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felassan · 5 years ago

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Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.

BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”

The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”

A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”

BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied

DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line

Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together

In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success

By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games.

DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that

DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”

After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks.

For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled

BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”

It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW

Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”

FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.

Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”

The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet.

EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously

BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.

One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’”

Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.

“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue.

Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.

Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.

MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.

The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”

DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.

In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.

By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.

The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.

The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.

Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.

“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”

Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.

They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.

During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.

By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”

MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”

At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.

DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.

“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.

“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”

Read the chapter for full details of course!

#dragon age #bioware #video games #SW:TOR #mass effect #I've seen plenty of this info discussed in articles/thinkpieces and on online communities over the years #but it's nice to read it first hand #some very insightful stuff here #these behind the scenes looks are very valuble #a lot of DAI's elements make sense given the context and what was going on in the background and the tech challenges they faced etc #be kind and respectful to devs folks they're human beings #also in general this book is really interesting and easy to read #funny in places too #it has lots of other chapters on lots of other games including Stardew Valley #I def recc buying it #anyway hope this post is useful/interesting to someone!#oh and as always support good treatment of game devs #crunch culture in the industry is harmful and exploitative

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euronymous-files · 4 years ago

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translated from Norwegian

"He came into my life at a time when I had just started listening to extreme and loud music. I sat at home in Råde and listened to local radio from Oslo. [...]

Frode Øien had a program where he invited the then unknown band Mayhem to visit because they had recorded a new demo tape. They were just incredibly mysterious and used pseudonyms and stuff, and I mean remember they took over the whole radio broadcast. To me, it sounded like Frode was set aside as host and the band took over for a couple of hours. It was absolutely magical. They played their own music, but not least they played lots of other things that were completely unknown, Hellhammer, Bathory, lots of early black metal and other extreme things. They obviously had great insight into what was going on and were by definition the only Norwegian band that existed in all these genres at once. They were the starting point for everything you could call extreme metal. It all starts with Mayhem."

Anders tells of how he became "insanely fascinated". [...] “The following week, a guy who was a competition winner appeared and said he was the brother of someone in the band. His name was Aarseth, and that led to me simply browsing the telephone directory, and I found only one Aarseth family in Ski. I took the chance and called and hit right on Øystein. That conversation must have lasted an hour or two. He met someone who was open to the same things as him, and then he was like a wandering library and very enthusiastic. His fervent commitment was something you felt right away, something he literally lived for. He gave my whole musical approach a kind of passion I had never experienced before.” To the young Anders, four years older Øystein Aarseth appeared as a kind of natural messenger of all the new things that were about to happen, and he swallowed everything he was told. He took in all the tips Øystein shared and received a lot of music that engulfed him, first from Øystein, then also from other bands.

"In the 80's it was not so common to have contact with people in other countries. If it were not unknown, getting to know people abroad was much more difficult than it is today. The only method was letter writing, and this whole underground scene was very much based on that. We wrote to each other and attached leaflets and fanzines and other things. You picked up the things you had on tape and changed the recording. Øystein introduced all this to me. I also went to practice with Mayhem. Back then I was 13 and a half years old, and got a first-hand impression of how the music sounded in your face in the rehearsal room. It made me completely obsessed that I should also start such a band. I had finally found my thing. This was very early in the development of black metal. We who came in right away make up a small but significant group of people. Among those I became acquainted with at that time are or were virtually all members of the most famous and prominent bands. Øystein had an incredibly central role as a source of inspiration and door opener for how to engage with music on the side of the industry, to be independent, in your own world."

Were there other aspects of him than the purely musical that inspired you? The energy, the courage, the talent? "What I took to myself very early was to sacrifice everything for this here. If you wanted to get somewhere with the music, you had to choose it over all other possible leisure activities and side tracks you could end up on, to only care about this music and abandon absolutely everything else. This was something he introduced as an opportunity. Many people did sports and had boyfriend projects and all sorts of things, social things that take a lot of time and resources, but here it was an alternative race to unfold in which I really took to. I had lived in a block and terraced house environment until I was ten years old and moved to a farm. I went from a life where people rang the doorbell all the time to being socially isolated. Now I got a platform that made it possible to break out."

Were you and Øystein friends or is there another way to describe their relationship? "I was a fanboy in the beginning. He got really mad when I copied everything he did. Then he was clear that this is not the way to do it. He was very careful about it. I was very young, and I was looking for band members myself in Fredrikstad and Østfold. When I started Cadaver, there was more mutual respect and a more collegial friendship. Things slipped a bit for him in '92 -'93. In the summer of '93, a few months before he died, he was very much looking for old friends. It was clear that he had been going through a period with a lot of focus on other things, but now he was looking up old friends to play the new Mayhem things that he had been working on for so long. I was with him several times during this time and felt that we had a friendship that was more mature. I had my band, had released an album and been on tour, and now Øystein was finally facing a breakthrough with the album he had talked about releasing for six or seven years. That he was killed became even more sad because of it. He knew he had made something very significant and very good, but never saw it come out."

[...]

"I was in a way close to the events", Anders says. "I also knew Pelle and was several times in the house where they lived in Kråkstad. When such things happen, you are shocked and think about what you could have done differently. But that Øystein did as he did was probably most related to his penchant for myth-making and image-building. He took it too far of course, but his way of thinking about things was that everything could be used for what it is worth in a PR context. I think it would have been perfectly fine if not everything that happened, it would not have made any difference. I remember hearing about him doing it, but not thinking much about it. He probably had an idea that this was so extreme that he had to do something about it. That might say something about how he liked to see things from above. He did not consider himself a direct part of it and did not see that there was anything wrong with it. I think he saw it in a kind of bird's eye view, but it's very difficult to say."

Where do you think Øystein would have been today if he had not been killed? "It's an exciting thing. We who knew him wonder if he had not grown tired of having to move closer to the regular music industry. In a way, he was a bit about to do it himself with his label, and also realized he could not run distribution on his own. I was part of his distribution. It worked so that he sent ten copies of a record to everyone he knew and trusted. All sold nine and sent money to him, and were allowed to keep one themselves. Those records are probably worth 10,000 kroner today. He signed several bands at the end, and the same day he died, Enslaved signed a contract with him. He had other things going on too, so I'm not sure where he ended up." "However, there was a lot going on around him that could have had an unfortunate effect", Anders believes. If he had not been killed by Varg Vikernes, or "The Count", it would probably have been rolled up that he was nearby when Holmenkollen chapel burned. "I do not know if he had been able to sit in jail. He was probably tougher in words than in reality. But what is mainly wrong with the myth of black metal and Øystein was that he created something with knowledge and will to succeed, as it was afterwards. It was rather the opposite. His ideas were to have this as a non-commercial business. You should deserve to hear this music. Being a listener in itself required a number of criteria. If it was up to him, as he told it, the whole scene would be a kind of lodge, and if you were first inside you would hear what others did not hear. But it was going to go away anyway, because it got too big." "Then he did not experience the internet, but it would have been something for him. Because he had so many extreme political ideas, the internet as it has been very much appealed to him. For example, he would be amazed at how widespread conspiracy theories have become. He was interested in extreme political directions, in Pol Pot and communism. I think he too had ended up in a more experimental musical direction. He was an extremist in everything he did and did it full on, and he probably still wanted to hunt for more and more extreme expressions."

[...] What is the best thing Øystein did? " "Freezing Moon". What I find very musically exciting is that it contains so few notes. The atonal and asymmetrical in the arrangement gives an introduction to something completely different than rock. It's the atmospheric, and the movements as we call it, and the riffs that are there. Øystein was concerned with throwing everything away and starting all over again, and it was such a song. It will always be a pillar in the Mayhem catalog and in the development of black metal."

read the full interview (in Norwegian) here

#euronymous #oystein aarseth #mayhem #black metal #files #archive #interview #anders odden #cadaver #satyricon

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roleplay-salt · 5 years ago

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Unless they are throwing bigoted slurs, threats, or suicide-baiting remarks at the anonymous submitter, they are not doing anything wrong. They have just as much right to disagree with your submission as you had when you sent it to us. We are, first and foremost, a place to vent frustrations or hurts behind the safety of anonymity, and we are also a free-speech blog. We are of the belief that discussions, no matter how heated, is healthy and brings the community together as a whole. Just as your submission may provide someone else with the awareness that they are not alone in similar frustrations, someone disagreeing with your submission may provide a new perspective to you and others that had not been considered before.

“How does name-calling and swearing and being mean add to a discussion? You and your blog are what are wrong with the roleplaying community!”

Just because someone isn’t being nice to you as they give their side of the argument, doesn’t mean that it cancels out their actual argument. You’re choosing to be offended and distracted by how abrasive they are, and that’s no one’s problem to deal with but your own. You have the ability to block anyone so that you no longer have to see their comments on future submissions. Why would we police what people say, the endgame of which would be to ban them from ever reblogging or commenting on submissions again if they don’t listen to us, if you’re not even willing to try solving the problem first by just blocking them? Wanting to have the last word or being upset that your submission didn’t receive the feedback you wanted is not a reason for us to step in and step on someone else’s right to speak, rudely or otherwise. If you’re not going to block them, then why should we?

“Could you not post submissions on sensitive topics like noncon, incest, and pedophilia?”

We have started tagging posts that we believe might be sensitive and controversial in nature with the tag “#twcontroversy”. We recommend blacklisting this tag. If that is still not enough, then we recommend unfollowing/blocking us. These are topics just as relevant in the roleplaying community as anything else.

“Could you promote me?”

Certainly! But only if you are another community-involved blog (a blog that provides a ‘service’ to the community, such as advice, roleplay help, a place for confessions, etc.), and it must be relevant to the roleplaying community to some degree! If you want to promote a roleplay blog, then we suggest sending in a shoutout submission!

“I sent a confession in weeks ago. Where is it? How long will it take for it to get posted?”

It’s either sitting in the queue or sitting in our drafts, waiting to be queued. We have 1,200+ followers so far, and on average we’re sent 15+ submissions a night. We only post between 5 to 8 submissions at night. Your submission is on a wait list. That’s all we can tell you.

“Why don’t you just close your submission box until all the current confessions are posted?”

Because we’re a vent blog first and foremost. If we close our ask/submission boxes, then we’re no longer an option for people who might desperately need to vent or talk about something that could have happened to them that day but have no other options. We want to be a healthy alternative to just bottling it up or possibly lashing out at the wrong people.

“I don’t believe you! I think you deleted my submission because one of you didn’t like it! You’re not unbiased at all!”

We’ve posted submissions about highly controversial roleplay topics like noncon, racism, transphobia, and pedophilia. We reassure you that your salt submission about OCs, theme trends, blog selectivity, etc. is not on that same level, least of all to the point that one of us would delete it. The only submissions that we have deleted, so far, are the ones that have included racial and homophobic slurs.

“[insert OP/commenter] is obviously a rapist/pedophilie!”

If we find that you have accused someone of being a rapist, pedophile, or apologist of either because of their defensive views on noncon/pedophilic ships or roleplay, your comment will be removed and you will be blocked. These are serious accusations that you shouldn’t be throwing at people over fictional content and we refuse to to let you use this blog as a platform to spew such slanderous accusations.

#about #rules #faq

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spookyflowerbouquet · 4 years ago

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Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore

Sales & Marketing 〉 Marketing Marketing Myths You Should Ignore. Debra Murphy July 20, 2013. Email marketing can enhance your relationship with your subscribers and drive your revenue. Email; Entrepreneurship. 3 Marketing Myths About LinkedIn You Should Ignore. Those false ideas and take advantage of the benefits LinkedIn marketing offers: Myth No.

Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore Someone

Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore Others

Direct Mail Myths You Should Ignore

April 07 2016

Most direct mail marketers stick to the same bag of tricks that have been working for decades. While there has been plenty of valuable wisdom, experience, and strategies passed down from one generation of marketers to the next, there also have been some harmful myths that have persisted.

This industry seems particularly prone to following the book, even when evidence suggests it’s time for a change. As it gets harder to grab and keep the attention of target audiences through direct mail and other mediums, it becomes even more costly to cling to counterproductive marketing myths.

We’re dispelling the most persistent direct mail marketing myths so that you can hone in on the factors that make a difference in your bottom line results.

It’s All About Clever Techniques

Myth 3: Email marketing is no longer effective Building your own in-house email list and providing a focused and well executed email marketing campaign is still very effective, especially when integrated into your content marketing activities. While you may have heard it said before, we will continuously hammer home this point: SPLIT TEST as much as you can! We hope this article helped debunk the 7 most popular email marketing myths that you should ignore when looking to optimize your marketing campaigns.

As much as marketers would love to believe that the perfectly worded offer or a tricky technique can hypnotize customers into doing whatever a marketer pleases, it just isn’t true. Focusing on tricking or commanding people to act will take you away from what you should be focusing on: putting a quality offer in the right hands at the right time and making the conversion as clear, appealing, and simple as possible.

Your audience will likely see right through any tricky techniques. If you turn off a potential customer, you’re only dragging your success rate down.

All Features Should Be Turned Into Benefits

Have you ever heard the marketing saying: “People don’t want drills; they want holes.” There’s some wisdom in there, but today there are plenty of market segments where you can thrive with a feature-based approach. Talk about the holes, but don’t forget about the drill. The enthusiasts in your market segment may just want to dwell on the object of their affection without being hit over the head with its benefits.

Imitation Breeds Success

More amateur and professional direct mail marketers have been brought down by this myth than any of the others on this list. The logic is simple: if I see a mailer that’s working for someone else, I’ll just copy it and make some minor tweaks to fit my purpose. Bam! Proven method for success.

Not so fast.

What you’ll learn the hard way quickly is that every business, service, product, list, and offer is its own animal. If you’re not digging into what makes your audience and your offer unique, you’re not maximizing your potential return on investment.

The surest way to ensure you’re avoiding the harmful myths of direct mail marketing is to work with experts that utilize data-driven solutions focused on finding custom strategies to target your most relevant, profitable demographics.

Visit the DataPrint homepage to learn more about the myth-busting power of our cutting-edge direct mail marketing services.

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Email Marketing Myths You Should Ignore Others

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zombiepineapple · 4 years ago

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Comparing Acceptable Use Policies

An Acceptable Use Policy is an agreement between a company and a customer. It's what someone agrees to in order to use a service or product. Most customers and stakeholders are prompted to read and accept these terms before initially using a company’s product, as well as when there are updates or new releases. Reading a company’s AUP can give insight to a company’s concerns, values, and security frameworks. People rarely read these, but they can tell us a lot about a company and how it treats its customers, not just what the company expects from people interacting with their property.

To show these differences, I read through the AUPs for Brown University, Facebook, and the U.S. Army. I ranked them on their efficacy and detail. Items given special attention will include how long ago an AUP was updated, concepts the AUPs define, mentions of cybersecurity policies, and repercussions for users who do not follow the AUPs.

Ranking Three Acceptable Use Policies

Brown University

Brown University is ranked third in the comparison of the first three AUPs. The university last reviewed their policy on August 3rd, 2016, but initially enacted the document August 1st, 2003 (Acceptable Use Policy | Computing & Information Services, n.d.). They have five separate help links from the policy page, making it the most accessible for users that need assistance. Another strength is that they have an extensive list of real-world examples to help clarify different situations a user may find themselves experiencing. They are most concerned with users cheating, hacking, and breaking the law. Toting respect above all else, Brown University is clear that if there are any breaches of their policy, they will respond with legal action. Their policy is short and doesn’t go out of its way to define concepts. Instead, it gives lists and examples of misconduct. Most notably, they are concerned with copyright abuses and “activities that would jeopardize the University’s tax-exempt status.” (Acceptable Use Policy | Computing & Information Services, n.d.)

Interestingly, they are specific on a few cybersecurity points. Students are allocated a certain amount of bandwidth which they cannot exceed. Users may not use university devices for libel, slander, harassment, or political purposes, nor economic gain. Users may not access or copy others’ personal identification or account information, like someone’s phone number or password. The use of security assessment or cyber-attack tools is prohibited unless under direction of and through educational means in their cybersecurity classes. Most notably, students are responsible for their device’s “network address or port, software and hardware. … (and) may not enable unauthorized users to access the network”. This means that if a student is hacked, it is effectively their fault, not the university’s, if they did not make a “reasonable effort” to protect their systems. Lastly, the AUP mentions that by agreeing to the policy, users also agree to all third-party license agreements, but there are no mentions or links to what those may be (Acceptable Use Policy | Computing & Information Services, n.d.).

Facebook

Facebook’s AUP is ranked second best out of the first three policy reviews. It consists of two documents: their Terms of Service and Community Standards. These documents were last revised October 2nd, 2020 (Terms of Service, 2019). At the start, Facebook is intent on explaining that everything they do is for others’ benefits. They clearly state that they don’t sell user data, but they get revenue from semi-anonymous user activity data (Terms of Service, 2019). For example, an advertising company may be told that a person who works in the culinary arts and likes skydiving clicked on their ad. This didn’t name the person or give away anything that may identify them, but it should be noted that the user is being given the Facebook platform service in exchange for this type of surveillance and reporting, and not any type of financial reparation. Facebook spends several pages explaining how this process makes the world a better place (Terms of Service, 2019).

From there, Facebook defines who is allowed to use their platform. As long as a user is over 13, not a convicted sex offender, hasn’t been kicked from the platform before, or doesn’t live in a country that bans Facebook, a person may create a profile. The profile must have the users real name, give accurate personal information, and be their only account (Terms of Service, 2019). This raises some questions, as many people regularly use fake names, have many accounts, and state they went to Hogwarts for college. Copyright is an interesting topic for Facebook. Anything a person uploads remains theirs and Facebook owns the “license” to it, unless it’s deleted. Interestingly, this section specifies that Facebook can use user content in their advertising campaigns without any special permissions (Terms of Service, 2019). So, don’t be surprised if Joe Lunchbox’s vacation video ends up on television.

In terms of cybersecurity, no one may upload malicious code nor attempt to spider, or scan for data, using software. Trying to view Facebook’s source code is also prohibited. If any of these policies are broken, Facebook will issue warnings, disable accounts, and may even contact and give personal information to law enforcement (Terms of Service, 2019). For example, if a person starts a live stream and begins threatening suicide, the stream will be cut the moment “threat becomes attempt” and police will be contacted and given that person's geological location, name, and number. There is also a very large section dedicated to mentioning that Facebook is not perfect and not responsible for content people post. This states that no lawsuit against Facebook may exceed $100 compensation from them and that all court cases take place “exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California or a state court located in San Mateo County.” (Terms of Service, 2019)

Facebook works with several partners to eliminate any form of human abuses, like trafficking, exploitation, assault, and sexual violence. There’s even a special branch covering all this in relation to minors and children (Facebook, 2019). In fact, most photos with any type of child nudity, even uploaded by loving parents, is usually removed because those images can be perverted by others. There’s also a dedicated anti-bullying hub that targets “content that’s meant to degrade or shame.” Facebook abhors hate speech, glorifying violence, “deep fakes”, and victim mocking. A “deep fake” is an altered video that appears to be real but intends to mislead and manipulate (Facebook, 2019).

Facebook’s Community Standards are mostly large and extensive definitions for the following: violence, criminal behavior, safety, objectionable content, integrity, authenticity, respecting intellectual property, and content-related requests and decisions (Facebook, 2019). There are only a few interesting points in these. Facebook prohibits drug and gun transactions on their platform, but does allow these types of advertisements, especially ammunition retailers. If a person dies, their account may be memorialized. A family member or even a person’s official executor can request this. A parent can have their child’s Facebook profile deleted. Lastly, Facebook decides policy change by stakeholder group discussions (Facebook, 2019).

The U.S. Army

Ranked number one is the Acceptable Use Policy for the United States Army. In stark contrast to Facebook’s AUP, the Army keeps as much as possible private and secured. Their AUP was last updated November 7th, 2018, and has short, concise definitions, leading into lists of rules (ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP), n.d.). They start off by specifying that there are two networks: The SIPRNET and the NIPRNET, or the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and the Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Network. Everything on the SIPRNET is classified and everything on NIPRNET is unclassified (ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP), n.d.).

The Army’s AUP is mostly cybersecurity best practices. Users need authorization to do most things, including the ability to read/write to something, change any settings, or install any programs. They use Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for every single communication on the SIPRNET, while the NIPRNET acts as a kind of duplicate internet. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is used and security training takes place annually (ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP), n.d.). If a user misses their security training deadline, their accounts are locked until they’ve done the training and turned their completion in to their superior. The program covers “threat identification, physical security, acceptable use policies, malicious content and logic identification, and non-standard threats such as social engineering.” Passwords are changed every 90 to 150 days and all items must be virus checked before they can be opened on a device. Malicious code and executables, like .exe, .com, .vbs, and .bat files, are prohibited (ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP), n.d.). Only System Administrators are allowed to do system maintenance. Wireless devices must be off in most parts of the network and Bluetooth is outright barred. Users may not use so much bandwidth as to disrupt service but are allowed a small and reasonable number of personal communications at certain moments of the day, in certain locations, with personal devices. All of this is routinely monitored, traffic is intercepted, and devices may be seized at any time. The Army has the right to take any data a user has on its devices unless it is protected under duty of confidentiality, like communications with a lawyer or therapist (ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP), n.d.).

The only course of repercussion described is “disciplinary action”, with no further explanation (ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP), n.d.). This was chosen as the best out of the three AUPs because of its cybersecurity focus and curt specificity.

Conclusion

Acceptable Use Policies range widely in length, structure, specificity, and accountability. Most companies seem to care about copyright violations, but there are stark contrasts in the length certain companies go to communicate their expectations to users. Stakeholders deserve to have AUPs that are definitive, clear-cut, and comprehensive. These AUPs indicate not only how a company wishes to be treated, but how they will treat their users. Whether it’s a San Mateo County lawsuit guaranteed to award no more than a hundred bucks, a picture of a child in the tub being redacted, or an impromptu visit from a mental health professional, users must accept the effects of misconduct. That obligation starts by agreeing to Terms of Service, even if a user doesn’t read them.

References

ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP). (n.d.). https://home.army.mil/gordon/application/files/2915/4938/7446/FG_AUP-07NOV18.pdf

Acceptable Use Policy | Computing & Information Services. (n.d.). It.brown.edu. Retrieved April 25, 2021, from https://it.brown.edu/computing-policies/acceptable-use-policy#31

Facebook. (2019). Community Standards | Facebook. Facebook.com. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/

#cybersecurity #Acceptable Use Policy

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pack-the-pack · 8 years ago

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But Why Omegaverse of All Things??!

Okay so, recently some minor conversation sparked because of one of my posts regarding omegaverse, and why is it a thing and why it’s so popular. I even talked briefly with one of the people curious about it. Therefore, I decided to give some insight and explanations(?) to maybe why this is the case, once and for all. Obviously, I can’t speak for anyone but myself, however I’ll take the liberty to make suppositions about what might have brought people to like it. So if you feel like you don’t agree with something or the reason behind why you’re into this flaming pile of trash with us is not explained here, feel free to add on to it. After all this is just my humble perspective.

{Where and When it started?}

Well Wikipedia says it all started around 2010 with the one, the only, the massive: Supernatural Fandom. But really this is kind of a trick question, cause Omegaverse didn’t “start” anywhere. Those who have been in the Star Trek fandom might recognise terms like “Pon Farr” and “mating bond”, and those have been around longer than the 2010′s. And these have a striking similarity (if not the same stuff) you might find in ABO works. There are ABO fics dated even before said dates, do it’s not a exactly a precise date we’re looking at here. So yeah, it doesn’t have a clear starting point, and with good reason. We can’t pinpoint it’s origins because ABO it’s a collective of various different aspects drawn from many different places at the same time. We don’t have any set rules to what is and what’s not Omegaverse. You have elements of lycanthropism, sex pollen, vampirism, wolf pack dynamics, mpreg, scenting, soul mating, knotting, etc. The whole shabam! But really no one agrees in anything. We all just have this abstract universal understanding of what Omegaverse is and what is not. The elements present can be tossed in and out without harming the concept in the slightest. It can have all or just a few elements mentioned above and it would be just as valid.

Granted, the “modern version” we know today become more popular and well stablished around 2014/2015 ‘til the current year. And why did this happen?

{Projection}

We are living in very turbulent times recently. Be it in the realm of politics or… yeah politics. But regardless it’s undeniable that some things are changing, be it for the worse or for the better on your perspective one thing is true and will always be: Once shit starts to hit the fan we like to sit in the corner for a while and project our feelings into something. Usually this outlet is fantasy and imagination, which leads to ABO… somehow. “Okay but why daheck Omegaverse of all things?” as the title of this post inquires. Cause let’s be honest, Omegaverse sure is weird. I think (and again this is just my OPINION) it’s because Omegaverse can get you out of the “normally perceived” human world and toss you into something that is different from your reality but still similar enough that you can project your thoughts into. And things don’t “change” in this world, is all kinda the same every time. Omegas are Omegas, Betas are Betas, and Alphas are Alphas. Regardless of gender, of class, of economics, of society, of anything. These things don’t change. And it might give us a false sense of security to look at a society and an entire world where things have a sense of certainty. Yah know… unlike real life.

{Simulation}

Trying to understand how the world works and why B is B and not C is what humans do best and what we have been doing for as long as we can remember. So when you say “Alphas are X, Y and Z” it stimulates your brain to go “but why daheckity heck is that?”, opening a whole new plethora of thoughts about how this fantastical world and the people in it works. This kinda intertwines with the projection part, cause ABO has the “animalistic” side of people presented way more forefront and highlighted than irl. But just like in ABO humans might be capable of rational thought but at the end of the day we’re just glorified animals with a big ol’ brain inside our bone-made-thought-cage known as a skull. Once you start to look at ABO in a “biological sense” some thoughts start to occur to you, such as: “Is this somehow applicable in my life?”, “do humans have similar biological drives like that?”, “Is this nurture or nature?”, “are we really more than animals?”, “how far does our biology interfere with society”, “is society molded around our biological needs or do our biological needs mold themselves around society?”, “how far can our brains interfere with our bodies and vice-versa”, etc.

Just like any other trope and fantastical concept Omegaverse can indeed offer you a valid platform to project and simulate things you might not understand about real life or even about yourself. It proves itself to be a really fun and entertaining process and it also has a plus for getting some biases that might interfere with your judgment out of the way thanks to its huge flexibility. Yes, I am indeed declaring that Omegaverse for all it’s quirkiness and weirdness is capable of provoking thought. You’re welcome, I regret nothing.

{World Building and The Whole DIY Aspect of It}

I think this one is the one that resonates with me the most out of all the reasons. For those who are into world building but aren’t very kin into having to start from the ground up or just aren’t very good at it… BOY Omegaverse has your back, son. Since everyone else kinda already did half the work for you all you gotta do is take the abstract core concept and go full Picasso on it. The liberty omegaverse gives you is unbelievable and the worlds you can build around it can range from small island to a whole galaxy system. Which is very rare for a fanfic/fanart trope. Cause the other most popular AUs are crowded in way more rules and stuff you gotta follow or else people start to poop their pants cause “the wands are made of dragon-heart-strings not scales YOU HEATHEN!”, But all joking and exaggerations aside ABO is really unique in this aspect. You can focus on the biology, fashion, architecture, culture, religion, history, art, music, entertainment, etc. All revolving around ABO. The ammount of things you can explore is simply insane. Crafting a society based around these three dynamics is beyond fun (and I know there are people who make more dynamics aside from these but I’ll stick with the basic ones). And having every person bring something new and crafted completely differently from what you have but having just the same core focus every time you click in a ABO work is really something special on it’s on.

I think D&D players might know this feeling all too well, cause although there are general concepts and stuff that don’t change, you’ll never have the same experience twice and everytime it’s a new different and exciting adventure in a whole new world to explore. ABO is kinda like that but with weird ass human-wolf people instead of classes :v

{RPying and Making New Friends}

This one is not exactly my cup of tea but I’m aware that a lot of people stay in the ABO community for this reason. Since ABO has a lot of material to works with it can be a goldmine for people that are into RPying. Be it with friends or to meet new people, the ABO community is rarely judgemental and is open to pretty much everyone, so it can be lots of fun to incorporate all the aspects you love about ABO into some good time with nice people. I know that @omegaverse-seeker is one person’s blog you can go just to find other people willing to RP with you using Omegaverse. So if you’re interested go check it out.

{Social Commentary}

If you follow me long enough you’ll know that BOY HOWDY do I hold some grudges against this one. But since it happens a lot I feel like it would be unfair for me to not comment on it. Many people use the whole ABO genre to build narratives and push some sort of agenda or just make a social commentary about the real world. And god knows how this drives me NUTS most part of the time, because Jesus is it done poorly 9 times out of 10. Even if it comes as totally annoying and breaks the immersion of things for most part, there are times in which is done well and results into some really interesting and thought provoking stories. Like I said before projection and simulation is a big part of this. So when someone manages to take something as broad as ABO and transform into something that will make you lay down your phone for a while to actually think about some aspects of your life and the lives around you it really is something. Obviously it ain’t gonna be A Clockwork Orange lvl kind of thought provoking. Let’s get real people we’re all just amateur students on the internet no need to overestimate things. But the potential is totally there. The genre allows for this kind of potential to exist. And given the talent, the time and the faith required Omegaverse can bring up some real intriguing questions about our lives and the society we live in.

{Coping Mechanisms}

This one might come off a little risky, cause god knows this site and the word “sensitive” go hand in hand with one another. But even if it sounds a little pretentious (like everything else in this list) I’ll say it either way. Some people might use ABO to cope with some things they are not entirely comfortable with (I’ll not enter into the whole transgender “issue” that is brought up every time someone wants to talk about how terrible Omegaverse is, Okay? That’s a whole can of worms I’m just not willing to open here, and not today… or maybe ever. But I digress. Back to other forms of copying) Some people might use Omegaverse to cope with some aspects of themselves they are still trying to come into terms with. Since within Omegaverse there are three dynamics, each with two genders, and every single one of them with exceptions within exceptions this can be a good outlet for people who might not “fit in” with what they belive they should be. For example a boy who’s more feminine and not as physically strong as his peers might look at ABO and see all the Omegas and Betas and go like “Oh I’m not defective or not as good I’m just different”. Or a girl who’s too masculine and physically strong dispite being a girl (like myself) might look at ABO and go “Oh, I’m not out of place, I’m just more ‘Alpha’-like”. Or “I’m not average. I’m a Beta”, lol @betasverse is gonna kill me for this one.

Generally I don’t encourage this form of coping mechanism, or any form of coping mechanisms by that matter. I personally think that you should face reality as it is and try not to run away from it using short cuts and made up explanations. But if this is what gave you the initial kick or what’s helping you in the process of coming into yourself all the power to you my dude. Just try not to get too lost in it okay?

{Kinks}

And last but not least, you might just be into this sort of stuff. A lot of ABO is not plot related AT ALL. It’s just pure porn without plot and the bliss of dirty-dirty kinks. And Hey what’s wrong with that? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We all got something that turns us on. If yours is people in heat and the whole submissive-dominant, Mpreg or any other things going on in ABO, go ahead children. Have all the fun. And if someone tells you it’s wrong to “fetishize” this or that, just tell them to shove it up their butt. Cause this is a stupid word anyways and what you do in the privacy of your home with yourself or any other consenting person is nobody’s fucking business but your own.

There’s also other things like family Dyncamics you’d like to see incorporated to your ship. Or you think some tropes within Omegaverse are cute and think it would suit your OTP very nicely, etc. But I think I tackled all the main ones already, and if we are to analyse every fucking reason we’ll be here forever. So there you go people. The answer for “but why Omegaverse of all things?”.

If you’re curious about any of the things I said here and want to see them be put in practice I suggest looking up mine and all the other ABO content creators here on tumblr and on ao3. Here’s a master list you can use for the tumblr ones. And here some good ABO fics with interesting concepts as a starting point if you’re new to the whole thing (a fair warning tho, most of them are incomplete and in permanent hiatus).

#omegaverse #abo #alpha beta omega #explaining the whole trope #and fascination with the subject #the why for abo #ptp originals #pack-the-pack answers #pack-the-pack explains

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edge1outdooradvertisingsoftware · 5 years ago

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3 reasons to move your OOH business from excel to software

“We need a dedicated outdoor advertising media system!”

“There are so many Excel sheets, I can’t keep up with them all!”

“What’s my current media availability?”

“Can you share that Google Sheet with me again? I can’t find it anywhere!”

“Are we sure this data is accurate?”

“There has got to be a better way to manage our out-of-home business.”

Have you found yourself thinking one of these things or something like it? Maybe you’ve even said these things out loud to your team. We truly feel your pain!

There’s nothing worse than knowing you need a better system and simply not knowing where to start or even have the time to put something together because you’re just trying to keep up.

Maybe you’ve thought that there really isn’t another option and your entire outdoor advertising business with a mix of static and digital inventory has to run on Excel or Google Sheets. The truth is, if your entire business is running on a spreadsheet, it may be time to consider one dedicated platform for all your OOH business processes.

Spreadsheets are bad for your business. Ready to find out why?

1. You can’t afford all the mistakes

According to Market Watch, up to 88% of spreadsheets contain errors. If you think about it, it’s not really that surprising they’re compiled by humans after all.

Spreadsheets make it easy to create errors, a simple mistake like misplacing a decimal point can result in huge errors in accounting. Meanwhile, Excel has no way of checking whether all the figures match with real results. Excel is simply a medium to contain your data and doesn’t permit analyzing the information in depth.

The situation’s made worse by the tendency of the out-of-home advertising businesses to rely on manual data entry. Employees copy and paste media sites information from one spreadsheet to another, and merge records together. Each of these processes has the potential to introduce errors to spreadsheets and will end up costing your business lots of money.

Interesting Read: You want to increase your sales? Say no tOOH spreadsheet

So what’s the alternative?

Using OOH web-based software, Edge1 means that your records are updated instantly. You completely avoid the danger of cut-and-paste errors. Since everyone in your company has access to the same information, you don’t have to spend time wondering if there’s a newer version of your spreadsheets stored on someone else’s computer.

Online spreadsheet tools ensure that you always have the latest data in front of you as there’s only one version of the document.

2. Getting accurate insights is difficult

Advertising business relies on insights from patterns and trends to recognize opportunities and reduce costs.

Which stage of a process is my client’s campaign running?

Which lead is due-to follow?

Which media locations are most profitable?

You want answers to these kinds of questions. If your out-of-home advertising business data is stored across multiple spreadsheets, you have to work very hard to draw insights from your data.

With Edge1 Outdoor Media Management Software you no longer need to scroll through dozens of different Excel spreadsheets looking for vital information. Instead, you can find it all with just a few clicks.

Interesting Read: Are your competitors growing in a much faster way than you? Want to know what you can do differently to win over them?

3. You waste hours of time each month

Microsoft Excel started as a tool, meant to improve business efficiency. It’s certainly a nice upgrade from handling your company’s accounting and data on paper. But is the spreadsheet method still relevant today?

With Edge1 Software, you can collect your data and generate a financial analysis report, a sales report, or an overview of the budgets, in a few clicks. You no longer need to apply complex Excel formulas to calculate your media occupancy percentage or track sales performance.

The best way to quickly get an overview of your business’s performance is to get an Edge1’s Business Intelligence Dashboard.

Edge1 is Better to manage your OOH Advertising Business!

If you’ve run into these barriers and experienced the frustrations we outlined above, it might be time to consider Edge1. We’d love to help you! It all starts with a completely free demonstration session. Schedule one anytime, right here

#edge1foradtech edge1user edge1connect edge1software edge1platform Edge1 OOHSoftware sales accounts operations acquisition finances DOOH OOH

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wsiebizsolutions · 5 years ago

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Facebook vs. Instagram: Which is Right for Your Business?

As you delve into exploring the world of social media for your business, I’m sure these questions have crossed your mind: “Which platforms should I use?” and “How do I know which social media platform is right for my business?”

Before you get ahead of yourself and leap onto one or multiple social media platforms for your business, it’s key to establish your business’ marketing goals first. If you don’t have set goals and objectives for your marketing strategy, it’s a lot harder to achieve social media success in 2018.

In this blog post, we will be looking at Facebook and Instagram, and which of the two social media platforms is right for your business.

Now you may be thinking “Oh, nobody uses Facebook anymore. The only people on Facebook are my parents and their friends showing off pictures from the cruise they went on last summer. So of course Instagram is the way to go right?” or “All the millenials are on Instagram, so I totally should choose Instagram for my business.”

Before you jump to these conclusions, let’s take a look at this Facebook vs. Instagram debate. We will be exploring the strengths and weaknesses of both platforms from a business standpoint, and how you can determine which platform is right for your needs. Chances are you may have the capacity to implement both platforms into your business’ marketing strategy. However, it is completely okay if you decide to only choose one over the other.

I’m not here to tell you that one platform is better than the other. I will let you decide which platform is right for your business once you’ve reached the end of this post.

Facebook

Facebook currently has over 2 billion monthly active users, and there’s no doubt that more and more businesses are considering Facebook for their business’ marketing efforts. With such an endless audience to market to, Facebook is definitely a platform many strive to be present on.

However, you may be well aware that Facebook has been through a lot over the past few years. With the misinformation scandal Facebook faced last year, as well as the scrutiny from the media and the public, what does that mean for the future of marketing? As Facebook continues on the road to recovery, the future of marketing is only looking brighter from here.

Despite this bump in the road, it doesn’t change the fact that Facebook is probably one of the top social media platforms for businesses.

Facebook Strengths

Increased Brand Awareness Looking to build your online presence? Look no further because increased brand awareness is one of the many benefits that come along with choosing Facebook for your business. Facebook can help you build your brand loyalty. With over 2 billion users on this platform, the opportunities to reach a wider audience are endless. As a result, more brand awareness means more (potential) customers!

Efficient Communication Channel

In any relationship, communication is key. Whether it be with your significant other, family, friends, coworkers, you name it. As a business, building a strong relationship with your customer base is no different. Ideally, you also want to understand why your customers want to chat and how it can change your business. Luckily, Facebook is an efficient channel of communication. It is an excellent platform to post announcements and engage with your customer base. Many businesses even look to Facebook as an interactive platform for customer service.

Effective Targeting

Another unique feature about Facebook for business is that it allows you to target specific demographics. This is particularly useful when you’re setting up targeted ads or if you’re considering boosting your Facebook posts. If you’re looking to grow your following and reach a wider customer base, Facebook allows you to set specific parameters and target by region, gender, age, social activity, and pretty much anything else you can think of!

Drives Website Traffic

Smart social media marketers will most likely use Facebook as way to drive traffic to their websites. This is another strength of choosing Facebook for your business. It is easy to include links on posts because Facebook’s full-width thumbnails are have a high likelihood of being clicked. As a result, you can easily link to blog posts, articles and other pages from your website. Market Research and Facebook Insights

Facebook is also a great platform to conduct market research. Interested in seeing how you’re performing against your competitors? You can easily see what your competitors are up to on Facebook and tailor your social media marketing strategy to maintain a competitive edge. Facebook Page Insights also comes in handy when conducting market research because it is an effective tool for you to gather information on your page viewers. This gives you a better understanding of demographic you are reaching.

Facebook Weaknesses

Time and Resources

Setting up a Facebook page for your business takes time. At the beginning stages, you can’t expect people to like or follow your page right away. Keep in mind that you get what you put into it. With that being said, maintaining your business’ Facebook page also takes time. It’s not as simple as you think, and you have to take into account that whoever is managing your Facebook pages is knowledgeable about the platform. You might need to consider hiring someone who has to experience to drive your marketing efforts forward on Facebook.

Budget

If you want to make the most out of Facebook for your business and take your social media marketing to the next level, setting aside an allocated budget to spend on Facebook advertisements is key. It’s also important to understand why social ads should be part of your marketing strategy. However, it may not be feasible for some businesses because not everyone can afford spending for social media.

Dealing With Negative Feedback

Just like in our everyday lives, we can’t expect to be liked by everyone. There will be instances where you’ll have to deal with negative feedback on Facebook. People may criticize you and disagree with you. In these situations, maintaining a degree of professionalism is crucial.

Instagram

It’s crazy to see how much Instagram has evolved over the past few years. Nowadays, more and more businesses are exploring Instagram as a medium to expand their social media marketing efforts. Instagram recently launched its Business Account in 2016, providing business users with tools to help understand their current and prospective customers. According to Instagram, there are over 25 million business profiles worldwide, and I have a feeling that this number will continue to rise. Moreover, over 2 million advertisers are now using Instagram to share their stories and drive their business results.

Instagram Strengths

Visuals, Visuals, Visuals!

Instagram is strictly a visual platform, which is one of the strengths that separates Instagram from other social media platforms. Instagram is solely comprised of photos and videos, providing opportunities to ignite your marketing campaigns. Video content especially is becoming increasingly popular on Instagram right now – so popular that there has been an 80% increase in the time spent watching video content on Instagram. Ultimately, this social media platform provides a highly visual experience for its users.

Increased Brand Awareness

Similar to Facebook, Instagram helps businesses increase their brand awareness. The use of hashtags are extremely popular, and is one of the driving forces for businesses and brands looking to be discovered by a wider audience. There’s no doubt that Instagram has undergone many updates and launched new features one after another in recent years. Features such as Instagram Stories and now IGTV gives rise to more opportunities for businesses to promote their brand, product, or service.

Collaborate With Influencers

Instagram has transformed into a hub for influencers looking for opportunities to collaborate with different brands and businesses. As the number of influencers on Instagram continue to grow, businesses should take this as an opportunity increase their brand exposure. Many businesses are already hopping on this trend, such as beauty and fitness brands.

Instagram Weaknesses

Instagram Algorithm

Instagram’s changing algorithm has caused a whole lot of mixed feelings over the past few years. “Why are my posts not showing up on some users’ feeds?” Remember when the posts on your Instagram feed appeared in reverse-chronological order? This is one of the main challenges you may face if you decide to adapt this social media platform for your business. Every time the algorithm changes, you’ll need to reevaluate and alter your existing Instagram strategy (e.g. when to post).

Difficult to Drive Traffic to Website

Unlike Facebook, it is a little more difficult to drive traffic to your website using a social media platform like Instagram. While you can easily directly link to different webpages with each Facebook post, Instagram has not gotten to the stage yet where they’ve enabled clickable links for their posts. Other than the “swipe up” option for Instagram stories and the link in your bio, businesses are unable to use clickable links in their posts. If you include a link, users would have to copy and paste the URL into their web browser.

Targeting Specific Audiences May Be Difficult

Instagram is a social platform that is mainly dominated by a younger age demographic, typically by millennials or Generation Z. Although there are older users on Instagram, it may be worth considering if Instagram is worth the investment for your business if your target audience is much older. Because chances are, they might not even have Instagram.

At the end of the day, neither platform is better than the other. Both Instagram and Facebook have strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, it all comes down to which of the two platforms you think aligns best with your marketing strategy and your business objectives and goals. If you’re having a hard time deciding how to enter the world of social media, or which platforms to use, we’d love to discuss your social media marketing strategy with you.

WSI was founded in 1995 and is an innovative digital marketing agency with offices in over 80 countries. We’ve spent over 20 years helping more than 100,000 companies and large global brands unlock the full potential of their business by leveraging the Internet and its many unrecognized opportunities. We’d be happy to help do the same for you and consult on your digital marketing strategy. Simply give me a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more.

The post Facebook vs. Instagram: Which is Right for Your Business? appeared first on WSI eBiz Solutions.

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element-effect-blog · 6 years ago

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Timing is everything.

When it pertains to brand-new product or services, we tend to hold back up until it is more established to try it, but often using an early phase tool can offer you some terrific advantages on top of those offered straight by it.

The biggest is having the opportunity to form what the final tool will appear like.

New item groups tend to be really open up to feedback and have fast version cycles. Your feedback could assist shape a tool into something that could be much more beneficial to your business.

On top of that, you can typically get an excellent discount rate by registering early. Often that discount can even suggest complimentary services for a prolonged duration.

This month, I have actually found some excellent new tools that can replace or contribute to your marketing arsenal that, at the time of this writing, are providing outstanding introductory prices (or totally free access)!

This short article belongs to our IMPACT Toolbox series.

With IMPACT Tool kit, we talk about all of the current (and even underrated) marketing tools that you require to try. We make suggestions by classification, assisting you find out what tool is best for your scenario, and introduce you to tools you may not have actually become aware of otherwise.

Have concerns about a marketing tool, whether or not we've evaluated it?

Reach out to us and we'll see how we can help.

Today we're going to look at:

1. engageLively - Interactive Content Backed by Analytics

Rate: Free while in Beta

As marketers, we know the power of the big three content mediums: text, audio, and video. Each serves a series of purposes and they feed into one another

to help construct a strong, cohesive interaction platform with your audience

. How does your audience engage

with that material? With text, they read. Perhaps click a link, share a snippet with their audience, or remark below an article. While incredibly useful and effective, this is a mainly passive medium. With audio, they listen.

One of the factors podcasts are so huge is since individuals can listen while doing something else. Like text, you can motivate someone to take action or hope that they do something with the details you offer, but at the end of the day, still a passive medium.

Video altered the video game.

Here's something that might really clinch attention for some time period, integrating text and audio with effective visuals.

With some tools like Vidyard or Wistia, we can see for how long someone watches a video, when viewership drops off, or include a call-to-action near completion so we understand someone viewed the whole video and wishes to take the next action.

But what if that video is open in another tab? Or they pushed play, and stepped far from their computer? How do you know someone is really engaging with your video?

Like the other mediums, it's tough to understand what part of your video material really stuck with someone, or where they found the most worth.

That's the problem engageLively is attempting to fix.

By taking the big three content mediums and including interactivity, now we can get a much deeper understanding of our audience and what is essential to them.

You can respond to concerns like:

For how long did somebody engage with this piece of content?

Which pieces did they engage with the most?

What part of the interaction were they in when they clicked the call-to-action?

What actions did someone go through in the past striking send on this calculator?

engageLively is a platform where you can build interactive material and track how individuals utilize that material. Your material is made up of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so there are no unique tools or players needed.

Some examples of content produced on their platform consist of:

You may be believing,"My developers can do all of this for me right

now ... why would I utilize another platform?"You're asking the ideal questions. As a developer, material like this is absolutely possible, however unless

your dev group is setup to manage customized tool builds, you're starting mostly from scratch each time. And then when they're built, you'll need to establish tracking for all of

the interactions. Manageable, but hard. Another way to think about engageLively is as a platform for interactive content, comparable to how Vidyard is a platform for video. Your developers could setup a server to host your videos, and build in tracking and call-to-actions, and so on. But opportunities are you are not going to do that (that's a decision you require to make for your business).

Establishing an account is easy (and complimentary while they're in beta).

As soon as you login, you're welcomed with a blank page and some current projects (populated for you if it's your very first login). You can delve into some other tasks to see how things work, or go back to square one.

It's definitely more developer-friendly today, however as long as you comprehend a little

code, you'll be great messing around. And they are actively searching for feedback, so if you run into a problem or have a concern, you'll be able to get a response.

In addition to the sample projects, you can view tutorial videos for getting set up and they're rumored to be beginning routine screencasts where they'll walk through standard and sophisticated setups.

It would take a lot longer to go through a full-blown tutorial. But when you register, you'll get an e-mail with the alternative to Book Your Free Demo. Benefit from that while you can get individually face time with their team!

2. Zag.ai - Artificial Intelligence for Your SEO

Cost: Currently $99/mo with introductory prices, Lite strategy coming in a few months

: 600px; screen: block; margin: 0px automobile;">

I can hear your ideas from here.

Not another SEO tool ... Morgan, please! Just hang on, listen. What comes to mind

when you think about SEO tools? Big control panels, lots of individual tools, and loads of information to comb through. Checking numerous keywords and their variations, cross-checking against other sources. It's a full-time task (quite literally).

Zag.ai is taking that workflow and offering it a much-needed increase with Artificial Intelligence.

You have my attention.

There are 3 main product classifications:

Market Research study

Traffic & & Link Sources

Analytics and Insights

Market Research study

In Marketing research, you'll find tools for maintaining and staying ahead of your market. Things like:

appearing the finest carrying out content around the web in the last thirty days (blog sites, e-mail headlines, ad copy, etc)

scanning news media so you can leap on the news as quickly as it breaks (newsjacking)

showing rival traffic by keyword and page, and

a keyword tool that offers you topic ideas and audiences from a single keyword (based on "zooming out" to find associated topics, interests, people, and organizations

These basic jobs can probably be finished with your present SEO tools and some manual work on your part-- However who has time for that?

Traffic & & Link Sources

The tools in Traffic & & Link Sources will assist you:

Find current discussions around the internet for your target keywords, so you can jump in with your own material shortly after it was requested for

Check how your rivals are getting promotion, links, and traffic ("Great artists take")

Targeting search traffic that has clicked Google's first page of results and setting up advertisements for the keywords that would strike those pages

These are probably a little harder to do with your current set of tools.

The key here is timeliness. Emerging conversations that are no longer top of mind (like looking for them after the reality in your social network of choice) may refrain from doing you any great. This can even provide exact same day traffic if you can capture engagement at the correct time.

Analytics & & Insights Analytics & & Insights is Zag.ai's largest collection of tools.

With these, you'll have the ability to:

Discover opportunities to increase search traffic based upon your current search console

Identify what material is finest performing for conversion, what turns visitors into consumers

Know which channels are best for your service, including clients, earnings, and fastest sales cycle

Geo-target your finest users, which is one of the simplest ways to bump ROI on your paid channels

Identify your crucial influencers that have audiences that reacted well to your material or offering

Instead of the other classifications which manage external sources, these tools are all about getting more out of what you currently know. Similar to a few of the very best and easiest earnings originates from the clients you currently have, a few of the very best insights originate from the data you already have.

As of composing this post, Zag.ai has a 14-day totally free trial prior to their basic $99/month plan (initial pricing, will be $129/month later), however there is also a Lite strategy coming within a couple of months.

The Lite strategy just has access to five apps at a time and has a couple of other constraints, but might be a great way to get your feet wet for quite inexpensive.

3. Intravert - Monetize Your Community with Ads You Control

Cost: $0/mo +7.5% charge per deal, or $49/mo +2.5% per transaction (plus Stripe costs for both)

Do you currently use Google AdSense to monetize your website material? Or would you like to monetize your site

material however have not found a solution yet? Intravert is a prospective revenue opportunity for your organisation by offering custom ad space based on what you authorize. There's no algorithm behind the scenes or required styling from another brand; you select how an ad looks, where it is, and who books that space.

Today, there are just a few personalization options. Advertisements can be text, image/banners, or a mix. They can have some default styling used, or be completely adjustable.

The 2 default positionings are:

Banner - which beings in the sidebar or as part of your content

Sticky box- drifts on top of your content; an example being a"hey there bar" The sign up procedure is relatively fast and includes connecting Stripe for payments. After you register,

you'll get access to your own control panel, where you can setup Advertisement areas around your site. You will need to drop 2 lines of code approximately where you would like the advertisement to show on your site (some customized styling can look after the

rest). For each ad positioning, you'll set up a placeholder that will reveal when the space is not booked.

When a possible marketer clicks that, they'll be taken to a reserving screen with timeframes, advertisement details, and payment details. When they complete the kind, you will get an email notifying you of the request and you can confirm or deny the positioning (depending upon what you want to show your audience).

A crucial note: this reservation is by ad area, not internationally on your site. So, unless you set this up as a worldwide component(very same code for multiple put on your site), then the advertiser will only reserve on one page. You must specify that in your placeholder text so advertisers know exactly what they're asking for to book.

Intravert is complimentary to begin, with a deal fee of 7.5% applied in addition to Stripe fees. There's also a premium choice that costs $49/month which reduces the Intravert cost to 2.5% and has some extra functions like a tailored checkout process.

Whether you use Intravert most likely comes down to how you are monetizing your content (it at all).

If you have an advancement team that can manage your own variation of native advertisements or if your content drives earnings for you in another method, then Intravert might not be a terrific fit, but if you have some stable traffic and an audience that would take advantage of advertising curated by you, then give Intravert a try.

4. GrowSurf - Unlock the Power of Refer-a-Friend Marketing

Cost: Free prepare for basic functions, Paid beginning at $66/month (but complimentary while in Beta)

: 600px; display: block; margin: 0px vehicle;"> I should admit, this one is pretty interesting. When GrowSurf was initially revealed over a year earlier, I took it for a test drive and discovered it to be fast and easy to get started with referral marketing

. And now it's back with some huge upgrades for Version 2.

GrowSurf is a refer-a-friend marketing tool that helps you give benefits to individuals for referring others to your site/product and gives you full tracking abilities throughout that process.

There are four kinds of recommendation benefit programs you can setup:

Single-sided - this is when you reward someone for referring a pal (ex. Get $10 for each recommendation who purchases something)

Double-sided - reward both people for a recommendation (ex. Send a $20 credit to a buddy and get $10 when they buy)

Turning point - rewards based upon specific referral milestones (ex. Refer 2 individuals and get a branded bag, 5 individuals and get a complimentary ticket to our occasion, etc )

Leaderboard - reward the top referrer(s) for your campaign (ex. Go up the early access list with more recommendations)

The project setup process has a nice walkthrough of all the alternatives you have, consisting of:

various benefit types

design of the share widget and recommendation screen overlay

emails that will follow up

additional options (like Zapier, referral credit window, etc)

campaign setup on your website

Each phase has some examples and/or tips, so even if you're coming up blank you'll get a little jumpstart.

After a campaign is published, you'll have access to a project dashboard.

This shows all your analytics such as Impressions, Individuals, and Referrals. Plus crucial metrics and the individuals in your campaign.

Here's a take a look at more of the basic features:

GrowSurf was created because their team desired a tool that was fairly low-cost (with a complimentary option), was easy to plug in to your current website/product, and had a strong feature set.

They weren't able to discover a tool like that on the marketplace, so they constructed their own. And simply to prove their point, they made a mega list of the other recommendation program tools so you can compare to your heart's material.

While there is a totally free alternative, you'll want to pay to get more campaigns and email credits. As of this writing, there is a 14-day trial and after that 100% open door during the beta. You'll just need to fill out a feedback questionnaire to request your free access (you can email [email protected] to ask for that).

Save On These Tools & & Assist Forming Their Future

Get in while the getting is excellent!

All of these tools are early phase so you'll have the chance to enjoy their rewards, aid form their future, and secure free or terrific initial pricing.

Did you find something beneficial in our round-up? Let us know how one of these tools assisted improve your business in EFFECT Elite! And if there's a specific tool you have concerns about, let us understand and we'll see if we can help you figure out the finest choice for you.

This content was originally published here.

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stringnarratives · 6 years ago

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An Act of Shelf Discovery

[This post brought to you spoiler free and full of the blogger’s personal experience!]

In my third-ever post on this blog on March 23, 2017, I wrote about making the switch from physical books to e-books. For someone who loved (and still loves) the sensory aspect of physical books, it was a daunting challenge, but a necessary one: At the time, I would go on average 6 months between moves, had three shelves at my consistent disposal, and more books than I could count. Books lived in piles next to my bed, were stored in boxes in the closet, were forced upon my brother (who is also an avid supporter of this blog and probably reading this post: In which case, hi!) under the guise of “recommendations” so they could live in his space instead of mine.

Fast forward two years and that habit has set in hard - I purchase between 85 and 90 percent of my books digitally now, even though some of the circumstances that made it necessary have thankfully expired (For the record, infrequent moving is an absolute joy!). In addition to a more compact, generally cheaper library that I abuse less and finish more, e-books have also contributed strongly to another new book-buying habit I’ve developed: Preordering.

In 2019, I made it a goal to learn more about my own literary consumption by forgoing the majority of traditional book shopping and preordering any new release that piqued my interest. Tracking each of my pre-purchases via color-coded spreadsheet (as one does, and indeed, must), I’ve thrown myself full-force into the new, and learned a lot in the process, both about the function of preorders in the publishing industry and about my own taste in literature.

The Purpose of Preorders

Before this experiment, my main experience with pre-orders had been primarily in relation to video games (I’m a sucker for midnight release downloads directly to my console) or limited edition media that I’m unlikely to procure without being proactive. I didn’t really know much about them beyond the consumer perspective, but being the chronic researcher I (clearly) am, I wanted to know what my new purchasing habit meant in greater context.

To break it down, preorders serve two main purposes in the publishing industry. They are A) a promotional tool for authors and publishers to build hype for a book before it’s released and B) an indicator for stores to properly respond to a book’s demand.

A preorder’s promotional value could come from a few different avenues. As pre-order sales contribute to the release week sales total for a book (as mentioned in this Parnassus Musings post), they can be valuable fuel for books that rocket to the top of bestseller lists. For first time or less well-known authors, having a preorder page automatically create an additional searchable content and feeling of legitimacy for books in the promotional phase. The more people who pre-order the book are also potentially more people who would share about their pre-order with their friends.

For established authors, preorders often come from existing fans of a series or the author themselves, and serve as an indicator as to the activity of the existing fanbase, efficiency of an author’s platform for communicating with fans, as well as their interest in new work.

In 2016, the written script of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” became Amazon’s No. 1 preorder for the year, according to CNET, and topped Barnes & Noble’s chart as well, according to Rolling Stone. While the exact number of preorders was apparently not released, it makes complete sense that the number would be a big one. Pottermore (which Wikipedia describes as a “digital publishing, e-commerce, entertainment, and news company from J. K. Rowling” not limited to the popular virtual Hogwarts experience) released a bulletin early last year that over 500 million Harry Potter books had been sold in the 20 years since the first book’s release.

In addition to their promotional function, preorders also serve as an indicator for a book’s popularity upon release. In a 2017 blog post to authors about the importance of pre-orders, Penguin Random House stresses that a high enough preorder number could “lead to retailers increasing their initial orders.” Last November, Barnes & Noble reported former first lady Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” to be the most preordered book of 2018, according to The Washington Post. This article in particular points out how booksellers prepare for a book’s popularity based on a preorder buzz, “bracing” for enormous numbers of books to fly off the shelves by bulking up their orders ahead of time.

Preorders are a function of marketing in the publishing industry - an opportunity to get readers in the door early, and get them to talk about a book before its release. In return, readers get discounts, bonuses, the satisfaction of knowing they’ll be one of the first members of the public to receive the work, and, very occasionally, some insight into who they are as readers.

Getting Shelf-ish

In the four-ish months (at time of writing), around 22 books have come to me through the preorder method. With 13 books total read so far this year, about 7 of them were preorders, both they and the books between them have plenty to tell about how I read.

My taste is more consistent in concept than it is in practice.

Anyone who’s stuck around String Narratives long enough will know that, across mediums, I’m big on a few genres: Science fiction, horror and satire, primarily. When I started preordering books as a part of this experiment, I thought it pretty safe to assume that if a book fell into one of those categories, there was a good chance I’d enjoy it. Which, for the record, probably still holds true.

But one thing that I did notice early on in this experiment and didn’t expect at all was that I very, very quickly get bored with my own taste. I can get ahold of too much science fiction at once, too much horror. Both genres can get absolutely exhausting without a break between them - breaks I took naturally when purchasing books in a more traditional fashion without realizing. So, for all of those winter sci-fi reads I was so excited about started losing their appeal, I found myself turning to much different fare as a palate cleanser: YA fiction, books about food, and biography - three genres much lower on my radar which I ended up enjoying just as much.

Access to books is rarely the thing that keeps me from reading.

It is what it says on the tin. Where I’d previously easily blamed “not having anything to read” (a concept laughable to anyone who knows me, much less has lived with me and my books) for a lack of desire to consume printed work, I have to now own up to my truth. As books are on a similar mid-week release schedule as most other popular media, I get at least one book delivered to my e-reader most Tuesdays, which means there is always something to read. If I don’t want to read, it’s simply because I don’t feel like it. (Which is totally okay! Life happens and we roll with it.)

My library is built from recommendations.

Recommendations and reviews are my bread and butter when it comes to choosing what kind of media I want to ingest, and not always in the way you think. I typically rely on others to help discern the true atmosphere of a work when I’m easily caught up in cover art and promotional images. While books in the promotional stage are less likely to have a significant number of reviews, I still rely fairly heavily on Advance Reader Copy (ARC) reviews to estimate how much I’ll enjoy a book before preordering. Adding onto that, I get a lot of my book news from online outlets specifically dedicated to new book releases, including Verge’s monthly round-up of science fiction books and Book Riot’s whole entire site.

My new release discovery time is anywhere between 1 month and 10 months.

Was I absolutely stoked to find out that my book of the year 2018 - Semiosis by Sue Burke - was getting a sequel? I absolutely was. Did I preorder that sequel nine months and 11 days before it’s projected to come out? I absolutely did. For authors I already know, love and follow, I’m happy to be that fan that lets everyone know I’ve already made the preorder. For authors I’m less familiar with, or who are debuting their first book, that ten month window might actually shrink to something more like ten days. It isn’t a hard and fast rule, but there certainly is something to being in the know when it comes to favorite authors’ upcoming releases - a result of great communication and even better marketing.

The narratives we consume say a lot about us. They speak to our loves, our fears, the places we want to go between the hours of our waking lives. We pass them along to those around us, intentionally or not.

But as we become consistently more aware of how the stories around us shape our lives and mature in our understanding of how they fit into the world, we must also, I believe, recognize something else: The way we acquire narratives says just as much about us as the stories we choose to slip into.

#topics #preorders #books #book #ebooks #topic #preorder #a horrifying pun title

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torontocomicsanthology · 8 years ago

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Stephanie Cooke on Collaboration and Pitching Comics to Media

The Toronto Comics Anthology has always been an ongoing platform to showcase veteran as well as up-and-coming creators. In addition to featuring work from unpublished writers and artists in our fourth volume (now on Kickstarter), we conducted a series of short interviews to share helpful tips and insights with new creators.

Stephanie Cooke is the Editor-in-chief of Rogue's Portal, a contributor to Secret Loves of Geek Girls, and a 2016 Millarworld New Talent winner.

What about the city inspires you? Or shapes your writing?

Steph: There are such passionate communities within the city and it's the absolute best to know that there are people around me who appreciate all the same things that I do. If I'm looking for something to do on any day of the week, there's something happening. If I want to just go explore, there's always a part of the city that I haven't been to. Toronto is growing and changing and is just a much a person as anyone else; the city has so many stories to tell.

I love writing in a cafe or pub while I sit by a window. It seems cliche, but people watching and imagining everyone's story helps give the characters I'm writing more depth and life.

What was the hardest thing about getting into comics?

Steph: The hardest thing for me was writing only what I needed to and remembering that it's a collaborative medium. You have to trust your artist to tell the story so you need to allow them the creative freedom to do as they see fit, as much as possible.

That and resisting the urge to go back and correct stuff in previous issues. Wanting to edit and change and tweak things after the fact is a ridiculous urge that I think anyone writing episodically faces.

All in all, telling stories in comic book form has actually been incredible for my writing. It's been very rewarding to me so far to tell big stories that I've always wanted to tell and getting it all down on the page. For me, it's a lot easier to pace a comic than to write, say, a novel and a lot less daunting.

What are you working on right now?

Steph: SO MANY THINGS!!!! ...she says half jokingly. I love projects and working on creative endeavors so anytime an opportunity to do something new and exciting comes up, I jump at the chance. I wrote a radio play in 2016 and that's going to continue in 2017 with a new original we'll be performing at some point.

In addition to my story with Shawn Daley for Toronto Comics (I am SO excited to be working with Shawn!), I have a story coming out in another anthology called Blocked, about bad dating experiences, I'm writing a mini-series that will hopefully turn into a reality at some point next year and then there are a couple things that I can't talk about just yet. SECRETS!

What comics or trends in comics would you like to see next year?

Steph: I jumped for joy when they announced a queer latina woman writing a queer latina character (the new America Chavez comic from Marvel). I want more of THAT. Not specifically queer latina writers/characters (although that would be awesome) but rather, I want diverse stories being told by diverse creators. Not only do I WANT that, but I truly believe it's the step forward that comic books need.

As an editor at Rogues Portal, could you share some advice for marketing your comic to journalists?

Steph: That site is my baby and I take pride in the fact that we do our absolute best to give a voice to indie creators trying to get their work out there. The best advice I can offer is this:

1) Read the review guidelines in a Contact/About/FAQ page. Most sites will say where you can send review copies or press releases regarding your project, so if such a thing is in place, make sure you adhere to those rules, otherwise you run the risk of your email being deleted before it's even opened.

2) If you're sending your work out to a specific site that you love and you're familiar with a couple of the reviewers, pick one to zero in on and contact them personally. Don't send a form letter, just reach out and level with them: ie. "I'm a big fan of the reviews you do on ______. I'm currently trying to promote my new comic, which is being released on ______ and I was wondering if you might be interested in covering it. I can provide a PDF, preview pages or I can answer some questions if you'd like to do an interview. Here's a little synopsis _______________. Let me know if you might be interested."

Keep it relatively short and sweet but get in the important information. Offer up other ways a site could cover it besides a review. Sites LOVE being able to say WE HAVE AN EXCLUSIVE! so pitch something cool that could bring in traffic and is beneficial to everyone involved.

3) DON'T send pitches through Twitter DMs and such. If you want to go that route, ask for the appropriate email so you can contact someone that way.

4) And this isn't so much to journalists as a general tip: BE. ON. SOCIAL. MEDIA. You might not like it, but unless you're Brian K. Vaughan, you're not going to get anywhere if you don't have an online presence of any sort. Twitter and Facebook are tools you absolutely NEED to succeed as a creator. My best advice there is that if you don't know how to use social media, have someone teach you or look up articles (this sounds silly, but really it's so helpful).

For more from Stephanie, find her on Twitter or at her website.

If you enjoyed this interview, please consider supporting independent comic creators in the Toronto Comics Anthology: Yonge at Heart, on Kickstarter until March 30th.

#makingcomics #interview #stephaniecooke #marketingcomics

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brianobrienny · 5 years ago

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Successful Drip Marketing Examples and What You Can Learn from Them

You might think that email drip marketing is kind of old-school. After all, they’ve been around practically as long as email itself.

How well does email drip marketing work?. Really well, it turns out.

Drip marketing’s heady blend of old-fashioned sales letters (think Claude Hopkins) and high-tech personalization can convert like nothing else.

Email itself has proven to be a consistent conversion driver. Over the last five years, its conversion rate has varied only about three percentage points.

Image courtesy of Barilliance

It’s so effective that for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you’re likely to earn $38 in revenue for your efforts.

Drip campaigns shift those positive results even more in your favor.

Email drip marketing, therefore, is an essential component of your content marketing strategy.

Drip marketing is a form of email marketing in which you send several emails to people in target customer segments at precisely timed intervals.

A drip marketing campaign’s endpoint can either be a sale, a request for a consultation, or another goal you want to reach.

Drip campaign recipients are those people who have already expressed enough interest in your brand to have signed up to become email subscribers. That fact helps drive its effectiveness.

That’s why it pays to study those campaigns that have experienced incredible success. Here are a few of our favorites.

Quick Takeaways:

To create successful email drip marketing campaigns, you need to:

Define the customer segment you intend to reach.

Research that segment’s needs, pain points, and other characteristics.

State the goal for your campaign.

Create effective content that informs, builds trust, and engages your recipients.

1. Drip Emails That Educate

The copy in drip marketing needs to be sharp yet sincere. it needs to provide value. And, the recipient should feel as if you really want to improve their day and solve their biggest challenges.

That’s why my ultimate favorite types of drip emails are those that teach recipients. These emails can be anything from a series of how-to videos with written instructions or inside information that helps them solve a challenging problem.

The point is to provide recipients with value over and above the effort it takes to open and read all the emails in a series.

The non-profit watchdog group, The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), needed to grow awareness, as well as its subscriber list. Since one of its main goals is to expose abuses of power, they decided to create a course about what to do if subscribers need to blow the whistle on an employer or a government agency.

Digging down into their target audience’s needs, they discovered one of their recipients’ pain points. Not surprisingly, given the organization’s mission, there was a segment of their audience who had to deal with abuse of power.

With that audience segment, the campaign would likely be a success. Here’s the takeaway: It pays to research your subscribers. It might take extra time, but it’s well worth investing in.

Educational email drip campaigns are excellent choices for B2B and non-profit organizations. With their interest in a long-term relationship with whom they do business, it’s always a good bet to provide valuable information to potential and current clients.

2. Holiday Email Drip Marketing Campaigns

“Everybody does these,” you say. “Aren’t everyone’s inboxes crowded with them around the holidays?”

Yes, they are. But if you have the right headline, the right copy, and the right angle, they can be real moneymakers.

They don’t have to be about holiday gifts, although they can be. Since the new year is just around the corner, both people and businesses analyze the past and plan for the future.

Trello, a project management and productivity software platform, chose the latter. With its “Twelve Days of Trello” campaign playing on the holiday favorite, it sent a set of 12 short emails to its subscribers.

With twelve actionable tips that helped recipients plan both their personal holiday activities and their business’s productivity, the drip emails were a success. The subtle message: Trello is a two-for-one tool that can help its users with both work and life.

It’s no wonder that it was so successful.

3. Cart Abandonment Email Campaigns

With today’s e-commerce technology, it’s easy to find those people who have abandoned their cart. Whether something distracted them, or they resisted the temptation to buy, they didn’t buy something they really wanted.

With Eat-n-Park’s trademark Smiley Cookies, it was likely the latter. If you’ve ever been to one of their Western Pennsylvania eateries, you’ve probably fallen in love with their frosted sugar cookie.

The cookies are now available online. Darn. And to make matters worse for cookie lovers watching their weight, when they abandon their impulse purchases, the company sends them near-irresistible emails.

The minute someone abandons their cartful of cookies, SmileyCookie.com, Eat-n-Park’s e-commerce site, sends them an email. As recipients check their email during a lunch break or while watching TV, they see the email. In full color, of course.

Then, if they don’t bite (pun intended), they receive another email in 23 hours. With a discount, no less. Who could resist?

But some budget-minded folks probably do. Four days later, they receive a final email with a larger discount. At that price, they’re probably dead gone. I know I would be.

4. Drip Campaigns for Cold Leads

A go-to email marketing tool for B2B companies and high-end B2C companies, cold lead drip campaigns are amazingly effective. InsightSquared, a revenue intelligence software company, used an innovative approach to recapture cold leads.

They created an email list segment of only cold leads. The first message asked if the contact person was available for lunch on a specific day. Those people who didn’t reply received a second message, “Are we still on for tomorrow?” the day before the suggested lunch date.

If the prospect didn’t respond to the second one, they received a final email, one that offered to reschedule if they were still interested. This type of email works best if your marketing team works hand-in-hand with your sales team.

When both teams share information, you can add more personalized messaging to the “lunch date” email. With added insights, such as mentioning feedback the prospect had during their last conversation, the campaign can become even more effective.

5. Drip Campaigns That Win Back Customers

Have you ever made a resolution (New Year’s or otherwise) to stop binge-watching the latest trendy series and start enjoying the great outdoors? Most of us probably have.

I’ll bet good money you’re now probably back in Netflix’s good graces again, thanks to their drip email campaigns that are simply irresistible.

They start the moment you cancel. Not only do they confirm your cancellation, but they also insert a clever little call to action, inviting you to restart their service.

They’d “obviously, love to have you back.” And you’re definitely considering it, with their trademark red-and-white CTA button beckoning you like a siren. After all, you just read about a new must-watch series.

But, if you didn’t take the bait, no worries. Eventually, Netflix bets, you will.

Here’s why. Over three months, the platform tantalizes you with all their newly added films and TV series, along with your past favorites. A “Play” button is all the CTA most people need to turn back into a couch potato.

The campaign ends with a final email inviting you to restart your membership. Or perhaps not. If you hold out long enough, Netflix offers you another one-month free trial.

And that’s how they got me back.

With inviting subject lines, compelling content, and the right timing, you can have similar success with your drip marketing campaigns. If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.

Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today – and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post Successful Drip Marketing Examples and What You Can Learn from Them appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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#Internet Marketing #Social Media Marketing #Email Marketing #Business

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johnmuffus · 5 years ago

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Entrepreneur Affiliates Mastery Review

Entrepreneur Affiliates Mastery Review (Anthony Alfonso Course)

Today, we’ll be going through a course by Anthony Alfonso on affiliate marketing. We’ll go through the content to help you decide whether the $997 are worth it or not. It’s not one of the cheapest courses you can get right now, but we’ll see if it’s priced at its actual value.

As usual, you can go to the bottom and find out my final verdict, or you can read on to discover its contents.

This is a course aimed towards beginners or people looking to start a business from zero with the strategies used by Anthony himself. After going through the initial setting up, the course goes into the different processes until you have a running business you can scale with Facebook Ads.

Before going into the course, let’s see who’s Anthony.

Who’s the author?

Anthony is an affiliate marketer with his own YouTube channel who claims to make constant 6 figures in income through his business with the different strategies employed, focused on paid advertising. He uses Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and even Bing Ads plus email marketing.

You’ve probably stumbled into his channel, currently circling the 10,000 subscribers mark, if you stay on top of this type of content.

His bio describes the content as a documentation of his entrepreneur and life journey through vlogs and reviews. He also has your usual videos about online entrepreneurship, focused on affiliate marketing and Amazon’s FBA program.

He usually uploads at least 1 video every week, and he has a solid color palette that identifies his videos. You can also see lots of affiliate links on his video descriptions, so he at least has some experience.

Reviewing Entrepreneur Affiliates Mastery

The course splits into 9 modules with videos on various topics. Each section ends with homework you can use to implement the different teachings he provides, and you also have access to your usual Facebook group and 3 months of email support, which is odd, considering how other courses provide the same for a lifetime.

It’s important to note how the course focuses on paid advertising, and even the author states in his FAQ how you should have a budget around $1,000 or $1,5000 for investing into the strategies provided. That adds up to the course’s initial price, making this a $2,000 or more investment if you want to apply everything taught.

Let’s go into the modules.

Intro

The course starts with a standard intro with a few videos explaining affiliate marketing and cost per action (CPA). You’re taught how this business works plus how actions work together to net you your referral commissions.

However, most people spending $1,000 on a course should at least know what affiliate marketing is. This content is also stuff you can find for free on the internet with a lot more detail, so it’s not a very strong introduction to the business.

There’s also the link to the private group for support.

Module 1

The first real module gives you the best affiliate programs you can join for finding your products, and there’s also a video explaining how you can apply and be accepted into these circles.

The other videos cover the advantages of promoting digital products with high commissions instead of physical products, and it also explains evergreen niches that are good for promoting at all times. You also learn which offers you should stay away from.

Module 2

The next module teaches you how to spy on your competitors to see what strategies are working for them. You have some videos on manual methods for this task before going into the tools you can purchase to do it for you.

The last video is on strategies you can exploit for some viral traffic.

Module 3

This module introduces you to the concept of landing pages, their functions, and how you can create them. It’s mostly building a single page website that you can use for visitors to sign up and give you leads to get information or digital bonuses like eBooks.

There are some videos on how an affiliate landing page should look, an explanation of how funnels work through value provision, and some strategies to get more conversions from your landing pages and getting your leads.

You can also see some efficient and lousy landing pages, plus how to outsource this work to someone else, but note this will also cost you.

Module 4

The next module is about tracking your promotions and see how they perform.

You learn what tracking actually is, how it works, some terminology you want to understand, and how to do your own tracking on your campaigns.

There are also some videos explaining how you can set up your custom domain and using your collected emails to track your affiliate sales.

Module 5

The 5th module is about email marketing, with a video introducing you to the strategy and how it works. You get the same knowledge from the 101 lesson here.

There are also some videos on actually setting up your campaign from zero, and you learn how to spy on your competitors again, this time to see how they run their email marketing campaigns.

You receive a few insights regarding how to successfully build your list and how a good one should look in 2 different videos, and it closes with scaling your strategy and outsourcing this task.

Module 6

This module on fan pages is the only 100% free traffic approach you’re taught in this course, and it focuses on creating them with Facebook.

The first video goes through why these pages are effective, and it then goes into setting them up and implementing bots for Messenger.

Module 7

This module offers 15 different videos covering Facebook marketing, specifically paid methods offered by the platform.

There’s content on how to use your business manager interface and how to manage your account. It explains the rules of the platform. You learn about how good and bad ads look like and what makes them so.

There are some swipe strategies before going into how to set up and use your pixels for your affiliate marketing. The next video goes into targeting your offers before another one on how these targeted (dark) posts compare to existing ones.

You learn how to set up your first ads campaign and how to optimize them. Before that, you’re taught how to create your account. As well as optimizing, you also learn when you should get rid unsuccessful campaigns, and another video goes the opposite way: when to scale successful ones and how.

There’s another video on when you should retarget them and how to do so, and it closes with how to outsource this task.

Module 8

This course makes an interesting choice going with Bing instead of Google Ads, as you might have noticed earlier in this article. There are entire courses dedicated to explaining Google Ads due to its traffic, but I guess Bing can work as well.

You have 15 more videos in this module, making it the largest section together with the Facebook Ads one.

The videos cover how Bing Ads work and what are the best offers you can use to promote with this platform. You again learn to spy on your competitors to see how they’re using it and what they’re promoting.

There are 2 lessons on copywriting: the first one goes into how you to write your ad copy, and the second one goes over keywords and how to understand the different types. There’s also a video near the end on negative keywords.

There’s a video comparing brand and broad bidding, and then there’s a video about understanding your account, but I’m not sure why this wasn’t the first or second video of the module.

You learn how to direct your links with campaigns here, and the next video focuses on merging your Bing and Facebook Ads.

Finally, you learn about how the back office works with Bing, the negative keyword video I mentioned, how to test your ads, and how to scale your campaigns.

Bonuses

There are some bonuses included, and they’re all some done-for-you marketing campaigns developed by Anthony that you can copy. Basically, you just have to leverage an already-built campaign that’s focused on the methods already discussed in this course.

You get 6 campaigns in total: 3 for Facebook and 3 for Bing, so they stick to the course material and focus.

I always advice against using templates, but I guess you can use these campaigns yourself since your audience technically isn’t seeing them. Just keep in mind everyone uses the same, and I’m not sure if Bing has any policies about these practices.

Case study

The course ends with a case study, which I guess can also work as a bonus. It’s how Alfonso started out with $0 and used his campaigns to start earning money.

Just one issue with this case study: he clearly didn’t start from $0 since he’s using paid methods strictly for this business, so don’t think this means you can jump into it without a budget and make money.

Other than that, is a fun watch, and it does provide an “inside” look into how he runs his marketing approach.

Final Verdict

Igor is a pretty good affiliate marketer, and the numbers he’s done speak for themselves and are certainly amazing. He’s not a newcomer or a fake entrepreneur, and you can see that in the way he speaks as much as you can see it on his reputation and occasional associates.

In fact, the content inside this course is actually good, but it feels like a random conglomerate of different lessons mashed together. It has good content, but it needs work on its structure, and its seeming randomness may be confusing for newcomers.

Finally, there’s a money-back guarantee, but it’s a bit of an annoying process. You can ask for a refund, but you need to provide your 6-step checklist as proof it didn’t work before you get a refund.

In other words, refunds are based on your performance and proving that you failed despite this course’s teachings.

It’s not as bad as not having a refunds policy or asking students to watch only like 10% of your program, but it’s definitely worth considering before getting this course.

Best Alternative

If you’re OK with the content and price, then go for it, as you’ll probably learn at least a couple new tips.

However, you can get my favorite course for $800 less if you buy Savage Affiliates by Franklin Hatchett. Unlike a focused course like Igor’s, Savage Affiliates is a single stop you can use to get all the knowledge necessary to start your affiliate business on solid footing.

Beside what you’ll learn from Igor, it also has modules on SEO, Google, Snapchat, even chat bots, and it covers both free and paid advertisement in those branches and a lot more that would take me an entire section to mention entirely.

Franklin Hatchett is also a winner from the 2 Comma Club, and he’s one of the most famous faces in eCommerce and affiliate marketing, so you’re not lowering your author’s status.

I hope you found this review useful and if you have any questions, please comment down below. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Once again, thanks for reading my Elite Affiliate Pro Review and I wish you the best of luck.

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ednazermenous · 5 years ago

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Start and Scale Review

Start and Scale Review (Gretta Van Riel Course)

Well, seeing how everyone signed into this waiting list is bound to it for a good while (high five?), we might as well go into the content and see if it’s worth your money or not.

Right now, the only option is to wait until she releases her course again, but I’ve never understood why people just have to wait for so long before reopening. If a course is good, wouldn’t it be better just to have people signing up all the time?

Anyways, I managed to access the course thanks to a buddy just recently, so let’s dive into it and find out if it’s actually worth its price, let along waiting for it.

While it was priced at $547, you can bet that price will increase after the wait is over.

Waiting isn’t optimal for running a business

Let’s face it: waiting before taking a course is frustrating, and if you’re just anxious to start dropshipping right away, then it’s better to just go for a course that’s readily available.

First off, you’ll get dozens of offers from the Foundr site while you wait unless you give up your position on the queue.

That’s not the worst part. Online businesses are all about hitting trends first and building your venture and brand as quickly as possible. The more you wait, the more your desired niches become saturated, and the more likely you are to having to just settle for a subpar product.

About the author

Gretta is an Australian entrepreneur claiming to be an expert in social media marketing, and she owns the Hey Influencers platform, dedicated solely to networking through fellow influencers.

I’m not sure why someone with such vast experience in marketing and using social media is launching a course about eCommerce instead of going for her strengths.

Right off the bat, you might have seen her statement about starting out with just $20. However, once you get into the actual content, you see how she had to pay for others to design the logos and more, which at least would’ve costed her a few hundreds.

You need money if you want to grow a successful business. Don’t fall for people who just says the things you want to hear.

Reviewing Start And Scale Course

The course splits into 6 modules with 38 videos in total, all featuring Gretta. There are also 16 workbooks you can access, and they summarize the videos.

Students can access expert coaches with the course as well, but the information is a bit limited, and there’s also the standard Facebook group with all the students.

Finally, there are some discount codes, which mostly are affiliate links from Gretta, so look up reviews before taking her word for them.

Unlike most courses, this one is built on ClickFunnels instead of Teachables, so the videos look good regardless of which device you’re using.

Buying the course at its initial launch means you only have access to one module every week, so you’ll have to wait 6 weeks before getting the entire content. With just 38 videos, it’s really annoying to wait so long, especially considering how quick the world moves.

Niche research

The first module offers 5 videos about figuring out the products you want to sell. It’s mostly basic, and it skips tools that make the entire process much easier.

These videos are focused on coming up with a central idea, confirming it works, and figuring out your ideal customer’s profile for it before validating whether or not it’s a good idea.

It’s a fairly basic introduction to niche selection, but it’s a bit interesting if you don��t know anything about the concept.

Branding

The second module goes right into branding, and I strongly disapprove that approach. I understand that social media marketing can be all about building your brand, and Gretta is a social media expert, but you still haven’t put your idea to the test.

Building your brand from the get-go isn’t a good idea. The best approach is to build your brand around good products that you can actually sell.

That’s why so many authors advise you to start off with a general store or even a single-product one. You need to test your market and figure out which products sell the best before you create your brand and scale it.

However, selling a course centered around branding is easier; most beginners fall for it being the best idea, yet that nearly always results in people making nothing but having some of the best-looking brands in the market.

Anyway, the videos here cover how to choose the name of your brand, coming up with your logo, and setting up your domain before going into how to create your store from an over-the-shoulder perspective.

Finding products

This is the part where you find suppliers and turn your idea and brand into listings.

It was nice to see Gretta covering both international and local suppliers, unlike many other courses. Gretta is from Australia, but there’s content here for both the US and China, so you don’t have to be based in Australia for this to work for you.

The videos explain how to reach out and negotiate with buyers, how you can place orders, dealing with the packaging process, and how to deliver your products. There’s also some content about dorpshipping your products, pricing them on your website, and coming up with products of your own.

It’s a good module, but it could’ve used a bit more content.

Audience building

OK, this module made me laugh: my favorite video here recommends you to create a waiting list to create anticipation and buzz around your offer and make a good amount once it goes live. I’m 100% sure I’ve seen this applied somewhere, but I can’t quite remember…

It’s exactly what’s she’s doing with THIS course.

I really haven’t heard about that being a profitable strategy, though –at least not for making a significant amount of money. Most eCommerce stores simply don’t have the reputation when they’re just starting out.

There are some videos about preparing yourself and your store for its release, using influencers, and some basics on social media marketing.

Store launch

This continues where the last module left off. It shows you how to work with payments through credit card and PayPal, how to create a help desk for customers, and it closes with how you can hire virtual assistants for automation so that you can dedicate yourself to scaling your business.

There’s also a launch checklist for you to use,

Scaling

The final module focuses on optimizing your store and building on your success. This also includes the first mention of Facebook Ads, which baffled me seeing how Gretta is an expert on this field and how critical it is for your business.

You’ll also learn about retargeting and last video explains warehousing, but it’s something you don’t need to consider just yet.

Bonuses

This is another course claiming its bonuses are worth thousands but still offering a few things you can find for free on the internet or in less expensive courses.

First, you have a video showing an interview with Alex Tomic and Nik Mirkovic, from HiSmile. You’ve probably seen them advertising their brand through Instagram. The interview shows them explaining how they developed their brand from scratch.

Second, you have a few scripts you can copy and paste to contact influencers. There are some other scripts, like one for your email marketing campaign and others for recovering abandoned carts.

A small observation: don’t copy and paste them. Everyone taking this course is probably doing the same, so it’s best to use them as inspiration for writing your own scripts.

Thirdly, there’s a mini-course on Instagram and Facebook Ads. However, this feels really awkward since Gretta never really mentioned paid traffic sources, and the only Facebook Ads mention was in the very last module.

I don’t know why these weren’t added on the main body of the course, yet they’re still very basic, so it’s definitely a huge disappointment from a seeming social media marketing expert like Gretta.

The last bonus is a voucher you can give to someone else so they can join the private Facebook group and take part in its conversations. Keep in mind that this means she can double the number of members on her Facebook group, growing its popularity.

So she really has some nice tricks under her sleeve. Too bad she didn’t really teach any of them in this course,

Facebook group

The Facebook group is quite active and crowded. There are several thousand members since its release, and it was a bit above the 5,000 mark when I joined.

There are also regular posts every day, so it’s a nice place to see insight and comments from other people or to solve any doubts you might have after taking the course.

Do keep in mind that there are probably people who never took the course thanks to the voucher, so be critical with the answers you receive when posting any inquiry.

Refunds

The refunds policy is fairly straightforward, thankfully. You only need to show that you completed the training but it didn’t work out for your business. You have 60 days to do so, and it’s a full refund.

It’s a simple policy, and it offers a pretty huge time window unlike other courses available today. However, you need to consider that you’re might be receiving this course as 1 module every 6 weeks, so you’re killing a lot of time just waiting.

There’s also no information whether the refund is going to be equal when it relaunches.

Final Verdict

Is It Worth It? Final Verdict

This course talks a lot on its attractive sales page. However, it’s just disappointing given how much Gretta seems to know compared with how much she actually offers.

Most courses include at least 50 videos, and this one is just 38 videos long. You even have classes like eCom Elites (Read Review) offering over 170 different videos with a lot more depth for just $197.

This course could’ve been a great offer, but with the lack of content and price tag, I just can’t recommend it to anyone.

I hope you found this review useful and if you have any questions, please comment down below. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Once again, thanks for reading my Start And Scale Review and I wish you the best of luck.

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kjsimmill · 6 years ago

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Someone in a group I am part of asked me for some tips on using Twitter for novices. Now, I am the first to admit that I am a long way from being an expert, however, I am more than happy to share what I know and have learnt. So in this article I will cover

Finding followers

How to Retweet

What to Tweet

How often to tweet

Common Hashtags for authors

and some Useful Tool

Once you have a Twitter account set up you’re going to want to start following some people, I find following people I share interests with help, as well as those I am in groups with. I am by no means an expert, but this is what worked for me.

Finding followers:

Start by typing your interest in the search bar with a # in front of it. For this example, I will use #authors, but look for people who enjoy your hobbies, your genre, etc

This brings up posts with this hashtag

Ignoring any accounts that show at the top scroll down, if any tweets catch your eye, retweet and follow them, often Authors will follow back.

To follow someone:

If using the above step you find someone you want to follow, hover over their name to open the profile

Click the follow button, this will then turn blue and say following. (PS I don’t know this person it is just who came up during my screenshot for the example)

The way is after doing the hashtag search click on the people tag. This displays all the people with the hashtag you searched for, read their profile and follow anyone you like

How to retweet:

Retweeting is one of the most important things when trying to establish an account, it shows people the kind of things you like, and if you share content they like they are more likely to follow you. By retweeting others, you make the page not all about you, but about others too. This is important in social media. The general guidelines, based on my digital marketing course are as follows, don’t worry about these too much, it is just to show what kind of balance you eventually want to aim for:

Posting tactics:

In my digital marketing course, the following Tweet strategies were recommended as best practises.

5-3-2 – 5 pieces of content from other people, three of yours, two personal status updates – this works best for people and small businesses

5-5-5 – 5 updates about you and content, 5 about other people, 5 responses to other people’s posts – these posts should add value and be relevant to you, your hobbies, or the market

4-1-1 – 4 posts from other people, 1 retweet for every 1 self-promoting update

Rule of thrids – a third of you, a third of others, and a third on personal interactions

How to retweet a post:

Using the search function find a post you think will enhance your feed and be of interest to your followers. Again I will use #authors as an example. Here I recommend instead of using the default page that comes up, you select the ‘latest’ tab. Scroll down until you find one you like.

For this example I will select the retweet button

When you click this the option to RT will come up. You can either just retweet, or rt with your own comment

Once it is done the rt button turns green. The number by it is how many times a post has been retweeted.

Retweeting your followers

Being engaged and retweeting your followers is really important. The tweets of the people you follow are displayed on the Home page

Using the same process above, scroll down to find the ones you want to retweet, and select the retweet button

What to Tweet

Content is all important. It is better it send out 4 or 5 tweets your audience will be interested in, than 50 they won’t. There is a fine line here, as you want to use it to promote your book.

Posts with pictures, according to my digital marketing course, get around 80% more engagement than those with text alone. So where possible include a relevant picture, gif, or in the case of authors, a book link often pulls an image from Amazon.

When promoting your own work, I find best practice is to offer pictures with teasers.

Another well-received option is to use quotes from your reviews, and short elevator pitches.

Think of a Tweet like a pick-up line, you want to entice and tease your reader, gain their interest so they want to know more.

However, it is not all about your book. You need to be personal, reveal and share snippets of your day. If you’ve written something you love or hate, tweet about it. Seen something which inspires you, made something you’re proud of? Take a picture, share it. The goal is to connect with your audience, let them see you, and your work.

How to Send a Tweet

Start by pressing the Tweet button

If you have some text highlighted in red when you write a tweet, this means it is over the character limit.

You can always find a way to save space if needed by changing things a little

Once your tweet is written, double-check it for typos and press the Tweet button.

How often to Tweet

The average lifespan of a Tweet is 17 minutes, after which, unless people have RTed or looked for it specifically then it is finished. This is because of the constant scrolling timelines. According to Internet Live Stats, every second around 6000 tweets are sent. However, despite their short lifespan this doesn’t mean you should be sending out something every 17 minutes. Here it is important to focus on quality over quantity. Before posting anything make sure it will add value to your customers.

If you don’t log into your account within six months, Twitter may shut it down.

What Hashtags to use

The author community has so many hashtags it is hard to keep track. The rules are simple.

First, make sure they are relevant, don’t use #nonfiction if your book is #fiction

Secondly, check what is trending. If you can, you want to turn a trending hashtag into a marketing push, some people call this trend hijacking. Trending hashtags are displayed on the left side of your Twitter.

Here, since my book donates to charity, I could utilise the current trending #internationaldayofcharity and highlight the donating aspect of my book in a promo tweet.

In this instance, you’ll also see I opted to link to the charity rather than the book. It is a day of charity after all, if someone is interested in my book, they can always check my profile, however, I want to promote the DMWS here.

Always be tactful and tactful when using trending hashtags

Common hashtags for authors

Books and Reading

#amReading #Bibliophile #bookreview #Books #BookWorm #GreatReads #MustRead #WhatToRead #bookswelove #FridayReads #TeaserTues #IlikebigBooks #recommendedreads #Weekendreads #whattoreadnext #WriterWednesday or #WW

Genre, examples

#ChickLit #classicbooks #contemporaryYA #cookbooks #crime #DarkFantasy #dystopian #EpicFantasy #erotica #Espionage #fanfic #Fantasy #fiction #graphicnovels #HeroicFantasy #histfic #Horror #indie #LBGT #LitFic #LitRPG #Love #MagicandWizardy #manga #mystery #nonfiction #paranormal #PictureBooks #Romance #SciFI or #SYFY #Suspense #SwordandSorcery #Thriller #UrbanFantasy #WomensFiction #yabooks

Promo

#99c #AuthorRT #BookGiveaway #BookMarketing #Authorfollowback (not popular anymore) #FreeReads #FreeBook #NewRelease

Publishing platform

#Apple #Amazon #eBook #BookBuzz #eReaders #KDP #Kindle #KindleBargain #Kobo #Nook #SmashWords #KindleUnlimited #FreeonKU

Useful Hashtags

#Bookboost (any tweet tagged with this gets a rt from Bookboost) #IARTG (Indie author RT group) #ASMSG (Authors’ Social Media Support Group) Writing Process

#AmWriting #AmEditing #CopyWriting #Creativity #Editing #IndieAuthor #WIP #WordCount #Author #Writing #WritingAdvice #WriteMotivation #WritingTips #WritersLife #WritingCommunity

Useful tools

https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ – Free

Use to schedule tweets. Type your Tweet in the box, select date and time, and repeat with different dates for repeating tweets.

https://www.socialoomph.com – Free with limited features, or $15 a month to create a queue

https://www.vicconsult.com/buffered-bulk-tweets/ – great for text only tweet scheduleing – $5 a month, must keep adding content, so keep a notepad with the tweets on to copy and paste in. When I last used this it was still restricted to 180 characters

https://ifttt.com/twitter – Free – Great for finding and posting content you enjoy

https://ifttt.com/applets/SMvaxczG-if-hashtag-then-retweet-it is a great one to use if you often retweet specific hashtag, but be sure to keep the -RT in the hashtag line. There are so many, that you can opt to rt things from places like NASA, or simply say thank you every time someone follows you

Summary

When Tweeting the idea is to keep your audience entertained, give them insight into you, your work, your interests, while also engaging with them. It is not all about selling your book, it is about adding value to their day, be it a smile, a book teaser, or just something personal they may relate or be inspired by. Try to keep a balance between your things and everyone else’s. RT followers, RT things that interest you, doing this shows people what you like, and shared hobbies and passions help them to relate to you and form an online relationship.

As I said above, I am a long way from being an expert on social media, however, I hope you have found some of these tips useful. This is my Twitter strategy, based on things I have learnt in the digital marketing, associates degree I have just completed, as you get a feel for it you will develop your own best practices. If you have some tips you’d like to share, please feel free to comment below. I would love to know what works for you.

I hope to see you here again.

Article by K.J. Simmill (KS the Dreamer)

Since I still have your attention, and this is a marketing post, it must be time for some shameless self-promotion – check out my award-winning books here, and have a great week x

How to Twitter, and Hashtags for authors #TwitterTips #AmWriting #IARTG #howtoTwitter #DigitalMarketing #authors Someone in a group I am part of asked me for some tips on using Twitter for novices.

#author hashtags #b2b #b2c #Digital Marketing #hashtags #hashtags for authors #how to Twitter #how to use twitter #promoting books #promoting tips #Twitter #twitter tips #writers #Writing Tips

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