#you have to respect the hustle theres no two ways about it

[thesherrinfordfacility]

at some point the blessed day will come where i can scroll through neil gaimans asks trying to find a particular ask that isn't coming up on google/tumblr search/in his masterpost and not feel my body tense up in visceral anticipation of seeing the babygirl incident™

[oh-for-fic-sake]

The Stand In Chapter One

Masterlist

Being an assistant on the witcher set is a dream come true for you, helping bring to life the books and games you were brought up with. But when the project is threatened to be cancelled completely your called in to save the day! But can you really fill in for an actress?

Warnings: swearing

A/N: hello! So this was wrote on a whim sort of. I don't know if Keira is in the books honestly and I have no idea if she will be in season two but I wanted to write somthing different. Got a few ideas of where I can go with this but like I said just wanted to write something a little different. Hone you enjoy xxx

Taglist: @two-unbeatable-beaters​ @thatgirly81​ @angelofthorr @iloveyouyen​

logo divider is by @writeyourmindaway​ other one is by me xx

You moved through the hustle and bustle of the set your trusty clipboard what was you doing? Well the people needed feeding so you were taking orders, some people onset would eat at the food tent some would want to order in today it was your turn to take the orders and deliver them to the chefs. You grunted looking at your watch you needed to move quicker they'd be filming soon and expect the food to be ready by the time they finished...sounded easy but the guys were cooking meals for nearly one hundred  people and that took time... especially out here... You jogged up to the tent with an apologetic smile"Sorry guys had to round em up you know how it is!" You got a few chuckles. Yes they did know how it was having to take turns doing it themselves. You were just a regular onset dogs body, you help in any way shape or form and that’s that.

You smiled at them hanging the clip board on the hook for them to see clearly then They began barking orders to one another down the line  getting to work. You left them to it weaving in and out of everyone to get back to set incase someone needed anything again. Once you reached half way across the site your name was called turning you saw Mathew one of the other assistants.

"Hey y/n your needed in the directors tent chop chop!"

"What? why?" He shrugged then through his hands out wide walking backwards away from you he seemed in a hurry.

"Don't know was just told that you had to be there asap" You sighed and quickly turned on your heal towards the tent...If this was another coffee run you were gonna scream! It took forty five minutes to drive down this god forsaken mountain and you didn't really want to be bitched at by camera crew about delivering a cold fucking coffee again.

Henry and Joey panicked looking to each other Cancelled? They could be cancelled after all the fans and money the show had pulled in? They stood in the tent with Tomasz,Lauren and Talitha or 'Tee' as she prefers.

"So she just decided not to do it? A week before she was meant to be here? She had all the time over lock down to tell you and she left it till now?" Tomasz nodded stiffly to Henry who spoke, Henry and Joey were angry. Hell they all was, but them more so because they were actors and this was something you just didn't do. No integrity or respect. Lauren piped up.

"To be fair its a huge blockbuster role she was offered its no surprize she dumped us in favor of it... But now everything is up in the air she was a big role in this season and we can't start casting for it now, the two other back ups can't come and fill in either, one is recovering from covid and the other has a contract for another role." Joey placed his hands on his hips

"Well what about her contract? She sighed one didn't she? Surely she should honor that?" Lauren and Tomasz shared a look.

"Yes but two things one imagine forcing her to play a role she no longer wants...Could be very awkward and two the contract had dates...We couldn't stick to the them so she managed to wriggle out of it." They each huffed Henry spoke up

"Can't we put it on hold for a few weeks rush through the casti-" he trailed off at Tomasz' severe look and shake of his head.

"No we aren't being given an extension we have to find someone...Preferably here on set so we don't have to navigate the covid travel restrictions, we can't afford two weeks quarantine for whoever it is we bring in" Tee looked up to her bosses.

"So?...You need someone on set to take the role? I suppose they can't be a major part of the crew?" Lauren nodded to her and smiled

"You up for it?" Tee shook her head

"Fuck no but there is someone that could do it...Y/n shes a general assistant, the one you like! the one that picked up the wardrobe the other day when the truck couldn't get up the hill" Lauren's face lit up as she put a face to the name

"Oh! lilac bob? Green eyes?" Tee smiled nodding

"Yeah! Her she isn't to busy really just runs errands, shes an extra pair of hands" Tomasz tilted his head it sounded viable, it would be a god send he crossed his arms.

"But she would have what a week? To read up on the character, learn lines and go through costume...It would be a hectic rush would she agree to it?" Tee smiled knowingly

"Yes..She hasn't done acting before...well not properly she had a part in bugsy malone play at primary school but that was about it...But I have no doubt that she would do it she loves the witcher. As for reading up on the character you don't have to worry I dread to think how many times shes re-read those books and played the games...She even based her gcse textiles project on the witcher making a screen print tapestry! Trust me she will know Keira metz' personality so half of the job is already done!" Tomasz nodded secretly getting excited over the prospect of having another fan in the mix,  yet he covered it well not wanting to get anyone’s hopes to high."Okay call her in get her to read some lines...Lets not tell her what its for first see if theres some chemistry between the three of you first then go from there" they all nodded it was the best way to go about it.

When you got to the tent you instantly knew something was up. First person you noticed was your best friends Tee it was her who'd got you the job here. She had been working on the first season and was one of the directing assistants she was always around the producers and directors making sure everything was running smoothly and when they top dogs changed things it was her who made those changes get through the grape vine to everyone who needed to know. Then you noticed Henry  and Joey were here ,how you didn't see them first is a mystery as they were both fully kitted out in the characters costumes.

Holy shit! He was so fucking hot! So so fucking yummy you wanted to jump him and run away and hide at the same time 'Okay breath don't fucking squeal bitch be cool that's it calm down don't make it obvious you want to hump his leg!...If he offers though ride tat thigh like a fucking pony!...No! Stop your going red! Calm it! There we go...Nice and calm well done give yourself a pat on the back' and breath.

You took a calming breath after your little pep talk the fan-girl locked up tight inside you relaxed slightly. Could you help it? No Henry is like your celebrity crush and has been since your little virgin eyes saw him fucking on Tudors. You'd seen him around set obviously you can't really ignore the huge man in the silver wig. You’d wanted to get his autograph and a photo but couldn't trust yourself not to do something stupid so you kept your distance. But damn he was much finer up close in person. You gulped just praying to god you did not squeak at him you'd never ever live it down.

Everyone looked on edge even the director Tomasz and producer Lauren? none of them noticed your arrival speaking in hushed tones to one another like they didn't want anyone to overhear what was happening. You cleared your throat placing a hand on one of the metal supports by the entrance of the tent unsure if you should enter with them all looking so serious you didn't want to hear anything you shouldn't.

"Err knock knock? you wanted to see me? If its a bad time I can come back..." they jumped a little obviously caught up in their conversation. You shrunk under everyone's gaze as the sets of heavy eyes rested on you.

Henry's eyes widened a little at you he swallowed dryly peering at you from his spot in the tent. You were beautiful he suddenly found himself hoping you would be the one to take the role. Not only could he then have a reason to be around you without you running off. But there were sex scene between the two characters and as ashamed as he felt he had already spent a considerable amount of time envisioning just that, alone at night in his trailer with nothing but his fist to ease his needs. He couldn't help it he had never spoke to you but he wanted you. So selfish or not he would thoroughly enjoy enacting those particular scenes, the image of you below him was just to much.

Joey prodded him slightly making him snap his gaze away and turn to the 'bard' He raised his brows at him nodding to the lilac haired woman as if to say 'look who it is?' Henry flushed a little and blinked yes Joey knew.

It started when Henry had seen you around set, capturing glimpses of you he had wanted to go and talk to you. Each time he saw you around he would excuse himself from whatever he was doing and turn to make his way over to you. But every time he turned and took a step in your direction you flushed and bolted.

He did like you. He liked very much. He found out you were an assistant someone to run errands and Tee had got you the job he was meant to ask her about you but you both seemed close. What if Tee told you? What would you think if you found out he had been asking about you?. So no instead he bit his tongue and kept trying to catch you out and have a chat. He couldn't put his finger on it you just appealed to him, you looked sweet and sexy all in one.

He wanted so desperately to talk to you but you seemed scared of him for some reason so he in the end he settled for admiring you from afar. He'd never got more than six feet near you and that six feet was close enough to make him swoon. You had been diligently taking coffee orders around the set and was taking a list from the directors tent and he was waiting to speak to Tomasz and Lauren queuing behind you in a sense one person separated you.

You were so caught up in trying to take names and coffee orders you hadn't noticed him hovering behind you. He had leaned to the side taking full advantage enjoying eyeing your behind admiring the taught cheeks hugged by your zebra print workout leggings, you must have been in a thong because they snuck up your ass a little making him groan. He'd give anything to be up there himself! He sighed smoothing his hands over his face trying to push away the teasing thoughts, it was not the time to imagine drilling your perfect little ass, fucking you roughly on all fours until your little body sucked the cum out of his balls and he left you with a fully stretched freshly fuck little pucker.

No it was not the time, not when he had another few scenes to shoot. But they were just there! Teasing him a few quick shuffles of his feet and he could be right behind you, he could accidentally graze your pert full bottom. But no he held himself back he groaned when the wind changed and caught a scent of your hair mango and passion fruit.

He had been on a high all day after that. That’s when Joey was certain Henry was getting a little crush on the lilac haired beauty that had gained the nick name Tink's. To Joey you looked like a real life colorful little fairy and he had named you after Tinkerbell. Henry bit his lip trying to contain his excitement, as you cleared your throat nervously today was going from really really bad to absolutely fucking incredible.

You eyed Henry carefully he was..staring well until Joey prodded him then he snapped out of whatever it was flushing. You didn't have much time to consider it as Lauren moved waving you over smiling like nothing was wrong. Okay? Weird.

"No no! Come in your just the woman we needed to see." You walked in slowly still uneasy but managed to cross the threshold. There was a pause and they looked like they were appraising you? What the fuck? Tomasz cleared his throat and nodded giving Lauren the go ahead for something apparently.

"Y/n I was hopeing you could go over some lines with these two, they haven't got anyone to practice with and we really need to start getting rehearsals in. Flights are running few and far between so the actress who was supposed to be here last week, can't get here until we are actually filming the scenes!" You blinked huh? Read lines? You began going shy and shaking your head

"I don't-" but before you could get anymore words out Tomasz spoke up.

"And with covid setting us back we can't afford delays we could be cancelled" you froze at that...Cancelled? You looked to Henry and Joey who both gave hopeful puppy eyes you sighed a shaky breath.

"O-okay I suppose I could...Help out... It is what I'm here for.." You missed the looks all four shared as Joey handed you a sheet from the script. You skimmed it as quick as you could and your face instantly lit up with a bright smile.

"Holy shit keira? I didn't realize you were doing that-" quickly realizing you may have been fangirling you shut up. Tomasz head lifted smiling

"You know the character?" You chuckled nervously well aware of The witcher still eyeing you from the side. Joey smirked at him and gave a chuckle making Henry freeze and look away flustered. You hesitated whilst talking to Tomasz.

"Hehe well Yeah sort of....I know the book's and the games sooo yeah..Sorry...Got excited there..Can't help it" he grinned shaking his head.

"No no its perfectly fine...I do always love seeing people et excited over our work! But you know her so can help the guys immensely. If you could try and portray the character that would help a lot as well, so we can see how these lines and dynamics will work" you blinked looking at the page going blank. Try to in act the scene to? Okay keira what do you remember shes...Playful catty and a little manipulative.Petty but confident yet can switch to cold bitch on a dime. Your not sure our up to the task.

"So? You want me to try and act properly? but...But bare in mind I'm not an actress...Never done any acting or anything so if I'm shit I apologize."

"Its fine, just try your best...We don't want a carbon copy of the games we want a believable character, just create your own Keira for the time being as I said we just want that feeling for the scene and the relationship that's all. If you could read from half way down..'Seriously I mean this is it?' Okay? don't mind the blank we just haven't settled on the last few bits of dialog just keep going...Go with the flow as it were" you nodded taking a breath really out of your comfort  zone  but it literally  said 'help when needed' in your job description so you didn't have much choice. You took a peek at the lines it the scene was based around the camp at night.

Henry and Joey sat on stools you followed their lead really nervous trying not to steal glances or stare at the witcher before you even if he didn't seem to care himself, his gold eyes not leaving you for a second, he wasn't even blinking.

You pulled at the page slightly forcing back the anxiety but sucked it up when were you ever going to get the chance to do this again. To read lines with your crush on set in full delicious Witcher get up.You decided to throw caution to the wind and give it your all if you looked a tit well atleast you had fun and you'd never have to again!

You gulped you were supposed to start. You took a breath and pulled some confidence out of your ass, she was a fierce woman that was almost childlike. You used a sarcastic un-amused flat tone.

"Seriously....I mean this is it? this is the great adventuring? Wandering the continent aimlessly for contract's that may or may not be actual monsters..." you tilted your head to the side blinking slowly as you looked between Henry and Joey. Both seemed to be caught unaware as you transformed from a frightened quivering ball of nerves to a catty confidant sorceress.

Henry smiled cheekily at you  knowing that with that transformation you'd already bagged the role, you were his keira.

"Well you are welcome to return to your healing house" Henry drolled in Geralt's deep voice sounding unimpressed tilting his head at you slightly with a bored expression. Joey hummed.

"Yes I second that witch you don't have to be here you can just go your own way" he waved his hand near you and you leaned in giving him a wicked warning grin making him pull back and lean towards Henry, a typical Jaskier move...Well for the moment he was Jaskier.

"G-go and curse children poison or cattle or whatever it is you do" you scoffed rolling your eyes pulling back a little and tilted your head looking at Henry.

"Geralt your Jester appears to be in a foul mood would you like me to help? I'm sure I have a remedy that can silence him for a while...Permanently if you'd like" you smirked as Joey snpped his head looking between the two worriedly.

"JESTER I-YOU I am a bard! And I have made Geralt here the famed white wolf! Tell her Geralt! " Henry rolled his eyes ignoring Joey's out burst

"The Jester is right you don't have to travel with us you can leave, return home if our adventures aren't exciting enough for you. And I'd warn you keep the potions to yourself"  you paused the page was now empty. You too a breath and spoke anyway.

"What? Me leave? and go back to treating the lords son and his frequent bouts of cock rot..." the two men bite back a laugh managing to stay in character...Just. You blinked leaning forward placing your face on your palm

"That’s not as thrilling as one might think loses its charm on the third and forth round...Much like the boy himself" Joey sputtered trying to hide his giggles. But contained himself to make an insulting Jaskier quip.

"Cock rot...begs the question do you cause it or cure it?" he twitched waiting for your reply. You hissed at him then calmed yourself and fluttered your eyes at him and continued in a sultry tone.

"Your welcome to find out for yourself Jester" he stuttered going red

"I-i a no hah thank you for the offer but noooo...Had enough of witches for a life time.. Thank you very much!" he said almost choking on his words you leaned back huffing

"Hmm...Shame you almost look like fun could have livened up the trip...I do always enjoy the loud ones..." Joey chuckled and looked to Henry with a face saying 'help me out here buddy' Henry was finding it very hard to keep himself together, was he jealous of you flirting with joey? Yes did he want to turn the tables? Yes could he think of a way to do it? Fuck no.

He settled for shaking his head, he was certain you had the role already and if not he was definitely going to vouch for you,you were good and portrayed Keira well enough to make Joey's Jaskier fidget which Keira did.

"I'm sure you can find fun where ever you find yourself Keira" Henry piped in wanting to see where the scene can go, wanting for you to give him your sultry voice and flirt with him. But you stuttered a little his gaze was intense hot and hooded.

"Y-yes you'd think that!..But there is no fun to be had at home anymore!...Well that's not strictly true there is this one acquaintance a deaf eunuch " Henry spoke up needing to hear the end of this one, trying to fight off his disappointment that you hadn't given him the same treatment as Joey, didn't you like him? Was Joey more your type? No there must be more to it.

"And this deaf eunuch is fun? How so?" you wiggled your eyebrows at him

"Well Witcher he only had one way to show me his gratitude...Any man who only has his hands to speak develops a very....dexterous set of fingers~" Joey slipped out of character confused as Henry burst out laughing. Despite his sour feelings over your non-flirting he couldn't deny that was a funny and well thought out bit of improv.

"Deaf eunuch? F-fingers?..I don't get it-OOHHH!HOLY SHIT YOU DIDN'T! OHH OH MY FUCK" he then started roaring with laughter with Henry making you go shy blushing.

"Oh my god yes...She is definitely the one we need...Defiantly my Keira!" Henry wheezed through his laughter leaning over slapping his knee.

"huh what?" You looked between everyone what do the mean need? It was Tomasz was nodding smiling and spoke up clarifying what Henry had meant.

"That was....Well...It was an audition and you got the part. You became the character very easily it was natural and flowed nicely and you were nervous once relaxed you will make a perfect Keira!" you blinked at him. An audition? For a part in the show "Are you having a laugh? I can't act for shit...Like that was...It was err" Henry smirked lifting a brow

"Acting? Maybe?" You  blushed at him as he leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. You leaned back sitting upright then pulled a face. He was right technically.

"Okay it was kind of acting....But why are you doing this here now? Surely you already have someone? this don't strike me as normal." Lauren sighed

"No your right its not normal...The actress who was playing Keira has pulled out we have a week to find a replacement or will are probably getting cancelled they won't let us delay again" you sat up pin straight

"Wait what? An actress bailed on us last minuet...That’s a bit of a dick move... That's like a big dick move not in a nice big dick way either... Like a dick dick move" Henry and Joey snorted at your statement and Tee creased up. Tomasz moved over to you

"I'm afraid so...I know its a big ask but were were supposed to start filming her scenes the middle of next week and we need a replacement. Fast. Sooo what would you say to stepping in and saving the day? you fit the bill and your here now and from what I've just seen you can do it...You gave her a cheeky, petty vibe which in all honesty was missing from who we selected...We can get you ready I'm sure Henry and Joey can help you, teach you the tricks of the trade so to speak" he lifted his head to the both of them. They nodded Henry speaking up

"I can even mentor you if you want, to get you more comfortable... Me and Joey will look after you I promise" you gulped then looked back to Lauren and Tomasz. You'd never even thought of acting or anything and it was daunting prospect.

"Look...We have run into a problem that could potentially bring production and filming to a halt...Something that could cancel season two completely....But you can help us. We can continue as planned but we understand its a big thing to spring on someone .We can afford to give you a few days to think it over if you need to..." you took a breath it sounded incredible,  like one of those talent scout tales...Could you do it? You didn't want to see the show go down the pan you loved the first season as a viewer and was over the moon when Tee got you the job onset. You loved the witcher as a whole...Maybe helping bring it to life could be fun? A lot of work and you didn't know shit but you could give it a go. But then you’d be working close with Henry who pretty much turned you into a fucking trembling mass of girly hormones "...But I'm not an actress...I doubt I'd be any good.." Tee snorted

"Fuck off 'not an actress', acting is a big expensive game of pretend! And no offense but you've been pretending to be an adult since we left school! You've got this besides everyone will know your situation so if things go pear-shaped or you get confused we can all help sort you out, we wont scream at you over it..." she moved standing between Joey and Henry squishing their faces

"Come on loooook! Look at there poor little faces! Don’t let Jaskier and Geralt die! If we get cancelled that’s what will happen! These charters will die! I will take them out back and shoot them myself! Never to be seen again!" You giggled at her antic as both men in her grasp tried their hardest to pout up at you with there scrunched up faces. You sighed you were gonna regret this.

"Okay okay fine I will try... But don't say I didn't warn you.." everyone took a deep breath relived. Henry and Joey shared a grin now super excited to carry on with the show. Henry more so then Joey he was ecstatic! He can't wait to start getting close to you.

Lauren moved over to you with some long ass looking scripts.

"Here...These are for you! Start reading through these today...Do one episode at a time for now you'd have more chance learning the lines and you need to go to costume.  Tee could you tell them whats happened and get her over there today? let them measure her up luckily it's mostly lace up so shouldn't have to change much" Henry stood up quickly making you jump.

"I will take her and introduce her to everyone...I’m finished for the day so I’m going there anyway" he explained a little sheepish realizing he may have seemed eager. Joey chuckled at him Standing beside him patting the mans back Tomasz shook his head

"Thank you for the offer Henry but we still need you were going to re shoot one of the scenes again, we think there is a better angle we could get" Henry pouted chest deflating a little and nodded to the director

"Right so Tee you escort her , oh where are you staying by the way? In the hotel in town? Well we will need to move you into Keira’s trailer so you'd be onset. Tee could you show her the trailer first then wardrobe and then finally I will pop over with a contract for you this afternoon..." you froze. Contract?. What the fuck? You don't know anything about contracts! Henry caught on to your panic and lit up like Christmas finding another way he could spend time with you.

"Hey its okay...Just a bit of paper saying you've got the job and a bit of legal jargon...I can look over it with you and have my agent look over it if you want? just to be sure everything's good okay? don't worry we will take good care of you I promised didn't I?" You smiled shyly and nodded. 'Holy shit he's looking at you, speak girl stop fucking staring! SPEAK! BREATH!' You took a breath avoiding his gaze a little trying to forget who he was wanting to act cool when you did finally speak it was in a quiet voice.

"I-I Suppose so...I mean yes I'd appreciate someone sorting that out..I get the feeling there are a lot of big words involved" Joey laughed you liked Henry, he could see it and something told him you would both become very close. Well close he estimated you'd be fucking within two weeks. He noted the fact you had both gone quiet Henry's eyes boring into you again as you fiddled with script in your hand. He rolled his eyes you were blushing squirming under the witchers staring gold orbs and he didn't seem to care he was just quite happy to gawk at you. Joey finally decided to cut you so e slack.

"Your not kidding...But like Henry said nothing to bad just a you got the job! And how your being paid really" you chuckled rubbing your neck.

"Fuck! haha you know I didn't even think of that" Tomasz chuckled and nodded. Breaking his silence, he to had noticed the tension between the two of you but would say nothing it wont be a problem after all there was a sexual atmosphere between Geralt and Keira so it would do well on screen.

"Well your an actress now, so of course you'll be paid as an actress, it will be in the paper work, I suggest you go and start reading the scripts Keira is heavily involved in this season she is travelling with Geralt and Jaskier for a while... And a word of advice I'm going to have to take your name to a few higher ups with the video of your audition and names on official websites for the cast will be changed, probably in a day or two...You may want to go and clean up any social media ect that you might have...It could blow up a little bit its...What we are doing is pretty much unheard of" you frowned at him

"You...You filmed that? What? who?" Tee waved her phone up at you gaining your attention.

"Its fine y/n just need it for the records and for a few others to see..." she turned to Lauren

"Might be an idea to put this up somewhere to just to introduce her as the character..." Lauren shook her head

"Not yet get her in costume then a few photos we can film a short teaser scene with them...That can be her debut" Tee nodded and began making a list of things to do then snapped her head up looking at you.

"Seriously change your face book to friends only...And get a fucking twitter on that thought get a bloody snapchat and Instagram to! Okay? life will be easier trust me on this" Henry frowned at you stumped.

"You don't have twitter, Snapchat or Instagram?....No what? How have you? What do you do all day on your phone?" You shrugged and smiled impishly at him.

"I read...Write...Scroll tumblr for hours on end and play games...Never bothered with that social media crap don't know how to use it...Was on tumblr for years before I ever got the courage to post something" Joey smiled taking a step forward and patted your back

"Well at least you have Tumblr which I will want by the way! But never mind about the others I will show you cos your gonna need it!" You smiled at him giggling maybe this wont be so bad? You nodded at him feeling more at ease, it sounded like they were going to help you with all this shit, the only thing you had to do was keep the inner Cavill fangirl at bay, which was gonna be a hell of a job now that you weren't going to be able to avoid him but it was that or watch this show be cancelled and that was not going to happen!. You looked over to Lauren who was still giving Tee a list of jobs and people to contact.

"Okay...So where do I start?" She smiled and quickly stood in front of you as you stood between Joey and Henry both pointing out on the scripts certain things explaining what things meant and how things would work when filming. You nodded trying to take it all in. You took a breath looks like you were doing this.  

[thermaflute]

Shigaraki with a fem black s/o who kinda owns his scrawny ass pwease uwu

I hope you don't mind that I combined these! I just thought it was cute and started projecting my art student ass.

Tomura Shigaraki

👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋

You honestly just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. You were lost, a bit confused and trying your best to get around town. You didn't think you'd be anywhere near a villain attack.

Your friend recognized the two instantly as a black hair man walked up to you.

"Hey, this one is cute."

"You really think I care about that?"

"No, but they're at least fun to look at."

The grey haired villain turned to look at you in annoyance and was pleasantly suprised.

Your face wasn't upsetting at all, he never thinks that about people but he actually found you really pretty. It's not like he's never seen a black person before, he just think's you're unique.

You thought the same about him. Even in this situation, his unbothered attitude was strangely, cute?

Dabi definitely clowned him for actually finding someone attractive.

After the initial shock of everything, you quickly grabbed everything you needed for class through the rubble and ran with your friend.

"Huh, they really stole all that shit huh? Must be really into stationary."

"There was an ID on their lanyard, they're a student."

"I didn't realize you were looking."

He said nothing but frowned with a grumble before moving on.

He acted as if it was nothing but quickly got all your information.

Kept tabs on your classes, where you were going, who you were with.

He creepy bruh.

You got a text from a strange number that cut straight to the chase.

"I saw you steal half the store worth in cold press paper and copics. Thought that was hot."

"Hello?????"

"I was with that ugly staple dude."

"Oh. Ain't you a villain?"

"I might be. You gonna block me or?"

"No, I respect the hustle. It's just not mine."

"Hmm, cool."

"So am I supposed to ignore how you got my number."

"Remember when you asked if I were a villain?"

"You're rude, anyway,,,"

It was awhile before you actually met him again in person. He settled for texting you and playing games since theres not too many place you can go to with someone as notorious as him.

Buys you games to play with him, if you ain't got a particular console expect it in the mail tomorrow.

Same with supplies. Charcoal? Done. Markers? It's yours. Paint? He's a little confused as to why you need that expensive ass Gouache, regardless, he's getting it for you.

When you guys do meet again he seems grouchy and upset, but really he has no idea how to communicate with you. He's not a dating person, or a person person so he didn't want to scare you off with his usual attitude and activities.

Dabi laughs at you two walking in. "Bruh she's too pretty for you, let the girl go."

"She came on her own actually"

"Oh you didn't have to kidnap this one?"

He rolls his eyes and looks at you "I've never kidnapped anyone, well, not for this purpose at least."

You laughed at his slightly nervous look, "like I said, I respect the hustle."

The league got used to seeing you around, you weren't necessarily part of the club but you helped with whatever you could and they appreciate your presence. (Plus you calm down your rude ass man so that's a plus)

He's also awkward, and a tad brash, but he means well. It's hard for him to say loving words, so sometimes his compliments come out weird.

"Why do you smell like that?"

"Uh? It's just this shea butter mix I-."

"Oh, well it smells okay."

"Okay..."

He'll act like affection is acid on his skin but with you he realizes he's quite touch starved. He won't initiate it, but if you start he won't stop you.

He's very demanding and not too understanding of anything school related. He the type to not understand that getting out of class at 3 doesn't mean you'll be at his door at 3:05.

Sometimes he'll just watch you work quietly. It may not seem like it means much, but it's a small way of showing that he cares. He still think college is ridiculous, but if it makes you happy he'll tolerate it.

Don't get it twisted tho, he's soft to you but he's not soft in general. Yes he's your boyfriend, your mass murderer boyfriend 😌.

No seriously, you're the exception, don't expect him to be too kind to anyone else lmao. It's just you.

[dolce-fritz]

So being the new evil girlfriend is fun

So recently my Partner has had some majorly stupid ass drama with their ex. Like this girl, she’s loopier then the Olympic oval, Like normally I’m nice and don’t slander people but like. She’s just, hoo boy. A mess.

And yeah this is from a completely biased stand point. And I’m about to tell you why that I feel the way that I do about this girl from my own experiences. This is going to be long winded, so I’m putting it under a read more. 

So I moved from the lovely state of Utah this year, my homelifes never been 100% great. I love my mom but our issues clash and we do better separate. Not to mention I really wanted to try it out in another state again and this time the right way and not just a spur of the moment decision while i visited like what happened with Florida.

Well, planned my vacation to See my at the time friend to see if I really liked it there.  I knew about their recent split with their Ex, and the two seemed pretty amicable about it. The other roommate was.... hoo, a mess to say the least. and My friend didn't want to be alone with her because they actually had been wanting to tell her to leave because of the issues that she'd brought into the home. anyways that in itself was a bit of drama.

So I was like OK. I'll come check it out and if I like it I'll be your new room mate.

Well. I plan my trip about four weeks out. and end up pretty excited about it. Come to find out with no real surprise that My friends Ex is going to move out before Octobers over.

My friend starts panicking. again doesn't wanna be alone with the other roommate that they're having hardships with. So I say ok... I'm going to do this vacation, then im just going to move on the 20th so I can get my stuff packed.

Shits already starting to go down hill.

I get there. everything seems fine. The ex seems nice, things seem ok. the other roommates.... already trying to cause shit with me and im not even physically in the house. I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an old office space. bought a bunch of furniture because at this point. I know I'm moving here. Its going to happen. This is where I'm going to live might as well help my friend end up getting it taken care of.

Well. Day three of my vacation hits. The ex drops that her dad wants her to move out that day. completely screws the pooch for my friend and the other roommate. And basically bails on them and leaves the house just with the things she wants and then just leaves all the rest of her junk here like its her own storage unit. claims she’ll be back for the rest [ Spoilers never happened]  so that... right there puts this sour taste in my mouth. Cause yeah, me and her ex at that point are sharing a bed. Because like theres only three beds in the house until she ends up leaving and so my friends like ill just sleep with you. me i’m very fine sharing my sleeping space with my friends. i’ve done it literally all my life. hell a its not a goodnight sleep unless your on your best friends bed snuggling the shit out of her kaneki ken body pillow listening to true crime documentaries on the TV but like seriously it was no big deal to me. which im begining to wonder if it was a big deal to her. Either way apparently instead of waiting till i officially moved. she bailed and forced my hand. So I had to stay, I couldn’t properly say goodbye to my mom. couldn’t properly get my shit packed. all cause I really didn’t want to leave my friend alone till I could officially move in. So already, I started getting a slight distaste in my mouth for her. but I let it slide. I know how overbearing parents are sometimes.  well, so i cancelled my flights. money spent that i was never going to end up getting back that I could’ve later used towards something for the house.  The girl left. and I was left, Cleaning up the mess that she walked out of and left behind.  Turns out my friend was the only one that was cleaning up around the house. and working a part time job, while trying to side hustle some art for extra money.  They were the one that was handling all the utilities, while their ex was buying everyone food. Separate it would’ve been an easier task if it was just the two of them. but you add in the extra roommate that was only paying her share of rent and none of the food and utilities and shit starts piling up. Well.  sat down and looked at all the finances. found out that while yeah the Ex was making the most money. She didn’t bother to help out with any of the chores. I mean, they split the dish duty. And i’m sitting here wondering how long this pan of fish oils been on the stove for. had to buy new pans cause they were growing cultures.  Hell half her chores and the other roomates were doing the cat boxes. dude it was shit mountain in there. it was so bad the cats were going in the corner. Yet it was like my friend was expected to pick up after them and pick up their slack because they didn’t work as many hours as the other two. Which I’m sorry. if you can’t balance cleaning up after yourself. and working how the hell are you going to live on your own.  Well in comes me, the living off disability. [ which is not a glorious life] I have a lot of time on my hands. so first few days we douche out the house. things start looking good.  in comes the ex to get something and brings this utter douchebag of a man that boasts about him being the whole reason that they broke up. Which like when we were moving out the ex. the ex’s dads...girlfriend??? was like dont let them take advantage of you. which like made me pull up a shit ton of questionmarks. cause yeah i wasn’t going to let the other roommate do that cause i was kinda aware what her game was and it wasn’t playable with me.  everyone had their part to play in this household, and I wasn’t going to play mother for anyone. Well in comes this guy. boast about how he wont let anyone take advantage of her again and im like sure w/e dude. but like i started like... questioning wtf she was actually telling people that my friend actually did to her.  see, what i was told was that it was an intimacy issue. my friends pretty Asexual so like there wasn’t alot of physical involvement. and that things just weren’t going the way that their ex wanted them to. Turns out it was SOOOO much more then that. so curious me, got digging about this girl cause shit just wasnt really adding up.  and I started finding out things. At this time, friend started turning to partner. and eventually we started dating which made shit a lot more uncomfortable with me and this girl. cause yanno, new girlfriend. ex girlfriend. two things dont usually mesh well in situations like this.  Well so, started finding out that while in a relationship she was leading on a bunch of other guys, and at work would like do this whole “im bi” thing if the guy was cute. like she was very male centered for a “lesbian”  She was super horny on main during DND which made EVERYONE uncomfortable. to top it all off she was a narcissist, that had a victim that she could toy with.  She tried to convince my partners parents while they were still together, to talk to their child when there were behaviours that she didnt like. She tried to have an intervention with their friends to force them into transitioning FtM when they were happy just being nonbinary.  they would gaslight them, manipulate them, and  abuse them. I watched this girl in the span of three weeks tear my partner down with her words in front of me. and be nothing but venomous to them. for no other reason then they were actually happy.   While spining all these stories of how she was the one that was wronged.  Well, I started having enough of her coming around just so she could be mean to my partner. She’d come over. immediately go to our fridge to drink some of the booze she left and then pick at my partner for small insignificant things only because she wanted to fight. When i had enough of that. I told my partner, we’re going to DnD early. she can find her own ride.  She came to a family party, invited unknowingly by my partners brother that’s been over seas and in the military. She thought she was going to get a hookup complained she wasn’t having fun because he wasn’t paying attention to her. Snapped at my partners nephews because they wanted to play and made one of them cry. and was just toxic to be around.  That was strike two.  Strike three was watching how she conducted herself around our dnD group. she’d had this guy, mister “ i saved you from your bad relationship” on speed dial, and would tell him things. and then sit and shit talk him when she was bored with him to everyone. We were all sick of it.  The ending straw with me, was when we finally wanted to be done with this drama. told her three months before hand to get off the car insurance. and it wasn’t done. ended up causing a big thing.  She started saying that she’d leave the DND group to make things easier. because Thats what my partner would want. At this point i couldnt stand it any longer. Three months talking to everyone that physically knows her. and see’s what she’s becoming lead everyone to say the same thing about her She was turning into her mother.  No i know fuck all about that. i dont know her mother, i dont know anything about her. I know she’s on a shot that fucks with your brain and ends up messing with your body. I also was on the DEPO shot for three years of my life and its caused so many problems after i was off it.  and thats what i tried to impart to her my wisdom on.  therapy, and a depo shot.  now how we got there is really long winded, and highly dramatic.  id admitted to her our dnd group wanted to chat. she was pushy, respected no ones boundaries, and left our friends house a complete mess. just like she left ours... and god, she ended up pissing me off cause the girl left slippers caked in cat puke in my tub after staining my bathroom doing her hair dye. she disrespected my home, she disrespected out friends, and our friends home. and she was needlessly mean and cruel to everyone around her that didnt serve some purpose to her.  So yeah she had to go.  Here i am thinking that this is the end of it. but i get updates about how I’m apparently the worst abuser in the world just cause I told some spoiled brat of a woman to get off a shot that messes with the brain, and to seek therapy cause this girl needs help. Funny thing is im not the only one that said it. apprently just the loudest voice to have said it.  and this bitch still thinks i dont like her cause she’s not ‘ providing for us financially” We may not have a high roller life. but damn we’re doing just fucking fine. 

[aspiratinganxiety]

'theres only one bed' with dick grayson please, thank you!

Oh, my sweet boo! This is one of my very favorite tropes ever of all time EVER. Thank you for requesting it.

Dunno’ if you’re gonna be upset, but this one is going to have some angst. Sharp angst unrelated to the reader/Dick relationship. It went in a lengthy hurt/comfort direction.

If this bothers you, as always, please let me know! Also, still Fem!Reader, as a male insert character was not requested. 

Lord God… this became way more detailed than I had intended. Like, this girl is now one of my favorite reader inserts. We may be seeing more of the ballerina, y’all. She’s spiffy. I likes it. 

Nightwing makes you uncomfortable in your own home. He affects you to such a degree that you cannot recall feeling so out of place ever before in your life. 

Shuffling through elite European boarding schools for the duration of your childhood eventually lent a sort of sameness to all unfamiliar settings. Cycles of new languages, new housing, new peers and instructors. Different was all just different, and strange things grew to be routine more and more quickly as you left your adolescence for womanhood. 

You had only just begun to enjoy the stability of earning your position as a resident ballerina with the world renowned Gotham Opera Company when a deranged serial killer (just how many of those does Gotham have, exactly?) targeting young women in the arts set his sights on you. Encrypted uploads of voyeuristic footage featuring you as the clear focus pinged some kind of flag one of the Robins put up on the dark web address the murderer used to document his slaughters. The lot of them approached you shortly afterward, as the police department’s hands were tragically tied. No harm, no foul, as far as the law was concerned. 

Creepy videos, but no way to trace them. Case iced-over out of the gate. Not wasting the manpower. No go.  

“Tough luck, chickie. People die in this city everyday. Invest in some pepper spray.” 

That’s seriously what one detective said to you. Verbatim. 

Chickie.   

Fortunately, Batman and his family were dedicated enough to split the additional task of keeping low-key tabs on you over the next handful of months. With daily texting and frequent nighttime checkups, it was inevitable that all of you would become rather well acquainted. 

Robin, in particular, was keen to visit on account of your new kitten, Bumble.

The seemingly stern boy warmed to you quickly, in his way. He started to bring more than educational toys and treats of higher quality for your pet. Classic Russian literature and Slavic historical texts in their original languages were gifted to you. It became a game. Robin would haughtily hand you an unfamiliar author or subject upon which you would be ruthlessly quizzed when he next returned to see to your safety. The taxing gesture was clearly one of friendship, though rather starched and academic. You tried not to let him down with your reading comprehension.   

Red Robin was more talkative via text. He’d brief you on all case progress and any individuals or behaviors to be weary of in terms of ruses or stalking techniques. In person, he was most distant. He often simply knocked at your window. You’d wave, and he would nod. The end.

At first you found the one with guns to be notably less… polite. Barging into your apartment with little to no notice, smoking in your home without permission, and leaving heaps of greasy motorcycle boot prints in his wake. However, you recognized that the intimidation factor he offered by merely being present was likely to thank for destroying the upload rate of unwanted video and images on the murderer’s site. Also, to your pleasant surprise, Red Hood found a way to be oddly charming in spite of his coarser demeanor and unforgiving air. His humor was infectious, and he knew a shocking amount about ballet. The technique as well as the current and historical icons of your niche dance culture. Conversing with him was easy and entertaining. Well worth missing sleep and dragging through practice the following morning.

Nightwing, boastfully the oldest of the bunch, was your least favorite late night house guest. Ever appreciative of all their consideration, you never voiced your preference for the younger brothers. Honestly, it made you feel silly and ungrateful to bristle and go all shifty in his company. There was no real reason to be ill at ease. Never rude or brusque, he behaved as a perfect gentleman toward you (if a bit familiar). 

Perhaps that was it? Unlike his brothers, he didn’t take any time at all to warm up before behaving as if the two of you had known one another for your entire lives. Nicknames, reassuring brushes and pats, wisecracks with punchlines that popped at your expense…

He texted more than anyone. More even than Red Robin. Never about the murderer, always about you and your day. Your interests. Your comfort and progress with the Opera. Hints on the test questions with which Robin was preparing to smite you. 

Nightwing made himself at home in your space, regularly sweeping every inch of your apartment for any bugs or cameras. He brought you food and vitamins, ushering himself to your cabinets and refrigerator as though your kitchen was simply there as a secondary pantry for his snacking convenience. A collection of hand-me-down dark ribbon, four tubes of New Skin liquid bandage, and proper crushed rosin was offered to you in a battered shoe box.

“Been a while since I needed any of it,” he explained with a crooked, dazzling smile. “Ballet was helpful, but not exactly a personal calling. My feet still haven’t forgiven me.” He motioned warily to the copious amount of liquid bandage.

Your cat was obsessed with him too. Climbing up his leg and yowling for attention the moment he realized that the oldest masked brother was present. Nightwing seemed to relish scooping up the tiny critter and dolling up some cuddly pose to snap a picture for Robin. Made the kid crazy jealous. The cat didn’t mind at all. Bumble just loved him, and you felt like a bumbling idiot every time he was around. 

Perhaps, if your mind had been with you and these reflections at the forefront, you would have put it together and protested being stashed in his apartment for protection.

The first person you call is Robin.                           

You’ve never phoned his contact before, and the first cycle of rings doesn’t get to finish before the boy is snapping over the line.

“He killed Bumble…” you say numbly, not waiting for a polite opportunity to speak. The tears that have rimmed your eyes as you take in the scene of your delicate, innocent baby-kitty mangled and displayed over a letter and an opulent bouquet begin trickling down your face. “He killed my Bumblebee, Robin.” 

“Lock yourself in a closet or a cabinet. Do not leave the premises. He is likely counting on your desire to flee and waiting just outside of your home or near one of the building’s exits.” 

He hangs up without a ‘be safe’ or any word of comfort for your loss. The lack of displayed interpersonal sentiment tips you over the edge, and you weep wildly for a few moments. You sob for the pain of your kitten and the destruction of your illusory safety. You have to viciously compartmentalize your ragged reactions in order to focus on Robin’s directions.

Tenderly gathering the broken form of your little companion into your arms, you cringe away from the tainted offerings and lock yourself in the closet as you were told. You know it’s less than half an hour, but it feels as though an eternity passes before the boy wonder comes crashing through your window. The door to your hiding place flies open, and Robin stares at the pitiful image you must make cradling your departed pet down on the floor, still in the majority of your sweaty training clothes from rehearsal. 

You’re too busy being terrified and heartbroken to feel the absolute shock you’re sure you will apply to this memory later when, not breaking eye contact, Robin strips away his mask to share a pained expression. You know his face. 

A Wayne. 

The youngest one?

He kneels down in front of you, reaching forward and giving the tip of Bumble’s cold little ear the barest touch. 

“We let you down.” His hands are gripping your upper arms now, pulling you to your feet. “But we’ll make him pay for this. For everything. I swear it.” 

There is a unique weight to the words. 

You are… moved. 

Vindicated.

Some of the shocked stupor lifts, and you entrust the unmasked Robin to tend what remains of your kitten as you pack a few things. He does not allow you to be in a room without him, wordlessly surveying the suddenly dangerous environment of your apartment with a predatory sharpness that you envy. 

You desire those spikes. That armor. The ability to be in control, even in the face of such an atrocity. 

As he observes, Robin removes his cape and wraps it carefully around your Bumble. When you are ready to depart, he returns to you a snugly swaddled bundle that you hold tight to your chest as you hustle after the agile boy through the shadowed back alleyways and side streets. He stops at a dock, looking to you, green eyes reflecting the low light as though he, himself, is partially feline in nature.

You’d believe it. 

Still silent, you strain to slip Bumble gently into the hungry current of the Gotham River. The water is dark, and so is Robin’s cape. You lose sight of him within moments. 

A hand grips your wrist, firm and unyielding. A bruising affection.

“What’s your name?” you ask, breaking the burdensome quiet.

He does not hesitate: “Damian.”

“Thank you, Damian.”       

The heavy lull sinks down over the two of you again. Damian does not let go of your wrist, but he does lighten his hold. After a few moments of respectful silence passes, he speaks. 

“Presently, I am taking you somewhere safe. My brother Richard’s apartment isn’t far, and his security measures are respectable.”

“Which one is Richard?” 

“You’ll know soon enough,” he mumbles, tugging you away from the water and a few blocks inland to scale a hearty steel fire escape.

He slides open a window and indicates that you should enter first. When he does not follow, you give him an inquisitive look. 

“Don’t fret,” he says. “I’ll send Richard this way shortly. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable.” His nose wrinkles, less than two feet from you. “Maybe look into taking a shower.” 

You have no response for that, and so you nod. 

The large window slips closed, sealing you into the dark, unfamiliar apartment. You see that Damian fidgets with something on his smartphone, still just a pane of glass away. There is the click of an automated lock and a pleasant electronic melody. 

Security system.

You watch the boy’s progress down and away for as long as you can before fumbling to the nearest light switch. The apartment is spacious for this area of the city. Ridiculously high ceilings with lots of sleek glass, exposed brick, open shelving, and industrial black metal touches. 

Very modern. Very bachelor. 

A set of stairs wing off between the kitchen and living room. They lead up to a bedroom loft area that overlooks the whole of the apartment below, separated by only a perfectly transparent glass dividing wall built to mimic the neat rectangular sections of the actual windows. 

Not really your style, but not bad either. It’s cultivated and clean. Honestly more than you’d think to ask of a man living on his own. 

You find the bathroom tucked behind the staircase. It’s sizable, lacking a bathtub in favor of a large shower with symmetrical tile work and more mock windows serving as glass doors. Stripping out of your rank clothing, you again attempt to analyze the cloudy, anesthetized distance keeping you from absolutely freaking out. 

A psycho broke into your home and killed your cat. 

A murdering lunatic with an obsession has locked onto you. 

A rapist. 

A serial killer. 

An actual monster ravaged your life in a way that simply hadn’t seemed real while you were texting Nightwing about roasted eggplant or arguing with Damian over the literary merit of Tolstoy.

Not taking the threat seriously had cost you the baby Bumble. 

The alarm chirps in a lower key, and you rush to rinse the final dregs of shampoo from your hair, dry, and throw on some sweatpants along with your comfiest sweater. You’re anxious to see which brother’s home you’ve invaded, curiosity and some lingering adrenaline shakes driving your choice to forgo conditioner. 

He’s at the kitchen counter, pulling items out of a paper sack. His back is to you, but you would recognize the proportions and that distinctive head-full of thick, dark hair anywhere. Instead of your usual dread or agitation, you are relieved. 

When you figure out that it’s him, it’s like your ears pop. 

There is a sudden burst in your chest, water rushes from your eyes, and you can feel the whole of your deadened fear and sorrow swell and bubble out of your throat. One minute, you’re slinking back behind the staircase to snag a glimpse. In the next, you’re running toward the man you recognize to be Nightwing and wrapping yourself around him. 

He’s turned to meet you, arms open. “I am so sorry, sweetheart,” he says, cheek against your sopping, tangled mop of hair. “We had no idea he was so close. His online traffic had completely died off. We thought he’d moved on, he’s done that before.”

You open your mouth to respond. Instead, air buckles into your lungs with a violent, ugly sound. He hugs you tighter. The firm, restrictive hold makes speaking twice the struggle. You don’t want him to loosen up though, so you power through in gasping, breathy bursts. 

“H-he killed… he k-killed my cat.” 

“I know,” he laments. “The evil son of a bitch.” 

“He’s g-gonna’ kill me too.” 

“He’s not. You’re safe here. He has no idea who I am or where I live, and I strongly suspect that the new mission focus for the lot of us is less finding the guy and more keeping Damian from killing the asshole.” 

You make a pathetic, non-committal sound, rutting your face into his T-shirt.  

He shushes you, dragging his wide hands up and down your sides. With all of the patience in the world, he continues to reassure you and keep you against him as you piece together your usual collected demeanor. 

It’s shyness, you realize, suddenly terrified to look him in the eyes after such a hysterical display. He’s made you uncomfortable all of this time because his attention flusters you. It wasn’t apprehension; it was bashfulness. 

It’s like he senses your epiphany, urging gently away until he’s leaning against the counter with your burning hot cheeks cupped in his palms. He tips your face up, and an abrupt sound somewhere between a singular soft chuckle and a scoff erupts from his nostrils. 

Your eyes are squeezed shut.

“Hey,” he speaks softly. “Hey, look at me.”

You breathe through your stuffy nose, cracking one hesitant eye. 

“Heeeey!” he whispers with subdued triumph. “There you are, shy girl.” 

His eyes are beautiful and so, so blue. You can’t remember if you’ve ever seen anything so blue. Smiling down at you with such kindness and sweet, tempered affection, he looks like a literal angel. 

If he wasn’t holding your face up, you would have hidden again. You go sort of faint, and you realize that you’ve been awake what has to be nearing 24 hours, much of it engaged in either extreme physical activity or severe emotional distress. 

“I need to go to sleep,” you say unthinkingly, words muddled because of his hands smooshing your cheeks together a bit. 

“I’m Dick Grayson,” he takes the moment to offer you his civilian name. “And I am afraid I only have one bed.”

“That’s okay. I don’t want to be by myself.” 

“Let me finish putting up the groceries, okay?” he asks. “Then we can go to bed.”                   

[kyleduhasains]

Update a few years later

Someone can literally be using this blog post 20 years later, when i become famous (and if i do) to write my biography. That thought i just typed was creativity, no restrictions to what i can think. that’s awesome. 

The last post said to hook up. I don’t remember since it was 3 years ago but i believe that’s the mindset i had when i met Wendy. Kinda awesome. Dating 3.5 years now. Just to reflect on that, this whole long term dating thing is something new im doing in my life; i’ve never dated someone for 3.5 years. It’s still in a process. And its weirdly cool to think of dating long term as a new thing because by this point, i would assume that I would get used to it. In a certain perspective, first time dating long term is new to someone if that someone haven’t done it in the past; and i certainly haven’t. You know what im saying? But oh my man, I’ve learned so many things about a relationship. I used the phrase i learned so much because i didnt want go down the narrow path saying just how awesome our relationship is; it would be too one sided; I like to keep things for the bigger picture. As I said a few sentences ago, I’ve learned a lot. In any relationship, its two people with two whole different mindsets somehow trying to live with each other. There’s lots of parts that are similar, but there are also parts where we may think differently. That’s the best way to put it. I guess i’ll include three pieces of gratitude since i havent done that in a while. I’m grateful for wendy for picking up my sister, and they have an incredible bond with each other. I would suck to even imagine a relationship where my sister hates my girlfriend. I love the way wendy is respectful to my family, its something i definitely wont be complaining about. I’m grateful for the way that we bounce back after an argument; don’t get me wrong, in the middle of an argument, it definitely sucks, doesn’t feel like we’re compatible. 

Okay, the reason why i was on this blog now. 

About a year ago, I had about 10-12k to my name (made by myself with my ‘hard earn’ work). then i loss about 10k to it to the stock market, making stupid mistakes here and there. Slowly, it added up, and I was broke. I was so broke to the point where i had debt that I couldn’t pay off (roughly 4k). Thankfully, my mom and dad set me on a better path. I was given financial aid of 2.5k, loan of 3,000 and and was practically yelled at for not playing in the stock market. Slowly, i was able to make it back. I mean that’s kind of crazy. having 10-12k to your name, and not being able to manage it?? then falling down to -4k to your name, then slowly making it up? I think its gonna be a whole journey; im currently IN the journey. I mean now im positive in owner’s equity so im grateful. In the future, im going to be more careful what i do with the money. Seriously. Just because you can buy something doesnt mean you should (shares and options). I got this. Big picture. Love the game. Gotta love the game. 

I’ve gained about 10 lbs from half a year ago. I’m currently 5′7.5″ and is considered overweight. I really have to get myself together before i become like my dad, or any version that I do not want to me. Wow. as i typed that, a light bulb just came on. The words “any version” of myself. I’ve used that phrase while i started my self improvement. and that led me to think about this: Im forgetting the fundamentals. I used to be want to be the best version of myself. What happened to that? Like theres the fundamental of shooting a basketball, trading. Gotta get back to it. 

Okay. I will update you guys later. Brb while im still in the process. 

Sending enormous amounts of positivity and prosperousness to my spirit and everyone else.  

Long term patience and short term hustle. Love the game. I got this. 

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently.

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, Zach likes MeetEdgar.

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them.

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories.

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online.

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs.

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%.

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic.

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on.

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[apsbicepstraining]

TLC:’ I will never forget the day we were millionaires for five minutes’

On the comeback trail, the 90 s megastars reflect on bankruptcy, diverting down Britney and what Lisa Left Eye Lopes would be like on Twitter

TLC are in the back of an Uber XL in the middle of Londons Oxford Circus, sunshine streaming through the windows, with a hottie standing in full view at the crossing. Jesus! Did you look at this guy? Lord have mercy. Why didnt you get his ass on camera? He is byoo-tee-full . Traffic and exchange is gridlocked; Chilli craves her bandmate T-Boz, their cameraman, makeup artist, press officer, the operator and me to acknowledge the drop-dead sumptuous specimen, beefy in muscle and hyper-groomed of look, outside the window.

Look, hey, I desire somewhat guys, but come near now, you are able to grant it up. Tell the truth.

I shrug, ambivalent, and “re just telling me” hes not my category. T-Boz, who has spent the last few minutes scratching her knuckles reminiscing about the fights she used to get into, constricts her attentions. What ?! she says. What is your character? Why dont you tell us what your category is? Even if hes not your kind, you have to say hes cute. Hes not my category, either, but I can see hes good examining. The whole parcel was working for him: the “hairs-breadth”, the muscles What is your category?

The brightness change and the two laughter, a conspiratorial chuckle that follows often of their converse over the next 24 hours. TLC making a respectable comeback in 2017 is, its fair to say, sudden. Despite insisting that theyve been working solidly behind the scenes the whole time touring internationally, writing movie dialogues, setting up a fitness blog the group vanished from public consciousness sometime in the early 00 s.

Watch the video for Way Back.

Collectively though, the three twentysomething dames from Atlanta, Georgia Tionne T-Boz Watkins, Rozonda Chilli Thomas and Lisa Left Eye Lopes owned the 90 s: their brand of sultry R& B, silky enough to woo the masses but glitchy enough to keep them interesting, has constructed them the most successful US girl group of all time. Their two biggest books, CrazySexyCool( 1994) and Fanmail( 1999 ), sold more than 20 m mimics between them, with other singles and albums helping to rack up a total sales pull of around 65 m worldwide.

Thats a behemothic rank of success that was felled first by the bands bankruptcy in 1995, then by the tragic deaths among Lopes, at 30, in 2002.

I slept a lot, says Thomas of that time. When youre depressed and you sleep a lot I did that and stayed in my area. I didnt watch Tv and I certainly didnt listen to radio or used to go because everywhere wed disappear, someone would have something to say.

And theyd be smiling, more, microchips in Watkins, and then be like, Oh, Im so sorry, and then immediately, Can I have your autograph?

The two seemed hounded by the press, the public and their description. People are ghouls, says Watkins. I went words at my home 2 day after Lisa croaked, like, What are you going to do? and, Heres my demo, take a listen. But Lopes, who perished in road accidents on holiday in Honduras that April, was irreplaceable. TLC was ever a vehicle for a producer or a managers brand-new sound opening a revolving door for a new third member like, say, Destinys Child or the Sugababes was not an option.

They are much clearer than anybody else on what is and isnt TLC, their description boss, LA Reid, told Rolling Stone in 1995. They make it clearly articulated to the writers and creators on their projects what they will and will not sing. And because of that, theyll ever be a little onward. The radical turned away major songs, including Hit Me Baby One More Time( Its a great hymn but not every hit is for you. I couldnt hear us on that enter, says Thomas, diplomatically ).

We already did baby babe newborn, says Watkins, caressing her teeth.

Sister ordinance … ( left to right) Tionne T-Boz Watkins, Lisa Left-Eye Lopes and Rozonda Chilli Thomas in the Netherlands in 1992. Photo: Michel Linssen/ Redferns

TLCs distinct din stands written about and referenced by music blogs. And it still influences modern dad( accompany 2017 s biggest-selling single in the UK, Ed Sheerans Shape of You ). The radical characterized themselves by their three distinct identities: crazy, sex, refrigerate. Seven months after Lopes died, their fourth and least successful book, 3D, was secreted. We were upset, that was the label, says Watkins, of the book coming out. I guess their mourning stagecoach for us was a week, we werent recalling straight-from-the-shoulder or in a right frame of mind to be making decisions.

That first couple of years you think you were all right or at least better, and then you have a dreaming or something and youre messed up all over again, lends Thomas. It just really took is high time to heal.

Fifteen times on and in their late 40 s, the pair didnt think that they would be playing their first ever London gig. Mays lonely time at Koko in Camden Town sold out in a daytime, to an horde of followers singing and sweating on its sticky floorboards. We havent had bad concerts where weve been booed, but that was hard to believe, says Watkins, when we gratifies the next night in a salmon pink hotel suite. To come here and have beings singing TLC. It manufactures the adrenaline flow. Were always nervous before we go on stage, says Thomas, but I was exceptionally apprehensive this time. It didnt settle till I started doing it.

That the evidence was a triumph only follows TLCs made-for-TV-movie trajectory. Backing dancers in amber lame outfits, a truth choir, and thumped after reached opening with Diggin On Youand purposing with No Scrubs heightened it beyond the hurry of pop nostalgia. That said, new single Way Back, which boasts a Snoop Dogg verse where Lopes might have been, is pure 90 s street feeling throwback, but the pair affirm that theyre not attaches great importance to continuing trend, because, says Watkins, our music will always be relevant.

Hit girlfriends … TLC in Hollywood, 1999. Photo: Ron Davis/ Getty Images

What do you signify by throwback? questions Thomas.

Its inarguable that the two have worked hard to retain the essence of what reached them so massive in the first place: from the live creation down to Thomass still terrifyingly well-maintained washboard belly, they appear and sound as if theyve escaped a season capsule.

Some beings may say, Oh. you have the same haircut, says Watkins her angled blond bob gash as aggressively as she is. But first of all, second of all, and third of all: when you get the various kinds of iconic haircut that beings emulate, “youre calling” me. Its signature. Its true-blue: alongside The Rachel, Watkinss was the more popular haircut for gobby schoolgirls in the 90s. A slew of faux-bickering and tutting between the two follows as they debate the flaws of contemporary creators who, according to TLC, have no appreciation of performance, showmanship or style.

Celebrity changed, but what stays out to me is the altered in media, says Thomas. If Twitter was around when we were were out, Lisa would have “the worlds largest” adherents for sure. And maybe been in the most disturb, more? Oh my God, she would have been closed down multiple times.

Same with Instagram, says Watkins. If Instagram was taken away tomorrow there would be a lot of parties jobless right now cos theres a lot of public figure now made up of Instagram frameworks. She is unimpressed by influencers monetising their lifestyles online, but tries to hold back. Im not gonna knock your hubbub. Hustle on, girlfriend. “Its time” that hos are triumphing. An affirmative block-caps YEAH! comes from Thomas. But if you gonna be a ho, at the least sounds like a good ho and have to pay, Watkins continues. Ho-ism is working for people. Worst situation is to be a ho, spread your trash far and near and get nothing from it.

No scrubbing please, were TLC … Chilli ( left) and T-Boz. Image: Linda Nylind/ The Guide

Watkins wont be drawn on who she might be alluding to, but its still a surprise to hear her or Thomas claim a moral high ground over other women. TLC endorse female sexuality in their hymns and styling, and were early advocates of safe-sex campaigns( Lopes would even wear a condom on the left see of her glass ). Hitherto, says Watkins, she was offered $50,000 to stay a male fan and his wife at home So they could just stare at me amply clothed for five minutes , nothing else and she refused.

Chilli is scandalized. Fifty thousand! To bring kindnes and gaiety into that relationship, whats wrong with that ?! My husband at that time didnt crave me travelling, declares Watkins. He didnt have to know! squeal Thomas.

Both are single right now. Thomas has a son with TLCs ex-producer Dallas Austin, and Watkins is divorced with a son and teenage daughter. I wouldnt want to meet anyone right now, says Watkins. I do not want a mortal. If God slaps me in the are dealing with a good one, fine, but right now, I dont want to listen to your daytime, I dont want to care about your problems. I wouldnt be a good girlfriend right now; I dont want to have sex with nobody.

Oh, you poverty-stricken girlfriend! You good good girlfriend, says Thomas, cooing at Watkinss vagina.

Shell be all right, says Watkins, side-eyeing Thomas with a cat-like grin.

The pair live in different metropolitans now; Watkins is in Los Angeles, having precisely moved out of the neighbourhood the Kardashians live in, and Thomas has stayed in Atlanta, but they still finish each others sentences and slip into shorthand. You start off with so many friends, shows Watkins, but as you get older, you only need one or two. Im not open to just letting people into my life, I involve an asset not a liability.

Class behave … TLC announce a $25,000 Aids education scholarship in recall of Lisa Lopes at the 2002 MTV Awards. Picture: Kevin Kane/ WireImage

To their ascribe, the two ought to have categorically burned by the industry. To go bankrupt at the top of their honour and success still stings. I will never forget the day we were millionaires for literally five minutes, says Watkins. Because the cheque was written to us and we had to sign it over, back to[ Pebbles, their former administrator ]. But we wont get into that since were still in a lawsuit.

If I could go back, I are certainly change a couple of things business-wise, says Thomas. I have learned the hard way: signal your own cheques, make sure your taxes are in shape and whatever your firm is, its always good to get wise examined. If you dont have anything to hide, its not a worry.

Its not personal, contributes Watkins, hard as nails, its business. Everyone in this industry has only one plan. Auditors, lawyers, beings you think you know will keep running up the greenback. You have to watch your back on every corner.

Worse than the money was, of course, the loss of Lopes , that are actually dissolved that first, fantastical operate. The three had weathered everything together the backstabbing, the bankruptcy, the tabloid awarenes of Lopes igniting down the mansion of her then-football star boyfriend. Lisa was a starter. I dont start substance, I dont believes in disagreeing with people I dont know, says Watkins. I have a hard exterior, Im scary.

She was more intrepid, says Thomas. Im a friendly party but if I find out youre not cool, I get real cold.And, chortles Watkins, with Lisa, it depended on the working day. She was a Gemini, so she was about seven different beings. Neither Watkins or Thomas booze( Weve done this industry sober; were real clear about exactly what we doing ), though Lopes did and the three, tight because they are, were known to scrap often publicly. Gazing back, would they have done anything differently? Coulda, woulda, shoulda, says Watkins, her expression at its most slow and sleepy-eyed. It became us who we are, so at the end of the day, I just recollect Lisa as person or persons, a human being. I miss everything.

TLC by TLC is out on 30 June

The post TLC:’ I will never forget the day we were millionaires for five minutes’ appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2zAgmpS via IFTTT

[westakoasta]

Joe Dub - WCI, 2005

Alright, tell us about your childhood in SF, the records that had an impact on you..

Growin up in "the city" was cool... It's one of the most diverse and open minded cities in the States. A lot of pride... Not just for the city itself but for culture as well. Music and art is not only embraced, it's encouraged. I started off singin in a choir and playin the trumpet. Plus my Mom would paint so I'd get in home art lessons. But I was hella into sports also. I played baseball from like 5 or 6 years old through high school. I was a raw ass in fielder... But couldn't really hit too well though... Haha! But yeah I had a typical childhood I guess. Gettin into trouble... Girls... Yunno that kinda shit. It wasn't really until like 85 that I started rhymin. It was more some fuck around shit we'd do in the schoolyard at lunchtime. Just freestyle shit.. Braggin and baggin.. Recorded some shit just for fun... I still got those tapes.. Fucking funny stuff man.

Around 86 or so I remember listening to KPOO (local hip-hop radio station in the bay) when they had dj's like... KK... Marcus Clemens and Dan the Automator. One night I remember they played Eric B and Rakim "Check out my Melody," Mixmaster Gee "The Manipulator" (check artist), BDP "My 9mm Goes Bang" and Just Ice "Latoya" in succession. I recorded that show still have that tape in fact. Anyways, once the show ended at that moment I knew I wanted to do this shit seriously. The beats moved me but I was more trying to rap then. It wasn't till 90 or 91 when I into making beats.

As far as records that inspired me rapwise? I was a fan of all of the old stuff. Flash, Kurtis Blow, Spoonie G, but it was the progressive shit that had me buggin. Anything that Kurtis Mantronik did... Just Ice (dopest mc of all time imo)... T LA Rock... All that... Schooly D was like a surrogate father to me as a child. Quite the role model!!!  Hahahahah!

Let's talk about the Westcoast Workforce. How did y'all came along together, the records/ tracks you did collectively... Everything. I once read about a reformation with you, Sub, Radioinactive, Xinxo, Liferex and Omid.. Is that true?

Well the Workforce was around before I was put on. It was Xinxo, Sub, AntiMC, Radio, Premonition, Memorex, Rhetoric and some other folks. It wasn't until 99 when I was at the B-boy Summit that I met Sub and AntiMC. We traded tapes and that was that. That was like February or March. Then in July of 99 P-minus hits me up and is like "Radio and Antimc are in town and trying to get at you" gave me the number. I called em... Chopped it up for a good second but we never got a chance to hang out then. In September, Deeskee, Maleko and I rolled down to LA to kick it at the Shapeshifter house in Westwood where Rob One (RIP), Exist, Bleek and Dr. Lewd lived. We left SF at about 5 AM and got in at 10 PM. Pull up to the house and Rob is sitting outside car full of records, sayin "cool you guys are here... Let's go." He had a gig and was waitin on us. So we go to the show... And i'm outside smokin and sub walks up and he's like what's up, you wanna be down with the Workforce? That was pretty much it. Megabusive, Liferexall and them got down right after that. As for getting back together, me, Xinxo, Radio, Subtitle, and Rexall, got together and talked about it when I was in LA in 2004. Some of the old names came up, but due to differences and conflictin schedules we left it at that. Omid and Premonition were included as well. But with everyone doing solo shit right now, it's just a name we claim, no albums or tours will be coming anytime soon. Me and Xinxo joke that we are the Workforce. But all of us still work together... Still hang out and what not... The timing is just off right now. I'm trying to get a Workforce song on my album... We'll see!

You probably have one of the most prolific discography in the bay, tones of collaborations and obscure groups... What were the most important ones  to you? Also there's this one called The Citadel, which was supposed to be you, Sub, Liferexall and Megabusive.. Does this one only ever existed?

I've been blessed to work with the people I have! My favorite one would have to be with the folks I know the most. Friends... Not just MC's doin songs together... People. Cuz there's no chemistry there. It's not just like "Hey let's do a song to do a song". It's because you know the person and you know they'd fit the mood of the song, whatever it may be. Some shit is fuck around and some is serious with money involved, but either way if it's the homies... It's fun! The folks I like workin with are like... All the Workforce, Deeskee, the Shapes, Khule, Topic, Tommy V, and the list goes on. It's laid back and relaxed when we work. Bustin jokes... Talkin story... That's what I like. Like me and 2Mex did this song when he was in Hawaii... Some quick shit... He's talking about his trip to Hawaii... I was talking about mine to LA. It's probably won't ever come out... But those are the best collabs when you do it for fun.

Citadel? HAHAHA. How'd you hear about that? Yeah we did that at Sub's mom's house in Mid City. Me, Megabusive, Subtitle, and Life were kickin it hard. We all made beats and rapped so Sub had the idea let's each make a 2 beats and do songs in like a week. But the only way Sub would let me rap on it was if I styled hard....HAHAHA! See he saw me freestyle once and I was stylin it up... Haha... Blowed style. But that's another story... So yeah we did that shit... Came out tight. But it was just for fun... Wait so you have a copy? Cuz I don't. I think Sub is the only one with it.

You moved recently to Hawaï... Tell us about it, how's life out there, differences with California, the hip hop scene, if it's a good place for cratedigging... Anything.

Life in Hawaii is slow. A far cry from the pace of the rest of the States. Everybody out here does things at their own speed. Where as in Cali everythings done on a schedule. I pretty much work between the two... Though it's tough sometimes. It's a small island so the scene is smaller than I'm used to. There's some good talent and the fans support. I don't get out that much though so I can't speak on it too much. Yeah man there's a few dope spots for diggin out here. I left a lot of my records back in Cali and I have like 5,000 here in Hawaii. Most of which I got here, some common shit, some rare shit, but theres a lot of come ups, not many people out here are lookin for the kind of stuff I am. So I always find something worth while. Plus, the prices are cheap... No record is ever over $20... Almost everything is under $5... I'm kind of spoiled with that!

Do you have a job besides hip hop?

Nah, I haven't had a 9 to 5 in about 3 or 4 years. Music hasn't been great to be but it's been good enough. I just sell beats and work on music all day. Hit the beach and drink myself to sleep.

You got an album with Ellay Khule called In A World Of My Own that will be released soon... Can you tell us about it? And also, what about this 8′’ vinyl released by Anti-Party? I'm curious to see what a 8" looks like?

It's actually called "In My Own World". The album came about through a mutual friend of Khule and I. He told Khule to check out my beats and I've always been a fan of Khule since I can remember so I was obviously down. At first I'd send him beats in the mail... Then he wrote the songs... Then I flew out to LA to lay the beats and vocals down.... I prefer doing music in person not long distance. It helps the chemistry. But yeah, I didn't want to give him elaborate beats... I wanted his vocals to be the focus... There's something for every Khule fan on the album... There's some hard Rifleman shit... Some Ellay Khule aggressive styling... And some real heart felt personal shit... This album is probably the most complete project i've worked on to date... Me and Khule have talked about doin another project together so this definately won't a one shot deal... As for the 8′’... It's a collection of about 5 or 6 songs off my old "Noise Pollution" tape... Yeah DJ Plankton from Anti-Party really wanted to release the whole album on vinyl but... I'm about moving forward... Plus the sound quality on that tape really wouldn't cut in on vinyl... So we agreed to bust a limited run of 8"'s with some of the songs off Noise Pollution instead... It should be coming out in july... Very limited though... I heard something like under 100 are being pressed...

What's your opinion on the evolution of the underground scene?

Umm I mean... Damn... Haha... It's weird... I'm kinda removed from the Cali scene being out here in Hawaii... But... I’ll say this... The way the scene used to be... Everyone knew their place... You had the MCs/ DJs/ producers/ B-Boys... The vendors... Promoters... And the fans. And who you were was cool. Everyone respected it... Now with all the advancements with technology and free programs for computers... I'd have to honestly say that 70-75% of the people in the scene are MC's or producers now... Now i'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed their voice... But... Go through the proper channels... Pay dues... Hustle... No one has to hustle anymore... We used to take the last 100 bucks we had... Go get tapes made... Have about 20 bucks left... Spend that on gas and roll to LA... Just to slang tapes at shows...n Ad to tap into a different region... Get our shit out there... Sleep in cars... On couches whatever... We'd sell about 50 tapes or so in a weekend for 5 bones... And come back home broke... But to us the trips were always a success... Now... Everyones got a website with a store... It's so easy now... You don't have to leave your house and you can move 1000 units no sweat... I'd have to sum it up by saying that there's less passion nowadays... I really don't want to go any deeper into this.... Haha.

How do you see yourself at 50? And do you project yourself in the future as a rapper, I mean, do you have plans of doing something else?

At 50?.... If i make it that far... I'll still be making music....if i'm rappin still it'll probably just be for myself....but i'll still be producing...i'm a proud drop out...so....i don't think i'll ever rock a career or a 9 to 5 for that matter again....but if my life changes drastically by then....i can say i'll always have music....

What are you listening to right now... and your all time 5 favorite lps..?

Right now....i'm listening to ellay khule-califormula...alot of mandrill.....gong....totally insane....young ed....alot of my beats(not because i'm an ego maniac...but because i'm kinda forced to listen to them as i make them)....and all the myspace mc's who want me to "check out their tracks".......all time 5?......shit.....here i mean.....i'll just give you 5 incredible albums i'm listening to now.....utfo-lethal earth wind and fire-greatest hits...sade-love deluxe......cid-harder they come.....just ice-back to the old school

What about your future releases? do you plan to have some other artists on Asita?

For me i got my new album "pooretry" almost completed...that should be coming out in like sept/oct of this year....the pain killers album...which is me and my homegirl topic...that's gonna be out on beyond space ent....not really sure of the date there....but that one's bangin....we got beats from...sach...deeskee...liferexall...matth...meaty ogre...alex75 and many many more.....like i said before....the khule album is pretty much done...we're just waiting for califormula to drop....before we release it.....yeah there's gonna be alot of other folks comin out on asita....once i finish my album...i'm going to start a project with nocando....he's a younger cat coming out of blowed and his crew customer service...he's got some specific shit he wants to do so i'm making sure i'm free of all commitments before i start on that....plus an asita/la2thebay beat series....the first installment i believe will be myself...deeskee...liferexall and sach....just all instrumentals...some old some new....we'll be puttin out new ones like twice a year...featuring all the producers in the family....and i'm currently trying to do a couple projects with some other folks but so far it's just talk.....

Thanks a lot for the interview.. any last words?

I guess just thanks to all the supporters world wide....from hawaii to europe....and of course one love to all my family....blood/friends/musicians.....the people i do this for... be easy.

Interview conducted by Pseudzero for West Coast Indies, 2005.

[trendingnewsb]

10 books every entrepreneur should read in 2017

Image: Mascha Tace/shutterstock

Entrepreneurship is a commitmentnot only to your venture or business, but also to a unique learning process. Where others seek guidance through big universities and established companies, I know many entrepreneurs like myself who have a desire to go their own way and learning becomes a self-guided experience. As a result, Ive gained a whole new dimension to my learning experience, having combined it with what I have chosen to read and what I have learned in the field.

Many entrepreneurs are avid readersnot just out of curiosity, but necessity. I love listening to podcasts and audiobooks because its something I can do while Im on the go whether that is traveling or exercising. Reading is one of the only ways you can learn from the worlds best and brightest, especially those who choose to share their thoughts on paper instead of through a weekly podcast.

Here is an entrepreneurs reading list for 2017 that include ten books that I have been motivating, insightful, and humbling for me. I hope that they leave a positive impression and assist you on your journey toward building something impactful in the world.

1. “All In” by Bill Green

This is a must read for any first-time entrepreneur who thinks building a business is an easy process. Author Bill Green uses “All In” to both inspire entrepreneurs on their quest for greatness and put things in perspective. Starting in a flea market and ending with a publicly traded company, Greens story demonstrates what it means to go all in on an ideaand not stop until the goal is achieved something that stands out for me in terms of the perspective that has helped me in bringing my own business ideas to fruition.

Greens company was Wilmar Industries, a corporation that ended up employing more than 2,300 people. When Wilmar went public in 1996, Fortune rated Wilmar as one of the best IPOs of the year. In 1999, Wilmar was named by Forbes as one of the top 200 Best Small Companies in America. “All In” describes Greens humble beginnings, his bootstrapping mindset and, ultimately, his rise to building a company that today is owned by Home Depot, with revenues topping $1.8 billion.

2. “Top of Mind” by John Hall

In a noisy world of digital marketers, how do you stand out? CEO of Influence & Co. and business thought leader John Hall has some valuable insights. After all, his recipe for staying top of mind with your consumers is the same step-by-step process he used to build Influence & Co to one of Forbes Most Promising Companies In America.

Top of Mind is full of tactics, with insights into how consumer needs and expectations have changed over the past few years; how you can build a brand that serves both your ideal customers and your own employees; and ways to use digital content to build lasting trust with your readers, followers and subscribers. I have put many of these tactics to work already with great success in my own business.

3. “The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs” by Hal Elrod and Cameron Herold

Consider this your wake-up call. Few books can change your daily habits as effectively as “The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs.” Author Hal Elrods original “The Miracle Morning” was a self-development crash course. In this follow-up page-turner, wisdom is added from Cameron Herold, a bestselling author and widely respected business coach, using the Miracle Morning framework as a foundation.

The book has given me six daily practices to create and sustain positive change in my lifepersonally and professionally. I have found that one of the most difficult challenges is to maintain a balance between building a successful business and taking care of myself. It has taught me that if Im off, then the whole picture is off. The principles in this book have put balance back in my life, which has benefitted my business, helped me feel better, and made my family a lot happier.

4. “Grit” by Angela Duckworth

Can success be reduced to a process? Pioneering psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Angela Duckworth thinks it can. She calls it grit. “Grit” does an incredible job of exploring what makes someone exceptionaland, as Duckworth has discovered, it certainly isnt talent or inherent intelligence.

She argues that the most successful people discover their own genius through the daily habit of persistence while always remembering to lead with what they are most passionate about. I thoroughly enjoyed the personal stories as well as interviews with peak performers and industry leaders, ranging from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.

5. “A Paperboys Fable” by Deep Patel

This book struck me for its title because it made me think about my first job and the other ventures I tried when I was younger.

Part story, part riveting interviews with professors, entrepreneurs, CEOs and more, “A Paperboys Fable” creatively shares some of the most tried and true lessons learned in business. Like the Arbinger Institutes Leadership and Self-Deception, what makes “A Paperboys Fable” a worthwhile read is its ability to take high-level and timeless business lessons and make them both easy to understand for beginners and poignant reminders for us more seasoned entrepreneurs.

6. “Rich20Something” by Daniel DiPiazza

The brand, Rich20Something, was started by Daniel DiPiazza, a recognized digital marketer and influencer. A website, a massively popular Instagram page, and now a book packed with lessons, “Rich20Something” is DiPiazzas story of being a typical twenty-something, unsure of what to do in life, and how he built a brand around the hustling mentality that can turn any young entrepreneur into a success.

Unlike the conventional corporate ladder path, “Rich20Something” is essentially a guide to hacking your way to wherever you want to go. DiPiazza shares his own advice from the trenches along with anecdotes from other successful entrepreneurs and mentors and step-by-step techniques for building businesses around my personal skill set. Its helped me beyond the dream and make things happen.

7. “Managing the Mental Game” by Jeff Boss

Who better to learn mental fortitude from than a former Navy SEAL? In Managing the Mental Game,” Boss reflects on his experiences as a SEAL and walks readers through techniques that build self-confidence, mental endurance and positive habits.

The book is comprised of over 23 mental exercises, covering topics such as how to deal with stress, how to avoid common mental traps, how to handle uncertainty and even the neuroscience behind change. Ive used these in my daily work life to deal with those unexpected issues and barriers that seem to pop up with a startup, which has provided me with a much more measured and logical approach when these do happen.

8. “Disrupted” by Dan Lyons

What is Silicon Valley really like? After 25 years at Newsweek, journalist Dan Lyons lost his job to younger talent. Shortly thereafter, he found himself working for a famed Silicon Valley startup, Hubspot, which had over $100 million in venture capital. “Disrupted” is Lyons take on the idealized entrepreneurship scene in California. As a resident of Silicon Valley, this book hit home in terms of familiar situations and advice on how to navigate the territory here.

One part crash course on entrepreneurship, two parts humorous stories and unfortunate conclusions, this book shows that heavily funded startups arent all they seem to be from the outside. According to Lyons, Its a world where bad ideas are rewarded, where companies blow money on lavish perks, and where everyone is trying to hang on just long enough to reach an IPO and cash out.

9. “Be Obsessed or Be Average” by Grant Cardone

Grant Cardone is a success story, to say the least. In addition to having one of the strongest personal brands, Cardone has made a name for himself by building five successful companies and turning himself into a multimillionaire. “Be Obsessed or Be Average” is like his other NYT bestseller,The 10x Rule a humbling reminder of just how much you have to want success in order to e ventually have it. It reads just like Cardone sounds in his videos and on his podcastfull of energy and motivation. His quotes have stayed top of mind long after finishing the book, which have been inspirational when faced with some critical issues in my business.

From Cardones perspective, success ultimately comes down to three basic rules: first, be willing to set crazy goals, and aim to reach them, every single day; second, value your money and make it work for you; and, third, use your haters as fuel. These rules have worked for me and many colleagues, so they will work for you, too.

10. “The Fire Starter Sessions” by Danielle LaPorte

Theres a reason “The Fire Starter Sessions” has sold over a million copies. Author Danielle LaPorte explains that many of the things we believe about the road to success are actually wrong, and that we end up driving ourselves mad by searching for things that dont actually exist.

Some of the controversial topics covered in this book include the fact that life balance is a myth, that our principles and beliefs might be the very things holding us back, and that happiness has far more to do with how we feel while were working and not necessarily the achievement of our goals. “The Fire Starter Sessions” offers helpful reminders for any entrepreneur who wants to build a meaningful future. Its certainly given me a lot of food for thought on how Ive looked at my own business and leadership style.

John Rampton is serial entrepreneur who now focuses on helping people to build amazing products and services that scale. He is founder of the online payments company Due. If you’re looking for even more to read, check out his book: “Self Employed: 50 Signs That You Might Be an Entrepreneur.“

WATCH:

John Rampton

Read more: http://ift.tt/2qNsQcC

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2qPW4aQ via Viral News HQ

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently.

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, Zach likes MeetEdgar.

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them.

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories.

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online.

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs.

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%.

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic.

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on.

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently.

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, Zach likes MeetEdgar.

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them.

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories.

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online.

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs.

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%.

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic.

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on.

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently.

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, Zach likes MeetEdgar.

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them.

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories.

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online.

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs.

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%.

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic.

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on.

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently.

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, Zach likes MeetEdgar.

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them.

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories.

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online.

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs.

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%.

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic.

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on.

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

5 Real Examples of Advanced Content Promotion Strategies

Posted by bsmarketer

Content promotion isn’t tweeting or upvoting. Those tiny, one-off tactics are fine for beginners. They might make a dent, but they definitely won’t move the needle. Companies that want to grow big and grow fast need to grow differently.

Here’s how Kissmetrics, Sourcify, Sales Hacker, Kinsta, and BuildFire have used advanced content promotion tips like newsjacking and paid social to elevate their brands above the competition.

1. Use content to fuel social media distribution (and not the other way around)

Prior to selling the brand and blog to Neil Patel, Kissmetrics had no dedicated social media manager at the height of their success. The Kissmetrics blog received nearly 85% of its traffic from organic search. The second biggest traffic-driver was the newsletter.

Social media did drive traffic to their posts. However, former blog editor Zach Buylgo’s research showed that these traffic segments often had the lowest engagement (like time on site) and the least conversions (like trial or demo opt-ins) — so they didn’t prioritize it. The bulk of Zach’s day was instead focused on editing posts, making changes himself, adding comments and suggestions for the author to fix, and checking for regurgitated content. Stellar, long-form content was priority number one. And two. And three.

So Zach wasn’t just looking for technically-correct content. He was optimizing for uniqueness: the exact same area where most cheap content falls short. That’s an issue because many times, a simple SERP analysis would reveal that one submission:

(image source)

...Looked exactly like the number-one result from Content Marketing Institute:

(image source)

Today’s plagiarism tools can catch the obvious stuff, but these derivatives often slip through the cracks. Recurring paid writers contributed the bulk of the TOFU content, which would free Zach up to focus more on MOFU use cases and case studies to help visitors understand how to get the most out of their product set (from the in-house person who knows it best).

They produced marketing guides and weekly webinars to transform initial attention into new leads:

They also created free marketing tools to give prospects an interactive way to continue engaging with their brand:

In other words, they focused on doing the things that matter most — the 20% that would generate the biggest bang for their buck. They won’t ignore social networks completely, though. They still had hundreds of thousands of followers across each network. Instead, their intern would take the frontlines. That person would watch out for anything critical, like a customer question, which will then be passed off to the Customer Success Manager that will get back to them within a few hours.

New blog posts would get the obligatory push to Twitter and LinkedIn. (Facebook is used primarily for their weekly webinar updates.) Zach used Pablo from Buffer to design and create featured images for the blog posts.

Then he’d use an Open Graph Protocol WordPress plugin to automatically add all appropriate tags for each network. That way, all he had to do was add the file and basic post meta data. The plugin would then customize how it shows up on each network afterward. Instead of using Buffer to promote new posts, though, Zach likes MeetEdgar.

Why? Doesn’t that seem like an extra step at first glance? Like Buffer, MeetEdgar allows you to select when you’d like to schedule content. You can just load up the queue with content, and the tool will manage the rest. The difference is that Buffer constantly requires new content — you need to keep topping it off, whereas MeetEdgar will automatically recycle the old stuff you’ve previously added. This saved a blog like Kissmetrics, with thousands of content pieces, TONS of time.

(image source)

He would then use Sleeknote to build forms tailored to each blog category to transform blog readers into top-of-the-funnel leads:

But that’s about it. Zach didn’t do a ton of custom tweets. There weren’t a lot of personal replies. It’s not that they didn’t care. They just preferred to focus on what drives the most results for their particular business. They focused on building a brand that people recognize and trust. That means others would do the social sharing for them.

Respected industry vets like Avinash Kaushik, for example, would often share their blog posts. And Avinash was the perfect fit, because he already has a loyal, data-driven audience following him.

So that single tweet brings in a ton of highly-qualified traffic — traffic that turns into leads and customers, not just fans.

2. Combine original research and newsjacking to go viral

Sourcify has grown almost exclusively through content marketing. Founder Nathan Resnick speaks, attends, and hosts everything from webinars to live events and meetups. Most of their events are brand-building efforts to connect face-to-face with other entrepreneurs. But what’s put them on the map has been leveraging their own experience and platform to fuel viral stories.

Last summer, the record-breaking Mayweather vs. McGregor fight was gaining steam. McGregor was already infamous for his legendary trash-talking and shade-throwing abilities. He also liked to indulge in attention-grabbing sartorial splendor. But the suit he wore to the very first press conference somehow managed to combine the best of both personality quirks:

(image source)

This was no off-the-shelf suit. He had it custom made. Nathan recalls seeing this press conference suit fondly: “Literally, the team came in after the press conference, thinking, ‘Man, this is an epic suit.’” So they did what any other rational human being did after seeing it on TV: they tried to buy it online.

“Except, the dude was charging like $10,000 to cover it and taking six weeks to produce.” That gave Nathan an idea. “I think we can produce this way faster.”

They “used their own platform, had samples done in less than a week, and had a site up the same day.”

(image source)

“We took photos, sent them to different factories, and took guesstimates on letter sizing, colors, fonts, etc. You can often manufacture products based on images if it’s within certain product categories.” The goal all along was to use the suit as a case study. They partnered with a local marketing firm to help split the promotion, work, and costs.

“The next day we signed a contract with a few marketers based in San Francisco to split the profits 50–50 after we both covered our costs. They cover the ad spend and setup; we cover the inventory and logistics cost,” Nathan wrote in an article for The Hustle. When they were ready to go, the marketing company began running ad campaigns and pushing out stories. They went viral on BroBible quickly after launch and pulled in over $23,000 in sales within the first week.

The only problem is that they used some images of Conor in the process. And apparently, his attorney’s didn’t love the IP infringement. A cease and desist letter wasn’t far behind:

(image source)

This result wasn’t completely unexpected. Both Nathan and the marketing partner knew they were skirting a thin line. But either way, Nathan got what he wanted out of it.

3. Drive targeted, bottom-of-the-funnel leads with Quora

Quora packs another punch that often elevates it over the other social channels: higher-quality traffic. Site visitors are asking detailed questions, expecting to comb through in-depth answers to each query. In other words, they’re invested. They’re smart. And if they’re expressing interest in managed WordPress hosting, it means they’ve got dough, too.

Both Sales Hacker and Kinsta take full advantage. Today, Gaetano DiNardi is the Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva. But before that, he lead marketing at Sales Hacker before they were acquired. There, content was central to their stratospheric growth. With Quora, Gaetano would take his latest content pieces and use them to solve customer problems and address pain points in the general sales and marketing space:

By using Quora as a research tool, he would find new topics that he can create content around to drive new traffic and connect with their current audience:

He found questions that they already had content for and used it as a chance to engage users and provide value. He can drive tons of relevant traffic for free by linking back to the Sales Hacker blog:

Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company out of Europe, also uses uses relevant threads and Quora ads. CMO Brian Jackson jumps into conversations directly, lending his experience and expertise where appropriate. His technical background makes it easy to talk shop with others looking for a sophisticated conversation about performance (beyond the standard, PR-speak most marketers offer up):

Brian targets different WordPress-related categories, questions, or interests. Technically, the units are “display ads, but they look like text.” The ad copy is short and to the point. Usually something like, “Premium hosting plans starting at $XX/month” to fit within their length requirements.

4. Rank faster with paid (not organic) social promotion

Kinsta co-founder Tom Zsomborgi wrote about their journey in a bootstrapping blog post that went live last November. It instantly hit the top of Hacker News, resulting in their website getting a consistent 400+ concurrent visitors all day:

Within hours their post was also ranking on the first page for the term “bootstrapping,” which receives around 256,000 monthly searches.

How did that happen?

“There’s a direct correlation between social proof and increased search traffic. It’s more than people think,” said Brian. Essentially, you’re paying Facebook to increase organic rankings. You take good content, add paid syndication, and watch keyword rankings go up.

Kinsta’s big goal with content promotion is to build traffic and get as many eyeballs as possible. Then they’ll use AdRoll for display retargeting messages, targeting the people who just visited with lead gen offers to start a free trial. (“But I don’t use AdRoll for Facebook because it tags on their middleman fee.”)

Brian uses the “Click Campaigns” objective on Facebook Ads for both lead gen and content promotion. “It’s the best for getting traffic.”

Facebook's organic reach fell by 52% in 2016 alone. That means your ability to promote content to your own page fans is quickly approaching zero.

(image source)

“It’s almost not even worth posting if you’re not paying,” confirms Brian. Kinsta will promote new posts to make sure it comes across their fans’ News Feed. Anecdotally, that reach number with a paid assist might jump up around 30%.

If they don’t see it, Brian will “turn it into an ad and run it separately.” It’s “re-written a second time to target a broader audience.”

In addition to new post promotion, Brian has an evergreen campaign that’s constantly delivering the “best posts ever written” on their site. It’s “never-ending” because it gives Brian a steady-stream of new site visitors — or new potential prospects to target with lead gen ads further down the funnel. That’s why Brian asserts that today’s social managers need to understand PPC and lead gen. “A lot of people hire social media managers and just do organic promotion. But Facebook organic just sucks anyway. It’s becoming “pay to play.’”

“Organic reach is just going to get worse and worse and worse. It’s never going to get better.” Also, advertising gets you “more data for targeting,” which then enables you to create more in-depth A/B tests.

We confirmed this through a series of promoted content tests, where different ad types (custom images vs. videos) would perform better based on the campaign objectives and placements.

(image source)

That’s why “best practices” are past practices — or BS practices. You don’t know what’s going to perform best until you actually do it for yourself. And advertising accelerates that feedback loop.

5. Constantly refresh your retargeting ad creative to keep engagement high

Almost every single stat shows that remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to close more customers. The more ad remarketing impressions someone sees, the higher the conversion rate. Remarketing ads are also incredibly cheap compared to your standard AdWords search ad when trying to reach new cold traffic.

(image source)

There’s only one problem to watch out for: ad fatigue. The image creative plays a massive role in Facebook ad success. But over time (a few days to a few weeks), the performance of that ad will decline. The image becomes stale. The audience has seen it too many times. The trick is to continually cycle through similar, but different, ad examples.

Here’s how David Zheng does it for BuildFire:

His team will either (a) create the ad creative image directly inside Canva, or (b) have their designers create a background ‘template’ that they can use to manipulate quickly. That way, they can make fast adjustments on the fly, A/B testing small elements like background color to keep ads fresh and conversions as high as possible.

(image source)

All retargeting or remarketing campaigns will be sent to a tightly controlled audience. For example, let’s say you have leads who’ve downloaded an eBook and ones who’ve participated in a consultation call. You can just lump those two types into the same campaign, right? I mean, they’re both technically ‘leads.’

But that’s a mistake. Sure, they’re both leads. However, they’re at different levels of interest. Your goal with the first group is to get them on a free consultation call, while your goal with the second is to get them to sign up for a free trial. That means two campaigns, which means two audiences.

Facebook’s custom audiences makes this easy, as does LinkedIn’s new-ish Matched Audiences feature. Like with Facebook, you can pick people who’ve visited certain pages on your site, belong to specific lists in your CRM, or whose email address is on a custom .CSV file:

If both of these leads fall off after a few weeks and fail to follow up, you can go back to the beginning to re-engage them. You can use content-based ads all over again to hit back at the primary pain points behind the product or service that you sell.

This seems like a lot of detailed work — largely because it is. But it’s worth it because of scale. You can set these campaigns up, once, and then simply monitor or tweak performance as you go. That means technology is largely running each individual campaign. You don’t need as many people internally to manage each hands-on.

And best of all, it forces you to create a logical system. You’re taking people through a step-by-step process, one tiny commitment at a time, until they seamlessly move from stranger into customer.

Conclusion

Sending out a few tweets won’t make an impact at the end of the day. There’s more competition (read: noise) than ever before, while organic reach has never been lower. The trick isn’t to follow some faux influencer who talks the loudest, but rather the practitioners who are doing it day-in, day-out, with the KPIs to prove it.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[apsbicepstraining]

TLC:’ I will never forget the day we were millionaires for five minutes’

On the comeback trail, the 90 s megastars reflect on bankruptcy, diverting down Britney and what Lisa Left Eye Lopes would be like on Twitter

TLC are in the back of an Uber XL in the middle of Londons Oxford Circus, sunshine streaming through the windows, with a hottie standing in full view at the crossing. Jesus! Did you look at this guy? Lord have mercy. Why didnt you get his ass on camera? He is byoo-tee-full . Traffic and exchange is gridlocked; Chilli craves her bandmate T-Boz, their cameraman, makeup artist, press officer, the operator and me to acknowledge the drop-dead sumptuous specimen, beefy in muscle and hyper-groomed of look, outside the window.

Look, hey, I desire somewhat guys, but come near now, you are able to grant it up. Tell the truth.

I shrug, ambivalent, and “re just telling me” hes not my category. T-Boz, who has spent the last few minutes scratching her knuckles reminiscing about the fights she used to get into, constricts her attentions. What ?! she says. What is your character? Why dont you tell us what your category is? Even if hes not your kind, you have to say hes cute. Hes not my category, either, but I can see hes good examining. The whole parcel was working for him: the “hairs-breadth”, the muscles What is your category?

The brightness change and the two laughter, a conspiratorial chuckle that follows often of their converse over the next 24 hours. TLC making a respectable comeback in 2017 is, its fair to say, sudden. Despite insisting that theyve been working solidly behind the scenes the whole time touring internationally, writing movie dialogues, setting up a fitness blog the group vanished from public consciousness sometime in the early 00 s.

Watch the video for Way Back.

Collectively though, the three twentysomething dames from Atlanta, Georgia Tionne T-Boz Watkins, Rozonda Chilli Thomas and Lisa Left Eye Lopes owned the 90 s: their brand of sultry R& B, silky enough to woo the masses but glitchy enough to keep them interesting, has constructed them the most successful US girl group of all time. Their two biggest books, CrazySexyCool( 1994) and Fanmail( 1999 ), sold more than 20 m mimics between them, with other singles and albums helping to rack up a total sales pull of around 65 m worldwide.

Thats a behemothic rank of success that was felled first by the bands bankruptcy in 1995, then by the tragic deaths among Lopes, at 30, in 2002.

I slept a lot, says Thomas of that time. When youre depressed and you sleep a lot I did that and stayed in my area. I didnt watch Tv and I certainly didnt listen to radio or used to go because everywhere wed disappear, someone would have something to say.

And theyd be smiling, more, microchips in Watkins, and then be like, Oh, Im so sorry, and then immediately, Can I have your autograph?

The two seemed hounded by the press, the public and their description. People are ghouls, says Watkins. I went words at my home 2 day after Lisa croaked, like, What are you going to do? and, Heres my demo, take a listen. But Lopes, who perished in road accidents on holiday in Honduras that April, was irreplaceable. TLC was ever a vehicle for a producer or a managers brand-new sound opening a revolving door for a new third member like, say, Destinys Child or the Sugababes was not an option.

They are much clearer than anybody else on what is and isnt TLC, their description boss, LA Reid, told Rolling Stone in 1995. They make it clearly articulated to the writers and creators on their projects what they will and will not sing. And because of that, theyll ever be a little onward. The radical turned away major songs, including Hit Me Baby One More Time( Its a great hymn but not every hit is for you. I couldnt hear us on that enter, says Thomas, diplomatically ).

We already did baby babe newborn, says Watkins, caressing her teeth.

Sister ordinance … ( left to right) Tionne T-Boz Watkins, Lisa Left-Eye Lopes and Rozonda Chilli Thomas in the Netherlands in 1992. Photo: Michel Linssen/ Redferns

TLCs distinct din stands written about and referenced by music blogs. And it still influences modern dad( accompany 2017 s biggest-selling single in the UK, Ed Sheerans Shape of You ). The radical characterized themselves by their three distinct identities: crazy, sex, refrigerate. Seven months after Lopes died, their fourth and least successful book, 3D, was secreted. We were upset, that was the label, says Watkins, of the book coming out. I guess their mourning stagecoach for us was a week, we werent recalling straight-from-the-shoulder or in a right frame of mind to be making decisions.

That first couple of years you think you were all right or at least better, and then you have a dreaming or something and youre messed up all over again, lends Thomas. It just really took is high time to heal.

Fifteen times on and in their late 40 s, the pair didnt think that they would be playing their first ever London gig. Mays lonely time at Koko in Camden Town sold out in a daytime, to an horde of followers singing and sweating on its sticky floorboards. We havent had bad concerts where weve been booed, but that was hard to believe, says Watkins, when we gratifies the next night in a salmon pink hotel suite. To come here and have beings singing TLC. It manufactures the adrenaline flow. Were always nervous before we go on stage, says Thomas, but I was exceptionally apprehensive this time. It didnt settle till I started doing it.

That the evidence was a triumph only follows TLCs made-for-TV-movie trajectory. Backing dancers in amber lame outfits, a truth choir, and thumped after reached opening with Diggin On Youand purposing with No Scrubs heightened it beyond the hurry of pop nostalgia. That said, new single Way Back, which boasts a Snoop Dogg verse where Lopes might have been, is pure 90 s street feeling throwback, but the pair affirm that theyre not attaches great importance to continuing trend, because, says Watkins, our music will always be relevant.

Hit girlfriends … TLC in Hollywood, 1999. Photo: Ron Davis/ Getty Images

What do you signify by throwback? questions Thomas.

Its inarguable that the two have worked hard to retain the essence of what reached them so massive in the first place: from the live creation down to Thomass still terrifyingly well-maintained washboard belly, they appear and sound as if theyve escaped a season capsule.

Some beings may say, Oh. you have the same haircut, says Watkins her angled blond bob gash as aggressively as she is. But first of all, second of all, and third of all: when you get the various kinds of iconic haircut that beings emulate, “youre calling” me. Its signature. Its true-blue: alongside The Rachel, Watkinss was the more popular haircut for gobby schoolgirls in the 90s. A slew of faux-bickering and tutting between the two follows as they debate the flaws of contemporary creators who, according to TLC, have no appreciation of performance, showmanship or style.

Celebrity changed, but what stays out to me is the altered in media, says Thomas. If Twitter was around when we were were out, Lisa would have “the worlds largest” adherents for sure. And maybe been in the most disturb, more? Oh my God, she would have been closed down multiple times.

Same with Instagram, says Watkins. If Instagram was taken away tomorrow there would be a lot of parties jobless right now cos theres a lot of public figure now made up of Instagram frameworks. She is unimpressed by influencers monetising their lifestyles online, but tries to hold back. Im not gonna knock your hubbub. Hustle on, girlfriend. “Its time” that hos are triumphing. An affirmative block-caps YEAH! comes from Thomas. But if you gonna be a ho, at the least sounds like a good ho and have to pay, Watkins continues. Ho-ism is working for people. Worst situation is to be a ho, spread your trash far and near and get nothing from it.

No scrubbing please, were TLC … Chilli ( left) and T-Boz. Image: Linda Nylind/ The Guide

Watkins wont be drawn on who she might be alluding to, but its still a surprise to hear her or Thomas claim a moral high ground over other women. TLC endorse female sexuality in their hymns and styling, and were early advocates of safe-sex campaigns( Lopes would even wear a condom on the left see of her glass ). Hitherto, says Watkins, she was offered $50,000 to stay a male fan and his wife at home So they could just stare at me amply clothed for five minutes , nothing else and she refused.

Chilli is scandalized. Fifty thousand! To bring kindnes and gaiety into that relationship, whats wrong with that ?! My husband at that time didnt crave me travelling, declares Watkins. He didnt have to know! squeal Thomas.

Both are single right now. Thomas has a son with TLCs ex-producer Dallas Austin, and Watkins is divorced with a son and teenage daughter. I wouldnt want to meet anyone right now, says Watkins. I do not want a mortal. If God slaps me in the are dealing with a good one, fine, but right now, I dont want to listen to your daytime, I dont want to care about your problems. I wouldnt be a good girlfriend right now; I dont want to have sex with nobody.

Oh, you poverty-stricken girlfriend! You good good girlfriend, says Thomas, cooing at Watkinss vagina.

Shell be all right, says Watkins, side-eyeing Thomas with a cat-like grin.

The pair live in different metropolitans now; Watkins is in Los Angeles, having precisely moved out of the neighbourhood the Kardashians live in, and Thomas has stayed in Atlanta, but they still finish each others sentences and slip into shorthand. You start off with so many friends, shows Watkins, but as you get older, you only need one or two. Im not open to just letting people into my life, I involve an asset not a liability.

Class behave … TLC announce a $25,000 Aids education scholarship in recall of Lisa Lopes at the 2002 MTV Awards. Picture: Kevin Kane/ WireImage

To their ascribe, the two ought to have categorically burned by the industry. To go bankrupt at the top of their honour and success still stings. I will never forget the day we were millionaires for literally five minutes, says Watkins. Because the cheque was written to us and we had to sign it over, back to[ Pebbles, their former administrator ]. But we wont get into that since were still in a lawsuit.

If I could go back, I are certainly change a couple of things business-wise, says Thomas. I have learned the hard way: signal your own cheques, make sure your taxes are in shape and whatever your firm is, its always good to get wise examined. If you dont have anything to hide, its not a worry.

Its not personal, contributes Watkins, hard as nails, its business. Everyone in this industry has only one plan. Auditors, lawyers, beings you think you know will keep running up the greenback. You have to watch your back on every corner.

Worse than the money was, of course, the loss of Lopes , that are actually dissolved that first, fantastical operate. The three had weathered everything together the backstabbing, the bankruptcy, the tabloid awarenes of Lopes igniting down the mansion of her then-football star boyfriend. Lisa was a starter. I dont start substance, I dont believes in disagreeing with people I dont know, says Watkins. I have a hard exterior, Im scary.

She was more intrepid, says Thomas. Im a friendly party but if I find out youre not cool, I get real cold.And, chortles Watkins, with Lisa, it depended on the working day. She was a Gemini, so she was about seven different beings. Neither Watkins or Thomas booze( Weve done this industry sober; were real clear about exactly what we doing ), though Lopes did and the three, tight because they are, were known to scrap often publicly. Gazing back, would they have done anything differently? Coulda, woulda, shoulda, says Watkins, her expression at its most slow and sleepy-eyed. It became us who we are, so at the end of the day, I just recollect Lisa as person or persons, a human being. I miss everything.

TLC by TLC is out on 30 June

The post TLC:’ I will never forget the day we were millionaires for five minutes’ appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2zAgmpS via IFTTT