Social Media Guide for Beginners

As someone who has worked with social media for several years, both unpaid and professionally, I definitely have some experience under my belt when it comes to marketing with it.  Due to some requests made upon me, I decided to make this sizeable post to discuss some social media basics.  None of these will go into to much depth, but for a beginner, it should give a good overview of everything that should be done and considered with social media.

You can check out more of my posts on marketing here.

Overdue Update Post

Upfront, I apologize for not posting an update here sooner about where I disappeared to.  Time really gets away when you have a lot going on.  I will get into the nitty gritty below the cut, but if you want the TL;DR: I will be stepping away from regular updates on this blog and go to irregular updates.

Getting a Start with Networking

No matter your industry, networking is an important activity you need to participate in.  Whether you want to reach the top of the fame chart or just get your foot in the door, networking is generally what will get you there.  This is even truer in today’s times where getting yourself seen by any one semi-important person can be a nightmare.  However, most people just starting out don’t understand what networking is.  Do you schmooze people at fancy cocktail parties?  Do you slap flyers into every industry person’s face?  In today’s post, I would like to talk about networking a bit, both how you should be thinking about it until you get more skilled and how to start.

Rebel’s Tips: How to Create a Tutorial

Even the most self-proclaimed, unskilled person is usually skilled at something.  Perhaps it’s something that is profitable, like coding, or perhaps it’s a hobby nobody really thinks about, like juggling.  This includes even you, the reader who is reading this post right now.  You too are good at something not everyone is.  No matter what you’re good at, it may have crossed your mind at one point or another if you should pass your skills onto another.  By this, I mean make a tutorial.

Personally speaking, I love all manner of tutorials.  I believe strongly that sharing knowledge is a powerful force we should all pursue at one point or another.  However, this is not so easy.  For many, they struggle to figure out what to share, how to share it, or any sort of combination between the two.  This is unfortunate, as everyone has worthwhile knowledge to share.  Yet, I also believe that anyone can learn how to make a tutorial.  Today, this is my goal.  Yes, I am essentially making a tutorial for making tutorials.  If you are one of those struggling people who want to make a tutorial but can’t, I hope you’ll stick with this post and learn a thing or two.

Rebel’s Writing Tips: 4 Things for Writing Vigilantes

Vigilantism is one of those aspects that often carries a certain romanticism to it in media.  Whether it’s a lone, broody person or a group, there is something poetic about people’s justice and the idea any person is able to take down criminals.  As such, vigilantes can often be a very popular type of character to write, fueling our imaginations with exciting imagery of daring trials and the ultimate prevailing of justice.  However, vigilantes are also a hard sort of character to write, as it often requires a certain balance between numerous aspects to succeed.  Today, I would like to talk about 4 elements to writing a vigilante character that I think are important to achieving that success.  While some may be obvious, they are things I do think get overlooked, so hopefully they will be contextualized in a way that gives you food for thought.

Rebel’s Writing Tips: 5 Basic Types of Character “Growth”

No matter what type of story you like, stories are all focused on the same thing: the journey from one point to another.  Sometimes these points are physical locations, and sometimes they’re internal, emotional journeys that realistically take place in a matter of seconds.  Nevertheless, as story consumers, we are partaking in a journey, usually with the focus being on one or more characters.  With this in mind, there is a major expectation that comes with the concept of a journey: change.  When a character goes on a journey, they are expected to grow.  This growth doesn’t have to be positive, but nevertheless characters are expected to show how a particular journey affected them.  This is not only important for making a story good, but also important for making a story impactful.

Unfortunately, character growth can be a hard concept to master for beginners (and even for those more experienced at writing).  However, I feel if you break it down, there are five basic types of character growth that you can use to create a compelling narrative.  Today, I would like to talk about these five types a little bit, breaking down the larger concept into more digestible chunks.

RV Movie Reviews: IO

VERY SMALL SPOILERS FOR IO AHEAD!

 

This was again another one of those weekends where I had a lack of things I wanted to watch.  Or more so, should I say, I wasn’t in the mood to binge a TV show, because I was too lazy to think.  Several times on my Netflix feed I had seen IO though, a sci-fi movie that seemed right for what I was in the mood for.  Taking the plunge, I decided to give it a chance.  As per usual, my review for it is simply my opinion.  If you felt differently, that’s awesome and you continue doing you.  Anyway, let’s get into it.

RV Movie Reviews: Bird Box

MINOR SPOILERS FOR BIRD BOX AHEAD!

 

Every once in a while, the stars will align so two things will happen in my life at once: I’ll remember the world’s general movie recommendation, and I’ll have a lack of other things to watch.  This is how I came to Bird Box this weekend, a movie recommended by many online personalities I watch.  While not one to usually take people’s movie recommendations, I was malleable and decided, “What have I got to lose?”  So the question then, is it as great as everyone says?  Well, let’s discuss that.  Of course, remember as always that this is just my opinion, and it’s just an opinion.  Also, please excuse the vagueness in some of these points, as it is one of those movies where it’s hard to say anything without spoiling elements.

Rebel’s Tips: 5 Red Flags in Job Postings

Finding a job, especially when you have no connections, is difficult even at the best of times.  Sometimes, your location is conspiring against you, and the only decent jobs would take a 2 hour commute every day.  Other times, every job around you will want a specific availability that you just don’t have for whatever reason.  This is not to mention that even when you find a job posting you like, it’s a gamble since the majority of job postings get hundreds of responses.  However, there is another issue at hand that also hurts everyone’s job hunting experience: bad jobs themselves.

Nobody wants to get stuck in a position they hate.  Not only is it mentally toxic to one’s well-being to be in such a situation, it is more likely you’ll just be on the hunt for a new job in a short period of time.  Spotting a bad job can be difficult though, since most of us have little to no familiarity with 99% of the companies out there.  Thankfully, though, there are a few red flags you can spot in job postings themselves that might clue you into the fact it’s a bad job.  Today, I would like to talk to you about five of those red flags in the hopes that you can save yourself time, energy, and soul from some dangerous entrapment.