#which again. is less caused because of the media and age demo its for. cause the shows b4 and after ARE NOT THIS. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

negotiatedbriefbmcnair · 3 years

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Survey

I structured my survey from the same questions I took in to the focus group. I think they have a good range of both emotional and analytically framed questions which will hopefully collate all of the data I need to refine this video further. As I said previously I used Survey Monkey as it is a streamlined process creating and distributing questionnaires from their website. Whereas in the focus group I had been more interested in the emotional reaction of people, the questionnaire lends itself to being a lot more broad and assessing purely the functionality of the video. I have not gotten all the responses I hope for just yet but I will continue to refer back to the results of my questionnaire as I make changes to my video over the next few days.

Before anything else I wanted to make sure I knew what device each individual person was watching the demo on as some of these problems may only be device or platform specific so it is important I’m aware of what issues are happening in which areas specifically. In this survey everybody was watching on an iPhone so far which is good as this is likely how most people will engage with the video so this is a really important area for me. In the focus group I played the video on a television and the text was far more legible than it had been on my Mac screen, knowing this I expected there would be problems with legibility when it came to mobile devices specifically iPhones.

Although I have no defined audience for this video I still wanted to look at the ages of the people engaging to give me more of an idea of where and who this feedback is coming from. All of the responses so far lie between the ages of 18-24 but again, I expect this to be the primary audience for this video due to its distribution taking place on social media platforms.

Although this question may not cause any changes to be made to my project I wanted to make the survey participants first feel valued by asking them about their feelings before critique as this is a little more personal and I want people to feel like more than data to get the best responses out of them. This question does allow me to see though if I have included good, precise data which is easily digestible and relatable. I found it really interesting the amount of interest people showed in emissions surrounding the storage of emails specifically. I think there is even a possible project for the future in that alone, as there are so many elements of our daily online lives that use massive amounts of energy consumption external to our own homes and computers that most of us are totally unaware to, including myself until researching for this project.

Similar to the last question before using people for their critical analysis I wanted to hear a little more about their digestion of the piece and how its affected them. It was really encouraging to see that people are looking to make changes in their own lives off of the back of some simple advice. I think this is what made the section looking at CO2E so effective was the advice that followed, it wasnt anything too drastic it was just some easy that anybody can do and feel like theyre making a difference whilst doing it - because they are.

Similarly to in the focus group I was really interested to hear what specific emotions people experienced whilst engaging with the video as this is the most important thing. Some people said they felt sad or guilt which I understand as it is a sad thing to hear about the way we harm our own home, but my hope was that people would feel hopeful and inspired. So I was glad that these more sad emotions were balanced out with some positive ones. I really liked how one person said ‘The background music helped to evoke calm feelings which is unusual for a video about climate change. I think it made a nice difference to the videos that scare you with the dooming facts and may even have more of a positive effect.’ I spent some time looking for soundtracks and tried multiple in the project but I settled on this one for this reason, I wanted it to feel positive and inspiring. This was a point that was made in the focus group too that my approach of trying to inspire people rather than scare them makes it a more effective campaign. This was my goal from the start so I couldn't really have asked for better feedback than this so hopefully this shows I am doing something right.

Towards the end of the questionnaire I begin to ask for more critical analysis of the production itself. As expected people found parts hard to read but in the questionnaire people complained less about the speed and more about the actual legibility. The blue text fill on the green background are quite complimentary colours which makes them hard to distinguish at times, this wasnt a problem on the television but as the data shows this is definitely problem on mobile devices, one person said it was the scale which was the problem. I think that it is likely to be a blend of all of these factors. I can fix this hopefully by increasing the scale and the drop shadow which I have applied to the text. If this doesn't fix the problem fully as I expect the blue text may still be hard to read, I may need to reassess my colour palette slightly or maybe look at using some sort of stroke or border for the text. This feedback is invaluable though, as someone who has seen the data countless times it was becoming hard for me to really assess the legibility of text both visually and in its duration but now I have feedback I know where I need to make changes.

As well as wanting to know what people thought of the production I also wanted to know what they thought of the content itself. I felt that I was trying to get a lot of different subjects into one video but I wanted it to feel more like friendly advice than an instruction manual, this was a hard balance for me to try and find so I was really interested in the responses to this question. All but one of the responses so far indicate that people were happy with the depth of information and how it touched on a number of points briefly. One person suggested that there could be more information surrounding each point and to a degree I agree, but this would take the video to a length where I feel it would be better suited being produced as a series of videos each looking specifically at one area. As I have just stated this was not where I wanted my video to go as I think too much seriousness limits audiences in a lot of ways, especially in this case as my goal should be to inform as many people as possible, not just those already eco-conscious as they are likely aware of all of this. I am trying to inform those who are more unaware.

Although a rating isn't ideal for making adjustments to my project I wanted to see at what level people thought it was currently at using a 1-10 rating.

I felt that my questions covered a good number of areas but with this being quite a personally subjective topic I wanted to give the opportunity for people to express any other thoughts they may have had about the project. The suggestion of a ‘longer into to set up what the video is about to say’ really interests me especially following the point about possibly including more information surrounding each point. I think that outlining from the start that the video exists to be informally informative would help people to engage with it more easily. I can see that the point where the nature of the video becomes clear is closer to the end, which may stop people interpreting the earlier information as effectively as they are too busy trying to think of what the video is trying to communicate. Across my testing and feedback of this infographic I have collated a lot of useful information which I can use to make amendments to my video. Specifically my first goal is to make the text more readable where necessary and from there I will fix the issues with the timing and duration of text. At this point I hope to text another demo to see if this has fixed those problems and if so, I can add some finishing touches to the visual styling. Overall though I have found both the survey and the focus group really interesting in highlighting areas where I can improve the video and also giving me more confidence to keep going with it as the data suggests people are affected by and learning as a result of it which to me is a huge success.

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my-pain-of-salvation-experience · 4 years

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I had a world of my own It is still there Only I am gone

(The 3rd part of the interview with the PAIN OF SALVATION leader Daniel Gildenlöw)

Did you or do you feel like living your dream? Did you have any time for daydreaming? Your career of a musician began so early and naturally?

I think I never really considered whether it was I’ve just wanted to start a band and I had nothing to compare. Looking back at that point now it’s probably not the most common thing to start a band at 11 and only with just writing your own music. We played covers every once in a while, but just for ourselves. I remember we played “Fade to Black” by METALLICA at one point, “The Mission” by QEENSRŸCHE and stuff like that, but normally we just only played our own songs, as I never had the need of playing other music. I could listen to that music, but I didn’t have to play it. I wanted to play the music I wrote by myself.

The first song was really interesting. As I’m looking back now the old songs had probably much more hit potential than PAIN OF SALVATION today. (laughs) You know I had more straight rockier approach and then I made my way closer and closer to the metal music. Then of course it needed to be cool and heavy…. So, I remember one song (it was a very early one) was called “Lightning in the House”. (laughs) I’m just taking the stupid stuff pointing at that moment. There were lots of more regular titles too, but “Lightning in the House” was, I thing, really the first song with lots of chords and lots of sections. I remember the bass player, who really couldn’t play the bass, being very frustrated… I remember one song that went with E minor, G, D with a F sharp in the bass and then back to E minor and then that starts over again. And every time he played it, first he played E and then he played G – like four each, four of the D, four of the F sharp and then four of the E and then back to the G again: “No, you have to play twice length of E when you get to the E.” – “Why?” – “When it starts with an E and ends with an E. And when it starts again you go to another E.” And we tried that many, many times and he never did it. Trying to explain sort of the physics of the song was impossible. I was like: “So, then just count four and eight, eight, eight all the time to the end and then you play four again. And then just play four again and that’s the end of the song.” And then once we had “Lightening in the House” it was way more complicated and what happened in the end was that he just hit the bass with the battery, ‘cause there was no chance for him to learn it. (laughs) If that’s not odd music, then what is?

And then, we had “Danger Ice”... of course not Eyes! (laughs): “It’s white hardened you can’t stop it – Danger Ice”. (laughs)

Daniel with his first accoustic guitar

Don’t you consider releasing some CD or even CD’s with all these songs?

So many times! I have to sort and collect them, because I wrote tones of songs back then. I started collecting them. I think I’m up to like a hundreds now with old songs. The problem is… I don’t know… I seem to have a remarkable memory when it comes to some things and to some other things I don’t... I never seem to remember when to water the flowers. If I will be left alone in our house, the flowers… they would all die, because I can never remember to water them. On the next day they look almost dead and I am like: “Oh, yeah, I should water them, I should go down the stairs and get a can of water and go up and water the flowers.” And then I go down and I forget what I was doing and start doing something else. And the next day I notice it again. And then I go back to the second floor and I’m like: “Oh, the flowers! I need to do the flowers. OK, after I finish this, I will do this… I’ll go downstairs doing myself a cup of tea and then I’ll bring up water for the flowers.” And then I don’t have a break. I just sit the whole day without eating or anything and I forget the flowers again. But I do remember songs that I wrote when I was like 11 years old. The only problem is I usually remember the first verse, the chorus, the solo and the end, but the second verse the lyric of the second verse is always very hard to find. I don’t know why, but the second verse is almost always gone.

One of the Daniel´s guitars in his rehearsal room and studio

I can understand this from the position of a listener, but when it’s your own song…

You know, it’s a long time ago I have to bring it as excuse, but probably when you make a song, the first verse is what triggers the song many times or the chorus. And the second verse is the one you write to complete the song. The first one is more intuitive, more a part of you, I think – or usually it’s like that. But I have started to collect the material. So it could be quiet a number of albums, If I start to record that. It would be very fun. I can record them myself too. It will be pretty fast. Back then I had to teach everyone to play. I’ve been playing everything and then I had to wait for them to learn the song. We will see what will happen…

Hey, we can do a REALITY REVIVAL! And then we can play Sweden Rock. (laughs) They love the revival bands: “Hey, we are a reunion band, can we, please, play? – Of course you can! How old are you? I’m almost 40 (note - the interview is 10 years old) – Well, OK then, I would wanna you to be at least 50 or older, but OK. You are still a bit young to play Sweden Rock, but…” (laughs) – (Note: It was a reaction to one of my first questions when I got off the bus from Stockholm and asked him, why POS didn´t play that year at the festival)

Anyway, I’m kind of surprised, when I look back at that material, that some of the songs are really thought-worthy. I was like: Oh, that’s pretty clever! Or… not clever maybe, but sort of philosophical which is interesting now. I get that all the time when I get back to strophes that I wrote five years ago every time, I’m like: “Did I write this? Hmmm, it’s pretty good!” (laughs) You don’t remember writing it you don’t remember the actual sitting down and writing it. So, you could really like it like if someone else wrote it which is interesting.

I have full respect for the stuff that I made when I was between eleven and sixteen. And then there is period when I was between sixteen and eighteen or nineteen that I feel much less connected to. I don’t know if it’s like that for everyone, but that’s an age when, I think, you’re doing stuff that’s less real. I mean at that specific age you are thinking much more about sort of surface level. For me that triggers much more into type of metal and sort of like… fantasy … like all about the good and the bad, the conflicts, lots of probes – like the way I can feel it in the power metal. This genre is full of mirrors, sand and swords, shadows… And I think that can still be fine, if you use it with depth with some sort of real need for it…

“This is actually the guitar I’ve played at that contest, when I was fifteen. (Note: I hope I didn´t pick a wrong picture - the stuff is really old.) One journalist from the city asks me every year since I was fifteen: “Don’t you wonna sell that guitar?” But I’m never doing that. It’s gonna be here. Every guitar I’m regretting selling afterwards, ‘cause it becomes part of your history. I’ve sold only the Ranger, the Melody, the Mason, the Ibanez, the white Fender… I think five guitars.”

But our creative work ever reflects our specific approach to the world at the time of its creation.

I think everything we create has to be a sort of reflection of who you are at that moment and then what the world around you is. You can never really look away from the fact that there are very specific trends going on. And the younger you are, the more perceptible you would be for the trends. But it’s still interesting to listen to it. And I’m the only one who’s listening to it. That’s the most annoying part, because it’s not recorded, so, I can just hear it in my head and no one else has that. I can’t compare it to anyone else’s picture, because anyone else can’t hear it in your head.

You have no records?!

No. I have some stuff recorded… fom the stuff that I’ve written, but the most of it is not... I made some demos when I was 14 or 15. I need to find those. I don’t know where they are. Somewhere has to be some recorded stuff that I‘ve sent to that contest… But even if I will be able to locate them, they might be ruined anyway. It’s a fragile media.

#painofsalvation progrock progmetal swedishrockmusic swedishbands danielgildenlow #progressive rock

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telrtot · 7 years

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All bet

well fuck, you got me

1: name? taylor irl and lacey here cause its cuter2: gender? on the Girly side3: birthday? feburary 5th 20014: age? 165: zodiac sign? aquarius6: sexuality? bisexual with a Strong leaning towards girls7: hobbies? playing d&d and thinking too much about characters i make. i also play a lot of video games and cosplay sometimes8: aesthetic? the night sky, a swirl of purples and blues and shades of grey, bare shoulders, sunsets9: dream home? somewhere in the city, close enough to walk were i need to. rainy weather is prevalent and in a short while i can find myself in the woods.10: OTP? umm not any Main Ones right now but AraSol will always have a special place in my heart11: favorite band/music genre? indie folk and folk rock. ringlefinch is my favorite band but nobody has heard of em. gotye and hozier are also up there in my favorites.12: favorite songs? hell by ringlefinch ; beneath the brine by the family crest ; beekeeper by keaton henson ; heart's a mess by gotye ; third eye by florence and the machine (perfer the demo version tbh)13: do you have a favorite book? if so, what book? mmm, haven't read enough in the last year or so to really make a choice. i used to Love the hunger games books when i was 10 and read Catching Fire 4 times through...if that counts. gosh i need to read more.14: favorite food? chEese. especially in Queso and Fried forms15: favorite TV show? fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood16: favorite character? aradia megido will always be a love of mine. mercy from ow is also a fave of mine.17: favorite animal(s)? foxes, 'cause they remind me of me, and all avians ever, 'cause they are friends.18: favorite color? plum purple and mauve19: favorite beverage? diet dr pepper with cherry20: favorite holiday? new years because every year i watch (bad) anime over at one of my best friends house 21: relationship status? who knows tbh22: last text you've sent? "gotta say, im intrigued to see what you could come up with"23: last text you've received? "as am i"24: last person you told you loved? my mother when she came in to say good night25: last time you felt jealous, and why? probably like an hour ago cause i was looking at selfies of people with nice skin26: are you insecure about anything? my skin, my nose, and my weirdly shapen hips27: where do you want to be right now? 27: where do you want to be right now? playing d&d but alas....28: what are some habits of yours? i bite my nails hardcore, talk really fast when i get excited or nervous, forget to shut cabinets, chew straws, and bite hard candies because i have no self-control29: three turn ons? umm, hm. either sitting in someones lap or having someone sit in mine, nEcK BiTiNG, and when someone wearing plaid or a button up shirt rolls up their sleeves.....30: three turn offs? generally immaturity. if someone - even in a jokin manner - calls me a bitch (especially if its a guy sayin it) not cool not funny please stop talking to me. whEn people can't hold a conversation to save their life (like i might be bad at it but at least i am Tryin, ya feel?)31: do you have kik, skype, or any other social media? i do32: pet peeves? wHen people with a runny nose sniff really loudly and make gross sounds. also when people use their hands or just don't cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough33: what're you wearing? my pjs. why? what r u wearing bbby?34: career goals? medical examiner in the forensic field or someone that travels a lot35: are you a student? yep, in high school36: what country do you live in? america37: do you have any pets? a labradoodle named patrick and a schnauzer named max38: tattoos you have/want? oh boy, that would be its own post. i honestly want quite a few, all in black and white and generally for the Aesthetic39: piercings you have/want? i have regularly lobe piercings and a double helix in my left ear40: morning or night? night41: guilty pleasure band? ninja sex party42: guilty pleasure song? samurai abstinence part by ninja sex party...43: top 5 favorite memes? tag yourself memes ; Gun ; the firefly 'you would not believe you (blank)' one ; maybe the real friends.... ; and those strange animal pictures with Russian captions44: one band you don't get the hype for? i don't know how much hype she has now but i don't really enjoy halsey all that much45: one band you wish more people knew about? rinGLEFINCH46: do you practice any religion? not currently47: do you believe in any form of a God? i believe that there is a God, possibly many, but i cannot say that i believe any doctrine of god is correct48: what do you think happens after we die? i like the idea of reincarnation49: have you ever done alcohol or drugs? i haven't done anything but drugs i have been given by a Doctor and i drank alcohol before....with my parents permission50: what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you? not actually dying when i was born 51: what's the best thing that's ever happened to you? not dying when i was born?52: have you ever had a near death experience? my heart stopped beating when i was a baby, so yeah53: is there someone you can tell anything to? myself....?54: what's the most amount of notes you've ever gotten on a post, and what was the post? it was a fallout meme i made and it got like 200 notes i think (maybe the real shaun was the friends we made along the way)55: are you right or left handed? right handed56: Would you be in a relationship (platonic or otherwise) with the last person you texted? If it's a family member, the last person you aren't related to. we are friends, so yeah57: who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything? the gaggle of gurl and ungendered pals of have are p good listeners58: would you want to change anything about yourself? make me less of an asshole and actually use my good brain to do work59: what's the first thing you notice when meeting someone? how they react to different brands of humor60: have you ever been hurt by someone you trusted? Who? ex-best friend of mine, who outted me to my family when i was like 1061: have you ever hurt yourself? yeppers. middle school was a rough time for me62: do you believe in an afterlife? maybe63: do you believe in ghosts? sure do64: what should you be doing right now? finishing my garbage dotters spell list like I said i would65: are you pissed at anyone right now? not really66: do you believe everyone has a soulmate, platonic or otherwise? i do, or i at least think the idea is nice67: when is the last time you were scared to tell the truth? i ate my brothers skittles on accident and oh boy was that rough, also pawned it off on my dad68: when is the last time you screwed up something important? everyday my guy69: is there anyone you were close with and are not anymore? there are two that come to mind. one is the ex friend i mentioned before and the other is my actual ex.70: what's the last promise you made? i think i was not play a suicide game that is popular in texas right now? my mom made me promise not to do it cause she's paranoid and honestly i hadn't even heard about it until she brought it up. 71: what's your outlook on life? we are all on a rock floating through space at thousands of miles per hour72: have you ever loved someone who didn't return your feelings? oh boy howdy yes. 73: if you could change your eye color, what would it be? a shade of hazel-green so i look even more ginger74: Are you dating the last person you talked to? nope, i don't believe me and @neoxnocturne are dating. unless we are and he never sent the email confirmation for it, if that's the case then i need the tax report on my desk by monday (short version: just a pal)75: does anyone regularly (other than family) tell you they love you? yeah, me and my gay squad do it every time we are together tbh76: do you think someone has feelings for you? yep77: has anyone ever told you they never wanted to lose you? a few come to mind78: do you replay things that have happened in your head? all the time79: have you ever felt replaced? every day if i am being honest80: last person you cried in front of? my mother, about my Ex81: if your ex asked to date you again, would you? um. maybe. i honesty don't know. 82: if you died right now, what song would you want to play at your funeral? no mercy by the living tombstoNe83: would you ever be in a long distance relationship? have been in one before, so maybe.84: what can make you upset easily? when people refuse to listen 85: do you have a good relationship with your father? depends on the day86: do you have a good relationship with your mother? i like to think so, she's probably who i am closest to87: do you have a good relationship with your siblings? nope88: have you ever been hurt physically or mentally by a family member? yeah89: are your parents divorced? no, but i think if they had less kids they would be90: what do/did people say about you in school? im the jokester that goes hard in arguments91: what do/did you say about people in school? depends on the person?92: is any mental or physical illness hindering your life? adhd since i was little, general anxiety, depression, and the potential to further develope bipolarism 93: have you ever had to end a friendship or relationship? why? yeah cause shit happened94: are there things you wanted in your childhood but didn't get? a horse and to learn to ride horses95: have you ever kept a journal? i tried when i was little but also bought a new journal and started a new one so they never got far96: do you believe that birthmarks are scars from past lives? sure, i can get behind that97: if so, do you believe there is a story behind your birthmarks? dont have any98: do you look after yourself? not in the slightest99: do you put yourself or others first? i am a selfish kid who happens to care about select people. i tend to put others first more than i think i should, which is already not a lot.100: Ask your own question! No thanks.

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sufredux · 5 years

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American Political Decay or Renewal?

Two years ago, I argued in these pages that America was suffering from political decay. The country’s constitutional system of checks and balances, combined with partisan polarization and the rise of well-financed interest groups, had combined to yield what I labeled “vetocracy,” a situation in which it was easier to stop government from doing things than it was to use government to promote the common good. Recurrent budgetary crises, stagnating bureaucracy, and a lack of policy innovation were the hallmarks of a political system in disarray.

On the surface, the 2016 presidential election seems to be bearing out this analysis. The once proud Republican Party lost control of its nominating process to Donald Trump’s hostile takeover and is riven with deep internal contradictions. On the Democratic side, meanwhile, the ultra-insider Hillary Clinton has faced surprisingly strong competition from Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old self-proclaimed democratic socialist. Whatever the issue—from immigration to financial reform to trade to stagnating incomes—large numbers of voters on both sides of the spectrum have risen up against what they see as a corrupt, self-dealing Establishment, turning to radical outsiders in the hopes of a purifying cleanse.

In fact, however, the turbulent campaign has shown that American democracy is in some ways in better working order than expected. Whatever one might think of their choices, voters have flocked to the polls in state after state and wrested control of the political narrative from organized interest groups and oligarchs. Jeb Bush, the son and brother of presidents who once seemed the inevitable Republican choice, ignominiously withdrew from the race in February after having blown through more than $130 million (together with his super PAC). Sanders, meanwhile, limiting himself to small donations and pledging to disempower the financial elite that supports his opponent, has raised even more than Bush and nipped at Clinton’s heels throughout.

The real story of this election is that after several decades, American democracy is finally responding to the rise of inequality and the economic stagnation experienced by most of the population. Social class is now back at the heart of American politics, trumping other cleavages—race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, geography—that had dominated discussion in recent elections.

The gap between the fortunes of elites and those of the rest of the public has been growing for two generations, but only now is it coming to dominate national politics. What really needs to be explained is not why populists have been able to make such gains this cycle but why it took them so long to do so. Moreover, although it is good to know that the U.S. political system is less ossified and less in thrall to monied elites than many assumed, the nostrums being hawked by the populist crusaders are nearly entirely unhelpful, and if embraced, they would stifle growth, exacerbate malaise, and make the situation worse rather than better. So now that the elites have been shocked out of their smug complacency, the time has come for them to devise more workable solutions to the problems they can no longer deny or ignore.

THE SOCIAL BASIS OF POPULISM

In recent years, it has become ever harder to deny that incomes have been stagnating for most U.S. citizens even as elites have done better than ever, generating rising inequality throughout American society. Certain basic facts, such as the enormously increased share of national wealth taken by the top one percent, and indeed the top 0.1 percent, are increasingly uncontested. What is new this political cycle is that attention has started to turn from the excesses of the oligarchy to the straitened circumstances of those left behind.

Two recent books—Charles Murray’s Coming Apart and Robert Putnam’s Our Kids—lay out the new social reality in painful detail. Murray and Putnam are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, one a libertarian conservative and the other a mainstream liberal, yet the data they report are virtually identical. Working-class incomes have declined over the past generation, most dramatically for white men with a high school education or less. For this group, Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again!” has real meaning. But the pathologies they suffer from go much deeper and are revealed in data on crime, drug use, and single-parent families.

Back in the 1980s, there was a broad national conversation about the emergence of an African American underclass—that is, a mass of underemployed and underskilled people whose poverty seemed self-replicating because it led to broken families that were unable to transmit the kinds of social norms and behaviors required to compete in the job market. Today, the white working class is in virtually the same position as the black underclass was back then.

During the run-up to the primary in New Hampshire—a state that is about as white and rural as any in the country—many Americans were likely surprised to learn that voters’ most important concern there was heroin addiction. In fact, opioid and methamphetamine addiction have become as epidemic in rural white communities in states such as Indiana and Kentucky as crack was in the inner city a generation ago. A recent paper by the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton showed that the death rates for white non-Hispanic middle-aged men in the United States rose between 1999 and 2013, even as they fell for virtually every other population group and in every other rich country. The causes of this increase appear to have been suicide, drugs, and alcohol—nearly half a million excess deaths over what would have been expected. And crime rates for this group have skyrocketed as well.

American democracy is finally responding to the economic stagnation of most of the population.

This increasingly bleak reality, however, scarcely registered with American elites—not least because over the same period, they themselves were doing quite well. People with at least a college education have seen their fortunes rise over the decades. Rates of divorce and single-parent families have decreased among this group, neighborhood crime has fallen steadily, cities have been reclaimed for young urbanites, and technologies such as the Internet and social media have powered social trust and new forms of community engagement. For this group, helicopter parents are a bigger problem than latchkey children.

THE FAILURE OF POLITICS

Given the enormity of the social shift that has occurred, the real question is not why the United States has populism in 2016 but why the explosion did not occur much earlier. And here there has indeed been a problem of representation in American institutions: neither political party has served the declining group well.

In recent decades, the Republican Party has been an uneasy coalition of business elites and social conservatives, the former providing money, and the latter primary votes. The business elites, represented by the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, have been principled advocates of economic liberalism: free markets, free trade, and open immigration. It was Republicans who provided the votes to pass trade legislation such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the recent trade promotion authority (more commonly known as “fast track”). Their business backers clearly benefit from both the import of foreign labor, skilled and unskilled, and a global trading system that allows them to export and invest around the globe. Republicans pushed for the dismantling of the Depression-era system of bank regulation that laid the groundwork for the subprime meltdown and the resulting financial crisis of 2008. And they have been ideologically committed to cutting taxes on wealthy Americans, undermining the power of labor unions, and reducing social services that stood to benefit the less well-off.

This agenda ran directly counter to the interests of the working class. The causes of the working class’ decline are complex, having to do as much with technological change as with factors touched by public policy. And yet it is undeniable that the pro-market shift promoted by Republican elites in recent decades has exerted downward pressure on working-class incomes, both by exposing workers to more ruthless technological and global competition and by paring back various protections and social benefits left over from the New Deal. (Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, which have done more to protect their workers, have not seen comparable increases in inequality.) It should not be surprising, therefore, that the biggest and most emotional fight this year is the one taking place within the Republican Party, as its working-class base expresses a clear preference for more nationalist economic policies.

The Democrats, for their part, have traditionally seen themselves as champions of the common man and can still count on a shrinking base of trade union members to help get out the vote. But they have also failed this constituency. Since the rise of Bill Clinton’s “third way,” elites in the Democratic Party have embraced the post-Reagan consensus on the benefits of free trade and immigration. They were complicit in the dismantling of bank regulation in the 1990s and have tried to buy off, rather than support, the labor movement over its objections to trade agreements.

But the more important problem with the Democrats is that the party has embraced identity politics as its core value. The party has won recent elections by mobilizing a coalition of population segments: women, African Americans, young urbanites, gays, and environmentalists. The one group it has completely lost touch with is the same white working class that was the bedrock of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition. The white working class began voting Republican in the 1980s over cultural issues such as patriotism, gun rights, abortion, and religion. Clinton won back enough of them in the 1990s to be elected twice (with pluralities each time), but since then, they have been a more reliable constituency for the Republican Party, despite the fact that elite Republican economic policies are at odds with their economic interests. This is why, in a Quinnipiac University survey released in April, 80 percent of Trump’s supporters polled said they felt that “the government has gone too far in assisting minority groups,” and 85 percent agreed that “America has lost its identity.”

The Democrats’ fixation with identity explains one of the great mysteries of contemporary American politics—why rural working-class whites, particularly in southern states with limited social services, have flocked to the banner of the Republicans even though they have been among the greatest beneficiaries of Republican-opposed programs, such as Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. One reason is their perception that Obamacare was designed to benefit people other than themselves—in part because Democrats have lost their ability to speak to such voters (in contrast to in the 1930s, when southern rural whites were key supporters of Democratic Party welfare state initiatives such as the Tennessee Valley Authority).

THE END OF AN ERA?

Trump’s policy pronouncements are confused and contradictory, coming as they do from a narcissistic media manipulator with no clear underlying ideology. But the common theme that has made him attractive to so many Republican primary voters is one that he shares to some extent with Sanders: an economic nationalist agenda designed to protect and restore the jobs of American workers. This explains both his opposition to immigration—not just illegal immigration but also skilled workers coming in on H1B visas—and his condemnation of American companies that move plants abroad to save on labor costs. He has criticized not only China for its currency manipulation but also friendly countries such as Japan and South Korea for undermining the United States’ manufacturing base. And of course he is dead set against further trade liberalization, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Asia and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe.

All of this sounds like total heresy to anyone who has taken a basic college-level course in trade theory, where models from the Ricardian one of comparative advantage to the Heckscher-Ohlin factor endowment theory tell you that free trade is a win-win for trading partners, increasing all countries’ aggregate incomes. And indeed, global output has exploded over the past two generations, as world trade and investment have been liberalized under the broad framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and then the World Trade Organization, increasing fourfold between 1970 and 2008. Globalization has been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in countries such as China and India and has generated unfathomable amounts of wealth in the United States.

Yet this consensus on the benefits of economic liberalization, shared by elites in both political parties, is not immune from criticism. Built into all the existing trade models is the conclusion that trade liberalization, while boosting aggregate income, will have potentially adverse distributional consequences—it will, in other words, create winners and losers. One recent study estimated that import competition from China was responsible for the loss of between two million and 2.4 million U.S. jobs from 1999 to 2011.

The standard response from trade economists is to argue that the gains from trade are sufficient to more than adequately compensate the losers, ideally through job training that will equip them with new skills. And thus, every major piece of trade legislation has been accompanied by a host of worker-retraining measures, as well as a phasing in of new rules to allow workers time to adjust.

In practice, however, this adjustment has often failed to materialize. The U.S. government has run 47 uncoordinated federal job-retraining programs (since consolidated into about a dozen), in addition to countless state-level ones. These have collectively failed to move large numbers of workers into higher-skilled positions. This is partly a failure of implementation, but it is also a failure of concept: it is not clear what kind of training can transform a 55-year-old assembly-line worker into a computer programmer or a Web designer. Nor does standard trade theory take account of the political economy of investment. Capital has always had collective-action advantages over labor, because it is more concentrated and easier to coordinate. This was one of the early arguments in favor of trade unionism, which has been severely eroded in the United States since the 1980s. And capital’s advantages only increase with the high degree of capital mobility that has arisen in today’s globalized world. Labor has become more mobile as well, but it is far more constrained. The bargaining advantages of unions are quickly undermined by employers who can threaten to relocate not just to a right-to-work state but also to a completely different country.

The American political system will not be fixed unless popular anger is linked to good policies.

Labor-cost differentials between the United States and many developing countries are so great that it is hard to imagine what sorts of policies could ultimately have protected the mass of low-skilled jobs. Perhaps not even Trump believes that shoes and shirts should still be made in America. Every industrialized nation in the world, including those that are much more committed to protecting their manufacturing bases, such as Germany and Japan, has seen a decline in the relative share of manufacturing over the past few decades. And even China itself is beginning to lose jobs to automation and to lower-cost producers in places such as Bangladesh and Vietnam.

And yet the experience of a country such as Germany suggests that the path followed by the United States was not inevitable. German business elites never sought to undermine the power of their trade unions; to this day, wages are set across the German economy through government-sponsored negotiations between employers and unions. As a result, German labor costs are about 25 percent higher than their American counterparts. And yet Germany remains the third-largest exporter in the world, and the share of manufacturing employment in Germany, although declining, has remained consistently higher than that in the United States. Unlike the French and the Italians, the Germans have not sought to protect existing jobs through a thicket of labor laws; under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Agenda 2010 reforms, it became easier to lay off redundant workers. And yet the country has invested heavily in improving working-class skills through its apprenticeship program and other active labor-market interventions. The Germans also sought to protect more of the country’s supply chain from endless outsourcing, connecting its fabled Mittelstand, that is, its small and medium-size businesses, to its large employers.

In the United States, in contrast, economists and public intellectuals portrayed the shift from a manufacturing economy to a postindustrial service-based one as inevitable, even something to be welcomed and hastened. Like the buggy whip makers of old, supposedly, manufacturing workers would retool themselves, becoming knowledge workers in a flexible, outsourced, part-time new economy, where their new skills would earn them higher wages. Despite occasional gestures, however, neither political party took the retooling agenda seriously, as the centerpiece of a necessary adjustment process, nor did they invest in social programs designed to cushion the working class as it tried to adjust. And so white workers, like African Americans in earlier decades, were on their own.

A voter arrives to cast their ballot in the Wisconsin presidential primary election at a voting station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 2016.

The first decade of the century could have played out very differently. The Chinese today are not manipulating their currency to boost exports; if anything, they have been trying recently to support the value of the yuan in order to prevent capital flight. But they certainly did manipulate their currency in the years following the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 and the dot-com crash of 2000–2001. It would have been entirely feasible for Washington to have threatened, or actually imposed, tariffs against Chinese imports back then in response. This would have entailed risks: consumer prices would have increased, and interest rates would have risen had the Chinese responded by not buying U.S. debt. Yet this possibility was not taken seriously by U.S. elites, for fear that it would start a slide down the slippery slope of protectionism. As a result, more than two million jobs were lost in the ensuing decade.

A WAY FORWARD?

Trump may have fastened onto something real in American society, but he is a singularly inappropriate instrument for taking advantage of the reform moment that this electoral upheaval represents. You cannot unwind 50 years of trade liberalization by imposing unilateral tariffs or filing criminal indictments against American multinationals that outsource jobs. At this point, the United States’ economy is so interconnected with that of the rest of the world that the dangers of a global retreat into protectionism are all too real. Trump’s proposals to abolish Obamacare would throw millions of working-class Americans off health insurance, and his proposed tax cuts would add more than $10 trillion to the deficit over the next decade while benefiting only the rich. The country does need strong leadership, but by an institutional reformer who can make government truly effective, not by a personalistic demagogue who is willing to flout established rules.

Nonetheless, if elites profess to be genuinely concerned about inequality and the declining working class, they need to rethink some of their long-standing positions on immigration, trade, and investment. The intellectual challenge is to see whether it is possible to back away from globalization without cratering both the national and the global economy, with the goal of trading a little aggregate national income for greater domestic income equality.

Clearly, some changes are more workable than others, with immigration being at the top of the theoretically doable list. Comprehensive immigration reform has been in the works for more than a decade now and has failed for two reasons. First, opponents are opposed to “amnesty,” that is, giving existing undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. But the second reason has to do with enforcement: critics point out that existing laws are not enforced and that earlier promises to enforce them have not been kept.

The idea that the government could deport 11 million people from the country, many of them with children who are U.S. citizens, seems highly implausible. So some form of amnesty appears inevitable. Immigration critics are right, however, that the United States has been very lax in enforcement. Doing this properly would require not a wall but something like a national biometric ID card, heavy investment in courts and police, and, above all, the political will to sanction employers who violate the rules. Moving to a much more restrictive policy on legal immigration, in which some form of amnesty for existing immigrants is exchanged for genuine efforts to enforce new and tougher rules, would not be economically disastrous. When the country did this before, in 1924, the way was paved, in certain respects, for the golden age of U.S. equality in the 1940s and 1950s.

It is harder to see a way forward on trade and investment, other than not ratifying existing deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership—which would not be extremely risky. The world is increasingly populated with economic nationalists, and a course reversal by Washington—which has built and sustained the current liberal international system—could well trigger a tidal wave of reprisals. Perhaps one place to start is to figure out a way to persuade U.S. multinationals, which currently are sitting on more than $2 trillion in cash outside the United States, to bring their money home for domestic investment. U.S. corporate tax rates are among the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; reducing them sharply while eliminating the myriad tax subsidies and exemptions that corporations have negotiated for themselves is a policy that could find support in both parties.

Another initiative would be a massive campaign to rebuild American infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that it would take $3.6 trillion to adequately upgrade the country’s infrastructure by 2020. The United States could borrow $1 trillion while interest rates are low and use it to fund a massive infrastructure initiative that would create huge numbers of jobs while raising U.S. productivity in the long run. Hillary Clinton has proposed spending $275 billion, but that number is too modest.

But attempts to accomplish either goal would bump into the more routine dysfunctions of the American political system, where vetocracy prevents either tax reform or infrastructure investment. The American system makes it too easy for well-organized interest groups to block legislation and to “capture” new initiatives for their own purposes. So fixing the system to reduce veto points and streamline decision-making would have to be part of the reform agenda itself. Necessary changes should include eliminating both senatorial holds and the routine use of the filibuster and delegating budgeting and the formulation of complex legislation to smaller, more expert groups that can present coherent packages to Congress for up-or-down votes.

This is why the unexpected emergence of Trump and Sanders may signal a big opportunity. For all his faults, Trump has broken with the Republican orthodoxy that has prevailed since Ronald Reagan, a low-tax, small-safety-net orthodoxy that benefits corporations much more than their workers. Sanders similarly has mobilized the backlash from the left that has been so conspicuously missing since 2008.

“Populism” is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like. There is of course no reason why democratic voters should always choose wisely, particularly in an age when globalization makes policy choices so complex. But elites don’t always choose correctly either, and their dismissal of the popular choice often masks the nakedness of their own positions. Popular mobilizations are neither inherently bad nor inherently good; they can do great things, as during the Progressive era and the New Deal, but also terrible ones, as in Europe during the 1930s. The American political system has in fact suffered from substantial decay, and it will not be fixed unless popular anger is linked to wise leadership and good policies. It is still not too late for this to emerge.

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archiebwoollard · 6 years

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Pros and Cons of Top Social Media Advertising Platforms

Whether you’re a small business looking for inexpensive options to add to your marketing mix, or a big brand trying to determine which platforms will give you the best return on your dollar, it’s important to be aware of the benefits and downsides to each of the major social media channels available today. While return on ad spend is generally high for social, your business should determine whether a platform is the right fit before making the decision to spend. To help with your consideration, I’ve compiled a list of the pros and cons for each of the top social platforms offering advertising services today.

source: joemartinezsem.com

Facebook: 2 Billion Active Monthly Users

Pros of Facebook

Affordable: On Facebook, you can spend as much or as little as you want according to your budget and goals, making it ideal for small and big businesses alike.

Easy to Learn and Use: Facebook Ads are self-service, and there is a wealth of information available to new advertisers through Facebook Blueprint courses. Seriously, there is a course for just about every subject.

Microtargeting: On Facebook you can target users based on demographic information such as age, gender, location, and language, as well as detailed interests and behavioral targeting to reach the large Facebook audience in a highly segmented way.

Wide Audience: Again, Facebook has 2 Billion active monthly users, and they span across ages and demographics. If you want the widest reach for social, Facebook is where to put your ad spend.

Retargeting: The Facebook Pixel allows you to track user actions once they interact with your ad. This allows you to get valuable insights as well as retarget to consumers who have taken any number of valuable actions on your site.

Lookalike Audiences: My favorite thing about Facebook Ads is the ability to target an audience that looks like users who were valuable to you in some way. Do you want to find brand new users who are most likely to download your whitepaper? Create a lookalike audience to find people similar to those who have already downloaded it.

Cons of Facebook

Diminished Organic Reach: Marketers are notices a sharp decline in their organic reach, and based on Facebook’s new NewsFeed algorithm changes, this trend is likely to continue. This means that reaching your audience will require more ad spend, and less attention to organic page post engagement.

(Potentially) Lower Quality Leads: While this depends entirely on your strategy, advertisers who are not yet adept at Facebook Ads may not know that optimizing for link clicks leads to Facebook serving your ads to “clicky” consumers who may not actually care about your product or service.

Time-Intensive: To keep frequency and reach in check, and to avoid ad fatigue, Facebook advertising requires constant monitoring and ad refreshes to give your business the best shot at success on the platform. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to this, you may not see the best possible results.

Creative Considerations: Simple text ads like you can utilize with Google AdWords don’t cut it in Facebook; creative is visual with a focus on video and mobile optimization. Having good creative resources is essential for success with Facebook advertising.

#DeleteFacebook: While we don’t believe that Facebook users are going anywhere to any significant degree, some brands have expressed concern over Facebook controversies throughout the first half of 2018.

Instagram: “A Captivated Community”

Pros of Instagram

Visual Focus: Instagram ads are meant to be visually appealing to captivate your audience. High-quality photos and videos grab user attention and promote positive brand awareness.

Detailed Targeting: Instagram has the same hyper-focused targeting capabilities as Facebook (and Instagram is owned by Facebook, in case you did not know). This means you can reach just the right user for your product, and tailor your messaging to their interests.

Shopping/Collections: Especially important for retail and e-commerce, Instagram allows you to group a collection of products together, or to inform users of the products highlighted in a photo or video in your ad. You can give the user a Call-to-Action to encourage purchases launched from within the app.

Engagement: Instagram is a personal, conversational, and engaging platform. Engagement rates are 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

Cons of Instagram

Limited Audience: Instagram has a much younger user base, with 90% of users younger than 35 years old. This is great for certain brands like fashion lines, but not as good for anyone with a much older target persona.

Minimal Text Copy: Because captivating photos and videos are the focus in Instagram, any text-heavy images or extra lengthy copy are not going to do well on this platform.

Time-Intensive: Like Facebook, staying fresh and relevant, as well as engaging with users, requires a lot of time and effort compared to search platforms like AdWords. An in-house advertiser who is responsible for all channels will probably not be able to devote as much time as they’ll need in learning as well as production.

Diminished Organic Reach: Businesses are seeing the same trend for Instagram feeds as in Facebook, naturally. Organic reach is steadily declining, causing paid efforts to rise and become the priority.

LinkedIn: The World’s Largest Professional Network

Pros of LinkedIn

Valuable Audience & Detailed Targeting: B2B customers will find their perfect audience on LinkedIn. Its user base is largely business professionals, and the targeting options are specific and related to users’ professions. Target based on salary, job title, employer, company size, etc. An approach that mimics an ABM strategy works well for my clients on LinkedIn.

Higher Lead Quality: It’s easy to reach top decision-makers on LinkedIn. You can even specifically target C-suite users. Member demos like income and job responsibility skew higher for LinkedIn than for the other platforms.

Selve-Serve: If you have a LinkedIn account, you can easily create an ad account for your business and utilize the self-serve options according to your advertising goals.

Varied Ad Formats: You can utilize text ads similar to what you find in AdWords, or you can take a content marketing approach and sponsor content such as blog posts to share with the top-of-funnel audience you’re after. There are also display ads, lead generation forms, and video ads to choose from.

Cons of LinkedIn

Higher CPCs/CPAs: getting quality clicks or leads is great, but it does come at a higher cost for LinkedIn compared to come other social platforms.

“Clunky” Platform: This is a matter of opinion, but I find the platform to be a bit unwieldy compared to other platforms. There is a lot of clicking around required to make changes.

Limited Learning Resources: Compared to Facebook, LinkedIn has nowhere near the level of educational resources available to new advertisers. There are FAQs and Help sections, but I find myself wanting coursework akin to the Facebook Blueprint syllabus.

Not Ideal for E-commerce: Because there are no product ads, and because LinkedIn users are expecting a personal and professional experience when they use the site, LinkedIn is not the best platform for E-commerce businesses.

Twitter: Let Your Audience Know What’s Happening

Pros of Twitter

Large Audience: Twitter boasts of over 330 million active monthly users, meaning you can engage with a large (and varied) audience. Take a look at Twitter member stats to get an idea of the potential audience available to reach. Custom audiences built around your followers, competitors followers, or user interests are a key benefit of Twitter ads.

Keyword Targeting: Unlike the other major social media advertising platforms discussed here, Twitter allows you to reach users who have recently tweeted or searched for terms you include in your campaign targeting.

Conversational: Twitter allows for real-time delivery of messages, and fosters engagement with mentions and communication between users. Brands can have active dialogues with their audience.

Global Reach: 79% of Twitter users are outside the U.S.

Scheduled Tweets: Stay engaged even when you’re off the clock by scheduling promoted tweets to run at predetermined times. This helps lessen some of the “time-intensiveness” that is inherent to face-paced social platforms.

Cons of Twitter

Fast-Paced: Users tweet by-the-minute updates, so the fleeting nature of messages in the feed means that brands are more likely to go unnoticed on Twitter compared to other platforms.

Limited Messaging: Only 140 characters means that messages have to be brief. Shortened URLs do give you the ability to link to longer content hosted elsewhere, though.

Time-Intensive: Because Twitter is fast-paced, success on the platform requires dedication of time and resources to stay relevant, fresh, and visible amidst the constant stream of new content into the feed.

User Perception: Users are more likely to see sponsored/promoted tweets as spam. There have also been instances where brands fail at fitting in on the platform, which means you’re often better safe than sorry when it comes to hopping on hashtag bandwagons or finding your voice on a trending topic.

Final Thoughts

Chances are your business already has a presence on some of these platforms, but you may not be utilizing the paid advertising services they offer. Hopefully this list was a good start in considering which paid services are right for your organization’s needs. Ready to start and looking for more specific information? Visit the Social Topics page for more blogs on all things social!

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/pros-and-cons-of-top-social-media-advertising-platforms/

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racheltgibsau · 6 years

Text

Pros and Cons of Top Social Media Advertising Platforms

source: joemartinezsem.com

Facebook: 2 Billion Active Monthly Users

Pros of Facebook

Affordable: On Facebook, you can spend as much or as little as you want according to your budget and goals, making it ideal for small and big businesses alike.

Wide Audience: Again, Facebook has 2 Billion active monthly users, and they span across ages and demographics. If you want the widest reach for social, Facebook is where to put your ad spend.

Cons of Facebook

Instagram: “A Captivated Community”

Pros of Instagram

Visual Focus: Instagram ads are meant to be visually appealing to captivate your audience. High-quality photos and videos grab user attention and promote positive brand awareness.

Engagement: Instagram is a personal, conversational, and engaging platform. Engagement rates are 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

Cons of Instagram

Minimal Text Copy: Because captivating photos and videos are the focus in Instagram, any text-heavy images or extra lengthy copy are not going to do well on this platform.

LinkedIn: The World’s Largest Professional Network

Pros of LinkedIn

Selve-Serve: If you have a LinkedIn account, you can easily create an ad account for your business and utilize the self-serve options according to your advertising goals.

Cons of LinkedIn

Higher CPCs/CPAs: getting quality clicks or leads is great, but it does come at a higher cost for LinkedIn compared to come other social platforms.

“Clunky” Platform: This is a matter of opinion, but I find the platform to be a bit unwieldy compared to other platforms. There is a lot of clicking around required to make changes.

Twitter: Let Your Audience Know What’s Happening

Pros of Twitter

Conversational: Twitter allows for real-time delivery of messages, and fosters engagement with mentions and communication between users. Brands can have active dialogues with their audience.

Global Reach: 79% of Twitter users are outside the U.S.

Cons of Twitter

Fast-Paced: Users tweet by-the-minute updates, so the fleeting nature of messages in the feed means that brands are more likely to go unnoticed on Twitter compared to other platforms.

Limited Messaging: Only 140 characters means that messages have to be brief. Shortened URLs do give you the ability to link to longer content hosted elsewhere, though.

Final Thoughts

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/pros-and-cons-of-top-social-media-advertising-platforms/

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zacdhaenkeau · 6 years

Text

Pros and Cons of Top Social Media Advertising Platforms

source: joemartinezsem.com

Facebook: 2 Billion Active Monthly Users

Pros of Facebook

Affordable: On Facebook, you can spend as much or as little as you want according to your budget and goals, making it ideal for small and big businesses alike.

Wide Audience: Again, Facebook has 2 Billion active monthly users, and they span across ages and demographics. If you want the widest reach for social, Facebook is where to put your ad spend.

Cons of Facebook

Instagram: “A Captivated Community”

Pros of Instagram

Visual Focus: Instagram ads are meant to be visually appealing to captivate your audience. High-quality photos and videos grab user attention and promote positive brand awareness.

Engagement: Instagram is a personal, conversational, and engaging platform. Engagement rates are 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

Cons of Instagram

Minimal Text Copy: Because captivating photos and videos are the focus in Instagram, any text-heavy images or extra lengthy copy are not going to do well on this platform.

LinkedIn: The World’s Largest Professional Network

Pros of LinkedIn

Selve-Serve: If you have a LinkedIn account, you can easily create an ad account for your business and utilize the self-serve options according to your advertising goals.

Cons of LinkedIn

Higher CPCs/CPAs: getting quality clicks or leads is great, but it does come at a higher cost for LinkedIn compared to come other social platforms.

“Clunky” Platform: This is a matter of opinion, but I find the platform to be a bit unwieldy compared to other platforms. There is a lot of clicking around required to make changes.

Twitter: Let Your Audience Know What’s Happening

Pros of Twitter

Conversational: Twitter allows for real-time delivery of messages, and fosters engagement with mentions and communication between users. Brands can have active dialogues with their audience.

Global Reach: 79% of Twitter users are outside the U.S.

Cons of Twitter

Fast-Paced: Users tweet by-the-minute updates, so the fleeting nature of messages in the feed means that brands are more likely to go unnoticed on Twitter compared to other platforms.

Limited Messaging: Only 140 characters means that messages have to be brief. Shortened URLs do give you the ability to link to longer content hosted elsewhere, though.

Final Thoughts

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/pros-and-cons-of-top-social-media-advertising-platforms/

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maxslogic25 · 6 years

Text

Pros and Cons of Top Social Media Advertising Platforms

source: joemartinezsem.com

Facebook: 2 Billion Active Monthly Users

Pros of Facebook

Affordable: On Facebook, you can spend as much or as little as you want according to your budget and goals, making it ideal for small and big businesses alike.

Wide Audience: Again, Facebook has 2 Billion active monthly users, and they span across ages and demographics. If you want the widest reach for social, Facebook is where to put your ad spend.

Cons of Facebook

Instagram: “A Captivated Community”

Pros of Instagram

Visual Focus: Instagram ads are meant to be visually appealing to captivate your audience. High-quality photos and videos grab user attention and promote positive brand awareness.

Engagement: Instagram is a personal, conversational, and engaging platform. Engagement rates are 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

Cons of Instagram

Minimal Text Copy: Because captivating photos and videos are the focus in Instagram, any text-heavy images or extra lengthy copy are not going to do well on this platform.

LinkedIn: The World’s Largest Professional Network

Pros of LinkedIn

Selve-Serve: If you have a LinkedIn account, you can easily create an ad account for your business and utilize the self-serve options according to your advertising goals.

Cons of LinkedIn

Higher CPCs/CPAs: getting quality clicks or leads is great, but it does come at a higher cost for LinkedIn compared to come other social platforms.

“Clunky” Platform: This is a matter of opinion, but I find the platform to be a bit unwieldy compared to other platforms. There is a lot of clicking around required to make changes.

Twitter: Let Your Audience Know What’s Happening

Pros of Twitter

Conversational: Twitter allows for real-time delivery of messages, and fosters engagement with mentions and communication between users. Brands can have active dialogues with their audience.

Global Reach: 79% of Twitter users are outside the U.S.

Cons of Twitter

Fast-Paced: Users tweet by-the-minute updates, so the fleeting nature of messages in the feed means that brands are more likely to go unnoticed on Twitter compared to other platforms.

Limited Messaging: Only 140 characters means that messages have to be brief. Shortened URLs do give you the ability to link to longer content hosted elsewhere, though.

Final Thoughts

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/pros-and-cons-of-top-social-media-advertising-platforms/

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floraexplorer · 7 years

Text

I Joined London’s #WomensMarch with a Hundred Thousand Others. What’s Next?

“We only predicted 18,000 people today…”

Sandi Toksvig’s voice echoes through the cardboard placards which fill Trafalgar Square. Faces are turned towards the sun; banners flutter below Nelson’s column, flanked by roaring bronze lions made 150 years ago. If I squint, I can see Big Ben in the distance.

We are in the midst of London’s most famous landmarks on a chilly January day, most of which were built by men. But at the start of 2017 we’re listening to the speakers of a Women’s March, in solidarity with the march on Washington, D.C –

“… and we’ve just been told there’s actually a hundred thousand of us filling up the streets!”

An audible sense of disbelief ricochets amongst us – is that really possible?! – but quickly there is cheering. Applause. Tears. A tighter grip of my friend Jas’s hand, as we look excitedly at each other.

Who knows what we’re managing to achieve by standing here right now?

Why we held a Women’s March in London

In the early hours of November 16th 2016, I sat in my apartment with a few friends, some empty beer cans and my hands over my eyes. With every new swathe of state-led red on the TV screen came a fresh wave of nausea.

The US election felt like Brexit all over again.

The mood across all my online and offline networks was sombre. Seeing the victory of a man who legitimises sexual assault, racism, and discrimination against almost every demographic possible felt like a blow to the chest. How could over 62 million people have voted for him?

Travel is one of my major motivations in life. Why? Because the world is wide and open. It is beautiful and fearsome. It is a place I will never get tired of exploring because there’s always something new to see, new people to meet, new lessons to learn and new perspectives to realise.

The election made me understand with a new, humbling certainty just how much fear and anger is present in the world, and how much power those emotions can have. Yet so many moments of positivity throughout my travels have given me the utmost faith in the goodness of people – and there isn’t a single second where I don’t doubt the equal power of that goodness.

Together, we can be kind. We can be loving. We can respect each other, protect each other, and we can come together for the sake of millions of beautiful people living alongside us. There are worrying times ahead, that’s undoubtable. But love trumps hate, and disaster provokes action.

It’s taken me a long while to evaluate what I feel about the current political climate – and it doesn’t help that I’ve only become politicised in the last few years.

Now, I’m beginning to understand what I’ve always refused to notice before: that the spectrum of political opinion is an absolute grey area. It has to be, despite its accompanying frustration, because every single person is different.

Here’s the hard, sticky, uncomfortable truth of it: to get to grips with what the hell is happening to the world right now, those of us firmly on one end of the spectrum have to actively pay attention to exactly why and how those on the spectrum’s other end feel the way they do.

We need to be compassionate. We need to be understanding. We need to make space for conflicting opinions, and be strong enough to address them.

I’ve never before wanted to engage with people who I think are racist, homophobic, sexist, or any other myriad of things I deem to be unacceptable. Nonetheless, I’m strangely grateful for the double-whammy of Brexit and Trump. Their presence is already galvanising people to act in ways they’ve been too nervous to do before.

Like painting signs, donning coats, and stepping into the winter air to publicise their feelings with their feet.

Meeting 100,000 fellow Women’s Marchers

The energy in London on January 21st was palpable.

The feeling of dozens, hundreds, thousands of bodies with that same fiery feeling radiated out and upwards. I kept thinking of those books we all read as children, where love and happiness became something visceral and visible; something with the power to protect us all and make us stronger.

I know some people were nervous – for many, it was their first ever demonstration – but the positive, all-inclusive attitude prevailed. There were people of every age, every race, representatives of dozens of minority groups and not a single bit of violence.

In fact, once the demo had officially ended, people wheeled huge sets of speakers into the square and we ended up dancing to techno tunes while waving our appropriately British placards.

But outside the positivity and happiness which flooded London throughout Saturday, what really hit me was seeing young girls making their voices heard.

I’ve never been pregnant and I don’t have many friends with young children, so kids aren’t that much on my radar. But when I saw these three girls holding up anti-racism signs it reminded me with a jolt that these issues simply aren’t going away unless we work our hardest to eradicate them. And it truly does take ALL of us.

The marches are over. What do we do now?

With over three million people marching across seven continents, I think I’m safe in the knowledge that this question has been a very popular Google search over the last few days.

Nonetheless, it’s still a fragile place to be. Somehow, the weekend’s energy has to be harnessed so that progressive action continues forward.

Here’s how I reckon we can make a start.

** Get educated **

Expand your literary knowledge. All those issues you saw cropping up at Women’s Marches? Research their histories; their policies; the memoirs written by their founders; the essays which discuss them. Get into the bones of these causes, and find out what makes them tick.

Keep up with the news. Current events affect everything, as do the politics of different countries. Understand as much as you can, and ask questions about what doesn’t make sense.

Engage with culture. Check out your local museums, galleries, art spaces and theatres. Watch plays, listen to lectures and walk through exhibitions. Pay attention to the ways people express themselves through art, and examine what’s triggered them to do so.

** Get uncomfortable **

Confront your echo chamber. Social media bubbles are a legitimate thing, where the majority of your chosen network agrees with your opinion. It can make us self-indulgent and a bit lazy. Start using social media to challenge your preconceptions – and although engaging in debate with online trolls isn’t always the best idea, follow some of those arguments and investigate how their beliefs have been formed.

Be humbled by your privilege. I’m a straight, cisgender, white woman, and I simply don’t know enough about the suppression, exclusion and demonisation faced by those who don’t share my background. Whether your own privilege is racial, financial, geographical, sexual or something else, vow to use your platform of relative safety to help those without it.

Expect to be challenged. More than that: actively search out situations which will do this. Your brain is powerful. Let it work.

** Get inspired **

Find your female role models. There are plenty of inspirational women around the world who are going to inspire the hell out of you. Research the works of writers, artists, politicians, musicians, teachers and activists – particularly those women of colour – and absorb what they have to say.

Follow your passions. If you’re anything like me, you’ve joined dozens of interesting-looking Facebook groups and never actually checked out what they do in real life. Whether it’s a choir, a running group, a knitting circle (all about those PussyHats!), the more out of your comfort zone, the better. Re-investigate. Reconnect. Remember how many wonderful experiences you’ve had in the past when you stepped out of your comfort zone for a minute? Yeah. Do that as much as you can.

** Get involved **

Volunteer within your local community. It’s the best place for your new-found determination to stretch itself. Join the closest library; help out at after-school programmes for kids; volunteer at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. Put yourself in environments where you can pass on your knowledge to others, and they can teach you things you’d never thought of. Communication is crucial.

Lend your voice to politics. Sign petitions and help organise campaigns. Pound the streets and hand out fliers. Engage others in passionate dialogue about this fantastically important new information you’ve just learned.

Be consistent. Every single thing in life needs dedication to make a discernible difference. Promise yourself you’re going to commit to a new way of thinking, living, speaking, seeing, and let that be your New Year’s Resolution for 2017. This is a year for change like no other.

In conclusion? Get ready!!

Too often I have worried about being alone. About being an outsider. About not belonging. But on January 21st I felt part of an intrinsic sisterhood like never before. And I vow to maintain and channel that feeling into something bigger, with more longevity.

There will be more marches, and there will be more action. But most of your determination HAS to come from within you. This is a work-in-progress, and we all need to stand up together if we’re going to incite change.

Today, I wrote this article to express some of the passion still bottled up in me. Tomorrow, I’ll scour the shelves of my local library to find feminist literature I haven’t yet read. The next day, and the days after that, I’ll join local groups and listen to local women speak and march in yet more marches.

I am galvanised. I am determined. I am passionate.

I am a woman. HEAR ME ROAR!

This weekend has made me prouder than ever to be a woman: and standing with thousands at #womensmarchlondon to support those with less voice, less privilege, and less chance to express themselves has also made me intensely humble I’m going to try my absolute hardest to maintain these feelings of passion and determination, and channel them into something much bigger. Who’s with me? ❤️ #LoveTrumpsHate

A photo posted by Flora The Explorer (@florabaker) on Jan 22, 2017 at 12:52pm PST

Because information is power…

I’d love to update this article with any positive resources we can collectively find. What inspires you? What drives your passion? TELL ME what you’re doing today which is different from yesterday! Tell others too!! Your inspiration is only going to inspire people around you. But it still starts with YOU. We’ve started marching now. What are we going to do next?

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