Social Media Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 11-17-2022

Before you start using Instagram, you may want to learn the lingo that Instagrammers use. Instagram doesn’t like accounts that act spammy or over-engage in certain behaviors, so you need to become familiar with a number of restrictions. When you follow other Instagram profiles, you can share posts, videos, and even entire profiles in a direct message to another Instagram user.

Article / Updated 11-14-2022

Listen to the article:Download audio If you're new to Instagram, you may be wondering where to start. Instagram (and its daddy, Facebook) is happy to help you make connections. You can find people in a few different ways. Finding your Facebook friends Facebook has a vested interest in making Instagram grow, so it tries to encourage you to round up your Facebook friends and bring them over to Instagram. It’s an easy way for you to find people. To find friends on Facebook, follow these steps: Go to your Instagram profile page by tapping your photo at the bottom right of your phone’s screen. Tap the person with a plus (and possibly a red number) at the top left. Tap the Facebook link at the top of your screen. Confirm your Facebook login by tapping OK.The screen displays how many Facebook friends you have on Instagram. Tap either Follow All or Follow.To follow every one of your Facebook friends on Instagram, tap Follow All. If you’d rather be more selective, especially because you'll likely be promoting your product or service, you may want to follow friends one by one. Simply tap Follow next to each friend you’d like to connect with, and keep scrolling and following! Some of your friends may have set their accounts to private. In this case, you see Requested after you tap Follow. They need to approve you before you can view their profile and posts. Syncing your contact list Instagram can also connect you with the contacts stored on your phone or tablet. After you activate this feature, your contacts are periodically synced with Instagram’s servers. Instagram does not follow anyone on your behalf, and you can disconnect your contacts at any time so that Instagram cannot access them. This feature may be best as a one-and-done in the beginning versus a constant connection for privacy purposes. To connect your contacts, follow these steps: Go to your Instagram profile page by tapping your photo at the bottom right of your phone’s screen. Tap the small person with a plus (and possibly a red number) at the top left. Tap the Contacts link.The next screen tells you that Instagram will find people you know, and you're given the option to follow them. To proceed, tap Connect Contacts.Another pop-up asks whether Instagram can access your contacts. Tap Allow Access. A pop-up appears asking you to allow Instagram access to your Contacts. This is your last chance to cancel your decision to allow Instagram to access your contacts. Tap OK.The pop-up goes away, and the Contacts screen appears. Follow all your contacts on Instagram by tapping Follow All, or choose which contacts to follow by tapping Follow next to each one. If you change your mind at some point and want to disallow Instagram’s access to your contacts, tap the wheel icon on your profile page, scroll down to Settings, and then tap Contacts. Tap the Connect Contacts toggle to return it to white, which terminates Instagram’s access.

Article / Updated 11-04-2022

Listen to the article:Download audio The search box at the top of Facebook's site allows you to search for a specific person by name. You can use it to find people you're already friends with and you just want to go to their timelines, or to find people you aren’t friends with yet. But basic search can be a little confusing because Facebook auto-completes the names that you type and assumes you’re trying to get to your friends’ timelines. If you’re the type of person who is used to pressing the Enter key to begin a search, this can send you to friends’ timelines when you meant to search for someone else named James, for example. Read on to learn better strategies for finding people on Facebook. You can also use the search box at the top of the site to find posts, pages, groups, events, and even things your friends have liked. Two basic ways to use Search in Facebook You’ll wind up using search two basic ways. The first way is if the name of the person you’re looking for (or at least someone with the same name) appears in the auto-complete menu. You can accomplish that sort of search following these steps: Begin typing the name you're looking for in the search box. Pay attention to the people who appear in the autocomplete menu. Facebook displays first your friends and then friends of friends. There’s a good chance that you may find the person you’re looking for in this menu. If you see the name in the autocomplete menu, use your mouse or arrow keys to highlight the person you're looking for. Click the name or press Enter. This brings you to the person's timeline, where you can verify that you know the person and add them as a friend. Use "See More" for a further search Type the person's full name in the search box. Click See More at the bottom of the search menu. The search menu expands to reveal new options for search. So, if you type Jane Smith and then click See More, you can now either search People Named Jane Smith, Pages Named Jane Smith, or Places Named Jane Smith. Click the People Named option. A blue friend icon is next to this option. A search results page appears with larger previews of people’s profile pictures and timeline info. The right side of the page also has options for narrowing your search using fields such as Gender, Employer, Current City, and so on. Use the fields on the right side of the page to zero in on your actual friend. This might be information like where your friend works or where they're from. When you find the person you’re looking for, add them as a friend.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

When someone infringes on copyright — whether it’s someone doing it to you or you doing it to someone else — there will be consequences. YouTube takes the breach seriously and will take down the infringing video. It also penalizes the offender with a strike. And as in baseball, if you get three strikes, you’re outta there! YouTube boots you and your channel if it gets to this point. To ensure that it doesn’t happen to you, follow this advice: Remember who owns the copyright It’s fairly simple: If you created the video, the copyright belongs to you; if you upload content created by someone else, the copyright belongs to that person, and you better get their permission before you upload it it. As soon as the work is created, so is the copyright, and since 1992, there’s no longer a renewal process. Copyright lives with the creator — and even lives on for a period after the death of the creator. Attribution does not absolve a copyright violation Some people steal other people’s work and claim it as their own, and that’s blatant infringement. But it’s no less of an offense when you use content and then add a line saying, “Created by so‐and‐so," or "No copyright infringement intended," or "All rights belong to their respective owners." It’s still a breach that can earn a strike and a block of the video. If you use someone else’s work in your video without that person’s permission, it doesn’t make it less of an offense just because you give the person credit. You’re still in violation because attributing the creator doesn’t absolve you if you don’t get permission. Know the consequences Two things can happen if you commit a copyright violation, and though they sound similar, they’re completely different: Takedown notice: If someone spots content they’ve created being used without their permission, they can send YouTube a complaint. If it’s a breach, YouTube takes down the video and issues the offender a copyright strike. If you feel compelled to lodge a complaint, just be extra sure that it’s your content and that the breach is accurate, because you’re initiating a legal process. Content ID match: Content ID is a system YouTube uses to automatically match content that violates copyright against the millions of videos uploaded every month to the site. For Content ID to work properly, copyright owners have to upload so‐called reference files — original versions of their work that prove they own the rights. Normally, record labels, movie studios, or TV stations go through this process for all the work they publish, so individual artists don’t have to worry about it. Every new video uploaded to YouTube is checked against this huge library of reference files, and if there is a match, YouTube automatically files a copyright claim for the owner of the work. No matter how a copyright violation may have been discovered, if you breach another content creator’s copyright, that creator is in a position to have YouTube take down your content. In the event of a mistake, you can send YouTube a notice saying that an error occurred, but you had better be darn sure about it. If the claim ends up being proven correct, or if you were untruthful in any way, you may find yourself in much bigger trouble, including legal action. The profit motive is irrelevant Some folks will say, “Hey, it’s all right if I use someone else’s content, because I’m not looking to make any money.” Say that before the judge and the verdict will still be “Guilty of copyright infringement!” Whether you intend to make money from the video or you simply want to share your masterpiece with the world, it still doesn’t mean that you can violate copyright law. You need to get permission from the copyright holder. Getting permission for using copyrighted material Getting permission to use someone else’s copyrighted material is often well within the realm of the possible. A nicely written note explaining how you would use the content usually is enough for a rights holder to grant permission. Just remember that it can get dicey, because sometimes permission comes with the caveat that you cannot monetize the overall video. That restriction can hurt big‐time if your intention is to quit your day job, but it may end up being a bittersweet solution if you’re merely looking to add flavor to your video. Fair use is complicated Albert Einstein never failed math, unicorns don’t exist, and fair use is anything but easy — or fair — to understand. Debunking the first two of these myths is easy. All right, maybe the first is, but when it comes to fair use, that’s a single‐horned horse of a different color. Many misconceptions exist surrounding fair use, among them the notion that you can use anything you want as long as you don’t go beyond some arbitrary time constraint. But it’s much more complicated. In some editorial situations, you can use copyrighted material without permission, but you must fully understand those situations to avoid future trouble. If you feel the need to exercise fair use, and the use is for nonprofit and educational purpose, here a few acceptable uses to consider: Criticism: Reviewing a movie or some form of music makes it perfectly acceptable to use copyrighted material without permission, for example short clips on the work you critique. Parody: If you’re poking fun at something, it’s acceptable to use content without first gaining permission. Commentary: This one depends on how you use the material. If it’s used just enough to illustrate your point, it’s acceptable. For instance, gamers on YouTube often record themselves playing a new video game and offer funny observations. This is, within limits, fair use. Academic: If you're creating educational content, it's considered fair to use to reference other works in certain situations. And now for the misconceptions: You can use 40 seconds of anything: It’s completely untrue. You can’t use even 4 seconds if it doesn’t comply with the circumstances in the preceding list. As a best practice, use the least amount of copyrighted material to get your point across, and always credit the original copyright owner. The notion that you can decide fair use for yourself: Fair use is complicated for many situations, so you may not be sure exactly what you’re allowed to do. The thing is, if you stretch the limits of fair use too far, and harm the original copyright owner's ability to profit from their work, you can be sanctioned by YouTube. That’s why a copyright attorney should decide any serious question over fair use. Don’t let copyright issues on YouTube lead to a strikeout Three strikes and you’re out is a common understanding when playing baseball. But in baseball, you get another chance after another eight batters have had their try. YouTube doesn’t share this benevolence, so if they give you three strikes — especially for copyright issues — that means a lifetime ban from its partnership program. That’s something you don’t want on your record; worse yet, once that happens to you, you won’t be able to recover any of your videos. So, you want to avoid getting strikes at all costs. There are two types of YouTube strikes: Community guideline strike: This type can result from a variety of causes, ranging from uploading objectionable content to having a misleading thumbnail or caption. You can learn more about these guidelines on YouTube's Community Guidelines page. Copyright strike: If some part of your video includes content from another creator and that creator did not grant you permission, you can get a copyright strike. You can appeal it or take down the video to avoid a possible strike. Other things you should know: Mandatory copyright school must be completed: After your first strike, YouTube requires that you take an online course and take a little quiz to be sure you’re up to speed on copyright regulations. Strikes come down, eventually: As long as you haven’t struck out, community guideline strikes and copyright strikes disappear after 90 days from the time they’re issued. At that point, YouTube restores any channel privileges you lost while you waited out the strike. If you draw three community guideline strikes or three copyright strikes over a 90-day period, your YouTube channel will be terminated. Your fate usually lies with the copyright holder: That person can decide whether the video you uploaded should be removed, flagged in certain regions, or even monetized. Yes, that’s right: Even though the video may contain only a small portion of the person’s material, they're entitled to all monetization proceeds. They can even put ads on your video, if you haven’t added monetization. Wipe the slate clean If you get a copyright strike from YouTube and you’re positive that you’re in the right, go ahead and appeal the strike with a copyright counter-notification. If you’re not sure whether you can win, maybe it’s better to wait it out until the strike expires. You see, after you appeal the strike, your personal information goes to the copyright holder and that person can possibly sue you for copyright infringement. If the situation gets to this level, you still can work out an agreement directly with the copyright holder and see whether they will file an appeal with YouTube on your behalf if you both agree that you were within your rights to use the copyrighted material. It’s worth a shot. YouTube’s robots are good at finding copyright infringements Whether intentional or inadvertent, sometimes the content of other creators gets used in a YouTube video. Sometimes the breach is noticed, and at other times it goes undetected by the original creator. But as YouTube continues to refine its copyright detection system, the system will find infringements more quickly than ever. Part of those refinements to YouTube’s copyright detection system include sophisticated algorithms that scan every uploaded video and compare it to similar uploaded content, looking for matches with music, video, or pictures. It seems music gets detected the most. Even if it’s background music, you may get sanctioned. Usually, YouTube blocks the video, and you must submit a dispute form. Copyright is not forever, but it’s forever enough for YouTube Copyright lasts for 70 years past the death of the author; after that point, the copyrighted content enters the public domain. When that happens, the content is no longer protected by intellectual property laws, and anyone can use it without permission. Of course, for many people on YouTube, that content isn’t available to use without permission until we near the next century. Of course, if the creator (or the creator's heirs) files a copyright extension, they can hold on to the rights — that way, the video of your dog dressed as a spider can stay in the family for as long as possible.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

If you forget your YouTube username or password, don't panic. YouTube has your e-mail address, and you can retrieve your forgotten username or password from them. (When you first register with YouTube, jot down your username and password, especially if they’re different from those that you use regularly on other websites.) Go to YouTube.com and click the Sign In link at the top-right corner of the page. Bam — the sign in page appears. Click either the Forgot Username link or the Forgot Password link. Enter your username. Enter the verification code from the multicolored text. Be sure to copy it exactly, using uppercase or lowercase, as shown in the code. Click the Reset My Password! button. YouTube sends an e-mail containing your password to your registered e-mail address. If you still can’t log in with what you’re certain is your correct username and password, it’s probably because you don’t have cookies turned on in your browser preferences. If you’re using Chrome, for example, at the top-right corner of the screen, click the three vertical dots icon. Choose Settings. Under Security and Privacy, click Site settings. Scroll down and click Cookies and site data. From here, you can choose Allow all cookies, Block all cookies, or select other options.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

As a YouTube channel manager or content creator, your work may well be done when you’ve uploaded your videos and set the metadata. The last step when uploading a video is to publish it. Publishing is all about configuring the privacy settings that are most appropriate for your users and clicking Save during the upload process or by selecting a video on the YouTube Studio Video tab. For most channel managers, that means specifying one of the following: Private: Only you and people you choose can watch the video. You can manually send an invitation, or YouTube can send it to the email addresses you specify. Once you select Private, the Share Video Privately link appears. Click the link and enter the email addresses of your recipients. After you enter the addresses, click the "Notify via email" checkbox. When invitees get the invitation via email, they must log into their Google account to view the video. Unlisted: Anyone with the video link can watch the video. The difference between this setting and Private, is that anyone who has the link can share it with others. Public: The video will be available for anyone on YouTube that finds your video from the search engine, or stumbles upon it. When you choose this setting, you have the option to Set as instant Premiere, which means you and your viewers can watch it at the same time. Schedule: Choose this option and a dialog appears enabling you to set the date and time for when the video will be available on YouTube. When you schedule a video, you also have the option to set it as a Premiere. After choosing an option, you save, publish or schedule the video. If you choose the make the video Private or Unlisted, click the Save button. If you choose Public, click the Publish button. If you choose Schedule, click the Schedule button. Be sure to keep YouTube's copyright rules in mind, and follow them carefully. YouTube takes copyright infringement very seriously and there will be consequences if you violate the rules. After you publish videos, you have the option to unpublish them or delete tone or more videos To accomplish either task, log into YouTube, click your avatar and then choose Your Channel from the drop-down menu. Click Your Videos to display the Channel content page, which lists all your videos starting with the most recently published. To unpublish a video: Double-click the video thumbnail. The Video Details page appears. In the Visibility section, click the down-pointing arrow to the right of current visibility state. The Visibility options appear. To delete a video: Open the Channel content page as outlined previously. Click the Options icon. It’s the three dots to the right of the video thumbnail. Choose Delete Forever from the drop-down menu, as shown in the Figure below. YouTube displays a warning dialog that this action is undoable. Click the checkbox to acknowledge that deletion is permanent can cannot be undone. Before you delete a video from YouTube, you have the option to download it. Click Delete Forever. Poof. The video disappears in a cloud of virtual smoke. To delete multiple videos: Open the Channel content page as outlined previously. To select videos for deletion, click the check box to the left of any video you want to delete. You can select contiguous or non-contiguous videos. Click the More Actions link. A drop-down menu appears with the option to delete forever. If you choose one video, you also have the option to download the video. Choose Delete Forever. After choosing this option, YouTube displays a warning that you are about to delete (the dialog lists the number of videos you are about to delete) forever. Click the checkbox to acknowledge that deletion is permanent can cannot be undone. Your only other option is Cancel. Click Delete Forever. The videos are lost in cyberspace.

Article / Updated 09-30-2022

Instagram has a ton of filters to help improve your photos. Start by taking a shot for an Instagram post. The photo you take appears in the Instagram viewer of the Filter screen. The screen contains the following four sections, from top to bottom: The top menu bar, with a < (back) icon on the left, the Lux icon in the center, and the Next link on the right The viewer, which displays your photo A row of filter thumbnail images so you can see what your photo will look like with a filter applied The bottom menu bar, with a Filter menu option (selected by default) and the Edit option Not interested in editing your photo in Instagram? Simply tap the back icon in the upper-left corner to save your photo. Instagram saves your photo automatically and displays the camera screen so you can take a new photo if you want. Applying an Instagram filter Below your Instagram photo in the viewer is a row of filters. Each filter includes a thumbnail image so you can see the filter’s effect on your photo. Swipe from right to left in the row of thumbnail images to view all 23 of Instagram’s filters, from Clarendon to Nashville. (Normal is the default image, without a filter.) Tap a filter thumbnail image, and the photo in the viewer changes to show you the photo with that filter applied. To return to the original photo, tap the Normal thumbnail. To continue processing the photo with a filter, either tap Edit at the lower-right corner of the screen to edit your photo further, or tap Next in the upper-right corner of the screen to add a description to your photo. What happens when a filter is not quite to your liking and you’d like to tweak it? You can change the intensity of any Instagram filter (except Normal) by tapping the filter thumbnail image again. A slider appears; move it to the left and right to change the intensity. The photo in the viewer changes to reflect the selected intensity. The default intensity for each filter is 100. In iOS, a white box appears to the right of the slider. Tap this box to add a white frame around the photo. If you don’t like having the white frame, tap the box again. When you’ve set the intensity to just the right amount, tap Done (iOS) or the check mark (Android). If you’re still not satisfied and want to return the photo to its original intensity, tap Cancel (iOS) or the X (Android). Keep in mind that any Instagram filter settings will revert to the default after you leave this screen. If you want to see how the photo with a filter compares to the original photo, tap and hold down on the viewer to view the original photo. Release your finger to see the photo with the applied Instagram filter. Managing Instagram filters Are there too many filters or are your favorite ones are too far down in the list? No problem. Swipe to the end of Instagram’s filter list, and you’ll see a Manage icon. Tap the icon to open the Manage Filters screen where you can perform three tasks: Change the order of filters in the row, add filters, and disable filters. The filters on the Manage Filters screen appear in the same order as they do in the Filter screen. You can change the order of Instagram’s filters as follows: Tap and hold down on a filter name in the list.The filter name gets larger after you hold down on the name for about a second. Move the name in the list.As you move the filter name, other filter names helpfully move out of the way so you can see where your selected filter will appear in the list. When the filter is where you want it, release your finger.The filter name appears in your desired location in the list. That’s all there is to it! To return to the Filter screen, tap Done (iOS) or the check mark in the upper right (Android). When you swipe up and down in the list of filters on the Manage Filters screen, you may see several names that don’t have check marks to the right of the filter name. These filters are disabled, but it’s easy to add any of them to the Filter screen: Simply tap a filter name that doesn’t have a check mark to the right of the name. A check mark is added, which means the filter is active. Tap Done, and you return to the Filter screen, where you see your new filter in the row of filters. If you decide that you don’t want to include one or more filters in the Filter screen, you can disable it by tapping the filter name in the list on the Manage Filters screen. The check mark to the right of the name disappears. (To add it back, just tap the disabled filter name again.) When you’re finished, tap Done (iOS) or the check mark in the upper right (Android). Tweaking your Instagram photos with the editing tools When you’ve finished experimenting with filters, view Instagram’s editing tools by tapping Edit (iOS) or Edit/Filter (Android) at the bottom of the screen. (Some Android users may see a wrench icon instead.) A row of editing tools appears below Instagram’s viewer. Swipe from right to left in the row of editing tools to see all 13 tools. Tap a tool to open it below the viewer. What you see below the viewer depends on the tool you tapped. For example, when you tap the Brightness tool, a slider appears so you can increase or decrease the photo’s brightness. No matter what tool you use, the photo in the viewer reflects the changes you make and a gray dot appears below the tool icon. Here’s what you can do with each of Instagram’s editing tools: Adjust: You can adjust your photo in several ways by using the Adjust tool. Instagram automatically adjusts your photo to center it before you make any adjustments. A row of three icons and an associated slider bar appear below the photo so you can make the following changes: Change the vertical or horizontal perspective of the photo by tapping the left or right icon, respectively, below the photo. After you tap the icon, it’s highlighted in black. The slider bar is a series of vertical lines. Swipe left and right in the slider bar to see the change reflected in the photo. As you slide, the highlighted icon above the slider bar is replaced with a box that shows you the change amount measured in degrees. If the object in your photo appears tilted, tap the straighten icon in the middle of the icon row. Then swipe left and right in the slider bar to tilt the photo so that the object appears straight. As you swipe in the slider bar, a box appears in place of the straighten icon and shows you the number of degrees you’re tilting the photo. Rotate the photo 90 degrees counterclockwise by tapping the rotate icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. Keep tapping the rotate icon to continue to rotate the photo in the viewer. Crop the photo to a specific area by first zooming in (touch the photo and spread your thumb and index finger apart) in the viewer. Then hold down on the photo and drag it in the viewer until you see the part of the photo you want to post on your Instagram feed. If you decide you don’t want to crop the photo, zoom back out to the photo’s original size by pinching your thumb and index finger together in the viewer. You can overlay a grid on the photo to help you center it. On the iPhone and iPad, the grid icon appears at the upper-left corner of the screen. Tap the grid icon to change the size of the grid. On an Android device, tap the photo until you see the size of the grid you want. If you tap the grid icon or photo often enough, you’ll remove the grid entirely. Brightness: In the slider bar below the viewer, slide the dot to the left to darken the photo or to the right to make the photo brighter. As you move the slider bar, the photo in the viewer darkens or brightens accordingly. Contrast: In the slider bar, make the light areas of your photo even lighter by sliding the dot to the left. Make the dark areas even darker so the focus is on the lighter areas of your photo by sliding the dot to the right. Lux tool: At the top center of the Filter and Edit screens is an icon that looks like a magic wand. Tap it to open the Lux tool, which you can use to quickly change the exposure level and brightness instead of using the separate Brightness and Contrast editing tools. Move the slider to change the exposure level and brightness. When you’re finished, tap Done to save your changes, or tap Cancel to discard them. If you want to undo any edits you’ve made, tap the Lux icon and then move the slider to its default location, 50. (The default setting for the Brightness and Contrast editing tools, however, is 0.) When you’re done, tap Done. Structure: This tool enhances the details in the photo, such as adding color in an area that appears washed out in the original. In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to see how the tool increases the details of the photo in the viewer. If you think the photo is too detailed, slide to the left to make the photo fuzzier. Warmth: In the slider bar below the viewer, slide the dot to the right to make the colors warmer by adding orange tones or to the left to make the colors cooler by adding blue tones. Saturation: In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right or left to increase or decrease, respectively, the intensity of all colors in your photo. Color: You can change the color of your photo’s shadows or highlights or both, as well as change the intensity of the tint. Eight colors are available: yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, cyan, or green. To change the color of shadows in your photo: Tap Shadows, if necessary (it’s the default), and then tap one of the color dots. To change the highlight color: Tap Highlights, and then tap one of the eight color dots, which are the same colors as those used for shadows. To change the tint intensity for the shadow or highlight color: Tap the color dot twice. In the slider bar that appears below the viewer, slide the dot to the left or right to decrease or increase the intensity, respectively. When the intensity looks good to you, release your finger from the dot and then tap Done (iPhone or iPad) or tap the check mark (Android) to return to the Color page. Fade: Do you want your photo to look like it’s been sitting in a shoebox for years . . . or decades? In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to fade the color from your photo or to the left to add color. Highlights: In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to increase the brightness in bright areas of the photo. Slide to the left to darken the bright areas in the photo. Shadows: In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to lighten the dark areas in your photo. Slide to the left to darken the dark areas. Vignette: This tool allows you to darken the edges of the photo so people will focus on the center of the photo. In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to darken the photo edges. Tilt Shift: You can blur the outer edges of your photo and keep the center in clear focus so people will automatically look at the focused area. Tap Radial below the viewer to blur all four edges of the photo and keep the center focused in a circular shape. Tap Linear to blur just the top and bottom edges of the photo. You can change the size of the “unblurred” area of the picture by tapping the center of the photo with your thumb and forefinger. Then spread them apart to make the area larger or together to make the area smaller. Tap Off if you don’t like the changes and want to keep your entire photo in focus. Sharpen: This tool sharpens features that aren’t visible in the original photo, such as the texture on a wall. In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right and left to make the photo less and more fuzzy, respectively. After you finish making changes to your photo, apply your effect by tapping Done (iOS) or the check mark (Android). Or discard the effect by tapping Cancel (iOS) or the X (Android). Saving the changes (or not) to your Instagram photos When you’ve finished using Instagram’s editing tools and filters, you can do one of three things: Discard your changes and return to the Photo screen by tapping the left arrow icon in the upper-left corner and then tapping Discard in the pop-up menu. Save your changes and continue editing by tapping the left arrow icon and then tapping Save Draft in the pop-up menu. Then Instagram takes you back to the camera screen, not your photo, so you’ll have to select the photo in your library to continue editing it. Add a description to the photo by tapping Next in the upper-right corner. The New Post screen appears, where you can add a caption and location, tag friends, and decide if you want to share the photo on other social networks. Now, go show the Instagram world all of your best shots!

Article / Updated 09-16-2022

The more you do, the more contacts you could have in your LinkedIn network! If you want to build and expand your LinkedIn network, follow these steps: Fill out your LinkedIn profile completely. Check for former colleagues and classmates who are on LinkedIn by using specific LinkedIn searches. Import your Outlook contacts. Add former email addresses to your account so past connections can find you more easily. Check for people who share a group or affiliation with you. Go through your business cards for potential contacts and search for them on LinkedIn. Send them an invitation or a request to join. Search through your first-degree network connections. Advertise yourself by joining and participating in LinkedIn groups. Use the People You May Know feature. Meet people on LinkedIn (through LinkedIn groups and jobs as well as your news feed discussions) and then invite them to join your network.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 09-02-2022

Twitch is an exciting entertainment platform. With Twitch, you can watch broadcasters show off their talents as they live-stream themselves playing video games, playing music, showing off their hobbies, and so much more. And you can set up your own channel and start broadcasting your own content. The great thing about Twitch is that you can interact with your audience while streaming, which builds a sense of community.

Article / Updated 08-10-2022

Video reports and audience retention graphs are designed to help you understand how well your viewers are responding to your YouTube channel content. To find out who’s watching your YouTube videos, you have to try a different tack: check out YouTube’s audience reports. Diving into YouTube’s demographics metrics It helps to know who’s watching your YouTube content so that you can make important content-planning decisions. The Audience tab of YouTube Analytics is a fascinating way to analyze your channel demographics, because you can get concrete information about your audience members’ gender, age, and country of residence. Certain audience reports allow you to filter to see results explicitly from your subscriber base. Sometimes, it’s interesting to see whether your subscriber demographics mirror your general audience demographics. To access audience reports, follow these steps: Go to YouTube. Log on to your YouTube account.If you see the blue Sign In button in the top right corner of the YouTube home page, enter your email address and password. Click the Logged-In icon and choose YouTube Studio from the menu that appears.The YouTube Studio navigation menu should appear on the left side of your browser. Choose Analytics from the navigation menu. Click to open the Audience tab on the Reports menu.Here you find summary reports of age and gender. Click the See More link at the bottom of the Age and Gender summary report, and examine the charts and their accompanying details.It’s terrific if your audience is exactly what you thought it would be. If it isn’t, revisit your assumptions. You may find that your content is having wider interest, which may be a good thing. Conversely, if you’re not seeing enough traction, perhaps you’re not engaging enough with key creators and fans in your core demographic to help you get the word out. Refine the report to show only subscribed viewers by choosing Subscription Status from the filter drop-down menu.Look closely at how the graphs change. If you see a big difference, determine whether subscription requests are working more broadly than expected, because your content certainly is appealing to others. Make it a habit to compare your demographic information over time to detect any shifts in your audience. Diving into YouTube subscribers metrics Knowing your YouTube subscribers’ patterns and where they’re doing their subscribing is an important part of your channel management responsibilities. YouTube is well aware of that, which is why it offers a subscription source report as part of YouTube Analytics. Here’s how to access it: Go to YouTube. Log on to your YouTube account.If you see the blue Sign In button in the top right corner of the YouTube home page, enter your email address and password. Click the Logged-In icon and choose YouTube Studio from the menu that appears.The YouTube Studio navigation menu should appear on the left side of your browser. Bring up the Analytics section of YouTube Studio. Click on Advanced Mode from the top right of the screen.Within the Advanced Mode window, click on More from the Reports menu and find the Subscription Source option. Look at the report’s table section to see where on YouTube your audience subscribes to your channel.In addition to subscriber gains, you see the number of subscribers lost, too, which is a normal part of channel activity. Interested in learning more? Check out our YouTube Channels Cheat Sheet.