#repost because algorithm hates me </3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thetruemasterofgames · 3 years ago

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Well alot of new people are here it seems so let me give a little insight to how post interaction works around here: Likes: Most platform this boosts in the alg and your friends can see you likes it not how that works here. Tumblr uses abit of a unique now but what use to be more common use of like back in the day. Likes only exist to show a form of agreeance or enjoyment but they do nothing for the op except blow up their notifs and maybe give a dopamine rush of number go up. This is why alot of artist here make info graphics saying you hate their post when you like it because it’s doing nothing to them then showing on their feed but telling them you don’t care enough to actually share it around. Now you may be wondering “Well why do likes exist then?” Four reasons: 1. To allow the users to easilly backtrack to posts they enjoyed by going to their likes page. 2. For Tumblr to use to more customize ads toward you (yes believe it or not there was a time this hellsite had a healthy advertising network). 3.And this one is abit more prevalent than it use to be, To allow tumblr to edit your for you page to be more tailored to you in it’s algorithm 4. So people can embarrass the shit out of you if you are foolish enough to like dumb things AND have your likes public All in all likes are more for the user engaging then the creator of the post. Reblogs: Reblogs are the number one way to interact on this wasteland relic of the transition between web 1 and 2. Reblogs are basically you like the post you repost it with your own comments if you want added on. (fun fact you also use to be able to edit the post above yours before the John Green incident.) When you reblog the post above even if removed from the original blog will stay on your reblog so don’t worry about lost context when making a comment or addition. This is the number one way posts spread on this hellsite and really the only way (aside from like tumblr blaze now but that’s money) outside of outside sites sharing posts from here and trying to claim them. If you see a post you love, a post? Reblog. You think a post has good info? Reblog. Have something to add you think people should know? REEEEBLOGGGG!! This is the main way in showcasing your support for a creator and what they posted (and helping keep the post from completely disappearing if you want to do that out of spite.) It’s why this site has alot of stuff that can be traced back easier than other sites and one thing that I love is the reblog chains so you can trace how conversations progress. So you want something to spread or be kept around reblog it. Who knows when the origin may disappear. Replies/comments: Comments, also known as replies, are a relatively newer feature here. They allow you to make a comment on a post that people have to go out of their way to view. Most people use this to say things they are abit shy to have on their actual blog or to try and go after something without giving it the algorithm boost of reblogs. They don’t really do much and most the time people don’t really check these because alot of people don’t even remember they exist. HOWEVER it is a good way to leave feedback without keeping something on your blog if you want to go that route but it doesn’t help the op in the grander scheme. You also can’t track who the people are responding to unless they tag the person another flaw of this system. All in all likes are good for you and your algorithm Reblogs are good for the creator and preservation Comments are good for quick comments that you feel don’t need to be plastered on the larger aspect of the site sort of like a whisper without dming that a few people may spy on. Hope this helps some people out there in understanding how this site is abit different then others out there in interaction.and maybe help people see the reblog not like posts as more than just “op wants attention” it’s a sentiment I’ve seen floating because newbies don’t understand the site that much.

#tumblr #tumblr etiquette #how tumblr works #tumblr algorithm #I both love how this makes the site unique and a reminder of simpler times and hate how it confuses so many newbies to the internet #reblog your favs

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doomdaysdecays · 4 years ago

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Rereading "hate me" for the third time, currently, and I decided to look at the tags, cause why not? It was kinda surprising to me to see you ask for part one to be rebloged, and I quickly want to thank you for it. Last night while reading this post I chose to reblog it, as once I reblog something it's easier to get on it will less WiFi (the school WiFi sucks, so I don't use it often, just turning it on if I need it) but I felt really bad about reblogging it, as it just feels like you're stealing someone's work. Can you explain why it's inherently a good thing? Does the post become more popular?

....yeah, I'm really new to Tumblr.

Hey! First of all, thank you so much for all your reblogs on the series. I spotted you in my notes a lot and I’m glad you enjoy! <3

I’ll explain. reblogging ≠ reposting. With a reblog you don’t steal someone’s work and take credit for it, you share it for other users to see the content and its creator.

Reblogs enable writers/artists/other content creators to get a larger audience because they let other users view it, pass it on for others to see again and so on and so forth. Which makes the post popular like likes on Instagram do, due to its algorithm, but tumblr doesnt have such an algorithm.

Basically, reblogs are how posts gain notes. Likes alone sadly don’t have the same effect (dont get me wrong, receiving likes is great. they don’t boost the post though, contrary to Instagram or even Youtube).

Pretty much every creator overflows with happiness when they get reblogged, including myself. Don’t feel pressured to reblog, but when you really love a post or want to support an artist, go right ahead! 🖤

#i hope i could help #jadeocean46910 #dot's asks

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penelopebarbalios · 5 years ago

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Hey guys ...'_' I was in need of a break from social media for a while (and to be honest, I think I still might need it right now.) With everything going on in the world, I had become super obsessed with reading and reposting articles on Facebook and Twitter, thinking that by JUST reposting/retweeting, that alone would make a difference (mostly from my personal page.) When the harsh reality hit me that all my time spent obsessively doing this: adding to my posts, writing huge epilogues about how people need to change their mode of thinking to make for a better world, that none of my posts were even being seen due to the algorithms...that nothing I did mattered. And "if" nothing I did mattered, I had a mental breakdown. I thought I was doing things right. I wanted to fight for social justice in what has turned out to be a pretty awful year for alot of people. I thought if I believed in each of these things, and cared about all of these causes, if I helped promote, donate, speak out, and lift up, that is what you do during times like these to show your humanity and be a good person to your fellow humans. But during all of that...I stopped taking care of myself...I let my business suffer, I stopped making art, which is what I SHOULD HAVE BEEN USING as a platform. But allowed myself to mindlessly scroll through my feed of what was the same 3, 4 articles repeated daily. Then go through all the horrible, most insane toxic public-comments & feuds imaginable, because that's just what I did to myself. Some of them have been discussions by former friends, and some (even scarier to me) are the hate speech-convos made by people on local fb groups in my area who are either anti-maskers, pro-police, anti-blm, or all three...making me scared to leave my home or trust anyone outside of my house, besides my boyfriend. So yes, a mental breakdown may be present, but I feel like there's some legitimate reasoning behind it: people are MONSTERS... https://www.instagram.com/p/CFPK8Mgjcui/?igshid=ts4iebvs3a5m

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lynseymoon · 6 years ago

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my videoranch experience

ok, hi. hello. so, now that holiday “excitement” has died down, and tumblr’s new bs nipplegate has caused a mass exodus of users, i feel like it’s an appropriate time for me to talk about this.

for those of you who aren’t aware; hi, it’s me, lynsey moon. in case you don’t feel like reading a big long mess, i will preface this by saying that this is going to be about my videoranch experience. if that’s something you don’t really care about, feel free to skip on by. ok, on we go--

so, as a lot of you have probably heard, i was fired very unceremoniously from videoranch this past september, after working there for 10 years. up until now, i haven’t really felt like i had a safe platform to vent this information on. i think i was still holding onto a little thread of hope that maybe things would go back to the way they were. unfortunately, that hope has passed, but on the bright side, i’m feeling a whole lot better about the situation. i am going to do my best to tell my complete story, while remaining as impartial as possible. there are other stories that connect to mine, but i don’t feel it is my place to speak for those people, so i am not really going to discuss anything other than my own experience. anyway, let’s get into the details--

context/backstory:

before my firing, i had worked for videoranch as their social media manager for maybe about 7 years, and had been a dj in vr3d for about 10. without getting into the long ass story of how, i was hand selected by nez. we became pretty friendly, and would exchange emails and chat on skype fairly often. even when there were long stretches where we didn’t talk, he would still occasionally shoot me a one-liner or two. after i had been djing regularly for a few years, his wife vic announced she was leaving. she was the one who pretty much kept vr running (the woman behind the curtain, so to speak), and she asked if i would take over running the vr fb page, which was virtually unused at the time. i agreed, and started making regular posts about the music, and events in vr3d. some years later, i set up the tumblr, twitter, and (more recently,) the instagram accounts for vr. i enjoyed the work i did. i really liked interacting with the fans, and getting them excited about nez news/vr happenings. over the years, i single-handedly grew their online audience to be in the thousands. so all those social media pages for vr you see, with the exception of the youtube page? yeah; those were all me.

new employee #1:

maybe 2-3 years ago, nez’s assistant tells me that they’re temporarily hiring this well-known person in the monkees community, to help promote a t-shirt sale. we were told that this person would just be on board for the sale, and then they’d be departing. nez’s assistant asks me to give them social media privileges. keep in mind, i have been the ONLY person posting on our pages up to this point. so, of course, i give this person privileges, so they can post about the sale. the sale ends, and nez’s assistant tells me that this person is going to stay on as sort of a “sales” person, to help them move some merchandise. this person keeps their page privileges, and is told to only post things related to sales, which they do, but they also post all kinds of other trivia and photos, which is essentially what i am also doing. already, things are starting to feel a bit crowded, but i go along with things and try to be amiable, because i like my job and i don’t want there to be any animosity.

new employee #2:

about a year ago, we are told that nez’s assistant (of many, MANY years) is leaving, and that a new person is taking their place. this person had previously been in charge of the (now defunct) “vr forums”, where fans were free to discuss nez’s work. i am not going to get into this person’s reputation among the fans, because that is a whole other situation that would take way too long to get into. suffice it to say, this person is well-known.

this person immediately takes the reins from nez’s previous assistant, and sends us information on what kind of posts they’d like to see on social media. they set up an official vr youtube page. they instruct me to post one photo and one video per day. i suggest that posting that often might lead to oversaturation, and therefore not get us as much visibility through the fb algorithm. i also point out that there are only so many videos/photos available online, and i will probably run out and have to start reposting things before too long. they insist. i comply. one video and one photo per day. i start scheduling posts per their request, to meet these quotas. they also instruct me to use the tumblr page more. i try to explain that tumblr is largely a younger audience, and the posts there don’t get much traction. they insist. i comply. they also ask that i give them fb privileges, so that they can begin posting things, in addition to my posts, and the posts by new employee #1. they ask that i stop asking questions in my posts. i try to say that questions engage the fans. they disagree. i stop asking questions. our pages start to become oversaturated with multiple posts by multiple people, and i try not to make much of a fuss, because again; i like my job, and i do not want to make waves.

at this point, with the amount of posts going out on a daily basis, i quietly reduce my posts to 3-4 times a week. i try to alternate between photos and videos, to keep things from going stale. i am hoping that the new assistant does not notice, because it seems to be helping our posts get more engagements. they notice, and instruct me to again; post one photo and video a day. i try to continue with these posts as requested, and soon begin running out of photos. i ask for help in finding more, as i know this person is a known nez expert, and must have plenty. they tell me that this is my job, and i should be the one researching these things. bear in mind, before this person came along, my job was to post about the events in vr3d, and occasionally throw up a nez photo or fun fact. not to be a historian. i didn’t bother trying to explain this to the new assistant because again; i. liked. my. job. i tried to do my best to comply, just to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

the firing:

early september 9th, i was sitting around, thinking of a post to make. as i pick up my phone, i see an email saying i’ve been removed as an admin on the fb page. immediately, i start freaking out, and fearing for the worst. if you remember, at this point, nez was on tour with the fnb, and currently in texas. frantically, i text nez’s other assistant (who mostly just deals with nez himself, and does not work with the social media side of things). i tell her what happened, and she is confused. she assumes (like me), that it had to be a mistake, and says she will check with nez and the other people in texas to see what they know. in the meantime, i message new employee #1, to see if they know anything. as i suspected, they do not, and are just as confused as i am. i start trying to convince myself that maybe it WAS just a simple mistake, but deep down i feel that it isn’t.

nez’s other assistant (i’ll just say noa) gets back to me, and says that everyone is in the dark about this. they ask me if i’ve emailed new employee #2 about it, and i confess i haven’t. i have been avoiding it, hoping i could get things corrected before having to talk to the one person i feel is responsible for this. in between all of this, i am attempting to log into all the other social media accounts, only to find that they have all had their passwords changed. instagram locks me out, because there has been an attempt to log in from texas. i am panicking, but try to appear calm as i compose an email to the assistant. i state simply that it looks like the passwords have all been changed, and inquire if maybe we’d been hacked.

a dreadfully long hour later, i receive my reply. i have it saved, but i still hate having to re-read it. the first line was the only thing close to an explanation i received:

"The operations of our company require us to remove your position as a social media content creator. You are welcome to continue DJing in VR3D, but we can no longer pay you for these sessions."

that is a direct quote, by the way. the email went on to say that the comped tickets i had already secured through noa were now null and void, and if i wanted to attend the show, i would have to pay my own way. reader, i was absolutely gutted. i was devastated. i sobbed-- SOBBED-- for an hour. i was full of confusion, loss, and hurt feelings. the lack of explanation was what killed it for me the most. that, and the fact that i was being fired by someone who had been there for a tenth of the time that i had. i was being indirectly let go by someone who i once considered my friend. i started to wonder if he even knew what had transpired, or how. also within the email was a complaint about a post i had made, about the anniversary of the newspaper ad for the monkees. i was told it was “inappropriate” to be posting monkees-related things while nez was on a fnb tour. mind you, i don’t think it was that act that got me fired, but i wasn’t even made aware that this was a problem until after the fact. it was like i was supposed to already know this, and i obviously did not.

aftermath:

i was an absolute wreck about this for about a month. i kept going over the events in my mind, trying to make sense of it all. the offer to continue djing felt like a cold slap in my face; as though i would take joy in continuing to share music in a place that i was no longer welcome in. it felt like being broken up with. after it was confirmed, noa sent me a text that just said “i’m so sorry”. even nez’s former assistant, who had always been very kind to me, called and left me a very sweet voicemail wishing me well, and expressing her disappointment in what happened. other friends of mine in the band also expressed their shock and sadness to me. even new employee #1 claimed to be surprised, though i am now second-guessing that, as that person remains to be on the staff, while i am not. it seemed like everybody wanted me to stay, except for this new assistant. it also seemed like nobody even knew why i was fired. maybe even the assistant didn’t know, and they just wanted me gone, and had the means to make it happen. the whole thing was one big drawn out gut punch.

i agonized for a long time about whether or not i wanted to go to the show. eventually, i found a friend of a friend with two tickets, and i took that as kismet, and decided to attend. i told myself it would be my last one. before the show, i got to meet up with circe and christian, and without going into too many details (for their sake), i felt a little better after talking to them. i also saw noa there, who gave me a very sweet card and wished me well. it felt somewhat cathartic to feel that i was appreciated by (almost) everyone. the show, of course, was impeccable, though it wasn’t as enjoyable as the other nez shows i’ve attended, but i expected that to be the case. afterwards, i hung around for a bit and chatted with friends. i saw noa leading nez over to the meet and greet, and i believe she guided him past us on purpose. he gave me a sad little wave and said “hello” before being rushed off. i convinced myself that i was never going to get any real closure for the whole situation, so i called that my closure, and left.

in conclusion:

based on the way things seem to be running now, and how they were when i left, i feel a little less sad about having to leave. again, i am going to try to remain as impartial as possible here, but it almost seemed like that chapter of my life was meant to close when it did. when it first happened, in addition to the pain i felt, i also felt incredibly anxious about the extra money i was going to lose from this. i had literally JUST moved into a new, more costly apartment just a week prior, and was distraught about how i was going to afford it. luckily, things have been working out, and i’ve been getting by just fine. initially, i had hoped that everything was just a big mistake, and that nez (or someone) was going to contact me and tell me to come back, but the more time passes, the more unconvinced of that i become. at this point, it’s in my best interest to just try to move on, and take pride in all the things i accomplished while i was at videoranch. it was a huge part of my life for so long, and now then suddenly it wasn’t, so of course it was a pretty big adjustment to make. slowly but surely, i am making peace with everything.

lastly, i have seen some rumors floating around that i want to dispel:

my firing was not a “financial decision”-- some people have been spreading this around, and it is simply not true. i got confirmation on this from c&c, noa, and others. nez has enough money to hire a private jet to shuttle him from show to show. he is not hurting for money.

this probably goes without saying after everything i’ve written, but i was fired. i did not leave voluntarily, nor did i have plans to. this decision was made entirely without me.

i was getting paid for the work i was doing, and was a contract worker for vr. i was not a volunteer.

i always tried to follow instructions and requests from my superiors to the best of my ability. even though i would sometimes question the reasoning behind things, i would always try my best to be polite and maintain a productive work environment. i never once refused to do anything that was asked of me.

so there you have it; now you finally know what really happened to lynsey moon. if you have any questions about this, feel free to drop me an ask, and i will try my best to answer. thanks for listening, especially if you made it this far. i appreciate all the support i’ve received. ❤

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imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs · 7 years ago

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Ah, my first Tumblr post

I have recently joined Tumblr as a user proper after months, nay, years of lurking and silently wishing luck and good cheer to the artists who reside on it. I’ve watched, listened and fumbled to try and get the nerve up to post something and today, I make my first post. And just like everything on the internet these days, it’s released amidst the user’s mounting anxiety, the internet’s emotion-wrecking outcries, swamped with opinions likely to be labeled as libel. If you haven’t heard, our beloved Tumblr will be exorcising most if not all sexually explicit content from it’s sight after child pornography made its way past the guidelines. You can see the company’s responses here:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/03/tumblr-blocking-adult-content-december-17th/

and here:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/419493-tumblr-to-ban-adult-content-after-child-pornography-was-found-on-the-site

Now, I believe that they did indeed weigh their options carefully and they are right when they say they need to consider their far-reaching consequences of their actions. But does that mean they came to the right decision? From the play Coriolanus (and Ralph Fiennes’s excellent adaptation) good ol’ Menenius, loyal friend to the protagonist and to the Roman state, insists that the death of the unpopular as “he's a limb that has but a disease; Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.” and I feel this is where tumblr is going. it’s abusing Occam’s Razor, wielding it like Sweeney Todd would on Turpin’s neck. But are they a giant evil corporation exploiting the masses? Tumblr is giving a heads-up to users with explicit content and blogs to export their blog before the change takes place. you can find it here:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-content-porn-ban-date-explicit-changes-why-safe-mode

I also learned from this article that Tumblr has also “banned revenge porn, hate speech, and posts that glorified school shootings”. and they’re allowing the people who repost their content on other sites to link to them. That’s actually some good they’ve done. But I digress. But I must also look at the comment sections of the articles to see the ��common people’s” arguments. Sadly, all I see is “HashtagRIPTumblr”. Is that the depth people really view this situation with? people believe it will “die” as Myspace did. So, Myspace’s fall was due to lacking adult content as opposed to being overshadowed by Facebook and other social networks? What is depressing is that many of these artists are in fact GOOD artists and their skill is something to be admired. My fear is that these artists will disappear from the public eye after this change and I’ll never find them again, nor will anyone. I fear the trust the company is placing in indifferent algorithms, the mistakes that may come down the line because of it. I fear the chilling effect this will have on artists and journalists and writers trying to find their voices. And while the posts will not be taken down but “hidden from public view (Tumblr mods and owners, I would like an official definition of public), it still voices some distressing questions. So here’s my voice: Don’t let this tear you down! I’ve gone to blogs I’ve hated, blogs with a tone I found more akin to Harvey Weinstein than the freely expression sexuality and I prayed that in the last NSFW purge that they would not be taken down, but TORN down. There are other sites we can use, but many of them need money or are just downright sleazy, full of pop-ups and adds. What happens when we don’t have any money? or just get tired of the adds. This is a move that might taint the trust in the company. And what about the posts that keep their NSFW content tagged and away from public view, under the keep-reading marker? will those be blocked from view? There are plenty of writers and creators of non-adult content to keep this site afloat, but I’m not defending tumblr. Eminem puts it like this in his song Bully: “As we grow as men, we learn to let shit go but then again there’s only so much bullshit we can stand.” I want no comments or extensions on this post. I want no critique. I only wish to get the story out and share something that is entirely my opinion and feelings. If you want to fight this change, reblog/like this post, recommend it to people you know, write your own posts like it, call Tumblr’s offices, text them, talk to them, give suggestions, raise questions like the ones I have here, warn people, start and sign petitions, look for alternative sites, get the word out. Try to be more considerate of what you post and how you post it. And if your a moderator, weigh your options before you mark something for deletion. I’ve seen NSFW posts that show the healthiest legal relationships you’ll ever see. Don’t rage against a faceless corporation’s misguided good intentions when they were in a no-win scenario and then rage quit without so much as a forwarding address. I’ve done that and it has only soured me in a way I fear has only lessened me as a writer. It’s a crunch, but we have two weeks to do something about this and people have done bigger things with higher stakes in less time (ever heard of the sit ins of the civil rights movement). We’re not powerless, we’re not worthless, what we feel and what we do is not worthless. the people we’re angry and disgusted who work at tumblr TRIED. and we can do the same. Some of you are scared, angry, hurting even. I know the feeling. But know this: even if we don’t make it, we’ll get gears turning, laying bedrock for others. Maybe people in charge will begin to see this as a mistake and try a different course of action. The actions we take now aren’t to the tune of Linkin Park’s “in the End”. We’ve survived worse. We’ve fought worse. We’ve WON against worse. I don’t believe this sight will die from it’s new direction. But I believe it will become poorer for it. as will the rest of us on the fence, wondering if this site is right for us. so, in the words of Edward R. Morrow, good night and good luck.

#1st amendment #First Amendment #critiquing tumblr

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halfblood-princes-crown · 3 years ago

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ELA anon here again ✨✨✨💅💅💅✨✨✨

I barely have time to read or write so much business nowadays

anyways

I reposted the story because it was getting a bit chaotic in the first one, making chapter one now

also how does the wattpad algorithm work? it definitely has one but like only one person saw my work there and like its #3 for prophesy?? how does that work?

on chapter nine of POA rn

the beginning of the book though is like really satisfying, because personally idc about what Marge says about lily and james but BEAT HER ASS HARRY!!

And the magic train sounds dog water, wasn’t Ron tweleve when he drove his magic car? like get a smoother driver or someone needs to put some funds in for a new model 💀

and why Dementors in the school?? Why not the border or smth

and Sirius really took only a MONTH to find Harry at dureslys bro isn’t playing 💀

and like another month for hogwarts 💀

HOW DOES HE REMEMBER AFTER SO LONG

insanity frl

anyways, lupin is so weird like

“Harry come into my office lets chat”

“yeah i have a water demon ready for next class”

“yeah snape makes me medicine”

and it feels weirdly smug??? or maybe thats just me

anyways why so much hate on snape like i get he’s mean but

“he’s going to poison lupin”-ron

bro snape barely did anything 💀

well other than try to harm trevor but killing a teacher

Do people think snape did that thing to lockhart last book? because like in this one people mention snape wanting the position like a lot more than normal

💀

why so suspicious

and Draco is introduced the same way every book

HOW DOES HE ALWAYS KNOW THERE COMPARMENT like

“oh its 6:00 Harrius Potterius findius”

“compartments 3? aight lets go”

like what in the bloody fuckery kinda magic ass shit

and Draco is so picky

“best defense teacher since forever? hes poor? kill him”

and really damn dumb

“dont insult it? hahahahhahah 🤡”

*instantly dies*

anyways have a Blessed day 💅💅💅💅

AYE!

*gasp* chapter 1! I will definitely start reading it! Very excited

I don’t know exactly how the algorithm works but I’m guessing what happened is ‘Prophesy’ isn’t a popular category which is why you got really high with only one view. Tags also help, if you added lots of tags to the story it should reach a wider audience.

And yea, even tho I hate both characters, Marge was COMPLETELY out of line 😭 she needed her face caved in for that, honestly

The magic train was hilarious to me lol. I think the fact that it’s dog water makes it better 💀like imagine being a passenger on their…I’d die lmao

I was asking the same question about the dementors. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s not supposed to…or maybe they were there for a reason and it completely flew over our heads

I’m actually not surprised Sirius remembered after that long. That’s probably all he was thinking about while in Azkaban, to be fair

And no it’s not just you, Lupin was a bit smug but I think that’s just how he is as a person…smug bastard

And yea, they were always on snapes ass for no reason 💀😭 and he didn’t even try to kill trevor, right? He only threatened to do it so that Neville would have motivation to brew his potion correctly 💀

LMAOOOO Harrius Potterius Findius 😭😭😭 I’m so dead, that’s hilarious

Have a lucky day 🍀

#ELA anon

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers

This is part of a special series, The Future of Fame Is the Fan, which dissects how celebrity became so slippery. It’s also in the latest VICE magazine. Subscribe here.

Sixteen-year-old Ava Rose Beaune was hanging out at a friend’s house on an otherwise unremarkable mid-July afternoon when her cell service briefly shut off. She tried to text her dad, but it wouldn’t send—definitely odd, she thought, but not alarming.

Then people started messaging her: Did you see what’s on your Twitter? Your Instagram? What’s going on? She logged on to her social media accounts and saw that her new Facebook status alluded to suicide—but she hadn’t posted it.

“My whole family thought I was going to kill myself,” Ava said.

Suddenly, a man she’d never met was calling her parents, demanding to speak to her. He had control of all her contacts, texts, emails, and social media accounts. The next day, he texted her: I just want to talk to you. (Spoken and written quotes from Ava’s alleged stalker are italicized to indicate they are not necessarily direct quotes but are as she remembers them.) He called her, and she answered, begging him to do whatever he wanted to her Instagram account, if that’s what he was after. “Delete it. Delete it and leave me alone if that’s what you want,” she told him. You don’t want that, he said. “I do,” she replied. I just want to meet up with you and have sex with you, he said.

“That’s when I hung up the phone, and I was like, this is getting weird,” Ava told me. This stranger had managed to hack her accounts using a method called SIM swapping, in which he contacted her wireless service carrier and convinced them that he owned the account and needed them to transfer access to the SIM card to the phone in his hand—effectively taking over her digital life.

In screenshots viewed by VICE, the hacker can be seen posting a Story to her Instagram about being Ava’s new boyfriend, issuing rape threats, and writing things like “I can’t wait til I impregnate you and marry you. you only live 5 MIN away from me.” She got her social media accounts back in her own possession and resolved the problem with her carrier. “OK, this is, you know, the end, whatever,” she recalled thinking.

With more than 2 million followers on TikTok, Ava was a minor celebrity in her own circles. So, she said, she was used to men being creepy, or even hostile. This was extreme, she thought, but it was over.

But it wasn’t. This was only the beginning of weeks of daily harassment so severe it would uproot her life entirely.

As of this year, TikTok likely has more than 1 billion monthly active users, and the market research firm Statista estimates that adolescents between 10 and 19 years old make up 32.5 percent of those users. The spiritual successor to Vine, TikTok is a micro-video sharing platform that favors an off-the-cuff, do-it-yourself style: People of all ages lip-sync to movie clips and songs, mimic elaborate dances in their living rooms, and use filters to edit the 60-second videos into tiny works of art. It’s also something of a fame lottery.

All this manic, frenetic energy combined with massive audiences is addictive in the same way any social media platform is: with casino-style scrolling and a notification system and the looming chance at virality. Normal teens like Ava—who signed with a talent agency in January 2020—become voracious consumers as well as unstoppable creators, hoping to strike it big, get discovered, or at the very least, make it to the For You feed, where one video plucked by some mysterious algorithm from a user’s feed can get in front of millions of eyeballs instantly.

“I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

Despite all this, cyberbullying experts say that TikTok isn’t the worst social media app for harassment. “The way that TikTok is built reduces the likelihood of cyberbullying when compared to other apps,” said Sameer Hinduja, the co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. Features like direct messaging that only allow mutual followers to contact each other, and the inability to add images or videos to comment sections, set it apart from other apps. “To be sure, cyberbullying can manifest itself in hurtful TikTok videos directed towards others, as well as in comments and in livestream chats—but these possibilities are no different than on any other social media app,” Hinduja told me.

According to TikTok’s transparency report from 2020, 2.5 percent of videos the platform removed were for bullying or harassment. But there are some features unique to TikTok that make it prone to a different, more personal kind of harassment. “Duet” allows other users to repost your video with a split-screen video of their own. Most of the time, it’s used innocently, for singalongs or miniature skits. But some users say it opens a portal for disturbing abuse. In 2018, BuzzFeed News reported that people—often young children—would duet their videos with a video of them acting out suicide, putting plastic bags over their heads or belts around their necks, to show their disgust at the original post. And a Duet from a more popular account can send a wave of attention from their followers to your page, not all of it positive.

Nick, who runs a TikTok account with his five-year-old daughter Sienna (the family goes by their first names publicly, to protect their privacy), told me that they experience Duet-based harassment on top of the usual comment section cruelty. “Some users would duet our videos and say mean, nasty things that were just not true,” he said. “In the beginning, it made us second-guess the path we were going down.”

It hasn’t stopped since they started the account, in October of 2018—and they’ve since gathered more than 14 million followers. But they have gotten better at managing it, Nick said. “Sienna is luckily very intelligent and knows that this is not OK. I made sure to sit down with her, emphasizing how special she is and that people may not see that right away.”

Nick believes TikTok does a good job of handling harassment, and giving creators the tools to handle it themselves. “If there is consistent harassment from a specific account, I block and delete their hateful comments,” he said. “For the negative comments in general, I tend to just ignore them. I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

TikTok does allow users to opt out of Duets. But these are the features that foster that slingshot fame; opting out of them means opting out of your chance at going viral or just growing your audience.

Fatima and Munera Fahiye, who are sisters and TikTok creators with around 3 million followers each, told me that they also find the platform to be responsive when they need support. “There were multiple accounts on TikTok impersonating me on the app, and TikTok helped me by verifying my account to let people know that my account is the real one,” Munera said.

Whatever harassment they do receive—which often means racist comments—they say is outweighed by the support of fans. “I have been on TikTok for a year now, and I have not experienced any harassment, but after gaining some followers I have seen some mean comments about my hijab every now and then, but I try to not give it any attention, because the love and support that I am getting from my fans is more than the little hate, so it does not matter,” Fatima said.

The harassment that happens on TikTok doesn’t stay there, however. On Reddit, whole communities are devoted to catching women and girls on social media in the middle of wardrobe slips, where you can see down their shirts, up their skirts, or anytime they shift and move and reveal a glimpse of more skin. Standalone websites are made for this purpose, too, and for doxxing and harassing women who might have a TikTok in addition to an OnlyFans or other separate adult platform.

In 2020, a server on the gaming chat platform Discord took requests for TikTok creators to be made into deepfakes—AI-generated fake porn. Although child pornography is against Discord’s terms of use, even in the form of deepfakes, one of the most requested targets was only 17. A request for another deepfake noted, “by the way she turns 18 in 4 days.”

Creators also find their content, clothed as in the originals or deepfaked, reposted to porn sites. In concert, the people on each of these platforms work together to create an overwhelming environment of virtual assault for many young women.

Until TikTok, Ava had never really been into social media, she told me on a Zoom call in her parents’ house. She was taking a break from high school distance learning; this was her senior year, spent over video chats because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I always told myself I’d never make a TikTok because my friends all had it and I was like, that’s so cringe,” she said. “Like, I’ll never start that. But they were like, ‘Come on make one,’ so I did.”

She said she made her first account when she was 15, and posted the usual stuff: trend dances, makeup videos. Within a few days, her audience went from the friends who talked her into joining to 150,000 followers—a leap in popularity that she still doesn’t entirely understand. The sudden attention startled her; she deactivated the account.

She accidentally reactivated the account later, and at this point, having gotten over the initial shock of attention, decided to give it another try.

A rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Once Ava started posting new videos, the hateful comments started. “I thought that was like the worst it could get,” she said. “It was like, body shaming and hate—the body shaming especially never bothered me, and the normal hate comments were just like, whatever.” A few users created accounts to post rape threats about her, and this did disturb her, but she took it as par for the course as a young woman online.

That is, until one of her followers started stalking her and her best friend, Gabriel. That follower messaged Gabriel, mentioning her home address and demanding to know who she was dating. “So, we’re both kind of like laughing like this guy’s obviously just some weird fan,” she recalled.

I have something planned for Ava. You’ll see in the next three months. I’m planning something big, Ava says he told Gabriel. He hacked her phone three months later, on Gabriel’s 18th birthday. After that, the man texted Ava every day.

“It was stuff about how he wants to rape me, how he’s going to get me, how I can easily stop this—he was texting my dad saying, She’s not allowed to hang out with her friends, if she goes out I’ll know. Saying he’s watching over us and stuff like that.” Every time Ava thought the situation was as bad as it could get—that this man she’d never met was going as far as he could go—he went further.

Then a rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Cyberbullying has proven long-lasting effects on teens and young adults. As Hinduja noted, studies show that it’s tied to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family problems, academic difficulties, delinquency, school violence, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious.’”

“Most important to me is how negative experiences online unnecessarily compromise the healthy flourishing of our youth at school,” he said. According to his and his co-director Justin Patchin’s research at the Cyberbullying Research Center, over 60 percent of students who experienced cyberbullying reported that it “deeply affected” their ability to learn and feel safe while at school, and 10 percent of students surveyed said they’ve skipped school at least once this past year because of it.

“That cannot be happening,” Hinduja said.

“In general, I hope people will remember that everyone is a human being just like them. We are all capable of feeling hurt and disappointment, and just because there are numbers and a platform attached to our lives doesn’t mean we are impervious to hurtful words or harassing comments,” Nick said. “TikTok is a space where everyone should feel safe to express their creativity, and in order to do that we need to be kind to others.”

Maxwell Mitcheson, Ava’s agent and the head of talent at TalentX Entertainment, told me that he’s seen harassment take a direct toll on young people. “A lot of creators are growing up in front of millions of people, and that involves making mistakes and learning and growing from them,” he said. “The hateful rhetoric definitely weighs on them; some don’t even look at their comments section anymore just to try and stay positive.”

“It’s the inability to make mistakes, being attacked for being authentically yourself, and the sudden lack of anonymity,” Mitcheson said.

Ava’s experience was on the extreme side, he explained, but creators at his agency have had instances of hacking and stalking, or fans randomly showing up at creators’ homes. “We’ve had to involve security and PIs before, but Ava’s was a situation that could have ended in tragedy if it weren’t for the Toronto police intervening.”

After the window-breaking threat, Ava said the police told her that she couldn’t stay at home. She went to stay at a friend’s house, but he still reached her there, she said. “He just kept going saying like, look at what you’ve done, this is all your fault,” she said. He sent her a private message that would delete after it was opened, so she recorded it using a friend’s phone:

I need you to accept the fact that I’m extorting you right now, you need to accept that this isn’t going to end no one’s gonna catch me, the police haven’t ever caught me when I did this before, accept it, give me what I want, I want you to meet up at this park right behind your house I want to do this this this this to you

if you don’t I will kill your parents in front of you in your living room and take you.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious,’” she told me.

She said she sent the message to the police, who told her whole family to stay somewhere else, hours away. They did, for two weeks. He kept texting her: are you going to be there Saturday you’re making the wrong decision you better answer me.

Eventually, Ava recalled, he was caught. He left the VPN he was using to mask his location off for a half a second, according to her—just long enough, she remembers the police telling her, for the investigators to capture his location data and pinpoint where he was texting her from.

Ava said that the police told her that when he was caught, they found six separate phones and a bunch of SIM cards in his possession—full of pictures and videos of Ava that he’d taken from her accounts. According to the Toronto area detective Ava and her family worked with, the case is still in the courts.

Talking to me now, over Zoom, in between classes and facing midterms, Ava seems fine. She’s able to recount this story in delicate detail, without flinching. She understands the gravity of what happened to her, and how it upended her life. Her family decided to move away, “to the middle of nowhere, pretty much,” she said.

But she is different now. She stopped posting to her TikTok to focus on her friendships and family, though she still posts sporadically on Instagram. She would like to be more active on social media, but she’s not pushing herself. She has anxiety that she describes as “really bad.”

“It’s really affected me, like, you know, just like not being able to live in your own home, and like, even when you are at home, not being safe… It’s really hard, especially when I was only 16 when this happened,” she said. “It is hard, and knowing that my parents were always stressed out and not being able to go outside and walk without feeling kind of scared…”

Before she stopped posting new TikTok videos, she tried to open up on the platform in videos about her mental health and her experiences. But people weren’t receptive to it.

“Especially when they’re like, Oh, a TikTok girl that all the simps love, or What are you complaining about, all these boys love you, kind of thing,” she told me. “I’ve been trying to go to therapy and trying to get over it, but when that kind of thing happens you’re not really the same afterwards. You have a different outlook on social media. You’re kind of scared of if it’s going to happen again. You don’t think those people exist until it happens to you, and then you’re like, wow, this is crazy.”

Online harassment has a silencing effect on people of all ages and genders, but women have it especially bad—and young women are pushed offline, out of the center of conversations and control of their own narrative, at earlier and earlier ages. As adolescents, harassment online makes them do worse in school, seek riskier behaviors, and contemplate or even attempt and follow through on self-harm and suicide. As grown women, this looks like anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, not sleeping, and stepping out of the online conversation altogether to protect their own mental health, and, in severe cases, the safety of themselves and their loved ones. When harassment is allowed to carry on, and women are shamed for seeking help, the damage digs deeper—and we lose those voices.

I asked Ava what she wishes more people understood—about her, about what it’s like to have a big social media following, about how it feels to have millions of eyes on you at such a young age. “I just wish they knew that just because you have followers, doesn’t mean you have this perfect life,” she said. “Just because boys love you, that doesn’t complete your life. When these kinds of things happen, you should be able to be open about it.”

Follow Samantha Cole on Twitter.

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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themariotheme · 4 years ago

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RANT ON THIS REBLOG CAUSE IT IS VAGUELY RELATED TO MY DRAWING

when i first posted this drawing it got like 1k upvotes on reddit and a decent amount of likes and retweets on twitter which is cool asf!! and someone COSPLAYED MY ARABELLA!! the coolest thing ever i have never had that happen before! BUT.

she had taken my drawing from reddit, therefore she credited my reddit account in her tiktok caption. fine, that's alright, it's on me to not have any links to my other socials on my reddit account.

BUT what currently infuriates me is that tumblr could be the PERFECT platform for artists and yet the majority of the userbase just doesn't know how the platform works! it's too complicated and people come on here take up usernames and then leave after they can't figure out how to use it!! here's how u use it.

let's just say for example, a frog meme page on instagram makes a meme. okay, another frog meme page reposts it, and because they are a decent person, they @ the original account at the TOP of the caption AND in the picture. now, this is fine, but if the second meme page's post algorithmically gets more traction than the first one, the original creator of the meme doesn't benefit much at all from it!!!! this is the reason i hate art repost pages with a passion, even ones that are for fandoms that curate memes and art snd tag the artist, it just rubs me the WRONG WAY.

if that frog meme page had been on tumblr, the second frog meme page wouldn't have to REPOST the meme!!! they would simply reblog it!!!! and thus!! the credit is already linked in the post!!! and when more people see it!!! and like it!!! and reblog it!!! the original meme creator benefits from it!!!

the arctic monkeys concert photography reposting issue is also bugging me and driving me nuts and im not even a photographer!!!!!!!! but if i see one more fanpage on instagram type "source: pinterest <3" in their caption i am going to have a fit!! the amount of hours ive spent reverse image searching to find the original sources for pictures ESPECIALLY THOSE SPECIFIC TAOTU ERA CONCERT PICS AND AM ERA PHOTOSHOOT ONES HOLY JEEZ

this rant doesnt even make sense cause that is simply how instagram works theres no reshare function things there HAVE to be reposted but as someone who has had their art stolen and reposted multiple times and is so incredibly tired of it i just do not like it lol

anyways thank u tumblr for not having an algorithm but dear god PLEASE could u make people read my how to use tumblr post before they sign up please.

#ch's #rant #personal

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sparkling1duck · 8 years ago

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Tagged by @thenightavl. Thanks you lil shit ;^;

Rules:

Always repost the rules

Answer the 11 questions posted for you

Create 11 new ones

Tag 11 people

Questions

What song’s stuck in your head at the moment? The same song for days now: The Distortionist by GHOST. But sometimes, Hajimete no Tomodachi ~ Answer by Hyadain comes in says hello. But Crispy Boy is not up for this shit and takes over again to play his song in my head. :’3

You procrastinating right now? ‘Cause I am :D A R E Y O U G U I L T T R I P P I N G M E

If so, what should you be doing? If not, teach me your ways.

I should be doing the following:

Develop and implement 4 algorithms

Expand an older programme I wrote by 3 new features

Make a short 2D animation

Write a concept essay about my game

Simulating Chirp-Signals

Revise Japanese

What’s your favourite word in a foreign language? English - devotion Japanese - 心 (kokoro) French - l’escalope German - Schnabeltier Dutch - boterham and godverdomme

Are you a visual learner? I...am not sure tbh. I think I am a mixure of visual and auditive (is that it how it’s called?) because I remember I always knew the stuff I should revise for tests when my dad talked about it for hours. He held long talks about the topics when we were revising together. I was about 11 to 14 back then. And I hated it. But then I knew it all. It was great. But I also need something to look at.

What’s your zodiac sign? Scorpio and people have a wrong picture of me

Are you a good keymasher? xD ßwespfdovöcjvksfhidsjlk

Favourite highlighter colour? Pink. Almost al my notes are highlighted in pink.

Do you play a musical instrument? Piano, but not that well. I am also sometimes trying to play on my ocarina but eh. And I can do a kazoo sound with my lips.

What’s your favourite script that isn’t the Latin alphabet? Hiragana. Obviously hiragana. I think they look really elegant and they are easy to memorize.

Do you know you’re an amazing person? I know that you know that I know that you don’t know that I don’t know that you know that I know that am not an amazing person.

I tag: @princessannundso @thedayyoufailagain @grendinator @putrandomnamehere AND EVERYONE WHO SEES THIS AND WANTS TO DO THIS I AM TOO LAZY TO TAG GVD

oh and @thenightavl because new questions and stuff. I feel like this is going to become a ping-pong-game

New Questions:

1) What would you consider your favourite song of all time? 2) If you could quit what you are currently doing (e.g. school, work etc) and just do what you want to do...what would you do? 3) What is your Hogwarts House? 4) British, American or any other form of English? 5) Do you have OCs? If so, tell me a little about your favourite one :3c 6) If you could change your haircolour right now without any consequences...would you do it? Which colour? 7) Are you one of the reasonable people who worship pineapple on pizza? 8) What are your thoughts on cosplay? 9) Favourite beverage? 10) What is your favourite quote? 11) Do you speak any dialect?

#tag thingy #personal #questions #i swear to god these memes are killing my grades

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starryeyedrogue · 3 years ago

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Oh boy here we go again

Hey lil anon! I’m Rogue. At this point, I’m sure you’ve seen me defending authors and kind people alike around here, and op is no different. I’ve never read their work, nor seen their blog (I’m slowly acquiring more authors/writing blogs to follow), but I’ll defend them nonetheless.

If you don’t like this lovely author’s works, you have several options. Option A: unfollow them. Option B: filter whatever tags you don’t want to see from them. Option C: continue following them but don’t read their work, since you’re clearly too busy hating on them to try reading it. None of these options hurt op, and they won’t hurt you either. This goes for anyone you’re not interested in seeing content from. It’s not a big deal. Op doesn’t need this from you, nor from anyone. Respectfully, back off.

Op can post whenever they want. Writing is hard. Even if you’re writing per request, you don’t always know what you’re going to get. This makes it a lot more challenging — you can’t pick and choose whatever you want, your readers and requesters do. Even if you aren’t writing per request, it’s hard! You overthink everything you write, have to edit, re-edit, have beta readers, read your own work from an outside perspective (harder than you think), and then research what you’re writing about. And don’t even get me started on how hard it is to write certain topics, scenes, and perspectives. Op should be proud of what they write!! If they want to repost it, they should!! Boost the crap out of it so everyone can see it!! As a writer, it’s the best feeling in the world to see other people commenting, liking, and reposting your work with what they think (respectfully). Every writer and content creator wants that, and tumblr’s algorithm isn’t the kindest to us, so we have to do a lot of outreach ourselves.

I feel for you, anon, I really do. You clearly don’t know what it’s like to post things your pour yourself into. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so cruel. When we write, we don’t have some magical source of inspiration. It comes and goes. Because of this, we don’t always post regularly. In fact, some of us stop posting the work we love so much. It’s brutally hard to share our stories. All because of people like you, who send hate. Constructive criticism is good, but being mean and hateful about it isn’t. And by the way, it’s not “hole,” it’s whole 😉

Grow up, anon. You’re better than this. I truly believe that. If you want some resources to show you how hard writing is, I can share some with you. I’m also more than happy to give you some Christian resources to read too! You can come talk to me anytime, judgement-free.

@capsheadquaters: I’m so sorry you have to deal with this, hun. No one deserves it. I might be new to your blog, but I know you work hard. Don’t let this person make you feel bad or want to quit. Keep writing; prove them wrong!! If you ever want to talk, my dms and inbox are always open:) like I said to the anon, I have some Christian resources to read/watch if you ever want them! They’re very encouraging, which I’m sure you could use right now. Ily bestie, be kind to yourself and keep up the good work <3

I find it funny how you post a hole bunch of series updates in a day then go silent again only to do it all over again. That and you reblog it a hole bunch of times. If people liked it they woulda interacted with it when ya first posted it 🙄

I like how I got this after reblogging a post about anon hate 😒

I can post whenever I damn well please. I can reblog my work whenever I damn well please. If you dont like it there's the door see your way out 🚪

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videomarket6 · 6 years ago

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Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!)

The internet sees about 200 thousand domains being registered daily. Not all websites are made equal. Some are just an online placeholder for businesses, while others are used to generate leads or get revenue from ads. But they all have one thing in common: websites need the traffic to serve the purpose they were designed for. And this is where the problems start.

While launching a website is relatively easy, driving traffic to it is rather challenging. We often see a trend where people start a website, invest a lot of time and effort trying to make it work, and then abandon the venue because they get no traffic. Imagine spending a few days crafting a blog post, which eventually got some 40 pageviews 10 of which are you checking how things have gone. Frustrating, isn’t it?

Competition makes it tough to get traffic naturally from Google. Time and patience may help, but you should have a truly stellar website so Google could notice you without extra effort on your side. The good news is Google is not the only potential source of the traffic to your website. Besides, optimizing your website to check every box on Google’s quality checklist is also a doable task. But first things first. Let’s see how visitors may come to your website.

Check out our complete and detailed free strategy on driving traffic with zero budget here.

A few words on traffic sources

Website traffic can come from various sources. Here we will briefly go over some of the most common channels for website traffic.

Search engines: Naturally, SERP or Search Engine Results Page links are on the top of the list. The most successful websites get most of their traffic from SERP as users searching for something online click their website link.

Social media: People share articles they liked on social media and their subscribers may also read those articles if they find them interesting. The best scenario here is the “pass-it-on” effect when new people share the post and even more users get a chance to read it. If an article goes viral, it can generate tons of free traffic.

Referrals: Other websites may link out to one of your pages. Direct referrals and indirect referrals like backlinks in content come under this category.

Ads: The fastest way to get a lot of traffic is by paying Google or another search engine for putting your post at the top of SERP’s page one. Paying Facebook or Instagram is another option.

Email marketing and other sources: You can invite the user to your website directly by using email marketing and other marketing methods.

Search engines and social media are what we call “free traffic sources”, but still, they are conditionally free. We still have to invest time in search and social promotion and to make our investments to pay off, we need to build up a strategy for this.

Since search overtakes social as the main traffic driver to websites, let me first share some SEO advice with you.

Jumpstart your SEO strategy

Remember me telling your quality blog post may start ranking in Google if you give it some time? The thing is since Google updated its algorithms, quality content rules. If it brings some unique value to the readers, Google will notice it and start ranking your page. All the search engines value content that answers users’ needs, so there’s no point to create texts stuffed with keywords. Or to write an instruction that is hard to read, no matter how relevant it is. Content should be relevant, yes, but also interesting, easy to comprehend and, when it’s appropriate, fun.

At the same time, simply writing some engaging text wouldn’t work. Users should be interested in the topic to start googling it, so make sure to collect keywords relevant to your business before and transform the topics into the content pieces.

You can do keyword research manually, but it will take you ages. Instead, you can use special SEO tools to speed things up. For example, SE Ranking is a toolset that can help you with all sorts of SEO tasks. Its SEO/PPC competitor research tool, for example, is great for collecting keywords for your website and it’s available for free under a 14-day trial.

Once you’ve published some comprehensive posts, make sure your website is error-free. A buggy slow-loading website is something both users and search engines hate. Run a website audit to see if you have any technical issues to fix. Also, pay attention to on-page optimization – this is how you help search engines associate your page with a certain keyword.

Being one of the biggest traffic sources, SEO doesn’t give instant results – you’ll have to wait for at least 2-3 months to get some decent rankings. To see the significant growth of traffic you’ll need to wait patiently for up to 9 months. SEO is a long-run game, but it is totally worth the time and effort you’ll have to invest.

Engage online to build links

Networking is an essential part of a successful marketing strategy. One way of building up the traffic is by interacting with users across popular online platforms.

Find threads related to your niche on forums and Quora, join Facebook groups. Actively interact with community members leaving relevant remarks and giving helpful answers to their questions. You can leave links to your website when appropriate, which people may use to visit your site. One thing that you must keep in mind is that your comments shouldn’t sound too promotional or otherwise, site moderators on websites like Quora can delete it.

Guest posting is another way to get leads and increase your website authority. Try reaching out to popular websites in your niche and ask them if you can write a guest post on their website. With interesting and intriguing topics, many websites will accept your guest post request.

A lifehack! You can start searching for the targeted blogs by googling the following combination: [“blog” + “write for us”]. In the first pair of quotation marks, you can specify a type of blog you are looking for: “food blog”, “fashion blog”, “travel blog”, etc. In the search results for this query, you’ll find the blogs that are open for guest posting in your niche.

You can also ask for comments from expert bloggers on a certain topic and include the quotes to your content. Don’t forget to tag the experts in your Facebook or Twitter posts citing your content – they might even repost it.

You should also engage with the visitor who comments on your blog posts. Make sure that you answer their queries and follow up on their requests.

Reach out to influencers

A way to get a quick boost to your website is by seeking the help of popular figures in your niche. With their help, you can connect with a wider spectrum of an audience in a very short amount of time.

Advertising from influencers is expensive, but some of them may work for free if your product is of particular value to their audience. At first, it is important to get mentions from people who have 500-1000 subscribers. If you know people followed by your target customers, invite them to try your product or service. There’s a chance that if they like your product, they will offer preferential terms for advertising or mentioning your business.

Instagram influencers are naturally also included.

Everyone that you reach out may not be eager to accept products or guest posts, and that how things are! All you need is to be persistent and keep trying with new influencers.

Leverage images and video content

Even if you have amazing content on your website, visitors may not be so inclined to read it if it looks like a large chunk of text. In 2019 and beyond, you need to be careful about how you structure your content.

Adding images and videos to your content is a good way to spruce it up. And the best part is that you don’t have to make videos specifically for your content. You can link a YouTube video for the user to better understand the topic but be sure to mention sources whenever you use something from another website to your own website. Once your website gets enough traffic, you can consider custom images and other media content.

Besides using media content for illustrating your articles, consider extra possibilities for sharing images and videos.

You can create infographics or explanatory images for different ideas you are trying to convey. And then share them on Pinterest

You should exploit YouTube as a traffic channel too! Create your channel and share video guides, backstage info about your product, organize free online webinars to attract new users. You’ll have to promote your videos using online communities that can be potentially interested in your topics.

Bottom line

Getting traffic to your site with no investment is not a far-fetched dream only big websites can achieve. Once you create something that provides real value to the user, Google will ensure you get proper visibility. However, in 2019 and beyond, you need to optimize your website so that your website becomes visible among the crowd and SEO is a way to do just that! With a bit of effort and patience, you can leverage SEO and start driving traffic to your website with 0 money. Well, yeah, almost.

The post Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!) appeared first on Full Scale SEO.

From https://www.fullscaleseo.com/marketing/driving-traffic-free/

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from https://affordableseoservices5.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget-or-even-free/ from https://videomarketing6.blogspot.com/2019/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget.html

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