#edit: i changed the number to 1k posts i feel so powerful in such a weird way

[finally-figured-it-out]

On this post I am putting my longest and most banger tags

[tau1tvec]

You ever notice that literally the only people saying “reblogs dont matter, you can’t force people to reblog things” are the ones with 1k+ notes on their own posts

Idk bout 1k+, but I remember mentioning something like it on a post a month or so ago.

The only posts I see getting those numbers is typically something that’s so mind blowing and outside the box that it spreads outside the community, but more often than not it’s cc posts, which the person posting it I’m sure is expecting other people will reblog it, esp during its early access period, though I don’t know how well that’s going these days with everything that’s happened on that side of the community, since EA’s changes. There’s some I’ve seen won’t generate those numbers until they’ve gone public, but still, I think it goes without saying that there’s certainly a mindset between cc and non-cc reblogging that is very different, and I feel for very obvious reasons.

Now bc of the existence of mod/cc posts, it’s clear that people are aware of the power of reblogging, and how it helps exposure, but hell a lotta times when people reblog cc it isn’t typically on their main, and it’s usually only reblogged for archival reasons, or to help with WCIF’s.

When I look at all this through the lens of a person who isn’t just in the sims community however, like I think it’s pretty obvious I play and post other games, how simblr works and how other gaming tumblrs work, esp when it comes to reblogs is pretty eye opening. There isn’t this hesitance to reblog anything a lotta the time, some will for like “aesthetics” sake or whatever, but so long as it’s a game, they’ll usually reblog it.

There’s also rlly big blogs that are just wholly devoted to reblogging other people’s content, esp on gaming tumblr, like you tag them in your post and they’ll reblog you to their feed for their tens of thousands of followers to see, and so it really helps out smaller blogs, by getting them some exposure, while also offering their followers something new and fresh to look at everyday without having to following a bunch of people, so it’s this trade off. The only thing we see of this type in simblr is cc-finds blogs, another reminder of the obvious rift in the sims community. There’s also a difference in mindset, a lot of the time when people post gaming edits it isn’t just for “themselves”, there isn’t this very individualistic ideal behind it and it’s much more community minded, bc a lot of the time they’re doing it for other people who like it too, as if it’s this collective act of taking people back to a special moment they experienced, or a game they played as a kid… so there’s hardly ever this assumption of like “oh you’re just doing it for notes”, like who cares, look at this really cool gif set of my favorite old game, *slams like, slams reblog*.

To me, I think a lotta simblrs do this too, I know I do, a lot of how I structure my posts is indeed trying to pull some sense of nostalgia out of people who share that nostalgia with me. I won’t pretend that people don’t like or know my sims, sometimes they like and know them more than I do, and so I post them as much for me as I do for them… so it’s weird seeing people push this “post for yourself” mindset.

I’m pretty sure you’re not just posting for yourself, and like… that’s okay, lol.

Now I’m rambling so I’ll wrap this up, but I think the only other thing I’ll add while I’m on the subject is that The Sims as a whole, despite its popularity… really does exist in a bubble, bc even a lotta gaming blogs won’t reblog it, perhaps bc they know simblr exists and is pretty big already, or perhaps bc a lotta people still don’t think it’s an actual “game”, or perhaps it’s bc though earlier iterations have set characters and set stories, the majority of the community doesn’t even touch upon them, which explains why text posts, memes, gameplay involving premades, and things like scenery posts will always tend to get more traction, bc these are all experiences a much bigger collective community acknowledges and remembers. There’s also a certain stigma around The Sims in general. For a long time there were those who played it, but wouldn’t even admit they played it, but with its recent influx of newer players thanks to how accessible The Sims 4 is platform wise, and will be even more so when it goes f2p, it’s kinda becoming much more mainstream than b4.

Will this at last burst the sims community’s bubble, and put them out there in the wild with all of the other gaming communities, and therefore change how it functions as a whole?

Idk, but in conclusion there’s many reasons why simblr works like it does and always kinda has, so it’s tough to pinpoint exactly what’s “wrong” with it and whether it’s worth even “fixing”.

My only advice is do what you want, blog aesthetics and community etiquette be damned, but still be aware of how your behavior affects others.

[jbbuckybarnes]

We need to talk...

I knew that this topic of interactions will come up again, because it has never been talked all the way through, so I had this drafted for a while. So much of this old draft still resonated with this permanently unfinished discussion that I just had to edit it and post it, because I feel like it has to be said and put into one post. We can’t keep starting this conversation and then make it so dramatic that there is no conclusion or compromise. The only reason this time is more mellow is because people have better standards for this stuff due to a pandemic going on. This is written for the MCU fandom, but I’ve seen this go down in different fandoms, so here we go:

Things that are NOT at fault for readers not interacting:

The Readers. Should be clear after asking them again and again. And nothing changing. The readers at large are not at fault for a couple people being demanding or hateful. Neither are they at fault for this website and other social medias automatically putting writers at a disadvantage. They do their best with the time they have in their life (just like writers). And after asking them over months to try and reblog more and not much changing, it should be obvious that it isn’t where the problem lies. At least not 95% of it. NOW:

Things that ARE at fault for readers not interacting:

Pushing them, thinking they owe you stuff, while you tear other writers down saying that nobody owes them stuff. That happens time and time again. To me, to friends, to writers I check in with. Don't expect community to come to you when you don't come to them.

Not putting anon asks off when demands and hate get too much. It’s literally THAT easy when people get nasty. It’s sad for the nice anons, but they will understand. Save your mental health! Save the mental health of people reading that hate on their dash. I don’t know how many people constantly answering to hate I have unfollowed and I’m sure people have unfollowed me for doing the same.

Ego and hypocrisy. You can't say numbers aren't a problem and then say they are. In the same post. AND then also deny it later in some of the cases we’ve seen in recent months. Yes, that happened. In several fandoms where this topic comes up semi-regularly. And that might also be the reason people are tired of this stuff and speak out against it.

The fact Tumblr is only used approximately twice a year by most people. And has a shitty tag system. And a shitty algorithm. You are at an automatic disadvantage.

The fact some of you can't understand that 3-5% of your following interacting is a good and normal rate on pretty much all social media. The bigger you get in followers, the bigger the gap gets between followers and interaction (and demand and hate). There are literal statistics on that. 1% interaction at 10k is still good for a platform you have no power over!

The fact some of the people here call anons *haters* for pointing out that you interact w the same 10 people, making that speace seem excluding, when it's literally true what those people say!? Nothing wrong with only support the same 10 people on your blog, but then don't say that you practice what you preach (cause you don’t). You can’t demand more interaction when you don’t interact more yourself. That is how it works, for anyone, not just people of a certain follower count. If I reblog more fics, my blog gets more clout. Logical conclusion. Works for everyone. You have no time for that? Then don’t expect more back. It’s called SOCIAL media for a damn reason.

Telling people asking for Tumblr advice to interact more to make new friends but being the most defensive/indifferent person once they talk to you in DMs. Yes, that keeps happening and I know it from either my own experience or from others sharing their experiences with me. It’s kinda sad. It’s more of a minor factor in people not interacting, but I’ve seen it enough to mention it.

Making shitposts and personal posts all day and then saying you don't have the time in your life to interact w peoples' writings. Like, drabbles exist on almost anyone's masterlist. 5 minute read, easy support for a writer that might be losing motivation. Not every work has to be written like a novel to be great as hell or “quality proven.”

Oh, and there hasn't been a MCU movie in a while, making most of our readership probably currently not care about the fandom as much. Especially after Endgame ended up being a total opinion splitter.

Bonus: The misunderstanding that pushing shy readers to interact does the exact opposite. Not to start about the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic at the moment. That means they may not have time to read and you may not have time to write. Normal. Logical. The same reason lots of people currently don’t publish. Don’t expect anything predictable and controlable out of current times.

Bonus: Check how you connect interactions to self worth and worth/fun of your writing hobby. Define what success means for you in this space, otherwise you will never be satisfied. It won’t matter if a post has 1k reblogs, you’ll always want more, because you chase an infinite metric.

Bonus: Maybe take a month to concentrate on community, getting outside of your bubble that you deny but very likely have (I’m not excluding myself from this), and actually improve interactions. Some people seem to have forgotten that when you interact with other writers, they probably interact back. Surprise! Your followers already know your tried and true fanfic friends, they want some new stuff without searching for it. Basic Marketing knowledge, know what your audience wants. If you do this for the interactions you gotta look at it from a marketing standpoint and not a pure passion standpoint. Oh: And maybe they find you interacting in the notes of someone else’s post and become an active follower. Win-Win-Win situation.

Bonus: Community is a loop, a net of interactions. Some people here have clique behavior, sound defensive and/or simply don't practice what they preach. That is not me or anyone else hating on specific blogs (I’m also no complete exception), it’s people trying to tell you that you can’t ask for shit you don’t practice yourself. Nothing wrong with supporting your friends only, but then don’t go around expecting new people to find your stuff. It’s literally THAT simple. You can’t have both!

Bonus: Ignoring some of the ride or die readers that are already there. Some of the people on here wish they had that and it’s deadass taken it for granted by some. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with Serotonin levels like christmas when someone I know reblogs my stuff and my fic gets some clout. Imma repeat myself: If you do it for the numbers, you gotta look at it more like marketing and less like pure passion.

And again: You are on a social media platform that will always put you at a disatvantage. That is not the readers' fault. It's how social media works at this point. If you want as much interaction as you can without putting in more interaction work yourself, simply share your works on here, AO3 and Wattpad simultaneously. Problem solved.

Bottomline: If you want more love on your work you gotta go beyond what you currently do, since it’s clearly not working for you. Reblog stuff from people you don't know. I don't give a sh*t if it's a 5k or a 100 follower blog. Hell, there is the whole 366 reblog challenge and some of you deadass went on reblogging the same people when that’s not really what this was made for. I, personally, haven't run out of new people to reblog, so this shouldn't be hard. Actually take time to talk to people in DM's, it takes 10 minutes in the evening to write a few people a message asking how they are or sending a cute gif. If you want stuff, you have to give it. Not leave it. People have come to me before, telling me "the community doesn't owe you stuff", no, they don't, but they do owe if they wanna be owed something back or even demand to be owed something back. Community is about back and forth. You give, you get. It's work, cause it's a big hobby. If you don't have time, that's cool, but then don't be sad about lower interaction. It’s logical that low activity from you leads to low activity from others in the long run, unless you do something worldshakingly new. You don't wanna look beyond a circle of friends or your go-to writers much? That's fine, but don't be upset about barely new people interacting cause they feel excluded or simply don’t find your work because of the same people seeing the same people reblogging the same works. What's not fine is not seeing how readers are NOT THE PROBLEM.

I haven’t talked to a single person about this that DIDN’T find the posts surrounding it demanding and completely ignoring the arguments some others had...repeatedly. Every single time it came up. Not just once but time and time again, whenever this topic comes up. You want interaction? Interact. You don’t want hate? Don’t give it a platform. As harsh as that sounds, I’ve never felt better on this platform since I put anon asks off, even when I miss the nice anons. They probably understand. PS: Again, this was written a while ago and edited to fit into a more general context now. I hope people can discuss this in a civil, non-judgmental way, because that is how I tried to write this. This is not again a specific person or group, it’s pinpointing what I see repeating for two years on this platform now, in all corners. I’d also like to mention that we are still in a pandemic and lives have never looked so vastly different, so you can’t demand anything normal in this very not normal time. Even if you do it all right, your interactions dropped in the pandemic cause people likely stay away form this platform for mental health reasons. There is so many layers to look at, these clearly aren’t all, but I hope it makes some people think about what and when they complain. Numbers will never satisfy you, they will always leave you wanting more if you don’t know why you do what you do and for what. Anyway: Be nice to each other and me in the notes in case this gets shared! No drama please! Ignore any grammar and typo mistakes, lol. Love ya!

[wavesmp3]

directors cut: oasis

[doing this entirely for myself, out of pure self indulgence lol] [this will be very messy/poorly organized and there will be spoilers]

okay so where to even begin omg..... we will start with the origins of oasis:

its actually, techinically a spin off of the world from this drabble with dino from svt. which the world in this drabble is what the world from oasis would look like very far in the future. but i changed a lot between writing that drabble and creating oasis. but there should be a scene in the drabble that is very similar to a part in oasis (hint: the first vision they got from saskila was not just a random vision with no meaning.......hehe)

but that drabble (its titled dreamscapes) was inspired by a mix of this post on tumblr about how nuclear waste warning signs sounded very cool and the book that i was reading called the children of blood and bone by tomi adeyemi

and then after i had made that drabble i saw dee’s (@/atbzkingdom’s) post about the time capsule collab, and i had a couple ideas of what i could do for it but i ultimately decided on what would eventually become oasis !! so i guess we really have dee and that collab to thank for this piece lol

now for the timeline of me writing:

so i started outlining this piece in the first couple days of january, and normally outlines take me a while to come up with just because i struggle in coming up with plot, but i knew that my spring semester of classes would be starting soon and that I didn’t have a lot of time so i just sort of grinded an outline out as well several paragraphs of pure worldbuilding. 

and then i started writing

and wow i was Really writing!! at my peak productivity i was easily getting down like 2k a day which for me is insane (for reference, i wrote 1k a day for tsiytt and i struggled my way through that) 

but then life happens classes had begun and my writing for oasis slowly become nothing... 

i really only found the time to work on the piece every other weekend, so i was really nervous that i wouldn’t finish in time (which technically i didn’t cause it was supposed to come out march 1st) but luckily i did

and at some point in february, i had lost so much of my momentum and motivation for this piece that i almost gave up on it. (at this point i was writing the scenes after they find the seat of wisdom destroyed) but again luckily i did not, but i personally can definitely see a decline in the quality of my writing towards the end (i mean maybe its in my head, but its sort of like i can see the loss of love for the wip in my writing at the end of it)

but don’t misunderstand, i still love oasis!! and in all honesty, i’m already considering starting a second draft to it, which is way sooner than i thought i would lol

also when i started writing this piece, i began writing it in the order that it would be read, but then halfway i switched to writing chronologically

anyways, something i learned while writing this piece, is that writing is a marathon. whereas, even with my longer pieces, i always viewed writing as a sprint. so as i start venturing into original works and more lengthy pieces of writing, i think this was a very valuable lesson for me to have learned.

okay now to the good stuff lol: [the first word of the bullet about the next chapter (?) is bolded for some crumbs of an organized commentary]

so this is jumping to the first past bit... but when i first wrote farah i had a very different plan for her character than who she ended up being. i had imagined that she’d be a lot more cold and a tough love sort of person. so that’s who i was writing when she’s first introduced in the flashback, but she very quickly become a much kinder full of love sort of person. but anyways i mention this because whenever i read that first part and the introduction of her character, i’m always a bit taken aback by how like mean here character is to crown then lol

also zoar !!!! its a terrible place, but i love that underground city

i also wrote the first flashback after i had written the scene where crown and chanhee are talking at his place in andhor, so the whole “fearless” connection was done very purposefully here since i knew how it’d be referenced in the next scene. someone mentioned this small connection in their reblog but i cant remember who 

also rashi is my favorite character xD

i personally think how crown and chanhee became friends (the running thing) is so cute 

this first bit of conversation between crown and chanhee when it switches back to the present and chanhee is giving them a tour of andhor is actually quite important to me, in the sense that its the first glimpse of how their actual relationship works and how they act together and just like their dynamic despite the fact that they havent seen each other in so long 

and yeah i think kyu mentioned this and a few others, but i love how awkward it is when chanhee and crown are in his home in andhor, cause one: they havent seen each other in years! but also: anyone else find going to someone’s place for the first time oddly intimate, like wow you’re opening up your home to me and now suddenly idk how to sit or stand or what to do with my arms... maybe just me LMAO

DUDE i struggled so hard with making it so that chanhee knew how impossible this whole mission was going to be without actually revealing that he knows about the mirror. it was so hard for me, hopefully it came out alright though. if anyone is reading this, did the twist(s) come as a shock to you? did you see it coming? or did it feel like it came out of absolutely no where and not in a good way?

yes i did name the desert after the department store kohls .....

i was so excited to explain all the mage types, i had so much fun writing this whole chapter 

fun fact: there was originally another sub group of psyche mages called dream mages who had like powers with dreams and stuff, but it ended up being irrelevant and really underdeveloped so it took it out

if anyone else was raised catholic or is catholic then i’d hope you recognize the names of all the relics.... i stole them from a prayer in the rosary whoops

it took me very long time to figure out exactly how the whole soul for the relic business would work, and idk if im a 100% satisfied with what it is/how it works/how it plays into rashi giving chanhee the locket

the note new gives crown.... the first slice of their friendship blooming, bro i eat that shit up 

this part where crown and rashi are talking after the lesson is actually one of my favorites. (like i said i love rashi, but i just really love her interreacting with crown, i think they have such an interesting dynamic and one that i’ve seen irl a lot between students and teachers, where the student adores the teacher... i’ll get more into this later) but moving on, i like it for a number of reasons. one: it’s the first time we as readers get to see rashi talk outside of her role as lesson master. two: i love crown getting this validation from rashi. it’s not really expanded on a lot, but crown’s magic is definitely a bit of an insecurity for them, in the way that they don’t feel like it belongs to them. but here rashi comes, this person that crown looks up to so much, and telling crown that they’re a bit similar when it comes to having magic. and surprising crown by comforting them. and... idk i just really love this moment for crown.

okay this line: “You call your mom Rashi?” is a lowkey reference to game plan,, if anyone knows what i’m talking about then please come clown me for nearly having the entire movie memorized 

oh, i also find the capital really cool. in my head the capital was always one huge building that contains an entire city but i realized while editing that i never really explained that, so idk if i successfully described the capital as cool as it is to me 

also the five friends part.....CUTE

when chanhee says “i know. i remember.” !!! girl i felt that line with my entire chest. idk why

okay wait this part: “But that knowledge seems to fall flat right now. Because despite everything, curiosity won the war.” i love it so much, its that tiny of sliver of hope that gets me personally

i think this part where crown’s pride is so hurt by no one telling them about chanhee’s healing magic is quite important because its a glimpse of how stubborn and prideful and headstrong of a character they can be 

also this : “ ‘and do you believe everything rashi says’ / without hesitation, you answer, ‘yes, of course’ “ this is another example of how highly crown thinks of rashi while growing up, almost to a fault. to the point where crown thought rashi could do no wrong. which i think is so interesting to think about when contrasted with the fight crown and chanhee have in the jungle where crown is the one discussing how rashi was wrong. i just like how much growth crown has had between all these years. and their opinion / perspective on rashi is one of the largest indicators of that growth. 

I also just really like that paragraph where shadow vs healing is explained... I think chanhee’s magic is so sick

oh also the names thing.... I can’t remember where I got the idea to do that from but im so glad I did. its one of my favorite aspects to this world, and it looks like a lot of other people enjoyed it as well. but apart from the intimacy of it, i love how the use of names affects one’s magic. and that paragraph where they go through all that a mage could do with a name. it gives me chills. just cause.... the possibilities

so many people have mentioned this line.... but I must too, so this part: “magic always comes with a price. this is new’s” ..... crazy

saskila scares me omg

again the first vision they see is not a random scene.... the easter eggs I planted with that mwahaha

yeah that scene where they’re outside the tent discussing who should give their name to saskila..... I love that scene chanhee’s “I don’t have anyone but you” and crown deflecting all that tension with the pinky promise and the saskila calling them lovers.... mwah

this random scene about the hot summer and laying with Farah and new in the gardens is another one of my favorite, it’s just so sweet

but this next scene makes me so sad

like I know what happens and I know that everything turns out okay but I get so scared for crown

yeah just that entire part after Rashi gets to them and when they’re going to the infirmary and before crown passes out... I love that whole part. i think i did an effective job of writing the gravity of that whole moment. cause it makes me a little stunned every time I read it. and I was pretty nervous about not being able to do that scene and that moment justice so I’m glad it turned out like it did

and again this line: magic always comes with a price, and in your case, it comes with several.

okay this part after they jump out of the ship and crown is talking to Chanhee but that other dude is talking too... I hope it’s not too confusing. I really wanted to show through the writing that this was all happening at the same time, but idk it came out well. like in my mind I have such a clear picture of this scene, but I have no clue if I did effective job of showing you guys what I’m seeing through the writing

oh yeah, crowns thing about dual wielding and engulfing the blades in flames.... I find that so cool. they’re so sick for that

yeah also the part where crowns hurt and they give Chanhee their name and they use it.... great moment, but I feel like my writing is a bit lacking here. i just know it could be better.

I think at this point of writing my classes had started, and again the disparity in writing quality is so obvious to me 

but the line where chanhee is describing how it all feels, and it says “chanhee feels golden” was inspired by daylight by taylor swift, theres a line in that song that goes “i used to think love would be burning red, but its golden” and like hello the parallels between that and crown’s fire magic.... something to think about 

so this next part where it’s back to the past and crown is getting in trouble (as crown does) but the part where crown is like asking but not directly asking for rashi’s name.... that part is so crazy to me cause it’s feels so out of place. but it was purposeful. i was trying to show that crown’s growing and that they’re at this weird age where they feel invincible. and also i wanted to put more emphasis on how being royal and the heir to the throne kind of effects the relationships crown has

and the last line of this part when rashi says “never abuse it” it gives me chills whew

the next part ... another part that i had high hopes for in the outlining stages of writing, but when it came to actually writing, this scene totally flopped, i’m gonna try not to dwell on this part too much cause i just know most of my comments will be about how much i don’t like it. but just overall, this scene could have been SO MUCH BETTER !

omg this little interaction: ““Look!” Chanhee deadpans, shooting you a glare. “The match is about to begin.” / “Wish me luck.” /  “I hope you lose.”” i think its so funny and cute

“ Your eyes immediately got to Rashi “ another example of how highly crown regards rashi 

“In Wurltan.” hmmmmmm sus.... *laughs in i love mentioning things that won’t make sense to reader until later*

okay this: “Yes, but not just any mage. I…” your voice trails off, pulling at your fingers and looking anywhere but at him. “I wanted you to know.” i cannot stand these two omg 

okay this part: “Chanhee thinks and overthinks the words spoken between you both. His mind drifts off to last night as well, that moment in the tent where you shared your warmth. He doesn’t even realize he’s staring at you until you give him a funny look. He quickly looks away and wonders if you’re overthinking everything as relentlessly as he is.” this part makes me think about what ina said about how chanhee shows his love by keeping you in his thoughts and YEAH chanhee’s love language in this piece is thinking about you and staring LOL

i hate this next part, not cause i don’t like it or anything it just makes me sad 

but this line: “Like if someone shoved you from behind right now, you wouldn’t push back; you’d let yourself fall straight to the ground.” i actually love that line

also this next entire bit i see SO clearly in mind, i hope i wrote it well enough so that you all saw it clearly too

when chanhee wipes the dirt.... girl i’m wiping my tears 

this line : “We’ll lean on each other.” mini love declaration sighhhhhh

yeah that whole part i love so much 

the seat of wisdom :(((( no!!!!!

so about this line: “He stares at his palms, at all the lies buried under each nail and at all the secrets shoved in every crack. He watches as they all blow up in front of his face.” >> i had like ten different versions of it before i settled on this one lol

okay so the first part of the last past flashback with crown realizing their true feelings... so soft 

news gone, rashis’s dead, :((( it makes me so sad

gosh okay this paragraph..... “I’ve always wondered why the gods blessed me and you the way that they have. They entrusted you with such great power. The only person to be both a healing and shadow mage in centuries. And then,” a tear falls from her eye, “they entrusted you to me.” Chanhee thinks this might be the first time he’s seen Rashi cry. “But now I have reason to believe that this was no accident. I’m beginning to think that the gods have always known it would come to this. And I’m starting,” she falters there, “I’m starting to spite them for it.”  it hurts so bad im sorry 

the first confrontation with harlan took me so long to write, and i’m still not sure if i actually like it, so again i will refrain from commenting lol

but the part where crown screams : “YOU LOST THE MIRROR OF JUSTICE!”  I think i told kyu this but this line makes me laugh because in my head its said the same way bella says: “you nicknamed my daughter after the lochness monster” whenever i see that line i smile lol

honestly this argument scene..... one of my absolute faves,,, everything lina said about it in that reblog just yes!yes!yes!! i can’t even comment about a particular part because all of it i love so much. its another part that leaves me slightly speechless.

but my favorite part of it might be how it ends hehe

these next couple parts were a bit diffucult to write because obviously the air between crown and chanhee is not very light right now so it was just hard to navigate their dynamic at these moments until they apologize but hopefully it turned out alright

i really like this line: “But this moment—with the scent of Harlan’s wine under his nose and the chill of Harlan’s blade against his neck—this moment feels nothing like those. It feels empty.” 

“ Chanhee just stares at you.“ -- staring as a love language exhibit b 

this whole part... chills bro 

“Chanhee exhales because for the first time since this afternoon he looks at your face and sees you.” -- exhibit c ....

okay wait another one of my favorite parts here: the spilled glass metaphor!! again please reference lina’s rb on this because everything said there... could not have said better myself. inspired by this writing advice by ocean vuong and yeah i just think the metaphor speaks for itself, one of my favorite lines (well paragraph) from the entire piece, actually from ALL of my works 

it was so hard to think up all of yumi’s different names, i was struggling

them talking about how farah will be happy to see chanhee...... how do i break it to you crown.....she’s dead...... awkward

red streak q! yesss. also i’m so sorry for killing off farah 

also kyunyu bestiessss

tbh this whole paragraph: “I get this overwhelming burst of honesty. As if what you both speak of is more than just a simple truth, as if it’s a commandant you blindly follow. What’s even odder is that I only feel that burst when you speak of each other.” Q stops walking and turns so that he faces Chanhee directly. “You speak of Crown constantly. And last night, when I met Crown, your title never left from the tip of their tongue. Humans are so simple really. We mention what we love.” Q pauses for a moment, bringing a hand under his chin. “Do you love Crown?” --i wrote it for myself no regrets

oh wait this bit too : “Quietly, Chanhee says, “I know.” / “Have you been watching?” / “I’ve been waiting.” / “For what?” / He meets your eyes. “For you.”” -- sometimes i do things that live rent free in my own mind

okay im so sorry for just quoting myself but this too : “ He sits back slightly. Shocked. Not by his love for you, but rather by how easily love walked into his heart and settled between his lungs “

lol the part where they try fooling q... why are crown and chanhee like this

the running !!!

yeah also every part after that... tears okay

yumi’s magic !!! its so cool to me, i love it so much 

i surprisingly don’t have much to say about the end... i mean i like it, but i just don’t have any comments. the last line tho... good one shawna

okay im done for you sake i hope no one read this lmao 

[until-theend-oftheline]

Kari’s What If MCU Challenge

I reached 3k and got a hold of the infinity stones. I snapped my fingers and changed one thing about the MCU several times creating new timelines. It’s now your mission should you chose to accept it to tell me what that single change would make the MCU look like. 

Interested? Read on. And please reblog this to spread the word!

Due Date: October 4th, 2019

Word min: 1k words

Word Max: 10k words

Style: It can be a one-shot or the beginning of a series. If your series cross 10K talk to me about it. I’ll allow it but I might not read it all depending on the number of people that break the top count. 

Fandom: MCU 

Will you read and reblog my fic?

You betcha :D I am behind on reading for previous challenges so patience is a virtue here

When Do I Post?

Right now. Sign-Ups start now and end when there are no more prompts or when the due date rolls around

Genre: Anything you want. You have to be over 18 if you write smut and you always have to warn accordingly! Fluff, angst, AUs, and crack are all welcome.

Limits on what you can write: No Mommy/Daddy kinks, no non/dub con, no A/B/O, no merpeople. No half animal anything, please. No mobster aus. No monster porn (this counts Venom and Hulk) No glorification on cheating (it’s okay as a plot device but use it with thought) - if you got any questions at any time feel free to send me an ask,

NO BDSM INVOLVING BUCKY - NEITHER IN SHIPS OR READER INSERTS! PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL OF HIS PTSD! DON’T TURN HIS ARM INTO A KINK FOR ANYONE - IT’S A DISABILITY AND CONNECTED TO GREAT TRAUMA.

Format: State in your A/N that it is for my (until-theend-oftheline) Kari’s What if MCU Challenge. And use the # Kari’s What if MCU Challenge in the first 5 tags.

Pairing and word count also have to be easy to spot in your header!

Submit: After you posted on Tumblr you have to add yourself and your fic to this doc. If you don’t do this you will not be added to the masterlist I create when the challenge is over. If you got questions - just ask :D

Doc link it case Tumblr is an ass: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11r5CGQXp4UXjG0Tfx0MTai8gxtIxp5YdNJrsbuVcJN4/edit?usp=sharing

How do I join?

You pick a prompt and a pairing off the list. Then you go to this doc to sign up: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xYnJWm5K2XZECz_S1S4ArXy7Ha70qlA3FxMVIujxCzs/edit?usp=sharing

If you got any problems let me know and I will sign you up manually. Any questions are welcomed via asks as well.

Prompts and pairings are under the cut.

Prompts1 What if Bucky realized he was injected with super serum before the fall?

2 What if Vision had sided with Ultron?

3 What if our Steve called Mjolnir in the past and Thor had no idea where his hammer went? 

4 What if Steve and Thor called Mjolnir at the same time?

5 What if Steve had fallen from the train instead of Bucky?

6 What if the fugitive Avengers hadn’t been offered asylum in Wakanda?

7 What if Tony had died from a heart attack after the battle of New York?

8 What if Steve went looking for Bucky after the battle of New York?

9 What if Sam encountered Winter Soldier in war before meeting Steve? 

10 What if Pierto hadn’t died? 

11 What if Clint hadn’t got a wife and kids?

12 What if Tony had consulted the others before building Ultron? 

13 What if Steve had never found Bucky being held captive during WW2?

14 What if Thor was stuck on Earth when Loki stole his ride home after the battle of NY?

15 What if Natasha had found Clint years earlier (Endgame era)?

16 What if Loki had brainwashed Fury instead of Clint?

17 What if Natasha only trusted Clint for the longest time after he brought her into SHIELD?

18 What if the Avengers went to hunt down Venom?

19 What if Wade Wilson joined the Avengers on a mission? 

20 What if Clint had made the sacrifice for the soul stone?

21 What if Natasha knew Bucky/Winter Soldier better than she let on with Steve? 

22 What if Sam had been hit by Vision instead of Rhodey during CW?

23 What if Clint hadn’t gone into house arrest and had still been with Cap when Thanos attacked?

24 What if Tony had used Steve’s burner phone to make contact before or when Thanos attacked? 

25 What if Sam had refused the shield?

26 What if the Avengers had agreed about the accords and not signed?

27 What if the Avengers had agreed about the accords and signed?

28 What if Loki had been banished instead of Thor?

30 What if Laura had been Clint’s sister (or Barney’s wife) not his wife?

31 What if Clint became Captain America?

32 What if Killmonger had found Bucky?

33 What if Bucky became Captain America?

34 What if Sam as Captain and Bucky build a new team of Avengers?

35 What if the politicians are still scared off/wanting to control the Avengers powers after EG?

36 What if Wanda took over for Nat helping Sam (and Bucky) run the Avengers?

37 What if T’Challa hadn’t won back his throne?

38 What if Wanda had stayed with Steve, Nat and Sam?

Pairings

IF YOU WANNA WRITE A PAIRING I HAVEN’T LISTED HERE - SEND ME AN ASK. I MIGHT SAY YES BUT PLEASE ACCEPT MY NO AS WELL - I HAVE TO READ THESE.

Characters (x reader or oc)

Bucky Barnes

Steve Rogers

Thor Odinson

Tony Stark

Wanda Maximoff

Sam Wilson

Brunnhilde/Valkyrie

Natasha Romanoff

Clint Barton

Ships (all are allowed as poly with reader too):

Stucky

Winterwitch

Winterwidow

Winterhawk

Winterfalcon

Sam x Clint (I don’t know their ship name)

Clintasha

Steggy

Thundershield

Thor x Brunnhilde/Valkyrie (also forgot the ship name)

[ironheart-stony]

MCU Civil War Fic Recs | Stony Edition

FINALLY i’ve decided to post my first fic rec list. Caught up with my feels after watching CA:CW. THE PAIN, THE ANGST, THE HEARTBREAK </3 Anyway I’ve been reading lots of MCU Post-Civil War fics and I thought it’s time for me to contribute to our lovely fandom. Here are some of my favorites to share with y’all. Don’t be shy, feel free to share any fic recs with me (●♡∀♡) I’d love to read more!

last updated 17/7/2017.

new fics added on top :) will be updated from time to time if there are new recs.

Over Sea, Under Stars by vorkosigan | 36k | fix-it, slowburn, textingfic

Tony gets the phone, but he never uses it and he never intends to. Or, he doesn’t until Steve starts texting him, asking strange questions about medication and mental health, which is when Tony gets worried.

(A texting fix-it that grew beyond all proportion. Deals with depression and anxiety quite a lot. There is even some plot in there somewhere.)

Lost With You (Might Be All I Need) by ann2who | E | 25k | fix-it, dimension travel

Tony and Steve fall through a portal just after defeating Thanos and his army. Stranded in another dimension, the two have to finally face what happened—and what could have been.

This Is How We Happen by Starksus | 3.9k | angst

"Tony is missing."

Steve hears the words over Natasha and Clint's bickering, over Sam's snorts, over the erratic beat of his heart.

Things We Wish Were True by Wix | M | 15k - WIP | postCW, multiverse

The Avengers are in the aftermath of the Civil War, trying to keep their heads above water when an unexpected portal opens up and drops a few familiar faces on their doorstep for the upcoming battles.

Never let it be said that fate doesn't have a sense of humor.

I Cannot Walk on Water ♡ by izazov | M | 26k | PostCW, angst, not exactly a happy ending

Steve doesn't think about having sex with Tony Stark. He certainly doesn't plan for it. It happens anyway.

A New Way For Us by ann2who | M | 24k | CW fix-it, time travel

They fight Thanos—and they’re losing. And before Tony knows what’s happening, he’s standing with Doctor Strange in front of the Eye of Agamotto and gets send back in time. Can he find a way to fix things this time around, or are they doomed to fall apart all over again?

Multitude of One ♡ by nostalgicatsea | G | 4k | soulmates, angst

"So was I," his soulmate would tell him one day, and what it would mean was that they loved him. 

Disrepair by Tippet | T | 30k | CW fix-it

Post-Civil War. A mission at a power plant goes south and the ensuing explosion triggers the denaturation of the serum. In which Steve insists that he's feeling fine, Natasha gets Tony involved and pieces start being put back together. 

Mailbox Full series ♡  by RurouniHime | T | 9k

Tony bypasses into the mailbox every time. It drives Steve absolutely nuts. 

Used to be Mine by Fangirlingmanaged  | T | 12k - WIP | break-up

Tony can't even recognize himself nowadays.

Bring Him Home by seventymilestobabylon | E | 13k

Tony misses Steve very badly after the Accords. Some days he deals with it better than other days.(a fic featuring the booty call flip phone, minor kidnappings, and time jumps between chapters because the election has been happening and my brain has been too mush to make a proper plot)

Take It All Away by ann2who | part 9 of Say When Verse | E | 71k | married!stony

Steve and Tony love each other—that would undoubtedly always be true. However, there might just be things that don’t care for love, that don’t care what it means for the two to take different sides. Things that none of them could’ve foreseen. Things that might just rip everything apart.When the United Nations attempt to put restrictions on the Avengers, Tony has to admit that the pawns had been in place for a long time, he just hadn’t dared to admit it to himself. And now, it is simply a matter of who will move first—and more importantly: in which direction.

World Keep Turning ♡ by gilestel | teen | fancomic

Tony struggles with the day-to-day of leading a UN-sanctioned team of superheroes, Steve goes on a listening tour across America, and Natasha would like to remind everyone that (unlike Sam Wilson) she is not a licensed therapist.(55/200) page fancomic

Fundamental Attribution Error by Atsadi | teen | 57k - WIP

When we do things, we always have a good reason. It’s other people we see as defective.

Learning to look a little harder than that will be a long journey, but it might just be worth the struggle to change. After the civil war, everyone is left living in the new reality they've created — and now they have to figure out if they are willing (and able) to try again at being a real team.

Rebirth by panda_shi | mature | 105k | angst & feels

If you think of life and death on a continuum, finding the point where it tips is complicated. It cuts across all political lines and gets to the root of our humanity. It requires faith informed by years of intimacy that you're doing what's right for your loved one.

But Tony is just a man. And there's only so much he can do.

(Or that time when Tony does what is necessary to survive just so that he can continue to fix things and makes extremely rash decisions; because even if Steve may have left him behind, doesn't mean Tony would do the same. Kind of.)

Yesterdays by by panda_shi | mature | 67k | deaged!tony

Everything seems to be in working order; except one day, after hoping and hoping for a chance to set things right, to prove what he had meant in his letter, that he'd be there for Tony when Tony needs him, Steve is given the opportunity to. It just isn't what he had expected it to be. Not by a long damn shot. Sequel to Rebirth.

Tusk ♡ by laudatenium | mature | 6k | fix-it

Strangely, or not so strangely, Steve is the one to call first.“Tony,” is all he says, low and throaty and oh so raspy.Tony says nothing. Not because he has nothing to say, but because he has too much. And maybe, for once, Steve should be the one talking.

Never Eye To Eye ♡ by vorkosigan | mature | 26k

After the Civli War, the Avengers were back together.

How is everything going, Tony? Pepper had asked in her email. It's fine (Tony had written back). I'm fighting with Steve all the time. Everything is going to hell. I'm okay (you know I'm always okay).

(Or: How Tony and Steve learned to be a bit gentler with each other)

Irreparable ♡ by aslightstep | general | 99k - WIP | slowburn, fix-it

It's a mistake destroying Steve's gesture of goodwill, Tony thinks, even as he takes an unholy amount of glee smashing that stupid phone to bits down in his lab and DUM-E waits eagerly with a fire extinguisher for the last of the letter to burn down. But it's a mistake Tony is happy to make.

Like a Postcard Phrase ♡ by isellys | teen | 5k| pining, fix-it

How to say ‘wish you were here’ without actually saying so, as done by Captain Steve Rogers.

Aftermath by Potrix | explicit | 2k | stuckony, ABO verse

One moment they’re fighting, yelling scathing insults and ugly accusations at each other, and the next they’re kissing, all teeth and anger-fuelled desperation. Steve backs him up until Tony’s shoulders hit the closest wall, and hoists him up, giving Tony no choice but to wrap his legs around Steve’s waist for support. Tony bites Steve’s bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, and Steve growls, and grips both of Tony’s wrists in one big hand, his hold bruisingly tight.

I never thought I could have this (and now it's gone) by tarialdarion | mature | 1k | ABO verse, miscarriage

‘Dear baby,’ he thought hysterically while dodging an arrow, ‘One day your daddy and I fought and almost blew up an airport. I hope you’re better at communication than we are.’

An Infinite Number Of Monkeys At Typewriters (Or, Steve and Tony Finally Get It Right) by JenTheSweetie | mature | 18k | fix-it

Tony blinked up at the face staring down at him. This was impossible. This was definitely 100% not possible, he had not just started giving a good morning handy to -

“Steve?”

After the events of Civil War, Tony and Steve wake up in bed next to each other in an alternate universe. It goes about as well as you'd expect it to.

Smoke and Mirrors by Riverlander974 | teen | 72k 

Before Afghanistan, before New York, and long before Siberia, Tony was given the gift of Peggy Carter as his godmother.It was maybe one of the best gifts he ever received, one that kept on giving even forty years later. Because even when the Avengers are scattered, the team and his trust torn apart, there's still one thing Tony has that no one, not Steve, not Ross, not Stane, had ever managed to take from him.A family.In the aftermath of the Civil War, Tony will need them more than ever if he's to pick up the broken pieces of himself again. And save the world. Of course.

weigh the heart, tip the scales ♡ by carzla | explicit | 14k | dubcon

It was the first time they’d seen each other since Siberia. It was probably one of the worst possible ways to have an unscheduled reunion. It was also about to get worse. A lot worse. 

Last Train Home ♡ by erde | teen | 10k 

 Steve writes letters to Tony that he never sends. By the time he hands them to their rightful owner, Tony has had a brush with death, has retired as a superhero, and now has a small town workshop of his very own. But it's okay, Steve has gone into retirement too.

(nothing left to lose) ♡ by romanoff | explicit | WIP

An alternate universe where Steve wins the Civil War.

It doesn't go well for Tony.

Saudade ♡ by aslightstep | mature | 17k | break-up, one-sided love, starkquill

A deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.

Steve and Tony before, during, and after.

And In The Silence That Follows ♡ by lazywriter7 | mature | 19k | fix-it, steve feels

“But as a guy who’s never been good at anything but killing- lemme tell you this. Wars can come to us, and we can fight to end them.”

“But nothing’s ever worth starting one. Nothing at all.”

As the dust of Civil War starts to settle- Steve begins to see a couple of things.

The Man Behind The Weapon by lazywriter7 | mature | 10k - WIP

“Humans are machines. Fascinating ones, but fatally flawed- because we feel too much. We try our hardest to be objective; but whenever two sides are too close, we ‘follow our heart’, which means fall prey to whatever our emotions think best and fuck all that logic might have had to say about it.”

Sequel to 'And In The Silence That Follows'. Three months after the 'truce', AIM is on the move again, and Norman Osborn seems increasingly determined to seize power in the void that the Avengers left behind. Logic dictates that Tony should cooperate with the runaway superheroes, led by one Steve Rogers to get ahead of the situation. Too bad his trust issues don't agree with him. Too bad humans aren't actually machines who can turn emotions off at the flick of a butto-Oh. Hello Extremis.

Fracture ♡ by laireshi | explicit | 2k | dark!steve

Steve splays his fingers on Tony's chest, over his heart, and Tony whimpers. "You should take better care of that, Tony," Steve says, digging his fingers in briefly.

Tony closes his eyes. "Don't."

Steve laughs, and it's cold. He trails his fingers lower. “I could hurt you,” he says, almost conversationally. “I'm a criminal now, remember.”

Broken Mirrors ♡ by laireshi | teen | 3k | crossover, multiverse

“He hid some things from me,” Tony says, then shrugs. “It’s fine. I hid some things from him, too. Don’t you know this story?”

616 Steve meets MCU Tony.

Closure by laireshi | teen | 1k | fix-it (sort of)

“You were supposed to say thank you,” Tony said after a moment, covering his eyes with his forearm. It wasn't as if Steve could see him. “It's only polite, you know. Happy birthday, Steve—Thank you, Tony.”

It always rains ♡ by Kamaleen | mature | 21k - WIP | ABO, mpreg, ANGST, H/C

It was raining when Tony exited his car. In front of him was a church.

He wasn't sure why it always rained nowadays, but it wasn't like he could do anything about it. Tony knew this weather kind of suited his mood, and his current mental state.

Attending funeral after funeral after you've been beaten up by the father of the embryo in your womb in Siberia before he left you in the cold, was beyond hard and painful. Tony had cried himself to sleep more than once. However, he couldn't let anybody know, except Vision who had figured it out by himself.

"I sense a lifeform in you," the android had mentioned to him once. "Is it… Steve's?"

Tony remembered breaking down in front of him, after that Vision never mentioned the relationship between Steve and the lifeform in Tony's womb again. He felt guilty, yet grateful. It had been barely a week after the incident in Siberia. Tony wasn't ready for something that would remind him of that event, and he doubted he would ever be.

I said to call me when you need me (But it is I who need you now) by rz_jocelyn | general | 2k | pining!steve

Steve never lets go of the phone. Sam thinks that it's time for him to use it.

nothing hurts more than your memory by boiledegg | mature | 14k - WIP | torture, kidnapping, hurt!tony

The written letter and cellphone never made it to Tony.

Tony never made it home.

Making Amends ♡ by TheseStoriesAreWrittenOnMyHeart 

Everything about them happened in seconds. Their first meeting was quick, with Tony landing next to the Captain, each man giving a curt nod and name in greeting. Their argument on the hellicarrier took mere seconds to escalate. Until Steve was goading Tony into putting on the suit and going a few rounds and Tony not so subtly reminding Steve that he wasn’t afraid to hit an old man. It was only seconds of staring at Tony on that New York City Street, his arc reactor dark, no rise and fall of his chest, for Steve to know that inside the tin can, was a good man. Then Ultron happened, and it took seconds for their world to change, seconds for Steve to throw his shield at Tony and for the billionaire to send a repulsor blast back. They went from laughing and relaxing to standing on an edge thousands of feet above solid ground. And now…now everything’s changed. And all it took was a combination of seconds; of decisions made, actions performed and words spoken that they couldn’t get back. Just a few ticks of the clock for their world to shatter.

One Phone Call Away ♡ by ann2who | explicit | 7k | fix it, steve feels

It took two months and fourteen days.Well, two months and sixteen days if you wanted to be nitpicky and count the two days it had taken Tony to actually accept that yes, the phone was still lying on his desk, and no, it wouldn’t magically disappear just because he wished it so.The phone, and beneath it, that goddamn letter. If you need me, I’ll be there.

Of Spiders and Super-Soldiers ♡ by AuddieAussie | explicit | 113k - WIP | +winteriron & stuckony, superfamily

After the hell that was Ultron and the Sokovia Accords, Tony doesn't blame the team for wanting nothing to do with him. To make up for past mistakes, Tony disappears into his lab and focuses on using his money and brains to provide the Avengers with more fancy tech than they'll ever need. By doing this, he also doesn't have to worry about Steve's grim frown, Bucky's hateful gaze, or everyone else's cold annoyance.For six long months, this formula worked, but then fate decided to be a Loki-like dick and Tony wasn't sure how it happened, but in the span of one week, he'd somehow acquired a kid.

Lying Next to Me (and Straight to My Face) by Meadow_Wanderer | mature | 23k - WIP | +winterion/stuckony, betrayal, breakup, dubcon

He's sitting there on the carpeted floor with blood dripping down the back of his head, holding the battered red notebook with trembling hands. He looks up from the page and tries to blink away the scribbled words that won't seem to disappear from his eyesight. He can't breathe, can't get his throat to work properly because it feels like he's being strangled by the sheer truth of what he realizes now.

They knew. Oh god, they knew.

When Tony discovers a devastating secret, it will threaten to tear apart everything they hold dear.

Messages Worth Listening by Breyito | teen | 7k - WIP | ABO, mpreg, childloss, ANGST

Steve is going to realise in the worst possible way what happens when you let pride, rage and fear cloud your judgment. What happens when you don't listen.

Lines of Communication by cptxrogers | explicit | 4k | phone sex

“And you think you could take me, do you, Stark?”“I’d give it a good fucking try. I’d like to shove you into the nearest wall and wrap my hands around your damn neck.”“Oh yeah? And then what?”Post-CACW, a series of phone calls between Tony and Steve. 

Total: 38 fics

[wingedtragedyconnoisseur-blog]

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[mediacalling]

6 Old School Marketing Tactics That Still Work on Social Media

It seems like everywhere we look there’s some new social media or marketing tactics being touted as the next big thing.

As marketers and businesses, we’re constantly looking for ways to reach our audience in creative ways and so we often jump around from strategy to strategy – often leaving what used to work in the past.

But what about those marketing tactics that once worked like a charm?

Today on The Science of Social Media we’re dusting off and breaking down 6 old school marketing tactics that still work like a charm on social media. Plus, we’re exploring exactly how your business can implement them in new, fun, and creative ways.

Let’s dive in!



How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

What you’ll learn in this episode

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation between Hailley Griffis and Brian Peters. Short on time? No worries! Here are four quick takeaways:

Why having real, authentic conversations with your audience is key

How to focus on creating memorable social media and marketing content

Why repurposing evergreen content is still a highly relevant marketing tactic

Television advertising and social media: Why and how they’re related

Must-read resources from the episode

5 Old School Social Media Tactics That Are No Longer Effective (And What To Do Instead) – Buffer Blog

Social Media Engagement is the New Social Media Marketing: How To Do It Well – Buffer Blog

6 Shortcuts to Speed Up Your Social Media Scheduling Process – Buffer Blog

10 Old-School Marketing Tactics that Still Work – GrowthHackers

6 Old school marketing tactics that still work on social media [complete podcast transcript]

Marketing Tactic #1: Having real, meaningful interactions and conversations with your followers

Marketing Tactic #2: Focusing on creating memorable and shareable content

Marketing Tactic #3: Use influencers and partnerships to expand your reach

Marketing Tactic #4: Repurposing top performing evergreen content

Marketing Tactic #5: Share for a benefit

Marketing Tactic #6: Television advertising

Hailley: Hi everyone! I’m Hailley Griffis and this is The Science of Social Media, a podcast by Buffer. Your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and learning.

Brian: Welcome to episode #105! I’m Brian Peters and this week we’re going old school marketing tactics. Well, not totally. We’re going new school with some old school flair. Remember all of the stuff that used to work on social media? Well, some of it still does, and quite effectively I might add.

Hailley: Yes, really excited for this one, Brian. I think we all get caught up in thinking about what’s next on social media and we forget that some of the tactics that helped us once are still very relevant today.

Let’s kick of the show!

Hailley: There are few greater joys in a marketer’s life than experimenting with a new technique—and having it work like a charm.

You feel like a cross between a scientist, an artist, and a magician, am I right?

Brian: Couldn’t agree more.

Hailley: And as many of us do (after a little celebrating of course), we officially add the new tactic to our marketing tactics repertoire and then start searching for the next thing to experiment with.

But because you’re always looking forward, you might not notice that the marketing tactics that worked so well in the beginning has now become, dare I say, obsolete.

Brian: With that in mind, we took a look back at the strategies and tactics that we used a few years ago to see if they still worked.

What follows are 6 old school social tactics that are still as relevant as ever in 2018.

Are you ready Hailley?

Hailley: Absolutely.

Marketing Tactic #1: Having real, meaningful interactions and conversations with your followers

Brian: Remember social media before there was a tool for every single one of your needs? Back when gaining just 100 followers on Twitter and having a single conversation was a huge milestone.

Well, believe it or not, real conversations and interactions are more important than ever on social today.

Hailley: Agreed, automation has made our lives so much easier and our marketing so much more effective, but that also means a personal touch goes a lot further these days!

As our colleague and blog editor, Ash Read, once said in an article, “It feels amazing to know that our favorite brands and personalities value our support. And sometimes all it takes to show that is a personal response.”

This strategy definitely requires more time, energy, and resources than setting up an automate message to new followers or fans, but it’s well worth it in the long run.

Brian: Couldn’t agree more – that’s been one of the cornerstones for us at Buffer on social media over the years and it has led to an incredible amount of word-of-mouth marketing.

Note: We’d love for you to check out Buffer Reply. One of the fastest-growing social media and customers service engagement tools on the market.

Marketing Tactic #2: Focusing on creating memorable and shareable content

Hailley: We talk about this a lot here on the show – and yes, it’s fairly obvious, but I think this one is what has always made social media so great.

You want people to engage with your content because, well, they want to. With that in mind, focus on making it as shareable as possible.

Brian: Yeah so get this.

A recent analysis of 65,000 articles found that a piece’s virality comes down to two main factors: arousal and dominance.

Which sounds a bit strange haha but in plain English, arousal means “riled up.” Feelings like anger and excitement are high-arousal emotions. Dominance, on the other hand, is the feeling of being in control.

When you’re inspired or joyful, you’re experiencing high dominance; when you’re scared, you’re experiencing low dominance.

Hailley: Articles that perform the best on social use a high-arousal, high-dominance combo.

And you’re probably wondering what that would look like!

Well, and here’s a throwback post for you, a photo of Vin Diesel with his daughter racked up 8.1 million interactions (making it the fifth most popular Facebook post of 2015), thanks to the strong, positive emotions it generated.

But strong, negative emotions can be powerful marketing tactics too—take the Dove “Choose Beautiful” campaign, for example. That social campaign put a spotlight on low self-esteem and it turned out extremely successful.

Brian: Yep!

Marketing Tactic #3 – Use influencers and partnerships to expand your reach

Brian: Before influencer marketing was one of the hottest topics in social media, brands and marketers were partnering up to amplify their reach on social.

That tactic is still alive and thriving today and we actually use it all of the time here at Buffer.

Hailley: They key here is to think quality, not quantity when it comes to influencers and partnerships.

Before you team up on a social takeover, article, or research study, ask yourself, “Will this truly benefit my audience?”

If the answer is “yes,” you’re in good shape.

That means their content or expertise is an optimal fit for your audience—so you’ll benefit whether or not the influencer promotes it. And you also want to make sure that your content will benefit their audience as well.

Brian: Exactly! When both parties in the partnership are genuinely excited and passionate about the project, it will go so much further than if you were just forcing it for the sake of collaborating.

Your audiences will be able to see right through that as well.

Seek out potential partners that has an active, engaged audience as well as a great reputation in the industry. Both of those factors are key things to have going in.

Marketing Tactic #4: Repurposing top performing evergreen content

Hailley: We actually just had the pleasure of speaking with the team over at Ahrefs and they shared some great insights into how they’re doing social media strategy and this one was one of their top tips.

Sometime in March this year, they decided to run what they called a “re-circulation” experiment where they decided to dust off their underutilized social accounts and lightly repurpose their top performing content from over the years in quirky and fun posts.

Brian: What was interesting is they said to make things easier, they didn’t set any hard KPIs or goals. They just wanted to highlight cool stuff that they might have missed and see how things went from there.

Turns out, plenty of these posts were really well-received and performed really well.

Initially, they were simply aiming to see if there were any changes in the number of people who liked or shared their content. And guess what? You guessed it, the data instantly confirmed what they were hoping to see: a definite boost in overall engagement and link clicks.

Hailley: I love that.

This one is super important because as marketers and businesses we spend a ton of time, energy, and money on marketing tactics aimed at creating great content then it’s on to the next thing.

What we forget is that a lot of the content we create still has a ton of life in it. All it takes is a quick update to make sure everything is still relevant and some brainstorming on ways to repurpose and repackage the content.

Brian: Great point. And repurposing might involve experimenting with new headlines or creating a video to accompany the post or even creating a podcast episode from it. So many ways to get the most out of your content.

Marketing Tactic #5: Share for a benefit

Brian: As we chatted about last episode, giving your audience an incentive to interact with your content is an old school way of generating engagement that still works today in 2018.

Hailley: Going back to our friends over at Ahrefs, they wanted to figure out a way to get 1k re-tweets on Twitter and increase brand awareness around their product at the same time.

So what they did is they had their founder and CEO Tweet out something along the lines of, “hey, we’ll increase limits on the standard Ahrefs plan if this Tweet gets 1,000 Retweets.

And it was super sly because they were going to increase the limits either way, but they also wanted to figure out a fun way to draw some attention to that fact.

Brian: Yeah such a solid PR move. One of my favorite marketing tactics!

There’s an interesting part of that story as well…

The initial Tweet only collected about 100 re-tweets which is good given that Dmitry doesn’t really have a large following on Twitter.

To give it a little boost, they pushed it out to their users via an Intercom announcement and also shared it in their private Facebook Group. That ended up boosting the Retweet count to nearly 700.

Hailley: Funnily enough, at this point the Tweet jumped up another 500 re-tweets in no time at all to total almost 1.3k;

They were joking that they suspected that someone lost his or her patience and purchased re-tweets on a service like Fiverr or something.

Either way, they made good on their promise and it was a success on both social media and for their customers.

Brian: Great stuff. I didn’t even know you could buy retweets.

Marketing Tactic #6: Television advertising

I know, I know. You’re probably thinking, but Brian! social media isn’t television. What in the world could you mean?

Hailley: We’re thinking it, Brian!

Avid listeners of our show might remember episode #101 where we talked about IGTV and how that’s becoming the new norm for television.

Well that’s still the case, but platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have long been a go-to place for people to go to catch up with the favorite influencers, mini series, and now shows.

Brian: Exactly, and so advertising in general is a one of the most old school marketing tactics on social media, but 1) it still works, and 2) brands now have the opportunity to sort of view social media as the modern day television.

That means they have the opportunity to create pre-roll ads on YouTube, ads on Instagram Stories, and eventually ads on IGTV because you better believe that those are going to be a huge part of Instagram moving forward.

Hailley: Yup and while many brands treat social media users and TV viewers as if they are two separate audiences, posting television content to YouTube is an excellent way to increase the reach of existing campaigns.

For example, Super Bowl commercials like Mountain Dew’s PuppyMonkeyBaby became a viral phenomena by hitting both platforms.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the great commercials that Grammarly runs on YouTube. Those have been wildly successful for them.

Brian: Love it. We’re all TV advertisers now haha!

One last takeaway here is to remember that while implementing these old school tactics, continue to test and refine your approach.

Define the criteria you want to measure at the outset of your new campaign. Whether the goal is brand awareness or increased sales, set KPIs to follow and measure your success against those numbers.

Then, get creative!

Hailley: Thank you for tuning in to The Science of Social Media today. The show notes for this episode are available in either iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll include links to all of the marketing tactics resources we covered into today’s show.

If you ever want to get in touch with me or Hailley, we’re always here for your on social media using the hashtag #bufferpodcast. You can also say hi to us anytime and hello@bufferapp.com

Brian: As always, thank you so much for your iTunes reviews! It’s so awesome to read through all your kind comments there – and we actually do read through all of them so thank you.

Don’t miss next week’s episode where we’ll be diving into the psychology behind social media and what makes people take action on different social channels.

Until next Monday, everyone!

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Hailley on Twitter and Hailley’s Website

Brian on Twitter and Brian’s Website

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 16,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

6 Old School Marketing Tactics That Still Work on Social Media posted first on http://getfblikeblog.blogspot.com

[digitalmark18-blog]

6 Old School Marketing Tactics That Still Work On Social Media

New Post has been published on https://britishdigitalmarketingnews.com/6-old-school-marketing-tactics-that-still-work-on-social-media/

6 Old School Marketing Tactics That Still Work On Social Media

It seems like everywhere we look there’s some new social media or marketing tactics being touted as the next big thing.

As marketers and businesses, we’re constantly looking for ways to reach our audience in creative ways and so we often jump around from strategy to strategy – often leaving what used to work in the past.

But what about those marketing tactics that once worked like a charm?

Today on The Science of Social Media we’re dusting off and breaking down 6 old school marketing tactics that still work like a charm on social media. Plus, we’re exploring exactly how your business can implement them in new, fun, and creative ways.

Let’s dive in!

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

What you’ll learn in this episode

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation between Hailley Griffis and Brian Peters. Short on time? No worries! Here are four quick takeaways:

Why having real, authentic conversations with your audience is key

How to focus on creating memorable social media and marketing content

Why repurposing evergreen content is still a highly relevant marketing tactic

Television advertising and social media: Why and how they’re related

Must-read resources from the episode

5 Old School Social Media Tactics That Are No Longer Effective (And What To Do Instead) – Buffer Blog

Social Media Engagement is the New Social Media Marketing: How To Do It Well – Buffer Blog

6 Shortcuts to Speed Up Your Social Media Scheduling Process – Buffer Blog

10 Old-School Marketing Tactics that Still Work – GrowthHackers

6 Old school marketing tactics that still work on social media [complete podcast transcript]

Hailley: Hi everyone! I’m Hailley Griffis and this is The Science of Social Media, a podcast by Buffer. Your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and learning.

Brian: Welcome to episode #105! I’m Brian Peters and this week we’re going old school marketing tactics. Well, not totally. We’re going new school with some old school flair. Remember all of the stuff that used to work on social media? Well, some of it still does, and quite effectively I might add.

Hailley: Yes, really excited for this one, Brian. I think we all get caught up in thinking about what’s next on social media and we forget that some of the tactics that helped us once are still very relevant today.

Let’s kick of the show!

Hailley: There are few greater joys in a marketer’s life than experimenting with a new technique—and having it work like a charm.

You feel like a cross between a scientist, an artist, and a magician, am I right?

Brian: Couldn’t agree more.

Hailley: And as many of us do (after a little celebrating of course), we officially add the new tactic to our marketing tactics repertoire and then start searching for the next thing to experiment with.

But because you’re always looking forward, you might not notice that the marketing tactics that worked so well in the beginning has now become, dare I say, obsolete.

Brian: With that in mind, we took a look back at the strategies and tactics that we used a few years ago to see if they still worked.

What follows are 8 old school social tactics that are still as relevant as ever in 2018.

Are you ready Hailley?

Hailley: Absolutely.

Marketing Tactic #1: Having real, meaningful interactions and conversations with your followers

Brian: Remember social media before there was a tool for every single one of your needs? Back when gaining just 100 followers on Twitter and having a single conversation was a huge milestone.

Well, believe it or not, real conversations and interactions are more important than ever on social today.

Hailley: Agreed, automation has made our lives so much easier and our marketing so much more effective, but that also means a personal touch goes a lot further these days!

As our colleague and blog editor Ash Read once said in an article, “It feels amazing to know that our favorite brands and personalities value our support. And sometimes all it takes to show that is a personal response.”

This strategy definitely requires more time, energy, and resources than setting up an automate message to new followers or fans, but it’s well worth it in the long run.

Brian: Couldn’t agree more – that’s been one of the cornerstones for us at Buffer on social media over the years and it has led to an incredible amount of word-of-mouth marketing.

Note: We’d love for you to check out Buffer Reply. One of the fastest-growing social media and customers service engagement tools on the market.

Marketing Tactic #2: Focusing on creating memorable and shareable content

Hailley: We talk about this a lot here on the show – and yes, it’s fairly obvious, but I think this one is what has always made social media so great.

You want people to engage with your content because, well, they want to. With that in mind, focus on making it as shareable as possible.

Brian: Yeah so get this.

A recent analysis of 65,000 articles found that a piece’s virality comes down to two main factors: arousal and dominance.

Which sounds a bit strange haha but in plain English, arousal means “riled up.” Feelings like anger and excitement are high-arousal emotions. Dominance, on the other hand, is the feeling of being in control.

When you’re inspired or joyful, you’re experiencing high dominance; when you’re scared, you’re experiencing low dominance.

Hailley: Articles that perform the best on social use a high-arousal, high-dominance combo.

And you’re probably wondering what that would look like!

Well, and here’s a throwback post for you, a photo of Vin Diesel with his daughter racked up 8.1 million interactions (making it the fifth most popular Facebook post of 2015), thanks to the strong, positive emotions it generated.

But strong, negative emotions can be powerful marketing tactics too—take the Dove “Choose Beautiful” campaign, for example. That social campaign put a spotlight on low self-esteem and it turned out extremely successful.

Brian: Yep!

Marketing Tactic # 3 – Use influencers and partnerships to expand your reach

Brian: Before influencer marketing was one of the hottest topics in social media, brands and marketers were partnering up to amplify their reach on social.

That tactic is still alive and thriving today and we actually use it all of the time here at Buffer.

Hailley: They key here is to think quality, not quantity when it comes to influencers and partnerships.

Before you team up on a social takeover, article, or research study, ask yourself, “Will this truly benefit my audience?”

If the answer is “yes,” you’re in good shape.

That means their content or expertise is an optimal fit for your audience—so you’ll benefit whether or not the influencer promotes it. And you also want to make sure that your content will benefit their audience as well.

Brian: Exactly! When both parties in the partnership are genuinely excited and passionate about the project, it will go so much further than if you were just forcing it for the sake of collaborating.

Your audiences will be able to see right through that as well.

Seek out potential partners that has an active, engaged audience as well as a great reputation in the industry. Both of those factors are key things to have going in.

Marketing Tactic #4: Repurposing top performing evergreen content

Hailley: We actually just had the pleasure of speaking with the team over at Ahrefs and they shared some great insights into how they’re doing social media strategy and this one was one of their top tips.

Sometime in March this year, they decided to run what they called a “re-circulation” experiment where they decided to dust off their underutilized social accounts and lightly repurpose their top performing content from over the years in quirky and fun posts.

Brian: What was interesting is they said to make things easier, they didn’t set any hard KPIs or goals. They just wanted to highlight cool stuff that they might have missed and see how things went from there.

Turns out, plenty of these posts were really well-received and performed really well.

Initially, they were simply aiming to see if there were any changes in the number of people who liked or shared their content. And guess what? You guessed it, the data instantly confirmed what they were hoping to see: a definite boost in overall engagement and link clicks.

Hailley: I love that.

This one is super important because as marketers and businesses we spend a ton of time, energy, and money on marketing tactics aimed at creating great content then it’s on to the next thing.

What we forget is that a lot of the content we create still has a ton of life in it. All it takes is a quick update to make sure everything is still relevant and some brainstorming on ways to repurpose and repackage the content.

Brian: Great point. And repurposing might involve experimenting with new headlines or creating a video to accompany the post or even creating a podcast episode from it. So many ways to get the most out of your content.

Marketing Tactic #5: Share for a benefit

Brian: As we chatted about last episode, giving your audience an incentive to interact with your content is an old school way of generating engagement that still works today in 2018.

Hailley: Going back to our friends over at Ahrefs, they wanted to figure out a way to get 1k re-tweets on Twitter and increase brand awareness around their product at the same time.

So what they did is they had their founder and CEO Tweet out something along the lines of, “hey, we’ll increase limits on the standard Ahrefs plan if this Tweet gets 1,000 Retweets.

And it was super sly because they were going to increase the limits either way, but they also wanted to figure out a fun way to draw some attention to that fact.

Brian: Yeah such a solid PR move. One of my favorite marketing tactics!

There’s an interesting part of that story as well…

The initial Tweet only collected about 100 re-tweets which is good given that Dmitry doesn’t really have a large following on Twitter.

To give it a little boost, they pushed it out to their users via an Intercom announcement and also shared it in their private Facebook Group. That ended up boosting the Retweet count to nearly 700.

Hailley: Funnily enough, at this point the Tweet jumped up another 500 re-tweets in no time at all to total almost 1.3k;

They were joking that they suspected that someone lost his or her patience and purchased re-tweets on a service like Fiverr or something.

Either way, they made good on their promise and it was a success on both social media and for their customers.

Brian: Great stuff. I didn’t even know you could buy retweets.

Marketing Tactic #6: Television advertising

I know, I know. You’re probably thinking, but Brian! social media isn’t television. What in the world could you mean?

Hailley: We’re thinking it, Brian!

Avid listeners of our show might remember episode #101 where we talked about IGTV and how that’s becoming the new norm for television.

Well that’s still the case, but platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have long been a go-to place for people to go to catch up with the favorite influencers, mini series, and now shows.

Brian: Exactly, and so advertising in general is a one of the most old school marketing tactics on social media, but 1) it still works, and 2) brands now have the opportunity to sort of view social media as the modern day television.

That means they have the opportunity to create pre-roll ads on YouTube, ads on Instagram Stories, and eventually ads on IGTV because you better believe that those are going to be a huge part of Instagram moving forward.

Hailley: Yup and while many brands treat social media users and TV viewers as if they are two separate audiences, posting television content to YouTube is an excellent way to increase the reach of existing campaigns.

For example, Super Bowl commercials like Mountain Dew’s PuppyMonkeyBaby became a viral phenomena by hitting both platforms.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the great commercials that Grammarly runs on YouTube. Those have been wildly successful for them.

Brian: Love it. We’re all TV advertisers now haha!

One last takeaway here is to remember that while implementing these old school tactics, continue to test and refine your approach.

Define the criteria you want to measure at the outset of your new campaign. Whether the goal is brand awareness or increased sales, set KPIs to follow and measure your success against those numbers.

Then, get creative!

Hailley: Thank you for tuning in to The Science of Social Media today. The show notes for this episode are available in either iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll include links to all of the marketing tactics resources we covered into today’s show.

If you ever want to get in touch with me or Hailley, we’re always here for your on social media using the hashtag #bufferpodcast. You can also say hi to us anytime and hello@bufferapp.com

Brian: As always, thank you so much for your iTunes reviews! It’s so awesome to read through all your kind comments there – and we actually do read through all of them so thank you.

Don’t miss next week’s episode where we’ll be diving into the psychology behind social media and what makes people take action on different social channels.

Until next Monday, everyone!

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

More by this author:

Follow Brian Peters:

Source: https://www.business2community.com/brandviews/buffer/6-old-school-marketing-tactics-that-still-work-on-social-media-02101964

[mediacalling]

6 Old School Marketing Tactics That Still Work on Social Media

It seems like everywhere we look there’s some new social media or marketing tactics being touted as the next big thing.

As marketers and businesses, we’re constantly looking for ways to reach our audience in creative ways and so we often jump around from strategy to strategy – often leaving what used to work in the past.

But what about those marketing tactics that once worked like a charm?

Today on The Science of Social Media we’re dusting off and breaking down 6 old school marketing tactics that still work like a charm on social media. Plus, we’re exploring exactly how your business can implement them in new, fun, and creative ways.

Let’s dive in!



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What you’ll learn in this episode

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation between Hailley Griffis and Brian Peters. Short on time? No worries! Here are four quick takeaways:

Why having real, authentic conversations with your audience is key

How to focus on creating memorable social media and marketing content

Why repurposing evergreen content is still a highly relevant marketing tactic

Television advertising and social media: Why and how they’re related

Must-read resources from the episode

5 Old School Social Media Tactics That Are No Longer Effective (And What To Do Instead) – Buffer Blog

Social Media Engagement is the New Social Media Marketing: How To Do It Well – Buffer Blog

6 Shortcuts to Speed Up Your Social Media Scheduling Process – Buffer Blog

10 Old-School Marketing Tactics that Still Work – GrowthHackers

6 Old school marketing tactics that still work on social media [complete podcast transcript]

Hailley: Hi everyone! I’m Hailley Griffis and this is The Science of Social Media, a podcast by Buffer. Your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and learning.

Brian: Welcome to episode #105! I’m Brian Peters and this week we’re going old school marketing tactics. Well, not totally. We’re going new school with some old school flair. Remember all of the stuff that used to work on social media? Well, some of it still does, and quite effectively I might add.

Hailley: Yes, really excited for this one, Brian. I think we all get caught up in thinking about what’s next on social media and we forget that some of the tactics that helped us once are still very relevant today.

Let’s kick of the show!

Hailley: There are few greater joys in a marketer’s life than experimenting with a new technique—and having it work like a charm.

You feel like a cross between a scientist, an artist, and a magician, am I right?

Brian: Couldn’t agree more.

Hailley: And as many of us do (after a little celebrating of course), we officially add the new tactic to our marketing tactics repertoire and then start searching for the next thing to experiment with.

But because you’re always looking forward, you might not notice that the marketing tactics that worked so well in the beginning has now become, dare I say, obsolete.

Brian: With that in mind, we took a look back at the strategies and tactics that we used a few years ago to see if they still worked.

What follows are 8 old school social tactics that are still as relevant as ever in 2018.

Are you ready Hailley?

Hailley: Absolutely.

Marketing Tactic #1: Having real, meaningful interactions and conversations with your followers

Brian: Remember social media before there was a tool for every single one of your needs? Back when gaining just 100 followers on Twitter and having a single conversation was a huge milestone.

Well, believe it or not, real conversations and interactions are more important than ever on social today.

Hailley: Agreed, automation has made our lives so much easier and our marketing so much more effective, but that also means a personal touch goes a lot further these days!

As our colleague and blog editor Ash Read once said in an article, “It feels amazing to know that our favorite brands and personalities value our support. And sometimes all it takes to show that is a personal response.”

This strategy definitely requires more time, energy, and resources than setting up an automate message to new followers or fans, but it’s well worth it in the long run.

Brian: Couldn’t agree more – that’s been one of the cornerstones for us at Buffer on social media over the years and it has led to an incredible amount of word-of-mouth marketing.

Note: We’d love for you to check out Buffer Reply. One of the fastest-growing social media and customers service engagement tools on the market.

Marketing Tactic #2: Focusing on creating memorable and shareable content

Hailley: We talk about this a lot here on the show – and yes, it’s fairly obvious, but I think this one is what has always made social media so great.

You want people to engage with your content because, well, they want to. With that in mind, focus on making it as shareable as possible.

Brian: Yeah so get this.

A recent analysis of 65,000 articles found that a piece’s virality comes down to two main factors: arousal and dominance.

Which sounds a bit strange haha but in plain English, arousal means “riled up.” Feelings like anger and excitement are high-arousal emotions. Dominance, on the other hand, is the feeling of being in control.

When you’re inspired or joyful, you’re experiencing high dominance; when you’re scared, you’re experiencing low dominance.

Hailley: Articles that perform the best on social use a high-arousal, high-dominance combo.

And you’re probably wondering what that would look like!

Well, and here’s a throwback post for you, a photo of Vin Diesel with his daughter racked up 8.1 million interactions (making it the fifth most popular Facebook post of 2015), thanks to the strong, positive emotions it generated.

But strong, negative emotions can be powerful marketing tactics too—take the Dove “Choose Beautiful” campaign, for example. That social campaign put a spotlight on low self-esteem and it turned out extremely successful.

Brian: Yep!

Marketing Tactic # 3 – Use influencers and partnerships to expand your reach

Brian: Before influencer marketing was one of the hottest topics in social media, brands and marketers were partnering up to amplify their reach on social.

That tactic is still alive and thriving today and we actually use it all of the time here at Buffer.

Hailley: They key here is to think quality, not quantity when it comes to influencers and partnerships.

Before you team up on a social takeover, article, or research study, ask yourself, “Will this truly benefit my audience?”

If the answer is “yes,” you’re in good shape.

That means their content or expertise is an optimal fit for your audience—so you’ll benefit whether or not the influencer promotes it. And you also want to make sure that your content will benefit their audience as well.

Brian: Exactly! When both parties in the partnership are genuinely excited and passionate about the project, it will go so much further than if you were just forcing it for the sake of collaborating.

Your audiences will be able to see right through that as well.

Seek out potential partners that has an active, engaged audience as well as a great reputation in the industry. Both of those factors are key things to have going in.

Marketing Tactic #4: Repurposing top performing evergreen content

Hailley: We actually just had the pleasure of speaking with the team over at Ahrefs and they shared some great insights into how they’re doing social media strategy and this one was one of their top tips.

Sometime in March this year, they decided to run what they called a “re-circulation” experiment where they decided to dust off their underutilized social accounts and lightly repurpose their top performing content from over the years in quirky and fun posts.

Brian: What was interesting is they said to make things easier, they didn’t set any hard KPIs or goals. They just wanted to highlight cool stuff that they might have missed and see how things went from there.

Turns out, plenty of these posts were really well-received and performed really well.

Initially, they were simply aiming to see if there were any changes in the number of people who liked or shared their content. And guess what? You guessed it, the data instantly confirmed what they were hoping to see: a definite boost in overall engagement and link clicks.

Hailley: I love that.

This one is super important because as marketers and businesses we spend a ton of time, energy, and money on marketing tactics aimed at creating great content then it’s on to the next thing.

What we forget is that a lot of the content we create still has a ton of life in it. All it takes is a quick update to make sure everything is still relevant and some brainstorming on ways to repurpose and repackage the content.

Brian: Great point. And repurposing might involve experimenting with new headlines or creating a video to accompany the post or even creating a podcast episode from it. So many ways to get the most out of your content.

Marketing Tactic #5: Share for a benefit

Brian: As we chatted about last episode, giving your audience an incentive to interact with your content is an old school way of generating engagement that still works today in 2018.

Hailley: Going back to our friends over at Ahrefs, they wanted to figure out a way to get 1k re-tweets on Twitter and increase brand awareness around their product at the same time.

So what they did is they had their founder and CEO Tweet out something along the lines of, “hey, we’ll increase limits on the standard Ahrefs plan if this Tweet gets 1,000 Retweets.

And it was super sly because they were going to increase the limits either way, but they also wanted to figure out a fun way to draw some attention to that fact.

Brian: Yeah such a solid PR move. One of my favorite marketing tactics!

There’s an interesting part of that story as well…

The initial Tweet only collected about 100 re-tweets which is good given that Dmitry doesn’t really have a large following on Twitter.

To give it a little boost, they pushed it out to their users via an Intercom announcement and also shared it in their private Facebook Group. That ended up boosting the Retweet count to nearly 700.

Hailley: Funnily enough, at this point the Tweet jumped up another 500 re-tweets in no time at all to total almost 1.3k;

They were joking that they suspected that someone lost his or her patience and purchased re-tweets on a service like Fiverr or something.

Either way, they made good on their promise and it was a success on both social media and for their customers.

Brian: Great stuff. I didn’t even know you could buy retweets.

Marketing Tactic #6: Television advertising

I know, I know. You’re probably thinking, but Brian! social media isn’t television. What in the world could you mean?

Hailley: We’re thinking it, Brian!

Avid listeners of our show might remember episode #101 where we talked about IGTV and how that’s becoming the new norm for television.

Well that’s still the case, but platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have long been a go-to place for people to go to catch up with the favorite influencers, mini series, and now shows.

Brian: Exactly, and so advertising in general is a one of the most old school marketing tactics on social media, but 1) it still works, and 2) brands now have the opportunity to sort of view social media as the modern day television.

That means they have the opportunity to create pre-roll ads on YouTube, ads on Instagram Stories, and eventually ads on IGTV because you better believe that those are going to be a huge part of Instagram moving forward.

Hailley: Yup and while many brands treat social media users and TV viewers as if they are two separate audiences, posting television content to YouTube is an excellent way to increase the reach of existing campaigns.

For example, Super Bowl commercials like Mountain Dew’s PuppyMonkeyBaby became a viral phenomena by hitting both platforms.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the great commercials that Grammarly runs on YouTube. Those have been wildly successful for them.

Brian: Love it. We’re all TV advertisers now haha!

One last takeaway here is to remember that while implementing these old school tactics, continue to test and refine your approach.

Define the criteria you want to measure at the outset of your new campaign. Whether the goal is brand awareness or increased sales, set KPIs to follow and measure your success against those numbers.

Then, get creative!

Hailley: Thank you for tuning in to The Science of Social Media today. The show notes for this episode are available in either iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll include links to all of the marketing tactics resources we covered into today’s show.

If you ever want to get in touch with me or Hailley, we’re always here for your on social media using the hashtag #bufferpodcast. You can also say hi to us anytime and hello@bufferapp.com

Brian: As always, thank you so much for your iTunes reviews! It’s so awesome to read through all your kind comments there – and we actually do read through all of them so thank you.

Don’t miss next week’s episode where we’ll be diving into the psychology behind social media and what makes people take action on different social channels.

Until next Monday, everyone!

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Hailley on Twitter and Hailley’s Website

Brian on Twitter and Brian’s Website

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

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About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 16,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

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