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meshugana1 · 6 years

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Could you do a story for me where a hot college girl wishes for an even hotter figure and sex life, but ends up a gorgeous sexy lady who stays home all day because she has too much fun masturbating to leave her house? And she’s so embarrassed by her new like pervyness that she becomes super shy with other people?

Tess walked through the parks brightly lit knolls and hills on her way to her dark apartment. She didn’t get why she was always alone. She was hot, funny and had a bright personality. Her dates just never seemed to go anywhere and she hardly ever got a second or third one. She really was beautiful. She had slender short legs that lead into a nice pert bottom, a pinched in waist and respectable firm breasts. Her blonde hair framed a loverly face and her wardrobe made her standout particularly well with plenty of exposed flesh.

She noticed a few of her friends had gathered around one of the old fountains that dotted the park. She checked her make up and adjusted her top to maximize her cleavage and walked on over, sexualizing her steps as best she could. “Hey guys. Anybody mention me yet?” She said with a soft chuckle.“Oh hey Tess, I didn’t know your classes had gotten out yet.” Athena said. Tess and Athena had know each other since their room assignment had made them friends in their freshman year. Despite her namesake Athena was a plain looking girl, but in the arena of the mind she did the greek goddess proud.“I decided to blow them off. It was nothing new today anyway. So any fun plans? Are we finally going out clubbing?”“Sorry but we were all going to Adam’s house for an over the weekend study party. You’re welcome to come with.” Tom said. Tom and Athena had been an item for a month now and things seemed stable if a little bland for Tess’s tastes.“Why don’t you come with Tess. I’d love to spend a weekend away with you.” Nora said. Nora was Tess’s biggest obstacle. It wasn’t a secret that Tess played for the other team but she didn’t go around advertising it either. Nora did however and it was almost like she taunted her with flirting and passes that she brushed away as jokes. She was insanely hot too with full tits that cried out for attention and an athletic figure and a subtle tan that made her seem an amazon.“Yeah, maybe later.” Tess was a master at getting in her own way. She also had a bit of a shyness issue. If she were hotter this wouldn’t be a problem.

“Well as you wish then. We best get going before it gets too dark. See ya later.” Athena said, accompanied by ‘goodbyes’ and ‘later’s’ from the group, and one wink from Nora that produced a rosy color on Tess’s cheeks. She sat down on the bench and chided herself for her lack of courage. She looked up at the circular fountain and admired its intricate design. The park was old, built soon after the campus was in 1904. There were over a dozen fountains and each one had stories built around it. It was said that it you kissed your sweetheart near the one in the center you would be forever in love. Another one was supposed to help you pass any test as long as you drank the water from it. If Tess remembered right this one was the traditional ‘wishing’ fountain, toss a quarter in and get a wish but it always came with a terrible and ironic price as wishes normally get you.

Tess reached into her pocket and produced a handful of loose change. “Why the heck not?” she said and tossed all the change into the still water. She clasped her hands and spoke aloud “I wish I had a super sexy body and had a way better sex life.” Nothing seemed to happen, no ‘wish granted’ or pillar of light enveloping her body. Not that she expected much but somehow she always had a sliver of hope that something would happen when she made a wish. Tess returned her hands to her pockets and continued her walk back to the empty dormitory. Along the way however she suddenly felt just a little sick. She raised her hand to her forehead and felt a fever and her stomach was going summersaults.

She just crossed the threshold of her room when she began to feel bloated and off balance. She took off her coat and tried to remove her thin tank top but found it stuck in place. She quickly realized why as she saw her modest chest had grown in size! She had a respectable pair of C’s but now they were passing the double D range. She stood shocked at what was happening. She hadn’t eaten anything and didn’t have any allergies she knew about that could do this. She was snapped out of her contemplating by the straps of her top digging into her shoulders, and a similar sensation in her pants. She quickly mover to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the offending straps, but her melons had grow too large and were now being crushed inside the small piece of clothing.

Her ass felt like it was also being crushed inside her jeans but before she could move her scissors to free her new flesh her clothing had lost its battle with Tess’s expanding ass and seems popped and stitching tore, ruining her expensive designer pants. She hardly cared though as all the felt was a sense of relief at the absence of crushing pressure on her ass. Her breasts were still in peril though and she without a thought began cutting down the center of her abused top. The cut wasn’t even halfway when the fabric finally gave way and split apart, sending Tess’s new tit flesh spilling out in front of her. Tess stared in awe at her breasts, they were larger than any natural pair she’d ever seen.

She had no time to enjoy them though as more pain filled her body. She fell onto the floor and rolled onto her back. She looked between her cavernous cleavage and saw that her legs were growing longer and her thighs thicker. Her tummy, which had just a slight bit of fat from the holidays had flattened and become taught and smooth. Her hair, which she kept ironed and straight, had become curly and wild and a vibrant shade of autumn red. Her neck became delicate and swanlike and her face though pretty before had shifted into a sultry and deeply beautiful image and was dotted with faint freckles. Her eyes had shifted into a sea green and suddenly all the pain and discomfort stopped.

Tess gingerly stood on her new shaky legs. After finding her new balance she walked to her closet mirror and inspected the damage. She was stunned by the image that greeted her. The woman in the mirror was over six feet tall and had breasts that put any stripper to shame, Tess reached up with her hand to probe one and was rewarded with an intense sensation coming from her pussy. She couldn’t help her other hand as it explored her other boob and felt her orgasm building immediately. She had no idea breasts this large could be that sensitive, or was it just her? She gave it no more thought as she continued to fondle her big boobies nearing more and more to an explosive orgasm.

One of her hands left her breasts and dived straight into her waiting, overheated pussy and she was instantly at the threshold of a brutal orgasm. She did her best to control the momentum and make this incredible feeling last and she was quite successful. She used whatever objects she could find in her dorm to pleasure herself and jilled herself off for literal hours until finally she allowed the orgasm to roll over her body and send her to heights of pleasure she had never even imagined.

The all night session was so intense that she remained motionless, just letting the remnant of her orgasm ripple though her body for hours. It was past lunchtime when she finally stood up and tried to find clothes that would fit her new sexy body. She dug into her closet, at first finding nothing, then she happened upon an old halloween costume she once wore. It was a habit for a nun, she just thought it would be funny, but now the outfit just slack enough to make a wearable outfit. She slipped it on and took a moment to appreciate the irony of her incredibly sexy new body in an outfit created for modesty. Her breasts tented outwards and left little to the imagination, her ass did the same and the dress ended just below her knees. Man, she thought, Nora would love this. Then it hit her. She was a super sexy dynamo now! She could easily seduce the pants off Nora. She immediately hit the streets and began the walk to Adam’s place.

At first the walk was like any other, but then Tess began to notice the stares she was drawing to herself. She initially chalked it up to her sexiness but then another thought creeped into her mind. Did they know? Could then somehow tell she spent the whole night masturbating? She didn’t know how the could but the thought just wouldn’t go away. Everybody was staring at her and it was starting to embarrass her. How could she have done that? It was such a pervy thing to do, she even used her roommates pillow to help jill herself off. Oh god people can totally tell.

She did her best to remain inconspicuous as she approached her friends home. She knocked on the door and looked behind her to make sure no one was staring. Adam opened the door and was in awe of the incredibly sexy woman before him. “Whoa! Who are you?” He asked. Tess remembered that she looked totally different and did her best to scramble up a cover story.“I…I…I’m…uh, HimynameisTeresaI’mTess’sfriendcanIstudywithyouguys?” She said all in one burst. Her face as red as her hair.“Um…sure?” Adam said, growing more confused at this woman by the second. Tess let out a deep sigh of relief, so happy to be back with her friends. As the two walked back in Adam introduced her as Teresa and everyone said hello, except for Tess who had clammed up at the sight of so many people. She weakly waved and took a seat at the very end of the large couch trying to will her tall body into a smaller shape. She didn’t make a peep for hours, to nervous to talk to her former friends afraid they might ask what she did last night.

It was Nora who finally got a word out of the shy sexpot. She sat about three feet away from Tess, extremely too close for the nervous girls comfort. She said nothing she reached over and patted Tess’s thigh just above the knee, not in a sexual manner but more as an assurance of friendship. This was far too much for the new Tess and she stood stock straight and said “ThanksforhelpingmeIgottagobye!” and quickly stepped out and ran back to her dorm. She slammed the door and immediately began another masturbation session crying out “She touched me! Nora Touched me!” This would last well into the night, and come the next day Athena entered her dorm room and was immediately greeted with the smell of sex and found Tess on her bed, still in the throws of orgasmic bliss.

The end. Be careful what you wish for!

#Breast expansion #ass expansion #mental change #request

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Can Your Personal Choices Curb Climate Change? Not Even Scientists Agree.

Kim Cobb traveled to the Kiritimati coral reefs in the spring of 2016 and found, to her horror, an underwater graveyard.

A climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Cobb was alarmed to see this precious research site in the Pacific Ocean in such visible distress. The reefs were mostly dead after months of being in abnormally warm ocean waters.

Then that fall Donald Trump was elected president, dashing Cobb’s hopes of the US implementing the environmental rules needed to prevent a warmer world. “It became clear after the election not only was that hope misplaced, but it was actually never going to be enough,” Cobb told BuzzFeed News.

And so, she underwent a “wholesale reorganization” of her life, she said, including biking to work, rarely flying, going vegetarian, investing in expensive residential rooftop solar panels, and getting involved in her community’s new transportation plans.

A growing number of scientists and activists are, like Cobb, taking dramatic personal steps to decrease their personal carbon footprint. But stopping the activities that make a real difference — flying, driving, eating meat, and having children — is for most people a big sacrifice, and even climate experts disagree about whether they have a moral imperative to do so.

The camp that’s going all out includes a 400-person Facebook group called #BirthStrike, formed in December 2018, for people who have decided “not to bear children due to the severity of the ecological crisis.” And hundreds of climate scientists have vowed to scale back on flying.

“I think it’s a good thing for climate messengers to ‘walk the talk,’” said Peter Kalmus, an associate project scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has stopped flying altogether and created the website No Fly Climate Sci for others to publicly share why they are flying less. “It makes the message much more effective.”

Other scientists point out, though, that without strict laws to curb carbon emissions, no individual’s choices matter all that much. For them, the most important action is political — to try to change the direction of national and global policies.

If everyone who already cared about climate change “reduced their carbon emissions to zero, it doesn’t actually change very much,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Making your home energy efficient is nothing compared to laws that would require all buildings to be greener. Buying solar panels for your roof doesn’t pack the same climate punch as electric companies relying more on solar farms, and less on coal plants, to feed the grid.

“Agitating and voting and writing letters and op-eds,” Schmidt said, “make far more sense” for promoting systemic change.

Many people who care about climate change are wrestling with what, if anything, they can do about it. Although many of the most popular consumer choices, from ditching plastic straws to using an electric vehicle instead of a gas-guzzler, have some environmental benefits — they don’t put a dent in global emissions. Meanwhile, carbon pollution is approaching frightening levels: According to an influential report published in October, the world could experience dangerous warming as early as 2030 if we don’t rapidly cut emissions.

And yet, President Trump has reversed course on a lot of US climate policies. His administration has repealed the Clean Power Plan designed to curb pollution from coal plants, gutted stricter climate standards for cars and trucks and, just this month, signed executive orders aimed to streamline the development of new fossil fuel projects. Trump also pledged to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, slowing momentum for global action.

The one-two punch of witnessing coral reef carnage and then seeing Trump get elected sent Cobb spiraling into depression. She decided to try engaging with climate action on a personal level, focusing on changing things within her control, such as how she got to work and what she ate, and found a new sense of hope and energy along the way. “It became a daily part of my self-care,” Cobb said.

But talking about her transformation on social media sparked a backlash. “I brought the haters out,” Cobb said.

She has been accused of virtue signaling, and touting a lifestyle that some say is only attainable for the rich. Cobb said she’s not out to shame or judge anyone — instead, she’s trying to show that living a climate-friendly life doesn’t have to be a sacrifice.

As scientists have debated these issues, outsiders have piled on. Climate skeptics have repeatedly called out scientists and activists for their carbon-intensive lives.

For these people, Schmidt of NASA has no patience. “People who use the personal choices of climate scientists as some kind of excuse for not understanding science or refusing to accept science, those are not good-faith arguments, and we shouldn’t really entertain them,” Schmidt said.

Peter Kalmus’s journey down the path of a carbon-limited life started years before Trump’s presidency, back in 2006. He was a graduate student in astrophysics at Columbia University at the time, and a new father. One of the department’s weekly talks featured then-NASA climate scientist James Hansen, and his presentation had Kalmus on the edge of his seat. In the years since, he switched careers to focus on climate change, cut meat from his diet, and gave up flying. He shares his passion with his two sons, 10 and 12, who regularly strike before school on Friday to spread awareness about climate change.

Similar to Cobb, upending his lifestyle was a way for him to find meaning and hope in the face of a terrifying future.

“I’m basically freaking out about carbon emissions,” he said. “If I feel like, This is so urgent and I can’t even reduce, I would probably feel pretty hopeless.”

And more than many of his peers, Kalmus sees individual action as instrumental in bringing about larger change. “You can’t have systematic change unless a whole bunch of individuals are essentially voting for it and voting for it with their actions,” he said.

T. Jane Zelikova, an ecologist at the University of Wyoming, said she’s struggled with what to do. ”Climate change is a collective problem,” Zelikova said. “I think putting the onus of climate change solutions on climate scientists — it doesn’t seem fair. But I also realize we have to lead by example.”

Schmidt is fine with people changing their lives because it’s fulfilling. But he doesn’t want the public to get the impression that the only way to save the planet is by abstaining from certain products or not traveling. “I don’t think that is where we want to end up,” Schmidt said.

His philosophy is: “Individual actions are not really the solution, but there’s no reason that you should unnecessarily pollute the atmosphere.”

Neither Schmidt nor Zelikova have given up flying entirely, but they have tried to cut back by combining trips or using virtual conferencing software. Schmidt became a vegetarian, driven both by animal welfare and climate concerns, and Zelikova aims to only buy meat from ranchers with sustainable grazing practices.

Zelikova said she is “really lucky” to have a good-paying job and live in a place that makes such choices possible.

Zelikova has also mulled one of the biggest decisions of all: whether to have kids. Adding to the more common concerns, such as financial security, Zelikova told BuzzFeed News that, in the wake of increasingly catastrophic predictions from climate models, she and her partner have talked about “whether it’s responsible to bring new kids into the world or whether we should adopt.” They haven’t decided yet.

The top actions you can take to cut your own emissions, in order of impact, include having one fewer child (equaling, for someone in a rich country, an estimated 58.6 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year), living car-free (about 2.4 tons per year), avoiding air travel (about 1.6 tons per round-trip transatlantic flight), and eating a plant-based diet (roughly 0.8 tons per year), according to a 2017 study in the journal Environment Research Letters.

The study authors also looked at what recommendations were being shared in textbooks, government material, and other sources. They found the biggest actions, mentioned above, were often omitted, whereas moderate- and low-impact choices — like recycling, buying energy-efficient products, and taking public transportation — were featured. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency’s “What You Can Do” website includes a “green vehicle guide” and “fuel economy guide” but doesn’t suggest ditching cars altogether.

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University regularly engages with the public about climate change. She gave a TED Talk and created a YouTube series. Over and over again, she’s been asked the same question: What can I do about climate change?

This has led her down a multiyear journey of experimentation, giving up certain things and seeing how it felt. Over the past decade, she’s invested in solar panels for her home, bought an electric vehicle, and switched from a dryer to a drying rack. Increasingly, she’s been giving virtual talks to cut down on travel.

Hayhoe’s biggest climate impact, she said, is not cutting her own emissions or serving as a model for others on this front. It’s simply talking to as many people as possible about the perils of climate change.

“The most important thing I’ve done is restructure my life to tell as many people in as efficient and effective ways as I can,” Hayhoe said. “It is real. It is us. It is serious and there are solutions if we act now.” ●

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bobjlower · 6 years

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How To Survive Your First Year(s) As A Trader – 9 tips

I won’t sugarcoat it because from own experiences I know very well that trading is hard and challenging. No wonder that the analysis of brokerage data confirmed that 40% of traders quit after 1 month and only 7% are still active after 5 years.1

But why is it so hard and what makes traders struggle so much? The reason why so many traders give up too early and don’t see the results they are looking for can be boiled down to 9 principles. The following points will help you understand what it takes to survive your first year(s) as a trader and also how to pave the way for a great trading future.

#1 Expectations

The first question traders always ask is “How long does it take to turn $1000 into $1.000.000” and this is a very wrong question to ask when starting out. Yes, it is possible to make a lot of money but it is much more likely that you will lose (several) trading accounts before that. Thus, you should ask yourself: “how can I not lose all my money?”

Although it does not sound good and it might be a downer for some of you, it is important to realize that you won’t make a lot any money in your first year as a trader. If you can trade around break-even and not lose any money, you are already better than 99% of all traders and are off to a great start.

Having wrong expectations often causes traders to quit early because when reality catches up and when your high expectations are not met, it can create frustration and anger. Accept that you won’t make a living off of your trading for the next few years and focus on the process. The money will follow.

When starting out, you have to focus on not losing all your money so that you can keep trading and learning.

#2 What to focus on

If you are not going to make any money, what are you going to do that first year?! The first steps of a trader consist of getting familiar with the market and the market dynamics. You should look for a decent mentor (more on that later) and start studying as much as you can.

Then, you should pick ONE method or approach and start putting all your focus on learning that one approach. Over the course of your trading career you will most likely go through several systems and try out different things, which is normal, but you should stay away from frequent “system hopping” and changing your approach every month.

“The jack of all trades and the master of none” is what typically happens to most traders. Don’t become one of them.

It’s important to develop the right mindset and stay away from gambling and the get-rich-quick promises.

Every time you change your trading system, you have to start all over again.

#3 Understand losses

A huge issue many traders deal with on a daily basis is that they interpret losing trades completely wrong. First of all, you MUST understand that losses are just as normal as winning and that no matter how good you are, losing trades will never go away.

Second, you have to distinguish between “normal” losing trades and “dumb” losses. Normal losses are the ones where you did everything right, you followed the plan and executed the system. A loss, then, is nothing to worry about and the market just did not agree with your idea. Move on and brush it off.

A dumb loss, on the other hand, is a loss where YOU screwed up. A trader who believes that he is in a losing streak but all his losses are dumb losses is actually not experiencing a losing streak, but he is just trading poorly. Many traders believe that their system is “not” working, but upon closer inspection, you will usually find that their system is totally fine – it’s just them screwing up.

#4 When is it too late to become a trader?

Many people are always in a hurry and they wonder if they are too old to become traders. Just as with expectations, if you approach trading from such a point of view, it will negatively impact your trading habits.

You will rush into trades, not learn the craft the right way, always feel that you must be in a trade and take too much risk.

But when is it too late to start trading? I discussed this topic in a recent podcast:

#5 Learn about your tools

We have briefly touched on system hopping and it’s important to avoid this terrible behavior and mindset. You should AT LEAST give your trading method 6 – 9 months before you start changing it completely.

Also, really try to understand the tools you are using. Most traders use indicators or trading methods and don’t fully understand what they are doing. If you want to become a professional, profitable, full-time trader, you have to learn your craft and stay away from the signal hunting and get rich quick mentality. If you ever find yourself using tools and indicators and you do not fully understand what they are doing, you have to step back and do your homework.

We always stress that you have to become an expert in your field. This means, pick your one trading approach and try to learn as much as you can about it. The top performers in any field are always the ones who have mastered one specific set of skills and did not spread themselves too thin.

#6 Finding a mentor

Mentors are great, but they can also be the complete opposite. There are a lot of charlatans out there which make promises about the easy and fast money. Claims about doubling your account year after year, trading 2 hours per day and making “a killing” or other too-good-to-be-true claims are always that – simply not true.

What do you need a mentor for?

Almost all profitable traders trade a system they have somehow developed themselves – at least to some degree. A trading system is something very personal and it has to fit your personality and your character. Thus, do not look for a mentor who promises the “best returns”, but someone who can teach you about trading in general. Someone who builds your mindset, talks about trading psychology, the long-term concept of trading, helps you avoid common problems and prepares you for your journey.

Don’t confuse a mentor for a signal provider or just someone you buy a system from, but a person you can reach out to and who actively helps you become a better trader.

Furthermore, joining a group of like-minded traders is also very important. Stay away from twitter or random forums where everyone has a different approach and just throws around ideas. This will just create confusion and frustration. We also offer a forum for our own students where everyone trades a similar way and our discussion is targeted around one trading approach. This creates consistency and eliminates all the noise.

Join here: Tradeciety Forex & Futures membership

#7 How to improve

Do you remember your last 10 trades? Do you know which mistake has caused you the biggest losses? Do you know which setup performs best and if you manage your trades correctly? Do you leave money on the table by inefficiently exiting trades?

If you answer these questions with no or I don’t know, then you MUST get a trading journal.

A trading journal is a tool where you record your past trades and then get meaningful results from it. How can traders expect to improve and become better if they have no way of reviewing what has happened to them?

Any trading book and every professional trader will tell you that a journal is the one must-have tool every trader should have.

More: Why trading journal

#8 You know what to do

In any situation we usually all know what we should be doing. In theory, we know how to get a sixpack, be healthier, have better relationships with the people around us, get better grades and be a better employee. But just look around you and you quickly notice that knowing what to do and actually doing those things are very different.

If you want to be successful in any field, you have to start doing more of the things that you KNOW you should be doing. Usually, those things aren’t “fun” and it takes discipline to do them. Like journaling all your trades, reviewing trading performance, backtesting your ideas, staying out of trades when no signal is there etc.

But we all know that those are the things that will make you better. You won’t become a better trader by just staring at charts all day long. To get going, I recommend scheduling 30 minutes per day to do some tasks that you know will make a difference but you always put them off. You will create momentum and see that it is not that bad.

#9 Demo trading?

Demo trading has its place and is certainly recommended for new traders. Spending your first few months on demo and/or a backtesting software is necessary to familiarize yourself with the way the trading mechanics and market dynamics work.

Staying too long on demo, though, can have a negative effect. Demo trading eliminates the emotional aspect of trading and it does not teach you how to handle the real money pressure. Setting up a small (SMALL!) live trading account and getting your feet wet is a great way to practice. Just be careful that you don’t start gambling when your trading account is too small.

It is very obvious what your first steps should be

Your first steps as a trader should always be protection, protection, protection. How to protect your account and thinking about how you can lose less instead of winning more should always be your first priority. Most new traders already think about where they want to be in 5 or 10 years and completely forget that they won’t get there if they are not laying a solid foundation NOW.

Staying in the game long enough to make it is the real challenge for newer traders. Burning through account after account will also cost you heaps of emotional capital and eventually you will simply give up.

References:

1Barber, Lee, Odean (2010): Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?

The post How To Survive Your First Year(s) As A Trader – 9 tips appeared first on Tradeciety Trading Academy.

How To Survive Your First Year(s) As A Trader – 9 tips published first on your-t1-blog-url

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lucyariablog · 6 years

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5 Research-Based Actions to Improve Your Content Marketing

Editor’s note: Because understanding what your fellow marketers are doing and what’s happening in successful content marketing programs is critical to success, Lisa Murton Beets has updated her 2017 article.

A little over halfway through 2018, you may be looking for insights on how to maximize your content marketing efforts. Or, maybe you need some great stats to help you build your business case for content marketing.

Take stock of what CMI’s annual research with MarketingProfs revealed about the state of B2B content marketing in 2018 – and what you can do to focus your efforts for the best return. (And stay tuned for new research results this fall.)

1. Focus on building an audience

Across every vertical examined, the research shows a year-over-year increase in the percentage of marketers who agree their organization is focused on building an audience regardless of their overall level of content marketing success.

And that’s good news, considering the consent-based marketing approach now required by GDPR and other consumer privacy legislation. As Robert Rose recently wrote:

Data given, rather than scraped or gathered unwillingly, is simply more valuable as a marketing asset … Then it stands to reason that providing valuable content-driven experiences where the data is given willingly, trustingly, and actively is the way to not only comply but to thrive in this new business environment. Right?

CMI has preached this message for years. People who sign up to receive your content are people with whom you’ve been given an opportunity to build a relationship.

People who sign up to receive your content give you the opportunity to build a relationship, says @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

Handpicked Related Content:

B2C Content Marketing: 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America

Manufacturing Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends — North America

Technology Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends — North America

How you can use this insight

Audience development is a key goal for content marketing. Check how your numbers look versus one year ago. Can you tie subscriber growth directly to individual content marketing initiatives? Do you have solid audience personas so you target the right people? (CMI offers a lot of great information on buyer personas; check out Robert’s recent post for new thinking and recommendations around this topic.)

Of course, the quality of your subscriber list is as important as the quantity. Read this post for considerations on why the occasional purging of your list may be helpful.

The quality of your subscriber list is as important as the quantity, says @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

Finally, evaluate how your audience is nurtured once they subscribe to your content. Although the buyer’s journey is never linear, ensure that your subscribers are receiving a good mix of steady content.

One of the primary ways to nurture audiences is via email, delivered at a frequency rate that won’t overwhelm the recipients. See Jodi Harris’ tips for evaluating the frequency and content of your emails. And make sure you study the valuable lessons the GDPR panic taught about how to communicate with your audience.

2. Get better at content creation to boost overall success

Respondents to our eighth annual content marketing survey cited “content creation” (e.g., higher quality, more efficient) as the biggest contributor to increased content marketing success over the previous year. The No. 2 success factor was content marketing strategy (developing or adjusting).

How you can use this insight

Assess the health of your content planning and creation machine. Are ideas flowing and captured? If you’re stuck, check out these ideas for breaking a creative slump.

Are topics organized in an editorial calendar? If you need to push yours further than a basic spreadsheet, look for ideas here. Do you have enough resources (talent and budget)?

For a broader picture of how to create well-written content and take your content creation to greater levels of success, check out this comprehensive article on road maps.

Handpicked Related Content:

The One Thing Killing Your Most Creative Content Ideas (and How to Stop It)

5 Sources to Inspire Unlimited Content Ideas

3. Streamline your workflow

The other part of improving content creation is developing more efficient content production. In most cases, you can improve efficiency by using sensible work processes. In fact, one of the key differences our research found between top-performing content marketers and their less successful peers is that top performers have a better handle on their workflow (70% of the top-performing B2B marketers rated their flow as excellent or very good, compared with 36% of the total sample, and 14% of the least successful).

Top performing content marketers have a better handle on their workflow, says @LisaBeets. #research Click To Tweet

How you can use this insight

If you’re challenged with content-creation bottlenecks, face the workflow issues head on. I love the tips discussed in this roundtable because the participants share real-life stories on how they improved the processes within their organizations.

If you’re among the marketers whose projects flow well, congratulations. If you aren’t there yet, document the process; it will be valuable to share when new team members and/or freelancers come into the fold.

However, as with most other processes, workflow processes may change rapidly based on shifting priorities and goals. Check out this article by Andrea Fryrear on how to use the principles of Agile marketing to respond quickly.

4. Set realistic expectations about what content marketing can achieve

The good news: Our 2018 research showed higher percentages of marketers agreeing their organization has realistic expectations about what content marketing can achieve compared with the previous year.

But what do realistic expectations look and feel like within organizations? Like so many other things, it depends. For a taste of what one startup achieved during its first two years, check out this inspiring article about Quartz, an online news company.

Your results will vary, based on your goals, resources, industry, and other factors, so walk through the steps outlined here before you get started.

How you can use this insight

Ask if your goals are realistic based on factors such as the size of your organization, its overall goals, management commitment, the nature of your industry and audience, total addressable market, competitive landscape, and available resources.

Undertake this reflection whether you recently started a content marketing project or you’re looking to refresh an existing program. If you’re in the process of overhauling your content marketing, think about what you’re changing and why. Then, read this recent article for tips on explaining your content marketing project to the rest of your company in terms they understand.

(As a side note, the CMI team would love to hear stories from marketers whose organizations have realistic expectations. Are those based on what you’ve learned from past experiences or something else? Please include in the comments or reach me through my contact information in my bio below.)

5. Make a commitment to content marketing and stick with it

Year after year, CMI research reveals that commitment is one of the most important indicators of content marketing success.

Any actions you take based on the insights here won’t get you far if your organization doesn’t have a strong commitment to content marketing.

Each success with content marketing builds upon the next. If you’re operating with a campaign-like or one-off mentality or “trying” content marketing to see how it goes – and you aren’t committed over the long haul – you won’t get long-term results.

If you aren’t committed to #contentmarketing over the long haul, you won’t get long-term results. @LisaBeets Click To Tweet

How you can use this insight

If your organization has a solid commitment to content marketing, great. Keep the momentum going by keeping your company updated with success stories, reports on new things you’re trying (and why), and metrics demonstrating results toward your content marketing goals (be cautious when you use vanity metrics, as you’ll want to show impact versus effort).

Metrics that clearly demonstrate positive impact or results get the attention of upper management and should strengthen or solidify their commitment to content marketing. For tips on how to measure and monitor your content’s performance, see this article by Jodi. To explore a new model for calculating the value of a subscriber, this article by Robert is a must-read.

If commitment isn’t strong in your organization, ask why. Who can you talk with to change this? Check out our updated guide on how to get buy-in for content marketing.

What’s ahead for content marketers? We will begin revealing the findings of the 2019 content marketing survey at Content Marketing World in September. Register today to attend and be among the first to hear the results. Use code BLOG100 to save $100.

To make sure you get the results of the latest research on content marketing in B2B, B2C, tech, manufacturing, and other segments, please subscribe to receive our email updates.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 5 Research-Based Actions to Improve Your Content Marketing appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/07/research-improve-marketing/

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hotspreadpage · 6 years

Text

5 Research-Based Actions to Improve Your Content Marketing

1. Focus on building an audience

And that’s good news, considering the consent-based marketing approach now required by GDPR and other consumer privacy legislation. As Robert Rose recently wrote:

CMI has preached this message for years. People who sign up to receive your content are people with whom you’ve been given an opportunity to build a relationship.

People who sign up to receive your content give you the opportunity to build a relationship, says @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

Handpicked Related Content:

B2C Content Marketing: 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America

Manufacturing Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends — North America

Technology Content Marketing 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends — North America

How you can use this insight

Of course, the quality of your subscriber list is as important as the quantity. Read this post for considerations on why the occasional purging of your list may be helpful.

The quality of your subscriber list is as important as the quantity, says @LisaBeets. Click To Tweet

2. Get better at content creation to boost overall success

How you can use this insight

Assess the health of your content planning and creation machine. Are ideas flowing and captured? If you’re stuck, check out these ideas for breaking a creative slump.

Are topics organized in an editorial calendar? If you need to push yours further than a basic spreadsheet, look for ideas here. Do you have enough resources (talent and budget)?

For a broader picture of how to create well-written content and take your content creation to greater levels of success, check out this comprehensive article on road maps.

Handpicked Related Content:

The One Thing Killing Your Most Creative Content Ideas (and How to Stop It)

5 Sources to Inspire Unlimited Content Ideas

3. Streamline your workflow

Top performing content marketers have a better handle on their workflow, says @LisaBeets. #research Click To Tweet

How you can use this insight

4. Set realistic expectations about what content marketing can achieve

Your results will vary, based on your goals, resources, industry, and other factors, so walk through the steps outlined here before you get started.

How you can use this insight

5. Make a commitment to content marketing and stick with it

Year after year, CMI research reveals that commitment is one of the most important indicators of content marketing success.

Any actions you take based on the insights here won’t get you far if your organization doesn’t have a strong commitment to content marketing.

If you aren’t committed to #contentmarketing over the long haul, you won’t get long-term results. @LisaBeets Click To Tweet

How you can use this insight

If commitment isn’t strong in your organization, ask why. Who can you talk with to change this? Check out our updated guide on how to get buy-in for content marketing.

To make sure you get the results of the latest research on content marketing in B2B, B2C, tech, manufacturing, and other segments, please subscribe to receive our email updates.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 5 Research-Based Actions to Improve Your Content Marketing appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

5 Research-Based Actions to Improve Your Content Marketing syndicated from https://hotspread.wordpress.com

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fishermariawo · 6 years

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What Causes Slow Post-Workout Recovery—and What Can You Do About It?

One of the biggest mistakes I see among people who exercise is they forget this core truth: we get fitter not from training, but from recovering from training. This doesn’t just occur in beginners either. Some of the most experienced, hardest-charging athletes I know fail to heed the importance of recovery. Hell, the reason my endurance training destroyed my life and inadvertently set the stage for creation of the Primal Blueprint was that I didn’t grasp the concept of recovery. I just piled on the miles, thinking the more the merrier.

It didn’t work.

What is recovery, anyway?

There’s short-term recovery. Your heart rate slows back down, your body temperature drops, your sweat dries, your muscles and lungs stop burning.

Long-term recovery is less conspicuous, more internal. You replace lost energy stores, repair damaged muscle, clear out waste products, and begin the process of adaptation to the training.

When both short- and long-term recovery happen together, you “feel ready” to go again.

Some portion of how quickly we recover from training is out of our direct control.

Genetics is one factor we can’t control. Researchers have found genetic variants of collagen-encoding genes that increase or decrease the rate at which we recover from exercise-induced muscle damage, muscle tissue genes that increase resistance to exercise-induced muscle soreness, immune genes that affect the speed of adaptation to training. But even many genetic variants purported to affect recovery act through decisions carriers make. A carrier of a genetic variant linked to muscle power experienced more muscle damage and required more recovery after a soccer match, but only because that carrier “performed more speed and power actions during the game.”

Age is another factor out of our direct control. Sure, living, eating, and training right can stave off many of the worst effects of aging. Sure, a sedentary 70-year-old will recover from a workout far more slowly (if he or she can be cajoled into training) than a 70-year-old master athlete. But time does tick on. Following training that fatigues but doesn’t damage the muscles, like easy cycling, light weight training, or a sub-aerobic threshold jog, older athletes recover muscle function and performance at similar rates to younger athletes. After intense exercises that damage the muscles, like sprints, heavy lifting, intervals, or longer race-pace runs, however, older athletes recover more slowly than younger athletes.

Other factors, while preventable and modifiable over the long haul, inexorably inhibit workout recovery once they’re in place:

If you’re sick, you won’t recover as quickly. Illness diverts some of the resources that would otherwise be used to recover from training.

If you have heart disease, you’ll recover more slowly. In one study, having heart disease was the greatest predictor of a slower rate of heart rate recovery after exercise.

If your hormones are out of whack, you’ll likely recover more slowly. Hormones are the messengers and managers that tell our cells what to do. That includes muscle repair, hypertrophy, fuel replenishment, inflammatory signaling, and every other cellular function related to recovery.

Now I’ve got bad news and good news. Everything else that slows down workout recovery is under your direct control.

Factors We Can Control Stress

Stress is stress. Traffic is a stressor. A job you hate is a stressor. Procrastinating until you absolutely must get working is a stressor. And yes, exercise is a stressor. Too much of the psychological, lifestyle, or mental stress we all face impairs our ability to recover from exercise-induced stress.

Recent research confirms that “mental stress” impairs workout recovery, and it doesn’t speak in generalities. Thirty-one undergrads were assessed for stress levels using a battery of psychological tests, then engaged in a heavy lower body strength workout. At an hour post-workout, students in the high stress group had regained 38 percent of their leg strength, while students in the low stress group had regained 60 percent of their strength.

I developed my anti-stress supplement Primal Calm (now, Adaptogenic Calm) back in the chronic cardio days as a way to improve my training recovery. That’s what gave the product so much momentum in the endurance community—it turns out that beating back stress of all kinds quickened recovery from a very specific type of training stress.

Some stress is unavoidable. But most of us create additional stress in our lives and fail to do enough to counter or manage it. Stop making unforced errors.

Poor Sleep

Sleep debt impairs exercise recovery primarily via two routes: by increasing cortisol, reducing testosterone production, and lowering muscle protein synthesis; and by disrupting slow wave sleep, the constructive stage of slumber in which growth hormone secretion peaks, tissues heal, and muscles rebuild. That’s probably why sleep deprivation has been linked to muscular atrophy and increased urinary excretion of nitrogen, and why the kind of cortisol excess caused by sleep deprivation reduces muscle strength.

Additionally, sleep loss can increase the risk of injuries by decreasing balance and postural control. If you trip and fall, or throw out your back due to poor technique, you won’t even have a workout to recover from.

Most people think bad sleep is unavoidable. It happens to the best of us from time to time, but a night of bad sleep here and there isn’t going to slow down recovery. The real recovery killer is chronically bad sleep, and that’s the kind most of us can avoid by sticking to a good sleep hygiene regimen.

Nutrient Deficiencies

Since every physiological function requires a micronutrient substrate—vitamin, mineral, hormone, neurotransmitter, etc.—and physiological functions increase with exercise and recovery, active people require more micronutrients in their diet. “More of everything” is a safe bet, but there are a few key nutrients that working out especially depletes:

Zinc: Exercise, especially weight training, works better with plenty of testosterone on hand to build muscle and develop strength. Zinc is a key substrate for the production of testosterone, and studies show that exercise probably increases the need for zinc. In fact, one study found that exhaustive exercise depleted testosterone (and thyroid) hormones in athletes, while supplementing with zinc restored it.

Magnesium and Other Electrolytes: Magnesium is required for a number of physiological processes related to workout recovery, including oxygen uptake by cells, energy production, and electrolyte balance. Unfortunately, as one of the main electrolytes, lots of magnesium is lost to sweat during exercise. The same could be said for other electrolytes like calcium, sodium, and potassium, but most people get plenty of those minerals from a basic Primal eating plan. Getting enough magnesium, however, is a bit tougher, making magnesium deficiency a real issue for people trying to recover from workouts.

Iron: Intense exercise depletes iron, which is instrumental in the formation of red blood cells and oxygen delivery to your tissues during training and the immune response after it. They even have a name for it—exercise-induced anemia.

Soreness

Post-workout delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, is no joke. While many of you folks reading this probably enjoy DOMS and take it as feedback for a job well done, it’s a hurdle that many beginners never move past. They join a gym, d0 a workout, feel great, go to bed feeling awesome, sleep like a baby, then wake up and find they have the bipedal capacity of a three-month-old. They can barely walk. Lifting their arms to brush their teeth is agony. Walking downstairs is out of the question. Some will move past the DOMS and get back into the gym. Many will not.

Low Fuel Availability

Working out expends energy. That energy must be replenished before you’re fully recovered and prepared to do another workout. Unless you’re trying to increase efficiency by training in a state of low fuel availability, like the “train low-carb, race high-carb” method, you should recover what’s been lost. What you replenish is conditional on the type of exercise you did. If you went for a long hike or easy bike ride that burned primarily body fat, you don’t need to—and probably shouldn’t—”replenish what you lost.” If you’re coming off a 30-minute full body CrossFit session that left you gasping on the ground in a puddle of sweat, you probably have some glycogen stores to refill.

This is a common issue for folks trying to lose weight through diet and exercise. Inadequate calorie intake coupled with intense exercise sends a “starvation” signal to the body, causing a down-regulation of anabolic hormones. Instead of growing lean mass and burning body fat, starvation (whether real or simulated) promotes muscle atrophy and body fat retention. Either alone can be somewhat effective, but combining the two for too long will only impair recovery.

Alcohol

Drinking directly impairs muscle protein synthesis, the essential step in muscle recovery and adaptation to training. Moderate or “social” drinking is probably safe (just don’t use alcohol as a post-workout recovery drink), but even just a single day per week of binge drinking is linked to 4x the risk of sarcopenia, or muscle-wasting. It’s hard to recover from your workouts if your muscles are atrophying.

Oddly, drinking directly after a training session also increases testosterone levels. One theory is that testosterone levels rise after drinking because it becomes less bioavailable; your muscle cells’ resistance to testosterone goes up, so it just circulates and gives “false” readings.

Things You Can Try

The obvious thing to try is the opposite of all the modifiable and preventable recovery-inhibitors mentioned above. Get good sleep, don’t drink too much (especially post-workout), get a handle on your stress, eat enough food, eat enough protein, get your micronutrients. What else?

Watermelon

L-citrulline is an amino acid found in watermelon that shows a significantly ameliorative effect on post-workout muscle pain, or delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). You can also supplement directly with L-citrulline, which may work, but watermelon is so good right now with a little salt, lime juice, and cayenne pepper, and it’s actually lower in carbs than you probably think (about 10 grams per cup of watermelon). I recommend fresh watermelon over pasteurized juice, as heat treatment reduces the effect.

Beets

Beets (and beet juice) aren’t only good for exercise performance. They also reduce DOMS. Nitrates have been posited as the primary constituent responsible for the effect, but beet juice works better than pure sodium nitrate.

Tart Cherry Juice

Tart cherry juice is best used to recover during competition, when your primary concern is to get back out there and perform. Its extreme effectiveness at killing muscle pain, reducing local and systemic inflammation and exercise-induced muscle damage suggests it may hamper training adaptations, however. It does also improve sleep, which should translate into better adaptations.

Massage

Massage feels great, and the evidence shows that it’s great for recovery from exercise. It alleviates DOMS. It speeds up the recovery of muscle strength and enhances proprioception. It improves central nervous system parasympathetic/sympathetic balance, even if the masseuse is one of those weird back massage machines.

Compression Garments

These aren’t just for show. A recent meta-analysis of the available research concluded that compression garments enhance muscle recovery after strength training and improve next-day cycling performance.

Whey

Compared to other proteins, whey protein accelerates muscle adaptation to eccentric exercise.

Creatine

Although we get creatine from red meat and fish, supplementary creatine can boost our recovery from exercise via a couple mechanisms. First, it increases muscle content of phosphocreatine. That’s the stuff we use for quick bursts of maximal effort, so carrying a little extra can do wonders for our ability to perform. Second, it enhances muscle glycogen replenishment without increasing insulin.

Fish Oil (or Fatty Fish)

Adding fish oil to a recovery drink reduced post-workout muscle soreness without affecting performance. Fish oil may also enhance muscle recovery from and adaptation to strength training.

Cold Water

A cold water plunge after training enhances the recovery of muscle function. However—and this is a big “however”—post training cold water plunges also seem to impair long term muscular adaptations to resistance training. In other words, a cold plunge might help you get back in the game for the short term at the cost of long-term adaptations.

More Carbs

I always say “Eat the carbs you earn.” While that often means eating fewer carbs than before, it can also mean eating more if you’ve trained hard enough to warrant them. This even applies to keto folks; depleting glycogen through exercise creates a “glycogen debt” that you can repay without inhibiting ketosis or fat-adaptation too much. The carbs—which you don’t need much of—go into muscle glycogen stores for recovery and later use without disrupting ketosis.

Don’t take this final section as a blanket recommendation, however. Before taking ice baths, dropping $500 on massages every week, taking a long list of expensive supplements, and walking around in a full body compression suit, make sure you’re sleeping, eating enough food, and giving yourself enough time between workouts. Quite often, handling the basics will be enough.

What have you found to be the best way to recover from your training? What are the biggest roadblocks? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

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cynthiamwashington · 6 years