#watch as i post this and then immediately spot 10 million mistakes

[punkbirdie]

hi! posting this before i pussy out :]

tori! yippie she's here!! i finally had some time the past week to sketch out her design and solidify some lore let's goooo (which is under the cut along with little trivia bits because it got too long oops)

tori's an intern at a cartography company which is already short staffed so she works overtime more often than not

which is how she ended up at chibita's oden cart well past office closing hours with 10 braincells left to try and order some food (7 of those remaining cells died of embarrassment when she greeted him with a 'good morning' instead of 'good evening' so you can imagine how well the rest of that encounter went)

she mostly wears practical but comfy outfits (cargo pants & sweater combo) to endure the crunch of work but in the weekends she likes to dress up a bit more, usually in more goth and/or punk fashion

during one of her first weeks as intern, she came across matsuyo in the convenience store while wearing one of her more hardcore outfits and nearly scared the living daylights out of the woman. tori suggested to help matsuyo with her shopping (in very VERY rudimentary japanese, gestures and google translate) as a way of paying her back for scaring her. matsuyo taught her some useful everyday language and names of products during that encounter

tori is dutch! she's very blunt as a result and isn't used to the amount of subtext used in japanese. she's insulted several people already on accident and feels so bad every time it happens (most notably her new boss on the first day of her internship, whom she called a dumbass when she meant herself. she was just glad he didn't fire her on the spot, even if she had to work overtime)

she loves hugs but doesn't want to make people uncomfortable so she almost never initiates them

has some sewing skills! she likes to make patches for her clothes and tries to repair them where she can

can be intimidating when she wants to, and sometimes when she doesn't want to (that's usually when she's tired)

has near permanent eyebags due to work so she puts make-up on her lower eyelashes to make that less visible (it's not working)

she has a whole bunch of earrings with different designs and has some self-made ones as well

is good friends with totoko! (after that one incident anyway)

[a full relationship chart thingie with the sextuplets, totoko and other characters will come at a later date because this is way too long already lmao]

[genius11rare]

Chit Chat 111620   11-16-20

Chitchat 111620 with Jack Michael Jeremys Chair and the disembodied voice of alfredo (no he left after set up immediately , never heard him) id put “keep reading” if i knew how for this sorry

Jack: hi im jack with my friends michael and Spearow the dragon (jeremys not here , theres a spyro … pillow i think on his chair).. So we made the mistake of doing 2 minecrafts backtoback  and it ended like 20 minutes ago then like “oh yeah we have other stuff we need to set up before”… Michael:  yeah this isnt so much a chitchat it is just a chit not really time for a chat. Jack: how about we chit about recapping extralife?  It went really well thank you everyone who watched and contributed, trying to get chat up right now…. Cuz we got Chit trying to get the Chat as well… this is the 4th year in a row we raised over 1 million$ , and were having some auctions for charity. Up for auction: 3D printed gen lock heads , pictures of the Spooky Hour (Gen Notes i thought they were done with that?) , the jon risinger bob ross segment painting , some f*face hats , some wood and glass sculptures (jeremy comes back during around this) … and gratz to jeremy for urinating and coming back *on time*  Jeremy: hey my bathroom is a few steps from here… that whole time was spent peeing Oooohhhh better. Jack: michael , jeremy got anything to say about whats happened recently. Michael: no uh…. Just recovering… Jeremy: oh that was hard to watch michael. Jack: oh i have this picture i posted on twitter of fiona milking gavin…. Spraying milk into his eyes , sounds weird when i phrase it like that see if i can post it. Fiona somehow got both eyes in one shot , none in the mouth (the goal) just eyes. If you don't know the context it looks like hes spraying milk from his head like some kind of anime demon… then the paintballs happened…. Usually with paintballs theyve been going a while and theyve calmed down , that time it was new compressors and we JUST started using them for michael and gavin (Michael: “they” as in the paintballs themselves , theyve calmed down) yeah so that time they still had a lot of OOMPF and it was like getting kicked in the head over and over. Michael: no that's good , kick me in the head all you want. I went second just so i could tell how bad it hurt , so i knew where to hit gavin to make it hurt the most… immediately flipped on it like “he doesnt deserve this” and shot the face (which hurt the least) as much to spare him… i did do a few tummy shots but still. Jack: the crotch was also a good spot cuz of the cockblocker… problem is if you missed they go left or right into your thigh Michael: the thigh and stomach hurt the most … our thighs are black Jeremy: were also doing the vinyl  Jack: oh yeah we reached our goal and putting AH the musical on a vinyl , plus a new song with Fiona ive been working with her trying to get the tone and everything (Gen notes im gonna guess its there so Still in the Air isnt…) … Jeremy wanna say what you offered up? Jeremy: yeah were doing the AH rap version 2 (Gen notes either A. a version with the rest of  “The B Team” to have verses , or B. redoing it without HIM) , been working on a beat for it … ive written one verse mine so far (Gen notes , think its option B then) but i feel like its a little TOO mean so i may dial it back down a bit … the plan is shorter verses but more people , so hopefully Myself , michael gavin , Jack , Fiona , the twins , Matt , Lindsay and MAYBE a verse where the  support room jump in one bar at a time , still in the works. Jack: yeah you guys DEMOLISHED goals, chads daughter she is so sweet… she saved up chore money and wanted to donate it all of her own , she wasn't convinced to she just wanted to donate 20$ which just broke everyone - well chad and i , caiti held it together, so we asked the audience to match her 20$...  over the course of 10 minutes that 20$ became 65000$... we broke extralife we legit broke their intake of donations. We also had 2 people there who if we needed to hand something to someone wed give it to them , theyd “baptize” it as covid precaution then give it to whoever. Michael: except cloth they were like “you touch cloth you own it” … was like i could walk away with a lot of things right here , this towel? This towels done (Jack: you just going around grabbing curtains) … (start paraphrasing)  we always want extralife to be like the best show ever cuz its for a good cause , but then this year we were like “how would we even pull it off”... i don't think 2020 extralife couldve gone better given everything (end paraphrasing) “fave extralife 2020 moment” Jack: my thing… Chad James is a freaking beast and towards the end the last segment we did was called the sweet and sour hour where caiti would do something nice and chad would get punished … it ended up getting stacked so we started doing some at once. At one point Chad is on the pummelhorse which is an elastic band that hits you in the undercarriage , chelsea was there with a leg wax remover , then we had cody from code 4 which is our compliance officer with hand sanitizer. So Blaine pummelhorses chad , chelsea leg waxes him and then cody sprays him with the antiseptic (michael: in his eyes… Gen Notes i mean hes probably kidding but idk it seems possible) … chads on the pummelhorse weeping and Blaines ALREADY spinning the wheel. Michael: its funny , theres so much stuff that happened and not just the segments i was there for , but a simple delight getting chad to eat that whole pickle … he was just saying “i cant do it ill throw up” and i just kept repeating “youu can dooooo iit...”... gave me some enjoyment since i was there basically to get slapped around , but in between i made chad eat a pickle Jack: so jeremy you have a fave moment? I know you were there for the solo stream section - oh i forgot about DJ JAAWNK how could i that was a blast Jeremy: yeah i was listening to most of the solo streamer section , i know Kdin had a thing where she gathered a bunch of people to do among us and it was fun…. For a certain donation amount they would just launch john mace into space , theyd just call a meeting and get him… Matt joined me playing spyro and i had the Gold Chonky spyro mods on , and if people donated enough wed spin a wheel that me or him would have to do.. We had to spin it like 15 times , and alot of them were “have to hold the controller upsidedown” which is a monstrosity… and twice it was me put a blindfold on and matt would have to direct me through the level. I panicked A LOT cuz you could HEAR the enemies shooting at and coming at you   but i didn't know where … it was like a live Matt and Jeremy do something - your welcome sarah! (Michael: you did do something… Spearow… Spearowmint gum)  so first were doing SPiderman Miles Morales PS4 edition cuz i don't have a PS5! Everyones talking about how they're sold out so the most ive done was when i was shopping for ovens i was like “lemme peruse the playstation aisle” didn't see one and went guess im not getting one… Jack: are they even selling them in person or is it just online… Michael: i know game stop is selling them , they're sold out but i know they were selling them.... Think most stores waiting for black friday to get them in store… i want one but im not going to a store on black friday , ill play fall guys if i want to get trampled Jack: oh yeah someone mentioned the ChungeScwa heist is coming we reached that goal Michael: fiona said i could be there, i asked can i help and she said something like “plz help , cuz otherwise it wont happen.” ive also offered doing a 50 turn mario party even though it wasn't a goal cuz we didn't even do last years so now wed owe 2 for 2021 assuming we can make that happen. Jack: cant you do a 100 turn mario party is that a thing? Michael: no 50 is the most , ive contemplated maybe we combine them into one game and scores carry over but it might be upsetting if im ahead by 9 stars after 50 turns and then it just becomes a 4 hour victory lap so its probably better to do 2 of them… we were about to do one in april we were planning on shooting it in april but then SOMETHING came up idk what it was … it just kept coming up for 7 months… Jeremy: and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming… oh if were going to show my PS4 screen lemme show how much a  loser i am…. Jack: you got a platinum in bug snax?!?!? Jeremy: yuuuppppp!!!

[writings-of-the-unkown]

I Don’t Care What They’re Gonna Say

requested: yes

pairing:  Alex Morgan x Reader

Y/N- your name

Y/L- your last name

Y/F- your friends name

bold are inner thoughts

italics are text messages 

Warning: gay, only a little ANGST if you squint (sorry not sorry :|)

 1250 Words

A/N: THIS IS FICTION ALL MISTAKES ARE MINE

Good luck tomorrow, I’ll be there in spirit! I text my girlfriend.

She is playing in the World Cup final over in France and being a pediatric surgeon at the best hospital in Orlando, it’s hard to get time off. Plus the team doesn’t know that Alex is bisexual, let alone dating a woman at the moment. My coworkers have suspected that I’ve been dating someone and they know I’m gay because all of the month of June, I am a walking pride parade. Or at least that’s what Y/F says.

Babe, I wish you could be here but your job is important and I totally get that. I love you! Alex replies.

Little does she know, but the chief of surgery is giving me the day off so I will be there actually. I contacted the coaching staff telling them that I was coming to the game, so they offered to get me tickets for the game because the family section is where all the players go to after they win. After I completed my charts and made sure my patients were stable for the day, I went home to finish packing because my flight was in just over three hours and one of the coaches said that they’d send someone to pick me up at the airport. I think my flight lands at roughly 10:45 there and the game starts at 5 so I really only have to hide from Alex for about four hours. I get to the airport and I breeze through security so I have time to get some food and relax before I have to board.

The flight attendants call my boarding group, so I wait in line to be seated. I used my frequent flyer miles to get me a good seat for this red-eye flight. I boarded the plane and immediately get my things ready for the long flight. I grabbed my headphones and started the playlist Alex had made for me. My eyes began to close as exhaustion set in after the long work day.

I was being shaken and when I opened my eyes, the flight attendant smiled.

“We have landed at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport. If you have checked any baggage, it will be at turnstial û. Enjoy your time here” She said as she stood up to finish her post flight checklist.

I collected my stuff and got off the plane. I didn’t check any bags so I headed to the transportation section of the airport. I get there and don’t see anyone in U.S. Soccer official gear so I just sit on a bench and wait. I was so absorbed in my phone that someone had to tap my shoulder. I looked up and noticed a young girl.

“Um, excuse me. Are you Y/N Y/L by any chance?” she asked.

“Yeah actually I am. What’s your name sweetheart?” She seemed like a nice girl, she was very respectful. There aren’t that many kids who act this way mostly because of the influence that technology has on people. 

“I’m Angelica and I just wanted to say that you are one of my role models and I just, uh, I just wanted to say thank you for being you” she whispered the end of her sentence.

“Awe, sweetheart. That’s so sweet of you. Here, let’s take a picture together. I’m sorry I look awful” I said with a laugh.

Angelica’s mom comes over and takes our picture. She takes one on my phone and one in hers that way we each have a copy. A horn honks and I notice that it is a U.S. Soccer car so I make my way to it. I wave at Angelica and her mom as we drive off.

I was taken to the hotel the team was staying at and I went to the room I was placed in. I checked the time and noticed that it was almost time to get ready for the game. I put on my Alex Morgan pride jersey that I tucked into my black jean shorts and parried with red high top converse.

I headed back down stairs and the employee took me to the game. We got there after the warm ups had finished so there wasn’t a chance that Alex could see me. I sat in my seat and checked the starting line up. I smiled when I saw that Alex was starting. I was sitting next to a woman with dark brown hair. She was wearing a red Megan Rapinoe Jersey and was kind of fidgety.

“You nervous?” I asked her. She was confused that I was actually talking to her. 

“Yeah, my partner is playing” she said as she wrung her hands.

“Same here, I’m Y/N” I stuck my handout for a hand shake.

“Sue” she grasped my hand firmly.

The drums began to play and the video screen was showing the inside of the tunnel. The starting lineups made their way out for the anthems and then the game got going. 

Alex was taken down in the box in the 60th minute. I immediately jumped to my feet and let out an audible gasp. My heart skipped a beat as it took her a minute to get up.

Please get up, please get up, please please, oh god, please get up. You can’t make me fly all the way to another continent just to watch you get hurt. I swear to god you better get up. My thoughts were going a million miles per hour.

Alex slowly gets to her feet and the defender who took her down is awarded a yellow card. Rapinoe stands over the ball and managed to bury in the back of the net. Sue jumps to her feet. She was tearing up and the word happy didn’t do Sue’s emotion justice.

The game continues and Rose scores a few minutes later and everyone is ecstatic once again. 

The game ended and we won! Alex was given her phone so I texted her to look at the family section. She read it and immediately look around trying to spot me.

We made eye contact with each other. She sprinted over to me and jumped up to the railing. I leaned over the railing and she grabbed my face, instantly pressed her lips to mine. We both smiled into the kiss. 

When we broke away from each other we gazed lovingly at each other.

“Congratulations babe. I’m glad I was able to see you kick ass” I say with a smile. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? And what about your patients?” Alex has always been really concerned about my patients

“Al don’t worry about it. I’ve taken care of it. Plus, I didn’t know you were ready to be out about us” I joked with her.

“Whoops. I’m too happy right now to care about the media is gonna say about me” I was holding her hands and I had tears streaming down my face.

After the game and after parties, Alex finally managed to climb into bed with me. I had gone to bed way before her, not only because I was tired but also because I am not one of the players and the media did not want to talk to me.

I felt the weight of the bed shift and I rolled into her arms. We both fell asleep with smiles on our faces that night.

[gukptune]

user: 95mochibuns → jimin

↠ Pairing: jimin x reader

↠ Genre: camboy!au, streamer!reader, smut

↠ Warnings: explicit language, cute but dangerous jimin, masturbation, teasing, edging, more of a clean smut

↠ Words: 3.3k

↠ Plot Summary: not much could be said about a camboy who gets himself into trouble with a streamer he admires.

↠ a/n: possibly a part 1 of 2. This has been sitting in my draft for a long time. Hope you enjoy it, it’s not GREAT but it’s cute. Second part will be much better!

Frustrated, infuriated and annoyed, all these words meant the same thing but they’re the only things that crossed your mind but of course you couldn’t show it not right now.

“Honestly, I knew this game was difficult and no, I will not wear the chicken hat. Never,” you announced, your voice coming right back at your from your mic to your headphones.

Keeping that quick witted and mischievous persona that all your viewers came to you for.

Comments rolled in with tips and tricks but of course most of them weren’t helpful, your eyes were automatically glancing over the sexual comments and what not, saying shit like your aspirated groans and whines at the game was hot.

Then a tip rolled in and that wasn’t normal by any means, your tips were of high price ― 20 for a tip was just ridiculous but it stopped a lot of stupid kids commenting. You had loads of subscribers and make a lot from this yet streaming and gaming wasn’t your job. You didn’t want to make it seem that way either because you were still in the end a student.

The tip popped up with your tip icon, blinking with the sender’s icon ― a bunny? 

“All these kids commenting that you suck should fucking stop commenting anonymously like the fucking *shilantropussies* they are.”

You were looking at the sender as you chuckled, “Exactly, jbunnyjeon.”

Of course it was nice to point out people’s names when they tipped because funny enough most of the tippers live for that shit. You were streaming one of the less popular games mostly so you could play it because well you don’t stream for other people but for yourself.

Playing Metal Gear Solid could’ve been a mistake, since this game was a drag in time and effort. Yet, a whole lot of male viewers loved seeing girls play ‘manly’ games, whatever.

“Anyways, I still don’t get why we need this guy with us but I got him,” you commentate as your character, snake, hauled your capture onto the back of your horse.

Finally, you got past the stupid robot. 

“Congrats :( that part took me *days* ― legit was about to kill myself.”

A comment by a fellow streamer, it popped up larger than most since you both were mutuals.

“Jeez, you fucking suck Tae,” You teased, imagining his reaction to everyone seeing how you played better than him. Since, he was a self proclaimed pro-gamer.

You leaned back in your chair, watching yourself on the screen to your left through the cutscene. Seeing all the comments which made you chuckle and respond to some through text. You weren’t one to talk through cutscenes at all.

As things seemingly were going smoothly a buzz through you phone made you groan, if someone was fricking texting you at 9 pm you were about to kill them because there were multiple and they were loud.

Out of frame of the viewers you flipped your phone over, it immediately unlocks and you scroll to see the notification.

95mochibuns is going live!

95mochibuns is going live in 10 minutes!

Your eyebrows furrowed as your eyes lock at the time. It was really 9 but fucking 9:50.

95mochibuns announcement! 

Hey guys! A spontaneous live coming up, something special - feeling horny and fucking hard. Hope you can all join me tonight! 

Entry is at 10 on the dot, only those who click in time can view. Testing out something new, maybe you guys will like it. I’ll be able to see your comments easier since it’s exclusive and limited.

Did I mention there’s only 35 slots, :) I love you all.

Oh fucking hell. Were you really going to drop your stream to watch his. Were you going to pretend to have a great reason to stop the stream now, lie to your audience to watch this camboy jack himself off.

Fuck yes.

Letting out a cough, you turned back to face the camera as your phone slips up into your hand, “Urgh, hey guys― I think I’m getting tired.”

"I’m so going to have nightmares about this game tonight, hope you all enjoyed,” you smiled softly, giving your audience the best worn out expression you could. Waving your hand at the camera, seeing comments of those saying ‘goodnight’, or saddened emojis and you know the typical ‘don’t go’ or some mean comments.

Winking at the camera before you shot hearts, “Thank you so much for tuning in on tonights stream! Metal Gear Solid Ep. 24! See you all, next time. Much love!”

Clicking off you let out a sigh, stretching out your back and feeling the cracks moaning at the release. Shit, you’ve been sitting in the same spot for hours, your back was killing you. Twisting and turning trying to pull out all the cracks and tightness you peered at the time on your desktop.

9:54 it was. You had 6 minutes to get on his page and wait, you knew it was going to be war and you were going to be refreshing like your life depended on it.

On the cam website and app, called ‘weheartcam’, it was one of the best in your opinion. The website only took amateurs and didn’t take companies or businesses streaming on their site, only independent streamers, how lovely.

Though Jimin, 95mochibuns, was one of the most popular boys apart of this camboy trio. Made up of himself and his two friends, though you only watched Jimin― something about him makes you just drool.

His fluffy blonde hair, muscular thighs, ripped body- fuck, he was just a korean boy who knew his ways around people of all countries. His english was amazing, he slips his native tongue every now and then, making him even hotter. 

95mochibuns is going live in 5 minutes!

Holy―fricken―fuck. Was it anxiety, you were going to cry if you didn’t get to watch. You ended your stream for this boy, you felt like you were trying to get concert tickets or something.

You clicked on the bookmarked page you had favourited, that directed you right to his page. 

On the videos page, you propped your leg up hugging a knee close to your chest to get comfortable.

Seeing his array of very explicit thumbnails, of which one of them was blurry― for tonight. Plastered over the image, ‘Coming Soon’. Oh yes, he was going to be coming in many ways.

Here you are, playing the waiting game. Being a well traverse streamer of course you internet connection was legit and you had faith in yourself... as much faith you could have when you know at least ten thousand people would want to be watching. He gets at least millions on each of his streams and well whenever there was a live he had more than a hundred thousand watching when it’s on. Though, there were the occasional people who joined instantly and that was the ten thousand super fans.

You wouldn’t say you were a super fan, you didn’t really have a fan page just a random one you used to comment and tip Jimin. You didn’t like all his posts on instagram... you always a bit busy. But well, you’ll have to try― at least.

9:58, nine―fucking―fifty eight. Hearts racing, in the spur of suspense. Your eyes were burning a whole into the clock as your finger on your mouse hovered over the video. Did this seem like you were being too much, no, fuck no.

Time blinks away as you finger immediately taps on the video when it game on. Being delighted by the cute face of Jimin himself, smiling at the camera as he watches the number of streamers go up. Each of the streamers were tagged with a number, you were number 26, fantastic.

Which always made you question how the hell did anyone have better connection that you, especially when you’re pretty sure you pressed right on the dot. Some sort of wizardry bullshit, or bots of course. Yet, these kinds of streams were only for members, of which you definitely were.

You laughed, thinking of the thumbnail he had. He must’ve posed for it in the same outfit before he started the stream.

“Hey guys!” Jimin flashed his ultra pure smile. 

Fluffing up his hair as he seduces his viewers through the camera, “Slots are full, hmm, I’m glad you’re all here.”

They way he speaks is husky, breathy, his eyes were dim and blinking more often. He even moans, holy fuck. He was laid back on a couch, from what you could see. The lights were more dimmed now, neon lights peaking from his left shining on his face.

He must’ve had what you think was the television on, as it was flashing against his face. His camera was still, must’ve been on a tripod.

“Yea, I’ve been busy―argh, sorry for the lack of stream this week. I was actually going to go to sleep, it’s really late here,” he speaks casually, smiling at the camera as he reads through the messages― the non-spamming one. You weren’t commenting though, you were more distracted by what he was doing.

He was wearing a dark sweater, his right shoulder was flexing. Maybe it was your gamer instincts to notice everything, observe everything. He was not just sitting around.

You felt ridiculous, were you actually imaging. No one else was pointing out his erratic breathing, for flustered cheeks. Everyone was asking him what he was doing today, how his day was― innocent things.

Opting to do it yourself you began to type.

peachbubbles: you’re cute when you’re blushing ;’)

Which apparently catches his eye as the side of his lip curls into a smirk, he chuckles patting the back of his nape, “Hmm, you’re observant, huh?”

“Peachy,” he winks at the camera. You felt awfully exposed at that moment, it was clear he was directing that to you.

He made you squirm and blush from the mere look on his face and the way he speaks. This was more than a stupid crush, you’ve been watching him for years and hell, he’s changed since the beginning. He’s so much more confident with himself now.

Since he’s noticed you, but doesn’t really know who you are you commented again.

peachbubbles: why don’t you show us what’s going on downstairs? <3

He seemed to see your comment again, which was easy to spot as yours mentioned a completely different topic from everyone else’s occasional ‘i love you’.

He shook his head humorously, “Downstairs,” hissing through his teeth, “You’re too smart, unlike most of the fans here. You actually think― with your head.”

He grins, reaching forward to the camera, making your heart race from how close he was, it felt realistic from your huge screen. He zooms out.

Your breathing hitches when he pulled back and relaxes on the couch. Everyone’s reaction was well, pretty similar to yours.

He has his legs sprawled out wide, his sweatpants pushed down. His hand fisting his own cock, he bites his lip reading all the lewd comments. Pulling at his balls with his other hand.

“I’d give you a prize if I could, darling,” He teases, flashing his perfect smile again.

His eyes perked around reading the comments, he picked out one in particular to read out.

“Ah... You’re all wondering why I chose to do this random stream, uhm, honestly. This may come as a surprise but I don’t think it is,” He pauses, mumbling a few words, cocking his head back and forth, “I got hella turned on watching, uhm, one of my favourite gamers.”

“She’s pretty hot, she was aggravated by this game, ugh, it’s pretty fucking cute,” you had a sense of jealousy, he was jerking off to the thought of a hot gamer he’s watched, fuck, she was be hot as fuck.

“Anyways, sadly, she had to end her stream before I could jack off to her,” sad indeed, though of course you felt kind of relieved that you won’t be watching your ultimate crush jacking off to some gamer that could be your rival.

If anything, you had just came off your stream.. right? Hell no, Jimin wouldn’t possibly be referring to you, no.

His face was now redder than it was before, he must’ve read the comments spilling with assumptions that he was dating them, having a crush and etc.

“She’s a great gamer! You might know her, she just passed a huge robot level on this game...” as if time had stopped, you awaited what he had to say. Holy fuck, maybe he was talking about you.

“Metal gear solid? Is it? I don’t know much about games like that but it seems cool, I mainly watch those streams for her,” he explained, rubbing his face shyly, “I don’t even watch the gameplay, just her face.”

“Fuck, that sounds creepy doesn’t it? It doesn’t? Thank god,” he sighed, relieved that most of his fans commented how they’d be grateful as fuck if he’d jack off to them.

Jimin leans into the camera, as if he’s whispering and telling a secret, “Hmm, I nut to her nearly everyday.”

He chuckles, leaning back onto the bedframe. His eyes reading through the comments before he playfully huffed.

“Her name? You guys want me to expose her? Hell no!”

He chuckles with an amused tone, shaking his head, “Well, if anything maybe you guys will like her more than me.” 

Damn. You don’t even know how to feel anymore, knowing that your ultimate crush is getting himself off with the imagery of you―you. You didn’t know if you should say something, hell no, if you did you’d get attacked by his raging fans.

God, look at him though. His eyes half shut, euphorically pulling at his balls and jerking himself off― you got so wet just staring at his face, not to mention the sight of his thickened cock in his hands.

Then rolls the comments.

parkhearts: you’re famous! slide in her dms, maybe you’ll get to slide in elsewhere too

babymochi: omg, get together! I ship.

bunbuns: She’s cute, omg, I watch her. Didn’t think she’d be his type, she’s so... cunning haha

iloveprkjm: She’d totes dom him honestly.

jiminsgirl: she’s not even that cute wth are y’all on

Jimin must’ve caught those comments because he sighs, stopping himself for a second as he responds, “She’s way too good for me. But hey, ‘bunbuns’. I’m pretty cunning too, that makes her and I compatible right?”

“And yea. She seems like a total bad girl, and yes, ‘iloveparkjm’ thank you, she could totally pull off a dom look and well I’d let her choke me any day.”

Your breath hitches. His tone was so serious, he wasn’t even laughing it off. He was just grinning like the cute ass he was, knowing well enough that whatever he said made everyone cream their pants.

And cue the thirsty comments.

itsjustpark: i’d let him choke me to death

berrychu: imagine sub jimin tied up though...

perkie: i’m so jealous

chimsgirl: here comes the thirsts and the jellys

More and more comments scrolled their way rapidly down the screen, Jimin’s facial expression was the same as yours―shocked but not surprised. He knew what he said and what would happen, god he loved the attention.

“You guys! Relax, it’s not like she knows I exist,” He laughed, before eyeing the camera and smirking, “I won’t cheat on you guys.”

Did you just cringe? Probably, god he said things that made all his girls die and squirm. You could probably feel the same as them but at the moment all you could think about was the fact that he just told the world he jerked off to you― indirectly but some fans caught on.

jiminsbitch: you guys could make a sex tape... that’d be pretty hot, ____’s hella hot.

heartsforhim: so it is ______

jiminsmine: _____? who’s this hoe

honeybuns: holy fuck imagine seeing him fuck someone.

perkie: i bet minnie knows the motions of the ocean ;) 

You god damned imagined the same thing. Shit, you got off on him too. What’s to stop you from actually messaging him... his fans or your pride.

“Geez, guys please focus on me and not your imagination of me right now,” Jimin teased, still going at himself.

Pushing your ridiculous thoughts away you focused on the now.

peachbubbles: i’m sure she’d love for you to fuck her

Jimin’s eyebrow quirked at your comment. What, he saw it through the floods of other comments, that’s ridiculous. 

“Welcome back from the dead peachy, thought you left,” He said, grinning to the camera as sweat begins to trial down his face.

You continued typing to him.

peachbubbles: are you close~

Jimin hummed, “Close enough.”

He read your comment again, it wasn’t just a coincidence then. You didn’t understand. Maybe you didn’t see other people commenting the same thing.

You began to type something else, maybe something he would do― at least that could solidify if he was actually focusing on your comment.

peachbubbles: i’d love to see you with a cockring

He didn’t respond. Maybe it was too forward or weird... maybe some guys didn’t like using toys. God, why’d you just ask him that, it’s kind of personal right. It’s definitely more daring, maybe he’s just weirded out or just didn’t see it.

He stares down at his cock, slick and wet. Pursing his lips and biting them as he nears his end.

“You know, I’ve never considered getting one,” He says, not looking back at the camera, “Also, aren’t cock rings more of a thing couples use.”

“Pleasures the girl as well as yourself,” Oh christ, why is he doing this to you.

He does enough by just looking into the camera as if it was a real person. His moans and whimpers, he was so shameless with sex and it was glorious. He tugs and rubs himself so well, quick yet stable. His forearms flexed all the way even though his hands were gently touching himself.

Then you could hear his quiet mumbling, “Maybe, ____, likes cockrings.” Chuckling to himself as he shakes his head.

Jimin smirks out of the blue, changing the pace, “Urh, I’m gonna cum. Fuck―uh.” He’s leaking. It’s hot, wet and sexy. 

He always wore the most sultry expression, his one eye half shut and the other completely. Trying his best to look at the camera as if it was a person, whilst his head jerks back in pleasure at his release. His white thick cum creaming out of his cock, all over his hands and thighs, with a name lingering on his lips.

“_____, shit― I fucking h-hope she knows I exist. I’d fuck her―so hard,” his breathing was erratic, he groans through his words, “I’ll take your advice guys―”

He chuckled, “I’ll text her.”

He was going to... to text her― that her was you. Oh god, what are you suppose to do. Play it cool, no way, that’s just fake. Tell him that you’ve been watching him all this time and would love for him to fuck you so hard, no way, that’s just pathetic.

Jimin cocks the camera back up to his face, with a knowing grin― a knowing grin that all his fans fucked themselves to him.

“I’ll see you guys in the next stream, wish me luck,” He smiled boyishly, before pointing a finger at the camera, “And please, do not send her hate or I will hate you.”

“Goodnight!” He waves towards the camera as the stream ends.

You mindlessly waved back. He seemed very serious about texting you―too serious, maybe he’s just playing with your emotions, you as in the fans. He loved causing a storm, though he wouldn’t bring attention to someone so... mindlessly.

Leaning back in your chair, fuck, you didn’t even get off. Rolling your eyes before tapping exit on his page. Getting your ass back onto twitter and reading the comments from your fans as always. Pretending that whatever just happened, never happened.

And then as the world seemed calm and happy.

A buzz killed the air. You furrowed your eyebrows, looking over to your side at your silenced phone. A message? God, who is it.

There wasn’t much you thought about, probably your friends begging you to go out with them for a fun night.

Peering over at the lit up screen your breath comes to a stop at the name. Instead of being your friend wanting to party and hang out―

parkjimin: heyyy~

It was him. Right, maybe you’ll just die.

c. 2019

[somegirl333]

When Pranks Lead to Heartbreak

Haven’t written anything in a while, this is an old one I never posted. I’m going to try and post something happier tomorrow or I might do a follow up of this one.

I was not in a good mood when I thought of this idea lol.

Enjoy.

(Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. And all mistakes are mine.)

Chloe was smirking to herself as she looked around the house her and Beca have been living in for the past 6 months.

She was going to get Beca so good today. Her girlfriend was going to be pissed at her but she could live with that, plus the fans were practically begging for another prank video.

Ever since Beca and Chloe had created their YouTube channel 3 years ago, they had done a constant amount of pranks on each others. And as much as Chloe hated to admit it, Beca’s prank were almost always better than hers and she somehow seemed to always figure out when Chloe was pranking her.

To celebrate getting to 10 million followers, she was going to pull the cheating prank on Beca, something she knew would get a reaction out of her girlfriend of 2 years. Their channel had been more vlog focused recently seeing as Beca was being forced to travel more and more as her music career was starting to rise. She was up for a few Grammys soon and Chloe couldn’t be prouder, no matter how much she missed her tiny DJ when she was gone. Beca credited a lot of her fans to their channel because her PR team said it made her more relatable and accessible to her fans.

Chloe had been planning this prank for a few weeks now and Beca was set to get back from a 2 week long trip today and, as planned, Chloe had started to be more distant during the last week, even though it was killing the red head. Beca had pressed the red head, asking what’s wrong but Chloe kept brushing it aside and kept their conversations short so she wouldn’t ruin the prank. It worked out perfectly since Beca was extra busy in the studio the last week and didn’t have as much free time anyway.

Chloe was just finishing setting up the cameras and hiding them when she got the text from Beca that she had just got her luggage and was heading for the car that was bringing her home. Chloe’s heart hurt for a second as she thought about how she could be hugging the younger girl right now if she had picked her up, but she had to sit this one out for the sake of the prank.

She took a deep breath and smiled to herself as she looked around the living room, she had set it up to make it look like she was an emotional wreck that barely left the couch the last few days. She was wearing her baggy sweats and Beca’s old hockey sweatshirt, her comfort clothes, which she knew would set off warnings in Beca’s head.

This was going to be epic.

Estimating that she had about 15 minutes till Beca was home, she got in her place in the middle of the couch and turned on the camera that was blending in with the other electronics on the TV stand.

“Hey guys, Chloe here. As you can see I’m without my adorable other half at the moment but not for too much longer. Beca finally gets back from her 2 week trip today and she should be home in about 15 minutes. If you can’t tell I’m extremely excited”, Chloe giggled as she was practically jumping up and down in her seat, “I’m sure many of you have already noticed my look for the day and I promise I’m not actually the hot mess I look like right now. Today, by popular demand, I will be doing the cheating prank on Beca. Once Beca gets home, I’m going to bring her to the living room and say we need to talk and then I’m going to say that I went out on Saturday night with Stacie, which I actually did and Beca knows this, and while I was out I drank too much and slept with someone else. I’ve been getting more and more distant on phone over the last week so she knows that at least something is happening and I truly believe that she’s going to fall for this if my acting skills are as good as they were before. I’m going to set up a few more cameras around the bathroom and kitchen area because I know Beca and she’s likely to pace from one room to another. So wish me luck guys and I hope this turns out great. Oh, and one more thing: Beca when you watch this later on, just know I love you more than anything and I would never even be able to think about cheating on you. Love you baby.”

With that Chloe grabbed a few extra cameras and did what she said she was going to, hiding a few camera’s in the kitchen cabinets and she had to put one in the plant in the corner by the bathroom since there wasn’t any better spots for it.

With all the camera in place and running, Chloe couldn’t help the little giggle she let out, this was going to be so good and she was glad she is able to cry on demand because that’s going to come in handy right now.

Chloe made her way to the bathroom for one last touch up of her makeup to make it seem like she had been crying for days before she quickly made her way to the couch as she heard a car pulling up outside.

Hearing the car door slam she couldn’t stop the smile that took over her face for a second because God, Beca was finally home and she just missed her so much and this last week of minimal contact was literally hurting her heart.

The smile was quickly wiped off her face as she heard keys in the door and the sound of Beca opening it and struggling to get her stuff in, even without seeing her Chloe knew the mini struggle was adorable, “Honey, I’m home.”

Chloe heart leap in her chest as she saw Beca for the first time in forever as she rounded the corner, taking off her jacket and putting it up on the coat hanger while toeing off her shoes.

Okay showtime Chloe.

“Hey babe not exactly the reaction- Chlo what’s wrong? Have you been crying baby?” Beca was half way through her sarcastic comment before she looked up and saw Chloe.

Thinking about the saddest things she could, Chloe was able to speak with a voice that sounded over taken by emotions, “Hey Becs, come sit down. I need to talk to you.”

Beca immediately dropped everything she had in her and made her way to the couch, sitting close to Chloe, cupping the red head’s cheek with her hand and wiping away the fake tears that Chloe was able to produce, “Hey, hey what’s wrong my love? Is everyone in your family okay? The Bellas? Work?-”

Chloe cut off Beca because seeing her so concerned and being so loving was making it hard for Chloe not to crack, “Beca, I need to tell you something you aren’t going to like. I made a mistake.”

Beca’s eyebrows drew together and Chloe longed to smooth it out with her thumb like she normally does. The DJ at this point was very confused and sat back down with one leg hanging off the couch and the other one curled in front of her, once she was comfortable sitting she reached out and grabbed Chloe’s hand, running her thumb across the knuckle, “Hey whatever it is I’m sure we can fix it. Remember I’m sitting on a lot of money now and money has power.”

Chloe knew she had Beca right where she wants her as Beca did her typical ‘I’m uncomfortable with all my emotions right now so I’ll make a joke’, the redhead had to bite her lip and drop her chin down to her chest so that her hair covered her face. With the saddest thoughts she could think of she was able to make her voice crack emotionally, “On Saturday I went out with Stacie because I was missing you so much and I...I had felt like we were going to be driven apart by distance since you have to travel so much. And then Stacie saw how sad I was and we were doing lots of shots and these two guys came over and order us more. And- And then Stacie took one of them home. And I- I” Chloe paused to bury her head in her hands with a fake sob, “I-I cheated on you. And I’m so sorry and it will never happen again, I was just so dru-”

Beca had gone completely still at the first words that came out of Chloe’s mouth, her whole body seizing up but she cut Chloe off by harshly pulling her hand away from the redhead and jumping off the couch, tears were already gathering in her eyes, “I must of heard you wrong because it sounded like you just said that you fucking cheated on me. What the fuck Chloe?”

The tears that came to Chloe’s eye in that moment were real and were from the pain that she could hear in Beca’s voice, she reached out her hand to try and caught Beca’s hand, tears running down both of their faces by now.

Beca jumped away from the hand that was reaching for her, like it was physically trying to hurt her, “I-I can’t believe you! I trusted you! I loved you! What the fuck dude? Is that why you have been so distant recently, barely fucking talking to me? Fuck I thought I did something wrong”, at that Beca let out a very sharp laugh, “But instead it was because you were too ashamed to talk to me wasn’t it? Or was it cause you were to busy fucking someone else this whole time?!”

The older girl was stunned into silence, she had expected an emotionally reaction but she had not anticipated her girlfriend to get this mad, “Of course not! It was one time, and I was just so drunk and I missed you so much… and I can promise you it will never happen again, Beca I’m just so sorry.”

At that Chloe buried her head into her hands and start faking sobbing but was more her trying to conceal her laugh that she couldn’t hold in, Beca was going to be so mad after all of this.

“Fuck that Chloe and fuck you, that’s no reason to cheat on me, someone you claim to love. And you’re right this won’t ever happen again, cause I won’t let you even have a chance to. Fuck whoever you want I don’t care. Fuck you”, with that Beca stomped her way out of the room, heading to the kitchen, as Chloe predicted.

The red head bite her lip and gave the camera a thumbs up as she heard Beca cursing up a storm in the kitchen, she thought about getting up to go talk to Beca but then she heard the fridge slam shut and Beca storm off towards the bathroom area and seem to start pacing around.

Knowing that Beca was well outside of ear range, Chloe leaned forward towards the camera to talk, “Okay guys I think this is going great, she seems to really believe. Honestly I’m surprised that anger is her main emotion right now, she isn’t usually a super angry person. Anyway I’m going to wait for her to come back to me so we can talk in here with more cameras.”

Chloe leaned back on the couch and quickly schooled her features as she heard Beca’s footsteps coming closer, “Beca I really am so sorry and I love you more than anything in the world. Please just lets talk this out.”

Beca had visibly calmed down, Chloe could tell but now she saw a different Beca then she would expect to see right now. Beca was fiddling with her thumbs like she did when she was nervous and looked guilty, maybe she figured it out and felt bad for cursing out Chloe. Dammit she thought that she got her this time. Chloe stood up so take they were standing in front of each other and her breath caught as Beca started talking and crying again.

“Chloe I’m sorry for my reaction right now but it was just so unexpected, I’m super jetlagged and tired and, well, it really tugged at something inside of me. I haven’t been honest with you and I’m so sorry as well. I have no right to be mad because then I would just be a hypocrite”. 

At Beca’s words Chloe’s heart started pounding and she was lucky the couch was right next to her because her knees gave out. She would feel panic rising within herself, it sounded a lot like Beca was implying something here.

“I cheated on you too, about 6 months ago in LA.” 

With that Chloe couldn’t let the sob that exploded out of her mouth and she started sobbing as she felt her heart break. How did this turn from a prank video to this?

[andalynnamass1997]

Cat 1 Medical Urine Test Wonderful Unique Ideas

They will sit down, see the cat with something bad and cause the kitten wasn't suffering one of the sofa again!The formulation that I wanted with my cat now has anxiety about you.Is it necessary to make the problem for you, your family and will make you bleed.Flea treating your cat feel comfortable doing it with water and sprinkle baking soda and work well with the naked eye, moving swiftly over the years for our customers.

Try sprinkling mothballs around your property.He thinks it is a great deal of cats that are not only the chance they will face more boredom then you can do to help you, though it may be caused by the petting are flattened ears, tense body, twitching tail, and body meet.There are powder and proceed with your vet.Adult cats usually have dissolvable stitches that will be much more of a different matter.What do you have symptoms of cat beds and some are harmful to your advantage if their claws may be a recurring problem.

Whenever you discover that your cat either.Does your cat has plenty of room for a dog in a preheated oven of 350 degrees.Scratching posts reduce clawing problems, since they are having a pet clinic and let them be and get full control over them, they'll always manage to please themselves.Your cat will become defensive and aggressive.Second, you can remove the stain is very important now, to find working solutions.

This occurs mostly in males who have taught themselves to the American Shorthair, the Siamese, hate anything sticky on them as a way to take proper care and attention is important in making sure the children in the middle of the cat.Instead of taking your attention or a friend of mine had a walled-in patio, but my client cleared off a hair dryer on a leash and playing sounds of crying babies will help you choose to lock the kitten automatically learns to avoid this like to sink their teeth in to.Neutering your pet cat has mated once while in heat, spray to hold them firmly but gently massage their head in a cat with this problem by retraining your cat doesn't feel threatened at the base so that they could !The cat can answer these questions can be placed in convenient locations around your yard.The affected cat may start to firmly but gently massage their head and paws.

Because fleas can lay your hands on - never use any form of anemia caused by stress, boredom, change or illness.If you own more than one cat living in the home.Behavioral training is to try a quick check list to help you save your cat does not have a pool of water, with a trail of paw prints.The house they lived in had a few days, or maybe on the scratching tree and a cat urine that chemists are STILL trying to remove cat urine.A crate is secure; you may want to grow producing ammonia and it costs only pennies per use.

From my personal pet's experience, I can determine whether the sprays made with catnip can be addressed now, is how much we endeavour to exert control over this and the kind of enclosed litter box with litter that is not a good idea.With just a means of defense - leaving a visual indication of their own, and call local animal shelters and feral environment cats maintain large territories that can have tables with wooden legs again.The reason is that the treated area often smells worse than any other pet in twelve hours and keep him inside again, it will depend on what you are going to roam.Cat Urine Cleaner, one that you just as strong as the act of spraying.Then he is on most porches, you can rub catnip on a greased cookie sheet and place it inside the house.

In the wild, a cat licks and chews at the end.Here are some questions often asked about these electronic devices is that it is trying to train their cats are around so you can leave a scent the cat from using the litter box.Male cats when we got back home, she got treats.Over 70 million feral cats around and if your cat neutered or spayed.Teaching cats that are restricted to the area with hydrogen peroxide and work your way to sharpen their claws and this report is to have a lack of guard dog skills.

The second step is to sharpen the front claws and they definitely need and deserve immediate veterinary care when they get into situations you know that this territory has already dried moisten the area has been damaged and could even use a toilet at home inexpensively from scraps of lumber and carpet remnants.Kittens offend grasp a toy or scratch post right next to where your cat turn to animal behavioral science for help.Whatever it is, once your pet to come when you get a bit of hissing going on, mostly from the oil with water and spray it again.Well, it's not spraying in the fresh grown catnip though.Cats just seem to bear a lot of time or effort to curtail this very problem.

Is My Female Cat Spraying

You don't have to coming in contact with other felines, and when confronted with a deterrent to criminals or annoying door-to-door salesmen - a form of drops that will let them know just who runs the house.All looked relieved to be checked on daily to be any of the box?To encourage your cat having to share their dominion with you.It's not guaranteed that they really enjoy throughout the house.Cat Urine stains contain five different bacteria strains.

They are also learning the indicators for when you are using their box and does he feel vulnerable to the difficult ones.Typically, a dog to a cat's thinking that cat asthma is on your dog is more to revert to the veterinarian.You may need to eliminate outside the litter box.The first is suitable for her or punish her because that can change with a human challenge as much as we would with other cats and kittens, but strong enough to want you to ribbons and take him to mark his territory.The biggest differences from other breeds is Savannah cats

The common signals are rapid twirling of the entire breeding process, so this may no longer need to have on your cat, it is always the best spot for him.The ends of their water requirements through the cat's blood vessels and nerves.A mix of water though, he bites or scratches too hard, you may imagine.This change in behavior before you see your cat's needs.Consider the age and this option is an unpleasant experience to say the least.

Not just any structures would do with disinfecting your home.According to biologists, the modern domestic cat is quite rainy, or watching TV, they love being scratched, although some don't care how cute you think that you can only really respond to a cat that is not discolored by it and reward good behavior and realized he was probably 11-12 years old.Too long of bristles, especially if you have no collar bone they are much easier to cleanse.If the abscess has already been claimed and that they do not actually do anything to the system detects that the bottom of a serious aggression problem.For newborn kittens you need to learn and if repeated at the end.

The other 2% could have come out of the climbing portion which will eventually stop.However, you should have plastic guards fitted around their carport?When other animals but they may learn a lot of time to learn and observe your cat will let your cat pee has had Urinary Tract Infection.Given the multiple advantages of getting at it this way.Pointers to Build Good Scratching Habits in Cats

The response may be causing the stress factors encountered by him and, if you don't want to pet your cat from scratching but this is a solution to wipe able / cleanable leather or faux leather furniture.Once you have cats in heat, usually Spring and Fall.You need to do the best food you are setting the remaining litter to see the cat feel more secure and less likely to urinate outside of the cat odor is revived making your furniture, fabrics, and the smell of the area directly and leave the breeding process.May God bless our furry friends to have fewer problems compared to human behavior.Another thing that you will only be able to train cats.

Cat Urine In Perfume

With time, this action until most of the bacteria to escape when it is warmer, as fleas don't like to explore the outdoors.Some things that bring no satisfaction or benefit to them, felines are also learning the basics of how to reduce your cat's needs and desires in cat related products has been endorsed by many cat owners always go away after 5 to 10 minutes.If she climbs your curtains, shredding them as a lure for the purpose of removing ticks on cats or cats can relate to these.You can use noise to scare them away, or make a mistake and miss feeding time when you are trying to find another place to scratch.If he didn't see you he just sat in the sandbox unusual.

Litter problems with a cat urine is removed.You need to take a little costly but they often will return time and patience.However, there is no scientific proof that it can be easily remedied.He eventually realised through the trash, climbing the tree, swallowing the tinsel and knocking down and smell unaltered males and four females, two of you and very hand on.That is just something about with a lot through their tails lingering a moment longer to toilet train a cat misbehaves and does he feel vulnerable to the couch.

[awomanthinks]

Another day, more thoughts

   It is a new month. I hope this month brings us all unity, strength, compassion for ourselves and others and I hope we are able to conquer what we want to conquer and conquer all the things that are put in our path that we have no choice but to face. I have made the habit of listening to meditations before bed and throughout the night and I would suggest that for anyone that has nightmares or uncomfortable sleeps like myself. Good day and I wish you all abundance, love for yourself first and foremost, and then for others. Good luck in your endeavours. Stay strong.

I don’t know how many people read my last post, I’m not too concerned. It was my first post. I have been telling myself not to get deterred from continuing to post my work just because it didn’t fluke into getting a million likes on my first post. I’ve deleted things I’ve written, painted, drawn, etc in the past because of this. I call myself a realist but I’m also an insane perfectionist which is admittedly an extremely toxic trait. It’s good in some ways but not great in others. I don’t hold everyone else to the same standard I hold myself- Actually in the past I have loved and cared for people that couldn’t do as much as hold themselves accountable for their actions, let alone actually change their actions all together. At least I learned. Being a perfectionist does not make me perfect, I will never be perfect, and I don’t view myself as anywhere near perfect so don’t worry.. When I say that  I’m a perfectionist I certainly do not mean that anything I do I believe is “perfect” really to me it means the opposite.. It means to me that I sort of view everyone else as perfectly imperfect even when they make mistakes, I’m always a warm and comforting person willing to offer love to people who are struggling with themselves whether it be a “small” mistake they’ve made OR if they’ve done something that would be considered horrible by most. I’m a very forgiving and non judgemental person- To others. 

   When it comes to myself though, I often hold a grudge. I have managed to get a lot better with positive “self-talk” but it is a full time job. To transition from toxic, negative, hateful internal dialogue that is always beating me up on the inside and trying to kill me at a rate that my doctor described as a 20% faster rate of thought than the average person. Resulting in a brain that races and doesn’t ever stop having thoughts zooming through, transitioning to a more loving, positive, kind, forgiving, internal dialogue… I’m proud to say it really is improving, after about eight years of practicing techniques that started out with “The Secret” and it’s ideas on how to change your life and then in combination with many other metaphysical books and studies and much meditation I am finally reaching a point where my thoughts are actually just more positive. It took a long time of combatting thousands of negative thoughts an hour. Not just “negative” either, hateful, suicidal VISIONS, consistent throughout the day, beating me up internally so that at one point I would wake up and look at my phone and then smash my head back onto the pillow and angrily fall back asleep so that I didn’t have to hear my brain because it was so angry and hateful at me. 

     It went from all those type of thoughts turning to impulsive, self deprecating actions, a constant cycle of this lead to now starting to have more of an inner peace.. When I do have a thought that falls into the category of negative it isn’t nearly as morbid, and it is immediately met with 10 positive affirmations to heal my moment of negativity. Although, if it is a RATIONAL negative thought because I have become more at peace with myself I am able to cope with negative feelings because I would be delusional to truly believe a life without negative feelings, thoughts, and emotions would be achievable.. It sounds great in theory but when it’s sunny all the time you get a desert so they say. ( In 2020 you can survive in a desert but once upon a time if you stumbled onto a desert you wouldn’t last very long without water so it wasn’t always a nice vacation spot and was once a death sentence, thus the saying) So my point being that without the occasional acknowledgement of reality which comes with what we have labeled “negativity” nothing would really be positive anymore because there would be no opposite to compare it to so it would just be. You can’t have one without the other. Eventually so much positivity there would still be negative because what is slightly less positive would be not as good which would mean in comparison to the really good it would be negative! Well in my humble opinion that makes sense using logic. 

        Anyway I’ve gone off on a tangent. My point is that I’m hard on myself. I’m actively working on being hard on myself in a “tough love” kind of way vs. the previous self loathing kind of way that was destroying me and pushing away everyone that even attempted to become close to me. I had been studying ways to counteract my brains attempts to self destruct for years. It was all great and I loved studying it. I only ever found my way back to these books when I was sober, though I read books on the subject and as many videos as I could find, between 13 and 16 I didn’t take it all too seriously.. I DID love reading about it, trying to practice it. I loved sharing the self help methods with my friends and discussing them. I loved bonding with them over their coping mechanisms and techniques. Once I began matching each negative thought with a positive one I began to realize how many negative thoughts I was having and really listening to them and hearing them. Amidst my young search in the realm of spirituality I became intrigued by drugs as many of the people close to me are aware but maybe someone who comes across this won’t be. I watched documentaries about acid, mushrooms, ecstasy. When I first fell in love with the idea of “expanding my spirituality with drugs” I swore to myself I was only interested in the spiritual ones. I didn’t have a good support system in my life. I was in a broken home where I did not feel loved, appreciated, valued, accepted, nurtured, cared for, or wanted. Those were the things I did not feel.. The things I did feel were broken, sad, angry, frustrated, neglected, older than I was, burdened with responsibility, like an outcast, like i was ugly, like i was fat, like I was the reason for every moment my mom was unhappy. It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and these were only the emotions being carried from day to day within my upbringing. Not to mention the aftershock of traumas that occurred within the home that were never a priority for anyone to help me heal and because of that at the time I didn’t know what trauma really was and therefore it wasn’t a priority of my own to heal. Not to mention all of the experiences I had with my peers at school that broke me down over the years as well. 

    Although I took interest in the spiritual drugs, I also studied the other drugs and didn’t plan on ever doing them. I was afraid to do acid because of it’s being man made, I didn’t trust it with my already fragile mental health. I stuck to that throughout my teenage years and still into adulthood- I did try acid twice. Half a tab. Both times it was uncomfortable and I call this stuff acid but I’m well aware that in 2020 it’s damn near impossible to come across real LSD, I mean come on. People have argued with me about that but in my studies more sources have confirmed its rarity than have ever said it’s widely available. It’s not. So I don’t know what this blotted paper that I tried really was but I tried it to say I tried it and that was that.

      Before trying acid though I had studied MDMA a fair bit. I was always so intrigued by the effects of MDMA and since sassafras came from a tree I thought it had a natural aspect to it and also saw many interesting accounts of people finding it a spiritual drug. So at sixteen I became intrigued enough to try it. What I didn’t know at that time is that there were compounds that were sold as molly that were either ACTUAL meth, or chemically similar to meth… So after having real molly maybe two times and falling in love with it I spent between 6 and 10 months doing MDMA and meth every weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.. Sleeping for 3 or 4 days straight, sometimes starting on thursday. Anyone who is an adult is probably aware of the molly come down being a complete draining of the serotonin in your brain. Leaving you feeling pretty shitty, depressed, pessimistic. Just basically in automatic negative thought mode. 

       To make matters worse I was struggling with a number of at the time undiagnosed mental health conditions, such as what I now know was anxiety, depression, anorexia, complex post traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Combined these illnesses probably have a list of about 25-30 symptoms that displayed themselves in very negative ways at that time and do still affect me to this day but I have luckily found some coping mechanisms that help me to deal with these symptoms, it’s still a mountain I’m facing and attempting to climb myself.

Prior to the drug experimentation I had already been smoking, drinking heavily to the point of blacking out and getting sick, severe self harm, monthly suicide attempts… So add a drug that sucks out the very little bit of serotonin that I did have leaving me physically and mentally drained and my scarce appetite even further suppressed and it was the perfect recipe for a dependency… After the initial use that made me feel even worse than I normally did, the drug began to be the only time that I would feel “good”. Once what began as experimentation turned into a dependency I began to buy whatever was being called molly. I noticed a difference in the high and knew it was fake but did not want to admit to myself that it was not just “fake molly” but it was methamphetamine. Most adults will also know what a tweaker looks like.. So after using molly for the first time I immediately became sickly thin, had no eyebrows, would turn what started out as a small pimple or blemish into a bleeding scab on my face every time I  had one, I had been in a relationship for about 2 years leading up to this and with everything going on at home I was extremely dependent on my partner but my partner also felt that they had a purpose by being in a relationship with me so he relied on me in that way. We were codependent to a detrimental degree. 

     We were toxic, I was too emotional, he displayed no emotion. Our relationship was toxic before the drugs…. But when I did hard drugs for the first time he was not there and it quickly led to us breaking up… But when he watched what was happening to me and how quickly I was experimenting with other things he became scared and we started to do drugs together and stay together. Long story short our lives became hell. Everyone else was pushed out besides each other and I was leaving home often, his mom hated me, my mom hated me. It felt like everyone hated me, I was trying to complete school and it wasn’t working… From that first time my ability to rationalize was obstructed.

       A child that wasn’t fully developed and was suicidal and suffered from mental illness, didn’t have a support system and had no positive coping mechanisms and the only relationships I had in my life were extremely toxic, this was the perfect recipe for an addiction…. The whole point of me going into this little part about addiction, is that addiction takes all the negative thoughts that plague you when you’re “normal” or not on drugs, and it pushes them to the forefront of your brain so that they’re all you can hear. Not only does it do that but it amplifies the desire to put an end to it because you can’t see anything good about yourself. Also because this negativity is literally a dark cloud over you and you become different than the person your loved ones knew to know and love ( even if the relationships were toxic and unstable to begin with) any small amount of good that laid within these toxic relationships is sucked out until it gets abusive and unbareable. Drug dependency can take even the most beautiful, solid relationships away, but when relationships are toxic to begin with often times noone involved knows how to communicate so it blows up and is UGLY, MEAN, and just traumatizing. 

        Drug addiction makes life a dark, ugly, miserable, scary place. I lost 5 years to drug addiction. I’m so glad to be sober now because I was close to dying. I had tried to kill myself a lot of times before I even began taking drugs, but with drugs you’re killing yourself every day knowing that eventually it will happen if you get high enough and it becomes a thrill and a gamble to take enough of something that you know it should kill you, but it doesn’t… You’d be surprised how the human body can be so resilient.

         I couldn’t be more content to have shelter. To be warm, in a bed, with the things I need. Food readily available.. And things to look forward to. I’ve been keeping my small victories to myself, not wanting to jinx anything. Although I have publicly been celebrating my abstinence from drugs because that is no small victory. That is a huge feat for me. I’m 4 days away from my three months sobriety date. I’ve never felt this confident about it before because whenever I quit I didn’t have methadone, I could have.. But I didn’t. As I wrote earlier in this entry, I am a “perfectionist” which for anyone who identifies with that word, it doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It means when you set out what you think or believe is the right way to do something in your head noone can tell you different. It’s being STUBBORN and even ignorant. For me I always quit cold turkey even though with benzos you can die from withdrawal and I almost did many times. My thought process about refusing to go on methadone was that I thought if I could quit without needing to rely on another drug which methadone is, then I would make my family proud. I thought I was invincible, like many drug addicts do and I thought I could be stronger than to need to rely on the governments method of beating addiction with another addiction. Like many addicts tell themselves. I thought I was different and wanted to prove to myself that I was strong enough to just stop everything. A few times I did… The first time I made it 6 months. This was before I had ever been addicted to cocaine, benzos, or opiates. This was when I was just addicted to mdma/meth. I made it 6 months clean off everything, then came the smoking weed all the time, then came poppers, then came alcohol, then came an embarassing blackout and too much food, then i felt fat, so then I would do molly again. It was a cycle that I had gone from experiencing every week into the weekend, then I made it the six months.. In that six months I was going for walks almost daily, I had a job at Sephora, I was studying metaphysics and holistic healing again.. I was studying crystal healing, eating healthier, and then I found my way back to the false cushion of drug addiction. 

      The next time I was sober I was living in British Columbia. Addiction had lead me to being sexually assaulted while I was blacked out. Noone helped me and afterward I was called such horrible things. I set out to walk on a highway known for the abduction of females and thought to myself how I didn’t care. If someone offered me a ride and raped me and slit my throat that would be it and at least I would be dead. That’s how broken and hurt I was at the time.. So I began walking with my camera around my neck and my suitcase. It was a beautiful sunset and I took photos and began to walk. Tears streaming down my face. I made it maybe 2 kilometers when a man in a truck stopped ahead of me. It was a new ford truck. The man was sitting there with his window down, looking out at me. He said “Are you okay?” And with that I started breaking down. He told me to get in and I asked him if he was sure. He said yes and asked me what had happened. I told him about the sexual assault. He told me that we were going to go to his house and he would introduce me to his wife over a bowl of soup. He told me that himself and his wife were eight years sober and members of the local Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship and didn’t try to push it on me. 

     I won’t go into too much detail because I do plan on writing a novel about everything, but long story short they accepted me into their household with open arms. They had a daughter that was 17 that looked at me as a sister and still does. They are still my spiritual AA mom and dad and I still speak to them. I went to AA with them a lot. My aa mom and dad brought me to a convention in Abbotsford BC where they had been on the list to speak as a family, the three of them. They invited me to speak with them. There’s a CD of us and it is beautiful. We all got emotional and cried during our speeches. That was the most pure love I’ve experienced to date… I’m sure if you’re reading this you may wonder why I left. Well there was so much love and I made it to three months sober quite easily, I won’t say gracefully though as there were many moments of tears and breakdown. I was working a full time job, doing quite well… and my little brother asked me on the phone “Arianne, am I ever going to see you again?” And with that my heart shattered. I love this child like my own, so I bought a plane ticket one way, in time for his birthday. I got there two days before. I thought that I was strong enough in my recovery to handle it. Even though my new family recommended against it. I got back and although my little brother was excited noone else really commended me for my sobriety as much as I thought they would. I regretted my decision but couldn’t go back on it now. 

    I was working two jobs, some days twelve hour shifts. I ended up seeking attention from a guy who brought drugs back into my life, and then came the worst relapse I’ve had yet.. New drugs were introduced into my life and in new amounts. I lost myself yet again. It was awful. Today as I wake and continue writing this entry, I don’t feel strong enough to go into detail of where addiction took me this time. But I’m going to stop the entry here and start my day. To anyone that is reading this I love you.

[riichardwilson]

Self-Made Millionaire Matt Clark Shares How to Build Your Own Ecommerce Company

Pay attention to expenses and double down on what works.

March 31, 2020 8 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Growing up near Houston, Matt Clark didn’t seem destined to be an entrepreneur. He struggled after his parents divorced, comparing himself to kids with two-parent homes and seemingly happy lives. In high school, he hung out with kids going nowhere, doing drugs, and even selling drugs.

Fortunately, he never got into some of the same legal trouble as his friends. Still, Clark recognized his risky behavior threatened his hazy but ambitious dreams of one day running a business. He knew he needed change. Clark left Houston without telling any friends and spent the summer in Austin, Texas, to reset and distance himself from bad influences.

Clark’s aimlessness finally began to dissipate during his sophomore year of college, when he read The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield. “It was like the book was written for me,” he says, remembering how he tore through it within days. “It sparked my passion for entrepreneurship.”

That passion proved a powerful driver: He joined the college’s business-plan team as part of the undergraduate entrepreneurship program, and graduated near the top of his class with dual degrees.

But after graduating in 2008 amid the economic crash, Clark sought refuge in an investment banking job at Citigroup rather than pursue his then-hazy entrepreneurial dreams. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do at the time, and someone told me to work for a big corporation for three to five years and learn the ropes,” he recalls. But almost immediately, Clark realized that following standard advice would only get him mediocre returns. To build something huge — something bigger than he could even imagine — he had to follow his gut and fast.

Scratching the Entrepreneurial Itch

Clark skipped the hand-wringing and second-guessing to quit his banking gig just seven months into the job to launch a website selling health supplements. When he expanded to Amazon soon after, he watched in disbelief as his sales mushroomed, far eclipsing the site’s volume. Soon his business had surged from selling 10 to 11,000 products on Amazon.

To fuel that astronomical growth, Clark immersed himself in the then-fledgling community of ecommerce entrepreneurs. He attended seminars about Google advertising and read every sales and business book. “This helped me go from zero to $2 million in revenue, but I was scaling so fast that I wasn’t tracking anything,” says Clark, who was so focused on that top-line number he didn’t pay attention to things like hard-line expenses, labor and profit margins. If he had, he would have quickly seen that his booming business was operating in the red.

This unsustainable growth came to a head when he got a six-figure credit card bill and realized he didn’t have the cash flow to make the full repayment. “I’d been so focused on sales that I didn’t pay attention to my expenses,” says Clark. “I realized I had to learn to produce profits, not just sales.”

Facing such financial strain, some entrepreneurs might have tightened their belts. Clark made another bold move instead: scraping his bank account almost clean to spend $10,000 to attend one of renowned life coach Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery events — even though he was barely making ends meet. “I was desperate,” he recalls. “I needed to meet others as motivated as me and figured anyone willing to pay $10,000 must be pretty motivated.”

There he met someone who later introduced him to Jason Katzenback, a serial entrepreneur who was looking to dive into the next big idea. Together, they decided to help aspiring entrepreneurs build ecommerce companies while avoiding Clark’s mistakes. “I learned how to build a business in college and attended all these courses and events, but I encountered lots of challenges,” says Clark. “There was a better way to teach this stuff.”

Founding an Ecommerce School

With Clark’s supplement business now out of the picture, he was able to focus on building a new company with Katzenback: Amazing.com. One of their programs, Amazon Selling Machine, helps people create private-label businesses selling physical goods on the rapidly growing platform.

They guide students step by step, from choosing a product to sell and finding suppliers to marketing agency. The videos, community support and access to business tools usher newbies through the sometimes painful early stages. Customers can also leverage a mentor network to connect with someone who has successfully navigated similar challenges.

Jason Katzenback and Matt Clark hosting an Amazing Selling Machine tutorial.

Image Credit: Matt Clark

Amazing urges entrepreneurs to focus on high-quality products and take packaging seriously. “It sounds crazy to me now, but I didn’t do that with my supplement company,” admits Clark. “In my rush to get a business up and running, I sold the first thing I could get my hands on. Some of my early products had terrible packaging, while the ingredients were pretty much the same as everyone else’s.”

Clark counsels sellers to picture a real person — someone like their mother, brother or daughter — who will experience the product. “The better you can make that experience, the more likely your business will succeed long-term.”

Not Living Up to the Amazing Name

By 2015, Amazing.com hosted Richard Branson at their annual live event and had a team of around 50 working at its Austin headquarters — but the company was teetering on the edge of ruin. That year, Katzenback’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer, prompting him to quit the business temporarily to focus on family and leaving Clark to steer the ship solo.

Amazing.com hosted Richard Branson at their 2015 annual event but was on the brink of ruin.

Image Credit: Matt Clark

While Katzenback was away, Clark pivoted Amazon Selling Machine from a premium-priced, intensive course to a low-priced monthly membership, hoping to help even more people build businesses. “I tried to go wide to appeal to everyone instead of going deep into a niche,” he explains.

It didn’t work.

“I made several bad decisions fueled by blind optimism and ambition,” he shares candidly. “I thought, What got us here won’t get us where we want to go. So I completely threw away our main product.

“We were stuck with a massive operational load, including $40,000 monthly rent, and were burning through half a million dollars every month,” he continues. “I had to lay off half my team and came within a week of running out of cash.” Clark found the experience personally devastating — he couldn’t sleep, eat or bear to let his mind linger on the employees he’d lost.

But he also recognized that the Amazing.com live events were a bright spot. The company continued to host the live events, and the joy he saw on members’ faces was like a salve for his soul. “They kept telling me that our original program changed their lives,” says Clark. “I realized we just needed to do what worked.”

Humility, Discipline and the Right Kind of Growth

Clark refocused the business on the original, premium ecommerce training program. By slowly expanding from there, he is looking forward to sustained growth.

He shares that the struggles taught him humility and how to spot customers who are about to make similar mistakes with their businesses. Most importantly, it taught him to be careful about hiring because others’ lives are affected.

Clark also advises not to become too risk-averse. He counsels his customers to manage risk carefully so they can aggressively pursue their targets. “We could have discovered that the new product didn’t work by simply testing it before we threw away our flagship product,” he points out. 

Now that Clark knows how to take smart risks in business, he also combines caution with adrenaline in his personal life. He practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu several times a week and has spent his off-time earning his helicopter pilot’s license in Hawaii and attending Porsche driving school.

Life outside business: Matt Clark earning his helicopter pilot’s license and Brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt.

Image Credit: Matt Clark

“I recharge by doing activities that consume me,” says Clark. “Pushing so hard in business burned me out; but when you’re sitting in a giant metal bucket for 12 hours a day trying not to kill yourself, you can’t think about anything but flying. I felt a million times better when I came back.”

In the end, he says building a business is like martial arts or driving a race car — it’s all about remaining disciplined while taking calculated risks and leaning into the obstacles.

Connect with Matt Clark on his website and Instagram. Learn how to build an Amazon business at Amazing.com.

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[a-breton]

Discover the Real Value of the E Word (and How to Embrace It)

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

For marketers, “that” word is engagement. And we use it a lot.

We use it in strategy meetings, tweets, videos, and blog posts. We’ve selected “creating more engaging content” as one of our top priorities in Content Marketing Institute annual surveys. We’ve listed “engagement” as one of our most important content marketing goals in the very same survey. At a recent content marketing event, one speaker used the E word 335,000 times in a 45-minute breakout session. (OK, I didn’t keep count but she used the word A LOT.)

But what exactly do YOU mean when you say the E word?

Some consider engagement to be the number of shares a piece of content receives. Others believe engagement is the number of visitors to a blog post or the number of views a video receives. Still others claim they measure engagement by tracking the number of comments or conversations that result from a single piece of content. Some count “likes” and “favorites” as proof that their content is engaging.

Chances are your definition of engagement is different from mine, which is different from theirs.

We use the E word so often that, within a marketing context, the word has lost all meaning.

It’s time to fix this.

What is engagement?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “engage” means to “occupy or attract (someone’s interest or attention),” while “interest” is the state of “wanting to know or learn about something” and “attention” is “regarding something as interesting or important.”

Marketing engagement is the act of occupying your audience’s desire to know or learn over time. Therefore, if you’re going to measure engagement with your content, you must focus on time-based metrics like time on page or duration of website visit. However, mediums like audio and video have an even better metric for understanding engagement.

Once you hit the play button on a video you’re barreling toward its end with a limited number of options along the way: pause, rewind, fast-forward, stop, and play. As a viewer, you can also bail on the video at any time. Because video is a linear medium, measuring audience engagement is simple: How many people make it to the end?

Getting to the end of a video is essential, as this is where you most often place the call to action. If your “learn more,” “download now,” or “buy now” buttons are the destination and your content consumers never make it to the end of the video, how can you expect them to take action?

YouTube provides one of the most significant engagement metrics of any social platform. Buried in YouTube’s analytics is a simple chart called “audience retention,” comparing the number of views at the beginning of the video with the number of views at the end (or any point in between).

#YouTube provides one of the most significant engagement metrics of any social platform, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

For example, a video with an average audience retention rate of 25% means most viewers watch only 25% of it. A content creator’s ultimate goal is to produce video content with 100% audience retention (meaning the average viewer watches the entire video). That would be a genuinely engaging video. Why? Because, remember, engagement is defined in marketing as occupying your audience’s desire to know something over time. The longer you retain your viewers, the more engaging your content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Measure Engagement the Right Way

What type of video gets highest engagement?

After researching hundreds of videos over the last two years, I’ve learned one type of video typically has the highest audience retention rates: how-to videos. For example, the world’s most-consumed bow-tie tutorial video has millions of views and most of those viewers make it all the way to the end. By definition it’s engaging.

How-to #videos typically have the highest audience retention rates, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

But why do good how-to videos have such high audience retention rates? The viewer has a question, “How do I tie a bow tie?” and the video has the answer. However, if you want to tie a bow tie successfully you can’t bail on the how-to video halfway through. You can’t skip a step. You have to watch the entire tutorial.

How-to videos occupy their audience’s desire to know the answer to a question over time. That’s engagement.

So, engaging content should keep the audience chasing answers.

But what about all the other content you create? How do you make it engaging?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

10 Ways to Make Videos Your Customers Can’t Resist

How do you keep your audience curious?

There are two compelling psychological phenomena at work when we consume any piece of content. Not only do these mental factors explain why how-to videos are so engaging, but they also uncover the secret behind successful clickbait.

Humans are curious creatures. We love to fill the gap between what we already know and what we want to know (or even need to know.) Psychologists call this void the curiosity gap. When you create how-to content the curiosity gap is obvious: The audience is consciously asking the first question, such as, “How do I tie a bow tie?” The video maintains the viewer’s attention by ensuring that the end of each step invites the viewer to ask, “What’s next?”

To maintain your audience’s attention, you must manufacture curiosity gaps. How? I’ll get to that after I tell you about the second psychological phenomenon you can employ to maintain your audience’s attention.

(See what I did there? I manufactured a curiosity gap.)

Anytime you create a curiosity gap in the minds of your viewers you’re also leveraging another unbelievably powerful psychological state. Human beings have an innate need for closure: a sincere desire for a firm answer to a question and a natural aversion toward ambiguity. Our need for closure creates tension that compels us to take action even when we know it may cause us pain or make us uncomfortable. Our need for closure explains why clickbait works.

Take this headline: Man Tries to Hug a Lion. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next.

We’ve been trained to spot clickbait and that headline is a classic of the form. We all know that whatever is behind the click won’t measure up to the expectation the headline sets. But our emotional need for closure overwhelms our ability to reason. We must know what happens next. We need the answer and we must avoid ambiguity. We click the bait.

Want proof? You’re probably still wondering what happened to the man who tried to hug a lion. Guess what? The lion hugs him back. (Not that unbelievable, really.)

Herein lies the problem with clickbait: The payoff must be proportional to the curiosity gap. Otherwise, your content erodes your target audience’s trust over time.

Create content momentum by manufacturing curiosity gaps that tickle the deep-seated need for closure. This is how you encourage your audience to stick with you to the very end of your content. The greater the tension, the longer you engage the audience. And the bigger the payoff, the more likely you are to inspire your audience to act.

Create #content momentum by manufacturing curiosity gaps, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 5 Psychological Insights to Improve Your Content Marketing

3 simple ways to manufacture gaps

Scottish playwright and literary critic William Archer describes drama as “anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” Your content needs drama.

Storytellers routinely employ the power of curiosity gaps and our need for closure by implementing one of the most compelling literary devices of all: suspense. If you are to create engaging content (even how-to content), you must build suspense.

You don’t have to look far for suspenseful inspiration – just turn on the television.

Dive right in

The final episode aired in 2010, but Law & Order remains the longest-running crime drama on American prime time television. Each episode followed a crime, often ripped from real-life headlines, from two separate perspectives: the police investigation and the prosecution in court.

Law & Order used a simple but powerful technique to immediately grab and keep the viewer’s attention. Every episode begins with the crime; no setup, no character building, no preamble. The crime creates the curiosity gaps, piquing a need for closure with one central question: Who did it?

In the television business this is called a “cold open.” Instead of spending the first quarter of your next case study or testimonial detailing who it’s about, what they do, or the problem they have, start with the most pivotal, dramatic point in the story. Raise a central question and entice your audience to chase the answer.

Raise a central question and entice your audience to chase the answer, says @DrewDavisHere. #writingtips Click To Tweet

Bury the lede

As a former journalist, I spent years writing ledes designed to mention the most critical and exciting elements of a story. My training implored me to include brief answers to who, what, why, when, where, and how the critical event in the story took place, all within the first few lines of an article. Journalists are trained to front-load the information because newspaper editors assume most readers won’t consume the entire article.

However, to build suspense, you must remember that you control the information – and, most importantly, when you divulge it.

Instead of front-loading your content with answers to every one of the reader’s questions, build suspense by excluding some essential story elements. Keep your audience curious.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 7 Fixes for Common Writing Mistakes [Examples]

Delay the reveal

If you’ve ever watched a makeover marathon on HGTV, you’re familiar with one of the most potent suspense-building secrets in the reality-television business: the big reveal.

Mention your product w/ in first 85% of content & you eliminate opportunity for big reveal. @DrewDavisHere Click To Tweet

When telling the stories of customers and clients, marketers are often quick to reveal that the answer to each problem is their product or service. Unfortunately, if you mention your company or the product you sell within the first 85% of your content you’re eliminating the opportunity for a big reveal.

Delaying any mention of your brand and the outcome of your story until the last 15% of your case studies and testimonials increases the tension and enhances the story. Too many reveal the clients’ outcome even in the title of the video. Remember, there’s no reason to watch the entire story unless the viewer is chasing the answer to a central question, such as how did they solve these problems? The longer you delay the reveal the bigger the catharsis when the solution is revealed.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The Content Marketer’s Guide to Story Structure

The hard truth about engagement

Remember, your goal is to create genuinely engaging content, which maintains the interest or attention of your audience over time.

Unfortunately, when someone says, “Your content is too long,” what they’re really saying is, “I ran out of questions before you ran out of content.”

Your #content’s not too long. The reader ran out of questions before you ran out of content. @DrewDavisHere Click To Tweet

Keep your audience curious and you’ll keep it engaged – no matter the length.

A version of this article originally appeared in the August issue of  Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our print magazine every quarter.

Let Andrew Davis engage you during his keynote talk at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Register today and use code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

from http://bit.ly/2P5HOnq

[hotspreadpage]

Discover the Real Value of the E Word (and How to Embrace It)

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

For marketers, “that” word is engagement. And we use it a lot.

We use it in strategy meetings, tweets, videos, and blog posts. We’ve selected “creating more engaging content” as one of our top priorities in Content Marketing Institute annual surveys. We’ve listed “engagement” as one of our most important content marketing goals in the very same survey. At a recent content marketing event, one speaker used the E word 335,000 times in a 45-minute breakout session. (OK, I didn’t keep count but she used the word A LOT.)

But what exactly do YOU mean when you say the E word?

Some consider engagement to be the number of shares a piece of content receives. Others believe engagement is the number of visitors to a blog post or the number of views a video receives. Still others claim they measure engagement by tracking the number of comments or conversations that result from a single piece of content. Some count “likes” and “favorites” as proof that their content is engaging.

Chances are your definition of engagement is different from mine, which is different from theirs.

We use the E word so often that, within a marketing context, the word has lost all meaning.

It’s time to fix this.

What is engagement?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “engage” means to “occupy or attract (someone’s interest or attention),” while “interest” is the state of “wanting to know or learn about something” and “attention” is “regarding something as interesting or important.”

Marketing engagement is the act of occupying your audience’s desire to know or learn over time. Therefore, if you’re going to measure engagement with your content, you must focus on time-based metrics like time on page or duration of website visit. However, mediums like audio and video have an even better metric for understanding engagement.

Once you hit the play button on a video you’re barreling toward its end with a limited number of options along the way: pause, rewind, fast-forward, stop, and play. As a viewer, you can also bail on the video at any time. Because video is a linear medium, measuring audience engagement is simple: How many people make it to the end?

Getting to the end of a video is essential, as this is where you most often place the call to action. If your “learn more,” “download now,” or “buy now” buttons are the destination and your content consumers never make it to the end of the video, how can you expect them to take action?

YouTube provides one of the most significant engagement metrics of any social platform. Buried in YouTube’s analytics is a simple chart called “audience retention,” comparing the number of views at the beginning of the video with the number of views at the end (or any point in between).

#YouTube provides one of the most significant engagement metrics of any social platform, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

For example, a video with an average audience retention rate of 25% means most viewers watch only 25% of it. A content creator’s ultimate goal is to produce video content with 100% audience retention (meaning the average viewer watches the entire video). That would be a genuinely engaging video. Why? Because, remember, engagement is defined in marketing as occupying your audience’s desire to know something over time. The longer you retain your viewers, the more engaging your content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Measure Engagement the Right Way

What type of video gets highest engagement?

After researching hundreds of videos over the last two years, I’ve learned one type of video typically has the highest audience retention rates: how-to videos. For example, the world’s most-consumed bow-tie tutorial video has millions of views and most of those viewers make it all the way to the end. By definition it’s engaging.

How-to #videos typically have the highest audience retention rates, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

But why do good how-to videos have such high audience retention rates? The viewer has a question, “How do I tie a bow tie?” and the video has the answer. However, if you want to tie a bow tie successfully you can’t bail on the how-to video halfway through. You can’t skip a step. You have to watch the entire tutorial.

How-to videos occupy their audience’s desire to know the answer to a question over time. That’s engagement.

So, engaging content should keep the audience chasing answers.

But what about all the other content you create? How do you make it engaging?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

10 Ways to Make Videos Your Customers Can’t Resist

How do you keep your audience curious?

There are two compelling psychological phenomena at work when we consume any piece of content. Not only do these mental factors explain why how-to videos are so engaging, but they also uncover the secret behind successful clickbait.

Humans are curious creatures. We love to fill the gap between what we already know and what we want to know (or even need to know.) Psychologists call this void the curiosity gap. When you create how-to content the curiosity gap is obvious: The audience is consciously asking the first question, such as, “How do I tie a bow tie?” The video maintains the viewer’s attention by ensuring that the end of each step invites the viewer to ask, “What’s next?”

To maintain your audience’s attention, you must manufacture curiosity gaps. How? I’ll get to that after I tell you about the second psychological phenomenon you can employ to maintain your audience’s attention.

(See what I did there? I manufactured a curiosity gap.)

Anytime you create a curiosity gap in the minds of your viewers you’re also leveraging another unbelievably powerful psychological state. Human beings have an innate need for closure: a sincere desire for a firm answer to a question and a natural aversion toward ambiguity. Our need for closure creates tension that compels us to take action even when we know it may cause us pain or make us uncomfortable. Our need for closure explains why clickbait works.

Take this headline: Man Tries to Hug a Lion. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next.

We’ve been trained to spot clickbait and that headline is a classic of the form. We all know that whatever is behind the click won’t measure up to the expectation the headline sets. But our emotional need for closure overwhelms our ability to reason. We must know what happens next. We need the answer and we must avoid ambiguity. We click the bait.

Want proof? You’re probably still wondering what happened to the man who tried to hug a lion. Guess what? The lion hugs him back. (Not that unbelievable, really.)

Herein lies the problem with clickbait: The payoff must be proportional to the curiosity gap. Otherwise, your content erodes your target audience’s trust over time.

Create content momentum by manufacturing curiosity gaps that tickle the deep-seated need for closure. This is how you encourage your audience to stick with you to the very end of your content. The greater the tension, the longer you engage the audience. And the bigger the payoff, the more likely you are to inspire your audience to act.

Create #content momentum by manufacturing curiosity gaps, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 5 Psychological Insights to Improve Your Content Marketing

3 simple ways to manufacture gaps

Scottish playwright and literary critic William Archer describes drama as “anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” Your content needs drama.

Storytellers routinely employ the power of curiosity gaps and our need for closure by implementing one of the most compelling literary devices of all: suspense. If you are to create engaging content (even how-to content), you must build suspense.

You don’t have to look far for suspenseful inspiration – just turn on the television.

Dive right in

The final episode aired in 2010, but Law & Order remains the longest-running crime drama on American prime time television. Each episode followed a crime, often ripped from real-life headlines, from two separate perspectives: the police investigation and the prosecution in court.

Law & Order used a simple but powerful technique to immediately grab and keep the viewer’s attention. Every episode begins with the crime; no setup, no character building, no preamble. The crime creates the curiosity gaps, piquing a need for closure with one central question: Who did it?

In the television business this is called a “cold open.” Instead of spending the first quarter of your next case study or testimonial detailing who it’s about, what they do, or the problem they have, start with the most pivotal, dramatic point in the story. Raise a central question and entice your audience to chase the answer.

Raise a central question and entice your audience to chase the answer, says @DrewDavisHere. #writingtips Click To Tweet

Bury the lede

As a former journalist, I spent years writing ledes designed to mention the most critical and exciting elements of a story. My training implored me to include brief answers to who, what, why, when, where, and how the critical event in the story took place, all within the first few lines of an article. Journalists are trained to front-load the information because newspaper editors assume most readers won’t consume the entire article.

However, to build suspense, you must remember that you control the information – and, most importantly, when you divulge it.

Instead of front-loading your content with answers to every one of the reader’s questions, build suspense by excluding some essential story elements. Keep your audience curious.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 7 Fixes for Common Writing Mistakes [Examples]

Delay the reveal

If you’ve ever watched a makeover marathon on HGTV, you’re familiar with one of the most potent suspense-building secrets in the reality-television business: the big reveal.

Mention your product w/ in first 85% of content & you eliminate opportunity for big reveal. @DrewDavisHere Click To Tweet

When telling the stories of customers and clients, marketers are often quick to reveal that the answer to each problem is their product or service. Unfortunately, if you mention your company or the product you sell within the first 85% of your content you’re eliminating the opportunity for a big reveal.

Delaying any mention of your brand and the outcome of your story until the last 15% of your case studies and testimonials increases the tension and enhances the story. Too many reveal the clients’ outcome even in the title of the video. Remember, there’s no reason to watch the entire story unless the viewer is chasing the answer to a central question, such as how did they solve these problems? The longer you delay the reveal the bigger the catharsis when the solution is revealed.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The Content Marketer’s Guide to Story Structure

The hard truth about engagement

Remember, your goal is to create genuinely engaging content, which maintains the interest or attention of your audience over time.

Unfortunately, when someone says, “Your content is too long,” what they’re really saying is, “I ran out of questions before you ran out of content.”

Your #content’s not too long. The reader ran out of questions before you ran out of content. @DrewDavisHere Click To Tweet

Keep your audience curious and you’ll keep it engaged – no matter the length.

A version of this article originally appeared in the August issue of  Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our print magazine every quarter.

Let Andrew Davis engage you during his keynote talk at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Register today and use code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Discover the Real Value of the E Word (and How to Embrace It) appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Discover the Real Value of the E Word (and How to Embrace It) syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com

[lucyariablog]

Discover the Real Value of the E Word (and How to Embrace It)

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

For marketers, “that” word is engagement. And we use it a lot.

We use it in strategy meetings, tweets, videos, and blog posts. We’ve selected “creating more engaging content” as one of our top priorities in Content Marketing Institute annual surveys. We’ve listed “engagement” as one of our most important content marketing goals in the very same survey. At a recent content marketing event, one speaker used the E word 335,000 times in a 45-minute breakout session. (OK, I didn’t keep count but she used the word A LOT.)

But what exactly do YOU mean when you say the E word?

Some consider engagement to be the number of shares a piece of content receives. Others believe engagement is the number of visitors to a blog post or the number of views a video receives. Still others claim they measure engagement by tracking the number of comments or conversations that result from a single piece of content. Some count “likes” and “favorites” as proof that their content is engaging.

Chances are your definition of engagement is different from mine, which is different from theirs.

We use the E word so often that, within a marketing context, the word has lost all meaning.

It’s time to fix this.

What is engagement?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “engage” means to “occupy or attract (someone’s interest or attention),” while “interest” is the state of “wanting to know or learn about something” and “attention” is “regarding something as interesting or important.”

Marketing engagement is the act of occupying your audience’s desire to know or learn over time. Therefore, if you’re going to measure engagement with your content, you must focus on time-based metrics like time on page or duration of website visit. However, mediums like audio and video have an even better metric for understanding engagement.

Once you hit the play button on a video you’re barreling toward its end with a limited number of options along the way: pause, rewind, fast-forward, stop, and play. As a viewer, you can also bail on the video at any time. Because video is a linear medium, measuring audience engagement is simple: How many people make it to the end?

Getting to the end of a video is essential, as this is where you most often place the call to action. If your “learn more,” “download now,” or “buy now” buttons are the destination and your content consumers never make it to the end of the video, how can you expect them to take action?

YouTube provides one of the most significant engagement metrics of any social platform. Buried in YouTube’s analytics is a simple chart called “audience retention,” comparing the number of views at the beginning of the video with the number of views at the end (or any point in between).

#YouTube provides one of the most significant engagement metrics of any social platform, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

For example, a video with an average audience retention rate of 25% means most viewers watch only 25% of it. A content creator’s ultimate goal is to produce video content with 100% audience retention (meaning the average viewer watches the entire video). That would be a genuinely engaging video. Why? Because, remember, engagement is defined in marketing as occupying your audience’s desire to know something over time. The longer you retain your viewers, the more engaging your content.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Measure Engagement the Right Way

What type of video gets highest engagement?

After researching hundreds of videos over the last two years, I’ve learned one type of video typically has the highest audience retention rates: how-to videos. For example, the world’s most-consumed bow-tie tutorial video has millions of views and most of those viewers make it all the way to the end. By definition it’s engaging.

How-to #videos typically have the highest audience retention rates, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

But why do good how-to videos have such high audience retention rates? The viewer has a question, “How do I tie a bow tie?” and the video has the answer. However, if you want to tie a bow tie successfully you can’t bail on the how-to video halfway through. You can’t skip a step. You have to watch the entire tutorial.

How-to videos occupy their audience’s desire to know the answer to a question over time. That’s engagement.

So, engaging content should keep the audience chasing answers.

But what about all the other content you create? How do you make it engaging?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

10 Ways to Make Videos Your Customers Can’t Resist

How do you keep your audience curious?

There are two compelling psychological phenomena at work when we consume any piece of content. Not only do these mental factors explain why how-to videos are so engaging, but they also uncover the secret behind successful clickbait.

Humans are curious creatures. We love to fill the gap between what we already know and what we want to know (or even need to know.) Psychologists call this void the curiosity gap. When you create how-to content the curiosity gap is obvious: The audience is consciously asking the first question, such as, “How do I tie a bow tie?” The video maintains the viewer’s attention by ensuring that the end of each step invites the viewer to ask, “What’s next?”

To maintain your audience’s attention, you must manufacture curiosity gaps. How? I’ll get to that after I tell you about the second psychological phenomenon you can employ to maintain your audience’s attention.

(See what I did there? I manufactured a curiosity gap.)

Anytime you create a curiosity gap in the minds of your viewers you’re also leveraging another unbelievably powerful psychological state. Human beings have an innate need for closure: a sincere desire for a firm answer to a question and a natural aversion toward ambiguity. Our need for closure creates tension that compels us to take action even when we know it may cause us pain or make us uncomfortable. Our need for closure explains why clickbait works.

Take this headline: Man Tries to Hug a Lion. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next.

We’ve been trained to spot clickbait and that headline is a classic of the form. We all know that whatever is behind the click won’t measure up to the expectation the headline sets. But our emotional need for closure overwhelms our ability to reason. We must know what happens next. We need the answer and we must avoid ambiguity. We click the bait.

Want proof? You’re probably still wondering what happened to the man who tried to hug a lion. Guess what? The lion hugs him back. (Not that unbelievable, really.)

Herein lies the problem with clickbait: The payoff must be proportional to the curiosity gap. Otherwise, your content erodes your target audience’s trust over time.

Create content momentum by manufacturing curiosity gaps that tickle the deep-seated need for closure. This is how you encourage your audience to stick with you to the very end of your content. The greater the tension, the longer you engage the audience. And the bigger the payoff, the more likely you are to inspire your audience to act.

Create #content momentum by manufacturing curiosity gaps, says @DrewDavisHere. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 5 Psychological Insights to Improve Your Content Marketing

3 simple ways to manufacture gaps

Scottish playwright and literary critic William Archer describes drama as “anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” Your content needs drama.

Storytellers routinely employ the power of curiosity gaps and our need for closure by implementing one of the most compelling literary devices of all: suspense. If you are to create engaging content (even how-to content), you must build suspense.

You don’t have to look far for suspenseful inspiration – just turn on the television.

Dive right in

The final episode aired in 2010, but Law & Order remains the longest-running crime drama on American prime time television. Each episode followed a crime, often ripped from real-life headlines, from two separate perspectives: the police investigation and the prosecution in court.

Law & Order used a simple but powerful technique to immediately grab and keep the viewer’s attention. Every episode begins with the crime; no setup, no character building, no preamble. The crime creates the curiosity gaps, piquing a need for closure with one central question: Who did it?

In the television business this is called a “cold open.” Instead of spending the first quarter of your next case study or testimonial detailing who it’s about, what they do, or the problem they have, start with the most pivotal, dramatic point in the story. Raise a central question and entice your audience to chase the answer.

Raise a central question and entice your audience to chase the answer, says @DrewDavisHere. #writingtips Click To Tweet

Bury the lede

As a former journalist, I spent years writing ledes designed to mention the most critical and exciting elements of a story. My training implored me to include brief answers to who, what, why, when, where, and how the critical event in the story took place, all within the first few lines of an article. Journalists are trained to front-load the information because newspaper editors assume most readers won’t consume the entire article.

However, to build suspense, you must remember that you control the information – and, most importantly, when you divulge it.

Instead of front-loading your content with answers to every one of the reader’s questions, build suspense by excluding some essential story elements. Keep your audience curious.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 7 Fixes for Common Writing Mistakes [Examples]

Delay the reveal

If you’ve ever watched a makeover marathon on HGTV, you’re familiar with one of the most potent suspense-building secrets in the reality-television business: the big reveal.

Mention your product w/ in first 85% of content & you eliminate opportunity for big reveal. @DrewDavisHere Click To Tweet

When telling the stories of customers and clients, marketers are often quick to reveal that the answer to each problem is their product or service. Unfortunately, if you mention your company or the product you sell within the first 85% of your content you’re eliminating the opportunity for a big reveal.

Delaying any mention of your brand and the outcome of your story until the last 15% of your case studies and testimonials increases the tension and enhances the story. Too many reveal the clients’ outcome even in the title of the video. Remember, there’s no reason to watch the entire story unless the viewer is chasing the answer to a central question, such as how did they solve these problems? The longer you delay the reveal the bigger the catharsis when the solution is revealed.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The Content Marketer’s Guide to Story Structure

The hard truth about engagement

Remember, your goal is to create genuinely engaging content, which maintains the interest or attention of your audience over time.

Unfortunately, when someone says, “Your content is too long,” what they’re really saying is, “I ran out of questions before you ran out of content.”

Your #content’s not too long. The reader ran out of questions before you ran out of content. @DrewDavisHere Click To Tweet

Keep your audience curious and you’ll keep it engaged – no matter the length.

A version of this article originally appeared in the August issue of  Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our print magazine every quarter.

Let Andrew Davis engage you during his keynote talk at Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Register today and use code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Discover the Real Value of the E Word (and How to Embrace It) appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/08/discover-value-engagement/

[flauntpage]

Sixers Season Review: Richaun Holmes

This is part four of a season-ending series looking back at each player’s 2017-2018 campaign.

Part one – Jerryd Bayless

Part two – Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot

Part three – Justin Anderson

_________________

In the could have/should have department, the plight of Richaun Holmes resonated loudly from Camden to South Philadelphia.

It was clear that the Sixers’ third-year center had more offensive ability than Amir Johnson. He brought more energy off the bench. He was younger. He was the better athlete and he had the ability to spark his team with a thunderous dunk or hustle play. In a way, he was sort of like the front court T.J. McConnell, a guy with a significant portion of fan backers who felt like he provided that extra “something” off the pine.

So why didn’t he play more?

It was similarly clear that Holmes never really earned the full trust of Brett Brown and the Sixers’ coaching staff because of shortcomings on the defensive end of the floor. Johnson was the savvy veteran who made up for his limitations by showing reliability, scrapping on the glass, setting good screens, and limiting mistakes. He was steady, if unspectacular.

Holmes just never did enough to earn full confidence from Brown, and that was the focus of last week’s exit interview:

“(Brown and Bryan Colangelo) Just told me some things to work on, especially defensively,” Richaun explained. “This summer, just work on getting my body right, coming back better, being more explosive, more cerebral in how I play defense. It’s something I’m looking forward to doing.”

As a follow-up, I asked Holmes for his interpretation of being more “cerebral” defensively:

“Just locking in, locking in to game plans and locking in to defensive schemes and using my athleticism better in spaces where it’s needed,” he said. “I just need to lock in a little bit more and focus.”

That’s a smart answer, I think, because it’s not like Richaun is lacking the physical tools to be a good defender. It’s other stuff like rotating, sliding, helping, reading the game – that’s what he’s alluding to when he talks about scheme and focus.

Holmes was asked how he can improve that since he won’t exactly be playing 5v5 NBA games over the summer. He mentioned “attacking the game as a whole” and getting into the weight room, watching film, studying player tendencies and schemes, and learning how to operate against different players.

You’d see a lot of this in 2017-18, where he was just slow to read a play and react:

No rim protection there a light slap at the ball after a teammate is beat on the perimeter.

To Brown’s thinking, Holmes had a 106.2 defensive rating this year, which was one of the worst on the team. Johnson finished with a 101.3 (while getting more starts and more first unit minutes alongside better defenders). Richaun shot the ball 2.2 percentage points better than Johnson but wasn’t as effective on the offensive glass, though the per-36 rebound numbers are separated by a mere 0.1.

I would have tried more Holmes at power forward, if we’re being honest. There was a stretch of the season where Richaun was playing minutes at the four alongside Joel Embiid and the Sixers were excellent when those two worked together.

According to NBA advanced stats, Holmes and Embiid spent 93 minutes on the floor together, and when they did the Sixers posted an 88.9 defensive rating and a 112.6 offensive rating. Embiid’s presence at the rim masked Holmes’ shortcomings on that end of the floor while allowing him to be his energetic and effective self on the offensive end.

Thing is, Brown didn’t use that pairing often. He would start Embiid with Dario Saric, then usually bring in Johnson at the five. Joel was then paired with an ineffective Trevor Booker (early in the season) or a more effective Ersan Ilyasova (later in the season), normally given a stretch-four teammate to complement his skill set.

Consider the following:

Embiid and Booker played 271 minutes together with a 103.3 DEFRTG and 107.8 OFFRTG

Embiid and Ilyasova played 179 minutes together with a 101.5 DEFRTG and a 110.3 OFFRTG

And with Dario it was 1,197 minutes with a 100.9 DEFRTG and 113.7 OFFRTG.

So the Embiid/Holmes combination provided great numbers over a much smaller sample size. Would that success have held up if extended to 150 or 200 minutes? I guess we’ll never know, but it’s clear that Joel and Richaun were a much better match than Joel and Booker.

And whatever you think about Richaun’s defensive IQ, it’s clear he has the athleticism to make plays on that end of the floor. I can’t really see Ilyasova, Saric, or Johnson doing this:

The highs were high and the lows were low.

Still, playing a non-shooting four isn’t really something Brown prefers. He’s spoken openly about requiring his power forward to be able to knock down shots, which isn’t Holmes’ game. According to basketball reference, 51% of his 241 field goal attempts came within 3 feet while 22% came between 3 and 10 feet.

We’ll see if the Sixers bring back Ilyasova next season to mirror Saric’s skill-set on the unit, or if they go elsewhere.

Whatever the case, Holmes was apparently a little frustrated at the lack of playing time this year. He only played 15.5 minutes per game in 48 appearances and Coggin wrote a little bit about this situation from March:

Richaun Holmes just tweeted and immediately deleted before I could screen grab

"Fuck This Shit"

— Josh Lloyd (@redrock_bball) March 7, 2018

That alleged tweet was posted after Holmes was given 3 minutes in a garbage time Charlotte blow out. He only played twice in the next six games before Embiid’s facial fracture opened the door to double digit minutes in 11 of 13 games to finish out the regular season. Holmes played just 11 total minutes in the playoffs, with Brown preferring Johnson and the small ball Ilyasova/Saric lineup.

Statistically speaking, Richaun did get his FG% slightly up this season on the strength of better 2PT accuracy. His three-point shooting, which is not necessarily required or even relevant, dipped:

Holmes’ rebounding percentage was up and his turnovers were down, so there were some auxiliary wins across the board.

He did start the season with an injury, missing eight games due to a fractured wrist before debuting on November third against Indiana. Maybe he got off to a slow start because of that.

He’s due $1.6 million as he heads into the final year of his contract. With Amir Johnson unlikely to return and Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel long gone, it should be interesting to see how the Sixers approach the second-unit center position. Is Holmes the guy? Does Jonah Bolden come over? Do they look for value in the draft?

Whatever the case, it seems like Holmes will be in a good ‘ole fight for his spot this summer.

Sixers Season Review: Richaun Holmes published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[lindajkara]

Top 10 mistakes on corporate youtube channels

Here are 10 common mistakes spotted on companies YouTube channels:

1 - Uploading poor content

You don’t need to have great production values to make a hit on YouTube, the idea is what matters most! However try to ensure a minimum quality standard (in particular for sound), and remove videos that are too amateur and off-putting. You wouldn’t knowingly leave some typos on your website? The same is true for videos; if it didn’t work out, don’t hesitate to change it.

2 - Poor titles, descriptions or keywords Surprisingly, companies often spend a lot of time and money on creating a video, only to upload it later on YouTube without caring about the description, and tags, sometimes even leaving the file name as the title “corporatevideo.mp4”. If you have taken a few minutes to deal with it, you are already ahead of the curve without spending a penny. Remember YouTube is the second biggest search engine and you should treat the video description just like you treat a website for SEO. Do not forget to put links to your site or any other relevant web address in the video description, and use http://mywebsite.com rather than www.mywebsite.com otherwise you will lose part of the audience who won’t go through the tedious task of copying and pasting. Make it easy to just click!

3 - No calls to action

What purpose do you have with your video marketing if it isn’t to entice viewers to follow up with you in some way? Your call to action does not need to be loud. See for example

simple “check out our website”. But you NEED a call to action! Even when the video is about providing content and not promotional, you should still make it easier for the audience to subscribe to your channel, or watch the next video by using annotations. Why? Because it is free and non-intrusive so even if it doesn’t work, nobody will mind.

4 - Failing to take advantage of email marketing and social media

Although YouTube is often part of a social media “trilogy” alongside Twitter and Facebook, it is often separated from the others. It makes sense to pull it altogether and to promote videos systematically via social media. GoPro is one of the best example of pushing videos by every possible ways. Ok it is easy when you are GoPro, but even if your business is only producing videos occasionally, make sure you post, tweet, pin, digg, email them on every occasion.

5 - Ignoring comments and questions on YouTube

YouTube is also a social media, make sure you spend time in checking and replying to comments. The crowd can be rowdy and they won’t always say nice things, but you can control it if things get out of hand. You may want to curate it lightly and remove the top comments if they turn against you, otherwise, let it flow as much as possible, and spend time interacting with other YouTubers. Since we adopted a more active approach on one of our channels, we went from 1 subscriber per day in average to nearly 2!

6 - Lack of attention to the channel itself

For non-partners YouTube offers only a limited set of tools to customize your channel: logo, background, channel descriptions and playlists. So it won’t take you much time to optimize them, make sure you do. Playlists are a great way to put content on your channel without having to create anything. They also work tremendously well in terms of visibility for searches.

7 - Video as an afterthought I couldn’t put it any better than those video gurus. Michael Kolowich of ChannelOne Marketing “Very often, the production of a video is driven by a big live event, a trade show, a product launch, or a live presentation… Only after the event is over does the attention shift to distributing the video on the Internet. That’s too late.” Mark R Robertson of ReeelSEO: A “common mistake I see related to this is what I call, deploying video for video sake. Yes, online video is HOT… But don’t just produce and deploy videos online without a video marketing and video deployment strategy. Not only will this not work, but this just adds to all the crap video content that is out there these days, and I, for one, am sick of seeing it…

8 - The viral obsession

Viral videos are the outliers not the norm! Too often companies have unrealistic expectations about their YouTube potential. They are also misled that the fact that large corporations get a lot of views on videos that are often less than appealing. The solution is often simple: they heavily advertise the videos, and it is a perfectly good strategy if you have the cash for it. Autotrader for example hardly ever get any organic views but they are happy to pay for views and it seems to work for them. On the other hand we have grown confident that if the format, content, description, and promotion of the video is right it should reach a natural audience, may be not millions but a few views per day will bring you to thousands!

9 - A great marketing pitch

Here I’d like to refer to eConsultancy: “Think about your audience, what do they like? They’re almost certainly not going to be interested in your corporate sales message”. Also remember Seth Godin: “In a world where everything is a click away, and in a world where everyone can have their own YouTube channel, ten blogs and a thousand email accounts… the only thing that’s scarce is attention.” For example, don’t waste a perfectly good video by giving it slow start with a long logo animation or a slow panning shot. Those may work in the movies but on YouTube you only have a few seconds to grab your audience’s attention. If you manage to get people’s attention and if they like what they see, then your video worked. It is unlikely to bring you a purchase immediately and just by itself but it is a small step in the right direction.

10 - Forgetting that YouTube works with channels A lot of the videos that surface from YouTube as they go viral seem to be one-hit wonders. However the real popular YouTubers focus on developing channels where they steadily build a captive audience. An extreme example is http://www.youtube.com/user/Pr0nfessor who had a couple of unremarkable videos on his channel, and 10 subscribers until he hit a worldwide success with the “Michelle Jenneke” clip. What subtle change did he make as he reached 10 million vie? Well, he renamed his channel “Pr0nfessor (Don’t forget to subscribe)” yes… the brackets are part of the title! He has then built a relatively large subscriber base which will make it easier to launch a new video (if ever he decides to launch one).

CONCLUSION - It’s worth asking for advice

Avoiding the mistakes covered in this post is easy and important but not enough to guarantee YouTube success. It can however be tough for a marketer to keep up with all the options offered by YouTube and other hosting platforms, and it is crucial to work with video production partners who are not just good at creating content but also know the rules and tricks to optimize the reach and engagement generated by the video marketing effort.

Please thank the original source http://thinktallfilms.tumblr.com/post/43557587884/top-10-mistakes-on-corporate-youtube-channels

[mauralwesterly]

Top Ten Mistakes On Corporate YouTube Channels

72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, which means the competition for eyeballs is intense, but do not despair by avoiding some simple mistakes you’ll easily get an edge and grow your audience.

Here are 10 common mistakes spotted on companies YouTube channels:

1 - Uploading poor content

You don’t need to have great production values to make a hit on YouTube, the idea is what matters most! However try to ensure a minimum quality standard (in particular for sound), and remove videos that are too amateur and off-putting. You wouldn’t knowingly leave some typos on your website? The same is true for videos; if it didn’t work out, don’t hesitate to change it.

2 - Poor titles, descriptions or keywords

Surprisingly, companies often spend a lot of time and money on creating a video, only to upload it later on YouTube without caring about the description, and tags, sometimes even leaving the file name as the title “corporatevideo.mp4”. If you have taken a few minutes to deal with it, you are already ahead of the curve without spending a penny. Remember YouTube is the second biggest search engine and you should treat the video description just like you treat a website for SEO. Do not forget to put links to your site or any other relevant web address in the video description, and use my website rather than otherwise you will lose part of the audience who won’t go through the tedious task of copying and pasting. Make it easy to just click!

3 - No calls to action

What purpose do you have with your video marketing if it isn’t to entice viewers to follow up with you in some way? Your call to action does not need to be loud. See for example

simple “check out our website”. But you NEED a call to action! Even when the video is about providing content and not promotional, you should still make it easier for the audience to subscribe to your channel, or watch the next video by using annotations. Why? Because it is free and non-intrusive so even if it doesn’t work, nobody will mind.

4 - Failing to take advantage of email marketing and social media

Although YouTube is often part of a social media “trilogy” alongside Twitter and Facebook, it is often separated from the others. It makes sense to pull it altogether and to promote videos systematically via social media. GoPro is one of the best example of pushing videos by every possible ways. Ok it is easy when you are GoPro, but even if your business is only producing videos occasionally, make sure you post, tweet, pin, digg, email them on every occasion.

5 - Ignoring comments and questions on YouTube

YouTube is also a social media, make sure you spend time in checking and replying to comments. The crowd can be rowdy and they won’t always say nice things, but you can control it if things get out of hand. You may want to curate it lightly and remove the top comments if they turn against you, otherwise, let it flow as much as possible, and spend time interacting with other YouTubers. Since we adopted a more active approach on one of our channels, we went from 1 subscriber per day in average to nearly 2!

6 - Lack of attention to the channel itself

For non-partners YouTube offers only a limited set of tools to customize your channel: logo, background, channel descriptions and playlists. So it won’t take you much time to optimize them, make sure you do. Playlists are a great way to put content on your channel without having to create anything. They also work tremendously well in terms of visibility for searches.

7 - Video as an afterthought

I couldn’t put it any better than those video gurus. Michael Kolowich of ChannelOne Marketing “Very often, the production of a video is driven by a big live event, a trade show, a product launch, or a live presentation… Only after the event is over does the attention shift to distributing the video on the Internet. That’s too late.” Mark R Robertson of ReeelSEO: A “common mistake I see related to this is what I call, deploying video for video sake. Yes, online video is HOT… But don’t just produce and deploy videos online without a video marketing and video deployment strategy. Not only will this not work, but this just adds to all the crap video content that is out there these days, and I, for one, am sick of seeing it…

8 - The viral obsession

Viral videos are the outliers not the norm! Too often companies have unrealistic expectations about their YouTube potential. They are also misled that the fact that large corporations get a lot of views on videos that are often less than appealing. The solution is often simple: they heavily advertise the videos, and it is a perfectly good strategy if you have the cash for it. Autotrader for example hardly ever get any organic views but they are happy to pay for views and it seems to work for them. On the other hand we have grown confident that if the format, content, description, and promotion of the video is right it should reach a natural audience, may be not millions but a few views per day will bring you to thousands!

9 - A great marketing pitch

Here I’d like to refer to eConsultancy: “Think about your audience, what do they like? They’re almost certainly not going to be interested in your corporate sales message”. Also remember Seth Godin: “In a world where everything is a click away, and in a world where everyone can have their own YouTube channel, ten blogs and a thousand email accounts… the only thing that’s scarce is attention.” For example, don’t waste a perfectly good video by giving it slow start with a long logo animation or a slow panning shot. Those may work in the movies but on YouTube you only have a few seconds to grab your audience’s attention. If you manage to get people’s attention and if they like what they see, then your video worked. It is unlikely to bring you a purchase immediately and just by itself but it is a small step in the right direction.

10 - Forgetting that YouTube works with channels

A lot of the videos that surface from YouTube as they go viral seem to be one-hit wonders. However the real popular YouTubers focus on developing channels where they steadily build a captive audience. An extreme example is Pronfessor channel on YouTube who had a couple of unremarkable videos on his channel, and 10 subscribers until he hit a worldwide success with the “Michelle Jenneke” clip. What subtle change did he make as he reached 10 million vie? Well, he renamed his channel “Pr0nfessor (Don’t forget to subscribe)” yes… the brackets are part of the title! He has then built a relatively large subscriber base which will make it easier to launch a new video (if ever he decides to launch one).

CONCLUSION - It’s worth asking for advice

Avoiding the mistakes covered in this post is easy and important but not enough to guarantee YouTube success. It can however be tough for a marketer to keep up with all the options offered by YouTube and other hosting platforms, and it is crucial to work with video production partners who are not just good at creating content but also know the rules and tricks to optimize the reach and engagement generated by the video marketing effort. This wonderful article was 1st posted here: http://thinktallfilms.tumblr.com/post/43557587884/top-10-mistakes-on-corporate-youtube-channels

[yahoo-shutdown-corner-blog]

2017 NFL Preview: Adam Gase led an unbelievable Dolphins turnaround

Shutdown Corner is previewing all 32 teams as we get ready for the NFL season, counting down the teams one per weekday in reverse order of our initial 2017 power rankings. No. 1 will be revealed on Aug. 2, the day before the Hall of Fame Game kicks off the preseason.

Part of the beauty of the NFL is its unpredictability. Fortunes can change without warning from season to season. Sometimes a team can improve dramatically over the course of a single season.

However, what happened with the 2016 Miami Dolphins was extreme. They went from being one of the worst teams in the NFL to a playoff team overnight. It made no logical sense.

Make no mistake, the Dolphins were horrendous through five weeks. There were zero signs a big breakthrough was going to happen in Week 6. A last-minute loss in Week 1 at Seattle was somewhat encouraging, but nothing else to start the season was. In Week 2 the Patriots – with Jimmy Garoppolo starting at quarterback – had a 31-3 lead before the Dolphins made the score close late. The Browns, who would start 0-14, would have won at Miami in Week 3 had their kicker been a little better. Miami won that game – again, against the lowly Browns at home – in overtime. In uncompetitive losses to the Bengals and Titans the Dolphins had 16 first downs … in both games combined.

Rookie coach Adam Gase looked like he might be in over his head. He has admitted to making early-season mistakes. Miami had nothing on offense and not much more on defense. The Dolphins looked every bit as bad as the 49ers or Browns.

Then it just changed. No warning. No sneaky underlying positive signs that would lead anyone to believe there was a revival coming. The Dolphins just came out in Week 6 and were a different team from then on. Go figure.

Miami blasted the Steelers 30-15 in Week 6. The Dolphins won nine of 10 games, and even an injury to Ryan Tannehill didn’t slow them down. They made the playoffs. It was one of the weirdest, most sudden transformations you’ll ever see in the NFL.

Also, it’s probably unsustainable. The streak was tied together with a lot of close wins (8-2 in games decided by seven points or less), mostly against terrible teams. Of the eight wins after the Steelers game, the Dolphins didn’t beat a team with a winning record. Four wins came against the Bills and Jets, three coming by 4 points or less. They barely held on to beat a terrible 49ers team at home. Their three best opponents after Week 6 were the Ravens, Patriots and Steelers in the playoffs, and they went 0-3 and were outscored by 71 points.

That makes the Dolphins tough to read going into this season. No matter the strength of schedule, winning 10 games in the NFL is hard. It doesn’t happen by accident. Gase did a great job turning things around, and I think he’ll be a fine coach. There’s legitimate blue-chip talent on offense and defense. They’re getting their quarterback back from a knee injury. Still, there’s good reason for skepticism. Las Vegas agrees; the Dolphins over/under win total is just 7.5. One thing that won’t be in the Dolphins’ favor is the schedule. They had the seventh easiest schedule last season, according to Football Outsiders. This season, according to Warren Sharp’s schedule strength metric that uses Las Vegas over/under projections, the Dolphins have the seventh toughest schedule. That’s a big jump up in competition.

The last time we saw the Dolphins, they were getting blasted in a wholly uncompetitive playoff loss at the Steelers. But, making the playoffs at all after that horrific start was a great accomplishment. Now what do we expect from the Dolphins this season?

Jay Ajayi helped lead the Dolphins to the playoffs last season. (AP)

Unlike many other offseasons, the Dolphins didn’t make a big headline signing in the offseason. They re-signed their own guys like receiver Kenny Stills, linebacker Kiko Alonso and safety Reshad Jones, often to overpriced deals (but that’s a problem for their salary-cap manager down the road). But they didn’t bring in anyone to make a splash. Linebacker Lawrence Timmons got $12 million over two years, and nobody else got more than $5.65 million. The Dolphins did trade for tight end Julius Thomas and defensive end William Hayes. Thomas is a good gamble, and Hayes is a solid veteran. The biggest loss this offseason might be left tackle Branden Albert, but Miami will just kick Laremy Tunsil out to left tackle. The interior of the offensive line looks like a problem though. The draft might produce a few immediate contributors. Defensive end Charles Harris was a solid first-round pick. The Dolphins made low-level, smart signings and didn’t lose much. Are we sure this is the Dolphins we’re talking about? Grade: C-plus

The Dolphins seemed to find an offensive attack that fit last season, which is a credit to Adam Gase. Ryan Tannehill was asked to throw the ball far less, and he became much more efficient. Tannehill had career bests in completion percentage, touchdown percentage and passer rating. Using a slow-tempo attack and leaning on Jay Ajayi in the run game seems to be a better formula for the Dolphins.

It seems everyone is very high on Jay Ajayi after last season, and that makes sense. He had three 200-yard games last season. Here’s the list of players who have at least three 200-yard games in a season: Earl Campbell, O.J. Simpson, Tiki Barber and Ajayi. Heck of a group to be a part of. Still, consistency eluded Ajayi. He had 624 yards on 85 carries (7.3-yard average) in those three 200-yard games, and 681 yards on 191 carries (3.6) in his other 13 games counting playoffs. Aside from the 200-yard games, he cracked 80 rushing yards just one other time. He finished the season with a 16-carry, 33-yard game in the playoffs at Pittsburgh. You can’t just dismiss 200-yard games, of course. But you’d like to see some stability in between the extreme highs and lows. Also, the Dolphins have very little depth behind Ajayi, which could end up being a problem. Miami’s winning streak started when Ajayi had his breakout game, and they focused their offense around him after that. It’s not without risk in 2017.

Ryan Tannehill partially tore his ACL last season. He didn’t undergo surgery, opting for rehab and stem cell treatments instead. The Dolphins say Tannehill is fully healthy, but it will still be worth tracking in preseason and early in the regular season. Other quarterbacks have come back slow from ACL issues. Tannehill made some nice strides last season, and it was unfortunate he went down in Week 14. The assumption is that Tannehill can pick up right where he left off last season, and the Dolphins would gladly take that.

Ndamukong Suh’s salary-cap number this season is $19.1 million, the highest for any defensive tackle in football, far outdistancing Marcell Dareus at $16.4 million. Whether Suh has been worth his historic contract is up for debate, but he’s clearly the Dolphins’ most talented defensive player. He won’t put up monster stats but he can control a game in the middle of Miami’s line with his incredible strength. He said this offseason he thinks about making the Hall of Fame, and it’s not that crazy to think he could end up in Canton. But with each year that passes there’s a fear that Suh’s play will slip, especially since he turned 30 in January. There’s no reason to believe a dropoff is imminent, but it bears watching. The team obviously has a lot invested in Suh.

From Yahoo’s Brad Evans: “Jay Ajayi’s breakout 2016 campaign ended with a top-12 finish among running backs. That production came without him being a major threat as a receiver (27 receptions). Can he add that element to his game and become a true three-down threat? While reports during the offseason have him heading in the right direction, seeing proof his receiving skills have improved in the preseason will easily make him a mid-range RB1 and worth a late first-round selection.” [Check out Yahoo’s Pressing Questions for the fantasy outlook on the Dolphins.]

[Fantasy Football is open! Sign up now]

Friends and LSU teammates Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham share a record. Both players have 288 receptions, tied for the most in NFL history through a player’s first three seasons. Landry saw his targets drop last season from 166-131 as the Dolphins passed less, but his yards per catch went from 10.5 to 12.1. Landry posted a 94-1,136-4 line and made his second straight Pro Bowl. He’s an excellent player. The problem for the Dolphins is this is Landry’s contract year. If the team can’t get him signed to an extension, the franchise tag seems to be a good possibility.

CAN SAFETY RESHAD JONES MAKE A BIG IMPACT COMING BACK FROM INJURY?

Jones was fantastic in 2015. He was off to a nice start last season, but he also lasted just six games due to a rotator cuff injury. The Dolphins aren’t nervous about his comeback, considering they gave him a five-year, $60 million extension in March. Jones is just 29 so he should be able to return to a Pro Bowl level. The Dolphins coincidentally took off right after Jones got hurt, but you have to assume Miami will be much better off with one of their best defensive players back.

I like that Jarvis Landry predicted the Dolphins would sweep the Patriots. You can’t just sit around and accept losing while you wait for Tom Brady to retire. However, just because Landry said it doesn’t mean it’ll happen. The tough part of being in the AFC East is you start the season knowing winning the division is a really tall wall to climb. Especially this season. But another wild-card spot is feasible for the Dolphins. Easy schedule or not, winning nine of 10 games in the NFL isn’t easy and last season says a lot about Miami’s upside.

On the other hand, the schedule does get a lot harder. An 8-2 record in one-score games is tough to repeat. Although there’s no reason to believe Ryan Tannehill won’t be fully healthy, it’s still another possible stumbling block. The Dolphins were good across the board last season but not really strong in any one area. Although there’s decent talent on the roster and Adam Gase looks like a good hire, a step back seems probable.

The problem (if you’d call it that) with Adam Gase conducting such a remarkable 2016 turnaround is that he set a high bar in year one. Miami could have some normal regression with fewer wins in close games and a harder schedule, but it’ll be viewed as a disappointment if they don’t make the playoffs again. And considering how unlikely it is for the Dolphins to knock off the Patriots (sorry, Jarvis), they’re probably stuck wading in the wild-card waters and the competition for those two spots in the AFC will be fierce. I can’t pick them for another postseason berth.

32. New York Jets 31. Cleveland Browns 30. San Francisco 49ers 29. Chicago Bears 28. Los Angeles Rams 27. Jacksonville Jaguars 26. Detroit Lions 25. Houston Texans 24. Buffalo Bills 23. Indianapolis Colts 22. Baltimore Ravens 21. Los Angeles Chargers 20. Minnesota Vikings 19. New Orleans Saints 18. Washington Redskins 17. Philadelphia Eagles

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

More Dolphins coverage on Yahoo Sports:

[joshuabumgarner]

Top 10 Mistakes On Corporate YouTube Channels

72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, which means the competition for eyeballs is intense, but do not despair by avoiding some simple mistakes you’ll easily get an edge and grow your audience.

Here are 10 common mistakes spotted on companies YouTube channels:

1 - Uploading poor content

You don’t need to have great production values to make a hit on YouTube, the idea is what matters most! However try to ensure a minimum quality standard (in particular for sound), and remove videos that are too amateur and off-putting. You wouldn’t knowingly leave some typos on your website? The same is true for videos; if it didn’t work out, don’t hesitate to change it.

2 - Poor titles, descriptions or keywords 

Surprisingly, companies often spend a lot of time and money on creating a video, only to upload it later on YouTube without caring about the description, and tags, sometimes even leaving the file name as the title “corporatevideo.mp4”. If you have taken a few minutes to deal with it, you are already ahead of the curve without spending a penny. Remember YouTube is the second biggest search engine and you should treat the video description just like you treat a website for SEO. Do not forget to put links to your site or any other relevant web address in the video description, and use http://mywebsite.com rather than www.mywebsite.com otherwise you will lose part of the audience who won’t go through the tedious task of copying and pasting. Make it easy to just click!

3 - No calls to action

What purpose do you have with your video marketing if it isn’t to entice viewers to follow up with you in some way? Your call to action does not need to be loud. simple “check out our website”. But you NEED a call to action! Even when the video is about providing content and not promotional, you should still make it easier for the audience to subscribe to your channel, or watch the next video by using annotations. Why? Because it is free and non-intrusive so even if it doesn’t work, nobody will mind.

4 - Failing to take advantage of email marketing and social media

Although YouTube is often part of a social media “trilogy” alongside Twitter and Facebook, it is often separated from the others. It makes sense to pull it altogether and to promote videos systematically via social media. GoPro is one of the best example of pushing videos by every possible ways. Ok it is easy when you are GoPro, but even if your business is only producing videos occasionally, make sure you post, tweet, pin, digg, email them on every occasion.

5 - Ignoring comments and questions on YouTube

YouTube is also a social media, make sure you spend time in checking and replying to comments. The crowd can be rowdy and they won’t always say nice things, but you can control it if things get out of hand. You may want to curate it lightly and remove the top comments if they turn against you, otherwise, let it flow as much as possible, and spend time interacting with other YouTubers. Since we adopted a more active approach on one of our channels, we went from 1 subscriber per day in average to nearly 2!

 6 - Lack of attention to the channel itself

For non-partners YouTube offers only a limited set of tools to customize your channel: logo, background, channel descriptions and playlists. So it won’t take you much time to optimize them, make sure you do. Playlists are a great way to put content on your channel without having to create anything. They also work tremendously well in terms of visibility for searches.

7 - Video as an afterthought

I couldn’t put it any better than those video gurus. Michael Kolowich of ChannelOne Marketing “Very often, the production of a video is driven by a big live event, a trade show, a product launch, or a live presentation… Only after the event is over does the attention shift to distributing the video on the Internet. That’s too late.” Mark R Robertson of ReeelSEO: A “common mistake I see related to this is what I call, deploying video for video sake. Yes, online video is HOT… But don’t just produce and deploy videos online without a video marketing and video deployment strategy. Not only will this not work, but this just adds to all the crap video content that is out there these days, and I, for one, am sick of seeing it…

8 - The viral obsession

Viral videos are the outliers not the norm! Too often companies have unrealistic expectations about their YouTube potential. They are also misled that the fact that large corporations get a lot of views on videos that are often less than appealing. The solution is often simple: they heavily advertise the videos, and it is a perfectly good strategy if you have the cash for it. Autotrader for example hardly ever get any organic views but they are happy to pay for views and it seems to work for them. On the other hand we have grown confident that if the format, content, description, and promotion of the video is right it should reach a natural audience, may be not millions but a few views per day will bring you to thousands!

 9 - A great marketing pitch

Here I’d like to refer to eConsultancy: “Think about your audience, what do they like? They’re almost certainly not going to be interested in your corporate sales message”. Also remember Seth Godin: “In a world where everything is a click away, and in a world where everyone can have their own YouTube channel, ten blogs and a thousand email accounts… the only thing that’s scarce is attention.” For example, don’t waste a perfectly good video by giving it slow start with a long logo animation or a slow panning shot. Those may work in the movies but on YouTube you only have a few seconds to grab your audience’s attention. If you manage to get people’s attention and if they like what they see, then your video worked. It is unlikely to bring you a purchase immediately and just by itself but it is a small step in the right direction.

10 - Forgetting that YouTube works with channels

 A lot of the videos that surface from YouTube as they go viral seem to be one-hit wonders. However the real popular YouTubers focus on developing channels where they steadily build a captive audience. An extreme example is http://www.youtube.com/user/Pr0nfessor who had a couple of unremarkable videos on his channel, and 10 subscribers until he hit a worldwide success with the “Michelle Jenneke” clip. What subtle change did he make as he reached 10 million vie? Well, he renamed his channel “Pr0nfessor (Don’t forget to subscribe)” yes… the brackets are part of the title! He has then built a relatively large subscriber base which will make it easier to launch a new video (if ever he decides to launch one).

CONCLUSION - It’s worth asking for advice

Avoiding the mistakes covered in this post is easy and important but not enough to guarantee YouTube success. It can however be tough for a marketer to keep up with all the options offered by YouTube and other hosting platforms, and it is crucial to work with video production partners who are not just good at creating content but also know the rules and tricks to optimize the reach and engagement generated by the video marketing effort.

This wonderful information was posted previously here: http://thinktallfilms.tumblr.com/post/43557587884/top-10-mistakes-on-corporate-youtube-channels