The Idea Farm's Blog

  Brands have found it difficult to measure the full impact of their presence across organic touchpoints — such as their YouTube channel, user-generated content and creator collaborations — together with their paid advertising. That’s why YouTube introduced the new brand pulse report. The report provides a unified view of your brand’s presence across all of YouTube — paid and organic. You’ll be able to better measure where you’re driving impact across the platform and maximize your return on ad spend. Measure what matters The brand pulse report will use all-new data, powered by Google AI, to provide actionable insights that help you understand the full presence of your brand’s content on YouTube. The report uses first-of-its-kind, multi-modal AI to evaluate your brand presence across YouTube by detecting brand mentions via visuals (brand logos, product shots, etc.) and language (audio, video titles, etc.). So, if a creator uses or mentions your product in passing, we recognize it a...

  The finalists for this year's National Book Awards have been announced. Among the 25 nominees are novelists Rabih Alameddine and Megha Majumdar as well as journalists Julia Ioffe and Omar El Akkad, who also writes fiction. The winners of each category will be announced on Nov. 19 at an event in New York City. Also being honored are two lifetime achievement winners: author and Syracuse University professor George Saunders and author, cultural critic and Rutgers University-New Brunswick professor Roxane Gay. The ceremony will be streamed on the National Book Awards' website . Fiction Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief Karen Russell, The Antidote Ethan Rutherford, North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther Bryan Washington, Palaver Nonfiction Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This Julia Ioffe, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Auto...

 If you are a professor or graduate student, you know more about your field of study than most of the writers giving written sermons on opinion pages, Quora pages, Sub-Redditt’s, Twitter feeds, and possibly bookshelves right now. Your research and education informs your point of view. You know what you’re writing about — but commentators might know better how to write for a general audience. This means that the voices who have the most to contribute to public discourse are often getting drowned out. If this is something you struggle with, here are some writing tips to reach a broader audience: Don’t approach your introduction like it’s the warm-up before you get to the good stuff. Approach it like your only chance to attract your reader into your thoughts. Your lead is your opportunity to engage your reader: You’re conveying that your words are worth the reader’s effort. If you have writer’s block, look at the opening paragraphs of a practiced columnist, someone like Maureen Dowd o...

Writing is a means to communicate with a global audience. But how does one manage to write successfully for a broad audience when creating content? Below are some strategies and tips to correct common errors when creating content. Overall Tips Know and understand your audience : Define your ideal reader: Research their demographics, interests, challenges, and preferred tone and language. Create content tailored to their needs : Address their pain points, provide solutions, and offer valuable insights. Craft compelling headlines : Capture attention: Use strong words, numbers, and curiosity to entice clicks. Clearly state the value : Communicate what readers will gain from your content. Be specific and concise: Avoid vague or generic headlines. Structure for readability and engagement. Use a clear layout : Break up text with headings, subheadings, and bullet points. Write short paragraphs and sentences : Makes content easier to scan and digest. Incorporate visuals : Use images, video...

The process of getting published for many a fledgling writer has long been murky, and as part of the Idea farms efforts to build a more diverse community of authors and create more pathways to publishing, we’ve  made this handy article to provide you with resources that might help you be seen. Below are some opportunities we think will help you to get yourself out there and on your way to recognition. We've broken them down into categories for people who already know their own comfort zone. HORROR Tenebrous Press TP's mission is to drag the malleable horror genre into newer, weirder territory with stories that are provocative, intelligent and terrifying, delivered by voices diverse & unsung.  Horror Society Horror Society is a small but personal place where you will find news from the independent and mainstream horror scene, upcoming movies and DVDs, events and conventions, reviews, interviews, on-set reports, and more. If you truly want to be a part of this ever-growing s...

  The Jane Austen Writers' Club: Inspiration and advice from the world's best-loved novelist, by Rebecca Smith (New York Bloomsbury, 2016). While creative writing manuals use examples from twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers, The Jane Austen Writers' Club is the first to look at the methods and devices used by the world's most beloved novelist. Austen was a creator of immortal characters and a pioneer in her use of language and point of view; her advice continues to be relevant two centuries after her death. Rebecca Smith examines the major aspects of writing fiction such as plotting, characterization, openings and endings, dialogue, settings, and writing methods. Smith shares the advice Austen gave in letters to her aspiring novelist nieces and nephew and providing many and varied exercises for writers to try, using examples from Austen's work.

Obtaining permission to use text involves a four-step process:  1. You must clearly and specifically identify what material you want to use and how you want to use it. Your first stage is to identify the material you want to use and the rights you will need. Commercial Use : If you are seeking permission to use text on behalf of an advertising agency or a company selling a product or service, your use is more likely to be categorized as a commercial endorsement, which will trigger additional legal issues.  2. You must send a permission request letter to the publisher or rights holder. Your permission request letter should give the details about the text you want to use, how you expect to use it, and the permission you want. There are two different types of request letters you can use: • One simply informs the rights holder of your needs and expectations that you and the rights holder will later complete and sign a separate permission agreement. • The other serves as both a...