#time consuming since i had to record and edit new video 9 times | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

Watchmen Episode 9 Easter Eggs Explained

https://ift.tt/2YSXMq4

The big finale of HBO's Watchmen comes together in episode 9! Here's all the references to the book we were able to catch.

facebook

twitter

tumblr

This article contains Watchmen spoilers.

Watchmen episode 9 “See How They Fly” wraps it all up. And you’d think that after nine time-hopping episodes they might be ready to wrap up all of their homages and references to the original book. You would be wrong.

But not everything comes from the book. The episode’s title, “See how they fly” is a lyric from The Beatles’ psychedelic masterpiece “I Am The Walrus” which features the sinister/joyful (and Watchmen-relevant) refrain of “I am the eggman.” Now, with that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

LADY TRIEU

- We’re once again back on Nov. 1, 1985...this time to witness the conception of Lady Trieu. Her mother, Bian (who in the future Lady Trieu will clone and raise as her daughter) was one of Veidt’s Vietnamese employees who kept his fortress of solitude, Karnak, running. The verse she recites is apparently from folklore about a Lady Trieu who lived during the third century.

Incidentally, this is the most we’ve seen of the inner workings of Karnak, including in the book, where we only saw TWO employees. Does this mean he murdered ALL of these people, too? That is dark as fuck.

read more: Complete Watchmen Timeline Explained

- Lady Trieu is sperm sample 2346. That’s 23 x 2. It could very well be a reference to the “23 enigma,” an almost cult-like belief in the significance of the number 23. It was popularized by counterculture icons like William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson.

- The fact that Bian crowns her insemination with “Fuck you, Ozymandias” is interesting. Is Veidt, like Dr. Manhattan, a symbol of American imperialism in Vietnam? Pretty likely, right?

- In 2008, when Lady Trieu confronts Adrian Veidt and refers to him as “the smartest man in the world” she’s using the nickname that had been given to Ozymandias by the press. Trieu is, of course, “the smartest woman in the world.”

ADRIAN VEIDT

- This is the filming of the “confession/congratulations” video that Wade Tillman was shown by Joe Keene back in episode 5. It will be presented to Robert Redford on the day he is inaugurated as President on January 21, 1993. You can see the giant squid in the tank behind Veidt while he is recording the message to President Redford, by the way.

- “Untie knot” is the password prompt on Veidt’s old computer. “Untie knot” refers to the Gordian Knot, which Alexander the Great famously solved with his sword. The password is “Rameses II” just like in the book.

- That’s a portrait of Alexander the Great in Veidt’s office, but as of yet I’ve been unable to identify it.

- We learn in this episode that Veidt has “never given himself to a woman.” The fact that he specifically mentions women and not men could possibly echo Rorschach’s observation about him in the book, that Veidt is “possibly homosexual.”

- Based on the five year timeline laid out by Lady Trieu here, it would appear that Veidt spelled out “Save me Daughter” on the surface of Europa with the corpses of his servants in 2013.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

If you had your entire promoted listing budget eaten up by clicks on an item with “shoe” in the searchable keywords, contact Etsy to make sure you will be refunded.

Etsy was accidentally suspending some shops for not using Etsy Payments, but they are in ineligible countries. Some but not all drop ship or use fulfillment in countries with Etsy Payments, but that doesn’t appear to explain all the errors.

Mailchimp launches a new marketing platform that integrates multiple marketing needs, not just emails. Pricing will stay the same for existing customers for the time being.

On the same topic, here is a study of various email services, and their different deliver-ability rates.

Etsy is being sued after a child dies, strangled by an amber necklace bought on Etsy. [video & article] This is getting a fair amount of media attention. Not covered in many stories is the fact that the daycare employees didn’t call 911 at first, and the day home had more infants that day than they were licensed for.

Better media attention: disappointed in the long delay for the introduction of the Harriet Tubman $20 bill in the US, an Etsy seller designed a stamp buyers can use to cover up Jackson’s face with Tubman’s. “Harriet Tubman” is a trending search on Etsy frequently since these articles, so this media coverage is really bringing traffic to the site.

Amazon is now using packing machines in a few of its warehouses that replace 12 workers each. They have other warehouse automation, too, & just started work on their hub at the Cincinnati airport. If you need any more evidence that diversification is the key to successful businesses, remember that they make the biggest chunk of their profit on their cloud services.

ETSY NEWS

This year, Etsy’s Maker Cities program (US only) has joined up with Mastercard for their grants. Applications are due July 3, and there is a webinar on June 3 with more info and instructions. [links in article]

They’s also extended their Design Awards submission deadline to June 4. Check out their FAQ if you have any questions.

Etsy released a summer update to their spring/summer trends guide, with some useful search data. Clothing shoppers are interested in vintage styles, “with Etsy searches for “70s” and “90s” up 26% and 7% year over year.” I summarized the earlier report here.

In case you missed it, Etsy released their first quarter financial report for 2019, & I summarized it in the Etsy forum.

In related news, Etsy ranks 3rd in USA Today's list of the top 20 fastest growing retailers in the world, even ahead of Amazon.

Some businesses are competing based on delivery speed, but Etsy is able to do well with much slower shipping. (That’s a nice feature in an article they didn’t write; not all good promotion is paid.)

I can’t remember if I posted this interview with Etsy chief financial officer Rachel Glaser before, so here it is again. [audio file/podcast and short text excerpt. Please note I have contacted Etsy about the photos & search comment, but they have not yet replied, other than with the usual links to Etsy’s search guide.]

Short piece on Etsy’s approach to diversity. Spoiler alert - they like it, and the article links to other materials demonstrating why this is the best approach for businesses.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

If you want to get your website or blog material ranking faster, Moz has some tips for you. Note that the first part in particular contains advanced-level technical tips, but most of the rest is easier to grasp for non-techies. It’s worth a skim!

But don’t break Wikipedia rules to get your images on top - North Face got caught doing that, & had to apologize. But “[f]rom Leo Burnett Tailor Made's original statement, it seems the agency was anticipating such a reaction to the North Face effort all along. In stunts like these, the ensuing controversy and attention around it can be part of the overall campaign goal and strategy.”

Once your website starts getting Google traffic, it is not unusual for growth to start to slow or even stop completely, but there are things you can do to avoid that.

Despite many people insisting that longer blog posts are necessary for good Google ranking, there is no ideal length for a blog post.

Here’s a good list of free SEO tools; note that some are paid tools that have a limited free version.

Links on other high-quality websites still matter to Google. (Most of us won’t be able to do the link-building that this test did, but the test demonstrates how much the links are worth. So if you aren’t ranking, realize that other people linking to your page is probably a big factor.) Some of your pages might fit perfectly on a resource page/site, if they answer a question or uniquely fill a need. You can find link opportunities on Twitter through following certain hashtags and engaging with the users.

Google search results now include podcasts. “This feature doesn’t only search for the title or meta data of the podcasts but also can search for the audio – as Google transcribes them — directly within the podcast show itself.”

As of July 1, Google will use the mobile version of all new websites for their index, so make sure that you have a good mobile set up on any new websites (or old ones, for that matter, since most web traffic is mobile these days).

There was a possible Google search update around May 9, then May 22, and now maybe May 29th. Google updates its algorithm a lot, if you hadn’t already noticed. "To give you a sense of the scale of the changes that Google considers, in 2010 we conducted 13,311 precision evaluations to see whether proposed algorithm changes improved the quality of its search results, 8,157 side-by-side experiments where it presented two sets of search results to a panel of human testers and had the evaluators rank which set of results was better, and 2,800 click evaluations to see how a small sample of real-life Google users responded to the change.” (and some people think Etsy tests a lot LOL)

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Have popular content on one platform/site? You can repurpose it to use elsewhere, for maximum reach. It’s less work than coming up with brand new ideas all of the time!

Micro-influencers may work best for most businesses, because they can speak directly to your target market.

There are proven ways to get more social media followers; it’s not just luck.

Up-to-date infographic on the ideal sizes for social media images, by platform.

Facebook announced several upcoming plans at their annual developer conference, including a desktop redesign. Facebook has also changed the video algorithm to favour posts that people watch for longer, and to disfavour posts that are just repurposing old video.

Tweetdeck is rolling out more updates, including emojis and the ability to set up polls within the app. I use it, & I like it - I wish they had a phone app!

If you are using LinkedIn, you may be missing some great tricks to get more attention.

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

Here’s how you can get better results out of Microsoft ads (formerly Bing ads)

There was a bug in Google ads stats for April 30 & May 1st; they are working on fixing it.

Google advertising can be very confusing, so here as some tips on mistakes you should avoid. [video with transcript] They also recently announced some upcoming changes.

Etsy shops can only buy their own Google Shopping ads through Etsy’s program, or you can let Etsy buy them for your shop, but if you want to advertise your website, here is a great starter guide.

Chrome is giving you more control over cookies so that you can avoid more targeted ads. Some point out this is not necessarily as user-friendly as it sounds - it means Google can stop other companies from tracking their ad performance while Google has all those records through Chrome & other tools.

Facebook is also giving users more control over tracking for ads, & advertisers are not happy.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

You are going to be surprised that Russian search engine Yandex has a really good Webmaster tools package.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Some people are comparing Walmart’s new online wedding shop to Etsy, "with tons of personalized wedding gifts to buy on a budget.”

The coverage of Amazon’s big announcement about one-day shipping with Prime (in the US) mostly missed the fact that Amazon can already deliver to 72% of the US population in one day.

Amazon employees told some third-party sellers that religious items were banned from the site - but it wasn’t true.

Big Commerce now has a plug-in for Wordpress blogs.

As promised, Zibbet has added Etsy to its integrations, which allows you to list on Zibbet and it will automatically be added to Etsy as well. This is only going to be useful once they add other platforms (since Zibbet has no traffic), so shop around if you are interested in this sort of tool, as other companies are doing the same things. Indiemade websites completely integrate with Etsy, for example, and they have more website tools.

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

With increased discussion of free shipping on Etsy recently, this is a good time to review some of the more recent studies & surveys on the topic. One US report from January shows that buyer expectations in this area continue to increase. Shipping cost is a big factor in purchase decisions, & shipping costs are a common reason for cart abandonment. There are a variety of ways to calculate how to offer free shipping without losing money. (Thank you to Rebecca for the last link!)

If you want more shares on social media, this study on the top 5 reasons people share things online will be useful. But Americans are now more engaged by mobile games than social media, which has implications for app development and advertising.

Googly eyes make people donate more.

Smaller online businesses tend to make very specific types of customer service mistakes that harm your ability to compete. Although there isn’t always much you can do about the fact that “37% of customers expect a response within an hour“.

Can everyone read and understand your web page? Easy-to-understand English is an important aspect of accessibility.

Help Scout produces some fabulous material on customer service; here is a great article on value propositions, with examples, and another on how to collect customer feedback, including analyzing your stats package to see where customers are having trouble with your site.

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour)

Trend alert: more professional women switching purses for backpacks.

You can now control how long Google retains data on you.

You can also join the class action against major US telecom companies that sold your location data.

Another example of a company getting people to post photos so it can develop facial recognition technology.

Some businesses are offering products & services based on your DNA & other biological markers.

Most people worldwide over the age of 15 have a cell phone, although not all are regular users.

If you are concerned about internet privacy, & hate tracking, the browser Brave may be worth a look. (I haven’t tried it yet, but it comes well-recommended from various tech people I respect.)

Burger King has trolled McDonald's in ads & social media posts for years, & it can be pretty funny. “When McDonald’s abruptly and surprisingly lost its trademark on “Big Mac” in the EU earlier this year, Burger King couldn’t help but rub some salt in the wound. BK’s Swedish operations decided to celebrate for a day by offering a menu of “Not Big Macs” such as “The Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big” and “The Big Mac-ish But Flame-Grilled of Course.”

#seo #search engine optimization #search engine marketing #etsynews #analytics #stats #social media #contentmarketing #ecommerce #smallbiz #cindylouwho2newsupdates

3 notes · View notes

blessuswithblogs · 5 years

Text

2018 Game of the Year Top Ten List I guess

2018 has been an interminable mire of exhausting miasma and quite frankly I feel like it has been longer than the entire stretch of 2010-2015 combined. I also didn't play many games released this year because, like last year, I'm still poor. I'll see what I can dig up.

10. Sunset Overdrive PC edition: It's a fun open world game by insomniac. The PC Port is actually balls but like. It's a good game with a unique emphasis on how you traverse the game world, where you can grind and bounce on just about anything and indeed to do so is the only way to not get totally chewed up by the hordes of mutants and scavengers and robots you have to fight. There's also some pretty fun and out there weapons to use, like a gun that shoots vinyl records or one that deploys little auto-turrets kept aloft with propellers or one that shoots out a bowling ball at terminal velocity. The base game didn't actually come out this year (I dont... think it did...?) but it was an XBone exclusive so I didn't play it then. It's got some weird problems with narrative tone and some kind of out of the blue racism but the M rated Nickolodeon toy commercial aesthetic is charming in a weird way. I guess.

9. The Forest: I think this got an official release this year? I don't know I can't fucking keep track. Speaking of a game with weird problems with racism, if you can look past the garbage "main quest" and really deeply uncomfortable racial politics where you murder and steal from cannibal mutants, The Forest is probably the best cool treefort building simulator I've ever played. This game has a love affair with lumber and I respect that. Shouldn't you be looking for Timmy, you ask me? Shouldn't you be shutting the fuck up before I put this airplane axe in your skullmeats? Gazebos are nice. I guess.

8. Spyro: reignited trilogy: haven't actually played this yet but let's be real the spyro games were fucking dope back in the day and giving them an HD coat of paint and packaging them all together is a real standup thing for insomniac to do in between slinging webs and making questionable pc ports. Also its like Dark Souls so it has to be good, right? Everything old is new again. I guess.

7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: haven't played this one either but like. I know that I am a smash-enjoyer. I even liked Brawl. This is the biggest, smashiest one yet and it's also on the switch which means it could also be portable if I decided I never wanted to leave my bed again. I'm probably going to find some money to get it soon. Should be fun. I guess.

6. The Quiet Man: look no game that is THIS hysterical can be all bad alright? Didn't play it. Won't play it. It's awful. But it's so fucking funny like oh my god. Still better than Fallout 76. I guess.

5. Dark Souls Remastered: was this even a good remaster? I don't fucking know. It's Dark Souls. It's better than 90% of released games by default. I miss Solaire of Astora. I guess there's Shadows Die Twice to look forward to. I guess.

4. Subnautica: I wrote a lot about this actually. Subnautica is great. Just fantastic. A wonderful, visually stunning (mostly) (when it works) journey under an alien ocean to unravel an ancient mystery behind a deadly plague. Building seabases is so much fun (when it doesn't hard crash your computer) and the peaceful playstyle you adopt where you really only kill things for food until you can grow your own, much more efficient produce is a welcome change of pace from everything else. Leviathans are scary, especially now that your cyclops is mortal and not indestructible. This game actually Came Out this year so it deserves to be on the spot. I guess.

3. Dragon Ball Fighterz: Honestly I'm hell trash garbage at fighting games that aren't smash but this was a very well put together, visually impressive as all hell fast paced tag fighter where you can have 3 gokus on the same team fight 3 other gokus on the same team. Goku density alone makes this game worth recommending. The eSports scene that has popped up around it is fun too. I guess.

2. Dead Cells: Another game that gets to be on the list by virtue of it actually coming out this year. Wait, was this on last year's list? Let me check. Ok good it wasn't. Early access is a fucking trip. It's fun, stylish, challenging, has a great deal of variety in ways to play, might have erased my entire save because it became obsolete and I'm definitely not bitter, and it has that classic rogue-lite replay value to give you some bang for your buck. There was that one review plagiarism scandal. I guess.

1. Monster Hunter World: If you really want to know what I think of this game my previous piece on it is a good place to start. In addition to everything said there, MHW is just a fun game. The loop is satisfying and, later on, quite challenging. The combat system takes some genuine getting used to and some monsters like Nergigante actually literally cheat but for the most part the game's unique fighting style, spread across several unique weapon types, is rewarding to learn because it demands some effort be put into it and the dividends of fighting well are very cool, like just knocking a flying monster on its ass with a single mighty swing of the hammer. When a game is hard in any capacity games journalists get dollar signs in their eyes and start drooling uncontrollably because they can immediately declare that Farm Sim 2020 is the next Bloodborne because they somehow managed to roll their tractor into a ditch, but MHW is actually quite similar in style and execution to deliberate Souls combat, but the comparison is made in reverse. Dark Souls is quite similar to Monster Hunter, the first game of which was popular and a couple of years old before Demon's Souls was even a twinkle in Miyazaki's eye. There's a lot of parallels between fighting a big ol' rathalos in monhun and going for the toes against a dragon in Dark Souls, but I think MHW actually does that kind of fight better. There are a lot of modern conveniences present in MHW that are a godsend to newer players, making the game pretty easy to get into if you're willing to try. It was my favorite game of the year that actually came out in 2018. I kind of wanted to put Warframe in this list but it's been out of early access for years now. I guess.

There were a lot of games this year that I wanted to play, but couldn't. I don't think 2018 was a weak year for video games. It wasn't as strong as 2017 but it had some hits, I just couldn't afford to play them all. Maybe next year I'll be able to give a better list. I think that the whole industry is in for some hard choices and major restructuring of how things get done and how they look at the end result. Stocks continue to trend downward - not just for Bethesda but for most mainstream, prominent AAA developers like EA and Take2. Given the well documented volatility of "The Shareholders", I imagine that they would be most displeased by downward trends even if they were still making a modest profit.

The situation has been likened to an economic bubble ripe for bursting. Games as a cultural institution have come a long way since the catastrophic days of Atari's warehouses of unsold copies of E.T., and I don't believe that we're in any danger of a complete collapse of the institution, but the fact absolutely remains That Something's Gotta Give. The increasingly predatory practices that game developers put in place as they pathologically attempt to Make Every Money Ever are intrinsically unsustainable. People are willing to forgive and overlook the now ubiquitous microtransaction if a game is good enough to overlook it, or if it's the game's only real way of actually making money. Warframe's microtransactions, for instance, are reasonably priced, platinum is often heavily discounted as a login bonus, and you can make large amounts of it without ever spending money thanks to the game's surprisingly robust trading economy. So. Yeah. They get a pass. Warframe is also good on its own merits, despite being free to play. They also listen to their community about pricing. Go check out Warframe. It's free. It's free!!! Warframe is my unofficial top spot.

Sorry I got a little bit distracted. So there's only really two instances where people will tolerate microtransactions and lootboxes in the contemporary sense: either a game is good enough and polished enough and the lootboxes are unobtrusive enough that you can just sort of shrug your shoulders and say "it sucks but what are you gonna do" or it genuinely relies on those microtransactions to support itself. When these tenets are violated, people WILL get mad. People raised absolute hell about Battlefront 2's scummy monetization schemes, enough to get EA to back off. Fallout 76 is getting lambasted in no small part due to its utterly overpriced "cosmetic" shop where you pay ten real dollars to get your power armor to look blue. You can buy fullfeatured, critically acclaimed games for half that price and you already dumped $60 on this lemon of a game. Destiny 2 got into hot water for being cagey about how its exp values were calculated and how the previously free and user-friendly shaders became one-time use items you could only get from rolling the dice. The public is getting positively irate about all of this nonsense, and if Fallout 76 (and evidently battlefield V?) is any indication, we are fast approaching a breaking point where shareholder demand for profit will outpace the consumer's ability to provide it and the developer's ability to skinner box it out of us.

Of course Nintendo continues to march on to the beat of its own drum seemingly unaffected by all of this garbage. Not out of any moral superiority, I imagine. More likely it's just a consequence of that company still being in the process of being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Maybe a few years down the line when everyboy else has abandoned microtransactions Nintendo will pick them up, put a cute Mario motif on it, and we'll be back to square one. Time will tell. We're in a volatile time for games and the timebomb keeps ticking. I just hope the explosion isn't too messy. I guess.

#goty #2018 #monster hunter world #subnautica #dead cells #gamedev

3 notes · View notes

survivor-guyana · 5 years

Text

Immunity Results #3

Meet Your Judges!

DAN

Hi sisters, it’s Dan, king of half faced selfies, here to roast your lip syncs

NEHE

Hi sisters, it's Nehemiah, king of not winning a game he deserves to win, here to judge you guys like you never been judged before, p.s Tim stop stealing my role as the one straight black guy in the org community

CHARLOTTE

hi sisters, i’m back from the dead and ready to roast some bitches. i honestly don’t remember if i’ve played more than one main season but i was in kuang si and really that’s the only one that matters. not sorry!

CONNOR

hey sisters, hope you missed me because im still not coming back.

DENNIS

Hi sisters, I was forced to write this start. But entertain me

JESS

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn't know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

HOSORORO

youtube

Dan: 31/50

Theme: 5 - No real theme tbh, I guess the editing incorporated some nice colors and stuff. I wish y'all could have been more in sync with a theme tho. Maybe I'm just being critical.

Creativity: 5 - The editing was creative, I liked the effects and the added little bits that went along with the lyrics. I think the difference between this video and the others tho was that the others tried something new and exciting to spice up their videos. Was it more creative? Maybe? There's nothing wrong with picking a bop and lip syncing, but it's 2019 ladies, spice it up.

Effort: 7 - She may have bought that hair, but y’all yanked it right off. I think some of you really tried harder than others, but I stan when people just do their best and record where and when they can. It shows dedication and I like that shit. I think that the effort into learning the lyrics without reading them off the screen and dedication to filming in the car kind of showed y'all want this.

Composition: 7 - BITCHHHHH I’M GAGGGGGT. It’s 240p, but honestly Ariana Grande who? Whoever edited this made it seemless, but honestly the low quality needs to get clocked a few points.

Entertainment Value: 7 - The dancing, the outfits, the lip sync skills? A bitch was entertained. While the other videos tried to make things new and exciting, y'all delivered what I think of as more of a successful project.

Jess: 34/50

Theme 8/10. If I had to say the theme, I'd guess that it's "bad bitches" which you all are.

Creativity 5/10. If a 0 is 1 person playing basketball instead of lip syncing at all, and a 10 is a full out choreographed dance number done by your entire tribe, I think this falls solidly in the middle. I don't think there is a lot about this that sets it apart from past music videos I've seen, but I don't think it is bad.

Effort 8/10. It seems like most of your tribe members were at least majorly involved and tried to make this good! And you all put effort into the dancing/attitude you had, it felt like everyone tried to match their actions to the song.

Composition 6/10. I think the editing is good and it matches the timing of the music which is nice, the cuts are usually on the beats! But it did get a little repetitive after a while, like I felt as though the same thing was happening throughout the whole video and there wasn't a variety in the images/cutting style/etc. I also think it was hard to tell if the video was in sync because for some reason y'all are in 2007 and only uploaded this at 240p???? Are you guys all over the age of 45 why did you do that. Finally, the flickering glitter filter was cool at the start, but I wish you'd spiced it up and not just used that throughout the entire video, also at points it was a little distracting due to the bright colours that would pop up.

Entertainment Value 7/10. Six of these points are for the girl who was in the car because she was killing it and I loved her. I took points off for a similar reason I had above -- it felt like the video was one note and I wish you guys had a little more variety throughout.

Dennis: 38/50

Theme: 6/10 Creativity: 8/10 Effort: 8/10 Composition: 8/10 Entertainment: 8/10

I know I will get alot of hate comments for this, but this in general is not really a song to lipsync too. EITHER WAY I think you did a good pretty good job with it. All of you seemed to enjoy yourself and the editing was enough to keep my attention throughout the whole video. I didn't really get the theme, but overall it was a very entertaining Lipsync!

Connor: 35/50

Ok this is good. You clearly all worked together artistically so that your individual shots were coherent. Im not crazy about the pink strobe kinda thing going on through the entire video but you were all performing and this is well done. Theme: 7 Creativity: 6 Effort: 8 Composition: 7 Entertainment Value: 7

Charlotte: 42/50

Theme: IF THE THEME WAS FABULOUSNESS YOU ACHIEVED IT. ARIANA WOULD BE PROUD. 8/10

Creativity: I feel like you could have done a little bit more with some of the lyrics but all in all I loved this video and now I'm just being picky. 7/10

Effort: See above. I think you could have done a little but more but keeping the pink aesthetic through your editing and ALL THAT DANCING werk werk werk. 8/10

Composition: Love. That. Aesthetic. 10/10 PLUS YOU'RE ALL IN THE SAME CAMERA ORIENTATION I LOVE THAT. LOVE THAT FOR YOU.

Entertainment Value: FUN, ENJOYABLE, FLAWLESS, NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. 9/10

Nehe: 44/50

7 8 9 10 10

Now this is a fucking music video work bitches work

TOTAL: 224

ARAKAKA

youtube

Dan: 29/50

Theme: 7 - Annoying advertisements? Trying to show the effects of product placement on our every day life? I loved it haha I was shook.

Creativity: 6 - V creative, but was it really a music video? I guess parts were but I also was like so lost after a while. I think song choice is always important and I was so bored during the song parts. I wish you had made the song part as creative as the ad parts.

Effort: 4 - Honestly the effort was misfocused on the ads and less on the music video, was I mad about it? only like 50%. the song was boring and just kinda blah so it was interesting

Composition: 5 - Choppy, but I can’t edit so rip

Entertainment Value: 7 - Honestly this how to video taught me so much and I’m shook. THE POPCORN I LITERALLY SCREAMED. While I nodded off during the music video portion, I stanned the ads

Jess: 32/50

Theme 6/10. I think your theme was ads? I didn't really understand it but it was fun and unique.

Creativity 8/10. I have never seen anything like this that's for sure.

Effort 4/10. It seemed like everyone in your tribe was in the video I think? But most of the stuff you guys submitted was 1 take/shot and wouldn't have required a lot of editing, which is the most time consuming/effort requiring portion of the challenge so...

Composition 5/10 The editing of the commercials was pretty good, but it didn't flow as well as it should have because the audio levels were a bit all over the place. Also at one point it was in colour and out of focus but I wasn't sure why? Also a+ for doing your video in 1080p (@ other tribes take note). Since the actual music video portion was just one shot, I feel like I can't really give you a higher rating than the other tribes in this category.

Entertainment Value 9/10 First frame: a guy in a Stitch onesie with a bottle of tequila and a mug that says "ray of fucking sunshine"?? I laughed immediately. Then I was shook when later I realized it was actually a shot glass and was close to the camera and it got even better. This whole video was wild and I had no idea what was going to happen so I was pretty entertained.

Dennis: 45/50

Theme: 8/10 Creativity: 10/10 Effort: 8/10 Composition: 9/10 Entertainment: 10/10

This is probably the last kind of video which I expected in a challenge like this. I think it was really creative and connected entertainment with comedy and a nice little theme. I am very impressed good job!

Connor: 20/50

“””””Acting””””””” “””””””Edgy”””””””” Eggs?? Im vegan. What was the point of this? Was there a point? Pop corn girl gets you an extra point but this is not a music video. To quote bandersnatch, you chose the wrong path.

Theme: 3 Creativity: 6 Effort: 4 Composition: 4 Entertainment Value: 3

Charlotte: 34/50

Theme: I've been out of the ORG world for awhile but is this what music videos are now??? I feel like the music video of your video was sorely lacking. YouTube loves ads but not that many!!!!! I did think the ads were pretty creative though so I marked up points for that below. 6/10

Creativity: See above. 9/10

Effort: It wasn't just straight up lip syncing so I gotta reward you guys for that. 8/10

Composition: That black and white switching to color towards the end got me fucked up. 6/10

Entertainment Value: To quote the person sitting beside me: "OMG another ad?"Cute concept, not sure it works as a music video but you tried. 5/10

Nehe: 35/50

Honestly this was something i never seen before and i enjoyed it hahaha

TOTAL: 195

TAKAMA

youtube

Dan: 26/50

Theme: 6 - Cats? Bikes? Awkward White People Dancing? Are these the themes you went for? If so, y’all killed it haha, but it wasn't cohesive and I don't get what y'all were going for really.

Creativity: 5 - honestly, I stan an original song choice bc I haven’t seen this before, but also, a song like this needs to be sold and I don't know if y'all pulled out all the stops. I would have liked to see more passion from some of you in the props and theatrics department.

Effort: 5 - Some of you seemed to try a little harder than others, but overall y’all were feelin it

Composition: 5 - A little choppy, but I can’t edit for shit so like good job?

Entertainment Value: 5 - Okay Miss Tim with that bike balance, idk your name sis (maybe Jones) but striped sweater, pm me on skype – dan.disbrow so I can buy it ty. Other than that I don't really remember much besides a lot of cringey dancing.

Jess: 29/50

Theme 1/10. Tbh I don't really know what the theme was here, did you guys forget this category??

Creativity 4/10. Pretty much the same reason that I gave Hororo's tribe a 5, I'm giving you a 4. I am taking one point off because they at least did some stuff to make their video more unique/specific to their song whereas I think you guys could have used this editing style/dancing/etc to any song and it would have also worked, so it wasn't super unique.

Effort 9/10. Everyone who was in the video seemed really into it and did a good job having fun! But this is a 6 person tribe... one person wasn't in it and they weren't the editor?? You should vote them out if you lose.

Composition 9/10. The editing flowed well, you showed everyone on the tribe a pretty decent amount, and everyone's individual videos were pretty on point for lip sync? Usually when people film on their webcams it's not in sync, but these were all really good! You lose one point because the video quality was low and wasn't 1080p which it really should be.

Entertainment Value 6/10. I liked everyone's attitude and dancing and I loved the cats. I originally had 5 but then I remembered the cats and went back and added another point. But I wish you guys had done something unique for each mini song, like maybe divided them up amongst your tribe, or had people change outfits or something? If you had done that, I'd have given you way more points for theme and entertainment value. But because it was kind of repetitive/one note, it's hard to say I was REALLY entertained the whole time.

Dennis: 37/50

Theme: 9/10 Creativity: 7/10 Effort: 8/10 Composition: 7/10 Entertainment: 6/10

Comment: What stood out for me in your video was the theme. I assume that you wanted to mimic the fans v faves theme with a riff off and I thought that was actually quite smart. Everything else seemed to be for me what I would expect from a lipsync, but besides the theme nothing that stood out to me especially.

Connor: 27/50

The lip sinking is a little off at times (im coming back to this part, in the middle / two ish minute point-on it is not good) and I think the transitions from song to songs could have been smoother, but I think this is creative in terms of it being a mashup. I think there could have been more “music video” aspects to it. In addition to y’all singing. EXTRA POINT FOR THE CATS ( stripped sweater??? who is this??? Queen????)

Theme: 5 Creativity: 6 Effort: 6 Composition: 4 Entertainment Value: 6

Charlotte: 28/50

Theme: Was your theme Pitch Perfect? Like, I'm not sure whether or not there was anything you guys planned out but it really just seemed kind of randomly thrown together. 5/10

Creativity: I liked the cats? 6/10

Effort: See above. I feel like y'all just kind of threw this together? It was missing something for me. The person in the stripes pulled it together for you though so 7/10

Composition: Y'all really out here in 2019 not filming in the same orientation? I'm deducting 50% for that. It's a travesty. Also, if one person does a filter and no one else does, does it really make sense? IDK. 3/10

Entertainment Value: ... again, I liked the cats. Plus the stuff with the bicycle was weirdly entertaining. 7/10

Nehe: 31/50

TOTAL: 178

Thank you judges!

That means, Takama, I will be seeing you that tribal council on January 28 at 10 pm est.

1 note · View note

shelleast43 · 2 years

Text

7 Ways You Can Get Extra Minecraft Servers While Spending Much Less

About the only benefit is playing in your living room as a substitute of your property workplace. That point ought to most likely be spent finding out playing games. Basing a console around Android, nonetheless personalized it might be, would make it far simpler to convey these video games to your Television. Furthermore, the web connection meant for playing the online video games ought to better be quicker, to offer the final word thrill to the players. It introduces several elements of the story to Minecraft, permitting players to relive and expertise the conflicts and fights in spectacular style. You may personal houses, shoot and enjoy a novel GTA expertise. By permitting customers to go beyond the original settings of the game, it provides an already superb recreation a distinct perspective - turning your gameplay experience into something actually magical. This enables users to create brand new items that are exclusive to this mod solely. 5. This injected payload triggers a second stage, and permits an attacker to execute arbitrary code. Minecraft Crafting Since it is now July and the oldsters at Hammerpoint have had roughly six months to enhance upon the preliminary product (and their dealings with the group), it looks like a fair enough time to present the title a second look.

Once you get a number of Minecraft mods, it's time to put in it or them. Ever wished to have interaction in just a little aerial combat in Minecraft? So below is an inventory of visible mods that will enhance the world of Minecraft. It is best to see the mod you've got put in on the record. Have you installed one mod to your Minecraft on Home windows 10? This information will spotlight the very best Minecraft quality of life mods and what makes them so nice. Massively's MMO Burnout turns a essential eye toward every part from AAA blockbusters to obscure indie gems, not to say a wholesome dose of one of the best mods. This publish exhibits you the way to put in Minecraft mods on Windows 10. Scroll down to get the detailed tutorial. Inserting the blame on VeltPvP, the hoaxer said the network had enaged in a campaign of Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) assaults - which he alleges have been used to try to shut down other rival Minecraft servers. Galacticraft is an expansive mod that elucidates on the truth that despite the procedurally generated limitless plain, the world of Minecraft is in reality, quite small. Whenever you need to construct something and discovering yourself get restricted by the sport features, use this mod.

Oh, and you too can change your initial world between artistic and survival modes each time you would like by way of the options menu, so don't fret about losing your nifty creations while you want to change up your gameplay sooner or later. Generally, Minecraft mods are game modifications that you need to use to change the looks, change the gameplay, and embody additional missions simply to call a few. This identify relies on the variant that has affected your pc. Minecraft is a delightful and massively profitable game, but no one would say its success hinges upon realism. Part of this success will be attributed to the excessive diploma of customization available. The method to construct things in Minecraft 1.17 is simple, with few commands you possibly can simply construct up issues quicker. Have you learnt learn how to replace Minecraft Home windows 10? The studio has been preparing fresh fixes for Minecraft: Java Version within the type of a 1.18.2 patch, which Minecraft: Bedrock Edition already loved at the end of 2021. On Friday, the first pre-release snapshot for the upcoming update was released to fascinated gamers. I will share the list of the highest 9 Mods for the newest Minecraft 1.17 replace additionally on how to make use of the Cave and Cliff characteristic.

Kickstart your Minecraft mod journey right here. You may set up this mod on the consumer or server facet. You should utilize a skeleton or other mob skin on your participant but you could have to remember it will not alter the essential look of your participant. With the intention to progress and get the mod's contents, the participant must visit several new places. When you get a home, a worktable and a torch, the game actually picks up. So if you're too much fascinated with farming then there's one mod that may unlock loads of farming options in Minecraft 1.17. You may set up Pam’s HarvestCraft Mod to unlock round eighty new crops, around 6 garden bushes, 50 fruits, 19 fish, etc. This mod can add up to 1500 objects in the game. Are you able to Mod Minecraft Realms? You possibly can mod Minecraft on Home windows 10, however are you able to mod Minecraft Realms? In case you are searching for some help on how to put in mods in Minecraft 1.17 then keep studying.

#MINECRAFT CRAFTING

1 note · View note

wojiushi18 · 3 years

Text

outlet store of gucci handbags

Long range radar sensors, 12 ultrasonic sensors, laser scanners and hi resolution video cameras will constantly monitor the car's surroundings, with the system also able to guide a car safely through traffic jams at up to speeds of 37mph.Audi believes up to 90 per cent of all innovation in the automotive sector will come from electronics, with lighting playing a significant part. Matrix LED technology is still relatively new but Audi is already working to move the game on further. "We are llantas 4x4 online working on the integration of organic LEDs," said Ricky Hudi, Head of Electronics at Audi. I couldn deal with the rules, you know. I lived on the streets for two weeks, slept in the park a few nights. Moving around, it was real awkward, feeling strange, not knowing where I was going to rest my head, get my next meal from. Jia nike air max Lian gucci shoes outlet at this tiffany jewelry time michael kors bags did ugg not michael kors uk have ray ban sunglasses the burberry sale nerve, dre beats just puma online shop ridicule air jordan retro drink, ugg australia say calvin klein outlet hermes outlet word, instyler ionic styler to roshe run hold chi flat iron rice, veneta a bowl burberry outlet store of gucci handbags the swarovski crystal child but uggs on sale also air jordans to swarovski Jane hilfiger online shop uncle pandora jewellery australia thing chanel over wedding dress there michael kors uhren to new balance shoes negotiate. Louis vuitton handbags down polo ralph lauren to juicy couture outlet business nike air huarache just asics gel for ghd what nike air max you uggs call adidas superstar classic vuitton handbags coach handbags Lian said: uggs on sale It salomon schuhe is hollister co mothering burberry outlet online busy and north face jackets asked:. bdsm puma Nike roshe run mothering supra footwear thing actually polo outlet store quasi fragmentation tommy hilfiger online ralph lauren Lian laughed: red bottom though tommy hilfiger outlet not very accurate, ray ban wayfarer there are toms outlet eight accurately. That's the breezy, "school's out" feel that the new limited edition Ralph Lauren polo tries to conjure in a look good/do good line to raise money for breast cancer awareness. "Kids love it," she tells a woman in shades and a baseball cap screwed on backward. She'd never say 'when I die.' She'd always say 'when I get well' but we both knew what that meant. THE DETAILS These are strange and difficult days for Old Media. The rise of New Media blogs, podcasts, downloaded sitcoms, uploaded news has had a seismic effect on the mainstream media, or MSM in blogger parlance. Large fissures have opened up in the once terra firma of the MSM and a lot of good men (and women) have fallen in, never to be heard from again. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3 (2), pp. 148 170.Blackwood, L., Hopkins, N. And Reicher, S., 2013. Step Verify the status of your application (optional) Criminal Record and Vulnerable Sector (VS) checks are completed in the order received. The RCMP cannot make any exceptions as it will negatively impact individuals currently awaiting results. To enquire about the status of your application, it is important to wait until after the processing time has passed.. It time for Channel 9 to start rewarding loyalty with a product that treats consumers with respect. Stop objectifying women. Talk more about footy. We've got three daughters, so I get it. Just last winter I ran to Target WalMart to find they were both out of gloves. Both Kohl's Sears are traditional department stores that have everything under one roof both have good prices. On Aug. 31, Valdez was paraded in front of the media at the Mexican federal police headquarters in Mexico City. Ramon Pequeno Garcia, the head of the anti drug division of the Mexican federal police, described Valdez as one of the most important narcotics traffickers in the country with operations across Mexico.. Ask yourself some questions before you start. How cheap is it? If it's very cheap and it's not used, be suspicious. Who are you buying nike hip pack from? A department store is usually fairly safe but street markets are a big gamble. Ralph Lauren has struggled with declining sales and sharply reduced earnings in recent quarters. The company recently announced that CEO Stefan Larsson will leave the company as of May 1 due to creative differences with founder and nike black tn 001 chairman Ralph Lauren. Lauren will remain chairman and chief creative officer but will not assume the CEO job, according to the company.. Night and did he appear in any way to be impaired intoxicated or drop. Now to my knowledge no. But prosecutors are focus not just on how much the local was drinking. He's quite extraordinary and mustang női cipő árgép he's able to retain all of those ideas and complexities of the drama in his head and it's wonderful to see that in action. He says he takes the dog for a walk in the morning and that's when he works jeans moda 2015 donna amazon out all his plots. It's quite unique really.. Dear Suzy: I hear this complaint all the time that the people doing makeup at department store counters don't listen to their clients and overdo it! First of all, they need to wise up, but equally important, you need to speak up. Tell them exactly what you told me and that you don't want to walk out adidas goalkeeper jersey of there embarrassed to show your face. The Bobbi Brown counter is a good place to start, since Brown built her makeup company on a less is more concept. All this fashion talk, including phrases like "I liked the cK dress, it can be worn for smart or casual," from Robyn, and "I love baby nike trainers Sugar for its fashion pages," from Fleur is a bit unsettling at first. Most of us who are old enough to talk about our childhood with a sense szemüveg csúszásgátló of nostalgia remember very occasional trips to C Clockhouse or Chelsea Girl for clothes to wear out of school time. Miss Selfridge and Top bdsm puma Shop was for grown ups, or those with a Saturday job and lots of money. Many fashion conscious women on limited budgets probably know about The Place, one of the pio neer resale stores in Southern California. For more than 30 years, those who want to look richer than they are have ridden the resale avenue to fashion success. The Place is one of the best consignment stores in town, with a vast collection of the top names in haute couture, along with some new merchandise..

0 notes

musicgoonmail · 4 years

Text

Wedding Cake

In This Edition

In this week’s edition, I share my most recent interviews, reflect on Instagram turning 10, and write on what I’ve been enjoying in entertainment. As always, I share what’s new with my book reviews and point you to the all of the new free eBooks around the web.

Even though the Southern California heat does not cool down, it is starting to feel like the Fall season in my mind. I think it shows in these longer newsletters that I love to write. Don’t forget that you can always let me know what you think simply by replying to this email. Thanks for spending your weekend with me here.

Interview: "Stop Taking Sides" with Adam Mabry

Instagram Turns 10

Godly Wisdom

Book Reviews

Free eBooks for October

More Free eBooks for October

Extended Play

Lightning Links

Playlists

Coming Soon

Weekly Review

Interview: "Stop Taking Sides" with Adam Mabry

Earlier this week I went LIVE on Instagram to interview author and Pastor Adam Mabry about his book "Stop Taking Sides." It was an encouraging conversation and I'm thankful for the opportunity. We talked about his book, his writing process, and publishing with The Good Book Company. He also gave some tips to writers. You can watch our interview on IGTV or listen on Spotify and Podcasts.

I have been interviewing my pastors and members at my church with my Walnut Commentary, Walnut Notes, and Unikoi Questions podcasts. It is a joy to serve our congregation in this way. Starting at SOLA Network and growing Dive In Dig Deep has allowed me to interview a wider group of people. On my website, I made a working list of the interviews I've conducted. I hope to get to do a few more before the end of the year.

Instagram Turns 10

Instagram turned 10 this week. As hidden features, they brought back the classic icons and added a private map and archive of your stories from the past three years. To access the icons, click on your profile icon on the bottom right corner, click the hamburger menu on the top right corner, click on the settings menu, and do a long swipe up. For the private map, click on your profile icon on the bottom right corner, click the hamburger menu on the top right corner, click on the settings menu, and click on the archive.

Instagram is, probably, the app that I spend the most time on. While it's afforded me a lot of fun, I know we can't deny that it is still dangerous. In a recent newsletter, tech writer Casey Newton spoke with Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier. He asked: "Of all the changes made to Instagram since then, which do you think has had the biggest consequences?" She answered: "The crucial change was the addition of stories. We usually think about it in terms of its significance from a competitive standpoint — like Instagram vs. Snapchat. I think it's actually more significant from the standpoint of Instagram recognizing that the immense pressure that people have to perform on Instagram, and portray their lives a certain way, is actually bad for growth. The anxiety that goes into deciding whether something is Instagrammable actually made people post less. Since they introduced stories, they’ve taken away some of that pressure. That’s what really brought them down their path to a billion users, and the ensuing conflicts with Facebook over whether they would cannibalize Facebook's success."

Even though Frier states that stories has taken away some pressure, I think there is still a performative aspect to sharing stories. We're crafting our image, creating our persona, and it doesn't always align with reality. And the dangers are more than what we create. It also includes what we consume. We can get jealous, greedy, assume the worst, and judge others. There's also the dangers of pornography and lust, emotional attachment and sliding into DMs for inappropriate relationships.

I have two points to make after sharing on this. First, I hope to reawaken us to the reality of the platforms that we use. To think of them in a sober way and to stay safe. Second, I want to remind us that our true selves aren't always reflected in what we share. I hope to show a better glimpse of my heart here in this newsletter, and I'll do my best to keep it real.

Godly Wisdom

I made another short sermon excerpt video for my home church, FCBC Walnut. I trimmed a clip from our youth pastor Kevin, grabbed a photo, added some effects, and made some music. Can you guess what song I played? Here is the main point: “Godly wisdom should move you to work towards future goals, hopes, and dreams while surrendering everything to the good and perfect will of God.” You can watch the excerpt on YouTube and IGTV.

October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and I took the opportunity to record a 2-minute video to thank our pastors. You can watch it on YouTube and IGTV. And in the most recent episode of our Walnut Women podcast, my friend Leslie asked Regina, Meryl, and Vanessa - who are pastor’s wives: “How can the church love and encourage the pastors and their families?” You can watch the 9-minute clip on YouTube and IGTV, and catch the entire 40-minute interview on YouTube.

Book Reviews

This week I published a total of 6 reviews. There was a good variety, including a book of articles compiled from Christianity Today through the years on American Evangelism and political engagement, some classic Christian books, a festschrift to Don Whitney (author of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life), and Crossway's Unfolding Grace (with the accompanying Study Guide).

Unfolding Grace

Study Guide Review: Unfolding Grace

Grace and Glory by Geerhardus Vos

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs

The Spirit of Holiness

Dual Citizens

Free eBooks for October

Monergism added two new eBooks this week: Assurance to All the Heirs of Promise: Sermons on Hebrews 6:18 by Thomas Manton and The Balm of the Covenant Applied to the Bleeding Wounds of Afflicted Saints by John Flavel.

Ligonier is offering for free the Luther and the Reformation video teaching series with R.C. Sproul and the ebook edition of The Legacy of Luther edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols. And to further celebrate Reformation month, you can also stream the Luther Documentary for free.

Monergism: Assurance to All the Heirs of Promise: Sermons on Hebrews 6:18 by Thomas Manton

Monergism: The Balm of the Covenant Applied to the Bleeding Wounds of Afflicted Saints by John Flavel

Ligonier: The Legacy of Luther edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols

More Free eBooks for October

This week, DesiringGod featured This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence. It is available to download for free as a PDF on their website. I consider it one of my top reads on marriage and I highly recommend it. The free eBook for the month of October from The Good Book Company is Time for Every Thing? by Matt Fuller. In this book, Matt Fuller shows how following Jesus frees us from the tyranny of the to-do list.

The October issue of Ligonier’s Tabletalk Magazine is on Covenant Theology, and this issue seeks to help readers better understand covenant theology by exploring its basics and the many ways it applies to the Christian life. The October issue of the 9Marks Journal is about Learning from Scripture and History on Pastoring in Political Turmoil. The October issue of Credo Magazine looks at the Nicene Creed and the doctrine of the Trinity. The Fall edition of The Master’s Seminary Journal opens with an editorial on how their new direction will be focused less on popular-level articles and more on academic papers. Check out the list below for more free recent reads.

The Good Book Company: Time for Every Thing? by Matt Fuller

Tabletalk Magazine: Covenant Theology

The Master’s Seminary Journal: Fall 2020

9Marks Journal: Learning from Scripture and History on Pastoring in Political Turmoil

Credo Magazine: The Nicene Creed

DesiringGod: This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence

The Gospel Coalition: 250 Theological Essays

Crossway and 9 Marks: How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics?

Crossway and 9Marks: Prayer: How Praying Together Shapes the Church by John Onwuchekwa

The Gospel Coalition: 9 Free eBooks by D. A. Carson

Extended Play

Jess and I are having fun watching "Halloween" movies that aren't really Halloween movies. We watched A Bug's Life (because bugs are creepy) Monsters Inc (because monsters), Monsters University (because monsters again), and Beauty and the Beast (because of Beast). 1991's Beauty and the Beast is a classic, and rightfully so - the animation is beautiful and the songs are made for Broadway. It holds a special place in Disney history, and you can read about it on Wikipedia and watch the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty on Disney+ for your own insight and entertainment.

The podcast that impacted me the most this week was the Ask Pastor John episode: Why Do I Need to Read the Bible When We Have Bible Teachers Online? Today more than ever, Christians have access to a wealth of faithful Bible teaching online. So, why do we need to read the Bible for ourselves? Here is my takeaway quote: "Perhaps at the bottom of the problem is that our friend has so completely intellectualized his faith that the only category in which he thinks, the only category that’s going to profit him, he thinks, is the category of verbal explanation. There are a lot of people who think about sermons that way. They just think, “I need to know; I need some more information, some more explanation,” rather than also the heartfelt exultation that a lover has in reading the very words of his beloved."

Throwback: Trials are Tests

Article: Bach: A Theologian at the Workplace by Jonathan Camire

Podcast: Why Do I Need to Read the Bible When We Have Bible Teachers Online? by John Piper

Movie: Beauty and the Beast (1991)

TV: Community

Book: The Gathering Storm by Albert Mohler (Thanks, Endora!)

Music: Wedding Cake by Damien Jurado

Lightning Links

These quick hits are exclusive to my newsletter readers. Some struck immediately before writing this newsletter. I don’t necessarily endorse the positions or lives of these authors. Some may contain sensitive language. I find them all extremely interesting.

Instagram Turns 10: How the App Helped Democratize Art

‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ sets surprise holiday special

The Problem with the Inconsequential Quest

Asian Americans most likely to live in multigenerational homes. How Covid has taken a toll

Kelly Marie Tran on Why Quitting Social Media Was Her Best Decision Ever

Jiayang Fan’s Grub Street Diet: Jiayang Fan Misses Chinatown’s Muscadines “They’re like a summer-camp boyfriend. By August you think, I’m gonna have to part with you soon …”

Playlists

MUSICGOON: 7 songs I enjoyed this week.

SVRGNLA: Jess and I love these songs.

ETJ: Music that inspires my band.

DIDD: A crowd-sourced worship playlist.

TGIF: SOLA Network friends and faves.

This is FCBC Walnut: The songs we sing at church.

Coming Soon

I’m finalizing some lyrics to a new original worship song I want to sing at church soon, and I’m trying to squeeze some remote recording worship covers in with some friends before the end of the year.

I have some BIbles and children’s books arriving soon for reviews, and several Christmas books are also starting to be sent out. But before Jess and I start getting ready for Christmas, we’re excited to get Linus and Ark dressed up in their Halloween costumes.

Weekly Review

SOLA: Justin Giboney’s Both/AND Politics / When God Chooses Not to Give You Children / Why Do I Need to Read the Bible When We Have Bible Teachers Online?

TGIF: This I Believe (The Creed) / Stream the Luther Documentary for Free / Why Do I Need to Read the Bible When We Have Bible Teachers Online?

Book Review: Unfolding Grace

Book Review: Grace and Glory by Geerhardus Vos

Study Guide Review: Unfolding Grace

Book Review: The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs

Book Review: The Spirit of Holiness

Book Review: Dual Citizens

Recommended Reading: Forgiveness Is Spiritual Warfare / The Church Is You, So the Church Will Be Like You / Folding Singles into Family in the Life of the Church / Sisters, You Have Permission to Lead an Ordinary Life

0 notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

With Crystal of Storms, Rhianna Pratchett Helps Reboot Fighting Fantasy Roleplay Books

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Writer Rhianna Pratchett, known for video games including the Tomb Raider reboot and the Overlord series, returns to an early staple of role-playing gaming with Fighting Fantasy. Pratchett’s book, Crystal of Storms, takes players into a fantasy police procedural on a floating island.

She’s one of only two guest writers for the franchise, and the first woman to put her stamp on it. With a strong career of her own and the legacy of her father Terry’s Discworld series, her quirky take on the fantasy procedural is part of Scholastic’s revitalization of Fighting Fantasy.

Developed in the 80s, Fighting Fantasy works as an introduction for kids to fantasy roleplaying. Players can use dice or flip the pages to roll different outcomes for their characters. Items, stat trackers, and alternate origin stories make Fighting Fantasy more complicated than a choose-your-own-adventure book but still easy to play solo.

“We’re delighted to welcome Rhianna to the world of Fighting Fantasy,” Ian Livingstone, co-creator of Fighting Fantasy, said. “Her charming writing style and clever, imaginative world-building in Crystal of Storms is a new take on the genre and a joy to read.”

Den of Geek called Pratchett to talk about humor, fantasy, narrative design for games, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Den of Geek: How does a Fighting Fantasy game work?

Pratchett: Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson created Fighting Fantasy back in the 80s. I read it as a kid. You choose where the adventure goes. You make choices as you encounter different scenarios, characters, and monsters. You pick up potions and weapons, various things that can help. Just like in an RPG game, except it’s all text. For the choices you make, you turn to different sections of the book and see what the results of those choices are.

You can use traditional dice, and there’s a section at the back where you can record your stats and rolls to see how a battle will turn out. You can record your gold, the provisions, any code words, things like that. But you could also use the pages themselves as dice rolls because every page has a pair of dice with numbers on it, so if you don’t have dice, randomly flick through the book and stop on a page, and on the corner it will tell you what the dice roll will be. Which is very handy. There’s something nice about using physical dice while you’re playing it, so it’s very interactive.

As an older adult you don’t have dice about as much as you do as a kid! I had to go out and get dice and pencil when I was doing research!

What was your process for world building for the archipelago of Pangaria?

I came up with the overarching idea based on an amalgamation of a few things. There was a bit in Gates of Death (a previous Fighting Fantasy book by guest author Charlie Higson) where you interact with goblins that have a flying machine. I thought that sounds pretty cool. I wonder if you could go bigger with that? I was also reading a news story about cloud formations that look like cities. No one knows why! Those things merged in my head, the city in the sky, the goblins, and their flying machine. It had been a long time since I’d read classic Fighting Fantasy books. I wanted very specific areas I could develop in the same way you’d develop a level for a game. That’s why I had the archipelago and the different islands that all have different roles within the economy of Pangaria. So you’ve got the water island, the farming island, the technomancy island. Technomancy, which is halfway between magic and technology, is what underpins the whole of Pangaria. It’s what makes the islands fly, what powers the storm crystals you have in these portable wings you can wear to fly around different islands. There are these little goblin airbuses that go between islands as well. I wanted to create distinct areas I could personalize, make unique, and have fun with and create original monsters for as well as delving into the archives and coming up with some classic monsters that hadn’t been seen for a while. It was a good mixture of that.

A lot of it I did on the fly. Ian Livingstone told me how hard it was. I thought he was joking with me. “Oh, he’s just trying to scare me,” but it is very hard. If Ian Livingstone tells you that, it probably is hard given that he’s written so many of them. Ultimately your writing will not end up in a linear form. Each page has multiple sections, all of which are numbered. You need to make sure you have enough sections, about 400 sections, and that they’re covering enough words, and they’re not next to each other. All that can be quite difficult to manage. Fighting Fantasy authors have different ways of doing it. Ian writes it out freehand. I started doing that, then I did a flow chart. That was becoming too time consuming, so I started an Excel document with colors for different sections, and the pages, and the different islands. Which more or less worked. So I devised my own system for how it works. I had the great Jonathan Green, who is a Fighting Fantasy author who’s written a lot, helping guide me through the world. Particularly with things like boss fights, how to structure fights in the Fighting Fantasy style, and how to do things like have little moments within the boss fights where you can roll the dice to do something specific.

The thing that underpins Pangaria is a combination of the goblins’ tech and creatures called stormborns, that are a bit like jinns as we know them, but not like jinns in the Fighting Fantasy world. They’re like elementals that live in and around the Ocean of Tempests, which is where Pangaria is situated. It’s floating in the eye of the storm, protected from the outside world by this giant tempest. The stormborns harvest storm crystals from the tempests, which are used to power the goblins’ tech.

You start off as a member of the Sky Watch, which are more or less like the police force, but Pangaria is largely peaceful. You don’t have much to do and you’re a little bit bored and wishing for adventures. You find yourself the only Sky Watch member left. All the other recruits are on the Nimbus island, which crashes into the ocean at the start of the story.

All the islands are named after clouds. There are five islands, around a sixth central island. The sixth crashes out of the sky and you have to visit the other islands and find out what happened to the island, how to get down there, who’s responsible for it. It’s a fantasy police procedural set on a floating archipelago, basically.

Did your history writing video games help in putting this book together?

Certainly the level design aspect. I wouldn’t call myself a game designer, although I would call myself a narrative designer, which is kind of a subset of game design. I have had to pick up a lot along the way, and I have had to work on games which were very level based. Each level has its own unique aesthetic and personality and characters and things like that. So I’m used to creating mini-worlds within worlds. So that really helped.

Usually, I don’t get the opportunity to write fights as part of my job when I work on games because that’s usually done with whoever’s dealing with the gameplay mechanics. That’s not usually me, unless there is a substantial bit of narrative embedded into the fight. For smaller, indie projects like Lost Words: Beyond The Page, my last game, I had quite a big role in coming up with some of the mechanics and level design aspects because they were so heavily tied to the narrative in that game. I’d been working on it for three or four years on and off. My brain had developed in a way that when I took on this project I understood things on an intrinsic level that maybe if I hadn’t been in video games for so long I wouldn’t have understood so easily. I understand the pace of games and I could bring that to the table.

Also brevity! In games you have to learn to be succinct. If you’re dealing with lots of little sections and you have to write 400 or so sections, you have to be economical about your words.

What is your history with Fighting Fantasy?

I played them when I was 8 or 9 years old. I used to get them out from my local library. In fact I think I got a threatening letter from my library when I was a child because I’d held on to the book so long. I thought they were threatening me with taking me to court!

As the first female author in the series, do you bring an element to it that girls and women would particularly appreciate?

Ian and Steve have been bringing the books back over the last couple years, and bringing in guest authors like Charlie and myself to work on. It’s fun that there are still areas in this world where women haven’t done anything before. It’s nice but nerve wracking to be the first woman to write one. Our illustrator [Eva Eskelinen] as well is the first woman to illustrate for a Fighting Fantasy book.

It’s hard to know because I don’t have any frame of reference other than being who I am. A lot of what I did in games narrative was quite new for women to get involved in. There were obviously women who were doing great work in fantasy games in the 80s, Roberta Williams, Jane Jensen, and Christie Marks who did the King’s Quest games, Conquests of Camelot, and the Gabriel Knight games. There are a lot of women who worked in design who were also doing narrative.

I think it’s more than I bring my own sensibilities to it. It’s very difficult to separate what’s me and what’s particularly female. I had to write in the Fighting Fantasy tone, which is quite standard fantasy tone. Not particularly jokey. I probably stretched jokiness and irreverent charm to about as much as I could…I don’t think it’s intrinsically female. It’s intrinsically me.

Your contribution is described as “narrative rich.” What do you focus on when it comes to giving a unique identity to your own writing style?

As a writer you have to be open to all kinds of information and stories. You need to read. You need to be interested in people and the world. You need content to generate content. You need to pay attention to the news and read around the genre you’re writing for. You need to go as broad as you can, to educate yourself, exercise your imagination and your creativity as a result of that. So I don’t have any particular tools except all the stuff that goes into my brain and comes out. I don’t really know what happens in the middle. Lots of stuff goes in and stories come out!

I’m often working with stories that exist in part. In games, I coined the term “narrative paramedic” many, many years ago to describe the job a game writer sometimes does where they’re basically handed a box of narrative body parts and you have to assemble them into a story. Or the story is dying very badly and you have to save it. Narrative paramedics often get called in very late in the day. They’re patching up the story, not writing it from the ground up. When I was a games journalist I never met a game writer. I might have met some designers that did some writing. Writing was done literally by whoever had the time and inclination to do it. It could’ve been designers, or producers. It wasn’t done by a professional as a standard. That has changed very much. Game studios are building out their narrative teams. But we’re still working out how to fit writers into the process both in house and freelance. … You still get narrative paramedic jobs, but they’re thankfully less common because more studios have writing teams or relationships with writers.

It was Mary DeMarle, who’s narrative director now at Eidos Montreal, who coined the term narrative designer when she was working on the Myst games. Narrative designer is different to a writer, although those jobs are shared. Writers deal with what you might think of as traditional writing, the story, the dialogue, the cinematics, the VO, letters, documents, graffiti, that kind of thing. Whereas a narrative designer is concerned with how the story gets to the player. How the player will experience it. It could be the player experiences it through cinematics, or level design and art and there’s no traditional narrative. They’re usually a conduit between the writers and the rest of the design team and make sure the needs of the design team are communicated to the writers. Some do writing themselves, some don’t, but they’re really there to make sure the story gets into the game in the best way possible.

I really like putting humor in games and quirky weirdness that is intrinsically me I think. I worked on all the Overlord games with Triumph Studios and Codemasters years back, and they were fun to write for. There’s not always room to do that in games, but wherever I can. It’s a product of what I read, what I listen to, how I think, how I was raised, what I’ve experienced.

I’m always very suspicious if writers really have a handle on what is going on inside their heads to produce the stories. It feels a bit magical. Which I know is not helpful, because people would like “you need to do this and this.” There are some of those! But a lot of it is your mind as a writer, your mind you have developed through being open to the world, and letting that percolate. Eventually in the narrative gumbo things will float to the top.

I’m a very multitasking writer. I’m not good at setting hours. I work all hours, mostly during the evening, and its very antisocial but I have a very understanding partner. I wish I was a writer who could get up, start a day at a particular time and end at a particular time. But I’m not. But it works for me!

Were there any particularly fun ways you worked the mechanics into the story, or anything that would only work in Fighting Fantasy?

When you’re working in games, you have a fear that someone’s going to press x or spacebar and skip the cutscene or whatever that you’ve spent weeks or months of your life slaving over. It can just be skipped. That’s a risk and the nature of your job. With Crystal of Storms I know readers are engaged. They’re there for the words. Although every player of Fighting Fantasy knows basically that you go to the different sections and learn all the outcomes and choose which one you like best. You learn to have about four different fingers in different sections of the book so you can flick between things to see what the outcomes are.

What games are you playing nowadays?

I always like The Long Dark. I always joke with the ghost dad in my head, because my dad was a big gamer. Sometimes I play games because I can tell they’re the kind of game he would like. I have a particular fondness for wilderness survival games because when I was growing up my dad and I lived in the countryside on the edge of a valley, and my dad would take me out walking and teach me about what plants and berries and fungus were edible and which weren’t. Or, I guess, everything is edible once.

He would teach me a light smattering of wilderness survival, and I was always interested in books that touched on that as a kid. So I really like games like Don’t Starve. I play that a lot with my partner. My partner actually got me a beefalo plushie from Don’t Starve!

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

I’ve also been playing Among Trees, and I’ve started to do a lot of the harder challenges in The Long Dark. We have a bit of a heat wave here in the UK so it makes me feel slightly cooler to be playing a game set in the Canadian snowy wilderness. I am somewhat obsessed with that and my poor partner has to endure tales of how I escaped wolves, and how I shot a moose with one shot and then two wolves got me! The emergent narrative as well as the existing narrative Hinterland [Studio] has done with their story chapters are really, really good. I’ve turned to outdoor games where you’re trumping around in the wilderness in isolation.

Crystal of Storms is out on October 1st. Find out more about it here.

The post With Crystal of Storms, Rhianna Pratchett Helps Reboot Fighting Fantasy Roleplay Books appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jvyA2N

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

pokefan531 · 4 years

Text

My take on Pokemon Unite and covering the problems

Hey guys. I am gonna do my take on Pokemon Unite and put out what is going on with it, and what I think about it. I see a lot of negative feedback, so I'll address a couple of sides of this situation.

Well, last week, we got Pokemon Presentation that has more than one thing, and it covers Cafe Mix, New Snap, Sword and Shield Isle of Armor that came out the exact day, and new things about sleep and home. Last week has a lot of content on it, and they then say next week is a big announcement. It will make it seem like it's worth seeing since the first presentation was a good one due to its content.

When I saw the recent presentation, it was just Pokemon Unite on the entire presentation, and people seem to be disappointed of it. First off, I don't hate it and just thought it was just a League of Legend reskin to Pokemon that is on Switch and Mobile. We will be breaking down to each problems. I will put the good, the bad, and what they could've done to be neutral to the situation.

First problem is the marketing and what the last Pokemon Presentation said about the next presentation on the following week that it will be a big announcement. Well, if they say it's gonna be a big announcement, it will make people have high expectations like wanting a johto or sinnoh remake. You're pretty much giving it more hype by saying. So, I only saw the recent presentation with no expectations, because I didn't want them to make any remakes to begin with since Let's Go Games cost them development time on Sword and Shield, that brought up #BringBackNationalDex situation as well as being really rushed for the holidays with less effort on animation and graphics that I saw from DistantKingdom. I wanted games to be developed well and not disappoint people that last year's problem has. At the same time, I never really have high expectations on most panels since they always come unexpected, so the presentation didn't anger me or anything. I just thought if the game was really worth a big presentation. Mobile and Free to Play games aren't really a big announcement since they are just small games, but what is would be something that is exclusive on game consoles as a paid game. I do think they could've included the game on last week's presentation to have at least a bit longer presentation that is with all its games being announced. That way, it would've been more neutral and people would be like "Okay...A Pokemon MOBA game." instead of "THAT'S A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT?! A POKEMON MOBA GAME?". You can see the attitude change, if they either include that game on last week's presentation or swap it with Pokemon New Snap since it's an iconic game, and if New Snap was covering the whole presentation from Wednesday, it would've been a deal breaker. People would be more happy and it should include gameplay for a little bit. I think they should've present Unite better. Also, a presentation should have at least two things, with a little bit of showing off merch and stuff. I know Diablo has that problem two years ago because it was marketed as a big announcement for a PC franchise and it turned to be a mobile free to play game, and it was booed on the panel and blizzard people has some attitude on the fans, especially since there was no new Diablo game for a long time. With Pokemon Unite, it wasn't as worse since I don't every gaming news overreacting to its feedback, so the drama is pretty smaller than Diablo's situation.

The second problem of Pokemon Unite was it was made by Tencent, a Chinese company who makes free to play mobile games. People do not like that company and I'll explain why based on my research. Tencent is a level of EA, aka Electronic Arts. As we should know, EA is a very greedy company that is unfriendly with its consumers, and fill their games with microtransactions and trying to get more money from people. The best example of a game that has this problem was Star Wars Battlefront 2 when it came out, and it has microtransactions that let's players become stronger when paying powerups so it's a pay to win kind of thing. Also, you have to pay for characters to get it instantly, as you would have to grind for too many hours otherwise. There is also a game from EA called Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, a free to play Mobile game. It was heavily forced to pay microtransaction to progress the game much quicker, and it recently banned a player for reporting that there are hackers, and they ignored him and thought he was breaking their TOS. EA is a very shady company. So with Tencent, they're almost the same level as EA, so that is pretty much the reason why people don't like Tencent. They do stuffs like this too as far as I heard. I don't really play those type of games because I don't like when they decide to make free to play games that heavily relies on Microtransaction that really impacts the enjoyment of a game, but as for Pokemon Unite, we haven't seen more information yet besides the gameplay. I wouldn't expect it to be as much fun since I gathered information about Tencent.

[Edit 9/22: Well, right after I post this, people told me more about Tencent. They’re worse than EA, because they have huge connections with Chinese government, and they can control and see people’s data and such, as well as censorship, so they have much more government control, and they own so many things, moreso than Disney and Microsoft. Well, it was announced a year prior that Tencent would work on a Pokemon game, but SwSh not having dex was taking over, since it was a main game. With a poor presentation, it’s theorized that Tencent paid the Pokemon Company to have their own presentation for the game, or that TPC decided to do that, but more on the former. Still, it wouldn’t get as much backlash if it was included on the presentation a week before with the other games.]

As a concept, it looks decent. The models and its gameplay looks fine. I thought it would be all right on itself. MOBA games are really big in China and any mobile games there. They barely play console games since most consoles haven't sold there until the PS4 era, but everyone has phones so they can play games anywhere. It may be all right, but I wouldn't expect much. If you do want to play a new Pokemon free to play game, tryout Pokemon Cafe Mix. It's a lot more fun and its microtransactions are completely optional, and you an play the game without internet/mobile connection. Cafe Mix came out few days ago and it looks addicting. It's on Mobile and Switch.

So, do I think the fans have the right to be disappointed by the game, or are they really toxic? Well, I do think they were expecting the panel too highly because they said this presentation was gonna be big, but it isn't. I suggest not to make things clickbaity, and be more honest about it. Since I learned about Tencent, it isn't that surprising. [Also, I know they’re people who will have high expectations for the remakes and such, but they should remind themselves that Tencent made an announcement a year prior.] However, I don't think they should go after people that work on those games, or have a divide on a fandom of a particular game, because I don't want a split fandom. I had that problem with The Last Jedi and its problems (TLJ is much worse than this, believe me). [Yes, even with all the problems with Sword and Shield, Let’s Go games, and recently Unite, I believe almost every fandom I’ve been in had toxic sides that will react, and it is the companies fault for creating a mess of this hype and announcement. I didn’t feel ashamed enough with the Pokemon situations, unlike Star Wars, which was fueled by PC culture left and right since TLJ came out, and the fandom was worse. I am not doubting that Pokemon fandom, like most fandoms, have their bad sides, and we’re living in a social media era for over a decade. I never take part of any hashtags for protest, since I was BBND taking things too far to others on Twitter, and JusticeForChloeB was another one. I’ve seen things gets worse since mid 2010s because of stuffs like Twitter and shifts with game companies deciding things like Pokemon Unite, Star Wars Battlefront 2, or Diablo Immortal in this era that creates backlash due to companies decisions.] Overall, Pokemon Unite could've been presented better and the company who made it should try to avoid mistakes EA has made on their records. I personally don't play MOBA games or a couple of free to plays, so I am pretty much more neutral to Pokemon Unite itself. Still better than Sony's recent game, TLoU2. The beginning had a meaningful description of Pokemon fans, but I think it should've been with last week's presentation to have more neutral reaction. I'm glad it got sorta calm a few days after it. If you got information, you can comment.

My next take will be on Miraculous Ladybug Season 3, and my next video should be out nearly next week. Have a good night.

0 notes

lagroupie · 5 years

Text

Interview: Consensus

Consensus at L’Ecurie in Geneva with Dr Koul, through my good old Canon.

Two years after his last visit in Switzerland - opening for Mos Def aka Yasiin Bey at Les Docks with C.O.T.I. - I met Consensus again, in Geneva this time. Back when I met him, he had released an album called ConCERNed, in which he rapped about CERN’s research about particle physics! Since then, he has released many new records. During this interview, we catch up before his show at l’Ecurie. Consensus tells me more about his life these past two years, his influences, his latest projects Controversé and SubContext, and touring in the United States and Canada to perform and give talks at universities.

Consensus’ show was so much fun, full of good vibes. The concert ended in an epic freestyle where Consensus was joined by Imagine, Dr Koul and Hip Hop Taoists.

Many thanks to Consensus, C.O.T.I. and the great staff at l’Ecurie for their kindness!

What is your life like in London?

My life now is crazy! Last year in January I was contracting and working part-time, but I stopped and became full-time music. That allowed me to go and travel. But also, my grandma was sick and I would go look after her every week. It was just very different because this was the only thing that was regular every week, while everything else was constantly changing– sometimes I went away for two weeks or something. I also went to Ethiopia and Colombia. At the beginning of this year, my grandma died so I had to deal with the process and writing a lot. So I was writing with Bikuta, who sent me lots of beats. We’re playing near where he lives tomorrow, so I think he’s going to come to the show. I was also writing for another project, so I released two records: Controversé and SubContext.

Then I was doing all of these shows abroad. So it was very random, there was not a lot of structure. It was a lot of me just creating opportunities and stuff. I don’t really regret quitting my job, because if I didn’t do that, then I wouldn’t have done a tour in America and gone to Canada twice. I enjoyed it! I got paid more, which was good! (laughs) I was giving talks at universities and performing. When you go there as an artist, they make a massive deal- they give you good hotels and all this stuff. This year was quite difficult, but I am good at self-motivating!

Let’s talk about SubContext – the lyrics are very personal compared to what you have done before.

Yes, it was like my personal view on things. Because I always do themes, like I did with educational projects. Before I did the next educational project, I wanted to express myself. So SubContext in particular was very much the things I don’t say, or the undertone. It was focused on mood. Each track is a mood, and it’s quite energetic. I wanted to have a lot of performance tracks as well. I feel like people appreciate them better, the tempo is faster.

I also think that the beats sound really cold, and the cover really matches with the music. You look like a futuristic sci-fi character!

It’s like this character, Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat! He works with ice. That’s also a play on words, SubContext/Sub-Zero. I co-produced this with a producer called Subkinetik. He focuses a lot on drum’n’bass, grime and electronic style. We went back and forth, I would send him tracks and he would edit them, send them back and I would structure them and create the songs. I had a lot of input in the structures of the songs, and I was free to say what I wanted. Sometimes you work with producers and you’re limited – they expect you to do a certain track.

Could you also tell me more about In the End? The lyrics are so fast, and it’s difficult to understand everything for a non-native speaker like me! (laughs)

I think I started with the first or the second verse. I did a collaboration before and that verse never got used, so I just adapted it. I wanted to do a chorus with very fast rapping because you never really hear that anymore. I had the beat for ages, from a few years before, but then Subkinetik added the 808 and made it even better. The chorus is about racism in a way: “You don’t really want it/We’ve got knowledge to the coffin/that’s why we’re covered in black”. It’s like a metaphor, because I am thinking about black skin, but you dress in black at a funeral. You don’t want black people to be smart. It’s a social commentary on the image of black people, “I’m like them in the end, you’re like them in the end.” So it’s a really deep thing, but because it’s really fast, most people don’t need to get what it is to get the feeling! Actually, I want to do a video for this track that’s not only about color. For example, the color of anarchists is black. It’s about anti-establishment, not just about race. If I do the visuals, I’ll probably experiment with the idea of wearing black as well as being black.

I also wanted to talk about Controversé, your project with Bikuta.

It was really important for me to have some kind of French word in the title, because Bikuta speaks French! This project has more to do with the lyrics. The beats are slower, so you can take your time. Again, I am saying controversial things. The first song for example, Average Guy. “The will of the average guy kills” is a profound statement. If you don’t strive for more, that can end up killing you. In the verse, I talk about this metaphor of the slow-boiling frog- if you put the frog in the pot and then turn up the water, it will boil slowly, but if you put it in the bowl when it’s already hot, it will jump out. It’s quite edgy, some people might disagree.

Yeah- I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having a 9-5 job that doesn’t really excite you and pays well, but if you can you should find what makes you truly happy.

Exactly! In the last verse, I say that I’ll just keep going until I am happy – until I have done all I wanted to do.

I also really like the song Feel No Way. Could you tell me more about it?

I did a song called Human Race in 2015, and people really liked it. It has a similar feel, it’s about feeling good. I often write very energetic songs about fighting the system. But this time I thought, “I want to do another song that makes you feel good”. I am making the same social commentary, but I am basically saying “it’s okay to feel like that”. Because ultimately, you can move past it. The song is quite open and understandable.

I also like how open you are regarding production – you can rap over very different styles.

I started as a Grime MC, it was only when I was older that I began to rap over hip-hop. I have always been listening to hip-hop though. It’s crazy, but hip-hop was my inspiration for my grime. I would listen to conscious rappers, I was like a conscious grime artist! When I changed to the name ConSensus is when I decided to rap more than do grime stuff. It’s very easy to get into beef in the grime scene, fighting with people. That kind of stuff can happen, I experienced it. I thought “I just want to do music, I want to be an artist”. So I didn’t limit myself to grime. I’d love to do some live music stuff as well, but the organization of bands is a nightmare (laughs). I really respect these guys like C.O.T.I. and people who have instruments and shit, because the more people you deal with, the more ego you have to deal with. My experience of working with other artists is not too bad, but generally the best things I’ve had happening is when the producer has been as enthusiastic as me.

Consensus with Dr Koul and Imagine from C.O.T.I. after the show.

What can we expect from Consensus in the future?

I think I’m gonna do a track with Dr Koul soon. I am also looking to try and get funding for my next projects, so I have two things: one is a project about law and human rights, and it will be with jazz artists, some reggae singers and stuff. I will basically study law, put it into lyrics and make it consumable for school. The second one will be a sequel to the ConCERNed album, so I think I am going to do a project on the origins of the universe. When I went to tour in America, I visited the Kennedy Space Center. I met scientists who are interested in working and collaborating together, and the scientists at CERN at interested in collaborating again. In the meantime, I will just be releasing singles.

https://consensus.avr-music.com/

#ConSensus #Bikuta #worldwideconnects

0 notes

ninety9percent · 5 years

Text

Comments on Joe Biden’s Ad soliciting donations

Joe Biden sponsored this ad on FB. There were interesting comments. Sharing some. Not surprisingly only “Vote Blue No Matter Who” people support him. Comments are being presented as is - no editing. First his ad:

As a top Democrat, you’ve been selected by the Biden for President campaign to share your top priorities with Joe! We need your answers by midnight tonight, so don’t delay. Click below to begin the survey:

MaryBeth Sjostrom Pasmore

✅Opposes Medicare For All ✅Opposes legalizing marijuana ✅Supports the death penalty ✅Wrote the 1994 crime bill ✅Voted for DOMA ✅Voted for NAFTA ✅Voted for Iraq War ✅Voted for PATRIOT Act. Takes money from health insurance, corporations. ... no, I won't vote Joe.

Jenny Miles

Sorry Joe, you are exactly the opposite of what's needed. Too many reasons: 1. “The younger generation now tells me how tough things are—give me a break... No, no, I have no empathy for it, give me a break.” 2. “Trump is not a bad man” 3. Biden praises former Republican Senator who was forced to resign after 19 sexual harassment complaints. 4. Referred to immoral moneylenders as Shylocks - insulting and offending Jews 5. Supported attacks on Anita Hill (who had accused Clarence Thomas of “ inappropriate sexual behavior“) and refused to call witnesses who could testify in support of her claim. 6. Wrote 1994 Crime Bill heralding “the era of mass incarceration“ 7. Wrote 1995 Omnibus Counter Terrorism Bill “ allowing the Government to use evidence from secret sources in deportation proceedings “ (despite claiming to oppose that section he introduced the bill), and included 1st Amendment violating “anti freedom of association” provisions (became Patriot Act) 8. Opposed marriage equality; “ No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage” (has since changed) 9. Voted in 1999 to repeal Glass Steagall - leading to (as expected) the financial crisis 10. In 2001 voted for Patriot Act, emphasizing that it was essentially a copy of his 1995 Omnibus Counter Terrorism Act 11. In 2002 Voted for “illegal” Iraq War 12. In 2005 Voted to end bankruptcy protection for students [ Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) ] 13. In 2018 Presented George Bush with Liberty Medal “presented to individuals for their commitments to veterans “ 14. “I am not Bernie Sanders. I don't think 500 billionaires are the reason we're in trouble. The folks at the top aren't bad guys”. 15. Supported Civil Asset forfeiture, even without an arrest or conviction 16. Pushed for “Cabinet Level Drug Czar” to punish “drug crime” 17. “The punishment should fit the crime. But I think [marijuana] legalization is a mistake. I still believe [marijuana] is a gateway drug.” 18. Opposed spending money on drug research (including medical) on any Schedule 1 drug 19. Supported and introduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses that saw “the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 11% higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 49% higher”. 20. Despite the strong anti drug stance, his daughter was arrested for drugs (and a decade later caught on video allegedly snorting cocaine), but there is no evidence of a conviction or asset seizure. 21. Again, despite the above, when his son tested positive for cocaine, there was no conviction and no asset seizure. 22. Supported Militarization of the Police - that had no effect on reducing crime, but is correlated with higher rates of police discrimination against minorities (blacks) 23. Unable to “think of any reason not to run for President” 24. MBNA Credit Card Company in his home state was his biggest donor between 1989 amnd 2000. Biden voted against a measure requiring credit card companies to warn consumers of the consequences of making only minimum payments (and others). MBNA hired Biden’s son, Hunter, as a lobbyist straight out of law school, and later hired him as a consultant from 2001 to 2005 — the same years Biden was helping to pass the bill 25. Ukraine’s biggest private gas producer (whilst under investigation for corruption) hired his son to serve on its board while Biden was acting as the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine policy. 26. A mid-sized construction firm Hill International won a $1.5 billion contract to build 100,000 homes in Iraq had Biden’s brother, James, as its executive vice president, despite lacking any experience in residential construction prior to joining the firm. 27. One of the Senate’s top twenty-five earners of outside income — and, along with twenty-two others on that list (of top earners), voted against a bill to limit such earnings. 28. In 1979, after receiving donations from Coca-Cola, Biden cosponsored and voted for legislation that let the soft-drink industry get around antitrust laws. 29. The same year, he voted against a measure before the Judiciary Committee to expand consumers’ rights to sue over price-fixing — one of only two Democrats to do so. 30. Has a very close “revolving door” relationship with lobbyists 31. Vehement opponent of school busing implemented to tackle racial segregation 32. Opposed a deficit reduction military spending freeze, and supported an increase in the retirement age 33. “I have the most progressive record of anybody running" 34. Has NOT signed pledge not to accept money from fossil fuels industry 35. “rejection of the whole movement of black pride.” 36. After being accused by seven women of “inappropriate touching” , hugs kids, and makes jokes about it. 37. Offered Ukraine $1Bn to sack their prosecutor 38. Supports a number of anti abortion measures 39. Proud of his support for the death penalty for a wide range of offenses 40. No statement on pledge rejecting corporate money 41. No statement on GND (Green new Deal) 42. No statement on fossil fuel money pledge 43. No statement on support for universal healthcare 44. No statement on "free" college education 45. No statement on abolishing Electoral College 46. No statement on supporting whistelblowers exposing government criminality 47. No published tax returns for 10 years 48. No declared statement opposing Israel genocides in gaza

- via Dennis Freeland

Lindsay Shugerman

Don't run. Please don't run. We don't need another corporate paid shill. Medicare for ALL, no fracking, free public college, livable wages (for real), end to Citizens United and lobbyists buying power. Renewable energy, not oil. In other words, NOTHING you support.

Matthew Pace

There is only one priority. Get the Orange Menace evicted from squatting in the WH; stabilize the government and pass it off to peaceful elections in 2024. The insanity in the WH has to end.

Josh Ruppert - Matthew Biden is just as bought why don't you research before running your mouth. Biden is put as a candidate because the DNC wants to loose. If Bernie wins their slush money goes bye bye.

Hugh Stearns - This anti-intellectual trope is brought to you by the DNC. How, before the primary, does it make any sense to interject anyone but Trump? Of course, we want anyone but Trump. This is an attempt to suggest that we must suffer another centrist candidate or risk losing to Trump. This is the same argument that was used against the more progressive candidate last time. If we want to beat Trump and future Trumps we better think critically about the elitist element of the Democratic Party and question their authority.

Allen Heinzer

My top priority is for Biden to withdraw and support Bernie

Allen Heinzer - Biden is a republican lite there is no establishment democrats they all just democrats in name only Fdr was a democrat Look up his record If democrats would run on that they’d never lose

Allen Heinzer - Ask yourself if he is a democrat why didn’t him and Obama give us universal healthcare when they had super majority in all 3 branches

Nancy Hollister Kozlenko - Allen Heinzer I hope you support who ever represents the Democratic Party and not go off in a huff if your guy or gal doesn’t win. That’s how Trump got in!

Lin Bower - Martha Korte Get real,Bernie is a back stabber.He was such a good friend to Hillary until she beat him .Then he wasn’t.A person like that is not Presidential material.

D Kim Sayre-Arnold - Gary Bailey And Bernie WAS THE SPLITTER IN 2016!!! HE NEEDS TO STICK TO HIS OWN PARTY, and please, stay out of mine.!

Pamela Jarvis - Allen, that about sums it up. Biden announced his run at $2,000 a plate fund raiser with corporate CEO's. I am voting Bernie. I may be old but I am hanging with the young progressive's choice..feel the Bern

Tammy Fox Sorry

my top priority is getting Bernie Elected.

Charlotte Arnold - Bernie cost us the last election. Republicans have a lot of crap on Bernie they are going to release if he wins the primary. Bernie will not win.

Lezli Magnani - Charlotte Arnold Bernie did not cause that loss!! The DNC shoving Hillary down people’s throats caused that loss. Again, the clearest candidate that can beat Trump is being ignored by the corporate democratic party. Joe will not be shoved down our throats either. Please just follow the money-look where Joe is getting his money from-always follow the money

Rebecca Sake - D Kim Sayre-Arnold once you take your corporate owned Republicans out of our Democratic Party then you’ll see Bernie is in the right place. And Bernie didn’t split anything, your candidate was too weak to win. #BernieWouldHaveWon

Rebecca Sake - Me too, #HealthCareForAll will only be attainable with #Bernie2020 Biden is backed by big pharma & Comcast. He's not a man of the people and he's out to make his corporate donors happy.

Rebecca Sake - Kim Crane they weren’t her votes to begin with. And every chance she had to earn those votes were blown by her own decisions, remember she said she didn’t need the progressive dems. You can think he took away millions of votes all you want, doesn’t make it true. The truth is, she never earned the votes she needed to win. End of story. Stop blaming everyone but the one who lost the easiest victory ever.

Rebecca Sake - Kim Crane actually it was Hillary supporters who, in larger numbers refused to vote for Obama. In 2016, Hillary failed to even try to court progressive votes. Most of us had very specific reasons to not vote for her, and her cheating her way into the nomination made it very easy to vote third party. A very small percent voted Trump but the majority voted third party. Btw you earn votes, they aren’t given because of the fear of the other candidate. It might also surprise you to know Hillary helped trump in the early primaries because she felt he’d be the easiest to beat. You guys forget that a lot while you’re trying to shame people for not voting for the most owned candidate in history. Your lack of insight and foresight is more to blame for a trump presidency than our educated choice of voting.

Anita Concilio

Health care Joe - and parity for women in the workplace and as citizens of the world. Child care, education, and for goodness sake, job training for the families in the midwest who have lost manufacturing and farming. Oh, and also, immigration reform, like amnesty maybe? Middle class needs some significant help. And campaign financing reform, oh, the list is so long. But I have faith that a Biden administration would focus on the things that will make America respected again.

Nicole F Sharpe

Joe, your time has come and gone by. You've made too many "bi-partisan" compromises that have hurt too many people, especially women, in your need to be liked. We can't trust you to do the right things in office because we know you'll cave to political expediency at the people's expense. You may get the DNC nod but you won't be elected, and we need a candidate that can be elected. Please bow out of the race now and put your support where it will do some good instead of sapping the strength of more viable candidates

Ashley Smuts Pizzuti

Joe - what are you going to do about your history with student loans? I know you love those lenders. We know your history. But you are very out of touch with a problem you helped create.

Mary Nikas

We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its neglect, created," said Biden, then a fourth-term senator from Delaware so committed to the bill that he has referred to it over the years as "the Biden bill." "They are beyond the pale many of those people, beyond the pale," Biden continued. "And it's a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society." In the speech, Biden described a "cadre of young people, tens of thousands of them, born out of wedlock, without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing because they literally ... because they literally have not been socialized, they literally have not had an opportunity." He said, "we should focus on them now" because "if we don't, they will, or a portion of them, will become the predators 15 years from now." Biden added that he didn't care "why someone is a malefactor in society" and that criminals needed to be "away from my mother, your husband, our families."” https://www.google.com/.../biden-1993-speech.../index.html

Laurence Bridge

Medicare & the cost of long term care is the most important concern for those of us who having worked and saved all our working life,can end up in a facility that was once called the workhouse.Untrained staff, disgusting food,left to lie in our own waste ,to the tune of thousands of dollars from our life time savings,for these disgraceful places called LONG TERM CARE, perhaps our politicians should be forced to take a long look at the Chinese system,who treat the elderly with dignity in the twilight of their lives.

Cathy Sullivan

i'm going with .. go away Joe Biden .. we can't afford to lose to trumpy again. Make sure Hillary leaves with you

Deborah Birdsong

#NoJoe No more corporate democrats who run their campaigns using special interest monies! #OverturnCitizensUnited#Bernie2020

Mary Nikas

“Biden, by contrast, has been a bag man for big corporations for his entire career. Delaware is like the Luxembourg of U.S. states — a tiny tax haven and flag of convenience for corporations who own the local political system outright, and Biden is no exception. His economic policy career has been one disgrace after the next — sponsoring or voting for multiple rounds of financial deregulation, trade deals that savaged the American manufacturing base, and bankruptcy "reform" that made it much harder to discharge consumer debt (and nearly impossible to get rid of student debt). It's no surprise at all that on the same day he launched his campaign, Biden held a fundraiser including several corporate lobbyists and Republican donors at the home of a Comcast executive.”

Jeffery Ansani

Perfect example of his stupidity. Did he send this to all the "disaffected" white working class males who voted for trump in 2016 whose votes he needs to capture to beat trump? He's so arrogant he thinks his mere presence in the race is enough. And secondly, if I'm a Right Wing Fuckhead I use this to Demonstrate that he doesn't give a FUCK about ALL Americans' concerns. Like taking candy from a baby dinosaur. It's a transparent attempt to bolster small donor roles, nothing more. Seriously! All he has to do is look at the polls. We overwhelmingly FAVOR a Green New Deal, money OUT of politics, Medicaid for ALL, sensible gun laws, reasonable and humane immigration reform, free college, and just about every other Progressive proposals. WAKE THE FUCK UP DEMOCRATS! And when you do, smarten up too. These people have failed you for thirty years while Bernie has been FIGHTING for you. He's the only choice. For Robert Paul PaulKarla Jen Lynn Jannon and any others who may be thinking Joe is a good option. He's not. Look at the polls. Not the candidate polls but the issues ones. You'll see very clearly, he's out of touch. Don't argue with me, he's not the one.

0 notes

musicagency-stuff-blog · 5 years

Text

How to Prevent Music Marketing Info Overload!

I intend to give you a little rule you can make use of in your music marketing that goes like this. " I will certainly spend 80% of my time creating impressive music, 15% music marketing and after that 5% understanding music marketing material." it is kind of like removing my nose to spite my face since I create a great deal of music marketing material myself, yet if you spend your whole time eating up all the info, it's extremely difficult ever before to get around to generating any type music of well worth.

And marketing crap music has a name. SPAM! You need to consider all the online training courses, overviews as well as publications like shiny items that are drawing you in all various directions as well as stick with one method till you make it a success. The truth remains that if you don't make any music of worth, you are not truly an artist. Have you ever before remained in music marketing info overload? Today I approached my computer system with exhilaration after a long weekend away with the suggestion that I would pump out some articles and also begin to service my new digital book. However, the strategy appears to have gone all rickety. I opened my Twitter customer to see that my buddy sent me a link to a great short article about exactly how to "sing like a superstar," which led to one more and then an additional. So now I recognize the theory of awesome vocal delivery however I'm no additionally on with my mission to give you men the very best music marketing details I can muster.:--LRB-. Keep in mind to self, never open Twitter in the early morning; it's a total bloody time suck!

There are a couple of points that I have discovered throughout the years (yet that I occasionally ignore) which have assisted me in being more productive in my music marketing and also in music in general. - There are only a really small number of things that need your time. These consist of making music and also advertising music, forget whatever else or do it bursts of 25 minutes every day. - Reviewing music marketing training does not count as a job; you have to set a timer and also start obtaining something also done. - Work in 50-minute bursts of the focused task with a short break in between.it will certainly help you use your body's all-natural rhythm. - Don't read your email until 4 O'clock and set a thirty minutes timer for this job. Set your band e-mail account to allow individuals to know that you are doing this to be much more efficient and also will return to them as quickly as you can. - Give yourself monthly dedications.it can be anything from composing article to calling a minimum of 5 music calls every day. What does an ineffective early morning resemble for an artist? 1. Review 20 write-ups on music marketing and music industry news. 2. Checked Twitter And Facebook for 45 mins and complied with links at random. 3. Worked on the style of the music blog on an aspect that only the perfectionists would certainly see. 4. Spent thirty minutes in the music online forums. Currently, things are that none of that stuff misbehaves and you can for believing that you had obtained your hands extremely dirty in the music organization and also made a payment. However, sadly that is not the instance because there was no emphasis and no planning. Now let's check out early morning to be happy with. 1. Spent a solid 50-minute duration working with two brand-new articles. 2. 10-minute recharge. 3. Invest another 50 minutes editing post from the previous day and also posting to the blog site. 4. 30-minute recharge. 5. 50 minutes songwriting/ tape-recording a video for YouTube to bring traffic to the blog site. 6. 10-minute recharge. 7. Added some emails to the newsletter sequence that automatically goes out to the followers. 8. Half an hour recharge. 9. Called ten place managers and reserved two jobs. 10. 10-minute recharge. 11. Spent 50 minutes answering e-mail and discovering brand-new music marketing tactics in my emphasis area. If you make a dedication like that day-to-day, you will find that your job enhances tenfold and then you can invest the rest of the day reading your email or discovering brand-new music marketing things if you like. The troubles can come when you use that very early ruptured of energy in the early morning to consume material, and afterward when you come down to do some actual work you neglect what you were doing and have no focus. It's really hard to begin generating great work half means via the day since your body has lacked perseverance and power. it's all about emphasis, and also you actually can achieve extra in 4 hrs than most people get performed in a whole day if you just shut down all that crap pulling you away from the task available. However, this article is so essential. A lot of times you may even locate that you read something that appears like it's most likely to transform your life, as well as you will tell on your own that you are making progress with your music occupation if you just master the info. Well. I will let you into a little key. You understand enough now to come to be a professional musician if you utilize what you recognize as well as make progression daily. All of us recognize what to do since it's not rocket science. So when should you feed your mind? Now if you have actually read to this factor, you might be believing that I'm recommending that you never make an effort to learn or intend which you are always blindly just mashing away at your keyboard.it could not be better from the fact because the mind is kind of like a vehicle if you are going to run miles and also miles you need the right amount of fuel at the right time. As artists as well as music marketeers we require to know what others are saying so that we can form a point of view and include new ideas to our songs as well as an advertising strategy. Below is what I would certainly suggest if you have a full-time task: Discover 4 hrs a day to work on your music marketing then think of it such as this: - Hr 1 - produce web content be it music, blogs or video clips. - Hr 2 - use auto-posting sites like Sound FM, Onlywire, Social Oomph as well as Tube Magnate to push out your material quickly. - Hr 3 - Modify your new music and post and get it ready for publishing tomorrow. - Hour 4 - Refuel, utilize this moment to inspect your email, read blog posts and also make notes. Have a rest. Another integral part of this is that you require to have time daily when you entirely switch off from whatever and also do something that does not take any mind power in all. In some cases, TV or computer game can function. You will certainly not feel guilty currently since you will certainly recognize that you have done great work that day! I kept in mind when I was making my very first album I encouraged myself that if I actually wanted to make it function I need to concentrate 22 hrs a day through of the recording and also placed whatever right into making it the most effective thing we ever before did. I would certainly spend hrs as well as hours a day just paying attention to the recordings like some sort freaky Howard Hughes guy. NOT GOOD! But what I did not realize at the time was that a break could make points function far better as well as provide you an extra point of view. While on your break you are most likely to think about an incredible new guitar hook or a lyric that is most likely to resonate deeply with your fans. If I had actually simply taken a little go back, I think I would certainly have made a lot more progress and appreciated things a whole lot much more. I now take normal breaks throughout the day as well as this maintains me focused on the task at hand and my energy degrees remain high throughout the day, which is wonderful.

The music grey zone (A massive issue!). If you take anything from this article just let it be the reality that you want to avoid spending your whole life eating up all the music marketing benefits without ever making the cake. (Wow I'm churning out the allegories today like a cow makes milk!). People assume that there is some large secret to this stuff as well as if they can discover it every little thing will certainly be OK as well as the record labels will look after them ... IT IS A MYTH! I angle' inform you the number of times I have talked with artists who groan concerning the complying with issues: - I've obtained a job, so I have no time at all to service my music career yet lots of time to play upset birds four hrs a day. - Music marketing complication if you attempt as well as do everything you will obtain nowhere, concentrate on what you understand. - I spend 3 hours a day reading every item of info and then I really feel too puzzled to do anything simply quit it, this is the bad grey area. You require to burst out of these traps now otherwise you will certainly get to completion of one more year as well as your music ambition will certainly seem even further away because you will certainly tell yourself that you are a failure. it is just one of the main factors that most individuals never make it since they never ever make a dedication to operate at it everyday doing important tasks that will have a genuine effect. Use what you learn. The primary step back for the music marketing junkie is a little of focus. If you are dealing with YouTube to bring hits to your blog site right now invest your understanding time trying to find larger and far better means to come to be the next YouTube superhero. Then when you struck the computer system next early morning use what you learn. If you follow this easy guideline, you will unexpectedly end up being far more efficient since that time you invest reviewing now has an objective. If you consume all the information like a money grubbing pig you will certainly obtain fatter and fatter as well as slower and slower until you end up being a beached whale and also will need to go for a crappy task that will certainly melt your brain. Allow me conserve your mind men. Find out once a day in a focused location and also come to be the master of it ... EASY! Last Ideas. To finish off this post I want to share my commitments for this month so you could get influenced to make a few on your own. As I said before the worst sensation on the planet is getting to the end of the year and also thinking that instead of making day-to-day progress and also accomplishing something cool you just played Call of Obligation for during and are still benefiting an employer that you would privately like to kill. - Create content that issues and also makes a difference. - Help as many individuals as feasible utilize their music talent to locate a better funner life. - Add to the Twitter and Facebook chatter as opposed to just snooping on that dude I went to senior high school with. - Blog everyday. - Post a podcast everyday. - Blog post a YouTube video everyday. - Include important comment to the music marketing neighborhood.

0 notes

freshleadprovider · 4 years

Text

The Best Tactics to Market and Thrive During a Crisis

The world has changed whether we like it or not, and many small business owners have been thrown into a world of transformation. During this time, it’s important to plan out your short and long-term goals and make changes to your marketing where appropriate. In trying times, a significant part of running our businesses is listening to and observing our customers in order to find out what they really need. As someone who owns a digital marketing agency and who is a partner in other ventures including retail, I have seen the unique challenges businesses such as ours are facing during this time. In this article, I will cover specific tactics you can use to successfully market your business through these difficult times. But first, we have to ask the big question: Should you stop marketing and advertising during a crisis? In time, the market will recover. If you’re seeing a decline now, search traffic will pick back up. When it does, will you be there when your customers are looking? It’s easy to be reactive during stressful times when there are a lot of unknowns. The problem with reactive marketing, though, is that you’re typically jumping from tactic to tactic without a plan, as well as making decisions based on fear. Instead of letting that fear control you, it’s time to plan out what the business realities are for your business in 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, and a year out from now. Ask yourself, “What will my market look like in a year?” and “What do I need to do to get through this time”? This is how you can develop and align your short and long-term goals. With this in mind, you can develop an action plan based on strategies that will help you meet your goals. While relying on your past strategies, it’s likely that you will also need to consider tactics you haven’t implemented before and even consider marketing more during this difficult time. Some business owners will be faced with cash flow crunches that require more extreme measures. But this is not the time to give up. Rather, it’s the time to slow down and focus on what matters most to you. Start by clarifying your message If you’re a traditional brick-and-mortar retail store, it’s possible that you have had to pivot your operations to stay open during this time. If this is you, it’s important that you share this information with your clients along with the fact that you’re open. The content you share during difficult times such as these will be remembered, so it’s important to stay away from self-serving content and instead practice empathy. Tactics every business needs right now Before you can spread the word, it’s important to know where you need to spread the word. Depending on your business type, these channels may vary. Start by making a list of these channels and sharing the list with your team. They can then use this to update and promote your brand message. You can start with the most obvious ways people find your business such as: Your website Google My Business Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn But if you want a more comprehensive approach, make sure to look at your analytics data, too. You can look at your referral data and sort that by conversions to figure out if there is anywhere else you should update your customers. 1. Let your clients know if you’re open for business There is so much uncertainty right now, and many states, counties, and cities have different orders ranging from nonessential business shutdowns to social distancing. If you’re not telling your clients you’re open for business, they probably don’t even know. Practically, this means that even if they find your website, they may not contact you because they don’t know if you’re open. Some potential clients might also check if you’re open on social media. Have you posted an update? Are you active? If not, they might take that as a sign that you’re closed. If you are temporarily closed, you need to let people know that, along with an expectation on when they can expect to hear back from you if they do contact you. 2. Add a website banner or pop up I have hated these things for years. But now there is a great need for them. Potential customers might land on any page of your website when they find you. A homepage message just isn’t good enough. Here, using a simple and lightweight bar or pop up with an empathetic message is a great solution. Check out this example from Vanderginst Law below: You can customize these popups with videos instead if you’d like. If you implement pop-ups, I recommend that you only show it once to each website visitor. If it pops up on every page after a visitor has already seen it, they could get annoyed. If you don’t have a website but you do have a Google My Business listing, you can create a free website there and put your message on the homepage. 3. Update your contact forms If you use contact forms or a contact page on your website, I recommend updating this with expectations for your customers. For example, if you have limited staff, tell people and inform them of your expected response times. Setting the proper expectations will help prevent frustration and keep customers. 4. Update your Google My Business hours and posts I have to give credit to Google for implementing changes to Google My Business since they’re likely facing the same staffing issues as other companies. First, they have rolled out a Covid-19 update option under Posts, which allows people searching for your business to see your current status. To implement this, simply login to your Google My Business account. After you’ve selected your business click Posts > COVID-19 update button, as shown below. Make sure to tell clients everything they need to know. If you have new information like offering delivery when you were traditionally a sit-down restaurant, you can add a different Google Post to make this information readily available. Second, there is also the option to update your listing as temporarily closed (shown below). Of course, you should also update any other pertinent business information as well, including your business hours. 5. Write a blog post In order to let our clients know that, for us, it was business as usual, we wrote a blog post addressing the issue. This may not get the same exposure you’d want or expect from the usual content, but it’s something you can share on your social channels to increase reach and, more importantly, inform customers. 6. Send a text message If you have a strong base of customers that opted into text messaging, this is a great way to spread the word quickly. Keep in mind that, just like with all text message marketing, you don’t want to over-text them. A simple message with how your business is operating during this time should do the trick. 7. Share on social One great opportunity right now for small businesses is social media. People are bored right now and are spending more time on social media. In addition to this, many communities are pulling together and helping out. Right now, social media is an opportunity to introduce yourself to an audience who may not even know about you yet. In my neighborhood, for example, we have community-based groups that share information about open businesses. Some are even open day-to-day. This is a screenshot of a Facebook group that updates its lists of open restaurants doing takeout and delivery daily: Here are some opportunities you should take advantage of right away: Find Facebook groups in your town and let them know you’re open! These will be town groups, food groups, and local community groups. Search your cities’ Reddit threads if they have one and post there. Get added to any lists. Do a Google search for: [open for business + city name] or [businesses open during shelter in place in city] and see if there are any lists you can ask to be added to. 8. Get on Nextdoor If you operate a local business, chances are your customers are spending time on Nextdoor. Make sure you’re sharing relevant information with your local community as these customers are your lifeblood. If there are any other city-specific places where your potential clients hang out online, make sure to post there too. The more people that know about your situation, the better. 9. Record and share a video Here’s a great example from a local brewery near me doing video content right during Covid-19. They created a quick video that shows their sanitation practices and how they’re pivoting: Tactics to avoid right now 1. Generic email to all your email lists While I don’t think this idea is coming from a bad place, we’re all fed up with these emails. At this point, it’s been done so much that, as a consumer, I’m now likely more annoyed if I get an email from a business I shopped at 10 years ago telling me how they’re responding. In my opinion, it also lacks empathy. Bear in mind that a generic one-size-fits-all email is different to a short, very personalized email to active clients. That being said, I still recommend other methods outside of email at this point. 2. Google My Business name edits Google has cracked down on name edits for restaurants and grocery stores. They are now more stringent, disallowing you to edit your name to include a delivery modifier. This would be against Google My Business guidelines anyway, and you don’t want a suspended listing right now — it’s too important. 3. Focusing only on Google reviews When this all started, I saw many businesses seeking reviews. Unfortunately, Google has suspended these and they will not be shown publicly. So any new reviews your business receives now may not show for a while. That’s not to say you shouldn’t focus on Google reviews at all, but try to diversify your efforts for more immediate results. 4. Using Google Q&A The Google My Business Q&A feature may have been a good place to post business updates, but this has also been removed by Google for the time being. Growing your brand during crisis There is no benefit to your brand if you’re trying to be the best-kept secret. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and show the world who you are, even during times like these. What you are able to do during this time will greatly depend on the financial health of your business. But if you have the means, time, or resources to show the world your values and who you really are, seize this opportunity. This is also a great way to build net promoters. When the dust settles and things return to normal, people will remember those who were able to help and give back in a time of need. Other benefits of effective brand-building include: Generating new customers Getting free exposure Building brand advocates Building an email list Share your brand message Your brand message through this time needs to be consistent and not self-serving. Whatever you share, people are going to be more likely to engage with messages that help solve their biggest problems or fears during this time. Think about what your clients need most, what their concerns are, and how you can address them. Here are a few examples of concerns that your customers may have and how you can address them: Restaurant: Showing a video of your sanitary practices/social distancing in kitchens and the delivery process. Business Lawyer: Hosting and recording a webinar discussing force majeure and the implications with Covid-19. Criminal Defense Attorney: Creating content around airport fights and purposeful Covid-19 related injuries. Retail: Showing how your operations have shifted online, offering free delivery, etc. Giving to essential personnel or the community If you are providing support to essential personnel and your community, these are campaigns that can and should be posted on your website and shared on social. These stories may also be newsworthy. People can get bad news all day long if they want to, so journalists are looking for lighter news stories. You can be a part of that. Community-related giveaways will help your brand thrive, and there are potential long-term benefits such as generating new customers, earning links, and gaining media exposure. Below are just a couple of ideas to engage with and support your community right now. Hand sanitizer giveaway to key workers Hand sanitizer and other disinfectant products are hard to come by at the moment. While that’s the case within the United States, you can still source these products from overseas using websites like Alibaba.com or Ali Express. Ordering these items and giving them away to people who can’t find them will show how your brand cares about people’s health and is a lighthearted way to encourage good hygiene. This is something we actually implemented this ourselves. Recently we gave several thousand bottles of hand sanitizer and hospital masks away to our community without interrupting supply chains here. Food giveaways (whether you’re a restaurant or not) If you’re a restaurant, doing a weekly food giveaway to build your email list is not a bad idea. If you’re not a restaurant, you can leverage either UberEats giveaways or gift cards to local grocery stores. If you don’t have a system in place to collect email addresses, sign up for a service like Mailchimp. Here are some more examples for successful email marketing campaigns: Food giveaways to essential personnel Giveaways to people in your neighborhood If your clients are nationwide, giveaways via Doordash or UberEats If your program is nationwide and your clients are average consumers, make sure to get the word out by submitting this to giveaway sites. Increase your exposure The tactics in this section greatly depend on the industry you’re in. Some will be more relevant for professional services, but try to think outside of the box! Participate in podcasts Podcasts’ popularity and presence have significantly increased over the last few years. According to an article from Podcast Insights, there are now over 900,000 podcasts. If you’re looking to get in front of your target audience, this is a great way to build your follower base. If you have the right background, it’s typically pretty straightforward to get an interview since hosts are always looking for qualified participants. To find podcasts, you can do a Google search for podcasts in your niche or use a tool like Sparktoro to find people who commonly discuss topics relevant to your business. Below is a screenshot of a Sparktoro search using their podcast feature. After you curate your list, you can reach out to the host. Make sure to include your background information and recordings of speaking events or podcasts if you have any. If you participate in a podcast, make sure you have good audio. Investing in something like a Yeti microphone or a Smart Mike+ can make a big difference in your audio quality. Participate, attend, or host a digital summit The conference industry was hit very hard by Covid-19. With all in-person events being postponed for the foreseeable future, many of these events were canceled altogether or had to move online. At a time when most people are working from home, attending, speaking, or hosting a digital conference might be a little easier. For example, at Juris Digital we were going to host an in-person legal marketing conference in Las Vegas. We recently made the decision to move it online. Attend a digital conference I wanted to include this because I believe that we should always be investing in ourselves. The more you can learn, the more you will be able to accomplish. If you were previously unable to attend a conference due to geographic or monetary reasons, you may be able to learn a lot for way less money (virtual conferences typically cost less than in-person ones). Participate as a speaker With conference schedules shifting and new conferences popping up, there is an opportunity to speak at one if you’re qualified. One way to do this is to search your niche for conferences and see what’s coming up. I also know of companies like Summit Beast that are hosting digital conferences and actively looking for speakers across all niches. Host a digital summit Don’t be intimidated by this thought. When I say host a digital summit, I’m talking about something that could be as small as hosting a webinar with 10 people, although they can be as large as a conference with 2,000 attendees. If you’re looking to host something small with your ideal clients, prospective clients, or a core group, you can simply use Zoom. Zoom makes it easy to host a video meeting and interview multiple people (as well as recording it). If you host a digital summit, you will have content for a long time after it’s all said and done. You can break it up into helpful bits and share it across your social channels for a year. Create a paid-for training course Do you sell a training or mentoring program? Some personal trainers and digital marketing experts have pivoted to online courses. The best part? You can charge for these courses. By using a platform such as Teachable or Kajabi, you can build courses from the ground up and monetize them. Host a digital event Summits are not the only type of event you can host. Almost any business can host some sort of online event to grow their audience or keep their audience engaged. One example of a digital event is a wine bar and cooking school I like here in Lone Tree, Colorado, called Uncorked. They focus on date night cooking instructions, but since their facility is closed by order of the Governor, they have pivoted. They now offer food pickup and online cooking instructions to their customers. Restaurants can showcase how they make certain dishes as an added bonus. Or people watching who might not be able to source the necessary ingredients can use takeout or pickup instead. Plus, you can even take happy hours online! Friends of mine that own a hangover and health patch company are hosting a virtual happy hour through Zoom to connect with new and existing clients. It’s harder to stay relevant in some cases, but still very possible! Create video content Most people get stuck on video because of production quality. With high-quality video features available on smartphones, a lot of that is not really a problem anymore. Actually, phone recorded videos come across as more authentic. While you could produce more professional videos, right now, authentic videos might be the right choice given our current sensitive situation. Looking to up your game? Check out the Soapbox Station to learn more about what you need for a mobile video studio. If you’re looking for software, Loom is one application that I use for free to create videos with a screen share. Here are some content ideas for video that you can use today: Record video updates about your business to share on social media. Maybe record a video wearing a mask or showing social distancing practices at work. Keep your customers informed about your operations. Provide a daily update on how things are going. Record a video on how you’re giving back to the community. Record videos that are useful, such as ways potential clients can use your products or services. It’s a Time to Be Social People are spending more time on social media right now. When considering content creation for your social media channels, keep a few things in mind. All content needs to be helpful. Additionally, address pain points and give information away. Your content should not be self-serving. After all, as we discussed earlier, most people are turning to social now to see if you’re open and active. Post on your company-owned channels, but you should take it a step further. Here are some ideas for different social media channels. Facebook marketing According to the March 24th, 2020 blog post “Keeping Our Services Stable and Reliable During the COVID-19 Outbreak” Facebook has seen chat up over 50% in most countries, as well as an update in posts and feeds views. However, it’s important to note they have also seen a reduction in ad spend in areas affected by Covid-19. Regardless, it’s clear that people are spending a lot of time on Facebook. For your business, it’s important not to push salesy material, but rather to focus on content that will help your customers solve their biggest problems. Here are the Facebook tactics we’re focusing on now: Promoting content that serves the community We are creating, publishing, and boosting content to our followers and specific audiences that might benefit from what we have to say. We’re not trying to make any money doing this. We’re just trying to be real and help people. Remarketing content If you run remarketing and target people on Facebook who have visited your website, it may be time to change your message. Instead of promoting self-serving content, promote helpful content that helps and supports. YouTube marketing You can easily promote your non self-serving content to your subscribers on YouTube. Plus, if you don’t have a following yet, you can purchase ads to get your information in front of the right audience. If you need help ranking on YouTube, check out Brian Dean’s great resource YouTube SEO: How to Rank YouTube Videos in 2020. LinkedIn marketing It will be interesting to see how LinkedIn traffic shakes out. On one hand, users are mostly in B2B companies, and the platform isn’t particularly social. On the other hand, many people are seeking employment after being laid off. If you hope to hire great talent during this time, it’s worth your effort to spend time here. LinkedIn Text Ads for Brand Awareness One of the bigger and cheaper opportunities on LinkedIn right now is paying for text ads set with a CPM goal for brand building. Basically, by changing your goal from conversions to cost-per-click (CPC), you will receive a lot more brand impressions than you would from LinkedIn’s CPM Model. Search Engine Optimization [SEO] If you haven’t invested in a long term SEO campaign, it’s time you start. Especially if you have a lot of time on your hands. The truth is that, depending on some markets, search volumes could be going up or down. Here is an example of searches for [personal injury lawyer] rising during this crisis. Is it lawyers at home searching for their own keywords, or is it potential clients looking to generate more cash from a settlement? I don’t have the answer yet, but I do know that the searches will return. When things have calmed down and people are able to think about things that worry them less, the searches will come back. In the meantime, use Google Trends to identify topics you can blog about and rank when people are looking for answers. For example, if shelter in place orders are trending, think about how your business can write about it. Maybe include restaurants that will be open, things to do, or virtual classes for people — whatever is related to your business. Don’t be afraid to ask for help Maybe it’s human nature, or maybe it’s just pride that gets in the way. Regardless—don’t be afraid to ask your friends, colleagues, and community for help. We’re going to get through this Some industries are getting hit harder than others, and I know this will bring a lot of change worldwide. In tough situations, I like to say “plan for the worst and expect the best.” However, you also need to plan for the best. Plan for your business to continue to thrive when this is all over. Don’t give up hope. If this post gave you any ideas and you have more to contribute, I would love to hear them. If you have other ideas from things you’ve read or seen, I would also love to hear those. Together, we’re all going to get through this. The post The Best Tactics to Market and Thrive During a Crisis appeared first on BrightLocal. https://probdm.com/site/MTkxNDU

0 notes

laurelkrugerr · 4 years

Text

The Best Tactics to Market and Thrive During a Crisis

The world has changed whether we like it or not, and many small business owners have been thrown into a world of transformation.

During this time, it’s important to plan out your short and long-term goals and make changes to your marketing agency where appropriate. In trying times, a significant part of running our businesses is listening to and observing our customers in order to find out what they really need.

As someone who owns a digital marketing agency agency and who is a partner in other ventures including retail, I have seen the unique challenges businesses such as ours are facing during this time.

In this article, I will cover specific tactics you can use to successfully market your business through these difficult times. But first, we have to ask the big question:

Should you stop marketing agency and advertising during a crisis?

In time, the market will recover. If you’re seeing a decline now, search traffic will pick back up. When it does, will you be there when your customers are looking?

It’s easy to be reactive during stressful times when there are a lot of unknowns. The problem with reactive marketing agency, though, is that you’re typically jumping from tactic to tactic without a plan, as well as making decisions based on fear.

Instead of letting that fear control you, it’s time to plan out what the business realities are for your business in 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, and a year out from now. Ask yourself, “What will my market look like in a year?” and “What do I need to do to get through this time”? This is how you can develop and align your short and long-term goals. With this in mind, you can develop an action plan based on strategies that will help you meet your goals.

While relying on your past strategies, it’s likely that you will also need to consider tactics you haven’t implemented before and even consider marketing agency more during this difficult time.

Some business owners will be faced with cash flow crunches that require more extreme measures. But this is not the time to give up. Rather, it’s the time to slow down and focus on what matters most to you.

Start by clarifying your message

If you’re a traditional brick-and-mortar retail store, it’s possible that you have had to pivot your operations to stay open during this time.

If this is you, it’s important that you share this information with your clients along with the fact that you’re open.

The content you share during difficult times such as these will be remembered, so it’s important to stay away from self-serving content and instead practice empathy.

Tactics every business needs right now

Before you can spread the word, it’s important to know where you need to spread the word. Depending on your business type, these channels may vary.

Start by making a list of these channels and sharing the list with your team. They can then use this to update and promote your brand message.

You can start with the most obvious ways people find your business such as:

Your website

Google My Business

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

But if you want a more comprehensive approach, make sure to look at your analytics data, too. You can look at your referral data and sort that by conversions to figure out if there is anywhere else you should update your customers.

1. Let your clients know if you’re open for business

There is so much uncertainty right now, and many states, counties, and cities have different orders ranging from nonessential business shutdowns to social distancing.

If you’re not telling your clients you’re open for business, they probably don’t even know. Practically, this means that even if they find your website, they may not contact you because they don’t know if you’re open.

Some potential clients might also check if you’re open on social media. Have you posted an update? Are you active? If not, they might take that as a sign that you’re closed.

If you are temporarily closed, you need to let people know that, along with an expectation on when they can expect to hear back from you if they do contact you.

2. Add a website banner or pop up

I have hated these things for years. But now there is a great need for them. Potential customers might land on any page of your website when they find you. A homepage message just isn’t good enough.

Here, using a simple and lightweight bar or pop up with an empathetic message is a great solution.

Check out this example from Vanderginst Law below:

You can customize these popups with videos instead if you’d like.

If you implement pop-ups, I recommend that you only show it once to each website visitor. If it pops up on every page after a visitor has already seen it, they could get annoyed.

If you don’t have a website but you do have a Google My Business listing, you can create a free website there and put your message on the homepage.

3. Update your contact forms

If you use contact forms or a contact page on your website, I recommend updating this with expectations for your customers. For example, if you have limited staff, tell people and inform them of your expected response times.

Setting the proper expectations will help prevent frustration and keep customers.

4. Update your Google My Business hours and posts

I have to give credit to Google for implementing changes to Google My Business since they’re likely facing the same staffing issues as other companies.

First, they have rolled out a Covid-19 update option under Posts, which allows people searching for your business to see your current status.

To implement this, simply login to your Google My Business account.

After you’ve selected your business click Posts > COVID-19 update button, as shown below.

Make sure to tell clients everything they need to know. If you have new information like offering delivery when you were traditionally a sit-down restaurant, you can add a different Google Post to make this information readily available.

Second, there is also the option to update your listing as temporarily closed (shown below).

Of course, you should also update any other pertinent business information as well, including your business hours.

5. Write a blog post

In order to let our clients know that, for us, it was business as usual, we wrote a blog post addressing the issue.

This may not get the same exposure you’d want or expect from the usual content, but it’s something you can share on your social channels to increase reach and, more importantly, inform customers.

6. Send a text message

If you have a strong base of customers that opted into text messaging, this is a great way to spread the word quickly. Keep in mind that, just like with all text message marketing agency, you don’t want to over-text them.

A simple message with how your business is operating during this time should do the trick.

7. Share on social

One great opportunity right now for small businesses is social media. People are bored right now and are spending more time on social media.

In addition to this, many communities are pulling together and helping out. Right now, social media is an opportunity to introduce yourself to an audience who may not even know about you yet.

In my neighborhood, for example, we have community-based groups that share information about open businesses. Some are even open day-to-day. This is a screenshot of a Facebook group that updates its lists of open restaurants doing takeout and delivery daily:

Here are some opportunities you should take advantage of right away:

Find Facebook groups in your town and let them know you’re open! These will be town groups, food groups, and local community groups.

Search your cities’ Reddit threads if they have one and post there. Get added to any lists.

Do a Google search for: [open for business + city name] or [businesses open during shelter in place in city] and see if there are any lists you can ask to be added to.

8. Get on Nextdoor

If you operate a local business, chances are your customers are spending time on Nextdoor. Make sure you’re sharing relevant information with your local community as these customers are your lifeblood.

If there are any other city-specific places where your potential clients hang out online, make sure to post there too. The more people that know about your situation, the better.

9. Record and share a video

Here’s a great example from a local brewery near me doing video content right during Covid-19.

They created a quick video that shows their sanitation practices and how they’re pivoting:

Tactics to avoid right now

1. Generic email to all your email lists

While I don’t think this idea is coming from a bad place, we’re all fed up with these emails. At this point, it’s been done so much that, as a consumer, I’m now likely more annoyed if I get an email from a business I shopped at 10 years ago telling me how they’re responding. In my opinion, it also lacks empathy.

Bear in mind that a generic one-size-fits-all email is different to a short, very personalized email to active clients. That being said, I still recommend other methods outside of email at this point.

2. Google My Business name edits

Google has cracked down on name edits for restaurants and grocery stores. They are now more stringent, disallowing you to edit your name to include a delivery modifier. This would be against Google My Business guidelines anyway, and you don’t want a suspended listing right now — it’s too important.

3. Focusing only on Google reviews

When this all started, I saw many businesses seeking reviews. Unfortunately, Google has suspended these and they will not be shown publicly.

So any new reviews your business receives now may not show for a while. That’s not to say you shouldn’t focus on Google reviews at all, but try to diversify your efforts for more immediate results.

4. Using Google Q&A

The Google My Business Q&A feature may have been a good place to post business updates, but this has also been removed by Google for the time being.

Growing your brand during crisis

There is no benefit to your brand if you’re trying to be the best-kept secret. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and show the world who you are, even during times like these.

What you are able to do during this time will greatly depend on the financial health of your business. But if you have the means, time, or resources to show the world your values and who you really are, seize this opportunity.

This is also a great way to build net promoters. When the dust settles and things return to normal, people will remember those who were able to help and give back in a time of need.

Other benefits of effective brand-building include:

Generating new customers

Getting free exposure

Building brand advocates

Building an email list

Share your brand message

Your brand message through this time needs to be consistent and not self-serving. Whatever you share, people are going to be more likely to engage with messages that help solve their biggest problems or fears during this time.

Think about what your clients need most, what their concerns are, and how you can address them. Here are a few examples of concerns that your customers may have and how you can address them:

Restaurant: Showing a video of your sanitary practices/social distancing in kitchens and the delivery process.

Business Lawyer: Hosting and recording a webinar discussing force majeure and the implications with Covid-19.

Criminal Defense Attorney: Creating content around airport fights and purposeful Covid-19 related injuries.

Retail: Showing how your operations have shifted online, offering free delivery, etc.

Giving to essential personnel or the community

If you are providing support to essential personnel and your community, these are campaigns that can and should be posted on your website and shared on social.

These stories may also be newsworthy. People can get bad news all day long if they want to, so journalists are looking for lighter news stories. You can be a part of that.

Community-related giveaways will help your brand thrive, and there are potential long-term benefits such as generating new customers, earning links, and gaining media exposure.

Below are just a couple of ideas to engage with and support your community right now.

Hand sanitizer giveaway to key workers

Hand sanitizer and other disinfectant products are hard to come by at the moment. While that’s the case within the United States, you can still source these products from overseas using websites like Alibaba.com or Ali Express.

Ordering these items and giving them away to people who can’t find them will show how your brand cares about people’s health and is a lighthearted way to encourage good hygiene.

This is something we actually implemented this ourselves. Recently we gave several thousand bottles of hand sanitizer and hospital masks away to our community without interrupting supply chains here.

Food giveaways (whether you’re a restaurant or not)

If you’re a restaurant, doing a weekly food giveaway to build your email list is not a bad idea. If you’re not a restaurant, you can leverage either UberEats giveaways or gift cards to local grocery stores.

If you don’t have a system in place to collect email addresses, sign up for a service like Mailchimp.

Here are some more examples for successful email marketing agency campaigns:

Food giveaways to essential personnel

Giveaways to people in your neighborhood

If your clients are nationwide, giveaways via Doordash or UberEats

If your program is nationwide and your clients are average consumers, make sure to get the word out by submitting this to giveaway sites.

Increase your exposure

The tactics in this section greatly depend on the industry you’re in. Some will be more relevant for professional services, but try to think outside of the box!

Participate in podcasts

Podcasts’ popularity and presence have significantly increased over the last few years. According to an article from Podcast Insights, there are now over 900,000 podcasts. If you’re looking to get in front of your target audience, this is a great way to build your follower base.

If you have the right background, it’s typically pretty straightforward to get an interview since hosts are always looking for qualified participants.

To find podcasts, you can do a Google search for podcasts in your niche or use a tool like Sparktoro to find people who commonly discuss topics relevant to your business.

Below is a screenshot of a Sparktoro search using their podcast feature.

After you curate your list, you can reach out to the host. Make sure to include your background information and recordings of speaking events or podcasts if you have any.

If you participate in a podcast, make sure you have good audio. Investing in something like a Yeti microphone or a Smart Mike+ can make a big difference in your audio quality.

Participate, attend, or host a digital summit

The conference industry was hit very hard by Covid-19. With all in-person events being postponed for the foreseeable future, many of these events were canceled altogether or had to move online.

At a time when most people are working from home, attending, speaking, or hosting a digital conference might be a little easier.

For example, at Juris Digital we were going to host an in-person legal marketing conference in Las Vegas. We recently made the decision to move it online.

Attend a digital conference

I wanted to include this because I believe that we should always be investing in ourselves. The more you can learn, the more you will be able to accomplish. If you were previously unable to attend a conference due to geographic or monetary reasons, you may be able to learn a lot for way less money (virtual conferences typically cost less than in-person ones).

Participate as a speaker

With conference schedules shifting and new conferences popping up, there is an opportunity to speak at one if you’re qualified. One way to do this is to search your niche for conferences and see what’s coming up. I also know of companies like Summit Beast that are hosting digital conferences and actively looking for speakers across all niches.

Host a digital summit

Don’t be intimidated by this thought. When I say host a digital summit, I’m talking about something that could be as small as hosting a webinar with 10 people, although they can be as large as a conference with 2,000 attendees.

If you’re looking to host something small with your ideal clients, prospective clients, or a core group, you can simply use Zoom. Zoom makes it easy to host a video meeting and interview multiple people (as well as recording it).

If you host a digital summit, you will have content for a long time after it’s all said and done. You can break it up into helpful bits and share it across your social channels for a year.

Create a paid-for training course

Do you sell a training or mentoring program? Some personal trainers and digital marketing agency experts have pivoted to online courses. The best part? You can charge for these courses. By using a platform such as Teachable or Kajabi, you can build courses from the ground up and monetize them.

Host a digital event

Summits are not the only type of event you can host. Almost any business can host some sort of online event to grow their audience or keep their audience engaged.

One example of a digital event is a wine bar and cooking school I like here in Lone Tree, Colorado, called Uncorked. They focus on date night cooking instructions, but since their facility is closed by order of the Governor, they have pivoted.

They now offer food pickup and online cooking instructions to their customers.

Restaurants can showcase how they make certain dishes as an added bonus. Or people watching who might not be able to source the necessary ingredients can use takeout or pickup instead.

Plus, you can even take happy hours online! Friends of mine that own a hangover and health patch company are hosting a virtual happy hour through Zoom to connect with new and existing clients.

It’s harder to stay relevant in some cases, but still very possible!

Create video content

Most people get stuck on video because of production quality. With high-quality video features available on smartphones, a lot of that is not really a problem anymore. Actually, phone recorded videos come across as more authentic. While you could produce more professional videos, right now, authentic videos might be the right choice given our current sensitive situation.

Looking to up your game? Check out the Soapbox Station to learn more about what you need for a mobile video studio.

If you’re looking for software, Loom is one application that I use for free to create videos with a screen share.

Here are some content ideas for video that you can use today:

Record video updates about your business to share on social media. Maybe record a video wearing a mask or showing social distancing practices at work.

Keep your customers informed about your operations.

Provide a daily update on how things are going.

Record a video on how you’re giving back to the community.

Record videos that are useful, such as ways potential clients can use your products or services.

It’s a Time to Be Social

People are spending more time on social media right now. When considering content creation for your social media channels, keep a few things in mind.

All content needs to be helpful. Additionally, address pain points and give information away. Your content should not be self-serving. After all, as we discussed earlier, most people are turning to social now to see if you’re open and active.

Post on your company-owned channels, but you should take it a step further. Here are some ideas for different social media channels.

Facebook marketing agency

According to the March 24th, 2020 blog post “Keeping Our Services Stable and Reliable During the COVID-19 Outbreak” Facebook has seen chat up over 50% in most countries, as well as an update in posts and feeds views. However, it’s important to note they have also seen a reduction in ad spend in areas affected by Covid-19.

Regardless, it’s clear that people are spending a lot of time on Facebook. For your business, it’s important not to push salesy material, but rather to focus on content that will help your customers solve their biggest problems.

Here are the Facebook tactics we’re focusing on now:

Promoting content that serves the community

We are creating, publishing, and boosting content to our followers and specific audiences that might benefit from what we have to say. We’re not trying to make any money doing this. We’re just trying to be real and help people.

Remarketing agency content

If you run remarketing agency and target people on Facebook who have visited your website, it may be time to change your message. Instead of promoting self-serving content, promote helpful content that helps and supports.

YouTube marketing agency

You can easily promote your non self-serving content to your subscribers on YouTube. Plus, if you don’t have a following yet, you can purchase ads to get your information in front of the right audience.

If you need help ranking on YouTube, check out Brian Dean’s great resource YouTube SEO Company: How to Rank YouTube Videos in 2020.

LinkedIn marketing agency

It will be interesting to see how LinkedIn traffic shakes out. On one hand, users are mostly in B2B companies, and the platform isn’t particularly social. On the other hand, many people are seeking employment after being laid off. If you hope to hire great talent during this time, it’s worth your effort to spend time here.

LinkedIn Text Ads for Brand Awareness

One of the bigger and cheaper opportunities on LinkedIn right now is paying for text ads set with a CPM goal for brand building.

Basically, by changing your goal from conversions to cost-per-click (CPC), you will receive a lot more brand impressions than you would from LinkedIn’s CPM Model.

search engine optimization [SEO Company]

If you haven’t invested in a long term SEO Company campaign, it’s time you start. Especially if you have a lot of time on your hands. The truth is that, depending on some markets, search volumes could be going up or down.

Here is an example of searches for [personal injury lawyer] rising during this crisis. Is it lawyers at home searching for their own keywords, or is it potential clients looking to generate more cash from a settlement?

I don’t have the answer yet, but I do know that the searches will return. When things have calmed down and people are able to think about things that worry them less, the searches will come back.

In the meantime, use Google Trends to identify topics you can blog about and rank when people are looking for answers.

For example, if shelter in place orders are trending, think about how your business can write about it. Maybe include restaurants that will be open, things to do, or virtual classes for people — whatever is related to your business.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Maybe it’s human nature, or maybe it’s just pride that gets in the way. Regardless—don’t be afraid to ask your friends, colleagues, and community for help.

We’re going to get through this

Some industries are getting hit harder than others, and I know this will bring a lot of change worldwide. In tough situations, I like to say “plan for the worst and expect the best.” However, you also need to plan for the best. Plan for your business to continue to thrive when this is all over. Don’t give up hope.

If this post gave you any ideas and you have more to contribute, I would love to hear them. If you have other ideas from things you’ve read or seen, I would also love to hear those. Together, we’re all going to get through this.

The post The Best Tactics to Market and Thrive During a Crisis appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/the-best-tactics-to-market-and-thrive-during-a-crisis/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-best-tactics-to-market-and-thrive.html

0 notes