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The Power of Facebook Notes

7/3/2018

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As of October 2020, Facebook has done away with Facebook Notes. 
Facebook Notes
Getting Started With Facebook Notes
Ever wanted to spice up your Facebook post, but didn't know how?
​
With a Facebook Note, you can add a cover photo, as well as pictures and GIFs throughout your posts.

You can also format your text with bold and italics, bullet and numbered lists, hyperlinks and much more.

So instead of just another boring picture, your post can look like this:
Facebook Notes
Facebook Notes
Learn more and get started in the fun today.
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Social Media Loves Babies and Puppies… But Hates Hypocrisy

5/27/2018

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If you have tuned out this news completely for Memorial Day weekend, congratulations!

If not, the biggest story in your varied timelines is probably about how the US is systematically removing children from their parents, many of whom came here seeking asylum (and all of whom came seeking a better life).

The parents are being given no information as to where their children are being taken or when — if ever — they will get to see them again. To make matters worse, we are now learning that the US has lost children (thousands of them
😞😱😡)  that are supposed to be in the system, and that many of these children are getting sold to human traffickers.

This morning, Ivanka Trump tweeted a picture. The caption: “My ❤️! #SundayMorning”
Ivanka Trump Bad Social Media
While ordinarily, a picture like this would have gotten the Likes and the RTs rolling in, it could not have been more tone deaf to the world around it.

Ivanka is not just President Trump’s daughter, she is also a senior member of his administration.

A tweet does not live in a vacuum. A digital intern would have looked at this tweet and recommended to Ivanka she not post it, when the story of the weekend is lost children.

But post it she did. And so the Quote Tweets rolled in:
Dr. Vox Twitter
David Roberts — Writer for Vox
Patton Oswalt Twitter
Patton Oswalt — Comedian, Actor, Michelle McNamara's Husband
West Wing Reports Twitter
West Wing Reports
Jess Dweck, Twitter
Jess Dweck — TV Writer
As a general rule, pictures and videos of babies and puppies can be engagement gold. But while good content is important, it can't work without an awareness of context.

In other words: you can ignore the people; but rest assured, they are not going to ignore you.
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How to Hit 'Return' On Twitter or Instagram

4/25/2018

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I use Twitter and Instagram a lot. Like a lot! 

Both of these platforms require precision with limited text. Sometimes it's easier for people to follow what you are trying to say by turning your short text into more than one paragraph.

For a long time, I didn't know how to do that natively (in the app). So when needed, I'd draft my tweet or Instagram post in notepad and then copy and paste it into the platform.

And that worked just fine.

But it's annoying.

Then one day, I noticed something that had been right there at my fingertips all this time. It's so obvious, I felt silly for not noticing it. I didn't want to tell people about it, because I assumed everyone else already knew. But I recently shared it on social and so many people let me know how excited they were. This little trick (if you can even call it that) solved a problem they had struggled with for years. Clearly it wasn't just me missing this little Twitter and Instagram hack.

So many people told me they found it helpful, I just had to throw it up on the blog.

So without any further ado, if you want to hit "Return" (or "Enter") when composing a tweet or an Instagram post, just hit the "123" button. (The same one you hit to get to your number keypad or your punctuation.) And the "Return" key will be right there waiting for you. That's it. 


Return on Twitter or Instagram
Enter on Twitter or Instagram

​Pretty simple, right! 👍😀🎉

​If you haven't already, connect with me on 
Twitter and Instagram.

And if you have any hacks you think everyone would like to know, send them my way. I'd love to give you a h/t.
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CASE STUDY: Using Facebook Live to Bring People Together

3/26/2018

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Facebook Live in a Private Facebook event
Last week, I celebrated the birth of my new son. In Jewish tradition, a boy has a bris at day 8. A bris is a short ceremony where he is welcomed into the community and has his name announced to world (amongst other things 😳).

My wife and I live in Madison, WI. Madison is our chosen home — neither of us have families in town. My parents and her mom were able to join us in person. But that still left a lot of loved ones who couldn’t make it in for the occasion.

In the days leading up, my brother asked if I could Skype him in for the event. I said sure. Then one of my cousins made the same request and I realized that Skype was not going to work.

I wanted to stream the celebration for my family, but I didn’t want it to be open to the general public.

So here’s what I did: I created a private Facebook event and invited in those we wanted to join us remotely. This included family and friends in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida, Washington, California and even Germany. It included two grandmothers in their 80s/90s who were both thrilled about becoming great-grandmothers!

Once RSVPing that they would attend, I instructed the invitees to head over to the event page at the appropriate time. I then used Facebook Live to stream the entire ceremony directly into the private group.

They could all access it, and I didn’t have to worry about anyone else joining in, or someone sharing it to their networks and it becoming a public affair (I set the privacy settings to only stream to those “attending” the event).

The stream was one-way, but not the conversation.
I set up the phone on a tripod near our in-home guests. When everything was over, I went back and looked at the video. There were about 15 cyber-guests, but they had left a combined total of 99 comments! So after everyone had gone home and the kitchen was cleaned, we got to re-live the event through their comments.

One of my cousins even let me know that she wasn’t able to make it to the event in real time, but that she was able to watch it later that day on her own time.

As can I and any of the other invitees!

What’s The Point?
If you read my blog regularly, you probably realize that this isn’t a typical post for me. It’s a bit more personal than I normally delve. That said, the point of this post isn’t really to tell you about my intimate family affair. The real point of this post is the importance of understanding the tools in your digital toolkit.

My brother and cousin wanted me to Skype them in. Which would have worked for one or two people… but not a dozen!

Facebook Live would have been great for those we wanted to join us, but it would have been hard to keep it intimate and private.

A private Facebook event was a perfect solution to bring in the family, without having to broadcast it to the world.

Everyone who attended raved about how “fun” it was and how great it was that they got to be there. Never mind the fact that they were all thousands of miles away. They all had a front row seat, right alongside our parents and our local guests. And not only that, they could chat with each other throughout, without worrying about disturbing the ceremony.

In the words of one of my aunts: “This is all so cool that we can be so connected!”

While this story is about how I brought my family together, ask yourself when such tools might be helpful for bringing together your audience or community. Maybe you have an upcoming meeting you want to share with top volunteers. Or you want to announce a new product line to your VIP customers. Perhaps you want to give access to some of your fans, without opening up your conversation to the world. Our smartphones and social media platforms are full of amazing tools. Understanding them might just be the difference between bringing your community together… or not.

Want to start using Facebook Live, but not sure how to get started. Check out my free Facebook Live Checklist.

Not sure which digital tool might be right for your upcoming event. Be in touch and let’s figure it out together!


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Facebook's Saved Folder

2/8/2018

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Did you know that Facebook lets you save things you want to come back to later?

Ever see an ad you were interested in, but didn’t have time to dig in? Maybe it was a post from your favorite digital storyteller and strategist, walking you through some awesome Facebook feature you definitely want to learn about, just not at this moment 😉. Perhaps it’s a picture of your baby nephew, who’s just too cute for words and you don’t want to lose track of all those awesome pictures of him in his adorable little onesies.

Facebook has you covered.

Anytime you see anything on Facebook — ANYTHING! — you can “save” it, offering you easy access to it whenever you want to go back to it in the future.

Go to any post on Facebook and click the three dotes in the top right hand corner.
Facebook Saved Folder
You’ll get a dropdown menu. The very first option will offer you what looks like a ribbon icon and the option to “Save post."
Facebook Save Post
Click it and that post/video/ad will immediately be added to your Saved Folder

How Do I Find My Saved Folder? ​

This too is extremely easy. Go to your homepage and look at the tabs on the lefthand side of the screen. Under “Explore,” you’ll find your “Saved” folder.
Facebook Explore Tabs
You’ll also find a bunch of other cool things.

For example: You know those “On This Day” posts Facebook shows you, reminding you about that time you became friends with that person you don’t even know 8 years ago? Well sometimes there are days or people we might prefer not to remember (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind anyone?). Click “On This Day” and then go to “Preferences” in the top right corner. You can choose people or dates to be excluded from those otherwise fun and helpful Facebook reminders!

Okay, so back to your Facebook Saved Folder

Click where it says “Saved” and anything you saved will be there waiting for you.

You can even search within your saved items!
Facebook Search your saved items
Once you’ve saved a few items, you can then build collections, to make it even easier to navigate your favorite material. ​
Facebook Saved Collections
So you might have Saved Facebook folders for digital tips, family pics, funny videos, recipes, articles to read later… the options are endless!​

I’d love to hear from you about how you think you might use this feature. Share them in the comments or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.
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Moving emails within your iPhone

1/26/2018

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I have numerous email addresses containing dozens of folders I use to keep track of my emails. I have subfolders within folders to keep everything clean and easy to find. I really like to know where my emails are, should I ever need to find them in the future.

I've used many emails over the years. As a result, I regularly have emails from clients, colleagues or friends wind up in the “wrong” account. When that happens, I have a few options.

I can reply, asking them to update their records. This one is kind of annoying, right?

I can forward the email from the wrong account to the right. This one is super annoying!

Or I can take advantage of a helpful iPhone trick and simply move the email from one account to another with just a few clicks on the screen. Obviously this one is my favorite.

And it’s the subject of today’s post. 
Moving an email from one account to another within an iPhone or iPad is very simple.

  • Open the email you want to move.
    ​
  • Select the icon at the bottom you would use to move the email into the appropriate folder.
WisPolitics.com
  • When you click “Other Mailbox,” you will see all of the folders within that account. Pick one and it will be moved there.
iPhone email
  • OR, at the top left of the screen, click “< Accounts.”
Moving an email in iOS
  • When you click that, you will see a list of your email addresses. Choose the one you want and voila, you’re email will be moved from the original account into the correct account.

If you hit reply all on the email after moving it, you'll notice that the original email (your "wrong" email) will be on the recipient list. The iPhone essentially treated this action as an email forward. But it vastly simplifies an otherwise cumbersome process.

​That's it. You're done.


Check out some other iPhone tips and tricks.

Have any favorite secret iOS tips, tricks, tools or hacks that you love? Share them in the comments!
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Beware Sharing Articles You Haven’t Read… Especially If You Are The Subject!

12/26/2017

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It’s always best practice to read through an article before sharing it via social media.

Sometimes a headline tells you most of what you need to know, and it’s okay to only skim the article, without reading every word. For example, if your local paper reports that a new baby panda was born at your zoo, you can pretty well trust you got the gist of the takeaway before even clicking on the link. It’s still a good idea to read through it, of course, just to be sure there are no critical takeaways/surprising angles towards the bottom of the page. But you are probably safe making assumptions about what you’ll find in the article.

While reading through articles before you share them with your networks them is important, if the article in question is about you, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribute named Senator Orrin Hatch “Utahn of the Year.” (Yep, apparently someone from Utah is a Utahn — good to know!)

On its face, this is a pretty big honor. A significant paper from the state’s capital city named Hatch their person of the year. I can see why he would be excited to get that out far and wide to his networks.

Unfortunately for him, the article didn’t exactly line up with the headline.

The very first line of the article should have been a clue to even the most casual of readers: “These things are often misunderstood.”

It then lays out what he has done to deserve such a title.
    •    Hatch’s part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
    •    His role as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code.
    •    His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.


While the first two bullet points were clearly intended to be direct hits against Hatch, it is possible that he could wear both criticisms as points of pride. If he thinks it’s good to scale back national monuments and to raise working people’s taxes so that massive corporations can get a tax break, then he might have read the opening lines and been proud of his accomplishments.
But of course the opening line of the article made clear that the Salt Lake Tribune editorial staff is far from impressed with their senior senator.

And even if the intention of the first two bullet points confused him, that last one was pretty damn clear: “His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.”

Oof.


The article goes on to call him a liar who has long overstayed his welcome in Utah. It also says that if he doesn’t retire now, the voters should toss him from office in 2018.

Double Oof.

​I read the article yesterday and thought — "Damn! This is brutal." 


But of course that’s not the story here. The story here is that while I read the article and found it brutal, Senator Hatch (and/or one of his aides) saw the article as well, but never read past the title before proudly shared the scathing op-ed with his Twitter network this morning.
Picture
Oof. Oof. Oof.

Let this be a lesson to you. Read the article you are sharing. ESPECIALLY if you are the subject.

P.S. Do you know what the ratio is (in the context of Twitter)? It’s when you get waaay more responses to a tweet than likes or retweets. It’s typically a sign that people disagree with your message pretty vehemently, as supporters typically like or retweet, and comments tend to be criticisms of the message. Someone might say: dang, look at that ratio! So notice Hatch’s tweet has a 10:1 ratio.

​ “Dang, look at that ratio!”
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Three Exciting Social Media Updates

12/13/2017

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I always say that the only constant in social media is change. I don’t write to tell you every time any little thing changes on a social channel — if I did you’d hear from me literally dozens of times per week. But not every update is worthy of a blog post or an email. 

Recently though, a few exciting updates have rolled out that are worth sharing.

Instagram Hashtags
You can now “follow” a hashtag on Instagram, just like you would follow an account.


Once you follow a hashtag, Instagram will include top posts using it directly into your feed.​

To follow a hashtag, simply search for it on Instagram.
Follow a hashtag on Instagram
​Then click “follow.”
Search for the hashtag on Instagram
Then you will start seeing relevant content showing up in your feed.
See posts in your Instagram newsfeed

Twitter Threads
I'm very excited about this update, although it’s a bit hard to follow Twitter’s logic. They recently doubled the character length for tweets from 140-280, thus making threads, and therefore this update, much less relevant. But they're not irrelevant, so it’s still an exciting update.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of threads, check out this blog post where I explain what they are and how they work (along with a bunch of other fun Twitter tricks and tips).

Before, when you created a tweet thread, you had to keep responding to previous tweets. Which is fine, but can be clunky. If you don't reply to the most recent tweet in your thread, they get out of order and your thread becomes hard to follow. It can take a few moments for your tweet to post, meaning you have to sit tight with your thoughts, waiting for it to catch up.

Now if you want to create a tweet thread, simply start typing your tweet. Below, next to the “tweet” button, you will see a plus. Click it and Twitter will open up another tweet for you. Keep going until you are finished and then you can send them all as a single unit.
Tweet threads are here
BIG IMPROVEMENT, ​even if it's a little less relevant that it might have been a few months ago.

Facebook Stories
Facebook Stories aren’t new, but they have pretty much been getting ignored. Stories were Facebook’s response to Snapchat. They are small pieces of content — pictures, short videos or text — that disappear after 24 hours.


They have all the fun Snapchat-style filters built in, along with a lot of other fun tools. Spend a few minutes in there and you will find tons of fun toys. And they are updated regularly.

While Stories aren't new, what is new is that they are now available to Brand Pages. (Until recently, only personal pages could create Stories.)

To access Facebook Stories for a Brand Page, you can use the new Facebook Creator app. Or, open the Facebook app on your phone or tablet (currently, Stories only work via mobile), and go to your Brand Page. Underneath where you it lets you “write something,” click “create story.”
Facebook Stories are now available for Brand Pages
Once you have finished creating your tiny, disappearing masterpiece, add it to your Story. ​
Start using Stories for Brand Pages today
 Then anyone who likes your page will see it at the top of their Facebook page anytime they login for the next 24 hours. It’s a great way to get in front of your audience and to cut through the clutter of the newsfeed.

Quick note: you can also use Stories for Groups, and Events for which you have said you are attending. The Event feature in particular has the potential to be huge, in my opinion. Once people start using them, it will give everyone at a party, a concert, an event, etc. a way to create content and see what everyone around them is doing in real time. The engagement possibilities for that one are HUGE!

Those are the three social media updates I’m most excited about at the moment. Your turn — any to add?
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McDonald’s Botches Black Friday; Recovers With Style

11/27/2017

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Social media moves fast. You need a good strategy, but also countless cute/clever/funny/helpful/interesting pieces of content day in and day out to make it work. If you are doing it regularly, you are going to occasionally make mistakes.

The majority of the time, you will notice your error before anyone else does and you can delete your tweet or edit your post. Sometimes though, the only option is a response.

In preparation for Black Friday, McDonald’s sent the following tweet into the world:
McDonald's Twitter error
WHOOOOOOOOOPS!

This wasn’t a typo or someone hitting send too fast. This was someone copy and pasting a note from an internal document, throwing it into Twitter or a third party scheduler, and letting it fly.

They didn’t even wait until Black Friday to send it — the tweet went live on Thanksgiving.

Now if you run a small business or manage your band or nonprofit’s social media account, you could simply delete this tweet. If you’re a behemoth like McDonald’s, not so much.

You do have a few options though. You can:
  1. Apologize. 
  2. Call the FBI and claim your account has been hacked. 
  3. Blame an intern or member of your staff. 
  4. Respond with something awesome!

​McDonald’s went with option four, tweeting this the following morning:
McDonald's Twitter response
While the follow up tweet didn’t get nearly as many retweets or likes as the original tweet, it did appease the internet, which is always hungry for a social media scandal.

You need look no further than the responses to see that the follow up fully appeased the Twitterverse. This time.

But user beware: if you or your team require coffee to start the day, then by all means, have it on hand! If you are McDonald’s that really shouldn’t be a problem. 🙄 🙄 🙄
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A Facebook Live Hack to Help You Get Started

10/13/2017

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When Facebook Live first came out, I’ll admit it — I was daunted. ​

I’m supposed to go to stream live to the world without the opportunity for a second take? Ummm, no thanks!

I had to worry about sound, lighting, my "script," distractions in the background... It was daunting.

But here’s the thing — Facebook Live is a hugely important tool in your digital toolkit. I regularly work with clients who go Live on Facebook for the first time and find that their videos reach more people that like their page! (300% reach — yes please!!!)

We know that people watch Live videos 3x longer than videos that aren’t live. And that they engage with them 10x more than regular videos!

So yeah, apprehension aside — Facebook Live videos get people watching and engaging.

Before I ever went Live on Facebook for the world to see, I came up with a hack that allowed me to ease my way into the otherwise scary world of live streaming.

And here’s the thing: It’s so simple, you’re going to laugh.

Before going Live for an audience via my brand page, I went Live via my personal page with my privacy settings adjusted to “Only me.”

This meant I could practice being on camera, see how the video looked on my computer, hear the sound, play with the awesome built-in filters, and a whole lot else, knowing that I’d be the only to see my first take.

So here’s the step-by-step breakdown.

Open up Facebook on your smartphone. Where you would say "What's on your mind, choose "Live." 
Facebook Live
If that option isn't there, then just click into the post and then click on the camera icon below.
Facebook Live Camera
You will then get a list of options. Choose "Live Video."
Go Live on Facebook
Once you have done that, directly underneath your name, you will see a dropdown menu that has likely defaulted to either “Public” or Friends.”
Facebook Privacy Settings
Click on it and you will get a list of privacy setting options. 

Select "Only me."
Facebook Privacy Settings
Now when you go live, the only person who can see your video is you. ​
Facebook Live Only me
When you are finished going live, instead of publishing it to your page, just delete it. Or publish it to your page (if you want to play around with any of the settings) and you can delete it later, comfortable with the knowledge that your video only had an audience of one (you!).

I hope this hack helps you get over the initial hurdle of going Live. It really is a powerful tool and I highly recommend you experiment with it as you are telling your digital story.

Want more tips on getting started with Facebook Live. I wrote up a helpful checklist, full of things to consider before, during and after your broadcast. 
​

Get Your Free Facebook Live Checklist
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How to Undo on Your iPhone

10/3/2017

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I use my iPhone for so many things. It's my calendar, address book, camera, alarm clock, GPS, calculator, radio... The list goes on and on.

It's just so convenient. It's always with me, so why not take advantage of all of its massive capabilities. 

One way that I use my iPhone is as a notepad. I used to be a paper guy (and in some ways, I still am). But I don't always have a notebook around. And I ALWAYS have my phone handy.

Needless to say, I use iPhone Notes for all kinds of things: shopping lists, to-do lists, idea trackers, movie/book/music suggestions... If I need to remember something, that's most likely where's its going.

One day, I was trying to copy and paste something from my notepad. I accidentally selected and deleted the entire note. Month's worths of reminders, ideas and lists were suddenly gone. It wasn't until that panic-stricken moment that I suddenly realized -- iPhones don't have undo buttons. 😱

But fret not -- while there is no undo button on an iPhone, there IS a way to access this important feature. 

The simple (hilarious?) solution: shake your phone.

That's right, make Taylor Swift (or is it André 3000) proud and give your phone a little shake. 

When you do, a box will pop-up asking if you'd like to "Undo Typing." 
iPhone Undo Typing
Click "undo,"  and just like CTRL+Z on your computer, your most recent activity will be undone.

Undo something prematurely or by accident? Fret not, just shake your phone again and it will give you the option to "Redo Typing."
iPhone Redo Typing
It works with text in every application (that I've tested to date). It also will recover pictures/files/emails in some applications. Though not all. So delete and edit carefully.

Let me know if you find any other great uses for your iPhone's hidden undo feature.

Have any fun iPhone tips to share? I'm always on the lookout for additional functionality for the powerful little computer that's always in my pocket (if it's not in my hand!).

Share your tips in the comments or tag me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

You can see other such iPhone tips via my blog category "iPhone functionality." 
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Your iPhone's DOES have a CTRL+F option

9/29/2017

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Sometimes you want to read every word on a webpage. But sometimes you're just looking for something in particular. But finding it isn't always so straight-forward.

On your computer, the solution is easy: type in "Control+F" on a PC or "Command+F" on a Mac and search the page for what you need.

For the longest time, I couldn't find a similar functionality on my iPhone. I Googled around. I searched the app store. I even asked a genius at the Mac Store. They sheepishly told me it wasn't possible.

Then one day, I noticed something interesting. I had accidentally discovered the iPhone's elusive Control+F! So of course I want to share it with you.

Open up your iPhone's web browser and head to a relevant webpage.

Then go up to the search/url bar at the top. Type in whatever you want to search for, just like you would following CTRL+F. But here's the important part -- DO NOT CLICK ENTER!

Rather, scroll to the bottom of the default search options. The very last thing you will see is a heading titled "On This Page," followed in parenthesis by how many matches you received. 

Click on that and you can jump through every mention of your keyword or phrase listen on the page.

That's it! Pretty simple, right?

Enjoy.

Have any fun iPhone tips to share? I'm always on the lookout for additional functionality for the powerful little computer that's always in my pocket (if it's not in my hand!). 

Share your tips in the comments or tag me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

You can see other such iPhone tips via my blog category "iPhone functionality." ​
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Six New(ish) Ways to Get More Out Of Your Tweets, As Well As A User Hack Worth Knowing

9/25/2017

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Since writing this post, Twitter has expanded the length of tweets from 140-280. While you might need NEED these hacks as often, every one of them is still worth understanding and will offer you a more complete toolkit when using Twitter.

Twitter has also updated the way that you can create tweet threads. I wrote a blog post about the update. You can find it here.

A while back, Jack and his Twitter crew talked about massively expanding Twitter’s iconic 140 character limit to 10,000! Predictably, the Twitterverse went crazy. So Jack relented. Sort of.

While an individual tweet is still limited to 140 characters, Twitter has redefined what counts as a character. So while everything might still look/feel the same, you actually have quite a bit more room to get your thoughts out in a tweet these days than in the Twitter of old.

Many of these changes happened below the radar of the non-avid Twitter user. So I thought it would be a good time for a round-up.

Twitter is changing all the time. If I missed any new functionalities, let me know. I’d love to add them to my list.

1) GIFs

A GIF, or a Graphics Interchange Format, is a short clip of a video or an animation set to repeat itself on an endless loop.

Twitter now has a built in GIF library. If you haven’t played with yours yet, you are missing out on some serious storytelling fun! Why type “Sad!” when you can demonstrate it in a fun video format. ​

To access the library, open up Twitter and start composing a new tweet. Then simply click on the GIF icon.
Twitter GIF Library
This will work on your computer, your tablet or your smartphone. ​

Twitter will automatically populate a wide-array of GIF emotions to search through.
Twitter GIF Library search
Click on the appropriate emotion and scroll through the many, many options. Or, search for the emotion/concept of your choice.
Twitter GIFs Awesome
Once you have the perfect GIF, select it and it will be added as media to your tweet.

And per the theme of this post — it will not count against your character count!​

Please note though, you cannot add a GIF to a tweet containing any other media, or as part of a Quote Tweet (more on Quote Tweets below).

2) Polls

Another fun option, built write into your tweet, is the ability to conduct a poll. ​
Twitter Polls
Once you have selected the option, you can input a series of “answers” to whatever question you choose to pose in your tweet.​

The default (and minimum option) is two “choices,” but click "+ Add a choice" and you can tack on a third or even a fourth.
Awesome Twitter tools
When this fun tool was first rolled out, the only setting was for your poll to last for one day. But now, you can set your own length, ranging from 5 minutes to 7 days. To do that, just click on the poll length’s default “1 day” and set your desired length.
Twitter Poll Length
Obviously, since it’s on this list, a poll doesn’t count against your Tweet’s character count.

If someone takes your poll, they will see the breakdown of votes by percentage. Voting is anonymous. You won’t know who took your poll, nor will anyone else. But it is a fun way to engage your audience and let them tell you directly what they think about any given question.​

Quick note: each “choice” is limited to 25 characters. Prepare accordingly. Also, like GIFs, you can’t insert a poll into a Quote Tweet or a tweet with media.

3) Links

Once upon a time, every character in a link counted towards your character count. Obviously, this was extremely problematic — some links themselves are more than 140 characters!

The original solution to this problem was the link shortener. bit.ly is the most famous, but there are others.

Twitter eventually realized how untenable it was to have a platform that had become synonymous with news, forcing users to employ workarounds in order to share most news articles. So while you weren’t looking, they changed the way they count link characters.

Whether it’s 12 characters or 1200 (eek — that would be quite a long url), all links now count as 23 characters. So keep bit.ly bookmarked for some of its other fun features. But never again waste time shortening a link just to save space. Twitter has got you covered.
Twitter character length

4a) Pictures

Just like GIFs and polls don’t count against your character limit, pictures and videos are likewise exempted from your count. You can add up to four pictures to any tweet that isn’t a Quote Tweet.​

Use your pictures to help tell you story.

But don’t just tweet pictures. Be sure to always tell your audience why you are tweeting them. It should be easy when you still have ALL of your precious 140 of your characters to play with!

4b) Tagging People

Most regular Twitter users know that they can add pictures to a tweet (although I’m not sure how many realize their picture(s) aren't counting against their character count).

This is a tool however that I’ve found few people are aware of. And if they are, I find many don't truly appreciate its power.

When you add a picture (or 2, 3 or 4), you can “tag” people who are in the picture. I put tag in quotes because they don’t actually have to be in the photo for you to tag them. ​

To do so is simple: after you add your picture, click “Who’s in this photo?”
Twitter tagging people
You can then search for any Twitter user by name or handle and tag them in your photo. It’s important to note that you can’t differentiate which picture a particular user is in — you can just tag them in your pictures, generally. But the coolest part about this: you can add up to ten users to any tweet! That should help you save you a whole lot of space since now you don’t have to write out all those handles within your tweet in order to tag them. ​

Quick note: some users have privacy settings that won’t allow them to be tagged in pictures. You can still tag them in your tweet, you just can’t tag them in your picture.

5) Quote Tweets

I mentioned this concept earlier, with the promise to cover it shortly. This is a fun one.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to retweet something, you had to do it sort of manually. You would take the tweet's content, add an RT before it and then send it to your users. This was problematic for numerous reasons, the biggest being tweet length. If a tweet was already 140 characters you couldn’t add an RT. And even if there were three characters to spare, you might not be able to add in the original sender’s handle. That led to awkward MTs, or modified tweets (if you don’t know this acronym, here's a bunch more you also might not yet know), where you retweeted an edited version of what someone else had already said. You could modify for length, content or accuracy, but whatever your reason, it certainly complicated the heart of the RT.

So Twitter adapted. They changed the way RTs work. You still occasionally see old school RTs, but it’s rare.

Then Twitter added the Quote Tweet.

When you go to retweet on your tablet or your smartphone, you’ll see be asked if you want to Retweet or Quote Tweet. Or your computer, you’ll have the option to Retweet, or to “Add a comment…”
Twitter Quote Tweets
You can add a full 140 characters to your Quote Tweet. This can be a great tool to save space. If someone tweeted something and you want to expand on it, you don’t need to start with an explanation. You can even Quote Tweet one of your own tweets, in order to continue a thought. Quote Tweets are a great tool for building out longer thoughts. Take advantage of them!

6) Replies

Similar to Quote Tweets, Twitter changed the way that replies work. It used to be that when you hit reply, Twitter automatically added the handle of the person who sent the original tweet, as well as any other handle tagged within.

But Twitter realized that people were struggling with what came to be known as “tipping canoes:” Twitter conversations that were so full of handles that there was no place left to actually add your thoughts.

So now when you hit reply, the original sender and all tagged handles will still automatically be tagged in your response, but they will be tagged outside of your actual tweet. Meaning you can respond to one handle, or a big group, without worrying about tipping that Twitter canoe.

So let’s say that instead of Quote Tweeting a response to @BarackObama, I replied to him.

I still have all 140 characters for my response.
Twitter replies
Likewise, if I reply to @JimmyKimmel while he is thanking @SenatorCollins for doing the right thing on healthcare, they will both be tagged without taking away from my character count.
Twitter replies
If you want to remove someone from your tags, just clicks on the list of names and you can deselect as you desire.

But note, you can’t deselect the original sender’s handle. You are stuck with them. Don’t want to mention them? Then maybe don't reply to their tweet!

Bonus) Thread Tweets

Okay, that is six ways that Twitter now offers for us to get more of each and every tweet.

But the Twitterverse still wasn’t satisfied and they are notorious for finding clever workarounds to problems that bother them.

Sometimes what you have to say won’t fit into 140 characters, no matter how many other tools you have at your disposal. At that point, you can thread together your tweets to tell a longer story.​

Anytime you reply to a tweet, from anyone including yourself, Twitter will connect those two tweets with a blue line.
Twitter thread
Notice that @nycsouthpaw is employing both a Quoted Tweet and a Thread in this example.
So if you have a longer story to tell, break it up into tweetable chunks and then share it, one piece at a time. But be careful — they have to be in the right order, or they will be impossible to follow.

To do this is simple: send your first tweet. Then reply to it. Then reply to that one. Then that one. And so on.

FYI — Threading tweets like this is sometimes referred to as a Tweet Storm.

There are many different ways people choose to differentiate a tweet from a threaded tweet. After all, your followers won’t know there’s more to come if you don’t tell them.

The most common approaches are as follows:
  • Ellipses (either at the end of each tweet OR at the end of each tweet AND the beginning of each one that follows)
  • 1/, 2/, 3/… x/x
  • 1/x, 2/x, 3/x… x/x
  • 1/, 2/, 3/… <end>
  • Sometimes people just write:
    • That’s it
    • I’m done
    • All finished
    • Or the close-off of their choice.​
If you are going to thread tweets, find a way to clarify it for your audience. It’ll help them follow along.

Conclusion

So that’s six new(ish) ways to get more of your tweets and a bonus user hack you should know about.

Do you have any additional tips or tricks you've found to get more out of Twitter? Respond in the comments and/or share them with me on Twitter. I want to hear from you!

Want to learn more about any of the above concepts, or anything else about this often-perplexing platform? Book a class today to become a Super Twitterer.
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Likes and Favorites are Free

8/7/2017

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Social media likes cost you nothing and they can go a long way towards customer service.
On Friday night, I went to see a Grammy winning bluegrass legend wow his crowd with songs spanning his 40+ year career.​

Because I’m both a bluegrass nerd and a social media nerd, I streamed one of his songs via Facebook Live.

It was late on a weekend night and it didn’t get a lot of views in real time. But over the next 36 hours or so, it was watched a few dozen times. (And now I can go back and rewatch the band anytime I want on my personal Facebook page!) But truth be told, by Sunday night, I wasn’t thinking about the video anymore than I was about the drive to and from the show.

But then Monday morning, something interesting happened — my video was “liked” by the bluegrass legend it featured.

Now let’s be clear: I don’t think that this artist liked the post himself (although he might have). More likely it was a member of his marketing or management team.

But the notification that he had liked my video popped up, and I have to be honest — I got excited. Like, more excited than I probably should have.

I work in social media for a living. I know how this works. I know he probably has some marketing agency liking positive mentions of him online. But you know what: it still got its intended effect out of me!

Having him like my video felt like getting a high five or a quick hello from a bluegrass legend.

Does that handshake mean that we are suddenly best friends? Of course not.


Does it mean I can suddenly shred on the mandolin like he can? I wish!

Am I still excited enough that I immediately want to tell all my friends about it? Yup.

Liking that post cost him literally nothing (save for whatever he’s paying his agency to manage his social media—but that’s a story for another post). Yet it added to my excitement about the show.

Social media serves many roles, not least of which is customer service and community relations.

Think about yourself as a movie star. When you walk down the street, people recognize you. You can't stop and have lunch with every fan. You can’t even stop and take a picture with them all or you’d never get anywhere. But you can nod and smile to everyone who waves at you.

That’s what a "like" or a "favorite" is on social media — it’s a head nod from a celebrity. It doesn’t suddenly make you best friends or ensure that they will buy your product/go see your next movie/buy your upcoming album. But it shows the fans that you are real, and that you respect them as people, not just as consumers. And it only takes as much time to create that connection as you need to give a single click of your mouse or tap on your phone.

If you see a celebrity on the street, and you wave at them, you are going to tell your friends one of two stories:

“Oh my goodness, I just say this famous person on State Street. It was so cool!”

*** OR ***

“I just saw this famous person on State Street. He was kind of a jerk.”

You’re the celebrity. Which would you prefer?
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Ten Digital Tips for Aspiring Activists

7/20/2017

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Digital Tips for Aspiring Activists
We live in strange times. One person with a little ingenuity and a Twitter account or a YouTube channel can have greater reach than their local paper, and greater influence than even some in the national media.

But for most of us, we log-on to social media to connect with our friends and family, to see what’s happening in the world and to share our opinions. We aren’t trying to build massive audiences—we just want to learn, to socialize and to share our opinions on the story of the day.

And so often today, that story is about politics.

We live in a social media age: never before have American politics moved so fast or felt so destructive. It feels like we are in an endless state of breaking news; CNN’s chyron writers can hardly keep up with the stories as they come rolling in.


So let’s say you want to go online and get involved in the conversation, but you aren’t sure where to start. Then these ten tips might be for you. This list could apply to professional politicos and full-time activists, but I didn’t write it for them. Rather it’s intended for people with jobs, families, social lives and a million other things going on, but who still have a passion to change their community, if not the world.
​

Tip 1 —  If it didn’t happen on social media, it didn’t happen

This is the first rule of any campaign I’ve ever worked on, and it needn't be limited to traditional political campaigns. If you go to an event, no matter how well attended, consider all of those who didn’t attend. Some didn’t know about it, some couldn’t get off work, some live in other places. Talking about the events and meetings you attend both bring in new audiences in real time, and give more people a reason to attend such events in the future.

Share your story via the social media platforms of your choice throughout the event. Quote speakers, share videos of exciting moments, talk about why you are there, what you are learning and how great a time you are having. 

Or else, it never really happened 😉
​

Tip 2 — Your story is your best asseT

All the facts and statistics in the world can’t compete with a personal story from someone in your community. Hearing that 23 million people will lose healthcare is powerful; hearing that YOU or YOUR BROTHER won’t be able to keep their healthcare, far more so.

Your story doesn’t have to be tragic to be powerful. What got you active in the movement? Why do you care? What are the moments that shaped you? They are all part of your story. 

You don’t have to reveal your deepest, darkest secrets to put a personal spin on the story of the day.
Activists are, first and foremost, organizers. Sometimes, their goal is to use the internet as a tool to bring people together in real life. If that’s your goal, optimize your efforts. 

Facebook events are extremely powerful, but ONLY if used correctly. Don’t build a Facebook Event two days before an event. At that point, you have missed your window. If you can’t build it at least 4-6 weeks prior, you are not really taking advantage of this awesome tool. (Bear in mind, this is NOT applicable for birthday parties, community concerts, etc., where you can pretty much do whatever you want. This is for public events that you want to promote to a public audience.)

Once your Event is built, invite people you think will want to attend and share it with your networks. Post about it on your wall, email it to your friends, tell people about it in real life and let them know they should join.

Once you have a group of people who have said they are “interested” or “going” to your event, now it’s time to engage them.

Every time you post an update in the event, everyone “interested” or “going” will get a notification. So it’s important not to annoy them (they can remove themselves from the event outright or simply from receiving notifications). My recommendation: post about once a week until the final two weeks prior to the actual event. Then ramp up as you get closer. But just about EVERY notification should not solicit, but rather excite.

Tip 3 — Online organizing starts offlinE

You will not sign up for a Twitter account today, and amass 100k followers over the next few weeks (if you do, contact me and let’s tell that story!). But connect with the people you already know in real life and let them know how to find you online. This can be at events and meetings, in your email signature, within Facebook Groups in which you are active, etc.

The people who already know (and love) you will be much more receptive to your message than a group of strangers. And if your goal is to make a difference, it helps to have a receptive audience.
​

Tip 4 — Support each otheR

If you see someone getting attacked for speaking out, it’s okay to step up for them, just like you would in real life.

If you aren’t comfortable getting involved publicly in an online debate (some can’t because of their jobs, others just aren’t comfortable with it), consider dropping a private note to the person under siege. Let them know you appreciate that they are fighting the good fight. 

If we cede the conversation to the bullies, we lose. We can’t all be outspoken activists, but we must support each other so that those who are in a position to engage won’t get shut down and pushed out of the conversation altogether.
​

Tip 5 — Use Twitter lists as a listening tooL

I know a lot of people who don’t like Twitter because they find it too confusing. And I get that. At first glance, Twitter is chaos. But Twitter lists help bring order to the chaos.

Utilizing them is free and easy, and you don’t even have to build your own — you can subscribe to someone else’s. 

Lists can be public or private:
  • A public list can be followed by anyone, and whenever you add someone to it, they get a notification. If your list is called “people I admire,” or “progressive leaders,” that’s a good thing! If it’s called “people I loathe,” maybe not so much.
  • A private list can be seen only by you. No one else can subscribe, and no one will get a notification when you add them.

Build lists of journalists, people who inspire you, friends, colleagues, etc.. And then get a free account with HootSuite or Tweetdeck and easily monitor them, on a timeframe that works for you.

Lists only show content shared by those in your list. So if it’s a list of journalists, whenever you login, you can see all of their tweets in a manageable stream, and nothing else. Literally: order out of the chaos.

This will help you stay informed and connected to many different groups of people in a way that won’t feel overwhelming.
​

Here's a podcast episode about Twitter Lists


​Tip 6 — The Power of Facebook EventS

Activists are, first and foremost, organizers. Sometimes, their goal is to use the internet as a tool to bring people together in real life. If that’s your goal, optimize your efforts. 

Facebook events are extremely powerful, but ONLY if used correctly. Don’t build a Facebook Event two days before an event. At that point, you have missed your window. If you can’t build it at least 4-6 weeks prior, you are not really taking advantage of this awesome tool. (Bear in mind, this is NOT applicable for birthday parties, community concerts, etc., where you can pretty much do whatever you want. This is for public events that you want to promote to a public audience.)

Once your Event is built, invite people you think will want to attend and share it with your networks. Post about it on your wall, email it to your friends, tell people about it in real life and let them know they should join.

Once you have a group of people who have said they are “interested” or “going” to your event, now it’s time to engage them.

Every time you post an update in the event, everyone “interested” or “going” will get a notification. So it’s important not to annoy them (they can remove themselves from the event outright or simply from receiving notifications). My recommendation: post about once a week until the final two weeks prior to the actual event. Then ramp up as you get closer. But just about EVERY notification should not solicit, but rather excite.
Buy your ticket today — solicitation
This elected official will be at the event — EXCITING 
Did you mark your calendars yet for the big day? — solicitation
We’re going to have cake from this awesome local bakery — EXCITING
Don’t ask people to buy a ticket. Get them to ask you how they can buy a ticket!
​

Tip 7 — The Power of Facebook Groups

Facebook sees Groups as a big part of their future and is investing heavily in them. Take advantage of this powerful online tool. 

Find groups of likeminded people and join them (you can explore Facebook’s countless Groups at Facebook.com/Groups). If you can’t find a group of like-minded people, start your own!

The biggest strength of a Facebook Group is the same as the biggest strength of a Facebook Event: the notification!

Every time someone in the Group posts, members get a notification.

It’s a far better tool for talking to like-minded people than posting to your timeline and hoping it will get seen by the right people.

Groups can be public, closed or private:
  • Public Groups still requires that users join, but anyone can see the content that has been shared within
  • Closed Groups require access to join and to see what has been posted—but anyone can search and find the Group on Facebook
  • Secret Groups are completely shielded from public view—non-members can’t even see that they exist
Choose your settings accordingly.
​

Tip 8 — The Power of Facebook livE

When it comes to Facebook reach and engagement, text is good. Pictures are better. Video is better still. And Facebook Live trumps them all.

When you use Facebook Live, whatever your phone’s camera (or now your webcam!) is seeing is broadcasted over your timeline in real time. It’s a great way to share your events with a larger audience, to tell your story, to excite people about your events (you can go Live directly into a Facebook Event or Group) and so much more! If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. It’s a fun tool and will all but guarantee increased reach and engagement over your current content.
​
Download my FREE Facebook Live Checklist today


​Tip 9 — Know your tools

If you are going to be spending time online, don’t spend that time spinning your gears. You need to understand the platforms you are using to ensure you are getting the most out of them.

Knowing your tools includes important things like how to tag people on different platforms, how to schedule content, why people put a period (.) before a tag (@) on Twitter, as well as understanding the free analytics tools you have access to and so much more.

Follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook for lots of awesome tips. Read through my blog for plenty of helpful explainers. Book one of my social media training classes for you and/or your cohort. Or simply head to Google whenever you are confused and read a blog post or watch a video explaining how or why something works. If you are asking the question, someone has probably answered it online. So stop spinning your wheels and start reading/watching/digging in.
​

Tip 10 — Engage, educate, inspire

  • Engage -- Don’t go on social media to talk at people. Go there to talk with people.

    Ask people in your community how they feel about issues that are important to you. And then listen to their answers. Have conversations with people with whom you agree AND with whom you disagree.

    ​There's an important rule in online culture: Don't feed the trolls. But not everyone with whom you disagree is a troll. It's important to distinguish between those who act like jerks just for the sake of it, and those with whom you disagree, but are genuine in their beliefs and their convictions.

  • Educate — You don’t need to be a college professor to have something worth sharing. Use your personal experiences to help paint a fuller picture of a story everyone is discussing.

    If you read an article online and you think it’s interesting, your community will probably be interested as well. Share it. (But don’t JUST share it — tell us why you are sharing it. Are you happy about it or frustrated? If you don’t want to write something out, you can choose a pull quote and copy and paste it into the text. Find a way to give your community the context they need to know why you are sharing whatever it is that you are sharing.)

  • Inspire — Show people that there’s a better way. Engage people you don’t agree with, without calling them a jerk (even if they are being one). Stand up for what you believe in, but be articulate and clear about why. Always be respectful, honest and aware.

​There are so many good people online, but sometimes the trolls and the bots are louder and more persistent. It’s our responsibility to come together and ensure that we don’t cede these valuable online spaces to the worst amongst us. Social media can be an amazing tool or a toxic wasteland. Let’s ensure the good are heard, engaged with and supported, and let’s not waste our time fighting with those who want nothing more than to draw blood. They aren’t worth the effort.

You can make a difference in your community by setting an example, by educating your networks and by digging in rather than checking out. 

The internet isn’t the solution for all of life’s problems. But it is a great tool for organizing, learning and connecting. Know your tools, build your community, share your story online and work towards creating the world you know is possible.

These are my ten tips. But this list is far from exhaustive. What would you add?

Running for office or working with a campaign? 

If you are running for political office or working with a campaign (political or otherwise), drop me a line today and lets talk about how we can step up your digital program and/or skillset.

I've worked with local, statewide and national political and advocacy campaigns, and helped scores of organizations and candidates better tell their stories online.

I can work with you on your social media strategy and management, as well as growing and managing your email list, developing a website and digital assets that will help you move the needle, manage your digital ads and much more.

Learn more about my political work here.

    Drop me a line today

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How Long Should My Facebook Posts Be?

4/24/2017

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Different Facebook options for posting
People often tell me they don’t use Twitter because they can’t “say what they want to say in 140 characters.” That’s true, but probably not for the reason they think.

While Twitter allows up to 140 characters, the average reader won’t get past the first 100. That’s right—tweets between 71 and 100 characters get a 17% higher engagement rate than those creeping up towards 140. Even Twitter’s strict character limit is still too long for most folks!

But what about Facebook? Unlike Twitter, you can write significantly more in a Facebook post. If you are wondering, there is a limit—it’s 63,206 (because why not end this massive limit with a 6?!). So you might assume you should be utilizing more of those precious characters in your posts. But that’s actually not true.

A Facebook post with 40 characters or less receives nearly twice as much engagement compared to longer posts.

That’s right: LESS THAN 40 CHARACTERS. 


The Three-Line Rule
This limit may seem a bit oppressive (and complicated—who’s got time to count every character), so I usually recommend what I call the three-line rule. Try to keep your content under three lines of text (not including your link). 

Quick, easy, concise. 

Can a post be too short?
Alternately, people often share links/pictures/videos without adding any context to the post. I HIGHLY recommend you offer at least a few words as to why you are sharing whatever it is you are sharing.


A link without context will tell us the headline of the article, but it won’t tell your audience why they should care. Are you excited about the news you are sharing? Or dismayed? Is there a change coming that your audience must know about, or just an interesting piece of information, should they have a few spare minutes? Add a few words and spell out your key takeaway(s) for your audience. 

Another fun trick: you can use a pull quote. A pull quote is where you literally pick a sentence (or a paragraph or two) that sum up your key takeaway from the article and share it in quotes. 

The same is true for pics and videos. Who’s in the media (tag them if you can!)? Where are you? What is happening? Give us the context we need to be excited about your content.

So to summarize: 
  • Keep your posts short
  • But not too short

Facebook Notes
IF you want to write longer posts on Facebook (and there are times where that might make sense), there is a smarter way to do so than by just creating a regular post with a lot of text.


When you go to your brand page to create a post, it automatically defaults to a general post. But if you notice, directly below where it says “Write something…” there are a bunch of icons with additional options.
Facebook post options
Some are fun, some less so. Play around with all of them and see if any of them are right for you.

The one we are talking about today though is a Facebook Note. To access it, first click “See All.” 
Facebook post options
Choose to “Write a note.” Then, instead of your traditional post box, you will see this:
Facebook Note
Notice in the header, you have the option to add a photo! While this post type isn’t as powerful as some blogging platforms, it’s quite a bit more interesting than a traditional Facebook post. After uploading a photo, you can give your post a Title. 

Then start typing. 

But you’re not done yet!

Click where it says “Write something…”. Then select the plus in a circle. You now have the option to drop in a photo or embed throughout your Note.
Facebook Note adding a photo or embed
Or click on the paragraph button directly below the plus and you can format as you wish throughout.
Formatting a Facebook note
So the next time you have a bunch of pictures from an event, instead of creating an album, try adding them to a Facebook Note, dropping in the photos and telling the story of the event. Or try creating a top ten (or other such number) that will be relevant to your audience. 

While this won’t replace your traditional post options, it does offer you an additional tool in your toolkit.

Next time you create a Facebook Note, tag me. I’d love to see what you are doing with this fun tool!
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Your Social Media Should Act as a Telephone, Not a Megaphone

4/20/2017

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Social Media Consulting Tip How To Write To Your Social Media Audience
When you sit down to write a social media post, it’s easy to think about promoting your amazing, important and worthwhile message to the world — to make pronouncements that will change your audience’s behavior and blow their minds. Whether you are selling a product, promoting an event or even just sharing an interesting article you came across, you know the value you are adding to your community, and you want your audience to recognize it as well.

It doesn’t matter what the content is, every one of your social media posts will be consumed by (numerous) INDIVIDUAL people, reading it on their INDIVIDUAL screens, as they go about their INDIVIDUAL lives. So ensure that you are writing for each of them as an individual, not some amorphous crowd of people. It’s easy to forget this because your content, once published, will be seen by tens, hundreds or even thousands of people. Rather than thinking about how many people will consume your content, think about how they will consume it—alone. Think of it this way: you aren’t playing in a packed arena, you are providing a private living room concert; adjust accordingly.

Here’s a simple trick for ensuring that your content rings true to each individual member of your community: when you sit down to create it, picture an actual person with whom you want to connect and draft as if you are speaking directly to that particular person. Think about a customer, a donor, a constituent or a fan… pick one person and write your post directly to them.

Here are some important questions to ask yourself before hitting publish:
  • Does “Sally” want to read your press release, or hear why it matters to her?
  • Does she want to be solicited, day in and day out, or does she want to be inspired/entertained/enlightened…?
  • If you share an article or a picture, will she understand why? (Hint: not if you don’t tell her!)
  • If you are using acronyms or industry-speak, will she know what you are talking about?
  • Is your sentence structure clear, is your post properly punctuated, is your spelling correct, are you capitalizing properly? (If you content is hard to follow, Sally isn’t going to dig in and work to decipher it, she is simply going to scroll right by.)

It’s easy to think about a social media post as a megaphone, announcing your latest content to the world. But really, it’s more like a telephone, creating a connection between you and an individual. Treat your content accordingly and get ready for higher engagement rates and better reach on future posts.

And if you are wondering, I wanted to let you know, I wrote this post especially for YOU!
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Using Facebook Live to Grow Your Reach

3/9/2017

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Use Facebook Live to Grow Your Reach
I wrote a guest blog post for Indie on the Move entitled: 5 Ways to Use Facebook Live to Grow Your Brand's Reach. While the post is (obviously) geared towards musicians, I think it can assist any person or brand who works directly with people. Try and think about your own audience: what might a "behind the scenes" peak look like?; what would be the equivalency of your sound check?; what might your customer see as your "tour"?

If you have good answers to any of the above, share them in the comments or on Facebook/Twitter. I'd love to hear about your customer journey.

If you aren't sure how these examples can serve as metaphors for you and your customers, drop me a line. Maybe I can help you figure it out!

Without further ado, here are 5 Ways to Use Facebook Live to Grow Your Brand's Reach.


If you spend time on social media, you’re probably familiar with Facebook Live, a relatively new Facebook tool that allows you to broadcast live—in real time—directly to your audience.

While you probably know what Facebook Live is, you might not realize just how powerful it is.

Facebook, at least for the time being, is extremely committed to this tool and is offering all implementers a powerful free gift for using it: guaranteed exposure and engagement!

When you stream via Facebook Live, Facebook gives a notification to every one of your followers that you are currently live. If your followers aren’t online while you go live, they’ll get a notification that you were live. This simple notification all but guarantees increased reach and engagement over even your most well-produced videos.

So that’s why it’s important. But you might also be wondering WHEN you should use it. Here are 5 ways you can use Facebook Live to greatly expand your band’s reach.


1) Do a weekly Live session right from your living room or practice space.

Give it a simple catchy hashtag to demonstrate it’s part of a series. Exs: #MusicMondays or #TuesdayBluesday. Having the day of the week is helpful, to help brand it as something people should expect every week. One caveat: if you tell people you are going to do it weekly, YOU HAVE TO DO IT WEEKLY. If that is too much responsibility, then go with #LivingRoomSessions, or #FunkyFacebook. You’ll lose a bit in the process, because it will be harder for people to know when to expect it. But better they don’t know, then they expect it and it doesn’t happen!

Sharing music like this gives you a chance to connect directly with your audience in a very personal way. They log onto Facebook to see updates from their friends and family… and there is their favorite band or musician, playing just for them! It’s like a private concert for your fans. And the best part: it cost you nothing.

2) Working on a new album? Take us “behind the scenes” into the studio.

Show us your drummer setting up his drum mics or interview your sound engineer about how he gets that special signature sound. This is an easy way to raise awareness—and build excitement—about your new album.

Conversely, when you release a new album, go live to talk about the process. Tell a funny story from the studio, or the meaning behind one of the songs. Is the local record store selling your album? Go in with your smartphone and show it sitting on the shelves. You get to brag a bit about your accomplishment, your fans know where they can find your music, AND the record store will love you: you just gave them a bunch of free publicity!

3) Whether you’re traveling halfway across the country for your next show, or just ten minutes down the road, hop on Facebook Live and let us know how great tonight’s show is going to be.

Will you have a special guest (you don’t have to say who it will be!)? Will you be playing a new song? Is it your first time at a new venue? What better time to talk to your audience then while you’re on your way to a show. For those in other cities, they’ll be excited to hear from you. And for those in town, your video might just be the reminder they needed to call their friends and head on down to the venue!

4) This one is similar to 3, but different enough to get its own point: livestream part of your soundcheck.

If you don’t do a soundcheck, then walk around the venue and talk to your fans. Or show the line to get inside. Or even just tell us how much you are enjoying your pre-show beer! This is your last chance to make a connection before the show starts, and to get all those fans who haven’t yet committed to coming out, to give it once last consideration. Pro tip: Don’t ask them to come, just talk about how excited you are about the night. If your excitement is genuine, they don’t need to be invited—they’ll be eager to get there all on their own!

5) As your band grows, you have more and more fans who live further and further away.

Just because someone isn’t going to drive 6 hours to see your show doesn’t mean they don’t wish they could be there. Buy a tripod (you can get a good one for $20) and set it up on stage. Livestream a song or two. Hell, livestream the whole show. (You can go Live on Facebook for up to 4 hours at a time!) It might be too late for someone not at your show to come out. But this brings them into the party, makes them wish they were there, and all but ensures they’ll try harder next time to make it out.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive—far from it. There’s no shortage of ways you can use this powerful tool to grow your reach and engagement. Are you using Facebook Live in other, clever ways? Please share them with me on Facebook and/or Twitter. I’d love to hear about them!

If you need any additional help with Facebook Live, or with anything else related to your digital story, drop me a line. I always love talking social media and music!

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Master Your Social Media in 20 Minutes a Day

2/6/2017

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Master Your Social Media in 20 Minutes a Day
You are busy; there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything. Social media feels like a chore; one that never ends. You might feel that if you can't do it right, why bother doing it all.

Fret not: A good social media program can be run in as few as 20 minutes a day.

This session will help you spend your limited social media time wisely, ensuring you reap the greatest rewards from this ever-growing part of business – in as few as 20 minutes a day!

By having a plan, segmenting tasks and properly organizing your ideas, you can create and manage an interesting, engaging and valuable social media program without having to sacrifice all of your many other responsibilities.

In the session, we cover topics like:
  • Optimizing Your Social
  • Having a Plan
  • The Importance of a Blog
  • Creating and Curating Content
  • The Facebook Algorithm
  • Engaging Your Audience
  • And more
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Invite People Who Like Your Facebook Posts to Like Your Facebook Page -- It's Easy!

1/25/2017

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Facebook makes it easy to invite those who like your content to like your page. Check out this simple trick and start growing your page today!
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Madison Knows How to March: Size of Women's Marches Compared to City Population

1/22/2017

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Madison, WI knows how to march
On Friday, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States before a crowd of about a quarter of a million people gathered on the National Mall.

The following day, half a million people took to the street's in our nation's capital for the #WomensMarch in order to "stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families - recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country." 

Along with the central march in Washington, DC, there were another 2.5 million people participating in 600 sister marches world wide.

The largest marches were in Los Angeles (750k), Washington, DC (500k), New York (400k) and Chicago (250k). It is not surprising the biggest crowds were in the three most populous cities and our nation's capital. 

The top ten largest marches* were:
Los Angeles, CA: 750,000
Washington, DC: 500,000
New York, NY: 400,000
Boston, MA: 100,000
Chicago, IL: 250,000
Denver, CO: 100,000
Madison, WI: 100,000
Portland, OR: 100,000
Seattle, WA: 100,000
St. Paul, MN: 90,000


BUT, when we look at the size of the march compared to the city population, rather than the raw numbers by city, things get interesting. 

Washington, DC comes out on top, with number of  participants equivalent to 75% of their population. [Before we move forward, let's break that down: Washington, DC has a population of 659,000 people. They had 500,000 marchers. So the percentage of marchers, as compared to the city's population, was 500,000/659,000 = 75.87%.] But many people traveled from all over the country to participate in the central march.

Second to DC, the clear winner of marchers by city population was Madison, WI with over 40% turnout!!!

When rearranged for turnout ratio, the top marching cities are now as follows:
Washington, DC: 75.87%
Madison, WI: 41.15%
St. Paul, MN: 30.51%
Los Angeles, CA: 19.23%
Portland, OR: 16.42%

Boston, MA: 15.5%
Denver, CO: 15.38%
Seattle, WA: 15.34%
Chicago, IL: 9.26%

New York, NY: 4.76%

Great work Madison, Wisconsin. Way to represent your values.
Check out some of the great social content from the day at #WomensMarchMadison.

*March sizes sourced from The Hill.
Population size is based on city limits and sourced from the Google Knowledge Graph.

This awesome infographic was created by iCandy-Graphics and Web Design. Follow them on Twitter @iCandyGraphics1.
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Become an Instagram Champion

1/18/2017

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Instragram Champion
Instagram finished 2016 with a billion monthly active users. 500 million of them are active on a daily basis. Five. Hundred. MILLION!

That’s 1/3 of ALL internet users.

And they are active. Everyday, users post an average of 95 million posts. And they like over 4 billion posts. (Yes, that’s billions with a “B”.)

Brands are a big part of the fun. And with good reason: according to Instagram’s Advertiser Statistics, HALF of all users follow at least one brand on the platform. Of those, “60% say that they learn about a product or service on the platform, while 75% take action, such as visiting a website, after looking at a post.”

So here's a simple question: Is your brand making the most of this platform?

Whether this is:
-the first you are hearing about this interesting-sounding platform,
-you have an account but you're not sure how to get started, or
-you use IG daily, but you just aren't sure you're getting everything you can out of it,
the time has come for you to Become an Instagram Champion!

We’ll cover topics like:
  • Getting started with an account, including finding the right avatar and drafting the perfect bio
  • Hashtags
    • What are they
    • How they work
    • Using them to grow your reach
  • Tagging
    • What it is
    • How to do it
    • Why it matters
  • Using filters and easily accessible editing tools to bring your photos and videos to life
  • Searching the platform by hashtag, user, location and more
  • Engaging with your audience
  • Easily toggling between different Instragram accounts
  • Making the most of Instagram Stories and Instagram Stories Live, including getting started and finding ways to powerfully tell your story through these fun, disappearing posts that can leave a big impression
  • Great native apps that will help you create super fun and engaging content
  • Your accounts free analytics
  • And more!

Trainings for you and your team can be conducted on-site or remotely.

I’ve worked with local, statewide and national political campaigns, nonprofits, small businesses, bands, artists, authors and journalists and more who wanted to better tell their digital story. Ready to tell yours?
Contact me today and let's get started
I also train people to become Facebook Ninjas, Super Twitterers and more.  
Learn more about how we might work together.
​

​What People Have Said About Working With Me

"Josh is a social media maven who wants to help others improve. I have benefited from Josh’s expertise firsthand, and as a result feel more confident using social media to empower more good in the community. Josh is an effective and patient teacher, responsive, thoughtful and practical." 
-Renee Moe, President & CEO, United Way of Dane County

"Josh is a wizard. We just had a three hour training with him and feel like we have more than a clue how to promote our band and stay in touch with music lovers everywhere."
-Sims Delaney-Potthoff, Mandolinist and Bandleader, 
Harmonious Wail

​
Received a few hours of consulting from [Josh] today. Best money I've spent in a long, long time. 
-Philip Crawford, Manifestly and Political Strategist

"My staff and I attended your training... and were absolutely blown away by the presentation and quality of content. To say we took away a ton is a vast understatement! I don't think I've ever been in a training more engaging and insightful, PLUS my team is beaming with motivation and excitement to hit the ground running!

Massive THANK YOU, Josh, for your wisdom and expert advice on how to use social media to grow Jenerate Wellness. You're top-notch!"
-Jen Rudis, Jenerate Wellness
See More Testimonials
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Social Media and Digital Marketing Tips from Madison’s Experts

12/8/2016

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Social Media Tips from Madison Experts
Spencer X. Smith asked Madison's social media and marketing experts to share their top advice from 2016. He then published their responses in In Business Madison Magazine.

I am very honored to have been included as one of Madison's social media and marketing experts.

Here the advice I offered:
“Don’t sell; build. Build trust, communities, and relationships. Remember that every Like or Follower is a real person and treat them as such.

“Add value to the lives of your audience, both current and potential. Make it clear it’s not all about the sales funnel.

“Encourage your audience to join you in telling your story. Do this by engaging with their content, responding to their questions and comments, and by sharing/retweeting content they write about you and your brand. It’s always better to let others say how great you are than to try and say it yourself.”

Anything you would add? Any questions?

Check out what Madison's other experts had to say and feel free to comment here with any tips you would add to the list.


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Top Ten Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Social Media

11/30/2016

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Author's note: I wrote this post leading up to the holiday season. But these tips are valid all year round. So whenever you might be reading this post, I hope you find it helpful and timely.

The holidays are almost here and that means it’s spending season! People are going to be buying presents, taking vacations, going out for family dinners and thinking about end of year giving. There is no better time to take stock and make sure your social media is working for you as strongly as it should be.

So here is a quick top ten checklist to help ensure you get everything you can out of social media  this holiday season:

1) Tag and recognize your partners

To tag on most platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn...) type an @ and then start typing a partner’s username. You will see a dropdown menu of options. Choose the right handle (unique name of person or brand) and viola! Instead of just writing their name online, you are tagging them. Now they will get a notification you mentioned them and hopefully they will turn around and spread the love.

2) Text < Pictures < Video < Facebook Live

Good text is important.

But posts with pictures are better.

Video will take you even further.

And Facebook Live can take you to levels you didn’t know was possible!

3) Have ONE hashtag (#) and use it

If you live, work and post in a B2C world (business 2 consumer as opposed to B2B--business 2 business), you should utilize a hashtag and you should use it often. It’s okay to have additional hashtags for specific sales, events, or campaigns, but regularly using multiple hashtags means none are as strong as they could be.

Post using your hashtag and encourage others to use it as well. You can do this by displaying it in your store/office/meeting spaces, sharing/retweeting/reposting content that uses your hashtag and generally letting your audience know about it.

4) Don’t autopost

When you autopost from Facebook to Twitter, you are telling your Twitter followers that your time is more valuable than theirs. It’s fine to post similar versions of the same content in both formats, but copy and paste your post into each platform and ensure that everything is optimized for the platform in which you are posting. (If a post ends with a "..." that is BAD!)

One potential exception: use a site like If This Than That (IFTTT)*  and build a “recipe” that automatically posts your Instragram pictures to Twitter. Don’t EVER post a link to your Instagram picture on Twitter (automatically or otherwise). If people interact with you on Twitter, show them your picture where they are!

*Here’s an explainer blog to walk you through setting up an IFTTT recipe.

5) Engage with and share content from happy customers and respond openly and honestly to unhappy ones

While seeing negative content online about yourself and your brand might be painful, it’s there whether or not you engage! If you see negative comments, decide if the poster is a troll or an unhappy customer. A troll should never be engaged with, but DO NOT ignore unhappy customers; if they write about you on social media, they are talking about you publicly. Respond. Don’t be defensive, just explain your side and if you offered solutions, share them publicly. Don’t cede the conversation, engage in it!

And of course if people say nice things about you, like the comment/tweet/picture, comment on it, and share it! It’s amazing how far a little TLC can go.

6) Post often (but not too often!)

As a rule of thumb, you should post on Facebook and Instagram a minimum of 3-5 times per week and a maximum of 3-5 times per day.

On Twitter, post a minimum of 8-10 times per week and maximum of 8-10 times per day.

Sound like a lot? It’s not! Follow the 80/20 rule (#8) and you’ll be good to go.

7) Use your blog as a bridge to drive traffic from social media to your website

Spell out ideas in great detail on your blog. Then share snippets on social. This is a great tip for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keeping your site up-to-date and dynamic. And it will serve as a bridge between your social and your site.

You shouldn't repost the same content over and over. But it’s okay (encouraged even!) to repackage your content. Your social will have a different audience in the morning than the evening. Different people will be logged on Wednesday than Friday. Keep finding ways to share your content, creatively and helpfully.

8) Follow the 80/20 rule -- don’t sell, build! (trust, community, relationships)

The 80/20 rule states that 20% of your content should be about you and your brand. The other 80% should be content that your audience will find helpful/relevant/interesting/funny/provoking...

For every post talking about a sale, a new product, store hours, or the like, you should have four posts that will simply add value to your audience’s lives.

9) Understand your analytics and learn from them

There is no shortage of third party apps and sites that will provide a tremendous amount of data about your social media’s analytics. But Facebook and Twitter each have very powerful analytic tools built right into the platform. They are free to access and will provide you invaluable data that you can learn from and use to improve your content and digital strategy.

To access your Facebook analytics, go to your brand page and navigate in the top menu bar to “Insights.” For Twitter, login to your account and open a new tab. Then go to analytics.twitter.com and they will be there waiting for you.

If you’ve never visited either, you’ll be amazed what you can learn.

10) Display your handles (and your hashtag) for the world to see

If you have a brick and mortar store or a restaurant, display your handles (and your hashtag) loud and proud. Let people know that you want to see pics of their new end table or the special cocktail you just served them.

Don’t have a brick and mortar store? Promote your handles in your emails and newsletters. Put it on your website. If you have clothing or merchandise, include your hashtag on it. If you are in front of a crowd (one person or ten thousand), let them know how to find you online.

No one will care more about what you have to say online then the people who already love what you do offline!

That's it!

Hope these tips help take your social media to the next level this holiday season. If you have any questions, be in touch through the comments or via email, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

In the meantime, keep telling your story!
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Skittles Perfect Response

9/20/2016

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Yesterday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted this:
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The backlash was quick and it was fierce. A particularly good response (one of thousands) came from Jon Favreau, who used to work for President Obama.
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And on the other end of the spectrum, here’s one from @darth:
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It’s worth noting that as offensive as Trump Jr.’s tweet was, it wasn’t even an original idea.

When Ben Carson was running for president, he often used a similar analogy to justify his opposition to accepting Syrian refugees, except he substituted Skittles with rabid dogs.

Mike Huckabee, during his run for president, used peanuts. Others have replaced Skittles with M&Ms or grapes.

Former Congressman Joe Walsh—who you might remember as the guy who threatened President Obama in the aftermath of this summer’s shooting in Dallas—was offended by the tweet, but only because he didn’t get an h/t.
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Suffice to say, it’s not a new argument.

Now imagine you are Skittles (the brand), and suddenly—inexplicably—you find yourself trending on social media. What’s your response?

Really think about what you would do. A massive, household name is being equated with poison and refugees and xenophobia. Do you attempt to “capitalize” on the situation, ensuring the world that every Skittle in the bowl is good and poison-free? Do you try to be funny, serious, irreverent, angry… On a situation like this one, you could ask a hundred branding experts, and they would all probably have a different idea.

And yet, Skittles managed a perfect response. Here it is in its entirety:

Skittles are candy. Refugees are people. We don’t feel like it’s an appropriate analogy. We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing.

In 30 words, they clarified that they are offended by the comparison, that they don’t agree with it, and that they would now be shutting the hell up.

In fact, despite the fact that they are a brand with a vibrant social media presence, their Facebook and Twitter accounts have gone completely radio-silent since this controversy erupted yesterday.

Here is the lesson for brands: don’t see every mention of your brand as an opportunity to raise sales or increase market share. You can’t capitalize on tragedy; trying typically raises your profile in ways you don’t want and associates you with a story which you probably don’t want to be a part of.

It’s so easy to see how this could have gone wrong for Skittles. Instead, they came out the heroes in the story. Or, at the very least, not one of the villains.

Epilogue
The bowl of Skittles in the picture that Trump Jr. tweeted was used without attribution. And much richer than that: the photographer was once a refugee himself!
 
Want to read more great responses to this awful tweet. Here are 21 you are sure to appreciate. Did you see any others in the Twitterverse that aren’t on this list? Tweet them at us or share them in the comments.
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