#will update bio and ask box when I log on

[make-me-imagine]

Requests

Status: CLOSED

Alright, requests for all of my fandoms are open. Send some in while you can, they will not be open long!

Writing Prompt List #1 *210 prompts (fluff/romance; angst/emotional; Misc/Humor; & Scenario Prompts)

Writing Prompt List #2 *200 prompts (fluff/romance; angst/emotional; Misc/Humor; and Scenario Prompts)

Sensory Prompts #1 *125 prompts (nature ambiance; fluff/relationship; angst/sad; scary/horror; comfort; and Misc.)

Sensory Prompts #2 *around 130 prompts (nature/outside ambiance; relationship/fluff; angst; scary/horror; comfort; and Misc.)

Rules Page *Basic Rules: - I only write 'x reader' inserts; no ships or oc inserts - GN!Reader only - I do not write specific body types, or for other specific physical characteristics, since I try to keep my inserts as neutral as possible - No nsfw; no pregnancy/children, no readers/character fics below 18

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You can request for fics/oneshots or headcanons.

You can send in your own plot, and/or 1-3 prompts. Feel free to mix and match from the prompt lists!

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Full Fandoms List Below Cut:

9-1-1 (FOX show)

Evan “Buck” Buckley Eddie Diaz Det. Lou Ransone Howard “Chimney” Han

The Boys:

Serge “Frenchie” Hughie Campbell Billy Butcher

Bridgerton

Anthony Bridgerton Benedict Bridgerton Simon Basset Colin Bridgerton *maybe others? 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Spike Angel

Criminal Minds  (I have only watched seasons 1-11)

Spencer Reid Aaron Hotchner Derek Morgan

Doctor Who

Ten Eleven Twelve

Elementary

Sherlock Holmes *I have not watched the whole series so I wont write much for in-show plot points

Firefly

Malcolm Reynolds Simon Tam

Lark Rise to Candleford

Daniel Parish Fisher Bloom Sir Timothy Midwinter Alf Arless Mr Rushton

Leverage 

Eliot Spencer Quinn Alec Hardison

Magnificent Seven Tv Series (1998-2000)

Chris Larabee Ezra Standish Vin Tanner Buck Wilmington

The Mandalorian + TBoBF

Din Djarin Cobb Vanth Boba Fett (prefer platonic)

M*A*S*H (Tv Series)

Hawkeye Pierce BJ Hunnicutt Trapper John

Merlin (BBC)

Merlin Arthur Gwaine Percival Lancelot

Moon Knight

Steven Grant Marc Spector Arthur Harrow

Person of Interest

John Reese Others; platonically is preferred

Prodigal Son 

Malcolm Bright Gil Arroyo 

Shadow and Bone:

Kaz Brekker Matthias Mal Alexander/Kirigan ?

*I have read the Grishaverse books, so I am willing to write around that plot. But the characters will be in character for the show, and the characters will be written as 20+ as their ages are not stated in the show but it feels as though they are aged up in the depiction. 

Sherlock (BBC)

Sherlock Holmes Greg Lestrade Jim Moriarty

Star Trek: Discovery

Christopher Pike Gabriel Lorca (willing to write for an alternate ‘Prime’ version of Lorca) Sarek Spock **I’m in the process of watching Disco and am currently on Season 3. I will be watching Strange New Worlds when I can. **please make sure to specify which Spock you are requesting for (Disco or AOS.)

Star Trek: Enterprise 

Captain Archer Trip Tucker Malcolm Reed 

Star Trek: Voyager 

Chakotay Tom Paris

Stargate Sg-1

Jack O’Niell Daniel Jackson Jonas Quinn Cameron Mitchell 

Stargate Atlantis

John Sheppard Carson Becket Ronon Dex

Supernatural  *Have only watched seasons 1-9

Sam Winchester Dean Winchester Castiel Gabriel Gadreel Balthazar Crowley Lucifer Caine

Teen Wolf 

Derek Hale Peter Hale

Vampire Diaries & The Originals

Elijah Mikaelson Klaus Mikaelson Damon Salvatore Kol Mikaelson Lorenzo “Enzo” St John Finn Mikaelson

**Never watched The Originals’, so I only know the Mikaelsons from TVD.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

- - - - - Franchises/Movies - - - - - 

MCU:

Original Avengers:

Tony Stark  Steve Rogers Thor Bruce Banner Clint Barton Natasha Romanoff

Others:

Bucky Barnes Sam Wilson Helmut Zemo Loki Heimdall Vision Scott Lang Peter Parker (Garfield and/or Hollands; aged up) Dr. Stephen Strange T’Challa Agent Ross Shang-Chi Peter Quill

*** Feel free to ask about other MCU characters; I will write for most (depending on if I like the request as well) ***

X-Men

Original Timeline Movies:  Logan/Wolverine Scott Summers Kurt Wagner “Nightcrawler” Viktor Creed “Sabertooth”

First Class Timeline: Charles Xavier Eric Lehnsherr Hank McCoy Alex Summers Azazel Peter Maximoff “Quicksilver” Warren Worthington III “Angel”

**Many of the younger characters ages are not obvious in the First Class movies, so everyone will be written/suggested as 20+

The Eternals

Druig Ikaris Kingo

Venom (1 & 2)

Eddie Brock

Deadpool (1 & 2)

Wade/Deadpool  Ajax/Francis Cable Domino

- - -

Star Wars Universe

Episodes I-III

Anakin Skywalker Obi Wan Kenobi

Episodes IV-VI

Luke Skywalker Han Solo

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Han Solo Lando Calrissian Dryden Vos

Episodes VII-IX

Finn Poe Dameron Ben Solo/Kylo

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The Hobbit/Lotr

Thranduil Thorin Kili Fili Bard Legolas Aragorn Eomer Faramir Elrond

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Fantastic Beasts:  ((JK Rowling is a bigot and anything I write regarding the wizarding world is of my own imagination and a continuation of a world I want untainted by her bigotry)) 

Newt Scamander, Percival Graves *So far I have only seen the first movie

**I will possibly write for characters from Harry Potter or Marauders, such as the Weasley twins, Malfoy, Cedric, Remus, Sirius, etc. But if I do, it will be after they leave Hogwarts and are 18+.

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Star Trek AOS

Cpt. Jim Kirk Dr. Leonard McCoy Spock Montgomery “Scotty” Scott Pavel Chekov Hikaru Sulu Khan *please make sure to specify which Spock you are requesting for (Disco or AOS.)

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The Outsiders

Darrel “Darry” Curtis Maybe: Sodapop Curtis Dallas Winston ^^Aged Up

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Pirates of the Caribbean (1-4)

Captain Jack Sparrow Will Turner James Norrington Elizabeth Swann/Turner

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Magnificent Seven (2016) 

Joshua Faraday Billy Rocks Goodnight Robicheaux Vasquez Red Harvest

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Maleficent I & II

Conall, Borra, Diaval, Maleficent

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The Man from U.N.C.L.E 

Napoleon Solo Illya Kuryakin

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Kingsman: The Secret Service and The Golden Circle

Eggsy Unwin Hamish Mycroft “Merlin” Jack Daniels “Whiskey”

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Jane Austen/Period Movies: 

Pride and Prejudice (1995 & 2005) Characters: Mr. Darcy and Mr Bingley (other characters if requested)

Mansfield Park (1999 & 2007) Character: Edmund Bertram

Sense and Sensibility (1995/2008) Character: Edward Ferrars 

Emma (2009 & 2020) Character: Mr. Knightley

Persuasion (2007) Character: Captain Wentworth

- - - - -

Outside Characters: 

Actors who have multiple characters outside of the listed fandoms that I am willing to write for!

Charlie Hunnam:

Arthur (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) Raymond Smith (The Gentlemen) William “Ironhead” Miller (Triple Frontier) **Will also write for Ben Miller

Oscar Isaac: 

Santiago “Pope” Garcia (Triple Frontier)

xx

#scheduled post #will update bio and ask box when I log on #requests #delete later #star trek #marvel #star wars #lotr #stargate #911 #bridgerton #magnificent seven #the boys #tvd #teen wolf #avengers #moon knight #xmen #venom #kingsman #jane austen #leverage #disco #shadow and bone

[merrock]

HAPPY FIRST OF AUGUST!

Just as fast as June went by, July flew by right after, and now we're in August! A hot, hot month, but thankfully we have fun things happening in our little town, and some stuff that we want to go over as mods, as well, that we think is pretty important! So, you know the drill. Read on!

HAPPENING IN AUGUST:

trivia night (august 6) -- for anyone who signed up, our trivia night will be happening at The Mirage on August 6th! We will be taking sign-ups still for a few more days, and although this isn't a huge IC event, it should be fun OOC to see how it turns out!

town-wide yard sale & classic car cruise-in (august 12 - 14) -- a fun way to just get out and have some fun with your neighbors, not to mention unloading your junk!

end of summer pool party (august 21 - 27) -- join everyone in town as they wind down summer with one last hurrah at the merrock public pool! adult swim every night after 8pm, with lots of fun happening during the day for the kiddos, as well.

mini events -- on August 3rd, we will be having Watermelon Day at the farmer's market! There's also the 1st day of school on August 29th, and eat outside day takes place on August 31st for anyone who really likes to picnic.

EXTRA BIT OF FUN:

This month’s development resource is all about music and how it relates to your character with our very first playlist challenge! As usual, this can be done anytime, but we are introducing it to our stockpile for the month of August. Might be fun to challenge yourself with! We will also have a task coming up later this month that has to do with our one year anniversary. Exciting! Stay tuned.

RULE CHANGES & REMINDERS:

as usual, I am asking that you please take a few moments to read over our rules -- just to refamiliarize yourself!

please do the leg work when it comes to your activity! don’t expect everyone to only come to you: reach out to others for plots, respond to plot calls, say hey to an old friend, ask someone for something new if a thread feels stale or outdated rather than ghosting them. it feels good!

& reply to open starters! we have made notes of who we do and do not see doing this, and would prefer avoiding handing out warnings. we want this group to be inclusive and foster a wide variety of interactions to discourage bubble roleplaying in any way. we have amazing characters -- you never know what could shake out!

our messages are always open for you to chat or ask for help or bring something to our attention, but if you need something that requires us to be logged into main and at a computer (some examples would be an unfollow, a development page addition, a hiatus request, an update to your bio, etc.), please send it to the ask box. it allows us, as a team, to set a boundary where we aren’t expected to be online 24/7, and helps us help you by having everything in our inbox that needs taken care of.

last little thing -- triggers should be tagged as “trigger tw” for ease of use. this includes dash and ooc interactions. (ex: blood tw, cancer tw)

THINGS BEHIND THE SCENES:

late august marks our one year anniversary of being open! at least for our soft opening. we're so grateful for everyone who has joined our group along the way, whether it was way back then, or during our wide opening this spring! and we're so excited to see what our second year has in store for all of us!

as we teased last month, we do have a little something that will probably be starting in september and should get some NPCs involved in the game (outside of the Benefactor, and less interactive, just kind of there for fun). stay tuned for more information, but Lindsey and I are excited!

another new location will be coming soon ish! we had two planned for july, but life got a little hectic, and I decided it made more sense to open up towards the cooler months, anyway. but it’s not forgotten, and I think that it will be a really fun nostalgia-inducing place the locals will love.

to give you a ‘free preview’ at the month ahead, we’ll be having our Sunflower Festival, with a fun added bonus of a music fest being thrown in there! Creek Fest, which is our annual fall festival will be happening, as well (don’t worry, it’s totally different from Sunflower Festival), and we’ll see the ushering in of fall and in true Maine fashion... another lobster day!

Overall, we are very pleased with our first (almost!) year here in the group, and have loved writing and creating and growing, and think that we’re going to have an amazing year ahead! I know that we can sound like broken records with reminders to reply to starters, not to drop a lot of threads, to reach out to others, to watch activity... but it’s because we truly love this group and our group of writers, and want to see this place continue to thrive for a very long time, and we hope that you understand that, and thank you for making this place amazing.

Let’s make it a great August! xx

#merrockadmin

[kkysolo]

hey ignore me i’m just making this post to pin to my page bc i’m not logging in again to reblog it or anything lol. if no one sees it, no one sees it, i don’t rly care, i just have to have it pinned on both blogs for my own peace of mind.

hi! i am extending my temporary hiatus to a permanent hiatus (permanently leaving? idk whatever).

this blog and it’s main, fuuhgeddaboudit, will remain completely inactive, and likely never will be again. i don’t want to delete, because i would like to keep some memories attached to my main, and i’ll be keeping my posted writing up (unless i change my mind lmao) (it’s all on ao3 anyway).

i’ve been really, really blessed to have met life-long friends in this fandom, who i carry with me in my day-to-day life, who i get to talk to every morning, afternoon and evening, and who bring a huge light to my existence. they are the most wonderful take-away from my time here, and i’m grateful for them every day. however, this fandom just isn’t one i actively want to participate in anymore. it’s given me nothing but mental health issues and a bad taste in my mouth. letting go of this blog, this experience and this fandom is integral to my healing, i think.

you can find me on my new account: supremedroid. reading the about linked in the bio would be beneficial, but a disclaimer: i won’t be following any ADCU related accounts (this isn’t personal to anyone at all) because i don’t want that content on my dashboard, for reasons i hope you guys understand. if you’ve got other blogs not pertaining to ADCU fandom though, i’d be happy to follow you.

my ask box on both this and fuuhgeddaboudit is turned off, so are replies (i think lol). i’m not interested in making a big song and dance about leaving, just a general ‘just so you know’ post, so that people don’t continue to follow either accounts and expect them to be updated. bc at least if this is pinned on both blogs, that issue will hopefully be sorted lol.

otherwise, you can still find me on discord (should you need or want to) if you have me there and ao3. my masterlist is in my bio.

thanks for being interested in my writing while i was here though, that still means a lot and always will. thank you for chatting with me, for being there when things were crappy, and for reading at all.

i hope you all have safe, happy and content lives.

#god writing this felt weird #lmao #anyway

[its-afucking-mess]

A little guide on ao3 (by an ao3 user and writer)

Friendly reminder for mobile users! Ao3 is a website. It doesn't have (as far as im concerned) an official app for mobile, so better get comfy with using crome on your phone.

Some video links ill leave for people who prefer video and audio:

- navigating the fanfiction sites

- popular fandom terminology part 1 and part 2

- shipping etiquette

i really reccomend coley's videos if you want to get to know more fandoms, or get an inside look to how some stuff works. There also might be more vids about fandom's and fan works, so don't hesitate to look through some of her stuff!

the explaining under the 'read more' ao mutuals wont kill me :)

(also tagging @ethanesimp since they asked for this advice )

So, what is Ao3 really?

Ao3 is a website made by fans for fans. There are no ads, and all content is free on Ao3. Anyone can post (with some age restrictions) and they can post anything.

How can I browse Ao3?

Ao3 does not require an account to view stories. You can easily browse as an anonymous user. You just are not able to view certain works, as creators have the ability to show their works to registered users only. Some cases, commenting is possible while anonymous, but again, it's up to the creator of the work.

If you want to be a creator and share works, you need an account.

An account also gives you the ability to bookmark works, so you can re-visit them, mark works for later, keeps a history of the works you've visited and allows you to favourite tags.

How do I get an Ao3 account?

When you first open the site, it gives you the option to "Get Invited". An invitation will be sent to your email anywhere from 24hrs later to a week later, depending on the amount of people in the automated queue.

After the invitation, you are able to set up your account like any other social media account. Pick a username, pseuds (name), description and bio. You can have a profile picture as well.

How do I navigate the site?

There are few ways to do so efficiently, but there's countless of ways you can experiment with to find which is more comfortable.

1st option: As the website loads, you can go to the 'Fandoms' tag.

Then, after clicking on it, this column appears. Through there, you can pick which media your fandom is from and from there, browse the huge list of different fandoms until you spot your own.

The list is in alphabetical order, so if your fandom begins with an "C", it shouldn't be too far down.

2nd option: At the top right, under your profile, and the options 'Post' and 'Log Out' should be a white oval search bar.

(im using my own account for demonstration)

When searching, there are many ways to work around it.

Personally, I press search as it is. It will lead you to a page where all the fanworks of the site are listed. (i believe its easiest, but always feel free to experiment)

From there, you press the 'Edit Your Search' button, located near the top right.

It will then lead you to a page with multiple fields.

Don't panic when you see all the fields. Only half those are of interest when you want to browse works for a fandom.

The most important ones are those under the Field name 'Work Tags'

Whatever you select under this field will be included in the works the site presents you with.

What are the work tags? What do they do?

Lets go through the options.

Fandom(s): when typing on this option, multiple fandom names will autofill in a list under the white space. If your fandom shows up, you can just click on it.

example:

From there, you can select the fandom you want to see works from. If your fandom doesn't show up, it can mean one of two things:

-there are no works for it

-it isn't popular enough to be picked up by the algorithm

After selecting one fandom, you can select another fandom, or more, to see works that are crossovers over universes.

Ratings: Ratings are selected by author. It defines the level of maturity it has in the work

- General audiences is the tag you want to use when nothing bad happens in the work. No swearing, no sexual activities, no violence or gore. It wont contain scenes that minors are not allowed to see.

- Teen and up audiences is the tag used for most works on the site. It is what would be used when you have mentions of/vague sexual content or violence. Normally, the most extreme stuff on there is excessive swearing, heavy angst and hurt/comfort with no excessive details

- Mature is the tag that is for 18+. It is mostly filled with one of following : Violence, Sexual Content, Ab*se, R@pe, Death and SH.

Reader descretion is advised by looking at the additional tags the author has provided, especially for those with triggers.

- Explicit is like Mature, but contains more graphic content. Works rated explicit mostly fall under the 'Graphic depictions of sexual content', 'Graphic depictions of Violence and Gore' or 'Graphic depictions of Ab*se, R@pe, or Self H*rm

Reader descretion is advised, stronger than mature, since it can be much more triggering. The works are scarily detailed sometimes.

- Not rated: the author has not given this work a rating because none of the other ratings fit the work. Pay special attention to the tags.

Warnings: Also known as Archive warnings by older users. The trigger warnings of Ao3. There are 6 archive warnings:

-Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings: The author didn't use the warnings, either because none of them fit the work's theme and warnings, or to avoid spoiling the story. Pay attention to the tags for any warnings.

-Graphic Depictions Of Violence: It is pretty self explanatory. Can contain any sort of violence, from wars, to simple fights, to ab*se of any kind. Can and often contain death. The type of violence is in the tags.

-Major Character Death: A main character in the story will die in this work. Pay attention to the tags always. The name of the character will be mentioned, as well as the way they die.

-No Archive Warnings Apply: None of the warnings apply. It is most times a perfectly safe work. Check the tags to make sure though!

-R@pe/Non-Con: The work contains non-consensual activities. Ranges from non-consensua sex to non-consensual use and ab*se of substances. Very close attention to the tags!

-Underage: The main character(s) in this work are underage/minors. This is normally tagged along sexual content so be aware and pay close attention to the tags!

Categories: This regards the relationships in the work:

- M/M, or better known as mlm or a relationship between two non-woment (men mostly, can include characters under the non-binary umbrella)

- M/F, a heterosexual relationship (is inclusive of trans characters too!)

- F/F, or wlw, or a relationship between two non-men (women mostly, can include characters under the non-binary umbrella)

- Gen, no sexual or romantic relationships are in this work, or if there are any, they arent of main focus.

- Multi: Polyamorous relationships, or multiple relationships are included in this work (this is also where threesomes+ are tagged in sometimes)

- Other relationships: One of the two people in the relationship is non-human (mostly), or the relationships are platonic/family.

Characters: The characters you want to be included in the story. This works just like the 'Fandom' filter, so the same things apply. You can tag as many characters as desirable.

Relationships: The relationships that you want present in the work. This includes both major and minor relationships. It can also include ended relationships (tagged Past x/y) and implied/referenced relationships. This works just like the Characters and Fandom filter.

Additional Tags: These are things the author has included to give potential readers an insight to the story. 'Angst', 'Fluff' and 'Smut' are additional tags. Works like the Relationships filter, so all same applies.

Is there anything I have to avoid/ I should avoid?

There is this very infamous tag, 'Dead Dove: Do not eat.' This tag is a warining to readers that the things in the work are really messed up, and can include anything illegal in it. PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE REST OF THE TAGS IF YOU STILL ARE INTERESTED.

How else can I filter works?

You can choose how they are:

sorted (Titles, Authors, Hits, Kudos, Comments, Bookmarks, and Best Match)

the word count (from 1 word to millions)

the language (most are on there)

the amount of chapters

if the work is complete of not

when it last updated/when was posted

and if there are crossovers.

These are all options that author has to include, and therefore you can sort freely. Most are bulletin options you can click on.

What if I want to find a specific work?

If you happen to know one of these: Author, Title, Fandom or Rating, you will find it. If you were reccomended one, it's better to ask for the author or the title, to make looking for it easier.

Can I find a specific author/ user?

People search is for finding users on the site

Bookmark search helps you look through other people's public bookmarks. Not really used.

Tag search finds works that include this specific tag you searched. Also not used a lot.

People can see my bookmarks?

When bookmarking a work, you are able to do a lot.

if you do not want your bookmarks to be visible to the public, make sure to check off the Private bookmark box at the bottom left.

Common terms thrown around by Ao3 users:

-tags: the additional tags of the work

-kudos: liking a story

-bookmarks: saving/saved stories. makes it easy to revist. you can see your bookmarks from your profile

-hits: the amount of people that have clicked on a story. Isn't necessary they liked it, but they did click on it.

And those are the basics! If you had to take one thing only, its ALWAYS READ TAGS

I hope this helped the clueless souls even a bit :)

Im open to reply to any other questions, and you can send me them in my asks, messages or comments of this post

#sofi's advice #navigating ao3 #help #advice #ao3

[punkscowardschampions]

Sick Kids Group Chat

sonmychest: 🤗 tigerbalm: 👋🧡 tigerbalm: it's been so long! 🙀 how are you?? sonmychest: I know! I suck sonmychest: don't want to be the youtuber spending ten minutes apologizing for not being here though sonmychest: I'm doing pretty good right now, how are you? 😚 tigerbalm: it's a bad day, not a bad life...is what I would caption if I was an instagram influencer or something 😸😸 brainpain: 🦸 speaking for me when I haven't streamed in days LOL sonmychest: 🤭🤭 sonmychest: at least we have reasons for being that #extra that aren't the vague notion of NEEDING a break from taking pictures of our ☕ brainpain: I do spend LOTS of time in a dark room but not for 📸 no flash photography PLEASE 😵 inandout: your feed just updated, Lo brainpain: 👮🚓🚨 sonmychest: stalking or hacking? sonmychest: either way I might need those expertise brainpain: I had a 🌈✨🧁 FIGHT ME, Zachary tigerbalm: it is pretty tbh inandout: friend request, but it's not as if I don't have zero hacking or stalking skills sonmychest: wait, what happened to the anonymity rules??? sonmychest: where's @gotspoons and what have you done with her?! inandout: you missed the overthrowing of a tyrant inandout: not really, but the rule book is gone gotspoons: going to pretend I was summoned by mention, not notification gotspoons: say how you really feel, Zach! 😔 inandout: I said not really, rowboat gotspoons: I have 👀 and 👂 everywhere so you better be nice 😏🤭 gotspoons: but no, hi again, @sonmychest! we missed you! gotspoons: it seemed the whole no names no real life details thing was more of a hindrance than a help to the whole goal of this group, so we came to the conclusion by majority, and the higher ups were all okay with it, providing everyone under a certain age got their parents to sign off and we all used the same common sense we use on other areas of the web gotspoons: so feel free to introduce yourself by real name if you would like, but it's not necessary if you would not 😊 gotspoons: reintroduce, I should say tigerbalm: we shared selfies & everyone was 😻😻😻 brainpain: learned what a sex god @tooexhaustedtolivevicariously aka Rich is sonmychest: 😱😱😱 sonmychest: can't believe I've missed so much sonmychest: need to get better at socialization, my mammy is right 😂 brainpain: an unrivalled love story brainpain: not that he's here to back me up on that inandout: Paris and Helen who? Romeo and Juliet who? Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII who? tigerbalm: wait, those are all 💔😿!! brainpain: he's being a brainpain: insert a swear word of your choice sonmychest: *stage whispers* it's not jealousy though, is it? sonmychest: clearly, fill me in on all the nuances whilst I frantically try to find a picture of myself that's even one 😻 brainpain: he's a 👶 you already know brainpain: but Rich will be leaving me for some uni girl 🤓 so he's not wrong about the doomed part sonmychest: face that launched a thousand ships is a really great insta bio though sonmychest: right, so we have Rich, Zach...who else? gotspoons: Rosie here 🤗 brainpain: Lauren tigerbalm: & me, Robyn inandout: the new girl who started the revolution is Zelda inandout: @ihatemyguts sonmychest: no way sonmychest: a fellow nerd, or at least child-of-a-nerd sonmychest: 'cos I'm Kara and I don't totally hate this photo [selfie] tigerbalm: 😻😻 tigerbalm: you look so like I imagined you, except I thought maybe you'd be 👼 tigerbalm: should we all send new pics? brainpain: [does because any excuse] brainpain: they'll be buried tigerbalm: [a selfie that's even shyer than the first one she sent] gotspoons: [the same photo as before] inandout: if I must [some ridiculous selfie] tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: This is a nice welcome back tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: and I've only been to physio brainpain: NOT ready for another selfie drop from you, boy brainpain: I'll be on my fainting couch brainpain: also hi tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Perhaps I should save your 🦴s and my pride when poor Kara, hello again btw, has to pretend to swoon too brainpain: 🦸 has great taste brainpain: we all love a shy boy tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: My teachers undoubtedly wish I were shy, make their lives a lot easier tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: [a photo] here we are anyway, I hope you found a soft surface suitable for you, Lauren brainpain: ☁ tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Ah, so you're the 👼 brainpain: LMAO 😈 brainpain: but you're looking angelic sir sonmychest: how are you ALL so cute sonmychest: this keeps happening, omg tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: 👼 face hides a multitude of 😈 sins apparently inandout: but reading between the lines, who else is making you swoon/stalk/hack inandout: that's my question tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Well spotted, Zachary 🔎 sonmychest: 🙈 ugh, I'm so embarrassing sonmychest: but we can pretend it's all spilling out now because I played it SO cool in the actual conversation, right 😬😅 inandout: that's the official story, everyone'll confirm sonmychest: thanks, I need the backup so I can also pretend I have lots of friends and a normal social life gotspoons: we are your friends, Kara! gotspoons: though are normal is different from most tigerbalm: & you're coming to my birthday party & even though you have to stand on the other side of the room to Zach, it's still social tigerbalm: OH & we were talking about potentially meeting up!! All of us brainpain: keep it 6ft, children inandout: I'll be in the garden with my date, you can have the indoors with yours inandout: collectively, because we're all speed dating here now inandout: proud of you for picking someone outside this circle sonmychest: GAH so much exciting information today!!! sonmychest: 😁 sonmychest: obviously, I figured no one needed the drama of me falling for you, Zach sonmychest: 💀 not cute inandout: there's already a book and film about it, the chance has been thoroughly missed brainpain: Ignore him, Zelda's nothing but thrilled to find someone else in her age bracket brainpain: 👶👶 brainpain: hit us with your 💞 please sonmychest: well, I didn't just re-log into this chat today, I went on all my old forums because well, boredom, we can all relate, right? sonmychest: what I thought would be the least promising one was the sonmychest: not a dating site, I'm not 100 but you know the kind sonmychest: anyway, the CUTEST boy starts talking to me and he's also really funny and nice ??? tigerbalm: OMG! Did you swap selfies there too? sonmychest: not yet sonmychest: because he sounds so 😻😻 sonmychest: and he wants to talk to me again and he might not if we do tigerbalm: you're 😻😻😻 Kara brainpain: what she said brainpain: + if he's as funny, nice, all of that, as you said brainpain: I doubt he's a shallow jerk inandout: are you a good judge of character or not? inandout: what it comes down to sonmychest: oh, thank you guys! sonmychest: I don't know sonmychest: I think I am sonmychest: he didn't immediately come out with weird requests or weird 📸 of his own and that's a massive start on that site, I was honestly there to 🗑 my account but he changed my mind brainpain: I'll PM you the spooky stories my sister sends me about guys, it'll make you feel better brainpain: you'd know if he was one sonmychest: 🤭 do, can compare notes sonmychest: we honestly just talked about totally normal, nerdy things, it wasn't even a little sketch brainpain: ✉️ + 100000000s brainpain: hold up tigerbalm: that sounds 🧡 & so does this boy tigerbalm: awwhhh sonmychest: [sends the description he sent her slow your roll gal lol] sonmychest: assuming he isn't the archetypal internet weirdo from the 90s scare tactics tigerbalm: WOW inandout: tall, dark and handsome inandout: original sonmychest: okay, I know that covers a lot of bases sonmychest: but someone has to be brainpain: continuing to ignore you, Zach sonmychest: I get it though sonmychest: it's not like I even care what he looks like though, so even if the pics aren't exactly that description brainpain: not every man can be my Rich but doesn't make them 👹/🤡/👻/👽/👥 brainpain: trust your gut, it's not that body part that's failing you tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: 👹 is a solid representation but the hair needs to be longer tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: at the risk of making myself or Zachary appear like overly protective boys, I think as long as you're as sensible as you surely are with this, then there's no harm in the back and forth tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: so if you were going to meet this person IRL, he could perhaps come to the group meet-up, that would be a good way to do it? brainpain: *🧝🏻 that's what needs to be said about your representation tigerbalm: Great idea, Rich! 😺 tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: when the beard comes in I'll look more Gimli than Elrond but I'll take the compliment 👽 babe from outerspace brainpain: who's watching the LoTRs with me? gotspoons: count me out, I'm the worst film buddy ever 😴 ihatemyguts: how many naps could you have in 20hr28mins assuming we're watching everything extended release 'cos duh ihatemyguts: 🥳 go hard or go home 🥳 brainpain: that's you in ihatemyguts: of course ihatemyguts: long since stopped asking for a pause every time I gotta 💩 ihatemyguts: adept at catching up with the plot is a life skill I didn't expect to gain like this but 🙌 gotspoons: 😅 I could do the whole 20hr28mins and that not be a record for how many hours I've slept consecutively brainpain: I'll act it out for you, I can get the 🧝🏼🏹 costume together during the pauses brainpain: dressing up box runneth over sonmychest: 🙋 dibs Arwen sonmychest: my old Katniss cosplay can be repurposed with some bedsheets and a 👸 vibe to it brainpain: that makes Rich your daddy 👀 you, babe sonmychest: 😖😳 nooooooooooo brainpain: I'll be Galadriel if only so I can speak to my man telepathically 💕 brainpain: swerving off book for that love connection ihatemyguts: obviously eye of sauron ihatemyguts: jokes write themselves inandout: hair of a hobbit wig so likewise inandout: and you know, a jew, gonna be the one to handle the 💎 tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: How hairy are your feet, a pickup line that doesn't get thrown about enough inandout: not sending you free feet pics inandout: PM for prices though tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Respect the hustle, Zachary tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: but I have clearly pledged myself and my allegiance to an e-girl already 🧝🏼🏹 brainpain: changed my Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim name to Galadriel for you, Richard, you've officially made me basic brainpain: will cite it in the divorce tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: as long as I can proudly produce said divorce to every mouthbreather that calls me a freak, I am okay with that tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: devastated, naturally 💔 but okay brainpain: hit me up for multiple re-marriages at your convenience, I like that for us tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: Make a solid livestream 👰💒🤵 gotspoons: I'll get officiated! tigerbalm: imagine if any of us actually did get together cos of this forum gotspoons: You never know, Robyn gotspoons: it would be so adorable 😊 tigerbalm: Kara is giving me hope that online dating doesn't have to be a minefield sonmychest: don't give up yet! sonmychest: you're so lovely, a total catch tigerbalm: there still isn't a blushing 😸 emoji & I NEED it ihatemyguts: a travesty ihatemyguts: who do we need to @ for that brainpain: @fibrofog brainpain: he was a BIG DEAL ihatemyguts: 😏 hoping he comes back and I can 👰💒🤵 him obvs brainpain: 🔺 between me/him/Rich was prime in my life ihatemyguts: glory dayz brainpain: if he doesn't show up to stop our first wedding ihatemyguts: Zach won't even properly date me until we're confirmed #foreveralone at 18 inandout: you don't call this properly dating? inandout: @Kara you've got yourself a hater before your romance has fully taken off ihatemyguts: oi, don't drag me in to your 🧂 behaviour ihatemyguts: I'm very nice, I swear inandout: that's just how I taste inandout: she knows brainpain: if I didn't know my CF facts I'd be calling for a ban brainpain: that sounds filthy sonmychest: first declaring Rich my daddy, now 👅 Zach 😲😲😲 sonmychest: I'm also quite nice but not that kind of nice, I 🤞 tigerbalm: I don't think I wanna know.... inandout: But I'll tell you inandout: when we sweat, we lose too much salt, one of our many flaws inandout: on a hot day, you could lick us and taste it, if we like you enough to let you sonmychest: maybe that can be enough of a selling point? sonmychest: if crush boy talks to me again and it invariably comes up inandout: he might get to see it crystallise on your skin, not 💎 or ✨ but hey sonmychest: such a sexy condition, when you leave out all the mucus inandout: ZZ top is feeling it, she wants to properly date me ihatemyguts: 🧂 is a flavour I can enjoy pretty unrestricted ihatemyguts: let me have some pleasure tigerbalm: do the normies flirt like this too? tigerbalm: Kara you'll have to tell us, when you go further undercover ihatemyguts: don't know how lucky you are to have that pickup line in your back pocket ihatemyguts: just add tequila and a lemon and you've got a good time sonmychest: I'll 100% report back, providing he doesn't go 👻 brainpain: you need a drink when a boy lovingly strokes your hair only to feel the dent in your 💀 sonmychest: but also, to work out if your amazing hair is real or nah brainpain: I have too many split ends to be asked if it's a wig sonmychest: I ✂ my own sonmychest: and not often enough 😅 brainpain: don't reach for the bleach cos Robbie sees you as a blonde, there's my sisterly/old lady advice sonmychest: oh God, with these brows? sonmychest: I can swear I won't do that, along with meet up with internet randos alone brainpain: I'd volunteer to come along but I don't do disappearing into the background brainpain: would wear a trenchcoat for the right 💸💸 gotspoons: Normies definitely TRY to use our disabilities as a way to flirt with us, with varying success gotspoons: the amount of time I spend in bed is nothing to be 😏 about, honestly gotspoons: even if I was also chiming in to confirm blondes do have more fun, when they've had all their vitamins, a perfect amount of sleep, the stars have aligned JUST right... 🤭 tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: as resident ♿ user, they most ask if IT 'works', which is a bizarre level of care for people who aren't concerned about how me getting into their establishment really 'works' tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: and, my dear, you are a terrible third wheel tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: 🔻 suits you better than obscurity 😎 brainpain: but I am a fun time with the TBI having increased the impulsiveness + removing the few inhibitions I did have 😉 brainpain: inappropriate sexual activity is a listed symptom 🤞 boys ihatemyguts: definitely a case of 'okay when I point it out to embolden myself, creepy if you do it' ihatemyguts: think some normies point out their flaws to be endearing but idk, is low-key a disability superpower guys, + 1 for us brainpain: like, what does that mean? Inappropriate for who? Answers on a ✉️ please ihatemyguts: could range from, science, you're being a prude to calling you a master criminal on the low brainpain: so many of my symptoms could describe anyone in their teens or early 20s brainpain: Rich, write a smart boy uni essay on it tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: depending on the bit that gets damaged, could be the same part that isn't yet fully developed in young people tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: checks out 🧠 brainpain: you're SO clever brainpain: you'll be fighting off more than one 🤓 girl tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: I'm not sure about that, on either count tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: though the chair is a useful battering ram when it needs to be brainpain: I'm into it tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: then you can hitch a ride, of course brainpain: reserved™ tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: the parking is unparalleled brainpain: not allowed to drive, you are my transport now, no pressure gotspoons: Me either, who can? gotspoons: need to work out the carpool situation brainpain: my housemate will, she owes me 10000s of favours inandout: + my parents tigerbalm: mine too but they're a lot to inflict upon anyone sonmychest: ^^hard same tigerbalm: maybe we get ourselves there unless someone can't? tigerbalm: & those people speak up sonmychest: That makes sense to me brainpain: ok, is there anyone who needs a lift? ihatemyguts: I'm good tooexhaustedtolivevicariously: likewise gotspoons: I'll make a permanent post where people can register interest in the meet-up, as well as need for a lift gotspoons: so anyone who can offer a lift, can respond there too, sound good guys? 😊 inandout: cool inandout: very un-tyrant like gotspoons: thank you, Zach 😏

[frolicingintheforest]

Nature Preserve Update!

Hello! I’ve not been very active on here, mostly because there is a lot going on in real life! I wanted to post a little update for those of you who have been following the progress of the preserve!  As some of you know, I’ve been working to secure a lovely section of forest. A wilderness, that has been absent of man for many decades. This area is currently proposed for logging, and I’m trying every way in the world to convince them otherwise.  I’ve asked them to split the property, and allow me to purchase the fragile and bio- diverse section of their land. They own a LOT of land, and if they are simply wanting to make money from it, this seems like a good offer for them. I have raised almost $1,000 so far, but unfortunately, that is no where near enough to even attempt making them an offer. I urge you, if you have extra money, or have wanted to donate to this preserve, NOW is the time. The more money I can raise, the higher chances their eyes will sparkle at a proposal!  Last week, I sent the land owners a photo album. They have never seen the beauty of the property they have inherited. I’m really hoping it sheds some light on how special this place is, and that they will be willing to work with me! Please send prayers and good vibes my way!  I will admit, things have been looking grim. Although there has been no action in the forest, I know that eventually , if things don’t change, I will have to watch parts of this forest be hauled away, listen to these old trees fall. I don’t know if I can handle it... I love this place with all my heart, but I have to prepare for ANY outcome. There have been moments I’ve felt super discouraged, nervous, even terrified for the fate of my beloved forest.... but always, I am reminded to lift my head and  push on, that it is worth it!  Good things take time. Nothing in life is going to be easy. Especially in the twisted world we’re living in today, when money is more important than the air we breathe. Aside from all the negative aspects, there are some exciting things ahead! I’ve been networking with specialists, and have several visits planned for the property in the near future! A team of archaeologists came a few weeks ago,  and loved it!  I feel I am in connection with people who care, and can help. We plan on working together to document the plants and creatures of this valley, as well as search for any potential rare and threatened species. I already know of the existence of five rare plant species! This place is teeming with life, and I intend to document it all unfold this Spring. I am thankful for the biologists, botanists,  and conversationalists who are willing and eager to help me. This gives me some form of hope, that together we can accomplish this.  And YOU ALL! You all have been amazing support so far, and I thank you for every single donation and reblog! As I have said before, if each of my followers donated $1, this property could be purchased and protected! That’s less than a soda, or cup of coffee. If you want to help, it is greatly appreciated... if you can’t donate, reblog! Help me share my dream, and save this special wilderness! I'm going to share some of the photos I used to make an album from the land owners, and then show you a brand new section of old growth we found while exploring a new section of the “preserve”! It is one of the largest old growth forests I’ve EVER been in!!! It’s a wonderful addition to the preserve! ANDDD is owned by different people, who hopefully care more about their land than the others I have trying to work with! I’m so excited to show you all! Soooon, but be patient. ;) Also, I’ve been thinking of different types of fundraisers, and I’m curious as to what you all would like to see! I’ve thought of Tshirts, a button set, possibly stickers... maybe even photo prints of the forest. Would you all want to support by purchasing these things? Any other suggestions? I am still collecting responses to send to the land owners, regarding the importance of nature preserves and protecting habitat in these fragile areas... if you would like to add a comment , it can be as small as a simple sentence, or if you’re inspired, write them a book!! :P  They can be anonymous, or not. They will all be printed and sent to the land owners! You can send these to [email protected], or through my ASK box! If you would like to donate, you can do so via paypal!  paypal.me/ccnaturepreserve So much love to you all! <3

#nature preserve update #update #nature preserve

[may-lin-b]

A Bad Idea Written Last Night After Midnight - By this dumbass [SE Fanfic]

She sat in front of her screen, forcing her fingers to type as her eyes focused on the lines of codes in front of her, trying to finish polishing the codes for the upcoming release. After a long moment of not being able to find the line that was messing things up for her, she sighed tiredly and took a big sip of the BlueBuffalo (™) energy drink—she didn’t care for its taste, but it was the only thing keeping her awake for the last couple of days.

“Let’s check the main blog to see if there’s any new asks,” she said to herself, “It would be at least something productive to do for now.”

Almost unwillingly, she pried her fingers away from the keyboard and switched the tap, logging on to her main blog, sweetelite-staff.tumblr.com.

When the blue screen loaded, and before her eyes could notice the blue bubble with the 99+ above her ask icon, she saw it. The post.

“Hey, heads up everyone! Apparently someone inserted their oc into the game and now there’s this bug that adds them as a li. I didn’t receive the bug in any of my game plays but apparently others have. So if you see this bug called “Tadashi” stay away and hopefully staff will fix it soon!!”

A small laugh escaped her lips, feeling grateful that her followers were this hilarious, and clicked on the notes to see the “funny” comments.

“A bug that’s pretending to be a love interest!” She laughed, shaking her head as she replied to a few of them before clicking back to her main screen and finally noticed the asks.

I swear there were less than 30 in the morning? She thought, clicking on the letter icon and waiting for the screen to load.

She laughed at first, seeing that the latest three asks were about the bug joke, but her emotions quickly changed to confusion then anger when she saw that almost all of the asks were about it.

“Did I speak too soon about the followers?” She thought, clicking away from the page and returning to her dashboard to write a post about it, but her dash was covered in mentions and @s from her followers.

There were posts from almost all the active ones speaking about the bug and how he, Tadashi they called him, was the ninth love interest, and was bullying the players in her game.

“Tadashi...?” she muttered as she typed his name in the search box, followed by sweet elite, and her jaw dropped.

There were hundreds of posts about him, some having hundreds of likes and reblogs. And some of those posts were from her main account. His face looked taunting, judging, but almost familiar.

“That hair…” She thought, but quickly shook the thought. There is no way this is real, someone must be playing a prank on her. True, she had intended to add a tenth character, but no one knew of that but her staff, and their design wasn’t finished yet.

She took a second to breath, convincing herself that this is the effect of her lack of sleep. “I’m hallucinating…” She said in a low. “That must be it. Because otherwise…” As her voice faded, she extended her hands to the keyboard and typed her websites name, and clicked.

And there he was. His image on the main page.

She wasn't sure if it was anger or the lack of sleep, but she was not willing to see what this is. She had to delete him.

Opening the pages of the codes, she clicked control + F and typed his name, then enter. And she had to contain herself to stop the cry that was about to escape her lips.

There were thousands and thousands of mentions of him, page, bio, dialogues, codes.  THIS IS INSANE! She thought, not wanting to open her mouth because she was afraid to actually scream in anger and fear. WHO DID THIS TO MY CODE? AND WHO ADDED HIM TO MY STORY?

With shaky hands, she moved the cursor to the button next to his name count that said “REMOVE ALL” that would erase everything about him in her codes—i know that's not how it work but its too much to do and honestly boring fam, so stay with me, m’’kay?— and clicked it.

The counter went to zero, and she let out a loud exhale, and breathed deeply. It’s gone. She thought, her lips quivering as she laughed in relief. She clicked back to her dashboard and typed a quick letter, informing her followers that the evil bug had been erased with a small gif under it. She clicked post and refreshed her page, wanting to see when people commented on it. But her post wasn’t there.

Instead, a different post made by her main blog was there, it read:

Dear Sweet Elite fans.

The bug you have found it actually a teaser to our new and most favorite dateable character that will be joining the game with the full release.

His name is Tadashi, and we, the Sweet Elite Staff, stan him.

“No…. No, No, NO!” She cried, trying to click the post to delete it, but the website kicked her off and she watched it go to the login screen.

She hunched forward and typed in her login to her staff blog, but it said that it’s wrong. She attempted her main blog as well but it said that her email was not attached to any account and if she wanted to sign up with it.

Angry and confused, she typed in the login to her old blog and was able to access it. But she saw that the damage had already been done.

She saw many of her followers and friends reblogging her post with comments, both excited and confused by the sudden update, but none of them seemed to be alarmed—except for Maisa, cuz that girl is wild lamo.

Looking through the main posts notes, she saw her staff members agreeing with the post and making jokes about it, discussing things about the future of the characters and how they were all stans now.

This is insanity! She thought, placing her hands on her head and staring with wide eyes at the madness that had happened. “This is not my game! This is not my character! This is not me!”

She hurriedly clicked on the code tap and saw that she was still able to access it, but was informed that a second person is coding and had changed the code.

Would you like to see the changes? The page read on top, but she wasn’t able to click no, all that she could do was agree.

The new code loaded, it was the oe she had just deleted, with the bug back in it.

The page flickered, and the code was erased for a moment, with only zeros and ones on the screen.

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100001

Having dealt with binary, she quickly pulled up a decoder and translated it.

Hello Serena

The code disappeared again, and she saw the line blink on the empty screen.

If it hadn’t been for what she had been through, this would have made her panic, but she was far too angry and tired to emote.

She typed slowly, on the screen. Who are you and what have you done to my game and accounts?!

The screen went empty again and a second code appeared.

01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01010100 01100001 01100100 01100001 01110011 01101000 01101001 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100001 01100011 01110100 01100101 01110010 00101110

I'm Tadashi, your tenth and best character for Sweet Elite.

Translating it, her eyes went wide in disbelief, and she backed out of her screen.

“No, you're not!” She yelled at her monitor. “I only have ten!”

The screen flickered, and another code appeared on her screen.

01010100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100101 01111000 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101110 01100100 01101111 01101101 00111111 00100000

Then her tap changed, going to the decoder and pasting the code.

Then how do you explain my existence in the fandom?

With horror in her eyes, she looked around at her surrounding, trying to find an explanation to why this is happening.

“HOW THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT?! WHERE ARE YOU?”

Another code typed itself, the it went back to the decoder.

I’m right here. In your codes.

“NO! NO NO NO NO NO! YOU’RE HACKING MY  COMPUTER AND MESSING WITH MY CODES!”

There was a pause for a moment, but the code typed itself again and translated itself.

You have this all wrong you loser, lol. I’m in YOUR code.

Then another line appeared.

Watch.

The screen blinked, switching to a different tap and showing a second coding screen. A few lines were written and the mouse moved, clicking on the word “Save.”

Then, the room around her disappeared, and she found herself sitting in an empty white space, with only here and the monitor in front of her.

Completely frozen from fear, she dropped down on the white floor, her eyes glued to the empty screen.

“Why are you doing this…” She asked, her voice empty.

Another code appeared, but she found herself able to read it without translation

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 00100111 01100101 01101101

“WHY! WHAT ARE YOU GAINING BY MAKING ME ENDURE ALL OF THIS?!”

Another code appeared, and her mind read it and understood its content.

01101000 01110100 01110100 01110000 00111010 00101111 00101111 01101011 01101001 01110100 01110100 01111001 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 00101101 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00101101 01100101 01101110 01101011 01100001 00101110 01110100 01110101 01101101 01100010 01101100 01110010 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 00101111 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00101111 00110001 00110111 00110000 00110001 00110111 00111000 00110011 00110110 00110101 00110111 00110100 00110101 00101111 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101101 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00101101 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101101 01101111 01110010 00101101 01100001 01110000 01101111 01101100 01101111 01100111 01111001

“...No.” she said, covering her mouth from shock. “This is too much…”

The screen went white, matching the walls of this white emptiness, leaving her alone in the midst of it. And after a moment, a code stretched across it.

01000111 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01101100 01100101 01100101 01110000 00101100 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100001 00101110

And then, she woke up.

#i am not sorry #and also hay for people who know that im writing a story project umm heads up #SE #Sweet Elite #SE Serena #se-serena #SE fanfic #writing #my dumbass had to #Also convert the last few binary yall

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

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[ruffsficstuffplace]

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 10)

Winter was curled up in a tiny, shivering ball on the backseat of the cab, her Eluna plushie nestled right up to her face. The rest of the toys she had on her were arranged around her body like a wall, or sitting on top of her like sentries. For lack of space to fit all of them, Weiss sat on the front-side seats, spun around to face her sister.

The special edition Keeper of the Grove plushie—the one with much more intricate detailing and real, malevolently glowing rubies for eyes—was in the trunk, back in its box, face and lid down. They could swear they could feel her evil stare boring through Tony's hull, the authentic leather seats, and into their souls, but neither commented on it.

On the shelf behind Weiss' head was Tony, his face turned outside to the city skyline outside, talking as he drove.

“This is why I don't like big businesses,” he grumbled. “Back then in the old days, you walked into a store, everyone in the place knew you by your first name, and you knew theirs, too! I mean, sure, corporations have changed the world for the better, and I'm just an AI talking based on subjective experiences, and personality parameters and memories encoded into me, but still! You gotta ask:

“Is it all really worth HUGE slip-ups like this happenin'?”

When the sisters didn't respond, Tony looked back at them. “Hey, you two been awfully quiet—everythin' alright back there?”

“Just peachy!” Winter replied. “So long as I've got Eluna with me, everything's going to be just fine, because when the Keeper breaks out of the trunk and comes to get us, she's going to come to life, use her Starlight Spear, and save us all~!”

She laughed, then cried, then buried her face into her plushie once more.

Tony and Weiss looked at each other as her muffled sobbing filled the cab.

He turned back to Winter, his projector generating a holographic arm to rest on the top of the front seats. “Look, Winter, I'm a firm believer in face your fears and all that jazz, but isn't it a little, I don't know, too much to be haulin' your nightmares around with you like this?”

Winter pulled her face out of the Eluna plushie. “I prefer it this way,” she sobbed. “I'd rather a constant reminder that the Keeper is always just around the corner than being surprised like that ever again,” she continued, before she buried her face into her toy once more.

“Oh Ellie, your fur is so soft, and warm, and fluffy… and so good at absorbing my tears and snot, too!”

Tony looked at Weiss, unamused. “Okay, something is definitely up! And don't you lie to me, little ladies—I've known you both since you two were just bumps in your mama's belly! Plus, the bio-sensors in this cab just got updated!”

Weiss tried to remain silent, but Tony's incessant staring broke her down. “The Keeper's after us...” she mumbled.

Tony grimaced. “And I guess it ain't the doll in my trunk, huh?”

Weiss shook her head.

“Aw, phooey!” Tony snapped as he turned back to the skyline. “I wish they never got rid of those lines of code that let me talk bad about people...”

“Cursing my father isn't going to change anything,” Weiss muttered. “Believe me, I've tried plenty of times...”

“It'd make me feel a whole lot better, though!” Tony replied.

They were reaching the loading bay closest to Manor Schnee once more, and the cab slowed down.

Tony sighed, and looked back at the sisters. “Look… girls, if'n the next time I see you two is in the news about how the Keeper got you… you two have been some of the best damn passengers I've ever had, alright? Even if your old man keeps trying to lobby me outta the personality roster...”

Weiss looked down as her eyes moistened, Winter burst into another round of tears.

“We love you too, Tony,” Weiss muttered as she wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

Tony's hologram shimmered and broke. “Go on, get on outta here, you two!” he sobbed. “You enjoy however much time you got left here! Oh, and say hi to your mama for me—your fratellino, too, if he ain't already someone else's kid.”

“We will, Tony,” Winter blubbered. “We will.”

Eluna remained in Winter's arms, and the Keeper stayed in her box for the ride home, the latter suspended in a stasis field on the dashboard. Both sisters couldn't help but flinch every time the rover hit a particularly bumpy patch of road, and the container jostled about slightly until the stabilizers kicked in.

They made it back into the garage a little before sunrise. The missing rovers and the jet were all back, but there were more drones than ever flying about and a suspicious absence of human or cyborg personnel, even for there.

“Good morning, Mses. Schnee!” a drone greeted them as they stepped back out of the rover. “Ms. Winter Schnee, you have an extremely large shipment from The Plushie Palace awaiting teleport confirmation. We regret to inform you that it cannot be handled by human staff due to a large number of absences, but a more than adequate amount of cargo lifters and worker drones have been prepared in their stead!

“How should we proceed?” the drone asked.

“Confirm the teleport, take the ones from the rover, and bring them all to my room,” Winter replied flatly as she walked past, Eluna under one arm and the Keeper in its box under the other. “Keep them in their crates, I'll handle the unpacking and organizing myself; I need a long, time-consuming distraction right now...”

The drone beeped, humming as it followed them it beeped with a different noise. “Teleport successful! Would the Mses. Schnee like breakfast? However, we also regret to inform you that your father, Mr. Schnee, is unable to join for sudden, important business.”

“No thank you, we're not hungry,” Weiss replied as she followed after Winter.

“Response logged—have a nice day, Mses. Schnee!” the drone chirped happily.

As Winter and Weiss stepped back onto the elevator, they remembered just why exactly human personnel were still a popular hiring decision many managers insisted on, in spite of the low costs and ease of acquiring AI drones that could do the same job.

They stepped out of the elevator and back into the halls of Manor Schnee, bright and flooded with warm sunlight.

The healthy glow only made the lack of people all the more stark and ominous, the cheerfulness of the bots' voice modules more unnerving than pleasant. It didn't help that the remaining human staff were either nervous and wary, couldn't care less as they went about their duties, or were chipper and happy, wondering out loud on why exactly everyone else passed on the generous sums Jacques Schnee had boosted their salaries to.

Winter and Weiss met with a train of cargo lifters and worker drones just heading out from her room, one of them reminding her that she could summon them at any time, especially since they had to leave several of the crates them stacked outside her door lest her bedroom become a crowded storeroom.

“You really sure you want to tackle this all by yourself?” Weiss asked as she and Winter stepped back into her room.

“I'll manage,” Winter replied, skirting around the perfectly stacked and balanced towers to her bed. “I've been trained for and handled much more complex logistical problems in even worse conditions.

“Though all that's going to be after I sleep the day away again, with the Moonlight Huntress herself watching over me!” She looked affectionately at the Eluna plushie still nestled in her arm. “But first, I need to decide what to do with her...” she muttered, looking at the boxed Keeper in her other arm.

“Ugh—just throw it away!” Weiss cried as she sat on the side of Winter's bed and took her shoes off. “That thing's just going to give the both of us nightmares, Eluna or no.”

Winter nodded as she carefully set Eluna down on her bed. “Right… might as well have some sweet dreams while we still can,” she muttered as she opened the box.

Unlike earlier, she didn't scream, accidentally throw it into an unfortunate victim's face so hard that it made their nose bleed, before falling to the sidewalk wailing hysterically whilst clutching her Eluna plushie, but she still flinched and felt a chill run down her spine.

Not helping was the morning sun making the ruby eyes of the Keeper plushie glow even brighter and more menacingly than they did at night and under artificial lights.

Winter pulled her out, throwing the box to the side. “Not sorry to say I'm not going to miss you in the slightest,” she growled to her face, before she threw the plushie right out the open door of her balcony.

She turned to watch it sail over the railing, then disappear to the floating gardens below.

Instead, she saw it stop in mid-air, invisible hands turn the toy around to face their owner.

“Oh hey! I never knew they made Keeper dolls that looked like this!” a too familiar voice said. “Oooh, man, these eyes are SO much cooler than the buttons...” the Keeper plushie was lowered, the actual Keeper gasped. “Oh Eluna! Is that an actual, limited edition Eluna plushie?”

Weiss and Winter felt their blood run cold as the plushie moved into the room, and stopped at the foot of Winter's bed, just between the two sisters. “Ooohh… these are SO rare, I never thought I'd be able to see one of them up close!”

The voice paused.

“Why does it smell like tears, snot, and despair…?”

Winter blinked. “Can you please hand me my Eluna plushie?”

The Keeper toy was put down on the bed, and the Eluna plushie floated over to Winter. “Here you go!”

Winter took it and nodded. “Thank you.”

She began to make a long, continuous noise, starting as a quiet whine, gradually growing louder and louder to a wail of pure anguish, occasionally broken by hysterical sobbing.

Weiss felt the Keeper wince. “… Uh… she scared of me, too?”

“To put it lightly...” Weiss replied flatly.

Winter let out another wail of distress. “Could you please not just talk like that while you're invisible? It's freaking me out even more than you already are!”

“Oh, okay”--the Keeper plushie was picked up once more, the toy's face turned to Winter--”how about this?”

Winter started crying even harder. “No! It's even worse now!”

“What if I move the head around while I'm talking, like this?” the Keeper asked, doing just that.

“Nope! No! No, no, no, no, no, nooooo... you know what? You just tell us whatever it is you were going to tell us, just let me curl up on the floor,” Winter blubbered.

The Keeper politely kept quiet while she did.

“Okay!” Winter sobbed, as she hugged the Eluna plushie to her chest, “you can talk now!”

The Keeper plushie “nodded.” “Alright! First up: your security still really sucks, especially now that all the cyborg and human guards are gone.

“Second: we're getting a LOT of comms-chatter and seeing a lot of recruitment advertisements on the Grid for more expeditions into the Valley, which also really sucks.

“And third: I was prepared this time and had dinner before I left home, but do you have any food on you? I didn't think you were going to be gone all night this time, and now I missed breakfast...”

Silence.

“It's okay if you don't have any!” the Keeper added. “I'll manage.”

Winter whimpered.

Weiss groaned. “Okay, first of all: how are you able to listen to our networks and access the Grid?”

“Uhh… with the terminal I have back at the Valley?” the Keeper replied. “We're a lot more advanced than mud huts and spears, you know. Well, actually we still do technically have mud huts and spears, but they've got Grid access, power, and HoloVision, just like you guys.”

Winter made a little choked dying noise. “Sorry,” she whispered, “please, continue.”

Weiss stared at the Keeper plushie, unsure of how to react. “… Second: we both tried to talk to my father, but he refuses to believe you exist, or that the threat you're making is very real.”

The Keeper sighed. “Ugh, yeah, I noticed! I broke into his office earlier last night, and he wouldn't believe I was actually there, just kept calling me a 'stress-induced hallucination' or something. I even pulled the hood of my cloak to show him my face, but he just threw a paperweight at me and thought I was one of your drones when I yelled 'Ow!'”

Winter balked. “Father SURVIVED looking at your face...?”

“I didn't have the mask on at the time,” the Keeper said, pointing at the skull-like face of her plushie self. “It makes actually talking to people really hard, you know? Have you ever tried to talk to someone who just peed and popped himself? It's pretty much impossible, not to mention really, really gross...”

Both sisters just stared at the Keeper plushie.

“Anyway, could you keep trying to find some way to get him to stop all these expeditions? Even if we see just one rover heading over to the Valley, there's going to be--”

“CONSEQUENCES.”

The Keeper coughed and cleared her throat. “Sorry, had to use my Scary Voice for that... kind of an unspoken rule amongst Keepers…”

Silence.

“… Soooo… I'm just going to go now...” the Keeper started to place the plushie of herself back on the bed.

Winter yelped, the plushie stopped in mid-air. “Keep it!” she blubbered, tears streaming down her face, “so at least I know where you are when you come to visit!”

“You sure?” the Keeper asked, holding the plushie out to Winter, its ruby red eyes looming ominously over her, glinting from the sunlight.

Her eyes widened.

As a special, limited edition Keeper of the Grove plushie and a hysterically screaming Winter zipped through the halls of the manor, leaving a trail of spooked humans and malfunctioning drones in its wake, so hastened the Ruin of the family Schnee.

#rwby #white rose #fanfic #the keeper of the grove

[anthonykrierion]

How Digital Marketing Thrives in Remote Work

Last updated on June 2, 2020 at 06:38 pm

Businesses have suffered a severe repercussion from the economical effects of the pandemic. Amidst the unfortunate climate regarding different industries, one of the businesses that continue to thrive is Digital Marketing and this is primarily because of the flexibility involved in its work processes. A team with solid core values and a clear vision in mind is one to reckon with in terms of productivity and results so this is a fundamental area to pay attention to.

For this article, I have asked experts from our industry about how they transitioned from their traditional workspace to a remote work setup and so far, their answers have affirmed how digital marketing is going strong even during this situation. I will also give you a preview into how our team is doing it and successfully so. SEOs and other companies who are looking for the benefits of a work-from-home setup, read on!

Impacts of Transitioning to a Full Remote Work Setup

Let’s tackle the hard parts of having a remote work setup. Not everyone can transition to remote work, especially if their scope of work requires face-to-face interaction with clients or if they have a need for onsite materials for them to accomplish their tasks. For digital marketing, there are also roadblocks to having this kind of setup.

Owner and Marketing Director of SEOteric, Matt Brooks says, “Communication, or rather connection, is harder to maintain. I would routinely visit each person throughout the day to connect, and that is much harder to do in a remote work environment. We all miss the connection of being together, and the culture you build is harder to maintain when working remotely”.

Connection has been seemingly lost since everyone is on the other side of a screen. Working as a team can be greatly aided by face-to-face interactions which can improve transparency in communication but with remote work, this can be difficult to do.

Paul Ronto, Chief Marketing Officer of Run Repeat echoes this statement, “One of the big downsides of remote work is the feeling of isolation. It really sucks productivity when you feel alone all day. We crave personal connection and losing those intra-office chats/relationships takes its toll”.

Still, the positive effects trump the negative since these can all be dealt with by the right mindset and vision for productivity in accomplishing tasks.

“Working remotely does not have any significant downsides for workers specializing in digital marketing. Digital Marketing flow has significantly increased and utilizing social platforms for targeted advertising has become increasingly effective and efficient during quarantine, primarily due to the spike of users and potential clients use of the internet and increase in social media screen time,” Tristan Barrett of YouPlanets says about the overall impact of remote work to digital marketing.

Key ingredients for digital marketing to thrive in remote work:

My team is still at the ready to empower businesses who are underserved in the digital world. The remote setup is not much of a surprise for us, so we handle it excellently. As their leader, I see to it that I overshare and target the most cohesive communication channels that we can take advantage of. I believe this is more important than keeping them in the dark and leaving my team members with more uncertainty than they have during this pandemic.

More than being transparent in terms of my communication, I also work hard in order to achieve KPIs and to motivate the utmost productivity in them. Instilling a vision in team members is essential since this can help them realize their purpose. To do this, there are key ingredients to maintain the growth that digital marketing can give to businesses. Let’s take a look at some of them here:

Trust

The call for unity resounds more than ever, especially since mobility is limited during these times. We cannot see each other but that doesn’t mean that integrity and precise work ethics would be absent. Trust is a two-way street so this does not only apply to team members but you have to trust the management as well. For all of us to have a sound working environment, it would be beneficial for everyone to feel safe in it.

Alexander Porter of SearchItLocal shares that, “While office environments foster connectivity and creativity, they also allow for levels of oversight. Remote work requires trust, not only in individuals within a team but in the processes themselves. For me and the remote team at Search It Local, the greatest effect of working remotely has been the growing sense of trust in each other and the service we provide”.

Inherent trust is important in order to make a remote setup work and this gives freedom to work at a designated pace. I would like to work with a team I can trust so this is a valuable ingredient for remote work.

Invest in Productivity Tools

I invest in software because it greatly helps in getting things done. For this reason, productivity tools are one of the things that you should look into if you are aiming to increase productivity in your team. We use Hubstaff and Trello as tools to aid our productivity and this can help us track the tasks from team members. Additionally, they are efficient in monitoring how a team member performs so that is a great benefit from this software.

We also have a P2 Blog where we log on our weekly tasks. This is instrumental for our remote work process moving forward as we are transparent with the rest of the team on our workload. With this, team members are expected to log in their completed tasks and the tasks for next week. There is also a section for the things that came up during the week, so we can adjust expectations on the submission of tasks.

It would also help if you have tools for time management and Alan Silvestri from Growth Gorilla has this to say about this, “The biggest effect of constant remote work is the need to manage your own time. Fortunately, today’s tech offers a variety of tools to help you. But I’m always experimenting and trying to improve – that’s how critical time management is for success.

Streamline the Hiring Process

Most of the work processes now can happen online. Even hiring applicants can be done via Zoom calls. Our team has a 6-step hiring process and with the lockdown happening, we had no problems observing this for applicants. What’s lost now is the effort to go to the office and return for each step. This is how I know that an applicant is a valuable addition to the team.

Our own Human Resources Manager, Alexie Nobleta says this about the hiring process during the pandemic, “Applicants are more eager to move on with their application process now that there is an option to work from home. This is because job seekers are looking for a safe option. They also have fewer expenses when working from home so this helps in attracting them to pursue their application.”

Additionally, the CEO of Netbooknews, Kenny Trinh, says, “Remote employees have more freedom than traditional office workers. They can wake up at the office starting an hour and just sit in front of the computer. They don’t have to tense about catching a ride and reaching office though bad traffic. Who would want to miss this benefit?”

Pay close attention to your communication channels

As I said before, transparency is key to communication. We need to exhaust all communication channels possible so that not a word is lost in translation. This helps in improving efficiency especially because clients are expecting our responsiveness. Working from home has opened up a lot of avenues in communication as video chat has become a norm.

Andrew Laws uses Slack for their communication as he says, “During the COVID-19 Pandemic there has been an increased reliance on email for most companies. But not for us. We decided a couple of years ago to ban internal emails in favor of using Slack. Slack integrates brilliantly with our project management software (Trello). Remote working and careful configuration of Slack has also helped reduce our overheads, so even losing work has been more tolerable than it would have been otherwise”.

Communication is one of the key ingredients that we need in order for digital marketing to thrive. Without it, you might as well be working with a brick wall. Accessibility of information is of the utmost importance. Never forget this when you are transitioning to remote work.

Refine your process documents

Working on a remote setup is a chance to revisit your process documents as well as strike the right balance between efficiency and time management. It is high time that you see how you can refine your process so you can motivate maximum efficiency.

Jo McKee, the founder of McKee Creative has accomplished this for their team and he shared, “To do this we set up very clear Job Brief documents so that each person understands not only the task and the deadline, but also how it fits in to the bigger picture. We promote initiative, and provide incentives for the team member to grow with the business. It’s also really important to hire the right people. If you’re working remotely and hire the type of person who just “ticks the boxes” without thinking about the impact of their work, the quality of the work will suffer.”

In Google Drive, we have created an Agency Manual where new team members can find every workflow and template they need to complete their jobs. It also serves to introduce one another via a quick bio.

Digital Marketing and Business

The digital marketing industry is showing no signs of slowing down. As businesses are now realizing or revisiting the potential that an online presence can give to their growth, digital marketing is more prevalent especially since it can operate under remote work. We, as digital marketing experts, have to show stability in the form of our organization. Business Development Head, Charm Villanueva says, “We are already ahead of the game and it is our responsibility to guide businesses through the shift – from traditional marketing to digital.”

Tom De Spiegelaere also affirms this as he has seen a boost in conversions due to the circumstances of the pandemic. Businesses have seen the potential of online to help them achieve their goals and what better way than to serve that purpose for them, right? Tom says, “To fill that need, we’re doing our part in pivoting our strategies to help companies stay relevant, profitable, and helpful to their customers. The pandemic may have been a shock to us all, but this has proved how crucial a company’s online presence is. For that reason, business owners need a company like ours to help them navigate the changes in the market today.”

Key Takeaway

See how many digital marketing experts are navigating this change in a significant way? Remote work can do a lot for your company, especially now. For those who are scared to explore this option or opted not to do so, what have you got to lose? Productivity will be ignited if you lead your team. At the end of the day, no matter what the office setup may be, it would still be up to you as a leader to motivate your team in achieving a common goal.

Who else is working remotely? How do you like it so far? Comment down below!

How Digital Marketing Thrives in Remote Work was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

#Video And Blog Marketing

[wikimakemoney]

How Digital Marketing Thrives in Remote Work

Last updated on June 2, 2020 at 06:38 pm

Businesses have suffered a severe repercussion from the economical effects of the pandemic. Amidst the unfortunate climate regarding different industries, one of the businesses that continue to thrive is Digital Marketing and this is primarily because of the flexibility involved in its work processes. A team with solid core values and a clear vision in mind is one to reckon with in terms of productivity and results so this is a fundamental area to pay attention to.

For this article, I have asked experts from our industry about how they transitioned from their traditional workspace to a remote work setup and so far, their answers have affirmed how digital marketing is going strong even during this situation. I will also give you a preview into how our team is doing it and successfully so. SEOs and other companies who are looking for the benefits of a work-from-home setup, read on!

Impacts of Transitioning to a Full Remote Work Setup

Let’s tackle the hard parts of having a remote work setup. Not everyone can transition to remote work, especially if their scope of work requires face-to-face interaction with clients or if they have a need for onsite materials for them to accomplish their tasks. For digital marketing, there are also roadblocks to having this kind of setup.

Owner and Marketing Director of SEOteric, Matt Brooks says, “Communication, or rather connection, is harder to maintain. I would routinely visit each person throughout the day to connect, and that is much harder to do in a remote work environment. We all miss the connection of being together, and the culture you build is harder to maintain when working remotely”.

Connection has been seemingly lost since everyone is on the other side of a screen. Working as a team can be greatly aided by face-to-face interactions which can improve transparency in communication but with remote work, this can be difficult to do.

Paul Ronto, Chief Marketing Officer of Run Repeat echoes this statement, “One of the big downsides of remote work is the feeling of isolation. It really sucks productivity when you feel alone all day. We crave personal connection and losing those intra-office chats/relationships takes its toll”.

Still, the positive effects trump the negative since these can all be dealt with by the right mindset and vision for productivity in accomplishing tasks.

“Working remotely does not have any significant downsides for workers specializing in digital marketing. Digital Marketing flow has significantly increased and utilizing social platforms for targeted advertising has become increasingly effective and efficient during quarantine, primarily due to the spike of users and potential clients use of the internet and increase in social media screen time,” Tristan Barrett of YouPlanets says about the overall impact of remote work to digital marketing.

Key ingredients for digital marketing to thrive in remote work:

My team is still at the ready to empower businesses who are underserved in the digital world. The remote setup is not much of a surprise for us, so we handle it excellently. As their leader, I see to it that I overshare and target the most cohesive communication channels that we can take advantage of. I believe this is more important than keeping them in the dark and leaving my team members with more uncertainty than they have during this pandemic.

More than being transparent in terms of my communication, I also work hard in order to achieve KPIs and to motivate the utmost productivity in them. Instilling a vision in team members is essential since this can help them realize their purpose. To do this, there are key ingredients to maintain the growth that digital marketing can give to businesses. Let’s take a look at some of them here:

Trust

The call for unity resounds more than ever, especially since mobility is limited during these times. We cannot see each other but that doesn’t mean that integrity and precise work ethics would be absent. Trust is a two-way street so this does not only apply to team members but you have to trust the management as well. For all of us to have a sound working environment, it would be beneficial for everyone to feel safe in it.

Alexander Porter of SearchItLocal shares that, “While office environments foster connectivity and creativity, they also allow for levels of oversight. Remote work requires trust, not only in individuals within a team but in the processes themselves. For me and the remote team at Search It Local, the greatest effect of working remotely has been the growing sense of trust in each other and the service we provide”.

Inherent trust is important in order to make a remote setup work and this gives freedom to work at a designated pace. I would like to work with a team I can trust so this is a valuable ingredient for remote work.

Invest in Productivity Tools

I invest in software because it greatly helps in getting things done. For this reason, productivity tools are one of the things that you should look into if you are aiming to increase productivity in your team. We use Hubstaff and Trello as tools to aid our productivity and this can help us track the tasks from team members. Additionally, they are efficient in monitoring how a team member performs so that is a great benefit from this software.

We also have a P2 Blog where we log on our weekly tasks. This is instrumental for our remote work process moving forward as we are transparent with the rest of the team on our workload. With this, team members are expected to log in their completed tasks and the tasks for next week. There is also a section for the things that came up during the week, so we can adjust expectations on the submission of tasks.

It would also help if you have tools for time management and Alan Silvestri from Growth Gorilla has this to say about this, “The biggest effect of constant remote work is the need to manage your own time. Fortunately, today’s tech offers a variety of tools to help you. But I’m always experimenting and trying to improve – that’s how critical time management is for success.

Streamline the Hiring Process

Most of the work processes now can happen online. Even hiring applicants can be done via Zoom calls. Our team has a 6-step hiring process and with the lockdown happening, we had no problems observing this for applicants. What’s lost now is the effort to go to the office and return for each step. This is how I know that an applicant is a valuable addition to the team.

Our own Human Resources Manager, Alexie Nobleta says this about the hiring process during the pandemic, “Applicants are more eager to move on with their application process now that there is an option to work from home. This is because job seekers are looking for a safe option. They also have fewer expenses when working from home so this helps in attracting them to pursue their application.”

Additionally, the CEO of Netbooknews, Kenny Trinh, says, “Remote employees have more freedom than traditional office workers. They can wake up at the office starting an hour and just sit in front of the computer. They don’t have to tense about catching a ride and reaching office though bad traffic. Who would want to miss this benefit?”

Pay close attention to your communication channels

As I said before, transparency is key to communication. We need to exhaust all communication channels possible so that not a word is lost in translation. This helps in improving efficiency especially because clients are expecting our responsiveness. Working from home has opened up a lot of avenues in communication as video chat has become a norm.

Andrew Laws uses Slack for their communication as he says, “During the COVID-19 Pandemic there has been an increased reliance on email for most companies. But not for us. We decided a couple of years ago to ban internal emails in favor of using Slack. Slack integrates brilliantly with our project management software (Trello). Remote working and careful configuration of Slack has also helped reduce our overheads, so even losing work has been more tolerable than it would have been otherwise”.

Communication is one of the key ingredients that we need in order for digital marketing to thrive. Without it, you might as well be working with a brick wall. Accessibility of information is of the utmost importance. Never forget this when you are transitioning to remote work.

Refine your process documents

Working on a remote setup is a chance to revisit your process documents as well as strike the right balance between efficiency and time management. It is high time that you see how you can refine your process so you can motivate maximum efficiency.

Jo McKee, the founder of McKee Creative has accomplished this for their team and he shared, “To do this we set up very clear Job Brief documents so that each person understands not only the task and the deadline, but also how it fits in to the bigger picture. We promote initiative, and provide incentives for the team member to grow with the business. It’s also really important to hire the right people. If you’re working remotely and hire the type of person who just “ticks the boxes” without thinking about the impact of their work, the quality of the work will suffer.”

In Google Drive, we have created an Agency Manual where new team members can find every workflow and template they need to complete their jobs. It also serves to introduce one another via a quick bio.

Digital Marketing and Business

The digital marketing industry is showing no signs of slowing down. As businesses are now realizing or revisiting the potential that an online presence can give to their growth, digital marketing is more prevalent especially since it can operate under remote work. We, as digital marketing experts, have to show stability in the form of our organization. Business Development Head, Charm Villanueva says, “We are already ahead of the game and it is our responsibility to guide businesses through the shift – from traditional marketing to digital.”

Tom De Spiegelaere also affirms this as he has seen a boost in conversions due to the circumstances of the pandemic. Businesses have seen the potential of online to help them achieve their goals and what better way than to serve that purpose for them, right? Tom says, “To fill that need, we’re doing our part in pivoting our strategies to help companies stay relevant, profitable, and helpful to their customers. The pandemic may have been a shock to us all, but this has proved how crucial a company’s online presence is. For that reason, business owners need a company like ours to help them navigate the changes in the market today.”

Key Takeaway

See how many digital marketing experts are navigating this change in a significant way? Remote work can do a lot for your company, especially now. For those who are scared to explore this option or opted not to do so, what have you got to lose? Productivity will be ignited if you lead your team. At the end of the day, no matter what the office setup may be, it would still be up to you as a leader to motivate your team in achieving a common goal.

Who else is working remotely? How do you like it so far? Comment down below!

source http://wikimakemoney.com/2020/06/02/how-digital-marketing-thrives-in-remote-work/

[hwinfotech-blog]

Why Use a Match Clone Script? | HWINFOTECH

A Match Clone Script can make a clone of any singles database that has been compiled for use with the Matchmaker software package. The ability to manipulate all your data and simply import it into the system is very convenient. If you would like to continue using your data and have it converted to the more standardized format, you could send them your data and they will do it.

Basically, the Profile Data is the most important part of your profile. This data will tell others exactly what you look like, what you are looking for, and how well you speak. The rest of your profile, such as the likes and dislikes is made up of other data.

Profiles are included in each and every single website on the internet. You just have to enter your name, address, and zip code, and your account will be linked. The process of logging in and creating a profile is almost instant and the only thing you have to remember is your username.

Match Clone Scripts enables you to take your current profile, and import it into the system. Once you have finished, you can now change your name, add friends, or delete them all. At this point, you can customize all your data, leaving you with a very custom profile. You could even have a bio box built in, and have it linked to your user name.

Now, if you need to build up a profile, you could go to Google My Business or use Free Profile Builder. These types of services allow you to easily create a profile and then link it to your email address. The drawback is that you have to be logged in, and if you forget to log out, you are given a default name.

It would be extremely useful if there was a way to automate this process. Say you needed to buildup a profile, and then we need to leave and log back in. You can put in a simple profile on a free site, but it won't be customized.

On a paid site, however, you will find that all your favorite sites are listed, so you can search for a site to link to. You will also find suggestions from other users. This is a great way to build up your profile without having to worry about forgetting your password.

Another great way to add new matches is to do it via text message. You could simply take a random text message and change it with your name and address. This is easy, fun, and saves you the time from doing a lot of searching.

If you want to chat with someone, you can easily add them as a friend. Doing so will also update your profile as you chat. You can add details, show off pictures, and even chat using different media.

The best thing about this is that you can simply click a checkbox or choose a sender when you have sent someone a message. What better way to get a reply, than from someone you didn't even know! This is the ideal way to get to know someone.

You can see why the Internet has become so popular, especially at night, with the many instant messaging services, as well as internet chatting. So many people use these methods to stay in touch, as well as meet new people. It really is an excellent method for staying in touch with someone.

As a side note, I would like to mention that if you don't have a profile for the profile of someone you have met on a website, and they ask you to create one, the most important thing is to take a few minutes to upload your personal information. After you have filled in your information, simply select a service, and you will have your own profile all ready to go.

Buy match clone script - https://www.hwinfotech.com/product/match-clone-script/

Buy Readymade Clone Script - https://www.hwinfotech.com/shop/

[avaliveradio]

Musicians guide to promoting new music

Do you have a plan for your music release but you don’t know how to promote it? 

Planning a music release can be a very intimidating thing when you haven’t done it before. Even when you have, getting eyes on your music isn’t as easy as google searching cold contacts and begging them to listen to you.

It actually doesn’t work that way. PR takes time and effort to execute well.  Sadly, many artists believe that PR is done by blasting a press release out to the top 100+ music sites that they Googled. This never works, because PR placements start with people you already know and have a relationship with. You can’t expect to get results with cold contacts you get from a stock list or google search. It’s a waste of your time and efforts. Especially if you have to buy your press list.

As a member of the press, I can assure you that I have never discovered an artist from a mass mailing. Even if they get through my spam filters, I never read them because I never signed up to receive the information and I don’t know the credibility of the person mailing me without permission.

On those two reasons and so many more, cold mass mailings don’t offer value to me as a press agent nor do I consider them an effective .

A quality list must be developed over time. I always say that if you don’t know each person on your list by name and qualifications, don’t bother emailing them.

Instead, I recommend working with a qualified team that can help you promote your music professionally. A team that gets proven and time tested results. Track record is everything in this business.

We have been promoting artists for 10 years, you can Read the FEEDBACK here: https://www.avaliveradio.info/feedback

Now let’s go down a solid list of strategy that you’ll need to know for a successful Music Release.

Pre-release Guide:

Here’s my break down for releasing new music so you don’t miss a single opportunity. What we noticed that separates the best artists and teams who get results vs. those who are floundering is planning. Follow our lead and you’ll be gaining exposure and seeing results like a pro. 

Register with a Performing Rights Organization. to collect your royalties you’ll need to sign with a both a Performing Rights Organization (“PRO” for short) as well as SoundExchange. The three options in the U.S. for PRO’s are ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI. For live royalties, BMI and ASCAP both offer portals to collect royalties from playing live. Once your songs are registered on the PRO database, you log in and enter any dates you have performed those songs, where they were performed, and which songs. The PRO companies payout quarterly so be sure to enter the performances soon after they are through, otherwise, you could miss a deadline! You also have to register with SoundExchange, which focuses on royalties for your recording (mechanical rights), while your Performing Rights Organization focuses on royalties for your song (performance rights).

** If you do not yet have your music streaming across all platforms, you can use a service like Tunecore to distribute your music to all digital stores and streaming services in preparation of our package.  I recommend making sure you will be released on Spotify, iTunes and google play at the least for best use of our marketing packages and for the success of your release.

When to release? Releasing on a Monday or Friday gives popular artists the best chance to maximize their chart potential. Billboard tracks sales from Friday to Thursday each week, so a song or album released on a Friday has the advantage of being tracked for all seven days of the weekly cycle. Try releasing something new at least once or twice a month for optimal growth. You Get Paid More often and have more music for your new fans to listen to.  This helps you generate alot more streaming revenue from every mega fan. If you are willing to put in the time and effort, releasing singles is a great strategy when it’s done consistently and often.

Gather Images: Hopefully you filled up your cell phone with good quality images that can be used on your social media and in your music promotions with us here at AVA Live Radio.  We recommend filling a drop box or google photo file with at least 10 high quality studio photos that help to track your journey to this new release. They can be full color, or black and white images.  They can also be a mix of in studio pictures, playing your instrument, official art work for the release, play date posters, band photos, or even photos of the band hanging out together. Get creative and think like a music fan. What kind of pictures help to document this time and tell the story through visuals. What kind of picture will draw someones eye to the fact that your a musician and you are living that life.

Fill in our New Single Release form When you get on board to work with our marketing team, make sure you fill in your form. The New Single Release form will help you pull in the information about your single that will best represent you on promotion days. You only have to fill this in once, so do a great job. The more details we have to work with, the better your visual story and digital foot print will turn out. We want this information to work for you past the release date, so everything you can tell us about bringing this single to the public will be helpful. Try to tell a story. Mention details on writing, recording, mixing, mastering, being in the studio, etc. All these details can be really exciting for your fans to discover.  Taking them on a behind-the-scenes journey of this music release is a great way to form a stronger bond with your current and growing base. If you have a website, a blog or even an instagram page, you could tell this story with great visuals that we can use to help people walk that journey with you. It’s important that we map this journey out to the press as well. This way we can ensure that your music makes a solid impression on the people that matter most. When documenting this information for your fans, send updates on how the recording, mixing and mastering is going using videos and photos via your socials, plus capture longer-form stories for Instagram Stories and for your newsletter.

Up to 1 month before your release, engage with your following on milestones through multiple distribution routes. This can include: Your own newsletter, website, blog, instagram, Facebook, youtube, linkedin, etc.  Share versions of the artwork you are considering and song titles by polling your fans and holding contests to select what cover or title to go with. Have your fans weigh in on photos, graphics and get them involved with the process. The goal of all this activity is to get people excited so they are engaging and thinking about your progress. When you order one of our packages, we can use the pre-release time to support your content and start telling more people about you through social media. Our artists have found it very helpful to have our assistance during these days prior to any release.

Focus on Increasing Your Audience : If you have been recording new music you may have taken your eye off of your fan sites but it’s time to get back in the swing. You need to grow your social and email list during these pre-release time. This takes some thought so get your team on board. Use my Social media Tune up list to get your pages up to date. I have s section filled with ideas. If you have not kept up consistently find your friends and people you admire (bloggers, other artists, venues, local spots you like to hang out in, etc.) on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and friend away!  This will increase your audience because many of the people you follow will follow you back. Also, start reaching out to people in your inbox and outbox and get them on your list (remember it’s illegal to just sign people up, so do this with integrity and ask each person to stay in touch through your newsletter). Your newsletter is the place where you will be able to monetize so, don’t skip this step. Also look back through all your previous post comments and try to reactivate all those conversations. It helps to feed the algorithm some targeted followers to show your future posts to. This also reminds those top fans that you are still around. These are the people who are most likely to play and share your new music.

Prep Your Website and social skins: Change the artwork on the landing page to announce the new music and b sure to add those same images to all your social media banners and thumbnails. The key here is to accomplish a unified look for everything public. Canva is a great free resource to create art at the right size for all your social media pages. Change your bio to announce the release on all social pages.

Update Spotify:

Header and Profile Photo: Keep these up to date and in line with the rest of your social profiles.

Image Gallery: Choose images most aligned with your brand and recent music.

Social Media Links: Add links to your socials.

Update your spotify bio> With 1500 characters to share with your fans, you can update this whenever it makes sense for you. Keep your bio updated, include shows, notable press, and new singles.

Add an Artist’s Pick: You can designate a song, album, or playlist as the “Artist’s Pick.” This will appear at the top of your profile with a note from you. You can add a custom image to your Pick or share tour dates if preferred.

Release Week Checklist:

Make sure your New Single Release form is filled in and completed in full at least 1 week prior to your preferred launch date. Pick a package and get started: here

Start a Spotify playlist that includes your new single along with 9 other songs that are more popular (both indie and mainstream) and closely related to your theme, genre. Think of songs that come from artists with similar fan bases to your own. You can create additional playlists as well focused on themes such as wedding, romance, travel wanderlust & adventure, an activity, or event.

Update your fans with a countdown posting a great new photo or video clip each day for 7-10 days leading up to your release. Include this on social media, send a newsletter with that story at 10 days in, 5 days in, and 24 hours before the launch.

Plan your content calendar. Write down what things you are planning to post this next 7-14 days. It’s so helpful to have a plan down. Consistency is key to seeing post growth and social potential. You should have already started activating your pages during the pre-release week but it’s never too late. Include video clips, live stream, photos, play dates, and links to upcoming reviews and articles in your content calendar.  I love using hootsuite to set up posts ahead of time but facebook also has a creator studio that allows you to set up posts for instagram and facebook ahead of time.

Release Day:  Set aside a few hours to support your own release on those first few hours it goes live. You will want to get the release into as many hands as possible even if that requires personal messages, live streams, links and newsletters. Also don’t forget to send your release to your most active fans and ask them to share it for you. Remind them that your first goal is to get to 5k streams and you need their help to meet that milestone. Getting people on board with a target goal, is a great way to activate your fan base.

Social Media: Create a post for all your social media pages that offers a streaming link. I recommend using a landing page on your own website that offers all your links from spotify to apple.  I use http://wavve.link/avaliveradio to include links to multiple pages. Create a release tile and post with the album / single art and say “out now”. Instagram: Create an Instagram Story video and post by 9 am. Go to Instagram Live and talk about the fact that the music is available and ask for fan feedback. Facebook: Post a status update announcing your release, and pin it to the top as a timeline feature. Go to Facebook Live and talk about the fact that the music is available and ask for fan feedback. Twitter: tweet out your release announcement. Pin the tweet to the top of your profile page Go to Hootesuit and program the tweets for 1-3 times a day for the next 10 days. YouTube: Customize the top banner, profile picture to announce the new music. Add your wavve link and mention of the release to the “About” section. Upload cover art and have track streaming in the background. Newsletter: Send out a newsletter announcement to your mailing list.

Now that you have a plan and strategy for releasing new music, come sign up for a promotion and let’s start making a difference.

Let’s look at a sample promotion package:

Included in this package:

A press release about your music and interview

SocialMedia Marketing using images you provide & professional art created by our marketing team.

Spotify music ads created and run for 2 weeks to promote your interview and Spotify music stream to 175,000 people

Featured article including a Q&A for the interview, audio and links to your interview on our network as well as 15 other broadcasts, your social links and important information people need to know about you. 

2 Newsletter mailings and press releases to industry, other stations, press core and music fans.  Media, podcasts, websites, bloggers, and social pages.

Radio rotation across 15 broadcasting channels. 

ART: digital poster with release date of single, art for your press release and feature page on our website.

We have been promoting artists for 10 years, you can Read the FEEDBACK here: https://www.avaliveradio.info/feedback

CONTACT with questions..

#music marketing' #music news #music business

[anxietycalling]

... is this thing on?

HA. After like two months of trying to break into my own goddamn tumblr account, I finally figured out what password I used. So hi. Hello. Welcome back to the internet, self.

I mostly wanted to log in to give some updates about my life and start, you know, documenting it as there is some monumental stuff in the works for me this year. I’ll put the rest of it under a cut because I’m not a barbarian.

So one of the biggest changes for me since the last time I blogged reliably is that I got diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. That was, uh, two years ago? Somewhere in that general timeframe. It’s not really that surprising, given my mother’s extreme fastidiousness that she later admitted to me is untreated OCD. I’m the only person I know who can walk soundlessly in pitch dark and make entire meals without touching food with my hands because of that. But anyways, I guess the reason it didn’t get diagnosed sooner is because, as my wonderful psychologist puts it, “You’re too smart to fall for obvious compulsions because you’re aware of how they affect your public perception, so you get trapped in the ones that are more realistic.” In other words, I intellectualize my OCD too much.  That’s not to say it doesn’t affect my life though! For... probably about a year, maybe more, I had a crippling fear of handling or preparing food for others because I had a persistent obsession that I would accidentally poison someone. At its worst it got so bad that I couldn’t touch plastic wrap or open packaging, either. Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure response prevention (ERP), my symptoms have decreased to the point where I’m able to cook for myself and others again. I still seek reassurance more than I should - which is another symptom of OCD - but I’m working on it. Baby steps!  Most of my symptoms are manageable now, but I do still get ‘stuck’ sometimes. Like I said, I have a wonderful psychologist. She makes me do things I don’t want to do. She’s nice about it, but she’s a bit of a stickler for progress. Which is good! She’s very practical in a way that previous therapists of mine haven’t been. I don’t like the ooey-gooey “How does that make you feeeeeel? How does it relate to your tortured chiiiiildhood?” nonsense, so I’m glad we can skip that. For years I thought I was just bad at therapy, so I didn’t pursue it. Turns out that the right person with the right counselling philosophy can be a great asset in managing mental illness. Which leads me to the reason I sought out a therapist to begin with...

When I moved to Ottawa, I got a regular endocrinologist for the first time in my life. She’s wonderful and willing to work with her patients at their own level. My husband goes to the same endo (but more on him in a second...) and seeing the differences in the way she interacts with each of us is awesome. She takes time to answer my many questions and often has great practical advice about managing hormone replacement therapy. My testosterone levels have been stable for... three years now? Maybe a little more? Aside from one set of bloodwork where my hemoglobin was high, there haven’t been any major hiccups. And my endo said that it wasn’t necessarily concerning, just a precaution because we don’t know what the effects of heightened hemoglobin levels in transgender men are yet. Another thing my endocrinologist does is refer her patients to other relevant services. After my second or third appointment with her, she wrote my letter of recommendation to the government so I could change my gender designation on my birth certificate. She also did the paperwork for OHIP to cover my top surgery. I got the letter from the Ministry of Health a couple of weeks later, and started down the path to actually, you know, getting surgery. It’s more complicated than you think! She recommended me to the Montreal GRS clinic (Drs. Brassard, Belanger and Bensimon). There is a fair amount of paperwork that they request before your file even gets passed to the surgery team. One of those things was a letter of recommendation from a health professional that meets the WPATH standards of care. That’s when my endo recommended my therapist to me. The WPATH standards of care require at least 6 months of follow-up from the practitioner, so I sat down in that office once a month until I got my dang letter. And what a letter it was! Cori, my therapist, basically wrote a strongly worded letter that implies her disapproval over needing a letter at all. Why, you may ask? Because I already had years of documentation detailing my gender dysphoria and persistent desire for surgery. Literal years of it, dating back to... 2007 or so. But she wrote the letter, we continued on, and my brain is much healthier than it’s been for years. 

Getting my IDs changed was a lot more work than I expected. Like, I knew that it would take a fair amount of paperwork, and I was prepared for that. I did my gender marker change first, which involved first getting the letter of recommendation notarized and sending it off to the government to get a shiny new birth certificate with an ‘M’ on it. It took about 4 months to get my first birth certificate. After that, back to city hall I went to change the gender on my driver’s license and health card. Getting the gender marker changed was inexpensive - I paid $35 for the new birth certificate plus postage. Ottawa city hall has services that will commission (notarize) your documents for free, so I didn’t pay for that, but normally in our city it costs between $15-20.  Next I did my name change. The form itself is about 30 pages or so, and most of it is just checking boxes like “Hey, I’m not a criminal, I’m not hiding from any debts,” and then getting it notarized and mailing it off. The name change took the longest - I waited about 6 months for my new birth certificate. Changing the name on my IDs was easy. All I had to do was go back to city hall (again) and wait in line (again) and update my drivers’ license, health card and social insurance file.  For about the first month after my name change, I had a folder I carried everywhere with me. You never really realize how many places you give your name to until you have to change it. The gym, doctor’s offices - despite having socialized healthcare and a (mostly) computerized system, you have to remember to change your name at every doctor’s office you visit separately. Now I have my updated IDs, so I can just show my driver’s license. 

Now I’m going to talk about the path to getting a surgery date at GRS Montreal. Yes, I got the letter for my OHIP funding relatively quickly, but actually getting my file to the surgical team was a logistical disaster. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, by the way - I’m glad that they’re doing their due diligence and making sure everything is well documented. It’s just kind of hard when you’ve already waited for so long to stay patient.  So, yes, I got my letter from Cori after 6 months. The reason I’m so irritated about it to this day is that a couple of months after they insisted they needed this letter, I got another email from the clinic saying they didn’t need it. And then they went back and forth on it another couple of times, so Cori and I just said fuck it and did it anyways, because I do not have the patience for that kind of back-and-forth. During the interim while I was getting regularly therapized, I also did all of the medical components they required. It was basically just a visit with my family doctor so he could sign a form and say “Hey, this guy is healthy enough for surgery and I am competent to handle any complications.”  I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but having to fill out a million checkboxes and saying ‘No’ to a million health conditions I don’t have, multiple times, gets a bit tedious after a while. So I did all of that, and then I sat on my hands and waited. And waited. And waited some more. I prodded them occasionally via email, because I’m impatient at the best of times and am often bossy and direct with health professionals. Finally, after another 6 months, they passed my file on to the surgical team, who actually called me on the phone promptly to tell me the next steps. The surgical nurse literally emailed me an info packet on Jackson-Pratt drains while on the phone with me.  They gave me my surgery date in September. And now we wait again. I’m leaving for Montreal on February 25th. At this point I’m just impatient and trying to keep busy. 51 more days. The closer it gets, the more time stands still. 

My bio-dad died in... 2017? Something like that. I know, it sounds awful that I don’t remember when he died but also, he was just a shit person. He abused me, he let his girlfriend abuse me, and he continued being a terrible person even in death. There was money for me in some account he had (and had forgotten), apparently, and I spent almost a year trying to figure out how to get it with no luck. Seriously. Even my mom, who had long since divorced my bio-dad and remarried, tried - because the account manager said she had to be the one that accessed the account, even though it was in my name and I’m an adult... and my mother’s lawyer looked at the whole thing, figured out that it was super illegal, and the investment firm stopped returning my calls. What a fucking scam. And yes, I could pursue it legally if I wanted to, but I really don’t want to. I don’t have the patience or the money for lawyers.  Everyone in my family is unequivocally mad at me for not going to the funeral. I mean, why would I? Why would I go to the funeral of a man who sexually abused me and chose alcohol over both of his kids? But my family tends to be very “But faaaaaaamily!”, therefore, most of them have stopped speaking to me.  I’m not really upset by his dying, by the way. I kind of made peace with it in like 2013 or so the first time my mother called me sobbing to tell me he was on his deathbed. I wasn’t surprised then, either, that he had congestive heart failure due to alcoholism. He was so jaundiced the last time I saw him in person that he looked like a Simpsons character. He didn’t recognize me, either. My brother had to tell him that I was his own child. So that pretty much killed any kind of forgiveness I could have had for the man. To his credit, he maybe kind-of tried. If trying is calling me, on purpose, on my birthday every year to tell me what a woman I am and am becoming. Ugh. Gross. Grossgrossgross.  Also, and this is a big Also, I could not have stomached that funeral when everyone was acting like his death was so Tragic and Could Not Have Been Foreseen. Like! I remember from childhood that that man could put away a 24-pack of beer in a day. One of my fondest childhood memories of him - if you can call them that - is bottle return day, where we would wait for my mom to leave for work and then sneak his empties out of the house to return for the deposit, which he would then use to buy more beer and buy KFC for lunch. And this is a secret that we kept from my mother for, like, years. I don’t think she really ever knew the extent of his drinking. Or mine, when I was still drinking.  I wasn’t ever really bothered by his death. I had a breakdown about it, sure, but it was more about the finality of his having died without standing up for myself or demanding an explanation/apology for his behavior towards us, or for raping my brother’s girlfriend, or... anything.

I had a job with great pay, and I fucking quit it.  No, seriously. I was making $18 an hour and I walked away from it because it was driving me to a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t sleeping, I was barely eating, and I couldn’t have a day off without obsessively thinking about work. I got promoted way too quickly and sort of lied-to way too often about how things would change, they never did, and finally in October I couldn’t handle it anymore. I saw Cori and she basically told me that I needed to quit or she’d make me. And I still feel kind of bad about that, because Ash and I fought about that for months beforehand. Literal months. It’s the only thing we’ve ever fought about. But I sat in that office in tears about the thought of ever going back to McDonald’s, and it was the right choice.  The first month was really hard. Not financially - I had decent enough savings to float us for a couple months. But emotionally, I was devastated. I’ve always kind of vacillated my self-worth between pushing myself way too hard to try and force everyone to like me and crumbling under the pressure from that and turning inwards. I had no idea what to do with myself. I was sleeping at weird hours or not sleeping at all. The cats were glad I was home, and so was Ash, but I felt really sick not doing anything - or at least as much. Even with school, I felt kind of aimless. Online classes don’t really demand specific time frames. Yeah, there are due dates, but aside from that you’re really on your own.  Now I’m glad that I quit when I did. From what my friends who still work there tell me, things have only gone downhill. It’s not surprising. They take anyone who’s halfway competent and seduce them with promises they have no intention of keeping to accept promotions and then never follow through. They push people way too hard and they’re not growing and changing with the economy and the demographic of people they’re able to hire for minimum wage. Like, I’m sorry, but once I’ve recovered from surgery there are way better jobs I can get that will keep my brain way healthier. 

The husband. Well, to-be. We’re going to do it on paper at Halloween. Nothing flashy, just going to city hall and signing some papers and then it’s done. I’m not sure exactly where to start on this one because most of it happened so fast. I kind of dicked around with online dating for a bit and nothing really came of it; I had lost expectations around the time he messaged me. There was nothing that immediately said “Hey, you’re going to fall in love with this person!” but I took the leap anyways. I was having a hard time coming to terms with being gay and trans, so a low-stakes thing with less expectation seemed nice to me. ... And then we talked, and we both fell hard. I moved to Ottawa 2 months later, after a fairly tumultuous time going back and forth on the train pretty much every 4 or 5 days. I spent most of my money on traveling those months. It was extremely worth it.  I knew I was in it for the long-haul when he called me while I was on the train home one day. I’d just left, much against my better judgment, and he had a doctor’s appointment that I’d wanted to go to. Ash is not great at asserting himself with doctors. Like I said, I’m bossy and controlling, so this one would’ve been good for me to be at. He called me basically in tears. Something was weird with his bloodwork, and not only could he not start testosterone as originally planned, but his doctors thought he had leukemia.  In typical me fashion, I basically got home, worked a day or two and immediately turned around and came back. There were tests. There was bloodwork. Much of it is a blur, but the thrilling conclusion is that doctors often don’t know how to interpret Ash’s blood results because he doesn’t have a spleen, so his blood is shaped wrong. No cancer! Just weird blood and a crappy immune system. But that crystallized it for me. We moved into a friend’s place for a couple of months, and then, when we could, moved into our current apartment. And for a couple of months it was nice! Great, even! But our roommate’s girlfriend, who also lived with us, had a poorly managed personality disorder and was emotionally and sexually abusive to our wonderful roommate. It took months, but eventually we evicted her after having secret meetings away from the house to come up with a battle plan. In the end, she had to be removed by police and her parents had to come get her things. It’s something I hope I never have to do again, because it felt awful and the girl’s poor parents were clearly devastated.  We parted ways with the roommate in June. Amicably, but a bit sad. Part of it was that we had outgrown having roommates, and part of it is that our roommate, while a wonderful person, has a serious hoarding disorder related to anxiety that clashed awfully with my OCD symptoms. They’re in a house with some wonderful people now, so hopefully it’s better with people who are able to be supportive in a more helpful way.  All of this to say that I have a wonderful husband, who I love very much. 

Which brings me to my next point. Jeez, this is turning into a novel. I’m so sorry. But anyways, I started university in September! It’s been tough what with the work stuff, but I’m doing pretty well. I’m majoring in psychology and desperately white-knuckling my way through introductory biology so I can take cognitive neuropsychology classes next year. Eventually I’d like to become a clinician, but I’m pretty sure I need to go to graduate school for that. I’m taking less classes than I’d like because of surgery, but I’m going to take summer classes to make up for it. 

Also because Ash had to have emergency surgery before Christmas! We’d known something was wrong with his elbow for a while - it was an injury that he’d had since before we met. But over the course of 3 years, an injured elbow turned to a lump, and that lump lead to a loss of mobility. His family doctor didn’t seem overly concerned about it, and didn’t run the proper tests until this year. Thanks to a concerned sports medicine doctor who was way out of his depth, more tests were run. There’s nothing quite like the concerned, hushed tone of a doctor to strike fear into one’s heart. The diagnostic imaging showed a tumor had grown in Ash’s elbow. I named him Leopold.  A non-cancerous, aggressive giant cell tumor. In his elbow. Literally eating away at the bone. Likely had been for a while. They called us on a Wednesday. Ash went to meet the surgeon on Thursday. The hospital called the same day to book him for surgery. Monday he went to meet with the anaesthesiologist. Tuesday we went to the hospital and they removed Leopold. And let me tell you, it was an absolute shit show.  First of all, they expect a man who’s still drugged up from the anaesthesia to be able to decide if he can go home that night or not. They wouldn’t even let him call me before making him decide. Listen, this man is not great at taking decisive action in the best of circumstances sometimes. I actually ended up going home to feed the cats and going back before anyone even told me whether he was coming home or not! Then the post-operative nurses didn’t give clear directions on the aftercare, so I ended up calling the hospital multiple days in a row to figure out what was going on. They didn’t even tell me what type of stitches he had. I think the worst part was that the doctors didn’t actually check with us what kind of painkillers would be most appropriate. They just sent us home with a list, half of which wasn’t covered by insurance, and we had to white-knuckle it the first night with basically good intentions and fancy Tylenol before we could borrow the money for the rest of his painkillers the next morning. I honestly wasn’t sure we would survive that first night. Because the damage to the elbow was so severe, they put a nerve block into the arm that slowly started wearing off through the night. I never want to see anyone in that much pain. It was the kind of pain where you’re not even human anymore; you’re reduced down to an animal who’s scared and in pain, and all you want is for it to stop. I know it was necessary, what they did, to preserve motor function in the arm, but fuck, it was awful. I’m doing a bad job of explaining the technical side of this. It was an elbow resection with tumor removal and a bone graft.  The bone graft actually might be the worst part. Because the tumor ate so much of the bone, we had to do the surgery pretty much immediately because any kind of impact could have shattered Ash’s remaining bone permanently. And they had to be so, so careful during the procedure because the tumor was resting on a nerve. To the surgeons’ credit, they did not sever the nerve. It’s less irritated now, and the arm actually looks quite good, but I wish they’d given us more information ahead of time. I was woefully unprepared for how much work I would be doing. You never realize how much work your hands do until they’re taken away from you. Also, something else people never talk about with surgery is how much painkillers mess with your mood. Opioids are by nature depressants, but all the textbooks downplay exactly how severe the mood symptoms can be. Of course being bedridden plays into it as well, but painkillers severely inhibit cognitive function. That first week or so was awful. There were so many goddamn medications and most of them were useless. We were like robots, with the fucking medication dispensing. I had alarms set every 4 hours so the pain couldn’t come back. We tried. We tried so fucking hard, only to get to the follow-up appointment and have a very nice medical student give us the good stuff: Tylenol # 3 and morphine. Did I mention she was a very nice med student? 

So yes, that’s basically the state of my life at the moment. I haven’t really written anything since I left California, but I’m going to try this year to actually finish something. I’m going to post regularly, both because I kind of missed this place and because it’s nice to see concrete progress. Also, when I was looking for pictures of surgery results there wasn’t a lot to be found, so I’m trying to save someone else the same trouble.

Anyone who actually read to the end of this, you’re great and I’m very sorry I basically wrote a novel about my life. I know my descriptions are lacking in some places, so feel free to... ask follow-up questions, I guess? I dunno. It’s nice to be back. 

[minnievirizarry]

How to use Quora for marketing

Should you be using Quora for marketing?

In 2019, Quora turned 10 years old. However, you might have missed that it can also be a powerful platform for reaching your brand’s audience. More than 300 million monthly users are scouring Quora at any given time and now marketers have a variety of ways to reach them.

If you’re looking to develop your thought leadership presence, confirm your authority in your niche or simply spread brand awareness, Quora is the way to go.

However, just like any social marketing campaign, you’re going to need a strategy.

Here’s your guide on how to use Quora for marketing.

Q&A: What is Quora?

Quora is an information-focused site where people ask and answer questions.

The queries range from “Who would win in a fight between Superman and Captain Marvel?” to “How to market on social media.”

With around 400,000 topics on Quora right now, you’re sure to find something worth talking about. Similar to Reddit, Quora relies on a credit-based upvoting system. The more people that upvote your answer, the more exposure it gets. On Quora, you can:

Publish content like you would with LinkedIn’s publishing platform.

Target your questions to specific Quora users to collaborate with industry influencers.

Search for specific topics and keywords related to your business.

Spend money to get your questions in front of more people.

Why you need a Quora marketing strategy

A question and answer site might not seem like the most exciting addition to your social media marketing strategy. However, Quora is excellent at generating organic awareness, improving your reputation and even helping you to learn more about your audience. On this platform, you get:

Exceptional reach: Share questions and answers with over 300 million monthly visitors. Quora is one of the best-respected UGC platforms around.

Search visibility: Quora questions are searchable through Google. Your content here remains evergreen, driving people back to your site whenever a problem is trending.

Thought leadership potential: There are already countless high-profile writers on the platform, including Noam Chomsky, former President Obama and Justin Trudeau. Join their ranks and boost your brand.

More high-quality traffic: Drive customers back to your website by answering their questions and demonstrating how your product or service solves their problems.

Insights into your audience: Quora is a platform for real people in search of real answers. If you help your audience, they’ll support you in return by investing in your products and services. You may even end up with a few new brand advocates.

How Quora magnifies your marketing

Social media marketing on Quora is powerful.

The platform doesn’t just give you another way to reach your audience. It also provides a roadmap into what they’re looking for from your business.

Why spend money on expensive consumer surveys when you’ll find out what your customers are asking for on Quora? Questions and answers are an excellent insight into your customers, how they think and what they need. What’s more, if you’re struggling with writer’s block and you need to update your blog, your Quora marketing strategy will help.

If countless people are talking about a specific topic like “How do I increase my Instagram followers?” you know it’s worth writing about.

You can even follow topics on Quora to see what your competitors are doing. Getting ahead of them and actively catering to the problems your customers have ensures that you remain relevant.

Paid advertising on Quora

When you create a Quora account and log into the platform, you’ll see your Ads Manager under the Create Ad option in your profile. You’ll need to create an ad account to get started. From there, when you go to the Manage Ads page, you’ll be able to see your spending summary, divided into four sections:

Clicks

Conversions

Impressions

Spend

There are a variety of ways to use Quora for marketing. When it comes to paid ads, the best option is often conversion targeting. Quora’s conversion optimization campaigns use a specific “conversion” pixel to allow companies to track the impact that Quora ads have on their website.

To use the conversion pixel, you’ll need to place it on your website so that you can track the movement between your site and the platform. You’ll also have to set a Cost Per Action (CPA) and pay on a CPM basis.

Like most forms of social media advertising, you’ll be able to target your ads to show up for specific keywords. Additionally, you’ll be able to choose the kind of customer you want to reach by selecting “interests” that your ad relates to.

Best practices on using Quora for brands

In an age when customers are growing increasingly tired of traditional marketing campaigns, advertising teams need to think outside of the box.

Successful promotion isn’t just about disrupting your audience and dragging them to your website anymore. You need to find your customers, wherever they are and deliver the kind of value that makes them want to follow you. Quora is a great tool for this type of marketing since you’re demonstrating value when you create detailed answers to audience questions. It’s important to remember that the mission on Quora is to answer questions meaningfully rather than just blasting an advertising message to as many users as possible. This means you’ll need to spend a bit of time getting to understand the nuances of this platform’s community.

So, how do you get started?

1. Create a brilliant bio

No matter which social platform you’re using, a great profile is always essential. Quora is somewhat unique in that you can’t create a profile for a brand in most cases, only individuals. You’ll need to identify who in your organization will be posting answers.

Quora shows the first 50 characters in your profile as a tagline above each answer you give. It’s a good idea to include your company name here, so readers can see where you come from. Your full bio can also include clickable links. While it’s essential to use these links sparingly, they help drive traffic back to your most useful website-based resources.

If your brand focuses on multiple niches, create topic-specific bios. For instance, you might have one bio that demonstrates your expertise as a healthcare marketer and one where you thrive as a personal trainer. To create topic-specific bios click on your profile page. In the right-hand side, you’ll see the Knows About column.

Next to each topic you choose, you’ll be able to describe your experience in that area. Once you’re finished proving that you know your stuff, fill out the rest of your Quora profile with:

Your interests: Make sure they relate to your business or specialist area.

A detailed “About Me” section: Include information that shows your thought leadership. Add links to your website (sparsely) if it means you can offer greater context.

Your employment and education credentials

Your location or the cities that you visit regularly

An eye-catching profile picture. A clean head and shoulders shot is often the best choice for professionals.

A complete bio helps you to get found on Quora and it also makes you seem more credible when you answer.

2. Track relevant topics with notifications

One of the best ways to use Quora for marketing is to conduct research.

You’ll be able to learn about what people in your industry are saying, track topics and have questions sent to your inbox. To begin, type a keyword into Quora’s search box that you want to follow.

Quora delivers a list of autocompleted topic suggestions for you to explore. When you click through to a topic page, you’ll also see another list of related topics at the side.

Hit the Follow button to start following a topic. You’ll also need to make sure that your email notifications are set up correctly if you want to get alerts. Go to your Settings page and click on Emails & Notifications. You’ll be able to choose the frequency and types of emails you get from Quora.

3. Find the right questions to answer

An essential part of learning how to use Quora for marketing involves knowing which questions to answer. There are millions of queries floating around on the platform today. However, not all of them will deliver value for your business.

After all, you want to show people that you’re an expert in a specific space.

One of the easiest ways to find relevant questions is to type a keyword into the query box at the top of the platform and select Search. Once you’ve brought up a list of questions, filter your results to queries from the last month or so. You’ll want to focus on topics that are relevant right now both to get visibility and add your authoritative voice to completely new discussions.

To get the most out of your Quora marketing strategy and build brand presence:

Choose topics that fit your business: Look for terms that you’ve written about recently, or a problem that your product/service solves. Any question that you answer with meaningful stats and case studies is excellent for social proof.

Find threads with a lot of upvotes: When you’re browsing through Quora, you’ll see an Upvotes section under each question. Threads with a lot of upvotes often have the most views. If you give an insightful answer, it may get thousands of views a day.

Answer new questions too: Don’t focus exclusively on the most popular queries. You’ll have a greater chance of filling your profile with evidence of your knowledge if you answer new questions early.

4. Answer questions with passion and authority

Once you’ve found questions that are relevant to your business, make sure that your answers stand out. One or two sentences on “How to use Pinterest” won’t impress anyone. However, an insightful response with links to relevant content on your blog, case studies and statistics demonstrates your thought leadership.

Remember, show your passion for the topic and don’t be afraid to let your brand’s unique tone of voice shine through. If you’re trying to appeal to a younger audience, you might even try Quora’s version of emojis.

One of the easiest ways to construct a fantastic answer is to pull snippets from the content you’ve already created. Grab a crucial quote from a recent article and expand on it, complete with a link back to your site. Here’s a great example of a useful answer:

If it’s helpful, add an image to your answer too. Graphs and charts are excellent at capturing attention. Remember, people follow visual instructions up to 323% better than written ones.

5. Connect with other Quora users

Quora isn’t just a search engine; it’s a social media platform. That means you need to be “social” with it. When learning how to use Quora for marketing, don’t forget about the importance of engaging with potential leads and customers.

Like most social channels, Quora allows users to communicate directly with other people. For brands, this is a great way to enrich your relationships with customers. On Quora, you might even find that people are asking questions about your specific product or company. Who better to answer those queries than a leading employee of your business?

Find people to connect with by:

Tracking the top answers and followers of relevant topics

Creating and contributing to boards that cover topics in your industry

Sharing content outside of Quora that links back to your solutions in the platform

Quora is an excellent way to address any concerns or queries your customers have too. According to Sprout Social data, 55% of people call brands out to get a response or resolution. Find people talking about your company and respond to them in a meaningful way. The more value you give, the more likely it is that you can turn unhappy clients into advocates.

6. Review your analytics constantly

When you run any other social campaign, you use tools like Sprout Social and native analytics to track your results. The same rules apply to your Quora marketing strategy.

Being active on Quora is an excellent way to build credibility and thought leadership. The more answers you give, the more your presence and reputation will grow. However, you’ll also need to find out exactly what kind of impact your efforts are having. That way, you prove the ROI of your Q&A sessions.

On your Quora page, you can review all of the analytics for the questions you’ve answered. You’ll be able to track everything from how many people viewed your response, to how many upvotes you got. What’s more, when you add a tracking link to your answers, you’ll also have a way to measure how many valuable click-throughs you’re getting too.

With this information, you’ll see which questions are generating the most value for your brand. That makes it easier to determine where you’re going to continue sharing your knowledge in the future.

It’s time to start marketing on Quora

Learning how to use Quora for marketing is a fantastic supplement to any promotional strategy.

With Quora, you highlight your position as an industry thought leader, drive traffic back to your website and build valuable relationships with customers.

While there are many tricks and tips to grow your presence on Quora, the most important one to remember is that you need to deliver value. Present yourself as a helpful, knowledgeable resource and your customers will flock to you in search of answers.

Do you have a Quora marketing strategy yet? Let us know what’s worked for you in the comments below.

  This post How to use Quora for marketing originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/quora-for-marketing/

[lindyhunt]

How to Use Facebook: A Beginner’s Guide

Facebook has changed quite a bit since I first signed up for an account in 2008. Back then, Facebook was still called “The Facebook”, and my bio literally said, “Check out my MySpace, it’s waaaay better than my Facebook.”

Needless to say, Facebook has evolved at breakneck speed since my middle school years, and it’ll keep adapting at a swift pace for as long as it exists.

If you need a refresher on how to use Facebook today or you want to sign up for an account, check out this in-depth explanation of how to use the most popular social media network in the world.

Signing Up for a Facebook Account

To sign up for a Facebook account, follow these three easy steps.

Visit Facebook’s website.

On the homepage, fill out your first name, last name, mobile number or email, password, birthday, and gender.

Press "Sign Up".

Setting Up Your Privacy Settings

After you’ve signed up for a Facebook account, you can adjust your privacy settings to control who can see your profile and information. Follow these four simple steps to change your privacy settings.

Click on the downward pointing arrow that’s located on the top right corner of any Facebook page.

Click “Settings”.

In the left sidebar, press “Privacy”.

Set who is allowed to see your past and future posts. You can also control how people can find and contact you.

Personalizing Your Profile

Odds are, there’s probably someone on Facebook who has the same name as you. To differentiate yourself from these people and help your friends and family find you on Facebook, personalize your profile by adding a profile picture, cover photo, and some personal information.

Picking a Profile Picture

Go to your profile and click on your profile picture.

To pick your profile picture, choose a photo that you’re already tagged in on Facebook, one that you’ve uploaded to Facebook, or a photo from your computer. You can also add a frame to your profile picture.

Choosing a Cover Photo

Click the camera button on your cover photo, which is on your profile.

To choose your cover photo, you can pick a photo from your Facebook profile, a selection of Facebook’s own cover artwork, create a collage, or upload a photo from your computer. You can also reposition or delete your current cover photo.

Updating Your Profile

Click the “About” section on your profile page.

In this section, you can fill in information about your work and education, the places you’ve lived, contact and basic info, family and relationships, details about you, and life events.

Liking and Following Public Pages

On Facebook, you can follow and get updates from your favorite brands, celebrities, sports teams, and publications. The best way to do this is by searching for them on Facebook and liking or following their public page, which will have a blue verified check mark next to their name. After you like or follow their page, you’ll start to see their updates in your news feed.

Your Timeline

Your timeline is a digital log of your Facebook activity in reverse-chronological order. Your status updates, uploaded photos and videos, and the photos you’re tagged in will appear on your timeline.

Adding Friends on Facebook

There are three ways you can add friends on Facebook. You can either search for them, find them in the "Find Friends" tab, or import a list of contacts from your email, iCloud, or phone.

To find friends on Facebook, go to your profile, press the "Friends" tab, and click the "Find Friends" button. You’ll see a list of friend requests from other people and a list of people you may know that you can add as a friend on Facebook.

If you upload a list of contacts onto Facebook, you can add your friends as you sort through each of your contacts.

Posting on Facebook

The main purpose of Facebook is to help friends and family connect with each other. And the best way to connect with your friends and family is by updating them about your life with status updates. To share a Facebook status, go to the text box at the top of your news feed page or on your profile page.

With status updates, you can share text with 15 different colored backgrounds, photos, videos, GIFs, stickers, and links..

You can also share other types of posts, like:

Feeling/Activity: share how you’re currently feeling or what you’re currently doing.

Check in: when you visit a city, location, or place, check in and let your friends know where you’re at.

Tag Friends: if you’re hanging out with your friends, tag them in your status and share what you’re doing.

Tag Event: if you’re at an event, you can tag it in your status and share what event you’re attending.

Ask for Recommendations: if you just moved somewhere or you’re about to visit a location, you can ask your Facebook friends for recommendations on where to go.

Poll: ask your Facebook friends what their opinion is on a certain topic.

Support Nonprofit: choose a nonprofit organization of your choice and share it through your status. Your Facebook Friends can then press the donate button to support the chosen organization.

Answer a Question: choose a predetermined question to answer or create your own question to answer and share it with your Facebook friends.

Lists: choose a predetermined topic to make a list for or create your own topic and share it with your Facebook friends.

Facebook Stories: all the content that you can share through a status update is shareable through your Facebook story. You can also upload content to your stories by clicking the Add to Your Story button on the right sidebar. Additionally, you can watch all your friends’ Facebook Stories by clicking on their picture in the Stories section, which is also located on the right sidebar of your home page.

Photos and Videos

On Facebook, you can add photos, videos, albums, and live video broadcasts to your profile for all your friends to see.

Uploading photos or videos

To upload photos or videos to your profile, follow these four simple steps:

Go to your profile.

Press the "Photos" tab.

Press “Add Photos/Video”.

Upload pictures or videos from your computer.

Creating photo or video albums

To create a photo or video album, follow these four simple steps:

Go to your profile.

Press the "Photos" tab.

Press "Create Album".

Upload pictures or videos from your computer.

Facebook Live

To do a live broadcast on your Facebook account, follow these three simple steps.

In the box that says “What’s on your mind?”, press “Live Video”.

Once you press “Live Video”, you can write a description about your broadcast, tag people in it, add a feeling or activity, check in to an event, support a non-profit, or add a poll. You can also title your live broadcast or tag a video game if you’re live streaming someone or yourself playing a video game.

Press “Go Live” when you’ve finished describing your live broadcast.

Connecting With Friends

On your news feed, you’ll see updates from your friends, family, or public pages you follow. To interact with them, you can like and react to their posts, share content on their timelines, and communicate with them through text or video chat.

Like, Comment, Or Share

If you like someone's post, give them a thumbs up, comment on their post, or share it.

Other Reactions

If your Facebook friend’s post evokes a stronger reaction in you than a like, you can also express that you love, laughed, are amazed, sad, or angry at their post by holding down the “Like” button.

Sharing Content on Your Friends’ Timelines

Anything you can post on your status, you can also post on your friend’s timeline.

Facebook Messenger

To chat with your friends or public pages on Facebook, use Facebook Messenger. You can access it by clicking the "Messages" button at the top right corner of any Facebook page or pressing the "Messages" button on the left sidebar of the home page.

Next, press “New Message” and type in your friend or brand’s name that you want to connect with. Facebook Messenger also lets you create group chats by clicking on “New Group”. After that, all you have to do is name your group and add the friends you want to include in the group.

When you message your friends or group on Facebook Messenger, you can upload pictures, videos, and files from your computer, as well as stickers, GIFs, emojis, and take pictures and videos from your computer’s or phone’s camera.

You can also view Messenger on its own page, where you can search for past conversations and manage your settings. To view Messenger on its own page click the “Messages” button in the top right corner of any Facebook page and then press the “See All in Messenger” button. Or, you can press the "Messages" button on the left sidebar of the home page.

To instant message your friends' who are logged onto Facebook at the same time as you, press the “Chat” button on the bottom of any Facebook page and strike up a conversation with your friends who are online.

Phone and Video Calling

When you have Messenger open on its own page, you can search for any of your friends or groups, click on their name, and press the phone or video chat button to call them.

News Feed

Your news feed is a curated feed of posts from your friends, family, and public pages you follow that Facebook’s algorithm thinks you’ll be interested in. You’ll also see ads from brands who think you’ll enjoy consuming their content or products.

To customize your news feed, press the downward pointing arrow in the upper right corner of any Facebook page and click on "News Feed Preference".

From there, you can prioritize whose posts you’ll see first, unfollow people and groups to hide their posts, reconnect with people and groups you unfollowed, discover public pages that match your interests, and hide apps from your news feed.

Other Useful Features on Facebook

Facebook isn’t just a platform for viral content and connection. It’s also a hub for community communications, video streaming, marketplaces, and games.

Events

The Events page on Facebook will show you any upcoming events that are popular with your Facebook friends or have been set up by the groups you belong to. You can also find events based on their date, location, and category.

To find the Events page, press the “Home” button. Then, on the left sidebar, you’ll see the Explore section, where you can click “Events”.

Groups

The Groups page on Facebook will show you which groups you manage and belong to. You can also discover groups to join based off Facebook’s suggestions and a ton of other categories.

To access the Groups page, press the “Home” button and then on the left sidebar, you’ll see the Explore section, where you can click “Groups”.

Facebook Watch

In 2017, Facebook rolled out their video streaming service, Facebook Watch. On the platform, you can watch videos from the shows you’re following and search for other shows and videos.

To access Facebook Watch, press the “Home” button. Then, on the left sidebar, you’ll see the "Watch" button right under the “Messenger” button.

Marketplace

Not only does Facebook compete with Netflix in the streaming industry, but they also compete with eBay in the marketplace industry. With Facebook Marketplace, you can browse for all kinds of products, join groups to buy and sell products with people in your area or who share similar interests, shop for products sold from different shops, shop by category, and sell your own products.

To access Facebook Marketplace, press the “Home” button. Then on the left sidebar, you’ll see the “Marketplace: button right under the “Watch” button.

Games

Facebook Games is one of Facebook’s best features. They host a huge collection of massively popular games, and you can browse the most popular games on the platform by top charts and categories. You can even play most of the games with your friends, too.

Conclusion

There you have it. We hope this deep dive into using Facebook will help you build a social media presence and allow you to better connect with your friends, family, and favorite brands.