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Amazing turnout at Whitehall today. Lots of support from the public. Unclear if Mr Sunak was home, probably sorting out his fancy heated swimming pool.

The mainstream media have barely touched on the strikes and demonstration.

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Tumblr Blaze vs Promoted Tweets

Twitter has been going through an...interesting time recently. In the months since Elon Musk's takeover there was an initial increase in users on other platforms such as Mastodon (to a peak of 2.5 million monthly active users) and Tumblr (a 62% increase in downloads of the iOS app in the week after the takeover. Social media platforms live and die based on their users and communities, and both Twitter and Tumblr have been experiencing the effects of this.

My dissatisfaction with Twitter was a primary driver for me logging into my Tumblr account for the first time in years. I wanted to be able to post in multiple formats and actually keep a personal blog rather than the limitations on a platform such as Twitter. That being said, Twitter does have a larger and more diverse user base where I miss some of the content relative to me (generally referred to as #medtwitter) which was significant enough in the medical community that commentary could be found on this topic within the British Medical Journal.

Both Twitter and Tumblr have business models that are primarily driven by advertising revenue. Both services have tried to diversify their revenue streams through subscriber models with Tumblr taking a tongue in cheek approach and adding features like two checkmarks, and crabs to people's dashboards.

Another thing that both platforms have in common is the option to promote posts for a fee. Twitter has promoted posts, while Tumblr introduced their Blaze feature on April 20th 2022 (420, Blaze it haha). I bet Elon is kicking himself that Tumblr beat him to the punch on that one.

With the recent Junior Doctors' Strike in the UK

I felt that if something was significant enough for me to withdraw my labour and take industrial action then people should know about it. Clearly a first step is being present on the picket line, a visible presence at my place of work; but only a limited group will see that without media publicity. Hence, I posted on both Twitter and Tumblr to share this message. Then I noticed the Blaze button on the Tumblr app. If I'm losing pay by not working anyway, may as well double down and pay to share my message I gathered.

So what do you get for your money?

My £10 on each platform offered me the following:

• Tumblr - 2500 impressions

• Twitter - 390 - 3700 impressions (over a 24 hour period)

Right out of the gate, the range in the number of people I can reach on Twitter seems huge. Points to Tumblr for giving me a set number of impressions.

I expected that Twitter would net more engagement, it likely has a bigger user base of people who would be interested in what I was posting and that might generate increased engagement through comments.

The reality was fascinating. I got ~1800 impressions on Twitter, with 19 likes and a single comment.

On Tumblr, I got 3662 impressions (with the campaign apparently still going), with 113 likes, 27 reblogs and 3 comments. Not only did I get more than I paid for from Tumblr, but there was much more engagement with the post. There was also some follow through where users checked out other unrelated posts of mine.

What does this mean?

It is difficult to determine why the posts performed differently. As an AB comparison a lot of things were identical (post content, post timing) while I do not have a big following on either platform (42 followers (who largely do not use the service now) on Tumblr vs 147 followers on Twitter.

Perhaps I had more impressions on Tumblr as Tumblr has less advertisers and so for them to be competitive, my money went further with them. As for why I received notably more engagement on Tumblr, it is likely that the audiences on Tumblr and Twitter are very different. Tumblr's user base is younger and possibly more likely to be left-left leaning in their political viewpoint, whereas Twitter may represent a user base that is broader and has more people that simply don't care about what I have to say.

You can make the argument that my Tumblr post was more successful because of the better engagement, but you also need to consider what the point of my post was in the first place. Is it useful for me to make my post reach people who are already sympathetic to what Junior Doctors are doing? Is it more useful to reach an audience that needs convincing? When using data to make conclusions you need to make sure you are measuring the right thing, and I am not sure in either case there is a suitable metric to decide this.

TL;DR

• The communities on a platform you are advertising to are important

• Engagement and impressions aren't everything

• My personal experience on Tumblr was more positive than on Twitter

#twitter #tumblr #business #advertising #blazed posts #promoted tweets #social networks #social media

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I’d rather be at work, but here we are instead.

#BMA #junior doctors #strike #industrial action #NHS #fair pay #Chichester

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This dog loves swimming. 🌊

#dog #swimming #pool babe

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Making birthday biscuits 🐾

#doglife #baking #great british bake off #star baker #dog

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Venice - May 2022

#venice #travel #photography

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Bristol, Bath and Longleat - June 2022

#bath #bristol #longleat #animals #zebra #elephant #rhino #sloth #lion #red panda #hot air balloon

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Dartmoor, August 2022

#Dartmoor #dronevideography #dogphotography #devon

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The Brighton Half Marathon 2023

Today I ran the Brighton Half Marathon. For some people that is a big achievement, for others it’s no big deal. For me it’s probably somewhere halfway between.

Training

I’ve run two proper half marathons before, and I did something new with this one. I actually had a training plan. I set off on the 1st January and ran 15km but in addition to this I did tempo runs, interval runs, recovery runs. It was going great and I was happy I was in great shape to run.

I just want to take a moment to shout out the Nike Run Club app. It actually made me enjoy the whole process. Sure, it tracks your runs and gives you a plan but the bit that I looked forward to was the coaching, especially from Chris Bennett who managed to be motivating without being too over the top. Best of all the app is free, no subscription.

I learned so many things, not all of which were about running.

Measuring goals in as many ways as possible to give you as many chances to recognise success

Knowing that the bad days, and the runs that suck actually help you in the long run

Being patient: we’re often in a hurry to get to places quickly but running slowing down isn’t being slow, it’s being smart.

When it doesn’t go to plan…

So far things have been peachy, but that doesn’t make for a good story does it? About 3 weeks to go and I started to feel a niggle. That’s okay right? It’s just a niggle. A bit of discomfort in my right calf. I ran through it over the next 2-3 days but it wasn’t getting better.

I went to get a sports massage thinking that would fix me and the person I saw was also trained as a physio. Uh oh. He confirmed what I was most worried about and that it was a strain. A strain is where the fibres of your muscle have torn. They can be of different severity; if the fibres are completely torn that’s the worst, thankfully mine was apparently mild. I’d convinced myself it wasn’t a sprain as I hadn’t lost power but it was just uncomfortable.

Long story short the physio suggested no running for 3-5 days and then slowly build up. But what about the plan? It’s okay, I rationalised: I would be tapering off anyways as I get closer to the run, right? So I was good and didn’t run for a week, then managed to get a cold and went for a first run again to test the water.

It was bad. I couldn’t breathe but worse, after just a kilometre things felt worse then they had before my break. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to be able to run the distance anymore. I did a few more runs in the week leading up and the most I managed was 5km. If I can do a quarter of the distance I can just do that three and a bit more times and run 21.1km. Right?

Race Day

It got to the day before and I actually felt alright. I made the decision to go for it. After all, I’d done the training, and even spent the past week drinking beetroot juice chasing marginal theoretical gains. The thing about beetroot juice is it tastes awful and has to come out the other end making everything a delightful shade of reddy-pink. It’s just not worth it, but I digress.

All I wanted to do was finish the race. I’d previously wanted to do sub-2 hours but that was out the window now. I made my way to my starting pen, feeling like I’d made a mistake saying I could do the distance in 1:45-1:59 but I was stuck here now, feeling like a fraud. I popped my earbuds in and hit play on the guided run, the first thing Chris does is tell me that even making it to the starting line is a brave decision and I’m that moment I realised that I was proud for even making it here today. Even if I didn’t finish, that work wasn’t wasted as I learned so much along the way. I’d even ‘run’ with Eliud Kipchoge, remembering how the world record holder for the marathon had told me that ‘No human is limited’ and just to enjoy running .

The Race

So you want to know, right? How did it go? I started by running fast, too fast I thought. I need to slow down, I can’t keep this up. Every time I checked my watch though the pace was the same; 5 minute kilometres. Maybe my watch was broken? It doesn’t matter, don’t look at the watch. I felt good, sure I didn’t feel perfect but being with the crowd, the other runners, it’s an indescribable feeling and before I knew it half the race had gone! I finished the race with a new personal best. I then had to walk what felt like almost another half marathon just to find my family who had got delayed and didn’t see me finish as it was quicker than we all thought I would be.

So what’s the lesson?

My family now no longer believe I was injured in the first place, but the thing I want to remember from this is not that I finished the run but how worthwhile the process was to get there. Training is not always about the destination but about the journey you have to get to your destination.

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Here’s a low res mashup of Taylor Swift and Ava Max once I realised they were in the same key!

#remix #taylor swift #ava max #i knew you were trouble #weapons #mashup

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Edinburgh, November 2022

#edinburgh #scotland #travel #photography

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Getting our paws wet 🐾

#beach life #dogphotography #photography #beach #west sussex

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some music i made a while back and put online

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Who's ready for Round 2?

It has been seven years since my last post about junior doctors taking industrial action, and a lot has changed in that time. I have finished my medical degree, worked in four different hospitals in the space of 6 years, and am mid-way through paediatric specialty training.

But despite achieving so much in that time, I find myself feeling jaded and burned out. The staff shortages in the NHS have only gotten worse, and I am conflicted about the proposed industrial action by junior doctors. While I believe that our skills and services are undervalued and that we should be paid more, I also think that there are bigger issues at play.

The proposed 72-hour walkout seems drastic to me, and I am not sure that it will achieve the desired results. The focus of this industrial action does not appear to be on safety, as it was in 2016, but on pay. While better recruitment and retention will undoubtedly make the NHS safer, I think that there are other issues with how training is structured and provided that need to be addressed.

Looking back on the past seven years, I can see that my lived experience has been different from what I expected. When I started my career as a junior doctor, I had high hopes and was full of idealism. I thought that I could make a difference and help to change the system from within.

But the reality of working in the NHS has been much harder than I anticipated. The workload is heavy, the hours are long, and the bureaucracy is overwhelming. Many leave for greener pastures, and yet, I am grateful for what I have. I grew up in a family where both parents earned less than I currently do, but I know that my skills could earn me more money in other industries.

Despite my reservations about the proposed industrial action, I voted yes in the ballot. I don't want to deny my colleagues the opportunity to strike, and I think that it is important to properly value our skills and services. I also hope that we can find a way to address the deeper issues facing the NHS and make it a better place for both patients and staff.

#bma #strike #industrial action #junior doctors

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Also seeing as I’m back I may as well share this remix I did a lil while back as Paramore have their new album out 🎶

#paramore #remix #ain’t it fun #SoundCloud

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Hello tumblr, my old friend.

Borough Market/The Shard, London - January 2022

#london #borough market #photography

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Take it to the streets.

I mentioned in my post  yesterday about the proposed changes to the Junior Doctors’ Contract in the British National Health Service (NHS), and how they’re neither safe nor fair.

So what do you do when someone’s threatening to drastically change your livelihood?

One option is to strike, another less drastic, but equally powerful option is to hold a protest rally. I attended the protest in London on Saturday 17th October 2015.

Save Our NHS

My friend Kirsten bugged me, and offered my a lift up to London where a big protest was being organised. I was a little reluctant, as I had an exam coming up, but seeing as she promised we’d do some revision on the way I couldn’t think of a reason not to.

Kirsten drove from deepest darkest Cornwall at some horrendous hour, stopping off at Plymouth and then at Exeter to assemble our group. In the yellow Fiat Panda we trundled up to Hounslow, where we parked under the never ending air traffic of Heathrow before getting the tube into Charing Cross.

On the tube, we started to make a few placards, we played it fairly safe with slogans such as Save our NHS, Tired Doctors Make Mistakes, and #notsafenotfair. Immediately I noticed the public were starting to take an interest, one lady peered over my shoulder - whilst another asked us ‘What’s this all about?’. The three of us explained to them what was going on and they seemed supportive. As soon as we got to Trafalgar Square we noticed a bunch of other medical professionals: stethoscopes, signs and enthusiasm were filling the centre of London.

We get to the start of the protest, Waterloo place to find even more people, along with signs, stalls, balloons and a big stage.

One really neat idea, was placards for all the doctors who wanted to come but were busy working. They had their name and speciality on and really emphasised how the NHS already works 7 days a week.

There were some hilarious placards, showing they have a sense of humour too.

Before the rally set of, there were some fantastic inspirational speeches, my favourite being from 92 year old activist Harry Leslie Smith, who was alive in the period before an NHS and recounted how dreadful it was, not only for his sister who died alone in a workhouse infirmary but for cancer patients who couldn’t even afford morphine for their pain as they passed away.

One quote came up several times

“The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it “ - Aneurin Bevan 

Here, Harry Smith told us that we had the same spirit as those who started the NHS many years ago which made me proud to be a part of the collective crowd, which by this point numbered up to 20,000.

Junior Doctors Contract March London - 17 by Garry Knight//CC BY 2.0

We marched through the centre of London, with roads closed to accommodate us. This was not just doctors, but students (like myself), nurses, families and patients. Many members of the public walked along with us, and there was chanting right outside Downing Street. It was the top story on the news, and the public were listening, even for that brief moment. While I was sceptical at first, I was glad I lent my voice to the campaign.

Important question: If you didn’t take a protest selfie, did you even go?

#junior doctor contracts #nhs #save our nhs #notsafenotfair #bevan #london #protest #demonstration #activism #harry leslie smith #jeremy hunt #bma #british medical association #selfie