#fun fact i make these posts individually every day without a queue

[same-picture-of-benson-every-day]

Fun fact, this blog was made on March 17th,2021! Happy almost 3 and a half years <3

[brynwrites]

Ask Compile!

Topics covered: 

Tips for indexing notes.

Thoughts on second person pov.

Tips for writing smut.

Writing non-binary protagonists perceived as villains.

Knowing when to use or ignore feedback.

I also received two questions (writing elementals and character growth) which are already going to be covered by longer articles in my queue. 

Indexing Notes

@kantuck​: Good day: Do you have any advice on how to index previously taken notes? I have gigs of notes on paper, and electronic over the years and now I'd like to be able to index them someway so that I can write within this storyworld?

Set aside a huge chunk of time, plan to do it for 15 or 20 minutes every even, whatever works best for your schedule, just make it a plan and then follow through.

Use an organization tool with a folder system made for note taking (like scrivener or evernote), not a system like google docs where you have to load each document on it’s own. 

Decide how you’re organizing them ahead of time. I usually have my outline itself split into the major points I already know I need to hit, along with individual character files and a few dozen worldbuilding related files.

Put things in every folder or file they relate to. If you have something important to a certain character and a certain setting and the character’s species, put that information in all the relevant files. 

(I hope this was what you were looking for?)

Second Person

Okay, so I absolutely despise 2nd person point of view. But it seems like it's popular, especially with fanfics. I'm just wondering why? And do you like 2nd person point of view?

I’m not a fan of second person either, so I feel you. I think the general draw of it (especially in fanfiction, even more so in erotic fanfiction) is the fact that you’re supposed to be the person doing the things, existing in this world with the characters you love. It gives every reader their own self-insert. 

In my opinion, it’s kind of ridiculous outside of choose your own adventure type stories, but some readers really enjoy it, so all the power to them, I guess?

Writing smut

Sorry if this is an odd question. But, how do you write smut? For a friends birthday I want to write a smut fic of her favorite pair, but I just cant write smut. You don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable. Thanks!

Fun fact: I wrote a lot of smut during my university years. (That was pretty much the only thing I wrote, actually.) It had a negative effect on my mental health though, so I’ve backed out of that whole scene pretty thoroughly. 

Honestly, smut for the sake of smut is pretty much just imagining a steamy scene you get off on, and then writing it out. The most prominent things to watch for are what you’re calling everyone’s junk (there’s a nice line between too technical and too outrageous, and you can probably find long lists of people’s opinions if you search around enough), and whether you’re describing the positions the characters are in well enough for the reader to picture them. Throw in some simple and common metaphors for sensual sensations, and remember to focus on the emotional, romantic aspects too (especially during repetitive motions or anything that makes you slightly uncomfortable to write/read.) 

If you’re writing a sex scene as a scene in a non-erotic novel, things get a lot more complicated really quickly, because you have to take into account things like prior emotion states, character growth, relationship development, and plot.

Non-binary protagonists perceived as villains

Hi, I read a post of yours regarding binary people writing non-binary characters and I figured asking a non-binary person was the best way to go about this. The protagonist in one of my wip's is non-binary, however, this character is generally seen as a 'villain' by others despite not necessarily being one due to context and lore implications. Can I ask for advice on how to write such a character without enforcing any negative stereotypes surrounding non-binary people? Thanks for your time.

The nonbinary collab team has finally started work on a post which will cover these kinds of topics in more detail, so keep a look out for that, but I’ll mention a few things here anyways:

1. One of the most prominent negative stereotypes surrounding non-binary people being villains involves using the non-binary identity to show how “corrupt” or “insane” or “inhuman” the villain is. (This happens both in fiction and through specifically pointing out the non-gender-conformity of historical immoral people while denying that the heroes of those cultures held the same level of non-gender-conformity.) There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing a villain who just happens to be nonbinary, but a villain should never be a villain because they’re nonbinary.

2. In any situation where you have an oppressed people group represented as a villain, it’s always a good rule of thumb to also have at least one character of that group represented in the heroes “team” (or, in cases where there’s no heroes, by a team with differing beliefs or goals, preferably by decently moral characters.) 

That being said, it seems like your protagonist isn’t actually evil themselves, so unless the reason other people in the world see them as a villain is because they see nonbinary people as villainous, I can’t imagine you’ll have any major issues :)

Bending the Elements 

Hey! Do you have tips on how to write bending of the elements? I got an idea for a book, but I can't seem to describe what people do when bending without making it sound like an Avatar The Last Airbender fanfiction. The only thing I have similar to the show is the bending of elements, the story in itself is hopefully original enough to hold its own, but still I make the bending sound like fanfiction... my story has nothing to do with Avatar. Any tips?

Hey there nonny! I’m planning to write a full post on describing the use of magic, so I can add in a section on elemental magic when I start that :)

When feedback doesn’t fit the picture.

@aerodragneel​: In my current WIP, the MC has to find the powerful superhero Vulcan from 15 years ago, who quit after losing to the main antagonist who’s resurfaced. I was told not to make him a vital part of the story, but Vulcan’s entire character arc is vital to his and the MC’s story. When I envision Vulcan, I see someone who wants to help, but after all he’s gone through, he just can’t anymore and when he meet’s the MC, that spark of being a hero is reignited. Thanks for the help and get better soon! 😉

No one knows your story and characters better than you. Write the story however it makes the most sense and feels strongest! If you think Vulcan needs to be present throughout the story to influence the MC’s arc, then by all means, include him. There will always be an opportunity to take him out later, and you’ll get much more accurate feedback from people once they’ve read the entire story, edited until you approve of it.

(And remember that not everyone will give you advice that’s beneficial to the story you want to write. Here’s some other good reasons not to change your story in order to accommodate a piece of feedback.)

Character growth

How do I go about writing about somebody who over time has a change of heart? My story is going to be about a woman who was originally set out to kill a man but ends up falling in love with him.

I have plans to write a post on redemption arcs, and a more thorough post on character development, so stay tuned for both of those!

[thetwoguineabook]

@sunnydisposish thank you so much for the awesome feedback and great questions- hope you don’t mind me responding in a new post.

I’m so in love with Blackbird I don’t even know where to begin: the beautiful writing, the impressive historical accuracy and evocative world-building, the poignant storyline and entirely novel yet still somehow in-character arcs for Victor and Yuuri, the thought-provoking questions about politics, ideology, identity, and personal responsibility so skillfully woven into the love story at its center, and last but not least, your merciless puncturing of the British imperialist/colonialist/racist mindset (especially appreciated by this former subject who grew up in what was then still a British colony).

Thank you! It was definitely interesting to me to explore, even at a slight remove as both POV characters were decidedly non-British, the very weird situation of British politics in the immediate post-war era. WW2 was really the last death knell for Britain as the big imperial power on the world stage, but frankly we as a country still haven’t come to terms with that (cf. half the electorate seriously believing that we won’t be questing paddle-less for where Shit Creek rises in the Mountains of Oh God Why without the rest of the EU). The Attlee government was, in my humble but correct opinion, the best and most socially revolutionary government we ever had, but at the same time as we were creating the NHS and nationalising industries, we were also desperately trying to develop nuclear weapons and pissing and moaning about whether countries we’d been stamping on for centuries were ~really ready~ to see the back of us. It was a truly absurd time period.

Another reason I love it is that it’s so rewarding to re-read, because each time through I notice more little details sprinkled throughout the text, like easter eggs waiting to be discovered. For example, in ch. 4 you slip in a casual mention of a drunken assignation Yuuri once had with some guy from Cambridge named “Guy” who professed to be a Communist, then in the very next section you have Georgi complaining to Victor about one of the agents he’s handling who goes by the name of “Hicks,” which is none other than the code name for Guy Burgess. :) 

Fun fact: I have a whole document in the notes section in Scrivener entitled ‘Yuuri’s ex-boyfriends’. He was... not very nice to a lot of them, lol. Once it occurred to me that, although Burgess would have come down from Cambridge before Yuuri went to Oxford, they could still very well have met (and drunk inordinate amounts of booze together) at the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, I just couldn’t resist.

Also in ch. 4, you describe one of the musicians who had performed Shostakovich’s Symphony #7 during the Leningrad siege as “a short woman with long, pale hair and a hunger-pinched face who nevertheless stared into the camera with the piercing gaze of a soldier, a clarinet clutched in her hands like a rifle” – that has got to be an image of Yura’s mother, right?

Yes! That is none other than Yulia Plisetskaya, classical musician and denouncer of Yuri’s shitty dad. I am slightly intimidated by the prospect of writing it because the situation in Leningrad was so incredibly awful, but one of my planned side stories is about the Plisetskys and the Babichevs during the siege, and particularly about that August 1942 performance of the Shostakovich symphony and Yuri beginning to repair his incredibly fucked-up relationship with her.

Oh, and she’s a clarinettist for a reason ;)

In ch. 6, when Yuuri is told he is being reassigned to Korea, there’s a mention of the new British Consul-General to Korea, Sir Vyvyan Holt, and Yuuri’s boss reassures him that “Holt is… well he’s a lot of things, but he’s not an idiot. He’ll evacuate British diplomats if - when there’s a declaration of war.” So of course, when I googled Holt’s name, I learned that not only was he a real person, but when the Korean war broke out, Holt mistakenly thought he would be protected by his diplomatic immunity, and instead of evacuating everyone when he had the chance, he and his staff ended up being detained by the North Koreans, then forced on a death march to the far north of the peninsula where they were kept captive for several years. Oh the irony. If Yuuri had accepted the assignment, he would have suffered even more at the hands of the North Koreans once they realized he was Japanese, even without knowing he was a spy. (Shudder.)

Yeah that was some thick ladling of irony there, lol. Although perhaps Yuuri would at least have got on with Holt, since one of the ‘many things’ he was at least rumoured to be was gay. And the story of what happened to the actual MI6 officer who was undercover in Holt’s office when the war broke out is... well, interesting to say the least. I’ve got an historical notes post about it that just needs to be finished up.

You’ve thought out everything so thoroughly (down to Victor’s nom de guerre, Stefan Rittberger, and the figure skating jump known as the Rittberger loop) that I have to ask whether there’s a special meaning or symbolism behind your choice of “blackbird” as the title of the story. I mean, the first association that occurred to me, especially given your nom de plume of sixpences, was the children’s rhyme “Sing a song of sixpence / a pocketful of rye. / Four and twenty blackbirds / baked in a pie.” But some light googling turned up a plethora of meanings for “blackbird,” including: a symbol of freedom, a connotation of vigilance, shyness and insecurity, secrets and mystery, etc., any and all of which could fit. Then there are the well-known songs Bye-Bye Blackbird (which had a “cameo” in ch. 5) and the Beatles’ Blackbird (the lyrics for which also fit the story), and one of my favorite poems, the haiku-inspired “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens, which is so protean and capacious in its meanings that it could definitely fit. Finally, that redoubtable (and dubious) authority urbandictionary.com gives the following meanings (inter alia) for blackbird: 1. The act of leaving a group of people, especially a social event (i.e. business party), without saying goodbye to anyone and without anyone detecting your escape. 2. Someone who acts happy in public but is an emotional wreck in private. Someone who doesn’t advertise their depression.

Well for starters, the Stefan Rittberger alias followed the same pattern as every other original character in the fic- they are all named after figure skaters from their respective countries of origin (generally speaking with forenames and surnames from different individuals). The only exception was the Jamaican jazz band leader Nigel Harriott- the only male Jamaican figure skater whose name I could turn up was Paralympic skater Nigel Davis, so I gave him the surname of a real Jamaican jazz musician who emigrated to the UK in this period.

As for the origins of ‘Blackbird’... well, for starters, the nursery rhyme connection only occurred to me quite a way into writing the fic, haha. ‘sixpences’ originated as a reference to Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, one of my favourite novels, and as a way to reference the various notions of luck associated with the old silver sixpence coins, and also because when I picked the name six or seven years ago the Livejournal username ‘sixpence’ in the singular was already taken!

I knew from the very first vague ideas I had about the fic that this was primarily a story about Victor- his character arc, specifically getting him to the point where he would joyfully betray his country for love, was the very first thing I knew I wanted to write about, before I was even sure it was going to be an historical AU! When you get right down to it, this is a fic about that scene where Victor’s standing on the Barcelona seafront, looking out over the Mediterranean, and admiring his engagement ring- it’s a story about what Victor is not only willing, but entirely happy to do for Yuuri.

Once I knew I wanted it to be a spy story I started doing the 100% most fun spy story thing and making up everyone’s ridiculous codenames. My initial idea for Yuuri was to use something piglet-related, for obvious reasons, but that both felt a bit too mean and also not like something Minako specifically would think to call him. I wanted to give him a name that evoked the kind of figure he cuts at the start of the story- small, unassuming, lonely, but with something very deep going on beneath the surface, the same way one flighty little bird can nevertheless produce the most beautiful song. It also fitted nicely in terms of a metaphor for what he was doing in Berlin- Japan is of course ‘the land of the rising sun’, and he was ‘singing’ information to the Allies from inside their command structure.

There is a minor bird motif throughout the fic- with maybe one or two exceptions, any time a bird is mentioned in scenery description, you’ll find it’s a dark-coloured one. It wouldn’t have made the cut as an epigraph since it’s from 2005, but this from ‘Rapture’, which is one of my favourite Carol Ann Duffy poems, was very much in my mind in planning out the shape of the plot:

How does it happen that our lives can drift far from our selves, while we stay trapped in time, queueing for death? It seems nothing will shift the pattern of our days, alter the rhyme we make with loss to assonance with bliss. Then love comes, like a sudden flight of birds from earth to heaven after rain. Your kiss, recalled, unstrings, like pearls, this chain of words. Huge skies connect us, joining here to there. Desire and passion on the thinking air.

So birds recur as a symbol of independence, of thinking and acting freely even under dire and constricting circumstances, and Yuuri specifically is codenamed after a bird. It only felt natural that the story of how Victor Nikiforov, Soviet patriot and enormously valuable and accomplished spy (indeed, modelled after a man dubbed ‘the most formidable spy in history’), came to throw away his career and his country, to choose love and the freedom to live as he wanted, should share Yuuri’s name.

Sorry to be such a nerd – I’m probably overthinking all of this – and for sending you such an interminable ask (which would have overflowed the tumblr ask box 10 times over), but I would love to know the meaning behind the title.

Look, I just wrote a 100k historical spy novel about characters from a sports anime. I am the biggest nerd. And I really had a great time answering your questions, so thank you again!

[presuninoc-blog]

Korean american matchmaking

Being a Korean But we understand our clients as products.  Umm, i guess my stories would be ancient now, maybe totally out of date because of tinder. Our system helps pick out the very best potential partners for you.  Based on korean matchmaking company, a popular matchmaking ranked duo information inc.  All in all; a waste of time, emotional investment and money.

Korean matchmaking tradition goes high Based on the Five Factor Model of personality traits, we evaluate just how conscientious, extraverted, agreeable and neurotic you are; it helps us match you up with around 3-7 new potential partners every day.  All Korean videos for free and only best quality.  Our intelligent matchmaking can help you to find like-minded love.  Traffic is brisk; Lee's Shiny service is generating 50 million won a month in sales.  I want a family, a good father for my kids.

Dating a korean american guy The rising earning power of the Korean woman is slowly changing views of the Korean female prototype.  Wine Day October 14th — couples enjoy a glass or two of wine together.  What kind of debt do you have? On weekends, young men and women might face each other awkwardly in a hotel cafeteria after being dragged there by their parents for a matchmaking session.  Divided into groups, the men moved to different tables so that everyone had a chance to meet everyone else.  Enter marriage agencies, wholly Korean-style companies where your next date comes to you with a pre-screened, manager-selected profile.  Duo branch: Fifty one percent of its members are female, and 49 percent male.

Korean American Singles , Korean Dating Services Envía dating a korean american guy tu denuncia a Fotodenuncias.  That evening I was given a program sheet that included names and job descriptions of male candidates.  Summarizing an article in the title is ok, but keep it free of opinion, commentary, or loaded language not contained in the article.  Ready to Connect with Someone? An excellent guide to help you date Korean girls in Korea.  Yours truly, Confidently modest in so.

Korean American Matchmaking They may be removed if linked content is not specifically about Korea.  We started kakao'ing initially because I wasn't in Korea at the time and everything seemed to be go well.  By the end of the night, three guys asked for my number.  I am reaching out to organizations that facilitate couples and their families on their journey to marriage.  Photo Day September 14th — couples take a photo together and put it somewhere nice to look at.  Check before posting a question.

Korean American Matchmaking Hello I am hereby to apply via your matrimonial agency a serious partner My name is Arcadius am from Benin Rerpublic, am actualy in south africa in johannesburg, i am sales arepresentatives as profession.  Calling each other only once a day is quite rare.  Advertisement Within seconds, Shiny produces a marriage consulting report advising her that it would be most realistic for her to get married next year to a 33-year-old dentist or herbal doctor between 170 and 174 centimeters tall, or 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 8 inches.  The most prevalent among male clients are office workers, who make up 13 percent of the membership.  Photo courtesy of Duo It all comes down to this question: What are Koreans in the U.  For a fun, safe and uniquely Korean dating experience,.

Modern Matchmaking: A Korean I'm considering signing up for korea, with branches in the number of credit cards two years, queue times.  A recent episode for talked about the debate of the past 3 decades in Korea — who pays for dates? For example, Kim Su Jong, a 29-year-old pharmacist, has listed more than 330 pieces of information about herself - everything from her height, weight, blood type and drinking and smoking habits to her monthly pay, personality preferences in a spouse, and the jobs and academic credentials of everyone in her family.  Duocokr korean dating service duo functionality halal speed dating with naughty individuals.  The knife is for self-defense, but not the kind of self-defense that you are thinking.  Perhaps it should start its own matchmaking service.  Judges on The VoiceGwen Stefani and Blake Shelton,.

5 Korean Dating Rules that May Surprise You Note: She's from a middle class family at the very least and we weren't eating out at some fancy restaurant and shit, so she wasnt using me for my money.  EliteSingles is the leading site for professional dating, and a great place to find eligible and successful Korean singles.  It goes without saying, they key to successful Korean dating online relies on you finding the right Korean dating site for you.  I definitely gave my two matches a decent shot at love—and without success.  Diary Day January 1st — couples share diaries to celebrate the year to come.  There were no fireworks or birds singing in the background, just a regular round of speed dating where I could bypass the tedious screening processes of online dating.  I've never used a specifically Korean dating service like Duo, but I did use quite a few online dating sites pre-tinder.

Curious about marriage agencies? Duo ad photo By Tae Hong Resorting to dating services may seem like conceding defeat to many, but the fact of the matter is, matchmakers have been around forever in Asia.  For more information or to speak with a casting producer, please have couples email me at with their name, age, location, date of the wedding, and a brief description of their upcoming union.  Antisocial people acted in new york times, south korea matchmaker matches match.  We use our personality test — which every new member takes — to assess your characteristics.  Regardless of whether the couple is formally arranged or more casually set up, as long as their families were integral in the matchmaking process we would be very appreciative for an introduction.

[mediacalling]

Secret Social Media Engagement Hacks You Shouldn’t Be Without

In this article I’m going to show you some secret social media engagement hacks that will work if you have zero budget, a low fan count, and a marketing team of … just you!

Higher social media engagement equals more clickthroughs, more web traffic, more fans and more purchases so it’s something we all want.

A quick look at this live social media activity tracker will tell you just how fierce the competition has become. Brands are vying for attention from fans across all the platforms and social media managers around the globe are searching for new ways to grab audience attention and improve their social media engagement.

Click through to see these numbers scroll in real time.

It’s not easy because your competition may include big brands spending thousands on video, marketing teams with large creative teams and brands who already have a large fan count.

So here we go with the best secret social media engagement hacks you need to know about!

Secret Social Media Engagement Hack 1: Leverage Social Proof

Social proof can give you a powerful psychological advantage when it comes to social media engagement. Before you get comfortable on the white couch, I’m not a psychologist. I do, however know that there are some psychological techniques which can be employed to improve your social media engagement.

You’re so busy analyzing traffic, clicks, and conversions that you may have forgotten there are real people involved. That’s where we need to leverage the power of psychology to engage them.

Social proof basically means following the herd, a bit like wanting to be in the popular group in high school. On social media, this can be a powerful tool because you’re not telling fans to engage with your brand — their friends and online idols are!

Here are three social media engagement hacks to leverage social proof.

Encourage Reviews

When you see an ad for a product online what’s the first thing you do?

You check the reviews.

When you see multiple positive reviews for a product online, you are more likely to follow the company and make a purchase or a booking. In fact, 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations while 33% trust ads say Conductor.com.

Check out these reviews from Ousia, a popular restaurant in Cyprus, for example. Reading people’s positive experiences about a brand, place, or service is likely to inspire others to follow. You can also embed real reviews onto your website using tools like Kudobuzz. This is so much more believable than those stock photos with the made-up reviews… you know the ones!

If you need a way to manage your Facebook reviews, simply hook up your fan page to Agorapulse. From there you can monitor, assign, or reply to your reviews.

Display Shares

Top marketing sites like Agorapulse display social shares on their blog posts which immediately show others the popularity of the article. For online stores, the “recommend to a friend” button is an essential.

Remember too that proper placement of social media sharing buttons can have a significant impact on the shares that you receive. After making their ‘Share This’ icon more prominent, Advanced Micro Devices was able to increase their social media sharing by 3,600%.

Utilize Influencers

Another powerful social proof technique involves utilizing the power of influencers. For the big brands, this may be celebrities, models or sports people. For you, it could be other businesses you’ve collaborated with, social media users with high fan counts or customers with a high social media status.

Tagging influencers or other brands lends credibility to your posts, as well as notifying those tagged that they’re being talked about and therefore compelling them to share with their own audience. Viewers of your social page may also perceive you to be well established, well connected and trusted by industry names which can encourage higher trust levels.

Create multiple, unique posts and tag influencers individually or produce a roundup and thank them all.

Secret Social Media Engagement Hack 2: Repeat Your Content

If you’re writing a blog post and then sharing it once, you’re missing out on a huge piece of the social media pie! The most successful social media marketers repurpose their content so that it reaches the maximum number of fans and achieves genuine ROI. So let’s look at some of the other social media engagement hacks that can help us out:

Repurposing Content

In order to repurpose your content, you need to have a plan from the start. If you have spent a considerable amount of time writing and researching a piece then you will want to make sure everyone sees it. Here are some of the ways you can do that:

Transform articles into video scripts

Make staff interviews into a storytelling series

Turn presentations into eBooks or Slideshare presentations

Create matching images for each social media channel

Turn boring statistics into colorful infographics

Plan an email marketing campaign linking to your blog

Plan an SMS to drive traffic to the piece

Rescheduling Content

If you tweet your offer or blog post just once, then you are really minimizing the chances of your audiences engaging with you.

Use the Agorapulse content calendar to easily repeat, requeue and reschedule your popular content. Change the image, add or remove video and adjust the hashtags to create “new” posts.

You can see in the example below that I have chosen to repeat my holiday blog tweets every five days throughout December.

I can do that for as many social accounts and as many posts as I like, meaning my fans are engaging with me even when I’m not online.

Reusing Evergreen Content

If you’re tasked with the content and social media management for a brand then you might be too busy to think about fresh content to improve your social media engagement. That’s why I like to make a list of evergreen and time sensitive content that I have on my blog at Charli Says. For example, the below post is pretty evergreen.

However, the below example is time sensitive and limited to 2017. Not only because of the title but also because techniques move fast in the world of SEO, it may become outdated quickly:

Once you identify evergreen posts, keep it repeating in your queue until a specific end date. In the SEO/2017 example, you’ll want to keep things going until the end of 2017 — beyond that point will look super awkward.

It’s easy to do this using a solid queue system like Agorapulse.

This way you can “set it and forget it” without having the tweet go ad infinitum.

Secret Social Media Engagement Hack 3: Gage The Mood

Social media engagement is all about seizing the mood of your fans and running with it. That might be by utilizing trending topics, asking thought provoking questions or even sparking a debate.

Get Happy

Posts with a higher emotional value get higher shares on social media networks so the aim is always to tap into an emotion. However, among the 4 emotions (happiness, sadness, fear and anger) – Happiness is the one that will get the most engagement… YAY! Positive social media posts get an average of 1.75 more positive responses than negative posts which get 1.29.

Know What’s Trending

If you care about the engagement of your social media posts then you need to know what’s trending. Whether it’s #SundayFunday, #HarryandMeghan or #MerryChristmas, it’s important to know what everyone’s talking about. This doesn’t mean that you need to insert your brand into every conversation, in fact, please don’t! However, do your research and you may find a trending hashtag that fits well with your product offering. Try to stay away from politics or controversial topics, especially if they have nothing to do with your brand. Instead, look for fun or interesting hashtags that you can use for your message. You can also use Twitter’s “Events” tab to check what is likely to be trending in the coming weeks and months.

Create A Buzz

Want social media engagement hacks that create a buzz? Nothing sparks engagement like a bit of marketing buzz… if you do it right that is!

Brands like Look Fantastic are masters of social media buzz because they use photos, excitement and time sensitive posts to create higher fan engagement. You can see from their post below that they are ticking all the boxes with a Christmas countdown linking to their Christmas products page. You know there’s only so many shopping days left … right?

Boosting engagement is something that everyone can do, it just needs a little lateral thinking and a bit of social media magic dust! Which is your favourite of our social media engagement hacks? Tweet us and let us know!

The post Secret Social Media Engagement Hacks You Shouldn’t Be Without appeared first on Agorapulse.

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[scutteh]

Photographing portraits in large quantities

Hey all. I’m still alive! 

I’ve been pretty busy at work doing various things. Namely recently taking everyone’s photo with the best VFX Oscar (we won!). I just wanted to talk a little about the setups for this in regards to photography (photos are done and edited but I want the people that spent their hard time working on the movie to enjoy them first). A large number of people in the London area were part of creating the awesome Visual Effects seen in The Jungle Book, many no longer working for our company. Ensuring everyone that wanted a photo could get one required planning over 2 days with 2 separate setups. I also had 2 separate camera bodies from 2 different manufacturers (my personal aps-c Nikon dslr and our work Canon 5dmk3 I use for well, work). My thinking behind this was to have the 24-70 2.8 on the Canon and use my Nikon with a 70-200 2.8 to get some nice close up portraits. Let’s take a look at the setups below for the days:

Setup 1:  This would be an internal setup, allowing for both departments and individuals to take photos. We’d host it in a larger area to allow for large departments to get group shots. We have a large number of departments so group sessions were split in 15-30 minute intervals with individuals able to come along at any time (the idea is if they are coming as a department they can get individuals while the group is waiting for all it’s members). 

This was a bit of a hectic day, as the queues got bigger in between it was roughly about 20-30 seconds per person (plenty of time for a few good shots). The challenge mostly came from organising groups as the space, though large was still not quite big enough for the larger groups (it was easy to see railings above and the wider you got the more the other light sources would interfere with the shot). Challenges The unforeseen challenge I found was at editing time for the first batch I only had the card reader with me to read SD, therefor I was editing the Nikon Raw files without reference to the other camera. This would be fine right if the white balance matched? The colour renditions are too different to sadly do this. I noticed the day after my first batch of editing the Nikon can sometimes overpower with greens or magenta (depending on what you’re shooting) and even though they looked fine, they looked quite unbalanced when compared to the Canon shots). 

What was interesting while editing was to see the white balance slowly requiring tweaking to be cooler as it went on through the day, perhaps the lights outside were dimming and so artificial light was starting to creep in to the shot further. I found the Nikon needed more constant tweaking however kept up with the Canon (no x vs y battles here: I use Canon Nikon and Fuji depending on the situation or what I have with me at the time)

After edit total photos for the day - 846

Setup 2: This would be downstairs in reception under close eye of security with some restrictions (naturally due to the security risk) and would be a mix of individuals no longer working for the company (but worked on the show) and anyone that missed their photo the day before. As largely individuals the person communicating with the alumni would put them in to 5 minute slots, with 2 people per every 5 minutes (in theory). Any others then could fit in at any time in between. We’d have a lunch rush expected around 1pm-2pm (which we dealt with) but otherwise that should be quite smooth.

Challenges

As this was downstairs we had to keep things moving with this, yet naturally people may wanted to stay to re-connect with older colleagues. It was quite hard to keep the people moving but we got through everyone in the end with plenty of photos taken for each. There were also restrictions to handling (for security reasons) which naturally don’t go over great with people that put their hard time in to the work. Everyone handled this incredibly though and to be honest the backdrop and ‘set’ we created really helped. I personally preferred this location as it matched the grandeur feel to the Oscar (I liked photos from both days mind!)

My main challenge for this was simply taking too many photos. My typical job as a photographer is taking x number of photos and maybe selecting 2-3 in total per person to choose from. This time I did the silly thing of saying ‘I’ll just edit all aside from blurred/ closed eye shots and then you can choose your own!). I had mispredicted the count of shots forgetting I was doubling up almost using 2 cameras. This day I shot 1879 photos (ouch).

After Edit total photos for the day - 1439

We did have an insane number of people coming for photos in this case and it was a one off so I wanted to ensure we had the photos captured for everyone based on the effort they put in to the film. This is more than I would usually take for a wedding (and wanting to get it done before work this week I finished editing them all Sunday evening). The pace to this was pretty intense but do-able. 

Advice

If you have a large shoot, maybe you want to do a project where you take 100 portraits in 100 minutes or do large event portraiture so here are some of my tips:

Plan ahead. Make sure you know your rough count, add more to it and keep to a time schedule. This is beneficial to both you, and the people you’re taking photos of

2 camera bodies save a lot of time rather than switching lenses, however a 24-70 should cover you in most situations if you only have 1

If people are in groups but only 1 person is being photographed, tell the people around to take their phone pictures first. People have a bad habit of taking photos with the phone whilst you are taking photos (this distracts them and you’ll lose eye contact). <-- most photos are lost like this nowadays. Surprisingly the phone and selfie culture have helped people to learn to post more!

Make sure you eat and drink throughout. These are more a test of stamina and endurance than creative prowess

Don’t take too many photos if you can help it. If using a 2 camera setup 2-3 for each camera should be enough

When editing if using 2 cameras make 2 separate lightroom presets (for both cameras) and also copy the preset of the camera you took the most photos on. You can then paste information without needing to click (and if you’ve set your lightroom up correctly, you can apply that preset to all images you select). This will speed up your cropping and tweaking time

Have fun! You’re doing this as you love photography, it may seem gruelling but you’re doing part of what you love. You should take pride in the fact you’re doing this task and the photos (and people you’re photographing) should reflect this. Keeping a pleasant demeanour goes a long way to ensuring people relax and smile

Don’t be afraid to point to the lens. If you have lights on people can often not see you. You may also find if you’re taking photos for them on their phone, they may miss the phone camera lens. Help them out, it will improve their (and your!) photos

I hope this helps anyway! I’ll share some of the photos from both days later in the week.