#never a poll without a typo <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[toptensupakorn]

tagged by @negrowhat 🩷

no pressure tagging: @sherrymagic @clairedaring @sanvees @ahxu-laowen @ciizerutricha

[lemonadeandlanguages]

apparently the 3 in that "how bad is tumblr at math" poll was a typo & op meant to put a 5, published it without realizing, & then deleted it when they realised lol

oooh well that explains it 😂 too bad posts on tumblr are never truly deleted lol

[lexa-griffins]

Can you break my heart and make me cry today? I wanna know about the major angst involving Bedwarmer Clarke and Lexa's baby from the poll we did

😈😈😈😈 there are two plot points of angst.

One of them, I won't say much - i will say there were two babies, and now there's only one. They didn't know there were two babies.

For the second point:

They are pretty far off in the pregnancy by now. Lexa has been trying to take it easy but she's still heda and she also has a small toddler to take care of so she does move a whole lot and assists with training and refuses to slow down to much even if Clarke thinks she should.

She's adamant that despite everything she is not at risk during the pregnancy, the midwives have told her she is healthy and should be perfectly fine to go about her business - as so many women do on the ground. Clarke wants to disagree, but the medical training she got on the ark barely touched pregnancy and childbirth and sometimes she really wished her mom was alive to go and ask her for advice but without her all she has is her medical instinct and a sense of doom.

That night, Lexa wakes up like usual, the baby making her go to the bathroom is by now a fairly normal occurrence at eight months. She waddled her way to the bathroom, trying to be quiet with Madi asleep with them in the bed. She's half asleep, not paying much attention to anything until she sees it. Blood, in her underwear.

No. No no no. Not now. Not this time. Not again, please no.

She wakes up Clarke to tell. Lexa feels horribly calm too. Perhaps she already knew it was going to happen, had accepted it long before it happened. When Clarke wakes up at first, she assumes Lexa is in labor but Lexa tells her no, she's spotting and they need to go to the midwife.

Madi half wakes up in the commotion of them asking a guard to watch her, and Lexa only starts to choke up when the little girl calls her over and kisses her tummy because she "wants to say bye bye to her baby sibling". She says it all the time when Lexa leaves in the morning, she doesn't mean anything by it but it feels far too real this time.

When the midwife tells them she cannot be sure and that they will have to wait to see how it progresses, Clarke feels the urge to kick the old woman. What the fuck does she mean they have to way and see?! Thats their baby! If she was in the ark, if if Clarke had managed to help, if her people hadnt been so fucking stupid maybe theyd have their technology and theyd be able to know if the baby inside Lexa is still alive or not, they could just remove the baby instead of waiting to see if her wife will have to give birth to... she cant even think about that.

They go back to the room. Clarke cannot stop pacing as if trting to remember anything that could help them right now. Lexa seems to barely be aware of anything around her, staring ahead, hands in her stomach hoping to feel a movement, a hiccup, something. But the baby is awfully quiet and still, Lexa can barely remember if she felt them move at all through the day and shevstarts to question if there is something she could have done today, yesterday, at all to save their baby. Maybe she could have done everything different. Or maybe she could have done nothing at all because this baby was just a wild fantasy that was never to be.

Madi is asleep next to them. So sweet and small. She's been so excited for a sibling, she already adores Lexa so much and had been so affectionate towards Lexa's bump over the past 3 months (yes, only three. Lexas eight months pregnant, that is not a typo 👀). It breaks Lexa's heart even more, having to explain to her where the baby has gone.

At some point, they fall asleep. Neither have cried yet because despite all of their sureness in the end of this dream, neither dare to acknowledge it might be over.

Lexa wakes up with a pain on her side. She groans at it. She does not want to wake, she does not want to face the day knowing she might be less whole by the end of it.

The pain again. She swats at whatever is making it but catches nothing.

And again.

"Nomon."

"Madi baby shh"

"Nomon."

"Hmm"

"Nomon, baby want you to wake up."

"Not yet Madi."

"Baby kicking nomon. Up! Befast!"

[qlistening]

Is Now a Good Time to Become a Hippie?

Ha ha fun little opening note: I opened my iPad to write this and saw the Cornell notes template and now I’m wondering how the people who had to take Cornell notes to get through college are doing these days. Probably not well.

I’m cracking open the blog again this summer to really do some justice to the two month identity crisis that I, and maybe you, have been experiencing since graduation. I’ve been through the wringer, like most people, with the classic post-grad crises of “What am I doing with my life?” and “What am I even good at?”, and “Will I ever have fun again like I did in college?”. But honestly fuck those crises. That kind of shit is so cliche and boring to talk about. I need bigger broader shit on my plate. The type of existential garbage that can really wreck you. The types of questions that can’t be answered by your Mom saying “it’s okay honey”.

So the set I came up with is as follows: “What rules should I live my life by if I truly believe that our society will crumble to climate change in 1 - 2 generations?”, “How can I ever protect my soul from capitalism when I need the constant stimulation of city life to distract me from my depression?”, and “If I reconnect with my hippie childhood, will it destroy my chances of happiness and success later in life like it did for my parents?”.

I know what you’re thinking: “That’s an awesome list Ava. I wish I could have come up with that myself”. Sorry you can’t be me. 

It’s got just enough “this girl needs to lay off the acid” undertones to be dismissed by the common man, yet is valid enough to make any stoner or stoner+ (the + is psychedelics) a little itchy. 

Whithought further ado--I left this typo in here because I couldn’t stop laughing at it--, lettuce unpack these crises.

1. What rules should I live my life by if I truly believe that our society as we know it will crumble in 1 - 2 generations? I wish the answer was as simple as “more whippets”, but sadly, it just never is. There are actually a lot of sub-questions here like “Is enough change to reverse the course of climate change even possible at this point?”, “Does our species even deserve to be saved, or should we lean into the suffering and let the deer dance on our graves?”, “What the fuck are you supposed to be with your life when you can’t bring yourself to reproduce because the world is ending so you have to constantly invent a sense of purpose for yourself instead of just using your kids as a cop out?, and lastly “What if you’re making a mistake by not going to Mars with Jeff and Elon na d the vibes there end up being super lit?”

You see, I’m really good at coming up with these questions, but pretty bad at answering them. All I’ve come up with in terms of the rules and purpose part is just to vibe it out and focus my energy on good ol’ drugs, sex, and rock n roll till the end. But UH OH! Now I’ve become my parents. 

Perhaps I could focus on nature, gratitude, and spirituality? OH CRUD! Now I’m Rose, who has definitely reconciled these issues better than me, but has the advantage of being an introvert. Shorty don’t need that social stimulation like I do and can just go hermit mode when the going gets tough. Not I. 

How about a commune? Tempting, but I’ve heard about a lot of commune drama in my day and don’t really want to get whisked into some Midsommer shit by accident. 

Comedy? Can’t go monetizing my best coping mechanism, now can I? 

Pose your questions to a broader audience in folk songs like Bob Dylan? I think I’m too street for that and I can’t play the guitar. 

Focus on work and being successful? Nope. Work blows and I’m supposed to be protecting my soul from capitalism.  

I tend to treat this question like the hard ones on the EOGs and just skip it and plan on circling back later.

2. How do I protect my soul from capitalism when I need the constant stimulation of city life to distract me from my depression? And when I say I need that shit, I mean it. New people. New shit to do. All the time. I ain’t havin’ no baby, so settling down isn’t in the cards either. There is no scenario where I am going to move out to the suburbs just to stare at my husband every night for 30+ years or, in a more likely scenario, stare at the wall. I’m staying on the scene for a long time, maybe forever. 

That being said, the city is ripe with capitalism. Everyone works like a dog 24/7, switching back and forth between 2 - 4 Apple devices to accomplish God knows what in the grand scheme of things. Tech, finance, and marketing (the classic city trio) have to be the most pointless and cutthroat industries we have come up with to date. It feels like you have to have to have one of those jobs to live there. To afford it, sure, but beyond that, to know that you beat out someone else to get it and that you have successfully stepped on your first of many necks on the way to the top.

I’m moving to Chicago in like 2 weeks to work in tech/finance and sucking my own dick for having a management position so, clearly, I am not above any of this. But I sure wish I was. Even the first month of my soul-selling transaction feels like it has taken years off my life and dulled my flame quite a bit more than school ever did. So I am on the LOOKOUT for ways to get my mouth on some deep dish pizza and fine Chicago men without all of these bullshit side effects. 

And Finally…

3. If I reconnect with my hippie childhood now, will it destroy my chances at happiness and success like it did for my parents?

I feel like this one needs to be elaborated on a little more. For anyone who doesn’t know, my parents are both raging Dead Heads who practiced the art of escapism together on tour for 20 some years until Jerry Garcia died tragically in ‘95. In a desperate search for a new purpose, they popped out me and my sister and now we’re all living the middle class dream in a ranch house on the outskirts of Greensboro. “But at least they’re happy and they love each other right?” Nope. Ls all around.

Sadly, this isn’t just my parents. This seems to be the classic hippie timeline. You feel good, get high, get laid, and indulge your senses in your 20s and you realize that none of it is monetizable and come out the other end begging for capitalism to take you back and bless you with a mediocre career. I know I sound like Nixon right now, but I’m just reading off the data from what I’ve seen. 

Shit is really fucking sad man. I just want to think and feel and vibe and enjoy the world for what it is before it gets too crispy but I feel like I can’t. Any step away from my career feels like it will just land me at the bottom of the totem poll with a job that sucks even more than the one I started with. And yeah, I’m a lot smarter and slicker and decidedly childless than my parents, but it feels like a big fucking dice roll to do the same thing that they did and expect a different outcome. I mean they are the two most genetically similar people to me on the planet, after-all. I really do think I have to be careful and stick with the straight and narrow for now. Bummer because I would like to just bool before the world ends, but unfortunately, that’s going to take a little too long for me to avoid these problems. 

In conclusion: I believe the answer to the question I posed in the title is “Not really and I should probably start hashing these things out with a therapist instead of a tumblr blog sooner rather than later”.

And if you are wondering, no I am not high right now, but I am about to be because that shit was heavy.

[anotherplumbob]

Poll results

Thank you all so much for your feedback with regards to your preferred format for reading simblr stories! It's really helpful to know what everyone thinks :)

Without further ado, I've decided to go with option number 3: Embedded photos + caption under each photo

I know many showed a preference for option 1 (in-screen subtitles) but some also said that they find them harder to read on mobile, distracting and (what's worse) harder or impossible to translate on Google.

Option 3 was also well-received: people who like subtitles were OK with it  and it helped overcome the problems that people who don't like subtitles have. I also think this option is a good compromise (although less aesthetic for me) and allows me to edit my many typos after I've queued the posts lol so Option 3 it is!

Again, thanks so much for your feedback :) (I never expected so many people to answer tbh! - sorry for the mass tagging but wanted to thank each and everyone!) @incredildos​, @sillysillyfeather​, @cas-fulleditmode​, @yuu-pan , @homijoh​, @a-kind-red​, @stsciurussimblr , @cillaben​, @retro-vintage-sims​, @grieralexander , @pollinationqueen , @shahkiertai​, @psychoticstarfish​, @nervous----subject , @yaaassmackenzie, @salt-and-simmer, @naynayfox, @allegra-gorey, @mdianasanders, @naileklegacy, @ekaterina-vorobeva, @phoenixfg and @joliebean

[patriotsnet]

What Republicans Are Running For President

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-republicans-are-running-for-president/

What Republicans Are Running For President

How Mitt Romney Could Wind Up Running The United States 6 Years After Losing The Presidential Election

If, as expected, Mitt Romney wins his race for a Senate seat from Utah he may become the most powerful man in the United States Senate. As many of us remember, Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, ran for president in 2012 and lost to Barack Obama. It wasn’t one of those totally humiliating losses—the map did not turn blue—but we assumed Mitt Romney would fade into history.

Well, maybe not.

Here’s how. Just a few months ago, conventional wisdom was that while the Democrats had a good chance of taking control of the House of Representatives, the Senate was out of reach. In 2018 there will be at least 35 Senate seats up—of which 26 are held by Democrats. Democrats need a net gain of 2 seats to take control of the Senate. In an ordinary year this would be tough for two reasons. One is that incumbents usually win, and secondly, 10 of those Democratic senators represent states that went for Trump in 2016—so a somewhat popular president might be able to use his clout to win a Senate seat back from the Democrats. But this is no ordinary year as poll after poll and special election after special election indicate a “blue wave” for Democrats.

EKamarckrecent pollspolling aheadpolling close

Us Election 2024: Who Are The Likely Republican Candidates To Run For President Against Joe Biden

Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump and Ted Cruz are among the rumoured candidates to become Donald Trump’s successor

The 2020 presidential race has only just finished, but the Republican candidates for 2024 are already preparing themselves for their shot at the White House.

We take a look at who may be looking to get themselves in to the race.

Nj Primary Elections 2020: The Five Republicans Who Want To Take Over As Us Senator

Colleen O’Dea, Senior Writer and Projects EditorNJ Decides 2020Politics

Five Republicans are vying for the chance to try to do something no one else has been able to do in almost a half-century: Convince New Jersey voters to elect a Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate, where Democrat Cory Booker now sits.

It has been 48 years since New Jersey voters have sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a million. In 2018, Republican and former pharmaceuticals executive Bob Hugin spent more than $39 million, including $36 million of his own money, and lost by 11 percentage points to incumbent Bob Menendez, who had been considered vulnerable after his trial on political corruption charges ended in a hung jury.

“Statewide races are the toughest ones of all for a GOP outnumbered by a million more registered Democrats in the state,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “But even before party registrations were so lopsided, Republican Senate candidates have fared more poorly here than almost anywhere else in the nation.” Since New Jersey last sent a Republican to the Senate in 1972, “the GOP has lost a staggering 15 Senate races in a row,” he said.

Thoughts On New Poll: Most Republicans Want Trump To Run For President In 2024

John Fletcher Jrsays:

May 29, 2021 at 11:48 am

There may not be an American Presidential Office to run for when Joe Biden is done. I still believe Joe Biden is a Counterfeit President. One thing is certain, Barack Hussein Obama is happy that Joe Biden now reigns as worst American President. America get yourself ready for HYPERINFLATION, it’s coming.

May 29, 2021 at 3:43 pm

I have hats of Trump that read ” make America Great Again”, Trump 2020?,and “KEEP AMERICA GREAT”,I also have flags of him ” TRUMP ON THE TANK”, “TRUMP 2020, NO MORE BULLSHIT”. and I just got a new one,“TRUMP 2024” and then I have a MASK that reads, “TRUMP 2024 and has 2 AMERICAN FLAGS .So I really hope he runs, otherwise all of this means nothing ! TRUMP 2024 and TRUE FIGHTING REPUBLICANSIN 2022 !! NO RINOS NEEDED ! STAND UP OR SHUT UP !

May 29, 2021 at 5:19 pm

IT is more than if he runs or not. YOU are sending a message that you stand for freedoms and still support that hard work he did while still in office. Trump stands for AMERICA FIRST and that is also part of your message to the leftists.You are sending a great message no matter what he decides….You know as well as I do that he is all about what is best for the AMERICA and All Americans….SO IF he supports someone else to run then we know that person is worthy of what we all need as AMERICANS.Don;t loose hope and wear your attire with pride knowing there are many others still hoping for another win.

Yes we want Donald Trunp be our presidentin 2024.

Republican Lawmakers Are Terrified Of Trump Running For President Again

A new report by Politico cites multiple unnamed Republican lawmakers – even those who publicly praise Trump – who say that they REALLY don’t want Donald Trump running for President again in 2024. They would much rather see Trump working “behind the scenes” to help shore up support for the Party as a whole, and they insist that the Party is stronger now than it was five years ago. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Recently, Politico interviewed several Republican lawmakers, who of course all chose to remain nameless. But Politico says that these were Trump supporting lawmakers, still are Trump supporting lawmakers, by the way. And each one of them said that they do not want Donald Trump to be the Republican party’s nominee in 2024. In fact, they don’t want Trump to run for president ever again. I’ll read a couple quotes from some of these lawmakers here. Here’s what one of them said, he’s one of the best presidents we’ve had in terms of policies. But having said that if it were up to me, I would never have Trump on any ballot ever again, because it’s such a distraction. I would love for him to play a behind the scenes role and not be on the ballot. Another one said, I’d like to see a fresh face. I think we have a lot of them.

Eight Republican 2024 Candidates Speak In Texas Next Week But Not Trump

Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, April 30 – A Republican Party event in Texas next week will hear from eight potential candidates for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024, without former President Donald Trump, a source involved in the planning said on Friday.

The May 7 event at a hotel in Austin is being co-hosted by U.S. Senator John Cornyn and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, to thank donors who helped fund a voter registration drive and get-out-the-vote efforts in the state.

High-profile Republican politicians who are considering whether to seek the party’s nomination in 2024 are expected to speak to the crowd of about 200 donors.

They include former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and U.S. senators Marco Rubio, Tim Scott and Rick Scott, the source said.

The event comes as Republicans wrestle with whether to try to move past Trump in the next election cycle or fall in line behind him. Trump told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo on Thursday that he was “100%” considering another run after losing in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump was not invited to Texas, the source said. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was invited but was unable to attend, the source said.

Many Republican insiders doubt Trump will follow through on his musings about running for president in 2024, leaving a void that other party leaders will seek to fill.

Fact Check: Trump Did Not Call Republicans The Dumbest Group Of Voters

5 Min Read

An old quote falsely attributed to Donald Trump has recently resurfaced online. The viral meme alleges Trump told People magazine in 1998 that Republicans are “the dumbest group of voters in the country”. This is false.

While the quote has been debunked several times since it apparently surfaced in 2015, users have recently been resharing it on social media. Examples can be seen here , here , here , here

The meme reads: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific. – Donald Trump, People Magazine, 1998”

Snopes first wrote about the false quote here in October 2015 . Since then, the quote has been debunked multiple times .

People magazine has confirmed in the past that its archive has no register of this alleged exchange.

“People looked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct. . We combed through every Trump story in our archive. We couldn’t find anything remotely like this quote–and no interview at all in 1998.”, a magazine spokesperson told Factcheck.org that year .

In December 1987, People published a profile on Donald Trump titled “Too Darn Rich”. The article quoted him saying he was too busy to run for president .

The Long Race For The 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination Begins

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — In the past week alone, Nikki Haley regaled activists in Iowa, Mike Pence courted donors in California and Donald Trump returned to the rally stage, teasing a third campaign for the White House.

The midterms are more than a year away, and there are 1,225 days until the next presidential election. But Republicans eyeing a White House run are wasting no time in jockeying for a strong position in what could emerge as an extremely crowded field of contenders.

The politicking will only intensify in the coming weeks, particularly in Iowa, home to the nation’s leadoff presidential caucuses and a state where conservative evangelicals play a significant role in steering the direction of the GOP. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas is slated to visit on Tuesday, and others, including Pence, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are expected to appear in July.

The flurry of activity is a sign that there is no clear frontrunner to lead the GOP if Trump opts against a 2024 campaign.

“It definitely feels early, but it doesn’t feel like it’s a bad idea based on the situation,” said Mike DuHaime, a longtime Republican strategist. “The party has changed, the voters are changing and I think the process has changed. And I think many of the candidates have realized that.”

“We won the election twice,” he said. “And it’s possible we’ll have to win it a third time.”

As for Trump?

Are You Ready For Republican Tim Scott To Run For President In 2024

The Senate’s lone Black Republican member, Tim Scott, is opening eyes and creating conversation about his 2024 political prospects.According to Fox News, Scott has brought in $14.4 million in campaign fundraising, after posting $9.6 million during April-June. The total amount in his campaign coffers has led many to believe that Scott is eying higher office than just the U.S. Senate.Scott has kept his name ringing in the political arena during his tenure in the Senate, especially after delivering a GOP response to President Biden’s primetime address to a joint session of Congress earlier this year. Scott has also led his party in negotiations with congressional Democrats on a major police reform bill.

While Scott has downplayed the hype surrounding his political aspirations, people on the Hill and talking heads on camera are noting that he could possibly be a 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

“Tim Scott is a force,” Jim Merrill, a New Hampshire-based Republican consultant said to Fox News. “His strong numbers reflect how he has inspired activists and business leaders alike, good for both his reelection next year and for a potential presidential campaign in 2024.”

Fear of a Black Landowner

With Scott previously downplaying the notion of running for president and his recent declaration that he won’t run for Senate after 2022, Black America will just have to see if Tim Scott will lean-in to the dollars raised to bankroll a potential campaign for the White House.

Reaction

New Poll: Most Republicans Want Trump To Run For President In 2024

A new Quinnipiac University national poll released this week revealed that two-thirds of Republicans want former President Donald Trump to run for president in 2024.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 1,316 U.S. adults nationwide from May 18-24. The poll’s margin of error was +/- 2.7 percentage points.

Three key Republican findings of the survey included:

66% of Republicans want to see Trump run in 2024

66% of Republicans do not think Biden’s victory was legitimate

85% of Republicans want candidates that mostly agree with Trump

“The numbers fly in the face of any predictions that Donald Trump’s political future is in decline. By a substantial majority, Republicans: believe the election was stolen from him, want Trump to run again, and , if they can’t vote for Trump, prefer someone who agrees with him,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.

Malloy is right. The poll reveals what many American already know — Trump still serves as a top conservative leader.

But is Trump still up for another run? And if he does, can he win?

The first question looks like a yes. Trump recently told radio host Dan Bongino people will be very happy with his answer. However, Trump has also previously said he would not announce whether he is running until after the 2022 midterm elections.

The more important question is can he win? If two-thirds of Republicans already support Trump, how many more will be required, especially in key battleground states, to reach the needed electoral votes?

Native American Voting Rights Are Under Attack In Republican

Paul Blumenthal

After turning out to vote in record numbers in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Native Americans are now one of the biggest targets of Republican-backed voter suppression efforts in states where their votes mattered the most.

Republicans in states with significant Native populations like Arizona, Kansas, Montana and more have enacted new laws that limit voter access in ways that disproportionately impact Native voters. Imposing strict time limits on correcting a mail-in ballot, prohibiting third-party ballot collection, implementing strict voter identification requirements and making it harder to pay for election resources all negatively impact Native Americans in these states, largely due to specific circumstances on reservations where many of them live.

“The laws the state legislatures are passing are lethal to every Native American living in those states,” said OJ Semans, the founder of the Native voting rights group Four Directions and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Such legislation, he said, “is going to knock us back 10 years” after “what we’ve been working through for the last 18 to 20 years to get more and more Native Americans to participate in elections.” 

It wasn’t until 1962 when New Mexico’s laws blocking Native voting fell. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also provided important protections for Native voting rights.

Trumps Role As Republican Party Leader Is Becoming Stronger

This weekend’s CPAC straw poll results showed that Trump’s popularity — along with DeSantis’ — in the Republican Party has grown in the last six months, according to Forbes.

In February, only 55% of attendees of a similar CPAC event in Orlando, Florida, said they wanted Trump to lead the ticket in 2024, Forbes reported.

If Trump stayed in political retirement, or at least stayed off the presidential primary ballot in 2024, DeSantis lead the poll with 43% attending Republicans choosing him in February’s hypothetical presidential primary.

Related

Inside the newsroom: Words matter, including the hateful ‘Murder the media’

When Presidential Primaries Started They Weren’t Decisive

Woodrow Wilson.

The Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th century saw a backlash against local party machines and their bosses dominating American politics. This backlash was especially pronounced in Western states, where reformers implemented ideas like legislating via ballot initiative at the polls.

Progressive reformers also invented the presidential primary. In 1910, Oregon became the first to use a popular election to pick its delegates for national conventions, with the delegates pledged to support specific candidates.

But these primaries lacked the efficacy and decisiveness of those we have today, in part because most states didn’t have them and in part because the ultimate nomination decision was still made via a multi-ballot process at a national convention.

In 1912, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt decided to challenge his successor William Howard Taft for the GOP nomination. He crushed Taft in the primaries, carrying nine of the 12 states that held primaries, while Robert La Follette won two and Taft just one.

But that still left 36 other states, which mostly sent pro-Taft delegates to the convention, securing him the nomination. And that led Roosevelt to bolt the party and launch an independent bid for the general election.

But while McAdoo didn’t have enough support to win, he did have enough to block the party bosses’ favorite, New York Gov. Al Smith, a Catholic.

Why Donald Trump Is Republicans’ Worst Nightmare In 2024

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Earlier this week, amid a rambling attack on the validity of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump said this: “Interesting that today a poll came out indicating I’m far in the lead for the Republican Presidential Primary and the General Election in 2024.”

this on Trump’s future political ambitions from Politico“Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president. That means Trump is going to hang over the Republican Party despite its attempts to rebrand during his exile and its blockade of a Trump-centric investigation into January’s insurrection.”new Quinnipiac University national pollhis growing legal and financial entanglementsAs CNN reported on Wednesday night“Manhattan prosecutors pursuing a criminal case against former President Donald Trump, his company and its executives have told at least one witness to prepare for grand jury testimony, according to a person familiar with the matter — a signal that the lengthy investigation is moving into an advanced stage.”

The Contenders Who Competed To Run Against Donald Trump

Tom MurseTom Murse

Within weeks of Donald Trump taking the oath of office as the nation’s 45th president, challengers began lining up to see who would attempt to unseat him in the 2020 presidential election. The controversial president faced early challenges from within his own party, but by and large, the focus remained on the candidates put forth by the opposing Democratic Party.

During one of the most crowded primary seasons in recent memory, several high-profile Democrats, including multiple sitting senators and rising stars in the party, competed for the party’s nomination. Ultimately, it was former vice president Joe Biden who won the party’s nomination. He selected Senator Kamala Harris, another primary candidate, as his running mate, and the ticket won the 2020 general election with 51.3% of the vote and 306 electoral votes to 46.9% and 232 electoral votes for the incumbent Trump/Pence ticket.

Here’s a look at the Democrats, and even members of Trump’s own Republican Party, who ran campaigns looking to unseat the controversial commander-in-chief.

Democratic Challengers

February 7, 2020

Former Us Ambassador To The United Nations Nikki Haley

Haley, 49, stands out in the potential pool of 2024 Republican candidates by her resume. She has experience as an executive as the former governor of South Carolina and foreign policy experience from her time as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Haley was a member of the Republican Party’s 2010 tea party class. A former South Carolina state representative, her long shot gubernatorial campaign saw its fortunes improve after she was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Haley rocketed from fourth to first just days after the endorsement, and she went on to clinch the nomination and become her state’s first female and first Indian-American governor.

As governor, she signed a bill removing the Confederate flag from the state Capitol following the white supremacist attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston. She left office in 2017 to join the Trump administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Quinnipiac poll found she was at one point the most popular member of Trump’s foreign policy team.

“I think that she’s done a pretty masterful job in filling out her resume,” said Robert Oldendick, a professor and director of graduate studies at the University of South Carolina’s department of political science.

Haley criticized Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, saying she was “disgusted” by his conduct. Oldendick said he thought her “pretty pointed criticism of the president will potentially cause some problems.”

Republican Candidates Running For The Us 2020 Election

Bill Weld was married twice and has five children.

Weld ran for vice-president as a Libertarian on the Gary Johnson ticket in the 2016 presidential election.

As a conservative, Weld is strongly pro-choice on abortion issues.

The presidential race is on and the candidates are being whittled down to the very few. Who is running on the Republican side? Current President Donald Trump is going for re-election, and the only candidate now challenging him for election as president of the US this coming November 3rd, 2020 is Bill Weld, a former Massachusetts governor.

The 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Wild Cards

The first Democratic debate back in 2019 had 20 — TWENTY! — candidates, so don’t be surprised if the Republican field is just as large or larger. We could have some more governors or representatives run, or even other nontraditional candidates, like a Trump family member, a Fox News host or a celebrity, like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who’s said he’s “seriously considering” a run. Stranger things have happened.

Who Wants To Run For Governor As A Republican In 2022

Pennsylvania Republicans have been battling with Gov. Tom Wolf since he unseated incumbent Tom Corbett in 2014. Many of them are eager to take Wolf’s place, but there is no clear frontrunner this early in the race. Several Republicans have already announced their bid, and a few others have hinted or shown interest in joining what is expected to be a crowded primary. Thus far, it’s hard to find a Republican candidate without some sort of ties to former President Donald Trump. 

With a heated race to fill U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey’s seat next year, the GOP will have to be strategic about what candidates it wants to back for the Senate and for governor. Potential candidates will also have to weigh their options and decide where they fit best and can compete.

There are plenty of names that could be added to this list in the coming months, but here is our second iteration of potential Republican candidates for 2022. A couple of candidates have been added since the last edition.

Running

Former U.S. Rep Lou Barletta

Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale

Gale was the first Republican to formally announce his candidacy for governor back in February. An avid Trump supporter, he has criticized the Pennsylvania GOP and pledged to be a conservative populist. He’s also caught attention for and saying Trump’s presidency was sabotaged. 

Former Corry Mayor Jason Monn

Pittsburgh attorney Jason Richey

Dr. Nche Zama

Charlie Gerow

John Ventre

For These Republicans 2024 Is Just Around The Corner

Mike Pence. Mike Pompeo. Rick Scott. They share big ambitions, but one name hovers above them all …

President Biden told reporters last month that his “plan is to run for re-election,” despite already being the oldest person to have won a presidential election. So, for now at least, the question of who will lead the Democratic ticket in 2024 has been put to rest.

On the Republican side, however, certainty is in short supply. It’s beyond early to be talking about the next presidential election — but that’s only if you aren’t planning to run. Some Republican candidates have already made trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, and others are laying plans to go, in what often represents the first step in building out a campaign operation in those early-voting states.

And on Wednesday, in a conspicuously forward-looking move, former Vice President Mike Pence announced the formation of a new political organization, Advancing American Freedom, whose advisory board is stacked high with former Trump administration officials and allies. The news came on the same day Simon & Schuster announced that it would publish Pence’s autobiography as part of a two-book deal.

The G.O.P. is badly fractured, trying to hold together a dominant base of those loyal to former President Donald Trump and a stubborn minority of pro-decorum, anti-Trump conservatives. Anyone looking to grab the Republican mantle will have to find some way of satisfying both camps — and maybe even expanding upon them.

Rivera Another Candidate Who Is Trying A Second Time

Another candidate making her second Senate attempt is Natalie Lynn Rivera. A social services coordinator from Sicklerville, Rivera ran as an independent under the slogan “For the People” in 2018, garnering about 0.6% of the vote.

Rivera, 44, said she wants to give typical New Jersey residents a voice in Congress. On her Facebook campaign site she calls herself a conservative. Among her priorities are restoring Second Amendment rights that she says are “under seige” in the state and outlawing abortion.

What sets her apart from the other candidates, she said, is that she “will be a servant to the people … I think I am authentic and will serve from the heart to put their best interests at the forefront.”

Another candidate running a shoestring campaign is Eugene Tom Anagnos, a retired middle school teacher who taught in Newark and Elizabeth schools. A Greek immigrant who now lives in East Hanover, Anagnos is an Army veteran who holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Indiana University.

General Election Candidates On Five Or More Ballots

In addition to Biden, Hawkins, Jorgensen, and Trump, the following candidates have qualified to appear on five or more ballots:

Roque De La Fuente   Gloria La Riva   Jade Simmons   Jesse Ventura/Cynthia McKinney   Sheila Tittle   Kyle Kenley Kopitke   Ricki Sue King/Dayna Chandler  

Incumbents are bolded and underlined The results have been certified.

Total votes: 158,379,904

0 states have not been called.

Here Are The Republicans To Keep An Eye On For 2024

Bradley Devlin

Republicans are paying extra attention to a number of Republican governors, senators, and former officials that might consider making a run for president in 2024.

The contenders come from various contingents of right-leaning thought, and will be fighting to capture parts of former President Donald Trump’s base. Whichever Republican hopeful prevails will not only become the Republican Party’s nominee, but also help determine the ideological trajectory of the Republican Party in the post-Trump era.

Vice President Mike Pence

It’s not uncommon for vice presidents to follow up their stint as second-in-command with a run for president. Former President John Adams, the nation’s second president, was America’s first vice president under President George Washington. More recently, President Joe Biden became the 46th president four years after he ended his eight-year tenure as former President Barack Obama’s vice president.

Vice President Mike Pence might decide to do the same, but Pence’s relationship with Trump seems to be severely tarnished after Pence did not contest the certification of the Electoral College results, as reported by The Hill.

Senator Ted Cruz

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz could run for president again come 2024 after he defended his senate seat in 2018 from Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. Cruz’s bid for the presidency in 2016 ended in failure as Trump captured the Republican Party’s nomination.

Senator Josh Hawley

Governor Ron DeSantis

Poll Results Are Fake Unless Theyre Good Trump Says

During his speech at the Dallas convention Sunday night, Trump said he only would have believed the results of CPAC’s straw poll if they were his favor, Business Insider reported.

“Now, if it’s bad, I just say it’s fake,” the former president told the crowd, reported Insider. “If it’s good, I say that’s the most accurate poll, perhaps ever.”

In the past, Trump has decried similar things he doesn’t like as false, like referring to unfavorable media coverage as “fake news.”

Early Nomination Contests Didn’t Involve Primaries

Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Intraparty disputes over who should be nominated for the presidency are as old as the republic itself. But the modern system of determining nominees through a series of state primary elections is essentially an innovation of the 1970s. Before that, parties deployed a wide range of methods.

The Democratic-Republicans, the dominant political party of the early 19th century, used to select candidates via a vote of the party’s members in Congress.That method let it control the White House for 20 years, and lasted until the rivalry between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson made the party splinter into the Democrats and the Whigs in the aftermath of the 1824 election.

Back in 1836, in the early days of Whig versus Democrat competition, the Whig Party even tried nominating several candidates simultaneously in their bid to block Martin Van Buren from succeeding Jackson in the White House.

In most Northern states, William Henry Harrison appeared on the general election ballot, while Hugh White got the nod in most Southern ones. And Massachusetts Whigs went with Daniel Webster , while Willie Magnum was nominated in South Carolina.

But it did not work. Van Buren won the election, and in subsequent contests the Whigs emulated the Democrats, picking a single nominee at a broad national convention with representatives from all states.

[clarencenicholsonata]

How to Use Facebook and Instagram Stories to Drive Engagement

Instagram and Facebook is a progressive platform that has earned the attention of marketers and entrepreneurs around the world. There are no reasons to surprise this state of affairs because these social networks are very popular among users.

Today we’ll dwell on a tool like Stories. This is a great option to gain audience engagement and trust. Why? Statistics speak for themselves:

More than 500 million accounts use Instagram stories daily.

Instagram has more than 1 billion active accounts per month worldwide.

Moreover, 90% follow at least one company on Instagram.

According to studies, for the 1st quarter of 2020, the number of active users worldwide on Facebook amounted to more than 2500 million.

300 million use Facebook Stories every day.

If you still don't use stories as a tool to increase engagement on social networks, you're losing out. They allow you to attract the attention of users and hold it. Here are a few examples of how you can effectively use Instagram or Facebook stories to achieve business goals.

1. Create Direct Interaction With Chat Stickers

One of the best ways to increase the engagement of subscribers is to communicate with them. Instagram provided a special feature for this case, offering its users a chat sticker. Now you can create a quick chat in seconds that allows up to 32 participants.

At first glance, a limited number of chat users may seem like a flaw, but you can benefit from it. Focus, the attention of followers on the fact that only 32 people can start correspondence with you.

Test new products, do contests and provide advice. The tool is perfect for almost any business, from the beauty industry to the sale of cars.

For example, your business is the services of a cosmetologist. You can provide free advice to a limited number of people and report it. Such a move will help to stimulate demand and increase engagement.

Some users will receive answers to questions of interest for free, and some will want to use the services. Thus, you will increase the loyalty of the audience, create a positive image and you can grow from the followers of customers.

2. Use Question Stickers to Get Instant Answers and Feedback

This is probably one of the most used Instagram story features. It’s quite logical, because question stickers are endless possibilities.

Do you believe?

We will prove it.

Firstly, this is a great way to get feedback. Ask users to share their opinions on your product. Secondly, it is a powerful tool for marketing research. Track demand by asking users directly about their preferences. People like it when their opinion matters, so most are happy to give answers.

Ask questions in the story and give answers there or write to the user in private messages. Such an approach will help to get closer to consumers and increase activity.

3. Use Quiz Stickers to Increase the Product Visibility

Nothing involves as much as interactive forms of interaction. Use Quiz stickers to connect with your followers.

Find out how closely they follow your brand and you will get an understanding of how loyal the audience is. Create Quiz polls and reward them for the right answers. There are many options, depending on the goals.

For example, you are still the same practicing cosmetologist. Ahead is a training marathon and you want to attract more attention to this event. Add Quiz with questions about previous profile activities.

Only truly active followers will be able to answer this correctly. Play a discount among the participants for the upcoming marathon or give one lesson as a gift. This will help to stimulate demand and increase engagement.

4. Use Emoji Slider to Spice Up Interaction

Emoji Slider is the surest way to get an engagement from the audience. It is so simple and relaxed that it provides an excellent response. You can use them to find out the opinions of users about a particular issue.

It is enough for them to drag the slider to the right. The variety of emoji is so great that it allows you to conduct a wide variety of polls. Creative use is also possible, providing several answer options.

5. Use Voting Stickers to Get Feedback

A great way to create audience engagement. Allows you to conduct a survey and find out the opinions of users. Companies often practice this in order to ask what users think about new products and events before entering the market. This is also a great option if you want to create new content or enter categories and are not sure whether to do it.

Just ask your followers and you will know for sure. Voting stickers provide an opportunity to save time, develop effective strategies and get better results.

Ideas for Increasing Instagram and Facebook Stories Engagement

Use a call to action

You can increase engagement with simple tips. It is enough to supplement the image with arrows and the inscription “Click to see / find out more” or something similar. The user will understand that something valuable is waiting for him and is more likely to search all your stories.

Some may think that this is unnecessary action, because the stories are switched automatically. This is partly true, but people are so used to a huge amount of content that they absorb it without involvement.

In order to reach the user, you need to attract his attention with atypical content and a call to action. Do this with the standard tools that Instagram and Facebook offer or use professional design.

Create Viral content

In order to gain popularity among users, you need to create content that you are willing to share. It can be funny, interactive or useful images. For example, you can make a branded schedule for the day, trekking books you read or wallpapers with inspirational quotes.

Having benefits encourages the use and sharing of content. You don't have to be a designer to do this. It is absolutely suitable for any business.

Let's go back to the same example of a cosmetologist. Create trekking good habits for skin or skin care guidelines. Be sure it will be appreciated.

Add Custom Content

People love this type of content and actively distribute it among friends and acquaintances. In addition, this is a great way to get closer to the audience, gain loyalty, and increase trust.

Each time users share photos with your product, repost yourself in the story. People are extremely pleased to receive approval, especially when it comes from their favorite brands. This one works like a chain reaction.

Other users see reviews from other customers and become more focused on your business. Next time, some of these people will also share user content. The more such recommendations the better.

Firstly, your brand gets more coverage, and secondly, you can save time on creating content. Encourage users to share photos with your product in stories, offering all kinds of promotions, discounts, bonuses.

Remember, to create the image of a reliable company, you need to monitor the quality of the content carefully, including the literacy of the texts.

The presence of typos can negatively affect the impression of your brand. Therefore, each time using special tools for checking like Grammarly.This will help to avoid mistakes and make the content professional.

Instagram / Facebook stories are a great way to get closer to your audience. Proper use of tools and a well-thought-out strategy will help you achieve impressive results.

Combine the above options and never stop there. Always be inspired by new ideas, follow the market experts and you will be surprised at the received an engagement from the audience.

About the Author

Haley Osborne is an active freelance writer. She is interested in management, web design and writing. Regularly touches on the topics of self-development and modern trends. Her goal is to provide quality and inspiring content.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/2H6NTk1 via IFTTT

[toxoplasmajuice]

Collins MMBC Replies 17

except one click reply is still busted so these are copy pasted from the activity page and made to look as if i were using one click reply

@futurecarrie​ replied to your photo “[Noé]: Amia?! [Prax]: What the hell are you– [Amia]: Shhh!!”

GRUMPY CHILD OMG

honestly??? im glad u coincidentally put her up for public dl right when i was gonna need sims from original drse she was fun to fit in

@cafesimming​ replied to your photo “[Amia]: …Uh.”

oh shit

see its one thing to find a dead body when youre an mmbc contestant... its another thing when you’re not involved with any ongoing mmbcs in any significant way until this moment

futurecarrie replied to your photo “[Amia]: …Uh.”

This is when you walk away 'mi

this is why you don’t leave your friends* alone with shady-ass upperclassmen. this is just karma

*highly debatable

cafesimming replied to your photo “[Gretta]: [immediately stops crying] Ooooooooh!! The freshmen found...”

gretta youre not exactly being subtle here “OH MY GO D YAY IT’S THE DEAD BODY IM SO EXCITED” i wonder whos fuckin orchestrating this shit. no idea. No Way To Know. a goddamn mystery

now to be fair it’s not like jasmyn/The Audience was fooled in the first place

futurecarrie replied to your photoset “[Noé]: …… [Prax]: What the hell– [Amia]: I don’t know! I don’t even...”

I always had a feeling she'd be the first to find a body (just, first because she did it, not like this instance xD)

now i know this probably refers to expecting amia to kill s/b in original drse but also: i cant believe amia is the third outside saboteur of this mess of an mmbc

(cheyenne: *screaming* NOT ANOTHER ONE)

@jackssims​ replied to your photo “[Amia]: …Uh.”

WHAT THE FCK

:3c

jackssims replied to your photo “[Gretta]: [immediately stops crying] Ooooooooh!! The freshmen found...”

SHSL Despair at it again

You’re Not Wrong

jackssims replied to your photoset “[Noé]: …… [Prax]: What the hell– [Amia]: I don’t know! I don’t even...”

Noé knows (also when's the body announcement gonna play, three people found that body)

when you’re just trying to have a social life but you’re also used to seeing dead bodies

jackssims replied to your photoset “¦ [*ding!*] [Missy]: Uuuuugggghhhhh…”

There it is

noé’s text was actually just the body discovery message with a lot of typos

jackssims replied to your photo “[Amia]: Why do you seem so calm?! What the fuck is going on?!...”

Teen Angst™

this is actually a skit the theater troupe i’m part of is putting on for incoming 9th graders on how to deal with high school drama

and murder

(side-note: i call this teen drama but the funny thing is that at least 2 out of 3 in this scene are like. legally not teens. like i don’t remember ever knowing how old amia is (either now or was in fall 2015) but i gave noés age as 16 in fall 2015 and at this point in realtime he’s 18. prax’s age was given as 18 at the start. and whats funnier is that for like EVERYONE IN THE CLASS whose age was given at all it’s like that. everyone who had a given age was between 16 and 18 at what was presumably the start of their freshman years of high school. this is why we don’t judge jasmyn for thinking joelle and asha were high school students)

jackssims replied to your photo “[Cordelia]: Evelyn?? Evelyn!! Wh-Where are you?! [Joelle]: Maybe we’re...”

Cordelia...

:’(

jackssims replied to your photo “[Jasmyn]: Gretta. [Gretta]: Oh, hey, cameras! Maybe we should change...”

Nah Gretta, give it to 'em straight from The Source

is gretta a reputable source

jackssims replied to your photo “[Cordelia]: E…ve…lyn…?”

I'm tearing up Clover

:’’’(

jackssims replied to your photoset “[evelyn]: …[smiles] …”

stOP

I WISH I COULD, JACK, I WISH I COULD

jackssims replied to your photo “[Ian]: Wait, who are– [Amia]: Shhh!! [Ian]: …[whispering] Uh, are you...”

I'm imagining the dispatcher using the mocking Spongebob meme that's been going aroind *around

dispatcher: we can’t do anything, please contact the bachelorette amia: wE cAn’T dO aNyThInG pLeAsE cOnTaCt ThE bAcHeLoReTtE

jackssims replied to your photoset “[Ian]: Wait! Asha! It looks like Evelyn died from the stuff here!...”

Asha has /no/ shame

no shame in needing a drink in this situation right???

jackssims replied to your photoset “[Joelle]: …You know. How come there’s so many Hope’s Peak students...”

Sure Jan, that's believable

ITS TRUE ps67 kid has just been chilling

jackssims replied to your photo “¦ [Missy]: …nope, he’s not out here… [Gretta]: Yeah, I looked at the...”

OF COURSE

fun fact: in my mental plans for this episode she was gonna run into the bathroom acting like a hero to “examine” the scene. she was gonna claim to have invented this glove that when in contact with certain toxins would change in some way that most people wouldn’t notice but she could because she’s the shsl toxicologist (or maybe she’d just then be able to take it for brief further testing--either way, she can find the results while others can’t because that’s her talent) to indicate what must have killed someone, and she’d use it by... putting it on and shoving her hand into the toilet bowl

of course, the glove would’ve just been a normal heavy duty rubber glove (similar to how in the actual episode here, we know gretta didn’t really figure out the cause of death just by looking)

(why’d i drop that? because this episode was already way too heavy on poses i needed to make, and i didn’t want to try and find cc gloves for the purpose)

jackssims replied to your photo “[Joelle]: Hey! You, in the bathroom! [Voice From Behind The Bathroom...”

This is an… interesting scenario for one to be in

being the kid or being joelle and/or asha (probably both)

jackssims replied to your photo “[Missy]: Uh… Hey, I don’t– [Amia]: Shhhh!! [Missy]: …[*ahem*]...”

👀

(damn whys it so hard to find good old xat smileys on google. this is the only animated (wary) i could find and its fckn tiny and i think it was from a naruto forum)

jackssims replied to your photoset “[Jasmyn]: Is this for Stats class? [Joelle]: … [Jasmyn]: … [Joelle]: …...”

Asha, without missing a beat: Totally! Not like we're on an MMBC or anything ahahha no way fellow kids

adulthood? never met her

jackssims replied to your photo “-skip- … [Ian]: …Who do you think killed Evelyn Brennan? [Missy]: And...”

This puts into perspective there's only five left holy shit

GOD mmbc polls always hit me with that too its the Freakiest shit

@heysimbutt replied to your photo “¦ [Missy]: …nope, he’s not out here… [Gretta]: Yeah, I looked at the...”

seems legit

Trust Me This Is My Talent Also I’m Not An MMBC Facilitator

heysimbutt replied to your photo “[Joelle]: Hey! You, in the bathroom! [Voice From Behind The Bathroom...”

I love this

thank u random ps67 kid for providing comic relief

heysimbutt replied to your photo “[Missy]: Cordelia? [Cordelia]: [weakly crying] [Missy]: …Cordelia, I...”

Cordelia :'(

:’( :’( :’(

heysimbutt replied to your photoset “[Joelle]: [hic] Hey! Those Kids! How old were you two in 2006??...”

I feel old

i........ was 6 in 2006

[wrangletangle]

Since you were recommending Dreamwidth, I decided to check it out. Is their anyway to look purely at art/fanfic without searching through someone's blog? What makes Tumblr so easy to use is that you can search through peoples tags quickly to find what you want, and I can't really find that on DW. Also, can you follow tags/interests on DW just like you do on Tumblr? It's a feature that allows me to keep up with my fandoms even when I'm not actively combing the tags and it's very helpful.

Hi anon, thanks for asking! Sorry for the delay.

Dreamwidth is constructed very differently from Tumblr, as you noticed. It was originally created as a fork of the Livejournal code, but has since developed in its own direction, as requests from the userbase came in.

To give you some parallels:

You can still follow individual users. In fact, you have a lot more control over how you follow users - you can adjust your following preferences to group users together into named dashes, for example. I have a dash for individual blogs and a separate one for communities (details below).

Most users do have a personal tagging system, and this generates an automatic list of their personal tags, available at the /tag URL for that user. So if I want to see all of the art that pentapus has ever posted (and I do, regularly), I just go to pentapus’s blog, glance at the taglist and pick the “art” tag. Voila, I have it all. No skipping stuff like Tumblr likes to do.

Now for what’s different:

DW doesn’t block your post for being “adult” or hide posts based on tags. Instead, you flag your individual posts or entire blog as adult, and if someone isn’t logged in, they get a warning before they see the material.

When I make a post on DW, I can literally control who can see it. I can either lock it to only my followers, to only a subset of my followers (groups I’ve put together privately, which my followers can’t see), or I can let everyone see it. I can choose my own tags for my own blog. I don’t have to worry about fighting over tags with another fandom I’ve never heard of, or strangers hopping into my blog and fighting with me over something they have no context for.

Where Dreamwidth is really different is in how it organizes what Tumblr does via general tags. DW does that via opt-in communities, which have mods and everything. When it comes to fannish content, I often won’t post that to my personal journal at all but to a community for that topic instead, or I’ll post it to my personal journal but I’ll post a notice about it at a relevant community. That way, I know that people who are interested in that topic can see the post. I also don’t spam my followers with 50 million Baze/Chirrut reblogs haha ha (still not apologizing).

I join and follow communities for topics I’m interested in. Those communities can show up on my dash/feed, mixed in with the individuals I follow, or I can separate them into their own dash/feed. I have the power!

I can lock my posts in communities to community members only, if I don’t want to tell the entire universe about my Baze/Chirrut feels but only want to talk to like-minded shippers. (Though really, I want to tell the entire universe.)

No need for sideblogs. Just post to communities related to that topic.

Functional cut tags.

Multiple icons on free accounts.

THREADED CONVERSATIONS IN CONTEXT, ALONG WITH EVERYONE ELSE’S COMMENTS ON THE SAME POST. ALSO, CONVERSATIONS WITHOUT REBLOGGING.

No ads.

No porn blog followers.

Community-run support, so you can literally see the support queue and usually get a helpful response within like 2-3 days at most, often faster for easy questions.

Help files? That tell you how to use the site? Linked from a button that says “Help”?

You can edit your posts, and there won’t be 500 copies of the version with the typo in it.

Screened comments that can be unscreened at will.

Long-form non-chat PM system.

Comment-tracking, even for posts you didn’t make.

Multiple icons, which allow you to mood theme your posts.

Polls, if you have a paying account.

Actual mood themes, if you have a paying account.

What does that mean?

No antis. Anti content is not posted to the communities, or if it is, mods remove it. Antis are allowed to form their own communities, and people who love the thing they hate just avoid those. (Most people don’t bother making anti comms and just occasionally mutter on their personal blogs. Overall anti noise level is much lower, comparatively speaking.)

No fighting over tags.

Better RP. Let’s be real, RPing on Tumblr is horrifying.

More control over what feeds I see and when.

More control over what other people see. I can post personal rl posts for my followers only, and they will never be seen by anyone who doesn’t follow me.

More personal connections among mutuals, as you’re able to talk either privately or in small groups about your personal life or interests without random people barging in, taking your sandwich, and kicking your shins.

Better privacy controls. Honestly, does Tumblr even have privacy?

But also, in the reverse, the ability to connect with most of the people who have a particular interest by posting in a community. Since communities are moderated, people don’t hide from them the way a lot of us hide from the tags on Tumblr. You also don’t have to call into the void for people to follow - you can literally just look at the community membership list and browse for cool people.

CONVERSATION.

Connection. Belonging to a community on DW is not like being on Tumblr. It’s much more personal and interconnected, with individual support. On the flip side, communities don’t have the kinds of requirements that Tumblr networks do. You don’t have to follow X or do Y and send in an application and give them your icon and description or any of that jazz. You click a button. There, you’ve joined. No submissions required. No mod has to trawl the tags for things to reblog - members just post their stuff directly to the community, or post to their personal blogs and post a link to the community.

None of this requires an xkit-style extension. All of these features are natively supported by the site itself.

The experience is very different, but it is very awesome. Much more interconnected, much less wank (not totally non-wanky, because fandom wanks, but the system is designed to make it harder to be a jerk and easier to be a friend).

[minnievirizarry]

Social Media Guide for Political Campaigns

A lot of things in our day-to-day lives have gained new dimension with the aid of social media—shopping, advertising, travel. But was anyone prepared for social media’s impact on politics?

Regardless of political affiliation, the last presidential election and the campaign trail that have followed have made for one of the most interesting political cycles yet.

To help make sense of it all, this guide demonstrates how any political candidate—whether it be local, state or national—can get the most out of social in their campaign strategy and display some impressive digital marketing for their audience and the nation as a whole.

What you need to know to get started:

The real race starts before the announcement

Before it’s even officially announced that you’re running for office—before supporters and opposers have the opportunity to analyze your every step through a campaign journey—you must establish your social media presence.

This means start building out your social media strategy early on. It’s not simply about “getting ahead,” it’s about establishing a presence that you can maintain throughout your campaign.

Why is this so important? Because political campaigns are essentially brand platforms—and as a candidate, you are the brand.

Within today’s social landscape, public figures are no different than big brand names. How effectively their actions resonate and how carefully they uphold the image they want to project makes them one and the same to their audience in this environment.

This is why political candidates, particularly during widely visible elections, are smart to embrace what makes their supporters love them and make waves right from the social feeds. The inner workings of political campaigns must be organized, with every Tweet, Instagram post or blog post as part of a unified, controlled message.

That shouldn’t be confused with being “phony.” There’s a balance and even an art to remaining transparent and authentic in how you use your social platforms, while still taking care to include talking points that lead back to a specific goal or set of goals.

On Instagram, Kamala Harris typically posts snapshots from events relevant and meaningful to her and her platform, accompanied by words that feel genuine about a subject we know she advocates for.

View this post on Instagram

Had a great time yesterday at the #BlackWomenLead event! Black women have some of the highest rates of voter turnout, yet continue to be underrepresented in elected office. We shouldn’t just be thanking Black women for electing progressive leaders, we should be electing them as those leaders this November.

A post shared by Kamala Harris (@kamalaharris) on Sep 15, 2018 at 11:00am PDT

According to a Sprout Social study, 79% of consumers say politicians have a responsibility to be transparent when posting on social media. Americans hold politicians to a higher standard than they do themselves—only 71% say they personally have a responsibility to be transparent on social, and 66% expect the same of their friends and family.

Treating your campaign like a brand platform—by closely monitoring your messaging—means candidates can avoid Tweeting “oops,” in the future and can actively combat the various organizations that exist to dig up dirt from candidates’ pasts.

While a rogue Tweet may be a PR nightmare, a social presence that lacks personality and substance can be a campaign deal-breaker.

Develop a thoughtful strategy for success

So, you’ve established that campaigns are indeed like your very own brand platform. Now you’ve got to ensure that the entire campaign team adheres to the strategy you’re setting in place.

Develop and implement a fully baked plan that outlines goals, social strategy and tactics before launching. Having a firm strategy in place will help mitigate errors and empower campaign team members to make decisions knowing that they’re staying on-message no matter how fast they’re moving on social.

That’s also why it’s so important to create a team that thinks digitally, or train them to. McKinsey discusses the idea of raising an organization’s digital quotient. The firm suggests, “digital technology ramped up competition, disrupted industries, and forced businesses to clarify their strategies, develop new capabilities, and transform their cultures.”

In order to think digitally and to raise digital quotient, political campaign teams must be agile and adaptable. They must understand the risks inherent in using social media and how to reach digitally plugged-in voters without compromising brand image.

Alexandria Ocasio’s Instagram take several opportunities to showcases adapting to new content forms. In this Boomerang urging people to vote in the primaries in New York, she’s using Instagram as a platform to promote not just personal posts or posed photos, but education and information.

View this post on Instagram

NEW YORKERS: Read this post! ⬇️ . TOMORROW is a very important Primary Election Day! 🗳 If YOU have never voted in a Primary before, I’m talking to you. The most impactful decision a person can make for our community is to choose to vote when they ordinarily wouldn’t have voted. That’s because pollsters don’t EXPECT young people, people of color, and working class people to turn out to vote – so when we do, it changes the game. Here’s how to do it: . 1. Find out where you vote: visit nyc.pollsitelocator.com/search – it’s usually a spot pretty close to where you live. . 2. Pull out your phone calendar and FIND WHEN in the day you’re going to vote. MAKE AN ALARM/EVENT/whatever. Before work is your best shot. I know it’s annoying to wake up early, but we’ve got to save the country. Plus that post-vote glow is great and you get a sticker and everything. If I got a sticker every time I went to the gym maybe I’d go more often too 😂 . 3. VOTE TOMORROW AND BRING A FRIEND. I may have my list of endorsed candidates (see below), but honestly so long as you vote that’s the most important thing. Do your research and decide. . 4. SOCIAL! It’s totally okay to brag that you voted on IG, Twitter, Facebook, etc – even if you don’t want to say for whom! When people see that their friends, family & neighbors are voting, sometimes that’s the nudge or reminder they need to head to the polls themselves. . 5. Last but not least: HAVE FUN & STAY INVOLVED. Sometimes people say “politicians only come around when they want a vote.” For many that’s true, but there’s also a lot of officials out there doing the work but WE need to also check out our community boards, civic associations, grassroots activism, etc to hold up our end of the bargain and pay attention to what’s happening in our own backyard. . 💜💜💜 Get out there and VOTE TOMORROW, Thurs 9/13! . Our endorsed candidates (they have ALL rejected Corporate Lobbyist 💰): State Sen: @biaggi4ny (BX), @salazarforsenate (BK), @barkan4ny (BK) Attorney General: @zephyrteachout Lt. Gov: @jumaane.williams Gov: @cynthiaenixon . (There are LOTS MORE amazing candidates out there, this doesn’t mean they are the only good ones)!

A post shared by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@ocasio2018) on Sep 12, 2018 at 9:36am PDT

Come up with a contingency plan

At the end of the day, your team of campaign workers and strategists are human. There will inevitably be errors—big and small—happening along the campaign journey. Candidates have got to make sure they have a contingency plan in place for when accidents do occur. They must develop a communications tree, assign a plan for escalation and empower the right people to make decisions.

For example, if a staffer forgets to sign out of a political official’s account before using social personally, and Tweets out an inappropriate quote or lewd photo, what happens next?

Depending on the severity of the mistake, someone else involved in the campaign must be notified to take action. Who gets the call when there’s a typo? How many people need to be on the case when a staffer posts a misconceived meme on the campaign’s Facebook page? How do you reach said people when a mistake happens?

When BlackBerry Tweeted out a (now deleted) message urging its last bastion of loyal users to keep up with the brand on Twitter from an iPhone, people noticed.

We often forget this these details are plainly visible in Tweetbot, Tweetdeck, and other clients. It’s a good lesson—the right device your sending messaging from can sometimes make a significant difference.

Perhaps most importantly, campaigns need to empower the right people to make decisions for better or for worse.

When the lights went out at Super Bowl XLVII, Oreo promptly tweeted an image of an Oreo cookie in a small glow of light above the words, “You can still dunk in the dark.” Yet what if the right person had not been empowered to approve that Tweet? And what if the chain of command was so long that the timeliness of the message was lost?

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Your strategy needs to account for these instances and the team needs to thoroughly discuss them to make sure you’re solidly ready to handle potential errors and think on your feet.

Research shows that 61% of people said that brands can demonstrate transparency on social by admitting mistakes—advice politicians should take to heart.

How to develop your social plan

Your audience is more digitally savvy than you know, especially when it comes to political campaigns and candidates on social, so you should be exercising the sort of strategic skill, creative content and innovative engagement that they expect.

Whether you’re up for local candidacy, a state seat or national election, these social tactics apply to every campaign in the social arena.

Organize your objectives

Whether a political campaign is candidate-centric or issue-centric, any effective social strategy would need to establish both long-term and short-term goals.

Some short-term goals to focus on:

Developing a positive image about the issue or candidate

Creating a strong buzz about the issue or candidate and related activities

Mobilizing your following to take action

Some long-term goals to focus on:

Involving leaders to become active in social media

More personalized, location-centric and demographic-targeted social ads

Broadening perspective: looking beyond the election and asking, ‘what will this campaign look like 10 years out?’

Planning budget

The most bang for your buck costs no buck at all. For a moment, forget all the bells and whistles of social tactics and paid advertising and realize that all you need to amplify your message is free—a social account.

In 2016, when both Clinton and Trump announced their candidacy, Twitter became their battleground, with significant spikes in followers and engagement throughout the election.

An active political candidate looking to make an impact with their core demographic needs to be present and available across each major social platform—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram—meeting their supporters where they are.

That said, though inexpensive compared to traditional media, social incurs its own type of expenses when you hire a team of experienced professionals to deal with social media marketing.

Even if you don’t think of your social platform as a candidate as an advertising platform, it’s beneficial understand the in’s and out’s of paid social strategy—how to get started, what to spend and how each individual network operates.

Know your audience

A political candidate’s audience is made up of everyone: young voters, middle-aged voters, men, women, senior citizens, informed and educated individuals and activists.

The content you share should cater to and engage this wide spectrum of supporters, taking into consideration where each demographic is active online. For example…

Any social marketing for political campaigns should also take into account optimal timing for social media engagement—for instance, when your core audience is active online, the messages and events promoted should take advantage of those opportune moments.

That said, it can’t be denied that social is dominantly made up of a younger generation. Millennials also happen to comprise a large part of the the voting pool, In fact, Millenials and Gen Xers currently stand as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote.

These younger generations respond to digital outreach, so it makes sense to go all in on your social strategy and meet them where they are.

Because the reality is, today’s voters have never lived in a world without the internet or the iPhone. Digital content is what young voters use to educate themselves on issues—it’s no longer TV or print media. The candidates that win today—whether it’s a local, state or national election—are candidates that invest in a new audience and new ways to reach them.

Social tactics for success, for any level candidate

Video content

For any public figure or brand on social, it’s been established in recent years that video is statistically one of the most engaging forms of content to publish. Sprout data shows that 67% of people claim video (43% specifically saying live video) is a content form that they consider to be the most transparent.

It’s true, online video is a powerful tool that effectively builds buzz organically and shouldn’t be underestimated.

According to Sprout data, 3 out of 4 consumers share brand video content on social, and social marketers are well aware of video’s importance: 65% of social marketers list a dedicated video producer or graphic designer as their #1 necessary additional resource.

Invest in and value the power you can leverage with this sometimes underestimated medium.

Social listening

You can leverage the power of social listening tools to be a fly on the wall of social conversations and public issues in order to build better campaign platforms.

There are a couple of ways you can use listening to your advantage on the campaign trail.

Competitive research

Social offers brands an unprecedented level of access to information about competitors’ strategy and campaign performance. Listening is what will help you easily mine that data, uncovering what your target audience truly cares about and helping you gather competitive intel on how they are approaching that target audience, and how those approaches are performing.

Audience feedback

With listening, you not only discover chinks in your competitors’ armor, you can find inspiration for ways to generate conversation around your own campaign. Then you’re more equipped to directly solve problems and address concerns.

This makes it simple to listen to the multitudes of voices, connect with them and forge personal rapport with them by understanding their plight, assimilating their opinions and responding honestly to their questions and comments.

Highlight supporters

Your supporters are on this journey with you. It’s important to highlight every achievement of your audience—from participation to promotional activities and more. The campaign message of a political party/politician should be that of the common public and this message should define your social media political campaign for elections.

Brands and candidates alike can highlight their followers’ posts to great effect on social. You can imagine how much this would make your supporters feel engaged if you highlight their efforts.

Mobilization & advocacy

The speed at which social media can rally supporters on issues, particularly socio-political issues, is bar-none.

The best messengers a campaign can have are voters’ friends—people are more willing to hear and trust a message from a friend rather than a politician. As Laura Olin, Obama’s 2012 social media director is quoted as saying, “The most valuable effort a campaign can have is people who are willing to evangelize on behalf of the campaign and spread its messages in a way that feels authentic.”

The nature of the platform makes it so that people across the globe can discover and rally around the causes and issues that mean something to them. To be a candidate in this environment means dishing out meaningful content to mobilize a community behind you.

Non-profit organizations tend to use social in a way that gathers groups of supporters together, all backing one cause and like-minded values.

Charity: Water does a great job of highlighting the real people at the center of their cause, stirring an emotionally connected gathering of supporters across social and showing the direct value supporters are a part of.

View this post on Instagram

More and more girls like Ina will have an opportunity to get an education in Mali because of clean water and supporters like you. Thank you. #NumberOneSchoolSupply Photo: @jeremysnell

A post shared by charity: water (@charitywater) on Sep 9, 2018 at 3:04pm PDT

Analyze the results

Once you start implementing a social strategy, you’ll want to make sure your approach is working. Take the time to analyze your campaign’s efforts to win over voters with a tool like Sprout’s analytics.

  In addition to tracking stats like your follower and message counts across platforms, you may also want to dig into what types of things people have to say about your campaign or related key terms with a feature like social listening.

This is a powerful way to find out how people are reacting to your campaign on social media, and how you might adjust your focus to best connect with supporters.

Conclusion

We know that the population of voters and the various avenues for influencing that population become wider when leveraging social media for political campaigns. Transparent, strategic and credible efforts can increase support from a wide audience, who are looking for authenticity from their representatives on social.

The measurement of a good political campaign is the participation of the public. Social platforms have helped political parties increase the voter base and open communication to a point that people everywhere can ask questions, make their opinions visible and go directly to the candidates for answers. Make the most of it by prioritizing digital strategy, above all other forms of campaigning, and meet your audience where they live—social media.

Plan, produce and share an impressive digital campaign for your candidacy.

 This post Social Media Guide for Political Campaigns originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-for-political-campaigns/

[unifiedsocialblog]

How to Use Instagram Mute (And How Not to Get Muted)

For the conflict-averse, or those who just want a breather from a certain Instagram account, it’s time to get acquainted with your new best friend: the Instagram mute feature.

Unfollowing someone on social media can be nerve-wracking. Sure, you’re tired of the hourly posts by your junior high science fair partner, but you hesitate to unfollow her because it just feels so harsh. How many of us endure a feed full of posts we’d rather not see because we don’t want to offend anybody?

Instagram has let users mute Stories for a while (though it’s not an obvious feature), but in May 2018 they also added the option to mute a user’s posts from appearing in your feed.

When you mute a user, you’re still following them. You just won’t see their posts or Stories in your feeds until you decide to unmute.

If you’ve ever had a friend who posted too many vacation photos while you were slogging away at work, or an aunt who never met a scone she didn’t want to ‘gram, this feature is for you. It’s mental freedom. And now it can be yours.

Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps an adventure photographer used to grow from 0 to 110,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.

Here’s how to use this feature:

How to mute Instagram accounts without unfollowing:

Step 1: Go to the profile page of the profile you want to mute

Step 2: Click the three dots in the top-right corner of the app

Step 3: Click the Mute option

Step 4: You can choose to mute Posts, Stories, or Both.

How to mute Instagram Stories:

You can also mute Instagram Stories from your Story feed.

Step 1: Tap and hold the profile picture of the account whose story you want to mute

Step 2: Select Mute

You can still watch Stories from muted users—you’ll find them by scrolling to the very end of your Story feed, where you’ll also see Stories you’ve already watched.

To unmute a user, follow the same process of holding the profile photo until the “Unmute” option appears.

How to not get muted on Instagram: 7 tips for brands

Muting seems like the best feature to hit Instagram since that flattering rainbow light filter, until you consider that someone might be muting your posts. Not so fun from this angle, is it?

If you’re worried about your followers using this feature to tune you out, just make sure you’re posting high-quality content that they won’t want to miss. We’ve got some tips below.

1. Share quality content

Don’t take your audience’s affections for granted by sharing mediocre content. Each Story or post is a chance to impress, share important information, or build a stronger connection.

And it’s equally true that each post might be the one that tips the scales on someone hitting that Instagram mute button.

Consider each post on its individual merits. Is it relevant and interesting? Does it fit with your brand voice? Is it something you would want to watch? Is it nice to look at?

There are many recipes for awesome content, but always make sure to include high-quality images or video and informative, engaging captions.

Don’t neglect the details that bring it all together, like colors and fonts.

2. Know your audience

Your brand’s posts and Stories aren’t sent into a void. They’re shared with real people: your current followers, and those who might discover you. When you share content on Instagram, think about the people you’re sharing it with.

Posts and Stories that don’t align with your audience’s values and interests, or reinforce the reasons they follow you, risk alienating them and leading them to mute.

Audience personas can be a great way to get to know your followers, and understand their wants and desires. Once you understand who they are, and what they care about, you’ll be able to create content that really connects with them.

Another bonus of really understanding your audience? It will help make your content more discoverable to people like them. Engaging content that aligns with the interests of your target customers is more likely to end up on the Explore tab.

3. Don’t post too often (or too little)

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “more is better” when it comes to Instagram content. You might want to believe that by posting constantly, you’ll always be on your followers’ minds.

But the fact is, audiences prefer quality over quantity.

Like a prospective paramour who texts fifty times after a single date, it’s possible to wear out a good impression.

What’s more, if you’re posting dozens of Stories every day, or churning out posts, it’s almost certain that you’re not sharing stellar content. Great content requires care and consideration. If you rush the process, your amazing idea will turn out like a Pinterest fail.

Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps an adventure photographer used to grow from 0 to 110,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.

Get the free checklist right now!

Instead, post regularly and at optimal times. This is better than flooding your audience’s feeds.

But, don’t go too far in the opposite direction and post rarely; you run the risk of being forgotten.

Creating a social media content calendar can help you plan your posts so that you have time to create and schedule awesome content consistently.

4. Use appropriate hashtags

Just because you can pile hashtags onto every post (up to 30, to be exact), that doesn’t mean you should. Using lots of hashtags might seem like a foolproof way to score new followers and boost your visibility, but it’s a hollow victory.

Instead of an engaged, interested audience, you’re likely to pick up bots, spammers, or people who are disappointed once they realize you weren’t truly committed to random hashtags like #TacosForPresident.

Rather than piling them on like toppings at a free sundae bar, use hashtags strategically. Create branded hashtags and include them consistently to build awareness, and complement those with trending hashtags that make sense for your brand. This will ensure you’re reaching the right people with your hashtags and building authentic relationships with them.

Still confounded by hashtags? We’ve rounded up everything you need to know about them.

5. Don’t forget about the caption

Flawless visuals may be the number-one priority on Instagram, but that doesn’t mean you can neglect the caption. It’s an essential supporting player, and you should be aiming for Best Supporting Actor every time.

The best Instagram captions are clear, concise, and action-oriented. While you can use up to 2,200 characters, high performing captions are much shorter than that: between 125 and 150.

Just like with your posting frequency, the rule of quality over quantity applies.

Before you post, make sure to proofread and spell-check. Like a splash of ketchup on a white t-shirt, a typo distracts from your caption’s impact. Here are 10 editing tips to help you craft Oscar-worthy captions.

6. Add value

One way to keep your audience paying attention? Offer perks and rewards for fans who are paying attention.

For instance, you could share exclusive discounts or announce flash sales on your Instagram feed. Running a contest can be an effective method of engaging fans and growing your audience, especially if you encourage followers to tag their friends.

By creating value for your Instagram followers, you are responding to their attention with real rewards—and giving them plenty of reasons not to hit mute.

7. Interact with your audience

We all tune out conversations when we feel like the other person isn’t really listening to us. The same thing happens online.

Audiences want to feel like you’re talking with them, not at them. If you use Instagram the way you’d use a highway billboard, you’re doing it wrong.

Instagram offers a ton of ways to engage with followers, so try them out and see what works for you. Ask questions in your captions—and reply to the responses.

Use interactive features like Story polls. Comment on posts that your brand is tagged in. Share a live video where you answer questions about your brand or products.

No matter how you do it, if you interact with your audience, you’ll benefit from stronger relationships, greater loyalty, and higher engagement.

By following these best practices, and making sure you’re posting the kind of killer content that you would want to see in your own feed, you can rest assured that your brand’s posts will have followers hitting the Like button instead of the Mute button. And then you can go back to muting your mom’s work friends’ blurry gardening photos, worry-free.

Save time managing your Instagram presence using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can schedule and publish photos directly to Instagram, engage the audience, measure performance, and run all your other social media profiles. Try it free today.

Get Started

The post How to Use Instagram Mute (And How Not to Get Muted) appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

How to Use Instagram Mute (And How Not to Get Muted) published first on https://getfblike.tumblr.com/

[ber39james]

17 Email Etiquette Rules to Know and Practice

Since the early days of AOL (“You’ve got mail!”), I’ve spent countless hours in the email trenches working in jobs that ranged from customer service rep to online community manager to managing editor to PR representative. I’ve done the math, and even estimating at an ultra-conservative ten emails per day over twenty years, I’ve sent at least 73,000 emails. Those experiences, both good and bad, taught me what to do and what not to do. These days I’m an expert emailer who’s sent bulk email campaigns with 55 percent response rates. (In case you’re wondering, that’s pretty darn good.)

In my experience, there are five email etiquette breaches so egregious that they belong in the Bad Email Hall of Shame category. Let’s start with them.

The Five Worst Email Etiquette Blunders

Email faux pas—we’ve all made them. Sometimes we’re aware a split second after we hit Send and shout “No!” wishing we could take it back.

https://giphy.com/embed/1y2vtuTSOi7ug

via GIPHY

Here’s a tip: If you’re a Gmail user, you can take it back. Here’s how.

Here are email etiquette’s most flagrant fouls.

1 Using CC for mass emails

When I worked as a video game journalist, there was a public relations rep who became infamous for sending a PR email to a huge list of journalists using CC, which revealed every one of those journalist’s carefully guarded email addresses. The journalists then gleefully used Reply All to host a threaded conversation mercilessly taunting him.

Don’t use CC for mass emails. Trust me. You really don’t need that kind of notoriety.

Here’s a tip: If you regularly need to send bulk email, use a bulk email platform like MailChimp or Constant Contact.

2 Hitting Reply All when you should hit Reply

Reply All is a handy feature when there are more than two people who need to be involved in a conversation, but be careful. I was involved in a group email where one member replied, thinking she was emailing only me, to admit she had a crush on another member of the email group. She accidentally used Reply All. In this case, the subject of the crush was flattered. But . . . your accidental Reply All may not result in a fairytale ending.

3 Assuming email is private and confidential

Anything you write in an email can be shared, whether intentionally or accidentally. (See above.) Don’t say things in an email, especially in the office, that you wouldn’t say publicly. And especially don’t write anything that could come back to haunt you. Emails may even be admissible in court.

4 Emailing when angry

Sometimes you just want to tell someone off. We’ve all been there. And it can be much easier to put those feelings in writing rather than have a difficult face-to-face conversation. But resist the urge. Angry emails raise the recipient’s defenses, and that’s not productive.

https://giphy.com/embed/N8EDZ95N1qw2A

via GIPHY

If you must write an angry email, either don’t add a recipient in the To: field or write it in your word processor, where you won’t be tempted to hit Send. Then let the draft sit for twenty-four hours. Odds are good you’ll have calmed down when you come back, and you’ll be able to offer clear-headed feedback rather than blistering invective.

5 Not getting to the point

I don’t know how many times I’ve read a rambling email only to wind up thinking, “Okay, but what does this person want from me?” For the love of all things electronic, don’t use email as a means to do a brain dump. Instead, do your brainstorming before you write the email. Then, decide what your objective is—what are you hoping will happen as the result of sending this email? Write a brief, clear message with that in mind. If the goal of your email is to persuade, style it as an elevator pitch.

Twelve Must-Use Email Etiquette Tips

Now that we’ve addressed email’s most outrageous offenses, let’s look at some guidelines for email etiquette that will always leave you looking like a polished pro.

1 Use a descriptive subject line

Save your cultivated air of mystery for vaguebooking on Facebook. (Okay, you shouldn’t really be doing that either.) Assume everyone you write to has a flooded inbox, and use your subject line to describe the contents of your email so the recipient will know right up front why your email should be a priority.

2 Don’t type in all caps

In Internet terms, typing in all caps looks like shouting. Need further incentive to lay off the caps lock? You may trigger spam filters.

3 Lay off the exclamation points

I know you’re excited! Seriously!!! But you can convey excitement without exclamation points. (Golly gee! Save those for when you’re really exclaiming.) Exclamation point mania is another spam filter trigger, so use them sparingly and never, ever two or more at the end of a sentence. Unless you’re a preteen. Then have at it.

4 Keep it simple

The ideal email is brief and gets directly to the point. Write emails like that and everyone will love you and you’ll be super popular. (Okay, maybe not. But at least no one will complain about your annoying email habits.) If your message is complex, with lots of moving parts, consider writing a detailed brief and attaching it as a Google Doc or pdf. But . . .

5 Ask before you send attachments

These days, we’re all wary about opening email attachments, even from known sources. And we have good reason to be. If you must send an attachment, give the recipient a heads-up to let them know it’s coming.

6 Use the auto-responder sparingly

Vacation auto-responders are fine. (Just don’t forget to either have them turn off “automagically” or turn them off manually when you get back to the office.) But auto-responders saying things like “Hey, I got your email. I’ll get back to you soon!” are pointless. They might also let spammers know they’ve reached a valid email address—double trouble!

7 Use professional-sounding greetings

Unless you know the recipient very well, and this is a style you’re both accustomed to, don’t begin professional emails with greetings like “hey” or “yo.” “Hello” or “hi” are usually fine. Use “dear” in formal business correspondence.

8 Use professional-sounding sign-offs

Keep it classy. Here are some best practices.

9 Use humor with caution

A well-timed bit of humor can make an email memorable. It can also sink it like the Titanic. You may think you’ve served up a clever quip, but your wit could be lost in translation. Save the funny stuff for people you know well—they get you.

https://giphy.com/embed/3o6Zt6aHvKaP8bAiuA

via GIPHY

10 Don’t be annoying with follow-ups

Avoid sending a barrage of follow-up emails. If a contact isn’t responding and you really need a response, consider making a phone call if that’s possible. In all other matters, if your carefully crafted follow-up doesn’t get a response after one or two tries, assume the recipient isn’t interested.

11 Be careful what you forward

There are cases when it’s fine to forward an email—if the sender reached the wrong contact or you need to add someone to the conversation, for example. But don’t forward sensitive or confidential emails. If you have any doubt that the sender would want the conversation shared, ask permission before you bring someone else into the loop.

12 Proofread

In a Grammarly poll, 67 percent responded that typos in work emails are a no-no. To avoid looking like you lack attention to detail, proofread thoroughly before you hit Send. No one ever regretted spending a little extra time polishing their writing.

Have you made any embarrassing email faux pas? Do you have any email etiquette gripes? Share a comment below.

The post 17 Email Etiquette Rules to Know and Practice appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/email-etiquette-rules-to-know/