Cat #Bloggers Talk: Does Writing About Cats “Overexpose” You?

Cat Bloggers Talk: Does Writing About Cats "Overexpose" You? She uses the voices of her cats in her blog because "it's a fun and entertaining way to provide advice. I don't talk about myself in my blog ... And readers, what kinds of cat writing and blogging do you like? Do you want to know the people, or ... read moreI Am Convinced My Cat Told Me She Was Dying. Am I Crazy? Before I tell you this story, you need to know something ... s no way he could talk to the animals. Jessica Winter Jessica Winter is Slate's features editor. And yet, despite all these shortcomings, I'm convinced that my cat came to me one night ... read more

Cat Marnell Explains Herself Regular readers may have noticed that Cat Marnell ... You gave me no direction. It was actually very frustrating. Which was why I decided to go weird. You said you didn't want to do beauty writing anymore, I basically said, "What do you want to talk ... read moreShe Had a Cat Hair Ball in Her Vagina — or Did She? Women blogging about losing things in their vaginas is something of a modern internet trope — xoJane has contributed to the field several times, as have Jezebel, Vice, and the very blog you ... to talk about their own bodies. I believe your cat hair ... read moreNeil Gaiman Defends George R R Martin Gaiman responded in a very succinct way on his blog ... and suddenly you realise that that talk is due now. Your last book comes out and the critics vociferously hated it and now you simply don't feel like writing another. Your cat learns to levitate ... read moreWhat is it really like to work as an astrologer? All I can talk ... and you're able to give a very well-outlined answer. If someone comes in and asks "Where is my cat?" or "Did this person lie to me?" you can look at this chart and say yes, no, or here's the gray area. How long does it ... read moreExploding The Myth Of 'Unengaged' Students He's the author of FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide to Maximum Euphoric Bliss, and he wrote the Guide to Digital Games + Learning with our friends at the Mindshift blog from member ... I used to get into bed and you would read Cat in the Hat to me. read moreHow to talk to your teen about depression, suicide "Thinking about [discussions like this] ahead of time and making hard conversations a regular part of parent/teen communication will make it easier to navigate if the teen does talk ... cat enthusiast who blogs about feminism, mental health, and ... read moreOn overcoming writer's block and look at what this cat is doing…" It's tough to start writing, and removing distractions means you'll struggle through those tough parts rather than put it off and do something else. You need to power through this part. 2) Talk it out. read more6 Ways To Love Yourself That Aren't Cheesy But how do you love yourself in a way that doesn't feel ridiculous, cheesy or um, inappropriate? I've often wondered this very thing myself (even writing a blog about self-love ... wine, sex… cat videos?). But a 'Big Moment' journal (or OK ... read more

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Source: Cat #Bloggers Talk: Does Writing About Cats "Overexpose" You?

Why Drive People To Facebook or Twitter Instead Of Your Blog

 

These days having a good web presence isn't just about having a website that lists your services. Your customers will expect you to have a host of social media pages, as well as the obligatory company blog on your site. For businesses it can seem a daunting choice knowing just where to put your energy. Spread yourself too thinly and you may neglect each platform, focus too much on one and you may be missing opportunities elsewhere.

Facebook and Twitter are two of the largest social media platforms and these days it's expected that most businesses will have accounts on both. After putting their energies into setting them up and adding followers, many businesses inevitably end up battling with the time constraints of having to consistently manage and maintain them.

The same goes for company blogs. I've lost count of the number of businesses I've come across that have set them up with the best will in the world, only to neglect them all after an initial flurry of activity.

Of course, we've probably all been guilty of it. The problems that face any new business is diverting time and money to marketing, whilst struggling with the dilemma of which platform to target these often limited resources at. This can quickly lead to inertia, with no single platform seeming to deliver any tangible results and apathy towards all of them quickly setting in.

It's important to point out here that social media and blogs aren't really about driving sales, they're about building a brand through content marketing and social engagement. And this takes time and effort.

In this article I want to look at the pros and cons of using Facebook and Twitter as content marketing tools, as compared to blogging. I want to start though, by looking at the importance of playing to each platform's strengths.

Playing To Each Platform's Strengths

Driving traffic to your Facebook or Twitter accounts means creating content that people will want to share. That doesn't mean you need to create this content on the platform you're using to share it. In many cases Facebook and Twitter can be the worst places to host your best content.

It all comes down to what kind of content you are trying to promote and playing to each platform's strengths as a publishing platform but also as a conduit to new audiences. In other words, if you're producing regular content on your blog, then expanding your Facebook or Twitter followings should mean pushing new traffic to your blog as well. If you've included social follow and social sharing buttons on your site's blog (which if you haven't, you really need to do) then this can be a two way street as well.

That's not to say that Twitter and Facebook should be used solely as promotional tools for your blog. Think of all of your digital media platforms as part of one joined up content marketing network, with your blog acting as your main content hub.

Let's now take a look at the advantages of Facebook and Twitter as marketing tools, before moving on to look at your blog.

The Advantages Of Using Facebook / Twitter Networked User Bases

One of the most attractive things about Facebook or Twitter isn't just the fact that both support huge user bases (1.44 billion and 320 million monthly users respectively) but that these users are all in a network. This means that for every like you get your potential audience can grow significantly.

Real Time Commentary And Updates

Unlike blogs, Facebook and Twitter are perfect platforms for just updating people or posting very short chunks of information in real time. The ability to directly comment, 'like' or 'retweet' other people's content and commentary also make them effective communication tools, as well as content publishing platforms.

Market Research

Both Twitter and Facebook allow you to collect information on your followers and can be used as effective market research tools. Not only can this give you insights into your customer's behaviour but it's the perfect way to track what kind of content and news is trending in your industry.

Post Promotion And Advertising Options

Although you can use tools like Google AdWords to promote your website, Facebook and Twitter allow you to promote everything from your company page to individual posts and target it towards specific demographic groups.

Perfect For Content Curation

Social media isn't just a place you can share your content. Curating other people's content is a powerful way of networking with people and becoming a source of great content for other users.

Perfect Blog Promotion Tool

As I've been stressing, social media goes hand in hand with blogging and both Facebook and Twitter can be used to help promote your onsite content and drive more traffic to your blog and ultimately your website.

Mobile Friendly

Although most decent websites these days are dynamic and optimised for use on mobile devices, Facebook and Twitter naturally lend themselves more to mobile use, having dedicated apps and established and tested functionality across all major mobile operating systems.

The Advantages Of Blogging A Centralised Content Hub

As mentioned earlier, a blog can act as a centralised content hub within which you can create an archive of useful and interesting content. This will form the backbone of your online presence and draw people directly to your website as a source of information.

You Own It

One of the most important things to recognise about hosting content on your own site through a blog is that you own it. Although they don't seem to be going anywhere right now, there's no guarantee that Facebook or Twitter will be this popular for ever. Another advantage of owning the platform is that you've already got people on your site. With Facebook or Twitter you still need to get them to click through to your site.

Your Audience Is Not Limited

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, your website's potential audience is unlimited. Despite having eye watering user bases, there are still considerable numbers of people who aren't on social media or rarely check their accounts.

Your Blog Is Searchable

Your ability to search for specific content or articles in Facebook and Twitter is severely limited compared to the sophistication and reach of search engines like Google. The nature of search engines implies user intent as well, meaning that when people type a search into Google they're looking for a solution to a problem. With social media it's more about just being social.

SEO Potential

There are a some significant SEO benefits to blogging. Creating fresh content on your website is a clear signal to Google that your site is active and will help it rank better in the search engine results pages. By creating internal links in your blog articles, you can also distribute the SEO boost of specific around your website, targeting your product or services pages. By then creating and earning links back to your blog articles, you can help your website as a whole rank higher on the search engine results pages. This just isn't an option with FB or Twitter.

Blog Posts Have A Longer Shelf Life

Because of the transient nature of Facebook and Twitter, most content is here today and gone tomorrow in terms of shelf life. Blogs couldn't be more different. With the opportunity to create a genuinely useful archive of evergreen content, you can start to pull the same users back to your site and encourage links back to your website.

Control Over Content Size And Embedded Media

To a writer a blogs is like a blank canvas. Without limitations on how long your content has to be or what kind of embedded media you can put in it, you can really let your imagination run wild. Evidence suggests that long form content has more SEO benefit and is also more likely to get read and earn links.

Better Analytics And Conversion Tracking

Whilst it's possible to track traffic and conversions in Facebook and Twitter, the insight Google Analytics gives you into user behaviour is unparalleled. You can even track referral traffic meaning you can understand which social network is bringing the most traffic to your blog.

It's easy to get caught up in a numbers game when it comes to digital marketing. The ability for Facebook or Twitter to create viral marketing campaigns can seem like the Holy Grail to any new businesses wanting to create a buzz and get its brand name out there. That doesn't mean you should neglect the huge long term potential of blogging though. In fact, as we've seen, the ability to combine the two can see the effectiveness of each amplified.

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* Lead image adapted from Shannon K

Source: Why Drive People To Facebook or Twitter Instead Of Your Blog

Why Medium Should Be Your New Favorite #Blogging Platform

Why Medium Should Be Your New Favorite Blogging Platform Earlier this year, a friend had sent me a link to a story on Medium about "chill girls," following a heated discussion on love, gender dynamics, and the pop culture trope of cool, or "chill," girls. Subject matter aside—I obviously loved the ... read moreWhy You Should Start Business Blogging in the New Year I will start by explaining what blogging and business blogging is, and then explain some reasons why one of your New Year's resolutions should be to start your ... Twitter, and Medium) used "blog" as a noun and as a verb ("to blog"). read more

Why is the media so afraid of Facebook? Here are Nilay Patel and Casey Newton discussing the hopes and many anxieties felt by the media as their industry becomes increasingly reliant on platforms ... makes me buy a copy of The New Yorker alongside Us Weekly; why should Facebook even care? read moreEstablishing your day-to-day social media brand as a writer for 2016 You may ask why? Well, the truth is, the new reader explores ... Identifying an agenda for your social media platform as well as your books, interviews, readings, and etc. is essential. The Writing Examiner suggests a writer should establish at least ... read more5 Digital-Marketing Tactics to Ditch in 2016 Read on to understand which digital-marketing tactics you should ... platform to put certain ads on the next pages the visitor goes to. That's why, when you spend some time on a hover-board site or when you next go to WebMD or Facebook or your favorite ... read moreChristmas Without Your Loved One(s) Have a conversation with them, telling them about your days and saying everything you need or desire to say. Listen – remember the sound of their voice, how they spoke, their favorite words ... told me that they bought new star this year for their ... read more147 of the very best iPad apps to download now Related: Our favorite ... manage your site, post articles, check notifications, and review stats. If you want a versatile app to help you craft new blog posts on your iPad then you need this. It has solid integration with all the top blogging platforms ... read more5 Online Marketing Trends To Watch For In 2016 That's why, in 2016, new ... content platform. This goes to show that as the internet continues to advance, so will the ways that we consume content. While long form content, such as blogging, will always have its place as a content marketing medium ... read moreWhat Blogging Has Become But in return, we got Twitter and Facebook and whatever your other favorite ... Medium's leaders need things from Medium to regularly travel around the web. But they also just need people to travel to Medium, regularly. And they want the new blogging ... read moreStudent Council Applications Now Open for Spring 2016 Do you love reading The New York Times ... to write about why you want this, tell them honestly, openly, and with sincerity. Though there is no doubt that this would look good on your college application, this is an opportunity that should escape the ... read more

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Source: Why Medium Should Be Your New Favorite #Blogging Platform

New York Times in Pakistan removes article on brutal killings of Bangladeshi bloggers

The International edition of the New York Times newspaper had two blank pages after printers in Pakistan removed an article.

An article by one of the paper's freelance correspondents, Joshua Hammer, headlined "The imperilled bloggers of Bangladesh" was removed from the front page and page two.

The New York Times' Pakistan correspondent, Salman Masood, tweeted a physical copy of the paper without the article and the online edition with the article, showing a stark difference.

The article focused on the brutal attacks and murders on a group of Bengali bloggers who are in support of gender equality, human rights and civil liberty and are battling online with Islamists.

At the heart of the piece is a man named Asif Mohiuddin an online activist, who had to flee Bangladesh after his free thinking, atheist views and secular blogging put him in sever danger.

He was brutally attacked outside the IT company building he worked at, with an eight-inch kitchen knife that missed his spinal cord by half a centimetre.

Mr Mohiuddin met his attacker while imprisoned in Dhaka's Central Prison for his secular online activity, who said he wanted to do something for jihad. When he asked what the attacker would do once he left prison, he said: "I will try again."

Mr Mohiuddin is part of a movement, which started in chat forums in 2001 in Bangladesh and then moved to a website called Mukto-Mona, which translates as "Freethinker", in Bengali.

The article also revealed that a dozen young madrasa students, who were involved in the attack on Mr Mohiuddin and other secular bloggers, openly admitted to their crimes and divulged information on an extremist group whose specific intent was to murder secular bloggers.

Niloy Neil, another who blogged about criticising Islam, was killed in August by a gang with machetes who broke into his apartment in the country's capital city.

Students and teachers have protested in Dhaka after Avijit Roy was hacked to death

In October, a publisher of a secular blog, Avijit Roy was hacked to death in Dhaka, where local Islamist militants were blamed. Three other bloggers were also injured in the attack.

At least four other atheist bloggers have been killed in the countrylast year for writing critically about Islamist militancy. 

This article was first published in independent.co.uk

Source: New York Times in Pakistan removes article on brutal killings of Bangladeshi bloggers

Enjoy #Blogging? Infolinks Can Save You From a Lifetime of Ramen

Enjoy Blogging? Infolinks Can Save You From a Lifetime of Ramen | AutoTraffic Enjoy Blogging? Infolinks Can Save You From a Lifetime of Ramen If you're like most Americans, chances are you already have a blog. But you probably haven't uploaded anything since you posted that scathing review of Zombieland back in 2009. Your mother didn't even comment on that one, so you gave up. I know all ... read more

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Source: Enjoy #Blogging? Infolinks Can Save You From a Lifetime of Ramen

Twitter confuses activist Iyad El-Baghdadi with ISIS leader, suspends his account

By: Express Web Desk | Published:January 2, 2016 3:14 pm Iyad El-Badgdadi/ Twitter

An Arab Spring activist has accused the Twitter micro-blogging site of suspending his account after administrators mistook him for the leader of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Iyad El-Baghdadi, who has more than 70,000 Twitter followers and frequently mocks the IS, said his account was suspended for about half-an-hour after he was misidentified as ISIS leader Baghdadi in Indonesian newspaper Republika and the New York Post, BBC reported on Friday.

"To confuse an Arab man for the IS leader because of his very Arabic common surname is overt racism, @twitter," he wrote on his account.

El-Baghdadi said he received a message from Twitter saying he had "violated" its rules but did not specify the offence.

The activist, who also researches radicalisation, said the company needed to be "more transparent" about why and how people are suspended.

Recently, Iyad El-Baghdadi  was in news because he mocked ISIS leader's call for people to join the outfit.

Meanwhile, Twitter has not commented on the issue yet.

In a fresh bid to combat abusive behaviour, micro-blogging site Twitter is also revising its rules to tackle hateful conduct including spreading of terror messages online.

"We believe that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on Twitter," Megan Cristina, director, trust and safety at Twitter, posted in a blog recently.

"The updated language emphasises that Twitter will not tolerate behaviour intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user's voice. As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse," she posted.

Over the past year, Twitter has taken several steps to fight abuse in order to protect freedom of expression.It has empowered users with tools for blocking, muting and reporting abusive behaviour.

(With inputs from IANS)

Source: Twitter confuses activist Iyad El-Baghdadi with ISIS leader, suspends his account

I am With Odd Even’, said Delhi residents through social mediums

New Delhi: People flooded with their remarks over the Delhi Government's Odd and Even scheme on the social networking and micro-blogging websites on Friday. The Delhi residents expressed support for the scheme by writing 'I am with odd-even' on Twitter.

Here are few tweets:

"25 kms stretch from home to office… saw only three cars with even numbers. Delhiites supporting #IamWithOddEven," Shabnam Hashmi, an activist tweeted.

"Can say there are less number of people on roads but majority of them with odd numbers. It indicates success," Malaya K. Nayak wrote.

"All odd-numbered cars on road, took half the time to reach places. I think it's working very well," Sourabh Jain said.

Aekta Kapoor said, "The roads were clear and I saw just one even-numbered car. It wasn't hard to share the car. Looks like we can make this work."

However, there were many who doubted the success of the scheme from January 4 onwards, since many offices closed on the weekend and New Year celebrations would open from Monday.

"The real test though would lie in how Delhi reacts from January 4 onwards. There's no doubt, all Delhities want climate to change for the better," Rahul Mehra tweeted.

Some people even voluntarily participated in the scheme despite exemptions.

"My CNG car exempted but still I will participate in odd-even scheme. It's our responsibility first, later government's duty," Pawan Sharma said.

Source: I am With Odd Even', said Delhi residents through social mediums