#EDIT ONE MORE TIME TO ADD: THIS IS WHY I DONT POST MORE SCIENCE STUFF :( | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fitscientist · 8 months

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These are all totally genuine questions, I'm not trying to be rude or snarky at all, just trying to clarify and learn! This subject has always kind of confused me... But just curious about your tag about the last time net neutrality came around - wasn't it kind of always around unofficially/there were no rules really before being solidified in 2015 and then they repealed it a couple years later? Do you mean you lost 3k followers in 2015 or when it was repealed? And how does net neutrality make you lose followers - isn't it basically just about all sites being treated without discrimination by internet providers? Again, genuinely asking!

Hi anon - you haven't followed me long enough have you? hahaha :) I don't want to talk too much about it (especially since, well, I lost a lot of followers, the most I ever had in my life), but I will answer, since I think it's an important topic and that well, it brings up an important discussion about what content is "allowed" by the masses especially when you're a blog that isn't fandom or random.

TL;DR is that when Net Neutrality was threatened (idk, 2017? 2018? can't remember, it's late at night here so I can't be bothered to google when exactly, but you get the gist), I posted a lot about it, trying to bring awareness and showing that YES this is an important topic and people should be aware - I don't want to pay a premium internet service to get on Facebook, or have my connection drop because I want to go to tumblr and tumblr didn't make an agreement with my internet company to provide faster service. This was especially important for me, since I was long distance with my boyfriend at the time-now husband, and the only way to connect with him (for free, as you know long distance calls - phone calls - are insanely $$$$ and I was a poor grad student) was over the internet - we used Skype and Facebook and I couldn't imagine being in a position to have to pay extra to access the websites I used to connect with him. I did post a lot about it. Unfortunately, and obviously, that didn't go over well, because I'm a Fitblr™ who is only allowed to post Fitblr™ Things™. I'm not a person, only a curator of Aesthetic™. So, yeah, LOTS of people left and unfollowed me around that time. 3k worth. In fairness, I did post quite a bit (well, I was anxious about it! I'm sorry!), but it wasn't more than a few posts a day for a couple weeks? Idk. Didn't seem like a lot at the time, but perhaps it was. Since I wasn't a random blog, I had a Blog Theme™, and in hindsight that's definitely why people unfollowed - they didn't want to see or hear anything that wasn't my theme- fitblr. They wanted fitness and health and food content, they didn't want to see some political(?) BS. I don't blame them at all, yet on the other hand I guess people have to realize the people running these different themed blogs are... people? And at the time, it was absolutely an outlet for my anxiety and stress. I was being overworked and burned out in grad school, and the thought of losing access to my person - was unbearable. And the way to feel more in control? Post about it. I couldn't donate money, and I didn't want to protest or sign petitions (shit, I didn't have time tbh), but at the bare minimum I could post about it on my blog to gain awareness.

I was being snarky the other day when it was trending again, so obviously I needed to reblog the Destiel meme and add my snark tags because, that's how we tumblrians do it. Because, well, good riddance, people suddenly agree five years later it's an issue and are suddenly actually in support of net neutrality!!! I was mad so the snark came out, and honestly I shouldn't have posted that. But I was snarky. Good riddance. I was right all along. And, I'll even say that in the body, not the tags.

#anon #I WAS RIIIIIGHT #personal #my post #tumblr lore #answered #fitscientist lore #i did gain back those 3k and more but definitely took a few years #about me #EDIT TO ADD: FUCK AJIT PAI FUUUUUCK HIM #EDIT ONE MORE TIME TO ADD: THIS IS WHY I DONT POST MORE SCIENCE STUFF :(

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that-one-guy-who-does-the-thing · 5 years

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everyone talkin about the king jumpin off the building at the end of fallen kingdom and how sad it is but everyone is forgetting the part from take back the night where the master villager guy was crushed by the spike flail. like fellas. the king survived. he survived the entire thing, but that master guy is like actually dead.

you know what? time to do a rundown on this original minecraft plus one parody series (take back the night, find the pieces, and dragonhearted are all original songs)

so first of all, let me point out something about fallen kingdom. people dont seem to notice it in the first listen and sometimes they never figure it out but the majority of it is actually a flashback. notice the king’s beard is longer in the night time scenes and everything’s broken. like, of course the king isn’t dead. how would he be walkin around after all that shit happened in the destruction if he was??? anyway, lets move on to something i spent too much time writing.

those songs introduced so many characters that are all unique but arent explored really at all (mostly because the songs dont tell much of a story. just the bare minimum because thats about as much as you can do with minecraft parodies.)

like the guard with the nose itch,

these fellas

and the archer

like you cant really notice it while youre dancing and stuff but these guys are pretty cool to me. notice in the second image of the guard, his mustache is bigger. this shows that time has passed from the flashback on the left and the flashback on the right. it’s showing how the characters age. might just be me but that sort of thing really shows that these characters have lives. the pigs you can tell someone put effort into their designs and the archer you can kind of tell he’s confused and has seemingly never really had to shoot at anyone before

and then onto the more “subtley characterized” characters

the queen

you can tell all the violence is too much for her. she cries as she watches her husband take the sword and go outside. other characters in reaction to the mobs simply grabbed weapons and fought back whereas the queen was just crying. granted we dont see many citizens fighting back against them at all but you get my point.

the three villagers from the search party

you can tell the white and green ones are more experienced. the brown one seems jumpy, frightened, and confused. the white one silently grieves when the green one tells them that the mother is dead.

...and now onto the more heavily focused characters

the pig king

surprisingly, the pig king isn’t really shown to do much other than sit around. they make it seem like he’s the one in charge of everything though. he’s important but he’s not shown as much. just wanted to get him out of the way cause this was a cool screenshot

the pig commander guy

this guy just screams “cocky bastard”. literally every time he’s onscreen he either has a smirk or is reacting to something else. bonus for his little science man on the right. he doesn’t show up again (to my knowledge) but you can tell exactly what kind of character he is. we’ve all seen the “science man raises one finger as the boss ignores him” scene. anyway, back to the cocky guy.

this scene really i think shows his character the best. mustache man here is cornered and afraid and resorts to crying and giving up. this pig guy mocks him for a second before raising his sword.

the trio from the beginning of find the pieces

the chef is another character you can kind of get. like, he’s your basic “happy neighbor pal” or.. or just you know. “the buddy”. he’s sittin there cooking and he’s real happy about it until the hero bursts into the room and he drops the bowl. he takes a second to see who did it and when he sees the hero he laughs about it. like a “ha ha classic hero”. his expression on the bottom is a fading smile after the hero explains a dream he had. this is important for later so hold onto that.

the farmer.

you can tell he’s just done with life. he’s living basically on autopilot at this point. he looks like he’d wear the “i really wish i weren’t here right now” pin. you can kind of see bored and “done with everyone’s shit” and maybe a bit of vague “nostalgia sadness” yknow? also, this is off-topic but this panel makes for a great meme template. go ahead and use it please thank you.

the scientist

honestly? this guy doesnt have any characterization other than “i am the smart”. like he’s just the guy that gets the scroll off the shelf and tells the hero about the kingdom. but i do really like this character nonetheless. you really know exactly what kind of person he is because you’ve seen this kind of person so many times before.

ok so. remember before when i was talking about the chef and told you to remember something? notice the colors of these three’s robes. these might be the same villagers from the search party. this could explain why the hero went to these three villagers and why the cook lost his smile when he heard the hero’s story and why the scientist had a map and knew about the kingdom. the farmer was the confused jumpy guy before but now it seems like nothing can phase him. this might be because he didnt really get to do anything and he wasn’t involved as much because he was just the backpack guy. ‘s also why he doesnt do much here either. that might be a stretch but idc man let me theorize.

also they show up again later

the scientist is the one designing all the iron golems and planning where they patrol during the big fight scene in dragonhearted. the scene is set up in a way that makes it seem like he is crushed and killed by big robo pig herobrine. this is not the case though.

all three are seen later in the final scene. theyre not dead (thank god)

anyway lets talk about the master

sorry for the weird stretching btw i edited all this in paint from screenshots. anyway uhh so the master. you get a little bit of characterization here from him. a lot of these characters are stereotypes but that’s really expected considering this is a minecraft parody series. theres not a whole lot of talking you can do. this guy is literally the master guy in an action comedy. you can tell what kind of action comedy master you get from this scene alone. he makes the hero stew so he’s obviously a very caring master, and the following scene shows that he has a sense of humor, but hides it just to look cool. the moment he notices someone see him laughing he pretends it never happened. also a small detail here i wanna point out real quick. i love that the villagers can separate their arms here, but i ESPECIALLY love when they put them together. like, they dont always do it but they still do. i just love it. anyway...

because of this and the fact that the hero and the master were pretty much the only two in the song for a while there, it actually stings when the master is killed. the hero’s reaction is DEFINITELY a factor in this too. this guy was like a second father to him and now this is the second father he’s lost. FUCK i love these songs SO MUCH. i wonder what it would be like if the master ever met the king

note: i didnt characterize the hero, the king, or herobrine given that they are the main main three characters. you can probably figure out their personalities on your own. (well, almost all of them. herobrine doesnt really have much of one other than “occasionally turns into a disney villain when he finds out the king took the eye out of the portal”)

anyway uh, another thing this series really does is just visuals. cool lookin scenes all over the place here.

like look at this shit. especially the ones from dragonhearted. i think that picture of the golem was used everywhere for a short time and i dont blame them. its an epic shot and i love it.

...and i didnt even include the two classic scenes that you can visualize in your head at any moment

these two moments are so fucking powerful you don’t understand. like look at these. god. shit, this is just.. hhhh i love this series so much. you know, sometimes i like to think of stupid theories... like imagine if revenge was actually part of this series. it has no effect on the story but it seems to follow the same “rules” (all characters are in hardcore mode is a big one). idk maybe they did happen in the same universe but steve is just a great ancestor to the king or something. anyway, thats all the energy i can spend on one post. it took an hour and a half to write this and grab the screenshots. feel free to add on to this list of things we all love about fallen kingdom and the others.

#minecraft #mineblr #fallen kingdom #captainsparklez #take back the night #find the pieces #dragonhearted #minecraft parody #sorry im adding so many tags i just #hhhhh spent a while writing this and i'd love for people to see this #long post

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froggy-s-thought-s · 3 years

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#13 - 5/12/2021

it's been nearly a month huh? no one cares but i guess i just didnt feel like posting but im back now! (there are also spoilers for the b*d b*tch cause im complaining about it! so be warned!!)

I watched some stuff while i was gone, read some fics, watch youtube and i went to school!! (its hybrid cause they still have to sanitize everything on Wednesdays) but i get to go and talk with my friends and.. yeah?

I drank a can of soda at like.. 8:30pm (20:30 in military time/24 hour clock) and that was fun.. i fell alseep at... some point? i dont really know when- then i woke up due to my alarm which is set for 5:30am and then i went back to sleep cause today is Wednesday for me and i dont have to actually go anywhere!

Since Today is, as i said before, Wednesday, our day is flipped around so we have home room, then math at 8:30 ish, then sometimes we had something at 10:30 and after that at 11:00 we have PE which is currently 7 minutes away from the time im writing this! regular days its homeroom, lang, science, math then history though this week it's homeroom, lang, math, science then history so second and thrid period got flipped.

the reason it's flipped is because we're doing math tests and the kids who go out there at that time always scream and dont shut the fuck up?? there's also this neighbor who has a hen whom's name i dont understand and a rooster named blue (his feathers are iridescent in the light) and they would hop over the fence for a bit till he raised how high it was.

ALSO there are these kids that keep coming onto school property and vandalizing it and harassing those chickens- and the thing is, they've come to or school before! last year they spat on one of the teacher's kids?? we also think they are apart of the theorized two groups of kids who have been vandalizing the school for the past while?

we have more security cameras and gates all around the school now but they keep hopping the back gate which is too far from the school to get a picture of their faces without my teacher bringing her phone with her to snap a picture..

alright so time line time:

1. they spit on my teacher's child (i think they also punched him if i remember correctly?)

2. they possibly/most likely spray painted the school

3. (time skip) they hop the back gate and scooter around on their scooters + hitting the chickens with sticks

4. my teacher goes down and confronts them to which they "circle her like sharks" as my teacher put it

5. they ended up leaving but came back with a couple more people + a ball to throw at the chickens

6. teacher goes back down tells them to leave, two of them leave properly while the two original kids try to wait out my teacher by the fence

7. they end up leaving because there are these dogs by the back gate which go ape shit if you come too close and they were clearly going buck wild so.. dumbasses?? (my teacher called the cops but they didnt show up which isnt a surprise cause there are bigger problems then a couple of trespassers after school hours)

8. sometime during the week last week they were talking about vandalizing the school while at like subway or something?? idk one of my classmates over heard it tho

9. they ended up doing it over the weekend to which the chickens' father (the person who owns them) calls the cops

10. i think they showed up this time? they didnt catch any of the kids but they did show up which is a start..

11. we found out the identity of one of the people who showed up in #5, he goes to a near by school i think and he tried to join this facebook(?) group cause my teacher is on it cause she lives near to the school..

and then his mom tried to join? and then his mom's friends????????? idk man sounds like a you fuckin problem, shouldn't have been hitting the chickens, trespassing on private property and vandalizing the school??

anyway.. i dont think there are any new updates after that, someone did carve some dicks and the word "peepee" into one of the kiddy playgrounds so thats not very cool, cant really say it was them though sense we dont have proof and it could very well just be one of the kids at our school..

N E WAY, i've also watched the first episode of the b*d b*tch and i paused part way through the second one cause.. its not really all that interesting to me? (this is the spoiler part)

I was kind of hoping we'd be able to see why they're so pissy over everything and see them grow as people but like.. nah... they just adopt a child, do some shit, go see some guy and thats about all that's happened so far..

the white washing is also nasty like.. i dont wanna see some white fucker who has the audacity to use 99's name in their title, i wanna see echo get better, i wanna see rex, wolffe.. literally anyone other than them??

idk man its just not really my vibe.. i pointed out how it felt like a bad fanfic to one of my friends who doesnt give a single shit about starwars over discord cause no one lets me talk about it in person cause im mostly just talking about how im in love with ventress or something..... ANYWAY i pointed out it felt like a bad fanfic and then i read someone else's post (sorry i dont remember who) who said all the characters are what you think they are, named what you think they are and act like you think they will so everyone is just their hat.

(side not: a hat is basically just; big man is strong, only thinks about hulk smash and loud!! leader guy is leader, smart guy is smart and sniper guy has a toothpick in his mouth and is a sniper guy (overly sarcastic productions did a good video on it, it's technically about culture's of hats but i think it works here still))

moral of the story: i dont really like the bad batch, i've always hated cr*sshair so i dont really care that he's properly evil (i really wanna see more of his evil-ness tho cause like.. bruh that shit cool).. also im going off of what i've seen which is one and a half episodes so there might be more stuff in the latter half of ep 2??

and uh.. a have a few fics i really want to read currently but i want to do some pacing around first!

if i have anything more to add i'll edit this, if not gnight, sleep tight, dont let the bed bugs bite!

(its like.. 12pm but whatever)

#mine #froggy clowning on themself #life update

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computerguideworld-blog · 5 years

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How a Computer Genius Bakes the Perfect Loaf of Bread

New Post has been published on https://computerguideto.com/must-see/how-a-computer-genius-bakes-the-perfect-loaf-of-bread/

How a Computer Genius Bakes the Perfect Loaf of Bread

You were chief technology officer at Microsoft; you have degrees in math, physics and economics; you hold hundreds of patents; youre a prolific author in both scientific and popular publications; what made you turn to food? I was interested in food before I was interested in any of those other things: Everybody is! I just never moved on. After I retired from Microsoft, I was cooking more, and I kinda thought there should be a big book I could get that would really tell me all about the latest techniques. Ultimately, I discovered there was no such book, and so I had to write it.

The book you had to write became Modernist Cuisine, an incredibly in-depth, scientific guide to basically all of cooking published in 2011. Why did you decide to focus on baking with your new book, Modernist Bread? Bread is one of the oldest foods of mankind. Its also a complicated food. You can eat a peach right off the tree, but bread is nothing like the grain its made from. Long before they knew how it worked, our ancestors figured out what to do. I wanted to go back using all the scientific techniques we have today and figure out if thats the best way to do things.

So what did you find out? One thing is that kneading is a fraud, at least as its normally described. It does not do what everybody says it does; its optional. There are all these no-knead bread recipes, but most books just sort of ignore that. What develops the gluten in bread is the flour just sitting with water. You can make the process happen faster if you knead, and it can affect the final texture of the bread, but its not necessary to the process.

Another thing we learned is that whole-wheat bread and whole-wheat flour is not any healthier for you than white bread and white flour. Its so different than what everybody knows that people think Im joking when I say it, but its definitely true. We also found that its difficult to get decent rye flour in the U.S. and as a result we dont get very good rye bread here. In Europe, they have better rye bread because they grind the flour in a special way, more finely.

Did you discover any techniques home bakers can easily use? The best way to make a crusty bread is to bake it in a cast-iron potbut use black cast-iron: The fancy enameled ones dont work as well. And the best way to cut your bread at home is with an electric carving knife, like people use on the turkey at Thanksgiving. The biggest thing is we try to explain how simple baking bread can be and how people shouldnt be afraid to make it at home. The fact is, bread is really quite forgiving, and with a good beginners recipe, you can get started.

The press release for Modernist Bread says that you and your more than 200 recipe testers used more than 19 tons of flour baking more than 36,000 loaves in more than 1,600 experiments over more than four years. Who ate all that bread? Mostly the people at our lab. There are about 100 people who work at our lab (not all on this project, of course), and they all got a lot of bread.

You come from a science background but also studied at Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne in France, which is very much dedicated to cooking as an art. How can the two approaches work together? Theres a wealth of knowledge that chefs and bakers have developed over the years thats still very valuable. They empirically discovered lots and lots of things without really knowing how it works. All the dishes and flavors that come from that, thats really important stuff. Other things, though, they say you do this for this reason, and sometimes thats not true, or you actually do it for a different reason. Thats also why we totally respect the methods of science and believe you should be able to test all your ideas and make sure theyre true, but at the same time, we also love the history and tradition of cooking and the debt we owe to all the chefs that have developed all this over all these years.

All three of your books take a very science-based approach to cooking, running hundreds of experiments on various techniques and ingredients to figure out what works best. Why dont you think more chefs do this? Theres a tremendous amount of tradition involved with cooking. I think if you actually understand how to do something, you have to understand why it works. In fairness, if you just follow a recipe, you dont need to know why it works. If youre happy with that, great. My book comes in for people who are curious about why it works, and if you want to create something new.

How did you first learn to cook? When I was about 9 years old, I discovered the library had a cookbook section, and I was fascinated. So I told Mom I was gonna cook Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. And I did it. I do a lot better at it these days, but that put me on the path to wanting to learn how to cook.

What does your home kitchen look like? A bit like the lab kitchen. To be honest, I dont think theres any equipment in there that would be in a normal home kitchen! I have a Thirode stove from France, two combi ovens, two French deck ovens for making bread, a huge cold-smoker, a sous-vide vacuum packer and a bunch of sous vide machines.

What are your favorite things to cook? My single favorite thing to do is barbecue. I was lucky enough to compete once in the world championship of barbecue with a team who would go on to win. It was no thanks to me, as the rookie on the team, but it was really fun to do. I also make a lot of French classics, so Im kind of all over the map.

Modernist Bread is a six-volume set that weighs in at over 50 pounds, has more than 2,500 pages in total and retails for more than $600. Who is the intended audience? Our books are for people who are passionate and curious about cooking. If youre not passionate, youre not gonna pick up a 2,600-page book. On the other hand, if you are passionate and curious, we will tell you things about bread that I dont think youll find anywhere else in the world. If youre a home baker, we have a lot of easy recipes, but we also want to include professionalsrestaurant chefs who might want to add house-made bread to their menus, as well as small-scale professional bakers.

What are your favorite places to eat in your home of Seattle? I love Nishino, Monsoon and Loulay. Theres also fantastic Chinese and Mediterranean food here. Were blessed with a lot of great food.

Which topic will the next book in the Modernist series cover? Right now, Im still on the book tour, so the next few months are definitely for promoting the book we have. Then well start thinking about what to do next. But there will absolutely be another book!

What are you working on right now outside the food world? I do research on asteroids, on dinosaurs. I take a lot of photographsI have a gallery in Vegas where we sell photos of food. I also have been making a couple of new microscopes and cameras to take pictures of things that arent possible with current equipment. Im a busy guy.

Modernist Bread will be released Nov. 7. You can follow Myhrvolds ongoing culinary experiments at modernistcuisine.com.

Interview has been condensed and edited.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com

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mariemary1 · 6 years

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How to Sell on Instagram Like the Pros [Proven Tips & Strategies]

By now, you’ve most likely heard that the Instagram platform has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and that 400 million+ people are using Instagram Stories on a daily basis.

But, did you know that Instagram now makes up more than one-third (36%) of Facebook’s total ad revenue? A revenue number that is expected to grow to $5.4 billion in the U.S. alone in 2018 and $9 billion globally by 2020.

Needless to say, Instagram advertising is becoming a huge deal for Facebook and an even greater opportunity for business looking to diversify their advertising channels and reach new customers.

In our latest episode of The Science of Social Media, we’re exploring tons of detailed tips, strategies, and best-practices for how businesses can sell on Instagram like the pros.

Let’s dive in!

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

What you’ll learn in this episode

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation between Hailley Griffis and Brian Peters. Short on time? No worries! Here are four quick takeaways:

Instagram Shoppable Posts: How they work, how to set them up, and how to get started

Our top dos and don’ts when it comes to how to sell on Instagram

Why UGC (user generated content) and influencer marketing are a few of our go-to Instagram marketing strategies

How to create an Instagram business profile that doubles as your business’ home page

Measuring the ROI of your Instagram advertising efforts

Must-read resources on how to sell on Instagram

How We Optimized Facebook Ads To Generate An Extra $102,580.47 In Sales… For Free! [CASE STUDY] – Digital Spotlight on Instagram Collection Ads

The Complete Guide to Instagram Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Instagram – Buffer Blog

Selling on Instagram: How to Use Instagram’s Shoppable Posts – HubSpot Blog

Optimal Timing, Videos, and More: 10 Easy Ways to Boost Your Instagram Reach – Buffer Blog

How to Sell With Instagram Shoppable Posts: Shopping on Instagram – Social Media Examiner Blog

How to sell on Instagram [complete podcast transcript]

Hailley: Hi everyone! I’m Hailley Griffis and this is The Science of Social Media, a podcast by Buffer. Your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and learning.

Brian: Welcome to episode #103! I’m Brian Peters and this week we’re exploring the exciting world of Instagram advertising. There are many opportunities for brands, businesses, and entrepreneurs to sell on Instagram – and all they need is a solid place and guide to get started.

Hailley: And what do you know – we’ve got that (and more) in store for you today. Let’s kick off the show!

Brian: In September of last year, Instagram announced their business community has grown to 2 million advertisers, up from one million advertisers back in March of 2017.

Now in 2018, that number is rapidly growing, which means 1) it’s a perfect opportunity for your business to jump on this exciting advertising trend and 2) two million advertisers might seem like a lot, but in reality, competition is still fairly low and return on investment remains high compared to other platforms such as Google and Facebook.

Hailley: Instagram is a very promising platform in terms of both organic posting AND advertising in 2018 and beyond.

Learning how to promote your products on Instagram without seeming sales-y offers businesses of all shapes, sizes, products, and services some incredible opportunities to reach their target audience and drive sales.

Get this, KeyBank analyst Andy Hargreaves recently estimated that Instagram could generate nearly $9 billion in revenue this year – and one The Street analyst believes that Instagram could hit 1.1 billion monthly active users by the end of 2018.

Meaning, your target audience is likely on the Instagram platform… or will be very, very soon.

Brian: Very soon!

However, being that Instagram is a visual platform first and foremost, the rules of the game are a bit different than you might be used to with other forms of social network advertising and posting.

Businesses and advertisers need to take a different mindset going in. Instagram is all about inspiration, discovery, branding, and what AdWeek calls the “continuation of customer journeys”

Hailley: Exactly. And, of course, the tradeoff with ads focusing on inspiration, discovery and branding is that there tends to be less drive for users to click directly on the ads, since their engagement is more likely to be about simply viewing what ads are offering to them than, say, purchasing a product.

But! this doesn’t mean that Instagram posts and ads aren’t valuable—in fact, it can be quite the opposite.

Instagram is one of the best platforms for brands to engage with customers who may not have intended to purchase a specific product.

Brian: So with that. What we have for you in today’s episode is a list of best-practices, tools, and key data points that you’ll need to know to be successful with Instagram posting and advertising, and ultimately, selling your product or service on the platform.

And remember, every successful content marketing and advertising strategy contains a willingness to experiment a TON, analyze results, and learn quickly.

The best top-level advice we can give you right off the bat is to take a growth marketing approach to your Instagram sales efforts.

Hailley: Alright, right off the bat lets cover Instagram Shoppable Posts.

You might have seen these in your feed over the last few months, but essentially Shoppable Posts allow eCommerce and others businesses to tag and add products directly to an image.

Users can then click on a specific product within an image and purchase the item directly on Instagram. So from discovery to checkout, users never have to leave the Instagram app which is pretty incredible.

Brian: Yeah I’ll admit that I’ve been hooked by several Shoppable Posts over the last few weeks. The experience is pretty seamless and fun actually.

However there are a few eligibility requirements you’ll need to check off before you can get started with Instagram shoppable posts:

You must be located in one of the following countries: United States, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, or Australis

You need an Instagram business account

You must be on the latest version of the Instagram app on either iOS or Android.

Hailley: Yeah, all pretty easy to that point. But there are two more steps to get started which can be a little tricky.

The first is that your business must sell physical goods that comply with Instagram’s merchant agreement and commerce policies. You can find these on Facebook’s website by searching “Facebook commerce policies” in Google.

And then second, your business profile must be connected to a Facebook catalog. This can be created and managed on Business Manager, directly on your business’s Page on Facebook, or through a 3rd party tool like Shopify.

Brian: I know it’s a bit hard to demonstrate how to complete the steps that Hailley just mentioned, however, be sure to check out this episode’s description in iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts and we’ll include a great resource that HubSpot recently created on getting all of this stuff set up.

Anyhow, as soon as you’ve completed those steps, your account will be reviewed by Instagram before you can access their shoppable posts feature. And once you’ve been approved, you will receive a notification letting you know you’re ready to start selling on Instagram. Boom!

Hailley: And that’s where the fun begins!

Whether you have access to Shoppable posts or not, there are some must-dos (and donts) when it comes to selling your product. And these apply to both organic posting and advertising on Instagram.

The first is that while selling on Instagram is easier than ever, it’s important to remember your audience shouldn’t feel like they are being sold to.

One way to think about it is that you as a business should aim to maintain your current content strategy, and only incorporating shoppable tags on photos that are a natural fit for your profile. The same goes for organic content as well.

Brian: Great point, Hailley. In other words, you’re going to have a lot more success by doing what’s already working for you rather than completely changing your strategy to try and sell products.

For example, a great way to organically sell your products through your posts is by leveraging high-quality user-generated content in your content and ads.

Here’s a fun fact, Millennials trust UGC 50% more than other types of media, so it makes sense that these images would work well for selling your product as well.

One of my favorite brands on Instagram is a outdoor retailer called Huckberry. They do a great job of incorporating UGC into their content naturally. Definitely go check them out for inspiration.

Hailley: Yeah and somewhat in the same realm of UGC is that you can also optimize your Instagram sales strategy by using influencer posts.

According to HubSpot, Instagram influencer collaborations and sponsorships have nearly replaced traditional ads and are a huge part of a social media strategies today.

One cool example of this is when Herschel Supply (a brand many of you might have heard of) featured a popular fashion model (Michelle Dee) using one of their suitcases on their profile. They of course tagged the suitcase allowing users to instantly purchase it.

Brian: Such a good example, Hailley, and so easily replicated as well.

You can quickly identify several influencers in your space and offer them some sort of compensation for capturing themselves using your product or talking about your product in some way.

Then, you can feature that post on your profile. And for a double win, you can also have them post it to their profile as well.

Lots of fun and creative ways to go about it.

Hailley: Switching over to some quick-fire tips and strategies for selling on Instagram like the pros.

First and foremost, and we’ve chatted about this before, is to treat your business profile as if it were your website’s homepage.

Think about this, there are currently about 3.2 billion internet users in the world.

1.1 billion of those people use Instagram. Meaning that more than one-third of the earth’s population of internet users are on Instagram searching, exploring, and connecting with brands and influencers.

It’s time we start treating social media profiles as more than just a means to an end. They are becoming the end!

Brian: Perfectly said, Hailley. Love that.

So what does this mean for you, you might ask?

Well, this massive shift in behavior means you should be spending as much time and effort curating a beautifully-designed Instagram feed as you would creating your website.

Yup, I said it!

Your Instagram Business profile is your first opportunity to make a great impression and entice people to follow your business. By creating a consistent brand story and aesthetic, you can turn new customers into devoted followers – taking one giant leap closer to making a sale.

Hailley: Another quick tip, along with doing what already works, is to use one of the most effective strategies out there for Instagram advertising and that’s promoting posts you’ve shared on Instagram.

Once you have a Business profile set up on Instagram, you can decide how much you want spend, where you’d like the ad to be seen, and how long you want to run it for.

What we do to decide which posts to advertise with is focus on engagement rate, rather than guessing or randomly picking posts. You can quickly calculate engagement rate for posts by going to your Business profile analytics and dividing the total engagement by total reach.

We also offer many of those same Instagram analytics and data points within the Buffer product for marketers managing Instagram from our dashboard.

Brian: Yeah, I love using Buffer to quickly figure out which posts to boost on Facebook and Instagram. Super easy.

One pro tip is to make sure that you’re using Facebook Ads Manager to manager (instead of just using the Promote button. This will give you a lot more options when it comes to audience targeting, creative, budgeting, and placements. So just a quick heads-up there.

Hailley: Yeah and, this is material for a separate episode entirely because there’s a ton to cover, but a lot of what we’re talking about today applies to Instagram Stories as well.

So, the basics like making sure you have a complete business profile, not totally changing your strategy just to sell, experimenting a ton, and promoting what works instead of guessing are all applicable to Stories.

However, I know I glossed over that part a bit, so stay tuned for another episode in the near future about using Stories, videos, and multimedia to continue to sell your products on Instagram.

Brian: Good call, Hailley. We could easily turn this episode into a 4-hour deep dive into Instagram advertising. Which we might have to do at one point!

But one more thing that I wanted to mention before you go is measuring the success of your Instagram content and Ads.

Be sure, be sure you have some sort of attribution model or tracking set up for your Instagram content, particularly with ads.

Hailley: Yeah, one of the biggest frustrations we hear from businesses is that they aren’t able to track the success and ROI of their advertising content.

Ensuring that your Instagram ads get credit for their role in any conversion is paramount to painting a clear picture of the full customer purchase journey.

And it has other benefits like making you look like a genius as well as justification for increasing your advertising budget in the future.

Brian: Yeah so first and foremost, use some sort of doc or spreadsheet to keep track of the links you’re using, the copy and image that was used with those links, and how they performed.

It’s important to keep experimenting with images, copy, shopping tags per post, or any other factors that may contribute to your Instagram sales success and have a system in place to track all of that will only make your job easier.

Hailley: No matter what type of products you sell, delving into your Instagram analytics allows you to understand your audience’s wants, improves your content, and ultimately helps you drive more traffic and sales.

Brian: Thank you for tuning in to the Science of Social Media today. The show notes for this episode are available in either iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll include links to all of the resources we covered into today’s show.

If you ever want to get in touch with me or Brian, we’re always here for your on social media using the hashtag #bufferpodcast. You can also say hi to us anytime and [email protected].

Hailley: As always, thank you so much for your iTunes reviews! We see more and more pouring in every week and we can’t tell you how much they mean to us.

Our goal is to get to 200 reviews by the end of the year and we’d love for you to help us make it happen!

How to say hello to us

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Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

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About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing strategies from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode. It’s our hope that you’ll join our 15,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

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Thank How to Sell on Instagram Like the Pros [Proven Tips & Strategies] for first publishing this post.

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