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nstankey · 6 years ago

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Celebrity as Practice in the Gaming Community

The concept of celebrity as practice is an intriguing argument as it insists that due to the rise of social media, being famous or having your own fanbase is achievable to anyone. This notion that gaining a fanbase on social media is attainable by anyone, even if they are not known for their offline presence. Is there some sort of algorithm of how to run a social media account that can lead to gaining stardom? While it is possible for accounts to become famous such as meme pages, you rarely see pages such as these where the operator is known as they typically are anonymous.

According to Marwick and Boyd (2018), the largest social media entity that is used in celebrity practice is Twitter. Twitter offers its users the ability to post short messages that inform others of their current activity, thoughts, or just random jargon. Due to its format, Twitter offers its users a feeling of behind the scenes access to anyone whom one follows. This brings fans and celebrities very close to one another by allowing fans to stay up to date on the information that their favorite celebrities are putting out into the world (Marshall, 2014).

Marwick and Boyd (2018) believe that celebrity as practice refers to the way that preexisting celebrities, who have an already established fanbase without Twitter being considered, use Twitter. This view is founded on the basis of symbolic interactionism, which refers to one’s image being created out of their own discourse. This discourse that stems from personal ‘tweets’ to their fans which in the eyes of Twitter refer to their ‘followers.’ This level of celebrity access and disclosure of information from a celebrity to their fanbase has never been seen before. While the ability to put out messages to they public have been around for quite some time, the ability to do so on such a large platform, instantly without a mediator in between celebrity and fan has not (Marshall, 2014). With this new ability has come new expectations from the public of an even deeper level of intimacy between celebrity and fan as new norms form suggesting that celebrities must update the public on aspect of their life that have been kept secret before Twitter. This deeper intimacy infringes on a celebrity’s private and personal affairs by insisting that their fanbase has a right to know. Thus, creating a “specular economy” in which we constantly project an image of ourselves on our social media accounts (Marshall, p. xxxvi).

Next, I will give examples of four internet celebrities that I believe to reinforce the ideas of celebrity as a practice that also strengthens these ideas of Twitter as a behind the scenes way for fans to stay ‘in touch’ with their favorite celebrities. Each celebrity that I have chosen found fame on other social media type platforms, but all revert to the use of Twitter as their main form of communication with fans. These four celebrity examples not only reinforce celebrity as practice but also bring up intriguing thoughts about modern technological culture and how these self-made celebrities were able to create their celebrity status through social media websites along with the apparent dominance of Twitter as a sort of top-tier social media entity due to all four examples reliance on it to reach their fan bases.

My first example is Timothy Betar, known better online as TimTheTatman. He found his fame on the gamer streaming platform called Twitch where he live-streams himself playing his favorite video games while having the ability to talk to his fans through the Twitch streaming website and they type messages to him. Before his time on Twitch, he was just an average non-famous individual. Now although Twitch allows for notifications to be sent out to all of his ‘followers’ whenever he starts a live-stream, TimTheTatman still finds the need to use Twitter to keep his fans up to date on stream times and his personal life. One way in which he chose to use Twitter involved following the birth of his son, Brewer in 2019. Unlike previously in American culture in which often times people take leave from work or celebrities disappear from the spotlight and into their own realm of privacy to go through the birth of a child. TimTheTatman, used his Twitter account to inform his fans of new doctors’ appointments and test results. Once, his wife was admitted into the hospital to give labor, he used his Twitter to post short video updates informing fans of what was going on. One video he ‘tweeted’ informed his chat that “My wife is only dilated two centimeters, so it looks like we are going to be in the hospital much longer than anticipated as she needs to be ten centimeters dilated in order to give birth.” His use of Twitter in this case offers his fans with behind the scenes access to information at the same time as many of his real-life friends are receiving it and further reinforcing the technological and social media influenced ideas that take away a celebrity’s private life.

My next example is a YouTuber that goes by the name AliA. He is a video game YouTuber with over ten million subscribers. One way that AliA uses Twitter that reinforces the ideas of celebrity as practice is through his fan recognition. Inside of the game Fortnite, which AliA currently uploads the most videos for, there is an item store in which players can use a code to support their favorite content creators, for which AliA is one of them, and a portion of the money that an individual spends in game goes to the content creator who’s code the player is using. In each of AliA’s YouTube videos he asks his fans to use his code and to ‘tweet’ him a picture of the purchase they made using it which will say for example “Your purchase of the Easter Bunny Outfit supports AliA.” After a fan ‘tweets’ a photo of their purchase that supports AliA to his Twitter account, he then often times replies to their ‘tweet’ as well as selects a handful of them to include in his next YouTube video in which their tweet will pop up on the screen in the video for all that view his video to see. This offers a deeper level of intimacy and reward for his fans to not only watch his YouTube videos but to follow his Twitter and financially support his career through their in-game purchases. This offers his fans a way to get recognized by himself and the rest of his fanbase through his videos and replies which creates a sense of hierarchy within the fanbase as those who receive responses from AliA are put on a sort of pedestal for the rest of the community to see. This hierarchical sense conforms to the thoughts of Marwick and Boyd (2018) by their reference of fan relationships with celebrities in which they hold getting a response at the highest level of intimacy between fan and celebrity.

The third example is of Tim Havlock or Darkness429, a gamer who became famous on the video game streaming platform Twitch but was recently endorsed by Facebook to become one of the first Facebook streamers as they tested out offering a live stream platform utilizing Facebook Live. What is so mind boggling about Tim is that he led to the success of the Facebook gaming industry by his unique and dedicated fanbase. Tim, once again, uses his personal Twitter account to stay in constant contact with fans. After one look at either a stream or one of his social media accounts it is quite apparent that Tim is an avid coffee drinker and considers himself to be a connoisseur. He is sponsored by many different coffee companies and his Twitter is full of coffee related ‘tweets.’ His love for coffee has spread to his fanbase and ultimately created an online community to which he leads discussions about different brands and styles of coffee. This supports Marshall’s 2014 thoughts on celebrities with social networks creating culture as Tim has brought the gaming community and members of the coffee community together to create an online community for them which in years past, the gaming community was thought to be full of soda drinkers.

My fourth and final example is of Benjamin Lupo more commonly referred to as DrLupo by the online community. DrLupo is another video game streamer who found his fame on Twitch. He uses Twitter to stay in touch with his fanbase outside of his daily Twitch streams by ‘tweeting’ constant updates about the games that he streams himself playing, sending out polls for new stream ideas, and updating his fans on his life. I would like to focus on his use of Twitter to connect with his fan base on a deeper level to allow for more interesting content ideas for his Twitch channel. By sending out polls and asking for new ideas he is able to connect with his fanbase even more as they will help to create more interesting and fan approved content. The use of Twitter to give his fans a voice in the kind of content he creates causes fans to be more supportive for longer periods of time instead of becoming bored with the same type of content until a new game comes out. As a streamer this is an essential key to success as watching someone play the same video game eight hours a day six days a week can become old very quickly, so it is important to have some variety in streams.

I believe that these four examples strengthen the thoughts about celebrity as practice by scholars as seen in Marwick and Boyd (2018) and Marshall (2014). Social media has allowed for fans to become more attached to their favorite celebrities by following their everyday lives. Social media allows for a closer relationship between fan and celebrity as there are no mediators such as gossip news organizations standing in between fan and celebrity. Twitter is no doubt the strongest social media platform in respect to these ideas because it offers quick and immediate messages to be sent in a more simplified manner than the likes of Facebook, Instagram, etc. The ability to send out messages to fans immediately is ideal for these celebrities in terms of advertising and self-branding as it puts them in control of their own image. Unfortunately as these social media platforms have become the new norm for celebrities to have it does come with its own disadvantages such as a sense of entitlement felt by fans to know private information that society would not expect to be shared by non-celebrity figures and can therefore cause celebrities to lose all sense of a private life. Celebrities who choose not to conform to this new norm of constantly updating your fanbase on your life could make themselves easy targets for celebrity gossip organizations such as TMZ which often create false articles to draw attention from fans no matter the face damage done to the celebrity’s image.

Reference List

Marwick, A. & Boyd, D. (2018). To see and be seen: Celebrity practice on Twitter. In Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez, Bill Yousman, & Lori Bindig Yousman (Eds.), Gender, race, and class in media (p. 525 - 535).

Marshall, P. D. (2014). Celebrity in the digital era: A new public intimacy. In Celebrity and Power (p. xi - xvi & p. xxxii - xxxvii).

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internetandnetwork · 4 years ago

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Video Marketing: How to Determine the Ideal Length for Your Videos?

Are you familiar with the term “video marketing?”

Well, in case you are not yet aware of it, you should know it is incredible! And we are not just saying it; reliable data back this statement. You can look up the statistics on the web yourself!

Customers are increasingly purchasing from brands whose video ads they have viewed earlier. In fact, video marketers also agree that videos help them make their target consumers better understand their brand’s products and services.

When it comes to video marketing, businesses typically get stuck with two primary questions:

What type of videos should we create?

How long should our videos ideally be?

That is precisely what we will discuss in this blog to help you successfully make the most out of this incredible tool called video marketing.

Despite its effectiveness and immense potential to help generate brand awareness and drive conversions, many businesses are still not using this tool. So before we dive into the types of videos you should produce and the ideal length of your videos, let’s first take a look at why brands are afraid to do video marketing.

WHY ARE BRANDS AFRAID TO DO VIDEO MARKETING?

The reason is pretty straightforward here in reality. When it comes to doing video marketing, generally, brands make a very common mistake of assuming that their videos must have a very high-quality Hollywood movies type of video production.

Even before they could think of the benefits of video marketing, this thought holds them back from going any further. They remain stuck on the assumption that they need A1 video production, and that’s clearly very challenging as it requires plenty of resources.

This becomes such a significant barrier for them that they won’t ever think of doing video marketing. But like we said before – this is a significant yet common mistake.

You do not need to have a vast video production set and heavy equipment to produce good videos.

If truth be told, businesses who have already realized that this is just a misconception are successfully driving more conversions and making good money with videos that hardly take any time to create.

You can generate excellent results with even relatively simple videos.

Therefore the main takeaway from this is that do not allow the fear of video quality to prevent you from getting started with video marketing in the first place. In fact, most businesses can get away with recording videos from their smartphones directly.

What we are trying to say here is that focusing on the quality is a good thing but don’t make it that big a deal that it stops you from getting started only.

This brings us to our next point, i.e., how long should your videos ideally be when using them for video marketing.

WHAT IS THE IDEAL LENGTH FOR VIDEOS WHEN IT COMES TO VIDEO MARKETING?

The best way to determine your videos’ ideal length is to consider the problem you are trying to solve with it and the platform you will be uploading it to.

Let’s be really honest here. There is no one-shoe-fits-all type of length. What works for one brand might not work for yours and vice versa. The ideal duration of your videos should be determined by taking into account your specific problem and chosen platform.

When you look it up on the web, you will see a recommendation that the ideal length for your videos is two minutes or less. Now while this is a relatively decent suggestion, it fails to consider other crucial factors.

If you genuinely want to get the most out of this tool and your own efforts, don’t go with the generic video length limits. Take out some time and give it some thought to find out how long your videos should actually be for marketing.

Here’s a breakdown of the factors you need to take into account to determine how long your videos should be. Let’s dive in!

FACTORS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT TO DETERMINE THE IDEAL LENGTH FOR YOUR VIDEOS

Problem

Your video needs to align with the problem your target customers are experiencing because, just like in standard ads, the only reason that will motivate people to see your video is that you are either helping to resolve their issue or answering their questions.

What you really need to focus on here is the “why” the audience will watch your video.

Maybe they want to explore new products and services.

Or maybe they want to get to know new things.

Perhaps they just want to get some entertainment.

So, it all comes down to your understanding of your target audience. Think about what problem your audiences are facing currently, and then create a video around that topic while offering them a solution for that particular problem to encourage them to watch your video.

Next, the extent or intricacy of the problem will determine how long your video should be.

For example, let’s assume a customer is facing a problem and cannot decide what jeans he/she should purchase next.

Now, this is a much less complicated problem than a customer who is out in the market trying to decide which car he/she should buy.

The reason is fairly simple – first of all, there are so many brands offering numerous types of cars, and each of them has its own unique features and specifications. So it is evident that you’ll have to present more in-depth information in this case, meaning you will need to provide longer explanations. That’s why most car franchises have salespeople.

However, you can accomplish the same using video marketing.

Simply put; ideally, you should keep your videos just as long as it needs to be to convey your information to the viewers and not a second longer than that.

The time has changed now. People have shorter attention spans nowadays. However, by creating your videos to be useful throughout, you will most probably be able to keep the audience engaged.

This was the first factor, i.e., the problem you are trying to resolve that you had to take into account to determine the ideal length for your videos. So, that brings us to the next factor that you should consider: the platform where you will be uploading this video.

Platform

Some platforms can keep the attention of the audience captured for longer than others.

For instance, people who use apps like Instagram and Snapchat will be habituated to viewing shorter videos.

On the other hand, users on platforms such as YouTube are accustomed to viewing videos for much longer.

Moreover, if you can get your audience to be dedicated to joining a webinar or live chat, then you can get them to stick around for a longer period watching your video.

Now let’s look at a few recommendations for ideal video lengths for popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Again, this depends on a couple of factors. Let’s start with the social media giant, Facebook, first.

Facebook Organic Videos

Facebook organic videos are those videos you upload on your Facebook page without any advertising spend.

According to Facebook Insights recommendations, videos get displayed organically to more users when they are 3 minutes or more in length.

So the question is, should all your Facebook organic videos be at least 3 minutes long?

If you are hoping to present long-form stories or break down complex concepts through your videos, then probably yes.

If the primary focus of your business is to entertain and make videos that people can binge-watch, then creating 3 minutes or longer videos is probably a great idea.

But you must focus on the message you want to get across through your video instead of its length. In fact, the platform itself recommends doing this.

Posting a video that is at least 3 minutes long on Facebook does not inevitably mean that your content writing will get more reach because the platform’s algorithm rewards audience engagement over the video’s length.

Therefore, if your video keeps the audience engaged while also commenting and sharing, you will most probably get a boost from the algorithm and thus reach more users.

Facebook Video Ads

If you are not entirely satisfied with your organic reach and want to boost it further, you can pay Facebook to promote your content.

Every time a user sees your video for at least three seconds or longer, the platform will charge you on a “per view” basis.

Remember, when advertising a video on Facebook, the key to success is to get to the point and convey your main message as early as possible.

Why? Because when you pay the platform to promote your video in the form of an ad, you will show up in users’ feeds who might not certainly be familiar with your brand or searching for your content.

So try and keep it as short as possible to get your message across.

Instagram Videos

Le’s move on to the next popular social networking site Instagram. Here we will discuss feed and IGTV videos since, at the moment, the platform has certain time restrictions for Reels and Stories, forcing users to create shorter videos only.

For Instagram feed, your videos can be a minute or 60 seconds long before it converts into an IGTV video.

However, it is highly recommended to keep your videos less than one minute long. This is because, as per research, videos that got the most comments on the platform averaged about 26 seconds long in duration typically.

Wondering why?

First of all, Instagram users are accustomed to browsing through their feed quickly, and taking a pause to see a lengthy video kind of goes against their muscle memory.

In addition to this, since there is no option to rewind the video on Instagram, some users might move on in case they missed a part of it because waiting for the entire video to play again sounds like too much work.

Moving next to IGTV videos, let’s take a look at what is the ideal length for these videos.

The primary reason Instagram introduced IGTV was for long-form videos. They launched it as a platform where people can enjoy watching longer video content and build a deeper bond with their favorite content creators and brands.

Hence, in this case, we will again follow the thumb rule. Your IGTV videos should be just as long as it needs to be to convey your message to the viewers.

YouTube Videos

The primary and most vital difference between YouTube and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram is that users come on YouTube to “watch” videos only.

On YouTube, they are actually looking for videos to watch rather than just scrolling rapidly through their social media feed. So here they come prepared with a mindset to see long-form video content.

You must also note that YouTube’s algorithm rewards videos that have more watch time by displaying them higher in search results and recommendations.

Therefore when it comes to the watch time, posting longer videos actually gives you a boost, but you need to ensure that your videos are engaging in order to make the audience stick around.

But undoubtedly, you have plenty of other opportunities for storytelling, jokes, or even merely entertaining acts on YouTube.

Keeping the audience engaged is the key to success on this most sought-after video-streaming platform.

More and more YouTubers are now producing and sharing long-form video content, and such videos actually tend to rank higher in YouTube search results.

However, don’t just stretch your content to make your videos longer. Try and avoid too many goofs.

Twitter Videos

Twitter videos can be up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds long. However, since Twitter is more about short updates in the form of Tweets, people are used to seeing shorter content on the platform. So it would be best to keep your videos short too.

Initially, the social networking platform had a 30 seconds time limit for video posts.

Even though now this limit has been extended, we would still recommend you to keep your Twitter videos under 30 seconds only.

Many businesses leverage this platform’s nature by creating short teaser videos and attaching a URL to the tweet that directs people to their long-form content on YouTube or other platforms.

That was all – a few tips on ideal lengths of your videos for different platforms.

3 BONUS TIPS TO HELP YOUR VIDEO MARKETING

Since you have stuck around for so long with us, we have some bonus tips for you to help you make the most out of your video marketing efforts.

As we discussed earlier also, the key to reaching more users on any platform is video engagement.

Keep in mind that video engagement is primarily calculated by considering how long users are watching your video and whether they’re generating conversions around it by commenting or sharing it with their peers and friends.

Check out these three bonus tips:

Go Live

Going live with your audience immediately gives you a better opportunity for engagement because here, you can speak to your audience directly.

Instead of thinking about what they might find useful and then creating content around it, you can answer their queries and generate conversions in real-time here.

This is one of the best and easiest ways to boost audience engagement.

Save the Best for First

People have shorter attention spans. Don’t make them wait till the end to get the best. That’s now how things work now. Place your best clips or screenshots at the starting of your videos to grab your audience’s attention and get them to stick around and watch the full video.

Optimize Your Videos for Volume Off

Most users who watch videos on social platforms like Facebook are doing so with their volume off.

Maybe they are in a public place or feel like enjoying the video without any audio disturbances in between.

Either way, the best thing to do here is to include subtitles or closed captions to all your videos allowing the users to follow along with the volume off. For videos without any people, you can also do text stories. They are quite popular too these days.

WRAPPING IT UP

That was all about video marketing. With this information, you will be able to get started with it. Just make sure to invest some time into the process before jumping to the production process. Get to know your audience well and try to identify the problems they face every day, and make content around it. Taking into account their problems and the platforms where you are going to upload your videos, you can quickly determine the ideal duration of your videos that aligns with your target audience.

Remember not to stress the video quality too much. It is good to make quality videos but don’t let that stop you from utilizing this incredible tool – video marketing. Just keep the tips mentioned in this post in mind, and you will be all set to produce videos that will generate more brand awareness, help build better connections with your target audience, drive conversions, and boost sales.

Happy marketing!

Hariom Balhara is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles for E Global Soft Solutions. E Global Soft Solutions is a Digital Marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC and Web Development company that comes with massive experiences. We specialize in digital marketing, Web Designing and development, graphic design, and a lot more.

SOURCE : Video Marketing

#video marketing #Videos #business #YouTube #Facebook #Instagram #social media #IGTV videos #Tireless IT Services #tirelessitservices #SEO

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yesnuttystudentgentlemenpos-blog · 7 years ago

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Définition, Traduction.

The Best Ways To Use Email Outreach to obtain Top quality Backlinks. Mas lembre-se, os conteúdos dever ser realmente úteis, agregando valor para usuário através de exemplos práticos. Backlinks from reliable websites on a provided topic are extremely valuable. The checklist also consists of 2 reward strategies that I didn't include in this post. Google transfère alors la popularité de l'ancienne page vers la nouvelle. It's a matter of time for Google search console to upgrade the data and eliminate the links. Publiez régulièrement des messages et devenez ainsi un expert dans votre thématique. Blog Sites, Evaluation Sites, & Media Outlets are good places to try to find back-links as they are heavy material generators. For suggestions I turned to Felix Tarcomnicu, the head of marketing at Screen Backlinks, a tool that crawls the Web for new backlinks and sends out email informs when one of its 20,000 users' sites earns or loses links. Pasting the link URL does not auto-add the description and a link will not accept an href html tag either. Giving them a big part of a page, where all they need to compose is a couple of hundred words, can quickly encourage them to share your work. You may send them the locations to be covered ahead of time for approval. I'm discussing simple links for our specific niche sites. Let's say on the other hand that your pal Ben down the road introduces a site tomorrow and is completely focused on providing plumbing market info for customers and a list of the very best plumbers in Tucson. Mit unserem Newsletter erhältst Du 6 Mal pass away Woche aktuelle Nachrichten über Gründer, Startups und Investoren. If connecting to your homepage and describing your brand, anchor text should just state your site or brand. Qualité, Qualité, il faut aujourd' hui définitivement se tourner vers elle. That domain regitered for longer periods gets more rankings. Next, include your post title and content, then release. Is there any method to obtain rid of this waiting period and fast approval. Send them a review and likewise the URL of your site if you have actually bought an ebook or using a service. However, sites have actually been penalized for utilizing them, and they likely will continue to be penalized in greater numbers. This remark is abundant, helpful and well written, so readers can benefit not simply from the article, however from the comment, too. Keep in mind that you'll see better SEO benefits with longform material, which is rarely offered when you purchase backlinks. Send out e-mail after e-mail wishing for that outreach. It is scalable, and when you apply it to your site, your rankings will enhance. The problem is, with the increase of voice search, keywords are no longer the dominant SEO tool. I should certainly think about providing free resources, infographics, repurposing content, investigating rival's backlinks, etc Constantly lead with exactly what worth you have to use. them, not with what you're intending to get out of it as they'll be a lot more receptive to your visitor publishing pitch if they see that you genuinely have worth to offer and desire to share it with their audience. Recent information approximates that the link popularity of a particular page represent 22.33% of the elements of Google's ranking algorithm. These might be from a number of various things. You can likewise inspect keyword competition and rankings. BrightEdge provides tracking and analysis on your backlinks including: page URL, date added, page rating, anchor type, classification, and text (blog site, directory, partner, news article). This could be an excellent indication to the online search engine that you paid for the link, even if it is from a trusted site. Nevertheless, websites that never ever connect out to other websites look suspicious to Google, and the amount of link juice lost from an individual link is negligible. Developing a terrific outreach pitch is something that doesn't truly come all that easy for most people. Whenever you produce new material, promote it across all social networks channels. I seriously recommend you alter this post to consist of a strong caution considering you are leader in this industry teaching those who know nothing only to practically definitely get them banned.

Dans un groupe, la publicité directe est à proscrire. Professional link structure includes getting links from highly trusted domains, for federal government, circumstances and university sites along with non-profit companies. Elles doivent traiter d'une thématique similaire put que le lien retour soit logique et naturel. what are backlinks Thank them for mentioning your business in their short article (benefit idea: it assists to enhance the post also), and ask if they would consider including a link to your site. From there you can go back to the Link Intersection pane for the job you produced for your website and click the reload button in the top right of the screen, and the link metric aspects that you chosen will populate in the viewing pane of the Link Crossway location. Establish a presence in social media on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram, all with connect to your website. Step # 2: Get your Tumblr page indexed by sharing the post URL on Google+ and Facebook and pinging it at Pingomatic Pingomatic will distribute your URL to significant content aggregators. The higher the Domain Authority, the better, but don't rely simply on this metric; examine the other ones as well. I've talked about these before and a great deal of people have actually forgotten about them. Gotch SEO is an SEO training and white label solutions business. Likewise it's worth keeping in mind that Yoast released a video letting users understand that reposting on websites like Tumblr is okay, because search engines know how these sites are supposed to operate.

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popularchips-blog · 8 years ago

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Top 3 (Unconventional) Ways to Boost Engagement

New Post has been published on https://popularchips.com/dailies/top-3-unconventional-ways-to-boost-engagement/

Top 3 (Unconventional) Ways to Boost Engagement

If you have a public Instagram account that you wish to promote, getting onto Instagram’s Explore page is one of the many ways to increase your engagement and your follower count. While Instagram’s full algorithm is certainly more complex, your posts’ levels of engagement play a part in whether you are featured.

What is Engagement?

Engagement refers to the number of likes, views (only applicable to videos) and comments received on each post. In influencer marketing, engagement is an important metric in deciding how popular an account is and therefore correlates strongly with how much an influencer is paid. While follower count is also important, since it means that the influencer’s post is likely to reach a larger audience, a higher engagement suggests that the posts made by a particular influencer are more relevant to their audience. Marketing attempts are hence more likely to have a positive impact on their target audience.

Top 3 Unconventional Ways to Boost Engagement

This generation’s digital natives have definitely mastered the various methods of increasing engagement on their public instagram accounts. Here are the 5 of the methods they frequently employ.

I. Making Interaction a Challenge

Typically, users “like” a post if they enjoy the content and comment if there is something interesting about the photograph or video. However, this would not leave individuals with many likes or comments, and certainly not enough for them to appear on Instagram’s Explore page. In order to increase the number of likes, views and comments on a post, some users have taken to making interaction a challenge.

Transform “Liking” into a Game One of these methods involves getting Instagrammers to double-tap on a post with a part of their body that is not their fingers. On the one hand, users get the pleasure of attempting a challenge, since double-tapping on a small screen with any part of one’s body other than one’s fingers is actually quite a difficult task. On the other hand, once the action is complete, users have “liked” the post, and therefore increased engagement levels on said post.

BET You Can’t Double Tap with your Tongue! #instagram #Game

A post shared by DjProstyle Prostyle Power1051 (@prostyle) on Mar 7, 2012 at 1:06pm PST

Billed as a #game, user @prostyle encourages users to double-tap on the photograph with their tongue.

Double Tap in 0.6 Seconds! ❤️ – Follow @humorshub for more❗️

A post shared by Memes 🎃 (@humorshub) on Oct 29, 2017 at 5:48pm PDT

@humorshub asking Instagrammers to double-tap in 0.6 seconds.

Liking a post, which is meant to signify interest in the content of the post, has now been made into a game. The game itself is meaningless insofar as the rules of the game are not and cannot be policed–there is no way for anyone to know if the user has actually succeeded in liking the post with their tongue, or whether they managed to double-tap in 0.6 seconds–but users participate anyway, in part because of the challenge the game presents.

Comment (insert word) letter by letter without being interrupted

I WILL BET ALL OF YOU 5$ THAT YOU CANT COMPLETE THIS!😳 1: Open your eyes (don’t blink) – 2:👇Follow👇 @goodsonscene quickly – 3: Comment “done” letter by letter – 4: Blink 3 Times 97% CANT DO THIS!😱

A post shared by Try to follow with your nose👆🏼 (@memefinest) on Oct 29, 2017 at 4:58pm PDT

In this post, user @memefinest asks Instagrammers to comment with the word “done” letter by letter. Unlike the double-tapping challenges mentioned above, this challenge can actually be policed–there is the chance that an Instagrammer attempting this could be interrupted at any point of time by another Instagrammer, thus causing the individual to fail in their attempt. Naturally, the longer the word, the more difficult the challenge is. Other variations also include asking users to comment with their top 5 most frequently used emojis without being interrupted.

In this case, the Instagrammer who owns the account gets a four-fold increase in the number of comments. The longer the word, the more the number of comments in the post. While this may seem like an obvious ploy to gain comments quickly, a quick look at the comments section of this post suggests that at least some of the users who have seen the post do indeed try to do as suggested.

In addition, @memefinest uses a meme that transforms the post into a challenge in more than one way, by inspiring those who see the post to complete not just one but a few tasks within a limited period of time. Furthermore, this challenge is preceded by a bet (“BET… $5 THAT YOU CANT COMPLETE THIS”) and concludes with the user providing a statistic (“97% CANT DO THIS”), thus encouraging other Instagrammers to prove them wrong.

II. Offering (Unredeemable) Rewards or Punishments

Similar to the concept of chain mails of the 1990s and early 2000s, some Instagram users gain “likes” by offering intangibles such as “luck”, “love” and “wealth” to those who double-tap their posts. This plays on users’ desires to obtain favors, particularly individuals who have something they deem important going on in their lives and hope to gain that extra boost.

👑😍 #doubletap #dt @verzuhdoesgfx

A post shared by #stayActive (@localrobbie) on Oct 29, 2017 at 7:54pm PDT

On the flip side, others claim that users will be visited by demons or other supernatural entities if they do not like, comment or follow the poster within a certain amount of time. While this is unlikely to work for adults aside from those who are particularly superstitious, it is likely to have an effect on teenagers, who would rather play it safe than sorry.

Last image in a slideshow series on @hoodcumedy’s Instagram account

In the same way that forwarding (or not forwarding) a chain mail is unlikely to have any real effects on one’s life, following (or not following) the instructions on these posts is unlikely to affect users in any tangible manner. Yet, what such posts do is to play on users’ fears and desires in order to get them to interact with a post, and these strategies are successful in the same way that chain mails of the past were.

III. Separate Instructions Using Slideshow Format

Instagram introduced its slideshow format in February 2017 and what better way to use them than to provide different instructions for users on each of the slideshow images. All of the methods mentioned above can be combined under one slideshow, so that a user who is not motivated to double-tap on an image with their elbow can double-tap it within 3 seconds for their crush to notice them or follow the user for good luck.

🍆🍆😂😂Classic Ted Cruz 😂😂🍆🍆 👑 Follow me @quality_memes4u👑 —————-_————— My backup: @quality_memes4schmuel And my partners:. @plainbanter @goatmemes215 @rememeberd @the_memes_are_spicyy ———————————————– My official profile picture maker- @ozzmill14 —————————————- #memes #funnymemes #meme #memesdaily #smile #haha #happy #funny #lol #instafunny #fun #funnypics #funnyposts #friends #follow4follow #like4like #instagram #youtubertag #sarcastic #people #troll #trendy #trending #throwback #likeforlike #follows #comedy #jokes #thememesarespicy And use my tag ➡➡➡#qualmemes4u

A post shared by Follows you (@quality_memes4u) on Oct 19, 2017 at 1:32pm PDT

In the example above, while the first two images are memes, the penultimate image asks users to comment with an emoji nine times in a row without being interrupted and the final image leads users to post a comment.

None of these methods are exhaustive and teenagers are always coming up with new ways to boost their follower, like and comment counts. While we do not recommend using any of these methods, it is always helpful to take note of what solutions are available if you have a small public account that you wish to publicize.

#engagement #gamification #instagram #instagram marketing #meme #memeaccounts #top

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