2003 (the end of the Human Genome Project) and has been popularised through at least four main channels of communication:

Through the work of celebrity scientists or epigenetic champions who give TED talks, appear on YouTube videos, write comment and opinion pieces, and become go-to experts for journalists and film-makers.

Through the dissemination of epigenetic stories by journalists and science writers.

Through targeted campaigns by advertisers promoting (mostly unproven) alternative health and well-being products using traditional and social media.

Through the labour of academic bloggers, podcasters and tweeters (some them prominent scientists), almost all of whom are quite sceptical of some of the claims being made about epigenetics in the popular sphere.

Some of these efforts leave traces on Pinterest if they include images.

We searched Pinterest using the term “epigenetics” (on 18 August 2019 at 15.30 GMT [when we looked an hour later, things had changed]). (There are also ‘boards‘ or collections where individuals choose and collect pins dealing with epigenetics, which would deserve a separate analysis).

There was not only a wealth of images on display, but also a banner above the images showing the main themes, presumably found by an algorithm. We could have jumped straight to epigenetics-related content on the theme of, say, stress or trauma or diet or even art.

Screenshot taken on 22 August 2019

We decided to look more closely at the first 20 ‘pins’ (more about pinning and pins here). What surprised us was that many of them didn’t contain visuals but rather words.

The following ‘analysis’ is just a rough sketch. This is not a systematic study of epigenetics on Pinterest, using, for example, visual content analysis (see Conclusion below for some examples). We selected the first twenty pins (which now have changed substantially, so make of that what you will) and sorted them into three categories: university outreach, science/news communication, and alternative health promotion and pseudoscience.

We have a hunch that a very similar pattern of dissemination can be found on Twitter, but we haven’t looked at this closely yet.

University outreach

The first pin we saw (on 18 August) displayed an educational poster on “What is Epigenetics?” with relation to child development, produced by the University of Harvard’s Centre for the Developing Child. Another poster “adapted from” this one was displayed in another pin using similar words but ‘cuter’ pictures of children, not the more abstract representations used by the Harvard original.

Both posters talk about how “Epigenetics explains how early experiences can have lifelong impact” (both positive and negative ones) and that “[y]oung brains are particularly sensitive to epigenetic changes”. They point out that through epigenetics the environment affects gene expression, which means that “the old idea that genes are ‘set in stone’ has been disproven” (they don’t point to a source for this ‘old idea’ though). Experiences can, they say, “leave a unique epigenetic ‘signature’ on genes”… These changes can, the posters claim, be reversed, but the best thing is to reduce stress ”from the beginning” and bring up children in a nurturing environment.

Science/news communication

One pin links back to a neuroscience news item on daytime sleepiness. Another pin refers to a popular science book on epigenetics, showing its cover. This is The Epigenetic Revolution (2011) by Nessa Carey.

A pinned YouTube video tries to provide an answer to the question “What is epigenetics?”. It’s by Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna and has gathered almost a million views. Carlos is a researcher at Linköping University looking at links between epigenetics and society, including autism. The video should be analysed together with other popular videos about epigenetics.

Another pin displays a sciencey-looking diagram entitled “Genetics vs Epigenetics” which was used in a popular article published in 2013 in Discover Magazine and entitled “Grandma’s Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes”. The article begins by saying: “Your ancestors’ lousy childhoods or excellent adventures might change your personality, bequeathing anxiety or resilience by altering the epigenetic expressions of genes in the brain”. This was one of several articles dissected and found wanting by Kevin Mitchell in his 2018 blog post on Wiring the Brain entitled: “Grandma’s trauma – a critical appraisal of the evidence for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans”. We’ll come back to this topic in the next section/category.

Alternative health and pseudoscience

The rest of the twenty pins link to rather less reputable sources, mainly websites (two from Instagram) selling ways to enhance body and mind through changes in nutrition and lifestyle, through meditation, detoxification and so on. As an aside: If you follow the pins recommended underneath these pins you get into quantum physics, quantum consciousness, astrology and, we kid you not, ‘star shit’, an image saved to a board titled “Brainiac facts” along with the note “Human body ingredients. Everything, every element that exists, everything we are composed of was created in the death of a star. We are literally made of star stuff”.

Many of the pins in our alternative health and pseudoscience category display stock visuals of the double helix, mostly in blue, but many more depict what one may call inspirational texts, such as:

“Epigenetics: Science is proving that our bodies (sic) ability to heal and repair itself is greatly effected (sic) by our beliefs thoughts emotions and intentions for they have a profound vibrational effect upon our continually evolving genetic code We’re the programmers of the code DNA activation is our software upgrade.” [no punctuation] These words appear against a dark background and underneath readers can see a hand touching and lighting up a piece of a double helix.

Another pin from the Mindful Design Feng Shui School says: “90% of what happens to you – including how your genes get expressed – is determined by your environment. This is the science of epigenetics. And the most important part of that environment is created by your beliefs, most of which you are not consciously aware.”

One pin is a combination of words and visuals, in this case drawings of a bicycle, a man and a woman, healthy fruit and veg, etc. The words say: “Your gene expression can change based on what you eat, how you move, your thoughts, feelings and social connections.” (After reading things like this, it’s always good to go back and read Kevin Mitchell’s blog post)

If you want to be more ‘out there’, you can look at a pin saying “Epigenetics is catching up to what Yogis have always known”, illustrated again with a double helix. The article itself talks about the Holy Grail, the Da Vinci Code etc. and says: “The Holy Grail, or the sacred chalice, is blood that holds high vibrational DNA.” And: “Science is now proving that DNA can be altered and programmed through a field called behavioral epigenetics. We are no longer victims of the past, but creators of our destiny. Epigenetics has proven what Yogis have always known: that your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, environment, and diet can change your life.”

A pin showing an image of a woman’s head and the words “How your mind can reprogramme your genes” leads to an article saying: “You are the ‘driver’ of your genetic roadmap. And not only your roadmap, but the thoughts and emotions you feel, the foods you eat, and how well you detoxify also pass down 3 generations!” An interesting verbal image or metaphor.

Underneath this article are two intriguing comments. One says: “Epigenetics explains naturopathy, prayers, good intentions, karmic law and even reincarnation of physical self in scientific way.” The other asks: “Hello, can this help with Huntingtins Desease [sic]?” This shows just how dangerous such hype can be!

Some pins link up with the work of Bruce Lipton who wrote a book entitled The Biology of Belief – Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles (2005), stressing the power of thoughts and beliefs and the way we can harness them to improve our health.

Many pins include promises about the power of epigenetics to change people’s genes. One pin relating to nutrition, again referencing Lipton, claims that “Genes are equivalent to blueprints; epigenetics is the contractor. They change the assembly, the structure.” Another novel metaphor. Another pin goes further and says: “’It’s in my genes, I can’t do anything about it.’ BULLSHIT. The field of epigenetics, led by Bruce Lipton (sic!), is proving that genes are not the end all be all of your health. What is more affective (sic) on your body is your beliefs, thoughts and feelings.”

Lipton is, according to Wikipedia, “an American developmental biologist who supported the theory that gene expression could be influenced (via epigenetics) by environmental factors i.e. environmental factors have a greater impact on their health than genetic research has previously determined”. The wiki article also stresses that his work remains on the sidelines of mainstream epigenetics – although he is widely cited as an authority on other social media platforms such as Twitter, often in support of pseudoscientific claims about alternative health products and services.

Another pin, related to an article on epigenetics and autism, is a PowerPoint slide with a double helix on the left-hand side and various bullet points, one of which claims “Can be transgenerational”, a rather contested assumption when it comes to humans.

Finally, a pin, linked to what one may call spiritual wellness, talks about epigenetics as “healing generational memory and inherited family trauma”. Another displays the title: “Epigenetics: The weird science behind inherited experience”, referring to “Holocaust survivors passing on certain behavioural traits to their offspring”, tapping into the fascination with transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and trauma, a topic of which scientific bloggers are greatly sceptical.

Conclusion

What can we learn from this quick survey?

We tried to study visuals used to make epigenetics public. What we found was that words seem to trump visuals and that the visuals used were mostly conventional stock images of the double helix. These science-symbolising images were even used in combination with the weirdest claims, perhaps in an attempt to lend scientific authority to unscientific content.

Epigenetics is portrayed as a way to escape the power of genes and (the strawman of) genetic determinism (blueprint, set in stone, blank slate, programme). Epigenetics, we are told, overcomes these barriers through diet and exercise but, more importantly, the power of the mind, thoughts and beliefs.

Epigenetics is linked to trauma and ‘the ghost of generational memory’. An article pinned up on Pinterest refers to a 2016 book by Mark Wolynn entitled It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. (The cover of this book also features a double helix as part of its design). The article also says that “Slaves in the 1800s and before left a heavy generational footprint in the DNA of their descendants”. Trauma in all is forms resonates with many popularisers of epigenetics.

The majority of pins link to articles or blog posts or book about epigenetics that are steeped in pseudoscience. The pseudoscientific pins we looked at are only the very tip of a large iceberg that has been growing for a decade. In 2015 Adam Rutherford, said (first on Twitter, then in print): “The legion purveyors of flapdoodle love a real but tricky scientific concept that they can bolt their pernicious quackery on to.  […] Epigenetics is a real and important part of biology, but due to predictable quackery, it is threatening to become the new quantum.” (The Guardian, 19 July 2015). This is no longer a mere threat it seems!

Some of the researchers who have published Pinterest content analyses have concluded that aspects of the platform’s content related to public health topics can be actively harmful, for instance in the cases of vaccination, electronic cigarette and waterpipe smoking, skin tanning, and weight loss.

While scientifically inaccurate pins about epigenetics seem likely to have less direct and less serious impacts, they do have the potential to spread misinformation and false hope, and may contribute to the rejection of conventional medicine approaches. This first dip into the Pinterest pool highlights the need for a deeper dive, to understand the opportunities for dissemination of accurate scientific information to wider audiences as well as the potential harms of users sharing pseudoscience and other inaccurate content about epigenetics.

Image: Pixabay

The post Epi-pins: Epigenetics on Pinterest appeared first on Making Science Public.

via Making Science Public https://ift.tt/2ZqL7NO

[minnievirizarry]

The complete guide to creating a Black Friday social media strategy

Black Friday is around the corner. Brands are gearing up for the infamous day that they’ll go from operating in the red to black (if you didn’t know—that’s how the day got its name). Since its inception, social media has played a significant role in Black Friday advertising. In this post, we’ll explore how you can win this year with a killer Black Friday social media strategy.

Plan ahead

This year alone, 51% of retailers plan to spend the same amount on their ad spend, while 48% plan to increase their spend. In fact, digital ad spend is expected to exceed 23 billion dollars this year from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.

First thing’s first, you need to plan ahead. Now is the time to get your creative in order, take stock of what’s been successful for you this year (metrics-wise), and think about how you’re going to stand out in a swarm of other Black Friday ads.

Encourage opt-ins and new followers

You can get going now with your strategy by engaging with new potential followers and email subscribers. You might use an early-bird special to entice users to follow a social account, or to opt in to your email newsletter for a special sale that will be sent out on Black Friday.

A/B test different creative strategies

Another advantage to preparing your Black Friday strategies early is that you can A/B test your different creative options. Maybe you decide to create a video ad and a version of the ad with just copy and a picture.

You can run both and see which performs best. That way, when it comes time to ramp up ad-spend, you’re going with the creative that’ll bring the most ROI.

Prepare your profiles

One of the first things you need to do is get your profiles ready to convert viewers and followers into buyers and evangelists.

People will notice your profile photos (both headers and profile pics) first. So, take advantage of that by creating an image that creates urgency around your Black Friday plans.

You should add links in your profile bios (Instagram, Twitter) or in the about sections (Facebook, LinkedIn) to your Black Friday promos.

Another thing you should do is make sure all of the links in your profiles that go to your sales pages, promos, etc. are in working order. You don’t want people clicking over from your social profiles to hit error pages.

You can pin a Tweet, Facebook post, and Pinterest post to the top of your profile. Make this pin the best promotion you’re running.

Use social automation

To get the most out of the holiday season, you’ll need to have plenty of content scheduled to keep your followers engaged.

A sure-fire strategy for increasing engagement is to use a social automation tool, like Sprout. Not only can you schedule ample posts ahead of time, but you’ll also be able to:

Post at the best time of day

Track the performance of different post types (i.e. Does video perform better than a blog post?)

Post to all of your social networks so you don’t miss customers on any channel

Optimize based on metrics and analytics

  Create different promotions for different audience types

If you serve one specific, hyper-niche audience, then skip down to the next section. But, if you have several Facebook Audience types or if you have segmented email marketing lists—you should create different Black Friday social promotions for those market segments.

For example, my good friend runs a gender-neutral barber salon. She runs two different Black Friday specials—one for long hair, another for short hair. She could also segment her campaigns according to shop location (i.e. Bushwick vs. East Village in NYC).

Stand out from the rest

One of the trickiest parts of a successful Black Friday social media strategy will be for your brand to stand out in the sea of other brands clambering for buyer attention. Facebook alone saw a 17% increase in ad spend during the last Black Friday season.

Let’s take a look at some examples of brands standing out and crushing their Black Friday social goals.

1. R.E.I.

R.E.I. (Recreational Equipment Inc.) is an outdoors and sporting goods retailer. Their brand is all about encouraging folks to get outside and enjoy the outdoors.

For their 2017 Black Friday campaign, they went against the grain and encouraged people to opt-out of Black Friday, and instead, head outdoors. This campaign wasn’t designed to drive Black Friday sales, but instead, to drive sales year-round by increasing brand awareness.

Their posts had a branded hashtag and content like this:

What’s great about this post?

They’re using a branded hashtag, which encourages their followers to share posts with the same tag—thereby increasing brand visibility and likely increasing Black Friday sales.

They’re driving traffic to a Huffington Post article about the campaign. This is great because it builds authority and trust (since they’re so prominent that HuffPost is writing about them). Plus, it seems less like an ad and more like sharing a proud moment for the company.

The featured text in the post is excellent and statistic-rich. Look at that line, “our kids spend less time outdoors than prison inmates.” Adding a bit of shock and wow factor into the text never hurts a campaign.

2. Patagonia

Patagonia, another outdoor’s brand crushed their goals last Black Friday by going against the norm as well. Patagonia decided to give 100% of their Black Friday earnings to environmental causes. They ended up doing $10MM in sales with this campaign:

  What’s great about this post?

Supporting a cause is one of the best things you can do to build trust with your follower base – particularly with millennials as 90% of them prefer brands that support causes vs. brands that don’t.

Text on an image is a great way to capture viewers as they scroll and swipe. When you see this ad, you can read it in less than a second or two.

Again, they’re using a popular hashtag #LoveOurPlanet which increases viewership and drives engagement. Try using RiteTag to find great hashtags for your brand or industry.

3. Chubbies

Chubbies sells loungewear and shorts for men. Their ethos is one of humor, as you can see from this screenshot of their homepage:

  As you can probably guess, for Black Friday, they went with humor. They launched a series of ads along with hourly giveaways:

  What’s great about this ad?

Humor works. This ad grabs attention right away with two guys sitting in their underwear in the middle of what appears to be a bar.

The ad is a video. Video has grown immensely in popularity, especially with ads. It’s a great way to grab a user’s attention as the video starts to play when a user scrolls past it.

They’re using a custom domain for the giveaway. This is a great idea for several reasons. First, they’re directing traffic (likely high amounts of traffic) to a new site, thereby avoiding a crash of their current site. Next, they’ve branded that domain, and it’s an easy title to remember. When users search that title, their domain will be the first search result.

4. Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity is a party game where players fill-in-the-blank with playing cards. The statements the cards create are politically incorrect, offensive, vulgar, or all three. For Black Friday, they decided to play on their sarcastic and politically incorrect style by increasing their prices:

Why does this campaign work? 

• It’s true to their brand—sarcastic, crude, vain—and customers thought it was hilarious because they shared it tons of times on social channels and it was the top post on Reddit.

• Like the other brands we’ve mentioned, they’re going against the typical Black Friday norms. This is literally the opposite of a sale, which immediately grabs a prospect’s attention.

Get your creative right

As you can see in the campaigns above, companies that are successful with digital advertising have developed a brand voice, which includes a sense of who they are as a company, and what they represent. For example, since Patagonia is an eco-friendly company, so was their campaign.

What do you stand for?

First, you need to understand what you stand for as a company. What’s your company’s mission? This should be bigger than just, “selling the best XYZ.” This mission should serve humans. Whether you’re going to help the environment, or go against the grain and create a sardonic card game whose mission is, “anti-mission” — you need a strong sense of your brand.

How does your mission impact your creative?

After you know what you stand for, think about how that influences your creative? For example, since Cards Against Humanity is anti-mission, with a sarcastic brand voice, they used those traits in their creative.

The words are anti-poetic. It’s straight to the point, blunt, almost harsh. The design looks anti-design. Like something I could’ve made in Paint when I was 13. And that’s why that ad is amazing – all the elements perfectly embody the goals of the brand.

You’ll need more than one version of creative

You might be familiar with A/B testing different web pages, different versions of sales copy, or email templates. But when it comes to ad creative, not only do you need multiple versions for A/B testing, but you also need multiple versions because your ads will go “stale.”

If you’re using a hyper-defined audience, then you’re likely going to “overexpose” them to certain ad sets. Your audience literally gets tired of seeing the same ads, and so, they stop clicking. You can detect this by noticing a drop in your click-through and engagement rates. If your CTR and engagement are initially pretty high, then suddenly drop, it’s time for fresh creative.

Make sure you’ve got more than one version of the design (even if both ads are similar colors, etc.). Make sure you’ve also go multiple versions of copy. Social media platforms will automatically run tests of the different versions of your ad, but be prepared to replace the best version when you start to notice a drop in engagement/CTR. This is especially important during the Black Friday & holiday season when frequent online shoppers are getting targeted by plenty of ads.

Automate your organic content

You need to spend your time on optimizing ROI and other strategies and tactics — not on manually posting to Twitter, Facebook, and your other channels several times per day.

Take advantage of a free trial with Sprout, so that you can put all your other posting on autopilot, and concentrate on ROI. Start by signing up here.

Then, plan out your Black Friday content in the scheduling tool.

  A great feature of Sprout’s automation tool is that you’ll be able to quickly reshare your most popular posts and content. This makes it easy to keep your social media pipeline full of quality content that drives engagement from your follower base.

You can also get valuable reports on your organic social media progress. From these insights, you can make changes and tweaks to improve the performance of your organic posts. For example, you’ll be able to improve hashtag performance on Instagram with Sprout’s hashtag report.

Don’t forget Cyber Monday

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how Cyber Monday is almost as big of a draw for customers as Black Friday.

Between 2016 and 2017, Cyber Monday spend increased over a billion dollars.

In 2017, mobile shopping had it’s first 2 billion dollar spend on Cyber Monday.

Overall, 2017 Thanksgiving weekend saw a 10% increase in online shopping.

So, make sure you add some Cyber Monday deals and promotions to your social media mix. Take advantage of this huge increase in online shopping by setting up conversion ads that get users over to your product sales pages in one click.

Takeaways

If you’re looking to make a serious impact on your company’s bottom line this Black Friday, then you’re going to need to stand out amidst the chaos.

• Consider going against the grain in your industry. Do what others wouldn’t dare. Modern shoppers like un-selfish business, so give back to your community, or to a charitable cause.

• Learn from some of the strategies we’ve shared here. Make sure your creative is on point. Whether your brand leans toward humor or sharing your values with customers, your campaign should echo your mission.

• Make sure you’re utilizing data, and get your content into an automation tool that can help you improve performance so that each post is garnering the most engagement for your brand.

What strategies have been successful for your company during previous Black Friday sales?

This post The complete guide to creating a Black Friday social media strategy originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/black-friday-social-media-strategy/

[wp-yahoo-style-1042-yahoopa-blog]

How Your Shopping Habits Influence What Designers Make

Shoppers aren’t just shoppers anymore. They’re design influencers. (Photo: Trunk Archive)

Most shoppers know that retailers are watching their every move: what they’re searching on store websites, what they’ve bought in the past, and how much money they’re willing to spend.

But clothing companies don’t just want to know how they can sell you something their designers have dreamed up; they want to know exactly what you’re looking for and then design it. 

In a marked shift from how trends and clothing reached shoppers in the past few decades, retailers are now using shopper data to decide how to design clothes, which sizes to provide, and how frequently they should be restocking. And, thanks to the ever-growing impact of social media and online shopping, data collection is happening everywhere, from upstart clothing brands to mall anchor stores, both online and in-person.

Why? It’s all because shoppers want what they want when they want it — now. 

“If you don’t give consumers what they want, they’ll go somewhere else,” Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at analytics firm NPD Group, told Yahoo Style. “The sphere of influence has shifted. We’re no longer looking at stores or the designers as a point of entry to what’s important; we’re looking at what influencers are telling us or what trends are showing us.”

Data dictates design

For startup clothing company MM.LaFleur, whose inventory is aimed at professional women in their mid-20s and beyond, the design process directly accounts for customer feedback and data. Because the nascent company primarily sells “Bento Boxes” (a set of items curated by the brand), the reliance on user data is paramount.

MM.LaFleur said it keeps a “constant feedback loop with customers” through feedback surveys or direct calls with its shoppers, all to rework existing products so it keeps its shoppers coming back. For example, the company has modified its popular Tory dress twice, based on what customers say they want: It has added a zipper guard and fabric to the bust, shifted the neckline, and so on. An even more dramatic evolution for an MM.LaFleur product is the Sarah dress, which has evolved six times based on shopper preferences.

As a result, the company said it’s grown 300 percent year-over-year since it launched in 2013, noting that 40 percent of its customers come back within three months of their first purchase, a figure that’s “far above industry-standard,” said Tory Hoen, editor in chief of MM.LaFleur’s blog, the M Dash.

A designer works in Zara’s factory in Spain. (Photo: Getty Images)

Some stores collect data qualitatively. Zara, the world’s largest retailer, solicits feedback from its store managers across the world based on conversations they have with customers, which influences how the company designs new products and redesigns its most popular items.

In one instance, Zara’s Spanish designers consulted with American store managers, flying them to company headquarters to work on sketches. Based on those discussions, 25,000 of the same black women’s wrap coat for winter were designed, produced, and shipped worldwide.

Where’s the data coming from?

Trend forecasting firm Worth Global Style Network, more commonly referred to as WGSN, helps mine data for retailers across the world, to better help them determine how and when to stock items using its proprietary data tool, WGSN Instock. 

Recently, WGSN interpreted data that underwire bra sales were down slightly to mean that the uptick in feminist marketing made the “humble bra” a “noticeable retail victim” this year.

“Flamboyant feminism deflates bra,” WGSN declared in its Instock trend report in January. “Going braless or wearing more relaxed styles has become a subtle but discernible finger up to the patriarchy, and Valentine’s marketing this year showed a discernible shift towards self-gifting in line with the feminist mood sweeping popular culture.”

This screenshot, from WGSN’s January report from Instock, shows the demand for a traditional underwire bra is down this year. (Photo: Courtesy WGSN)

And just as WGSN isn’t the only company to keep retailers on top of trends, social media isn’t the only treasure trove for retailers searching for what shoppers want to buy. Online shopping site Polyvore tracks the items shoppers search for, then delivers that “Polydata” to fashion editors and its own social media channels. It also shares information on top-searched categories each season with retailers. (Disclosure: Polyvore’s parent company is Yahoo.)

That search data can sometimes bring unexpected trends to the surface, influencing what you see in stores. Polyvore spokesperson Ellen Cohn reports it saw a “surprising” early spike in searches for swimwear in January, compared with the same searches one year earlier. Specifically, searches for “nude” swimwear jumped 145 percent, high-leg one-piece swimsuits increased 99 percent, and neoprene swimsuits rose 48 percent. Polyvore then shares related metrics to retailers, specifically about how their products and advertisements perform on its site.

Is data enough?

Data is so important that major companies have done away with their creative heads altogether in favor of data-driven strategies. In 2015, struggling retailer Gap eliminated its creative-director positions across its companies, including its namesake brand and Banana Republic, going so far as to call its creative directors “false messiahs.”  

Relying too intensely on data, however, isn’t a be-all and end-all for retailers eager to convert customer preferences into sales.

Katie Smith, senior analyst at retail analytics firm Edited, said, “In recent years many retailers lost sight of their customers and had their whole businesses go astray,” precisely because they were too focused on what the data told them, ultimately ignoring what makes their clothing unique.

“Consistently iterating on what works will limit the scope of a retailer’s offering. Repeat runs are great for the core offering, but healthy retail needs high levels of newness and that balance can’t be found in reworking the hits,” Smith said in an email. “Retail has to take some risks too — do things that challenge and educate the consumer.”

Read more from Yahoo Style & Beauty:

How Michelle Dockery Ditched ‘Downton Abbey’ for Sexy Pinstripes

What’s the Difference Between a $2,000 Burberry Trench Coat and a $200 One?

Jenna Dewan Tatum’s Very Specific Reason for Working With Jennifer Lopez

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.

Alexandra Mondalek is a writer for Yahoo Style & Beauty. Follow her on Twitter @amondalek.