Emirates Airlines

Table of Contents Introduction Objectives and methodology Linkage with the Public Administration Issues References Introduction Emirates airlines is an air services provider based in Dubai. It is ranked as one of the best performing airlines worldwide. This company according to Namaki (2008) â€Å"has played a major role in the economic development of the United Arab Emirates by promoting tourism besides the region being the rich in oil deposits† (35).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Emirates Airlines specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Before the inception of emirates airlines, the main airline was the Gulf air whose relationship with the leadership of Dubai was faulted by the fact that Dubai had refused to open up its skies for the company’s operations. This prompted the Gulf air to end and withdraw bigger percentage of its operations in Dubai, leading to a partial paralysis of travels in and out of the region. Emirate airline was incepted to facilitate movement of people and goods in and out of Gulf region. Observations made on the growing trends of Airline companies indicate that, Emirates Airlines is steadily growing, serving more than 100 destinations all over the world. The success of this company is mainly based on strict management practices anchored in the company culture hence guaranteeing a sustainable survival. Objectives and methodology The study of the management practices in Emirates airlines are meant to ravel the strengths of the company that have ensured its continuity to growth over the years. Middle East is one of the areas despite being endowed with natural resources; it is hard for companies to survive, owing to the political climate of the region. This region has been facing political instability since civilization existed. It is therefore amazing how this company has managed to survive in this area and rise above many other companies which are operati ng in the most stable economies (Kuye, 2002). Research shows that Dubai, the headquarters of emirates airlines, is also the fastest growing tourists’ destination. Perhaps, this may be due to the hostility in the neighboring regions. Many researchers believe that the presence of Emirates airlines has played a major role in development of this city into a leading tourist destination. Again, this leaves one wondering the reasons behind such credibility to Emirates airline that started with a few numbers of operations in the region. The research questions in this case, therefore include, what is the management structure in the company, how management duties allocated are and how the management team guarantees accountability (Pathi, 2010).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The methodology for conducting this research will involve an intensive data collection activity. The ma in methods to be used in collecting the data will involve using structured questionnaires to obtain information from the Emirates airlines branches, obtaining performance information from airports authorities and researching through the company’s publications. This will also require data collection from secondary sources which will form the literature review of the study. The data analysis and presentation techniques that will come in handy in this research includes using tables to record the data and coding continuous data to give it discrete values for easy manipulation. This will be followed by writing a report on the research findings and this report should mainly concentrate on findings related to the management practices that have contributed to the success of Emirates airlines. It should also highlight the weaknesses that need to be addressed in order for the company to maintain the growth prospects in many years to come. Linkage with the Public Administration Issues T his research on the management of Emirates Airlines is related to public administration because; the company is owned and managed by the government of Dubai. The topic of public administration deals with the â€Å"implementation of government policies and the administration of government services† (Theaker, 2008, p. 265). Another definition of this is, the study of the decision making strategies applied by the government in policy making and analysis as well as the inputs that led to the development of these policies. The management of Emirates airlines is done directly from the government offices and any issues affecting the government affects this company as well. Some of these issues include the political instability in the Middle East which has been a hindrance for development in this area for a very long time. The United Arab Emirates is has however never been affected by this political tension directly, but the instability in the neighboring regions in threatening. Anot her public administration issue when it comes to the management of public companies is competition from the private sectors (Kuye, 2002). In most cases, the private operations do well compared to the public ones and this can be as a result of the private companies being more innovative hence taking over the market. In this case for example, Emirates airlines is facing stiff competition from Qatar and Etihad airlines and if the management of emirates does not take protective measures against this competition, they may end up losing their already established market to these new companies. It is hard for an existing company to regain its initial position once its operations begin to decline especially when the cause of the decline it competition from upcoming companies.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Emirates Airlines specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More References Kuye, J., 2002, Critical Perspectives on Public Admin istration: Issues for Consideration, Heinemann, Sandown Namaki, M., 2008, Strategy and Entrepreneurship in Arab Countries, Palgrave Macmillan, London Pathi, S., 2010, Public Administration Today: Macro and Micro Issues, Dominant Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi Theaker, A., 2008, The Public Relations Handbook, Routledge, New Jersey This essay on Emirates Airlines was written and submitted by user Pedro Green to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here. Emirates Airlines Abstract Financial statement analysis helps to improve the Emirates Airlines Company management’s decision making activities. Emirates Airlines Company is one of the world’s fastest growing airline companies. The company is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The financials statement analysis shows that Emirates Airlines Company performed profitably well during the 2011 operational year.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Emirates Airlines specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The financial statement analysis ratios include the current ratio, quick ratio, net profit ratio, and return on investment ratio. The SWOT analysis is used to determine Emirates Airlines Company strengths. In addition, the SWOT analysis is used to determine the Emirates Airlines Company’s weaknesses. The company’s SWOT analysis delves into the company’s opportunities to increasing its revenues. The SWOT analysis shows that the company hast o contend with its encroaching threats. Consequently, Emirates Airlines Company must focus on retaining its current position as the top passenger and cargo entity in the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, Emirates Airlines Company profitably performed in United Arab Emirates’ airline business operations during 2011. Introduction Emirates Airlines Company focuses on increasing its revenues. The research centers on financial statement analysis of Emirates Airlines Company. The research centers on The SWOT analysis of the company. Emirates Airlines Company generated favorable SWOT and Financial Statement Analysis figures for 2011. Background Emirates Airline Company is the official flagship of the United Arab Emirates. The company offers air transportation services to its current and prospective clients. The clients come from different parts of the world. The clients arrive from different locations around the world. Similarly, the Emirates Airlin es Company is strategically located in the United Arab Emirates residents. The residents are eager to leave their home country, United Arab Emirates, for a vacation or business trip to any part of the global market place. Further, the Emirates Airlines Company generates different revenue types. Food service revenues are significant contributors to the Emirates Airlines Company’s revenues. The Emirates Airlines Company offers cargo flight serves. The service helps the augment the Emirates Airlines Company’s total revenues. The company also generates revenues from carrying physical mails. Physical mails may perish or become lost within the transportation delivery dates.Advertising Looking for research paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Literature review There are different Emirates Airlines Company segments. Emirates Airlines Company operates from Dubai, the fastest growing cities in the global market place (Taneja, 2008). The Destination and Leisure Management is one very popular Emirates Airlines Company segment. The company also operates its own subsidiary. One of the subsidiaries is the Emirates SkyCargo. Another Emirates Airlines subsidiary is the Skywards cargo services. A third Emirates Airlines Company is the Emirates official store display center. The Emirates Airlines Company operates its own commercial store; the store’s name is EmQuest. Further, the Emirates Airlines Company includes an engineering division. Lastly, the company opens its own airplane store market segment. The company sells its passenger tickets at low prices. The low prices are understandable. The private enterprise would have to charge higher passenger and cargo fares to cover the amounts allocated to government taxes. Most companies prefer using Emirates Airlines Company’s services because it is faster than sending the cargo through land (Morrell, 2011). In addition, the company must include an additional amount to cover the operating expenses of the company. The operating expenses include the employees’ salaries. In addition, the operating expenses include the advertising expenses. Further, the operating expenses include the cost of repairing and maintaining the Emirates Airlines Company airplanes in good working condition. The operating expenses include the fuel, oil, and other expenses to ensure the Emirates Airlines Company planes can fly the customers to their preferred destination. The low Emirates Airlines Company passenger prices encourage the current Air France and Qantas airline passengers to shift to the cheaper Emirates Airlines Company’s airplanes (Besanko, 2009). Methodology In terms of methodology, the financial statement analysis was used to determine the financial health of the company, Emirates Airlines. The use of SWOT Analysis complements Emirates Airlines’ 2011 financial statement analysis. Application (data analysis) Financial statement analysis For the year 2011, Table 1 indicates the above Emirates Airlines’ financial statement analysis’ current ratio shows the company’s current assets of 21,867 is 1.07 times higher than the company’s current liabilities of 20,498. The ratio indicates the company has enough current assets to pay its currently maturing current liabilities during the year.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Emirates Airlines specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More For the year 2010, Emirates Airlines’ current ratio analysis shows the company’s current assets portion amounting to 18,677 is 1.01 times higher than the company’s 18,520 current liabilities portion. The financial statement ratio indicates the company has enough current assets available for the payment of its currently maturing current liabilities during the year. Comparing the two accounti ng audited financial statements’ accounting periods, the year 2011 current ratio of 1.07 shows a better financial statement liquidity performance compared to the lower 1.01 current ratio financial statement performance for the year 2010. In terms of clarification, the company’s current assets portion of the financial statements is composed of cash, cash equivalents, short term investments, accounts receivable, short term loans, inventories, taxes, other current assets and assets held for sale during 2011 and 2010. The company’s current liabilities portion of the financial statements include the company’s short term borrowings, accounts payable, dividends payable. For the year 2011, table 2 shows that the above financial statement analysis shows the company’s total debt to total equity ratio includes the company’s total debt amounting to only 44,188. The figure is 2.11 times the company’s total equity amounting to 20,902. The companyâ €™s total debt figure is higher than the company’s total equity amount. For the year 2010, the above financial statement analysis shows the company’s total debt to total equity ratio. The ratio indicates the company’s total debt amounts to only 38,072. The figure is 2.18 times the company’s total equity amounting to 17,475. The ratio indicates the company’s total debt is higher than the company’s total equity. The best debt to equity ratio is defined as a one to one relationship. Thus, the company must generate loan amounts equal to the amount invested by the stockholders of Emirates Airlines Company. Comparing the two accounting periods’ audited financial statements, the year 2011 debt to equity ratio of 2.11 is financially better because the 2010 financial statement liquidity performance ratio is lower when compared to the 2.18 debt to equity ratio for the year 2010. The Emirates Airline Company’s preference for bank loan s is understandable. The company may not prefer generating cash inflows from offering new shares of stocks. The shares of stocks are generally issued to current stockholders and future stockholders. In turn, the current stockholders and future stockholders will automatically become shareholders of Pfizer Company. The owners’ share in the company is arrived at by dividing each stockholder’s own share by the total number of shares being offered to both the current investors and future investors. In turn, the current shareholders as and future shareholders prefer to invest their funds in the company with the intention of generating dividend income.Advertising Looking for research paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Dividends are arrived at by dividing the company’s annual net income amount by the total number of outstanding common stocks. In terms of prioritizing dividend payments, Emirates Airline must prioritize the payment of the preferred shares’ dividend income. After the preferred shareholders of the airline company are paid, the excess dividend amount is distributed to the owners of common stocks (Maguire, 2007). Table 3 shows that Emirates Airlines Company’s 2011 quick ratio shows the company’s quick assets of 20,577is 1.00 times higher than the company’s current liabilities of 20,498. The Emirates Airlines’ 2010 quick ratio shows the company’s quick assets of 17,592is 0.95 times higher than the company’s current liabilities of 18,520. The comparison shows the company has enough quick assets available to pay the company’s currently maturing current liabilities within the same year. Comparing the audited financial statements of 2011 and 2010, 2011 is financially better than 2010 because the 2011’s quick ratio of 1.00 is higher than the 2010 financial statement liquidity performance (quick ratio) of 0.95. In terms of clarification, the company’s quick assets are composed of cash, cash equivalents, short term investments, and accounts receivable (Fabozzi, 2010). In terms of cash ratio analysis, table 4 shows that the 2011 Emirates Airlines’ 10,196 cash, cash equivalent, and marketable securities amount is 0.50 times lower than the company’s current liabilities. The higher liabilities amount is 20,498. The financial statement ratio shows the company does not have enough cash and cash equivalent amounts available to pay the airline company’s maturing current liabilities during the year. For the year 2010, the above financial statement analysis shows the company’s 9,335 cash, cash equivalent, marketable securities amount is 50 percent of the company’s 18,520 current liabilities amount. The financial statement ratio indicates the company does not have enough current assets available for the payment of the company’s currently maturing current liabilities. Comparing the two accounting periods’ audited financial statements, Emirates Airlines has similar cash ratio results for both 2011 and 2010 (Wahlen, 2011). For the year 2011, Table 5 shows that the above financial statement analysis (return on investment) shows the Emirates Airlines’ 5,129 net income is 9 percent of the United Arab Emirates’ 60,318.50 average total assets. For the year 2010, the above financial statement analysis computation (return on investment) shows the company’s 3,418 net income amount is 6 percent of the company’s average total assets amounting to 55,547. Comparing the two accounting periods, the 2011 accounting period fared better than the 2010 accounting period (Pratt, 2010). SWOT analysis Strengths Using SWOT analysis (F errell, 2010), Emirates Airlines has proven itself to be one of the world’s best airlines, in terms of quality service. As proof, the company was able to generated an estimated 20 percent airline passenger revenue has increase during the2001 November season. The passenger seat sales continue to remain at 80 percent or more. In addition, the Emirates Airline Company generated an asset increase. The asset increase is on its 7th year continuing trend. In fact, the Emirates Airline’s fleet increased from its 60 aircraft status (2004) to its current 141 aircraft status (2011). Specifically, Emirates Airline has the most number of A380s as well as 17 crafts. In addition, the company has the largest number of Boeing 777s. In addition, the Emirates Airlines Company caters to the airline passenger needs leading to and coming from more than 114 destinations around the world and within the United Arab Emirates. Emirates Airlines Company also fills the needs for airline flight goi ng to and coming from over 66 countries around the world. As usual, the Emirates Airlines Company is planning to add more flights to fill the increased needs for airline flights during 2012. The company will increase its A380 airplane passenger type from its currently owned 90 units s to the higher 120 units. The company is currently purchasing an additional 192 units of passenger airplanes for fill the increasing demand for the company’s passenger planes in 2012. In addition, the Emirates Airlines Company has constructed seven lounges to fill the comfort needs of the Emirates Airlines Company current and prospective clients. Another of the airline company’s strength is the Emirates Airlines Company’s open policy. The company is welcome to diverse inputs. The inputs include those coming form the company’s current and prospective clients. The client inputs include complaints regarding the company’s current services, suggestions on how to improve the Emirates Airlines Company’s services, recommendations to hasten the speed and quality of the company’s services. The company includes inputs from the competitors’ products and services in line with retaining the company’s current position in the United Arab Emirates airline passenger market segment. The company continues to increase the number of flight schedules. The increase is needed to cater to the increasing demand for airline seats going into or going out of the United Arab Emirates. Weaknesses In terms of weaknesses (Ebers, 2007), Emirates Airlines Company’s current business operations is affected by the United States’ 2008 economic depression. The depression triggered a drop in the demand for airline tickets. Many of the people lost their jobs due to bankruptcy. Many companies closed their shop during the 2008 economic meltdown. Consequently, the unemployment rate increase precipitated to a decrease in the company’s airline t ickets. Specifically, the company’s net profits had declined to only 982 m Dirhams ($267.4 million) the 2011 annual accounting period. Emirates Airlines Company Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum emphasized the economic depression triggered a decline in the demand for airline tickets. In turn, the decline in the Emirates Airlines Company airplane tickets triggered a decline in other business types within the United Arab Emirates territory. The Emirates Airlines Company revenue decline precipitates to the decline in Dubai’s tourism industry. The Dubai businesses cater to the demands, needs, wants, and caprices of local and foreign nationals. Opportunities In terms of opportunities (Ebers, 2007), the Emirates Airlines Company is committed to enhancing its current popular images as one of the best passenger -centered passenger plane companies. To comply with the projected Emirates Airlines Company image, the company is serving the passenger passing through the doo rs of the Unite Arab Emirates airport. By increasing the company’s current airplane units, the Emirates Airlines Company is able to continue the Emirates Airlines Company’s current high quality service to the current and prospective discriminating clients. The company can increase its current airport passenger volume to new destinations around the world. The company can negotiate with the countries to allow Emirates Airlines Company to increase its current flights going into a new country destination as well as increasing the number of flights going into the United Arab Emirates. To successfully increase the number of airline passenger, the company implements courage, honesty, and strengths in all its global business operations. In terms of operations, the company focuses on research and development activities. The activities are geared towards increasing operational efficiency, passenger service effectiveness, cost reduction processes. Another opportunity it to replac e the decline for airplane passenger tickets with an increase in Emirates Airlines Company cargo space. The company can maximize the benefits of setting up the company own global airfreight business. The company can hire sales agents who fill focus on increasing Emirates Airlines Company airplane cargo space. Further, the company will focus on advertising its online website. The clients will find it easier to book their next flights online. The online passenger registration system will encourage the current and prospective clients to book their flights in the safety and comfort of their homes, offices, restaurants, beach, and while travelling from one place to another. Threats Based on the threats (Ebers, 2007), the increase in gasoline prices significantly affected the other businesses within the Dubai environment. In addition, Emirates Airlines Company is dependent on third party vendors. Emirates Airlines Company is forced to buy its raw materials and other requirements. To resol ve the situation, the Emirates Airlines Company should accept the supply bids from three or more suppliers. With the three supplier alternatives, Emirates Airlines Company can reduce its dependence on the suppliers. On the other hand, Emirates Airlines Company’s use of only one supplier will force the company to succumb to the pressure of the monopolistic one supplier resource. Having three competing suppliers encourages the Emirates Airlines Company to choose the company having the least possible cost, highest possible quality and best after sales supplier services. In addition, the volatility of the global oil prices hurts the Emirates Airlines Company financially. The increasing prices of oil precipitate to an increase in company’s gasoline and oil expenditures. The wars have contributed to the increase in the global market price of the fossil fuel, gasoline. The increase in gasoline and oil expenses forces the Emirates Airlines Company to increase its current airli ne ticker prices. An increase in the Emirates Airlines Company passenger and cargo selling prices will translate to a lower demand for the airline passenger tickets. One of the economic principles (supply and demand theory) indicate that as the prices of commodities increase, the current and prospective clients’ demand for the commodities decrease. The selling prices of the Emirates Airlines Company passenger and cargo tickets are not exempt from the supply and demand theory of economics. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, financial statement analysis aids in enhancing the Emirates Airlines Company management’s decision making activities. The financials statement analysis indicates that the company fared profitably well during the 2011 operational year. The SWOT analysis indicates how Emirates Airlines Company should focus on keeping its current position as the top passenger, and cargo entity in the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, Emirates Airlines Company generat ed positive financial statement analysis and SWOT data 2011. References Besanko, D. (2009). Economics of Strategy. New York: J Wiley Sons Press. Ebers, M. (2007). SWOT Analysis. New York: Grin Press. Fabozzi, F. (2010). Analysis of Financial Statements. New York: J Wiley Sons Press. Ferrell, O. (2010). Marketing Strategy. New York: Cengage Press. Maguire, M. (2007). Financial Statement Analysis. New York: Grin Press. Morrell, P. (2011). Moving Boxes by Air: The Economics of International Economics. New York: Asghate Press. Pratt, J. (2010). Financial Accounting in an Economic Context. New York: J Wiley Sons Press. Taneja, N. (2008). Flying Ahead the Airplane. New York: Ashgate Press. Wahlen, J. (2011). Financial Reporting: Financial Statemetn Analysis and  Valuation. New York: Cengage Press. This research paper on Emirates Airlines was written and submitted by user Ivy L. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

How To Write For Social Media To Create The Best Posts - CoSchedule

How To Write For Social Media To Create The Best Posts Social media success requires strong writing skills. However, not all social media managers consider themselves writers. Fortunately, writing great social media content doesn’t have to be difficult. Not every post needs to reinvent the copywriting wheel, after all. Still, taking the time to get your writing right is worth it. Lets  learn how to write for social media and start creating better content now. Why Does It Matter If You Write Well On Social Media? Every social post you publish reflects on your brand. If you’re sloppy, your company will look sloppy too. Even worse, it could undermine your success on social media. Thats why its important to write well on social media. Social media copywriting requires some unique skills.  You need to be able to cram as much value into as few words as possible. You also have to be consistent and engaging at all times. Plus, every network is unique. What works on Facebook might flop  on LinkedIn. This makes becoming a master social wordsmith even more difficult. And thats exactly why we wrote this post. How To Write For Social Media To Create The Best Posts Consistency Counts (So Build A Social Media Style Guide) Keeping your social copy clean and within brand standards can be a challenge. Developing a simple style guide can help with this. A basic style guide can be one or two pages long, and should include the following: Mission Statement: This can be twofold:  why does your business exist, and why are you on social media? Audience/Persona Summary: Briefly describe your core audience on social media. Who are you writing for, anyway? Social Media Brand Voice: Describe what your social brand voice should sound like (casual, serious, professional, irreverent, etc.). Tone: Describe your social tone (helpful, funny, authoritative, etc.) Branding: List requirements for brand spellings (and other copy-related branding elements). Message Types (By Network): Not all content needs to go on every network. Create some guidelines on which types of messaging are appropriate on which of your social networks. If you need help building a style guide, this guide from Hubspot  is a great primer. TIP: Use the Social Media Style Guide Template included in this post to build your own style guide. Put Together a Social Media Writing Toolbox The first thing you'll need is the Social Message  Optimizer! It's the latest FREE tool from your friends at .  Ã°Å¸Ëœâ€° The Social Message  Optimizer helps you nail the mechanics behind writing amazing social media messages. That means it analyzes your message type, character length, number of hashtags, emoji count, and more to help you optimize the perfect message for every social network! When you use the Social Message  Optimizer, you'll: Stop guessing what works (and what doesn't). Learning and then remembering all of the best practices for writing on every social network is super time-consuming and tedious. Now you have a clear place to start writing every social media message! Just write, review your score on each network, and optimize further based on real data. Get immediate feedback to improve quickly. Consider the Social Message  Optimizer your expert who is always there to answer your questions. You'll A/B test your messages before you publish them to get the most engagement on each network. Get even more engagement than ever before.  Capture more eyeballs with your messages! Get more likes, comments, shares, and link clicks by using the data from  6,399,322 social messages to refine yours to be among the top 10%. Use the Social Message  Optimizer now. Grammarly We've all published a social post with a typo before. And we've all felt like this as a result: This is where Grammarly's free browser extension (available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) comes in handy. It's a life-saving spelling and grammar checking tool. Install it on your browser, and it'll check your spelling and grammar on everything you write, anywhere (including on social media). Hashtagify.me Looking for relevant hashtags to incorporate into your tweets? Hashtagify.me should fit the bill. It's an easy-to-use hashtag search engine to help you find hashtags people are actually using. 9 Basic Social Media Writing Tips Like we said earlier, every network has its own quirks and best practices. However, there are some standard best practices that generally apply to most networks, too. Let's review those now. Start writing better on social media now.Understand Active Vs. Passive Voice Using active voice helps produce more engaging copy. According to PlainLanguage.gov, Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Most writers are familiar with active and passive voice. If you’re not sure what the difference is (and were afraid to ask) though, then never fear. There’s no shame here. Let’s walk through each one: Hear the difference? The first example puts the subject (â€Å"I†) in the driver’s seat. It’s more action-oriented. The second example, however, sounds a bit more flat, factual, and lacking action. Writing for social media? Use active voice.Put Your Audience First It's rude to only talk about yourself. So, write in a way that puts your audience at the center of the story instead. How do you do this? Simple. Say â€Å"you† more than you say â€Å"us.† Here’s a good example from Threadless’ Twitter bio: Write Stuff People Want To Share This requires understanding why people  share content. Let's  break this down into five major reasons: Delivering value to their audience. People want to share things their audience will find valuable. This could mean content that’s helpful, entertaining, or otherwise worth paying attention to. Try writing posts that convey a clear benefit. If you create how-to content, consider writing copy that hints at what the linked article will help readers do. You can also create unlinked social messages that include a useful tip in your post copy or image copy. Here’s an example from Bobcat Company: To  express and define themselves. When sharing posts, people often think, â€Å"How does sharing  this reinforce my identity?† Use surveys or create personas to understand your typical audience member. From there, figure out how they identify themselves. For example, if you sell construction equipment, your audience might see themselves as â€Å"tough† or â€Å"hard-working.† Pickup truck manufacturers know their customers connect their identities to what they drive. This post from Ram Trucks capitalizes on this: To feel connected to others. Social media is about building connections and relationships. People naturally want to share posts that shows they’re part of something bigger themselves. They also like to share posts likely to start a conversation (so they can converse with other people). One way to do this is to write messages that encourage tagging and sharing. Like this: To make themselves feel valued. People want to share posts that are likely to get likes, shares, and positive comments. It feels good to share something your friends like, right?  You might also consider writing messages showing appreciation for your audience. To express beliefs or support causes. People love sharing opinions on social media.  You probably don't need to be told that, either. If it’s appropriate, take a stance on something or show your support for a cause. You don’t have to get too controversial (although sometimes a little bit of controversy is okay). Here’s an example from the United Nations: This tweet does each of the following: It promotes a cause (gender equality). It incorporates a relevant hashtag in the middle of the tweet. It uses positive language. It links to a page where viewers can take action. It also achieves each of these goals without being offensive or inflammatory. Before writing social posts, ask 'Why would someone share this'?Make Sure You Have Clear  Message-Match Between Your Posts And Destination Pages If your post is linking to an external page, then your post messaging needs to match your landing page messaging. In short, your social media content needs to follow through on the promises your posts make. Here are a few tips to keep in mind: Double-check that links are accurate. Only link to substantive pages with good information. And make sure your post copy is relevant to your destination page. Check out this tweet from Esquire. It’s written to stoke curiosity and intrigue. What will  happen on season 2 of Stranger Things? Who knows? I don't, but the destination page here better tell me. Once I reach the page, it’s immediately clear that the post copy directed me to a relevant link. The destination page’s headline is well aligned with the tweet, too. That’s a good thing, because if this ended up being click bait, I would have thrown my keyword. Don’t make people want to throw their keyboards. Make sure your social messaging matches your  destination page.Make Sure Your Copy Matches Your Visual Content, Too If you’re writing image copy, consider connecting it with your post copy too. Here’s a great example from Gary Vaynerchuk: See how the post copy connects with the image copy? One leads into the other to communicate one clear message. Here’s another example from the NFL that creatively incorporates a player’s number (in this case, Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers, the greatest sports franchise in history*): *Your favorite team is great, too. This creative campaign counted down the days until kickoff, including a different player down to opening day. Be Clear And Concise Avoid complex language and use short sentences. People skim on social media, so punchy posts tend to work better than long-winded paragraphs. Try to limit yourself to just one or two sentences, if possible. This isn’t a firm rule, but it may be a useful guideline to keep yourself from rambling. Struggling to keep your posts short? Try working through this simple exercise. Start by reading  this example post: â€Å"Here is our latest blog post about a very awesome topic you’ll enjoy.† This isn’t that bad, right? Well, there are a lot of wasted words we could do without. Let’s try minimizing stop words (is, a, etc.) and see how it sounds. We could also make the end of the sentence more specific, focusing on one detail to use fewer words. â€Å"Here’s our latest blog post about blogging.† Hear the difference? The second example says essentially the same thing. It just does it with fewer but more specific words, and sounds much better as a result. Clarity and conciseness are key for writing well on social media.Avoid Pushy, Overly Sales-Driven Messaging At least when it comes to writing organic social media content. While social ads need to be written to sell, organic social posts should be written to inform, entertain, or otherwise make a connection with your audience. That doesn’t mean you can’t promote yourself. It just means it’s best to find a way to sell people on the idea of taking an action without directly sounding like you’re making a sales pitch. Here’s an example from music distribution platform Bandcamp: If you must write a sales message, focus on benefits to the consumer. This tweet from Threadless lets people know there’s a sale going on without forcefully saying, â€Å"Buy Now† or â€Å"Shop Here.† It also uses a nice, clear image. Invoke Curiosity Write in a way that makes people want to click through. If you’re linking to another article or blog post, you don’t need to tell the whole story in your social media update. Instead, leave some details unanswered while implying your linked articles will answer their questions. What is the mystery on "The Curse of Oak Island," anyway?  You don't have to care about construction equipment to want to find out. Recommended Reading: How To Use Social Media Analytics To Create The Best Content Social Media Writing Tips For Each Network Every social media network is different. Different audiences. Different purposes. Different expectations. Your writing and messaging should be adjusted accordingly. Instead of writing one message for every network, tailor your messaging to each one individually. To do this, it helps to understand the purpose of each network, and what works best on each one: Consider audience expectations for each network when writing social media posts.Facebook Writing Tips With declining Facebook organic reach, sharp copy is now more important than ever. Keep Posts Short There’s some wiggle room on this one. However, data shows short posts perform best. Avoid Promotional Calls-To-Action Facebook’s algorithm can detect overly promotional language. This means wording like, â€Å"Buy Now!† or â€Å"Sign up here!† Posts with a hard sales message get demoted in the newsfeed, and with organic reach already in decline, that’s something you can’t afford. Write Shareable Article Headlines If you’re writing blog posts or articles, keep Facebook in mind when crafting catchy headlines. Think short, punchy, and conversational. Recommended Reading: Facebook Marketing Strategy: Why You Need One (And How to Build It) Twitter Writing Tips You can do a surprising amount with just 140 characters. Here are some tips to make the most of your tweets. Do More Than Simply Reshare Headlines As Post Copy This one is okay in moderation. However, it’s better to write copy that adds to the story your article is telling.  Here’s an example of what we mean: Instead of reusing the article headline as a social post, the post outlines the story in the article. This helps build interest in clicking the link, and prevents wasting people’s time reading the same text twice. Incorporate Hashtags Directly In Tweet Copy It’s easy to add hashtags to the end of a post. However, consider cleverly incorporating them directly into your tweets instead. In this example from Electronic Arts, a single hashtag is the entire post. This creates a clean look for your hashtags, and ensures they get seen. Get creative and directly incorporate hashtags in your social posts.Go Easy On Hashtags, Though Make sure your message isn’t lost in a sea of hashtags. Aim to use two, or maybe three, at the most. Recommended Reading: How To Use Hashtags Effectively Without Being Annoying Be Mindful Of Your Character Limit You have 140 characters here. Stay under that limit without cutting corners. Conciseness is no excuse for lack of clarity. If you can’t use complete sentences, you need to rewrite your tweet. Try Adding URLs In The Middle Of Tweets (Instead Of At The End) This tip comes from Dan Zarrella at Hubspot. This data is a little old at this point, but in 2011, he discovered that â€Å"the best area for clicks is about 25% of the way through the Tweet.† As a writer, testing this requires you to consider writing in a way that would let you place a link after just two or three words. Try following this formula: [Short Intro] + [URL] + [Longer Explanation]. Have you tried putting URLs in the middle of tweets, instead of at the end?Tag Other Relevant Accounts Within Your Tweet Copy This helps alert other folks that you’re talking about them. In turn, they’ll be more likely to share your posts. It’s win-win. Be sure to write your posts with other accounts in mind. Incorporate Emojis Into Your Tweet Copy Like it or not, â€Å"emoji† is turning into a language all its own. Used creatively, they can add a splash of character to your tweets. Check out this example from Sporting Kansas City, a Major League Soccer team: Tell A Story In A Tweet It’s possible to tell a complete story in a tweet. Here’s an example from Microsoft: This tweet outlines the entire article in under 140 characters. Recommended Reading: 15 Tactics to Boost Twitter Engagement (Backed By Research) Google+ Writing Tips Google+ is different from other social networks and allows for some interesting formatting options. Use that to your advantage. Write Compelling Post Headlines Google+ is unique in that it allows you to write bolded headlines. General best practices for writing headlines applies here. Don’t Be Afraid To Tell A Whole Story Google+ posts can run a bit longer than on other networks. Take advantage of that. Go into more detail than normal if you feel you need to. LinkedIn Writing Tips LinkedIn is a professional network. Here's how to make sure your writing reflects that. Be Clear Avoid using professional lingo if it won’t be understood by your audience. Be Concise Get to the point. Don’t ramble. Busy professionals don’t have time to waste. Stay Professional LinkedIn is a professional network. Don’t forget this when writing your posts. Stick to a professional tone. Instagram Writing Tips Instagram is a visual-driven network. However, the written word still has its place there. Think About Alignment Between Your Image Copy And Post Copy Instagram is a visual network, but the written word still has a place there. Write image copy that hooks people’s attention while connecting with your post text. Don’t Forget Hashtags Instagram likes hashtags. Don’t be afraid to use them liberally at the end of your posts. Recommended Reading: How To Improve Your Visual Marketing On Pinterest And Instagram Pinterest Writing Tips Pinterest is a highly visual network, but that doesn't mean you can neglect your writing chops here. Write Longer Pin Descriptions According to a study from Dan Zarrella, descriptions over 200 characters long received more repins. That could be thanks to those pins having more detailed context around what they're about to entice people to click and share. Include Links in Pin Descriptions If people like the images you pin, they'll probably want to learn more about where they came from. Adding a link helps, and don't be afraid to add a call to action, either. Include Relevant Keywords in Your Pin Descriptions Including keywords in pin descriptions can help them show up in searches on Pinterest. How To Define And Develop Your Voice And Tone People expect social media accounts to have a consistent voice. Your presence needs personality, even if you’re representing a brand. Social media is about generating conversation. No one wants to talk to someone boring. This means you’ll need to develop a consistent voice. One that’s both true to your brand or personality, while fitting for each social network you’re on. What Does Your Social Media Voice Sound Like? Your voice is essentially your personality on social media. Are you fun? Serious? Creative? What's The Difference Between Voice And Tone? Voice and tone are often used interchangeably. However, there is a difference, and it's important to understand them both. Your tone is the inflection you apply to your voice. Depending on the context, you could sound happy, sad, angry, or any other emotion that's appropriate. Buffer's Kevan Lee may have put it best: Essentially, there is one voice for your brand and many tones that refine that voice.  Voice is a mission statement. Tone is the application of that mission. How To Develop  Your Brand's Social Media Personality Start by asking these questions: What is my/our mission or purpose? What are our values? What kind of language and tone does our audience use? Then, try filling in the blanks here a few different ways: â€Å"We are ________ , but we’re not __________ .† An example answer here could be, â€Å"We are funny, but we’re not offensive.† Or, â€Å"We are professional, but we’re not stuffy.† The idea is to narrow down who you are, and who you’re not. Recommended Reading: This Is The Social Media Posting Schedule That Will Boost Your Traffic By 192% Are You Personable? Professional? Or Both? Social media is often used to keep in touch with friends, family, and colleagues. That means your social media content has to compete against updates from people users are close with. It's a simple fact that most people don’t log into a social network to see content from brands, companies, or bloggers. There are exceptions, of course. In any case, you need to write to stand out and hook people’s attention. This requires understanding what your audience expects to see from you. And that might be hard if your brand isn’t inherently â€Å"fun.† So, what can you do? Know Your Audience Who are your customers? What are their values, concerns, and interests? It’s important to figure this out if you don’t already know. Survey your audience if you have to. You need to know who you’re writing for before you can understand what they want from you. Creating a social media audience persona might help. This essentially entails creating a character description of your average target audience member. Building personas takes a little bit of work, but it can help you get a clear idea of who you’re writing for. TIP: Know who you’re writing for on social media. Do this by running surveys, building personas, or even just listening to what they say on social media. Know Your Competition Seeing what kind of content your competition is writing can help inspire your own approach. Check out some of your competitor’s social profiles and make note of the following: What does their brand voice sound like? Does their content appear to drive engagement? If this company were a person, would I want to talk to them? This can give you an idea of what works in your industry. TIP: Pay attention to competitors in your space on social media. Note their writing style. Take inspiration from what works, and then do it better yourself. Know Yourself. Cat videos, memes, and other distractions dominate on social media. Those things might work for your brand. They could also be totally inappropriate. The key is to find the right balance between personable and professional content and tone for your audience. Start by defining yourself under one of these three categories: Personable. Your brand is fun, warm, and inviting. Professional. Your brand is serious, authoritative, and orderly. Both. Your brand bridges both of the above, tying fun content into more professional themes. How do you know which is best for your brand? One answer is to use common sense. If you’re a legal firm, for example, you probably don’t want to sound lighthearted. If you run a pet adoption center, however, you’d likely want to sound fun and inviting to get people in the door. What do you do if it isn’t immediately obvious which of these three categories best fits your brand? Try working through these three exercises to figure it out. Exercise 1: Determine Who You Are (By Determining Who You’re Not) One way to help understand your brand voice is to ask â€Å"We are ______ , but we are not ______ â€Å" questions. This can help you know who you are, and just as importantly, who you’re not. As an exercise, fill in those blanks a few different ways. Here are some examples: â€Å"We're fun, but we’re not goofy.† â€Å"We're informative, but we’re not boring.† â€Å"We're authoritative, but we’re not arrogant.† Exercise 2: Try Summarizing Your Brand In Just Three Adjectives Another idea is to simply think of three adjectives that describe your brand. In traditional advertising parlance, this could be thought of as a â€Å"tag line.† According to The Balance, A variant of a branding slogan, a tagline can be used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create  a memorable dramatic phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of an audio/visual product, or to reinforce and strengthen the audience's memory of a literary product. Your mission (should you choose to accept it), is to do one of the following: Keep your company’s existing tag line in mind when writing on social media. Ask yourself, â€Å"How does this messaging support or reflect what we’re about?† Come up with a new tagline. It doesn’t have to be one you use publicly. It could even just a short phrase you use internally to guide your copy. Let’s try developing a simple tagline using three adjectives. Taglines can be short phrases (typically no longer than five to seven words), but we’ll make this easy. The goal is to help you summarize who you are, in order to inform your social media voice. Start by choosing three adjectives that fall into one or all of the categories below: An adjective describing what you do. Another addressing how you do it. One more pertaining to why you do it. Let’s say you run a car dealership. What are some things you might value? Honesty Experience Quality service Put that together, and you could come up with a tagline like: Honest. Experience. Quality. How To Write For Social Media To Create The Best Posts Social media success requires strong writing skills. However, not all social media managers consider themselves writers. Fortunately, writing great social media content doesn’t have to be difficult. Not every post needs to reinvent the copywriting wheel, after all. Still, taking the time to get your writing right is worth it. Lets  learn how to write for social media and start creating better content now. Why Does It Matter If You Write Well On Social Media? Every social post you publish reflects on your brand. If you’re sloppy, your company will look sloppy too. Even worse, it could undermine your success on social media. Thats why its important to write well on social media. Social media copywriting requires some unique skills.  You need to be able to cram as much value into as few words as possible. You also have to be consistent and engaging at all times. Plus, every network is unique. What works on Facebook might flop  on LinkedIn. This makes becoming a master social wordsmith even more difficult. And thats exactly why we wrote this post. How To Write For Social Media To Create The Best Posts Consistency Counts (So Build A Social Media Style Guide) Keeping your social copy clean and within brand standards can be a challenge. Developing a simple style guide can help with this. A basic style guide can be one or two pages long, and should include the following: Mission Statement: This can be twofold:  why does your business exist, and why are you on social media? Audience/Persona Summary: Briefly describe your core audience on social media. Who are you writing for, anyway? Social Media Brand Voice: Describe what your social brand voice should sound like (casual, serious, professional, irreverent, etc.). Tone: Describe your social tone (helpful, funny, authoritative, etc.) Branding: List requirements for brand spellings (and other copy-related branding elements). Message Types (By Network): Not all content needs to go on every network. Create some guidelines on which types of messaging are appropriate on which of your social networks. If you need help building a style guide, this guide from Hubspot  is a great primer. TIP: Use the Social Media Style Guide Template included in this post to build your own style guide. Put Together a Social Media Writing Toolbox The first thing you'll need is the Social Message  Optimizer! It's the latest FREE tool from your friends at .  Ã°Å¸Ëœâ€° The Social Message  Optimizer helps you nail the mechanics behind writing amazing social media messages. That means it analyzes your message type, character length, number of hashtags, emoji count, and more to help you optimize the perfect message for every social network! When you use the Social Message  Optimizer, you'll: Stop guessing what works (and what doesn't). Learning and then remembering all of the best practices for writing on every social network is super time-consuming and tedious. Now you have a clear place to start writing every social media message! Just write, review your score on each network, and optimize further based on real data. Get immediate feedback to improve quickly. Consider the Social Message  Optimizer your expert who is always there to answer your questions. You'll A/B test your messages before you publish them to get the most engagement on each network. Get even more engagement than ever before.  Capture more eyeballs with your messages! Get more likes, comments, shares, and link clicks by using the data from  6,399,322 social messages to refine yours to be among the top 10%. Use the Social Message  Optimizer now. Grammarly We've all published a social post with a typo before. And we've all felt like this as a result: This is where Grammarly's free browser extension (available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) comes in handy. It's a life-saving spelling and grammar checking tool. Install it on your browser, and it'll check your spelling and grammar on everything you write, anywhere (including on social media). Hashtagify.me Looking for relevant hashtags to incorporate into your tweets? Hashtagify.me should fit the bill. It's an easy-to-use hashtag search engine to help you find hashtags people are actually using. 9 Basic Social Media Writing Tips Like we said earlier, every network has its own quirks and best practices. However, there are some standard best practices that generally apply to most networks, too. Let's review those now. Start writing better on social media now.Understand Active Vs. Passive Voice Using active voice helps produce more engaging copy. According to PlainLanguage.gov, Readers prefer active voice sentences, and we should try to use the active voice in most of our business writing to communicate our message most effectively. Active voice clearly identifies the action and who is performing that action. Most writers are familiar with active and passive voice. If you’re not sure what the difference is (and were afraid to ask) though, then never fear. There’s no shame here. Let’s walk through each one: Hear the difference? The first example puts the subject (â€Å"I†) in the driver’s seat. It’s more action-oriented. The second example, however, sounds a bit more flat, factual, and lacking action. Writing for social media? Use active voice.Put Your Audience First It's rude to only talk about yourself. So, write in a way that puts your audience at the center of the story instead. How do you do this? Simple. Say â€Å"you† more than you say â€Å"us.† Here’s a good example from Threadless’ Twitter bio: Write Stuff People Want To Share This requires understanding why people  share content. Let's  break this down into five major reasons: Delivering value to their audience. People want to share things their audience will find valuable. This could mean content that’s helpful, entertaining, or otherwise worth paying attention to. Try writing posts that convey a clear benefit. If you create how-to content, consider writing copy that hints at what the linked article will help readers do. You can also create unlinked social messages that include a useful tip in your post copy or image copy. Here’s an example from Bobcat Company: To  express and define themselves. When sharing posts, people often think, â€Å"How does sharing  this reinforce my identity?† Use surveys or create personas to understand your typical audience member. From there, figure out how they identify themselves. For example, if you sell construction equipment, your audience might see themselves as â€Å"tough† or â€Å"hard-working.† Pickup truck manufacturers know their customers connect their identities to what they drive. This post from Ram Trucks capitalizes on this: To feel connected to others. Social media is about building connections and relationships. People naturally want to share posts that shows they’re part of something bigger themselves. They also like to share posts likely to start a conversation (so they can converse with other people). One way to do this is to write messages that encourage tagging and sharing. Like this: To make themselves feel valued. People want to share posts that are likely to get likes, shares, and positive comments. It feels good to share something your friends like, right?  You might also consider writing messages showing appreciation for your audience. To express beliefs or support causes. People love sharing opinions on social media.  You probably don't need to be told that, either. If it’s appropriate, take a stance on something or show your support for a cause. You don’t have to get too controversial (although sometimes a little bit of controversy is okay). Here’s an example from the United Nations: This tweet does each of the following: It promotes a cause (gender equality). It incorporates a relevant hashtag in the middle of the tweet. It uses positive language. It links to a page where viewers can take action. It also achieves each of these goals without being offensive or inflammatory. Before writing social posts, ask 'Why would someone share this'?Make Sure You Have Clear  Message-Match Between Your Posts And Destination Pages If your post is linking to an external page, then your post messaging needs to match your landing page messaging. In short, your social media content needs to follow through on the promises your posts make. Here are a few tips to keep in mind: Double-check that links are accurate. Only link to substantive pages with good information. And make sure your post copy is relevant to your destination page. Check out this tweet from Esquire. It’s written to stoke curiosity and intrigue. What will  happen on season 2 of Stranger Things? Who knows? I don't, but the destination page here better tell me. Once I reach the page, it’s immediately clear that the post copy directed me to a relevant link. The destination page’s headline is well aligned with the tweet, too. That’s a good thing, because if this ended up being click bait, I would have thrown my keyword. Don’t make people want to throw their keyboards. Make sure your social messaging matches your  destination page.Make Sure Your Copy Matches Your Visual Content, Too If you’re writing image copy, consider connecting it with your post copy too. Here’s a great example from Gary Vaynerchuk: See how the post copy connects with the image copy? One leads into the other to communicate one clear message. Here’s another example from the NFL that creatively incorporates a player’s number (in this case, Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers, the greatest sports franchise in history*): *Your favorite team is great, too. This creative campaign counted down the days until kickoff, including a different player down to opening day. Be Clear And Concise Avoid complex language and use short sentences. People skim on social media, so punchy posts tend to work better than long-winded paragraphs. Try to limit yourself to just one or two sentences, if possible. This isn’t a firm rule, but it may be a useful guideline to keep yourself from rambling. Struggling to keep your posts short? Try working through this simple exercise. Start by reading  this example post: â€Å"Here is our latest blog post about a very awesome topic you’ll enjoy.† This isn’t that bad, right? Well, there are a lot of wasted words we could do without. Let’s try minimizing stop words (is, a, etc.) and see how it sounds. We could also make the end of the sentence more specific, focusing on one detail to use fewer words. â€Å"Here’s our latest blog post about blogging.† Hear the difference? The second example says essentially the same thing. It just does it with fewer but more specific words, and sounds much better as a result. Clarity and conciseness are key for writing well on social media.Avoid Pushy, Overly Sales-Driven Messaging At least when it comes to writing organic social media content. While social ads need to be written to sell, organic social posts should be written to inform, entertain, or otherwise make a connection with your audience. That doesn’t mean you can’t promote yourself. It just means it’s best to find a way to sell people on the idea of taking an action without directly sounding like you’re making a sales pitch. Here’s an example from music distribution platform Bandcamp: If you must write a sales message, focus on benefits to the consumer. This tweet from Threadless lets people know there’s a sale going on without forcefully saying, â€Å"Buy Now† or â€Å"Shop Here.† It also uses a nice, clear image. Invoke Curiosity Write in a way that makes people want to click through. If you’re linking to another article or blog post, you don’t need to tell the whole story in your social media update. Instead, leave some details unanswered while implying your linked articles will answer their questions. What is the mystery on "The Curse of Oak Island," anyway?  You don't have to care about construction equipment to want to find out. Recommended Reading: How To Use Social Media Analytics To Create The Best Content Social Media Writing Tips For Each Network Every social media network is different. Different audiences. Different purposes. Different expectations. Your writing and messaging should be adjusted accordingly. Instead of writing one message for every network, tailor your messaging to each one individually. To do this, it helps to understand the purpose of each network, and what works best on each one: Consider audience expectations for each network when writing social media posts.Facebook Writing Tips With declining Facebook organic reach, sharp copy is now more important than ever. Keep Posts Short There’s some wiggle room on this one. However, data shows short posts perform best. Avoid Promotional Calls-To-Action Facebook’s algorithm can detect overly promotional language. This means wording like, â€Å"Buy Now!† or â€Å"Sign up here!† Posts with a hard sales message get demoted in the newsfeed, and with organic reach already in decline, that’s something you can’t afford. Write Shareable Article Headlines If you’re writing blog posts or articles, keep Facebook in mind when crafting catchy headlines. Think short, punchy, and conversational. Recommended Reading: Facebook Marketing Strategy: Why You Need One (And How to Build It) Twitter Writing Tips You can do a surprising amount with just 140 characters. Here are some tips to make the most of your tweets. Do More Than Simply Reshare Headlines As Post Copy This one is okay in moderation. However, it’s better to write copy that adds to the story your article is telling.  Here’s an example of what we mean: Instead of reusing the article headline as a social post, the post outlines the story in the article. This helps build interest in clicking the link, and prevents wasting people’s time reading the same text twice. Incorporate Hashtags Directly In Tweet Copy It’s easy to add hashtags to the end of a post. However, consider cleverly incorporating them directly into your tweets instead. In this example from Electronic Arts, a single hashtag is the entire post. This creates a clean look for your hashtags, and ensures they get seen. Get creative and directly incorporate hashtags in your social posts.Go Easy On Hashtags, Though Make sure your message isn’t lost in a sea of hashtags. Aim to use two, or maybe three, at the most. Recommended Reading: How To Use Hashtags Effectively Without Being Annoying Be Mindful Of Your Character Limit You have 140 characters here. Stay under that limit without cutting corners. Conciseness is no excuse for lack of clarity. If you can’t use complete sentences, you need to rewrite your tweet. Try Adding URLs In The Middle Of Tweets (Instead Of At The End) This tip comes from Dan Zarrella at Hubspot. This data is a little old at this point, but in 2011, he discovered that â€Å"the best area for clicks is about 25% of the way through the Tweet.† As a writer, testing this requires you to consider writing in a way that would let you place a link after just two or three words. Try following this formula: [Short Intro] + [URL] + [Longer Explanation]. Have you tried putting URLs in the middle of tweets, instead of at the end?Tag Other Relevant Accounts Within Your Tweet Copy This helps alert other folks that you’re talking about them. In turn, they’ll be more likely to share your posts. It’s win-win. Be sure to write your posts with other accounts in mind. Incorporate Emojis Into Your Tweet Copy Like it or not, â€Å"emoji† is turning into a language all its own. Used creatively, they can add a splash of character to your tweets. Check out this example from Sporting Kansas City, a Major League Soccer team: Tell A Story In A Tweet It’s possible to tell a complete story in a tweet. Here’s an example from Microsoft: This tweet outlines the entire article in under 140 characters. Recommended Reading: 15 Tactics to Boost Twitter Engagement (Backed By Research) Google+ Writing Tips Google+ is different from other social networks and allows for some interesting formatting options. Use that to your advantage. Write Compelling Post Headlines Google+ is unique in that it allows you to write bolded headlines. General best practices for writing headlines applies here. Don’t Be Afraid To Tell A Whole Story Google+ posts can run a bit longer than on other networks. Take advantage of that. Go into more detail than normal if you feel you need to. LinkedIn Writing Tips LinkedIn is a professional network. Here's how to make sure your writing reflects that. Be Clear Avoid using professional lingo if it won’t be understood by your audience. Be Concise Get to the point. Don’t ramble. Busy professionals don’t have time to waste. Stay Professional LinkedIn is a professional network. Don’t forget this when writing your posts. Stick to a professional tone. Instagram Writing Tips Instagram is a visual-driven network. However, the written word still has its place there. Think About Alignment Between Your Image Copy And Post Copy Instagram is a visual network, but the written word still has a place there. Write image copy that hooks people’s attention while connecting with your post text. Don’t Forget Hashtags Instagram likes hashtags. Don’t be afraid to use them liberally at the end of your posts. Recommended Reading: How To Improve Your Visual Marketing On Pinterest And Instagram Pinterest Writing Tips Pinterest is a highly visual network, but that doesn't mean you can neglect your writing chops here. Write Longer Pin Descriptions According to a study from Dan Zarrella, descriptions over 200 characters long received more repins. That could be thanks to those pins having more detailed context around what they're about to entice people to click and share. Include Links in Pin Descriptions If people like the images you pin, they'll probably want to learn more about where they came from. Adding a link helps, and don't be afraid to add a call to action, either. Include Relevant Keywords in Your Pin Descriptions Including keywords in pin descriptions can help them show up in searches on Pinterest. How To Define And Develop Your Voice And Tone People expect social media accounts to have a consistent voice. Your presence needs personality, even if you’re representing a brand. Social media is about generating conversation. No one wants to talk to someone boring. This means you’ll need to develop a consistent voice. One that’s both true to your brand or personality, while fitting for each social network you’re on. What Does Your Social Media Voice Sound Like? Your voice is essentially your personality on social media. Are you fun? Serious? Creative? What's The Difference Between Voice And Tone? Voice and tone are often used interchangeably. However, there is a difference, and it's important to understand them both. Your tone is the inflection you apply to your voice. Depending on the context, you could sound happy, sad, angry, or any other emotion that's appropriate. Buffer's Kevan Lee may have put it best: Essentially, there is one voice for your brand and many tones that refine that voice.  Voice is a mission statement. Tone is the application of that mission. How To Develop  Your Brand's Social Media Personality Start by asking these questions: What is my/our mission or purpose? What are our values? What kind of language and tone does our audience use? Then, try filling in the blanks here a few different ways: â€Å"We are ________ , but we’re not __________ .† An example answer here could be, â€Å"We are funny, but we’re not offensive.† Or, â€Å"We are professional, but we’re not stuffy.† The idea is to narrow down who you are, and who you’re not. Recommended Reading: This Is The Social Media Posting Schedule That Will Boost Your Traffic By 192% Are You Personable? Professional? Or Both? Social media is often used to keep in touch with friends, family, and colleagues. That means your social media content has to compete against updates from people users are close with. It's a simple fact that most people don’t log into a social network to see content from brands, companies, or bloggers. There are exceptions, of course. In any case, you need to write to stand out and hook people’s attention. This requires understanding what your audience expects to see from you. And that might be hard if your brand isn’t inherently â€Å"fun.† So, what can you do? Know Your Audience Who are your customers? What are their values, concerns, and interests? It’s important to figure this out if you don’t already know. Survey your audience if you have to. You need to know who you’re writing for before you can understand what they want from you. Creating a social media audience persona might help. This essentially entails creating a character description of your average target audience member. Building personas takes a little bit of work, but it can help you get a clear idea of who you’re writing for. TIP: Know who you’re writing for on social media. Do this by running surveys, building personas, or even just listening to what they say on social media. Know Your Competition Seeing what kind of content your competition is writing can help inspire your own approach. Check out some of your competitor’s social profiles and make note of the following: What does their brand voice sound like? Does their content appear to drive engagement? If this company were a person, would I want to talk to them? This can give you an idea of what works in your industry. TIP: Pay attention to competitors in your space on social media. Note their writing style. Take inspiration from what works, and then do it better yourself. Know Yourself. Cat videos, memes, and other distractions dominate on social media. Those things might work for your brand. They could also be totally inappropriate. The key is to find the right balance between personable and professional content and tone for your audience. Start by defining yourself under one of these three categories: Personable. Your brand is fun, warm, and inviting. Professional. Your brand is serious, authoritative, and orderly. Both. Your brand bridges both of the above, tying fun content into more professional themes. How do you know which is best for your brand? One answer is to use common sense. If you’re a legal firm, for example, you probably don’t want to sound lighthearted. If you run a pet adoption center, however, you’d likely want to sound fun and inviting to get people in the door. What do you do if it isn’t immediately obvious which of these three categories best fits your brand? Try working through these three exercises to figure it out. Exercise 1: Determine Who You Are (By Determining Who You’re Not) One way to help understand your brand voice is to ask â€Å"We are ______ , but we are not ______ â€Å" questions. This can help you know who you are, and just as importantly, who you’re not. As an exercise, fill in those blanks a few different ways. Here are some examples: â€Å"We're fun, but we’re not goofy.† â€Å"We're informative, but we’re not boring.† â€Å"We're authoritative, but we’re not arrogant.† Exercise 2: Try Summarizing Your Brand In Just Three Adjectives Another idea is to simply think of three adjectives that describe your brand. In traditional advertising parlance, this could be thought of as a â€Å"tag line.† According to The Balance, A variant of a branding slogan, a tagline can be used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create  a memorable dramatic phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of an audio/visual product, or to reinforce and strengthen the audience's memory of a literary product. Your mission (should you choose to accept it), is to do one of the following: Keep your company’s existing tag line in mind when writing on social media. Ask yourself, â€Å"How does this messaging support or reflect what we’re about?† Come up with a new tagline. It doesn’t have to be one you use publicly. It could even just a short phrase you use internally to guide your copy. Let’s try developing a simple tagline using three adjectives. Taglines can be short phrases (typically no longer than five to seven words), but we’ll make this easy. The goal is to help you summarize who you are, in order to inform your social media voice. Start by choosing three adjectives that fall into one or all of the categories below: An adjective describing what you do. Another addressing how you do it. One more pertaining to why you do it. Let’s say you run a car dealership. What are some things you might value? Honesty Experience Quality service Put that together, and you could come up with a tagline like: Honest. Experience. Quality.

Call to reaction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Call to reaction - Essay Example Some of the water from fracking always resurface and should be treated. Fracking affects underground water. The water becomes unfit for drinking due to large amounts of methane dissolved. People who live near the fracking areas are at greater risks. Continuation of the fracking process may lead to higher rates of water pollution in future. Some of the chemicals resulting from the process are carcinogenic and are most likely the cases of cancers may increase in the near future. Carcinogens released from the fracking process may also evaporate and cause air pollution. Pollution in the air may spread to other areas (Spellman 78). Based on the facts gathered about pollution regarding fracking, the cases of cancer will increase. Climate change may also occur as a result of the release of methane gas to the environment. Fracking produces mainly natural gas and oil. It is more expensive to use oil in production of electricity. Natural gas can not be used to fuel cars. It is therefore not ne cessary to boost the production of oil and gas from hydraulic fragmentation (Spellman et al 122). Several measures can be taken to limit the effects of fracking. Wastewater from the fracking process must be properly disposed. The disposal process should also include storm water and other wastes emanating from hydraulic fracturing processes. The waters should not be released to the environment before treatment. Water-treatment technology is recommended as it limits the pollution effects of the fracking process. The major objecting is to carry out the process of fracking in an environment friendly manner (Graves 321). Improved water treating method makes it possible to teat the wastewaters at the fracking sites. This saves the costs involved in transport of the water to disposal wells or water treatment facilities located. During fracking process, large amount of water under high pressure is pumped underground to release oil and gas trapped. Water that flows back to the ground is load ed with remnants of toxic chemicals used to fasten the fracking process and those released from the cracked rocks. This water is often recycled in the fracking process. Eventually, the water can not be recycled anymore. It is therefore necessary to transport the water to treatment plants usually located away from the fracking sites. This is expensive and the spills may cause pollution. At times, the water is injected deep into the ground. The underground injection causes earthquakes in the area. The proposed new technology eliminates the need to transport the water to treatment plants away from the fracking site. The technology works on the principle of desalinization using and low pressures to separate water and salts in the wastewater. The water comes out as vapour leaving behind salts. Waterless fracking technology is used as an alternative process to extract oil and gas trapped in rocks. The method uses a thick gel consisting of propane into the ground. The gel extracted from li quefied propane gas (LPG) turns into vapour while still underground then returns to the ground in a recoverable form. The gel does carry with it the toxic chemicals used in the fracturing process or those released from the cracked rocks. The waterless fracking technology is expensive but can be used as an alternative to the ordinary fracking process due to less impact it has on the environment. The information about the toxic chemicals that have been established to be preset in the cracking process is always hidden from the

Tax avoidance,tax evasion,tax mitigiation Essay

Tax avoidance,tax evasion,tax mitigiation - Essay Example Tax avoidance and Tax evasion are two of the most common terms and concepts used and utilized by the taxpayers in escaping from payment of taxes. Learning and understanding these terms will help the taxpayers avoid criminal and civil liabilities. Tax avoidance is a means to escape from taxation, which is allowed and sanctioned by law. A taxpayer committing this will not be legally held civilly or criminally liable to the government provided it is used in good faith and within the process allowed by law, otherwise the taxpayer will be committing tax evasion which is a crime. The utilization of the means and methods sanctioned by law would enable the taxpayer reduce the amount due to be taxed. Example of tax avoidance is when the taxpayer structures his/her any legitimate transaction to save tax and such transaction is what would really appear in form. And this transaction if the taxpayer is the vendee or payee could declare this as deduction. Tax Evasion on the other hand, is reductio n or elimination of tax due by means outside the law. It is illegally committed and punishable by law. A corporation, individual and other entity may resort to means in order to avoid paying the taxes. And the means employed is always dishonest like declaring less or no income, less profits or no gains than the taxpayer actually earned or it could be committed by inflating deductions. For example, a corporation will evade tax by declaring charitable contributions of $ 2.5 million as deduction although what was actually contributed is $.5 million only. The law does not allow this and anyone caught doing this will be held criminally and civilly liable. The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is on the tax itself. In tax avoidance, the taxpayer is legally avoiding the payment of any tax liability that is not in existence at the time. Meaning to say, there is no tax due at the moment of transaction and the taxpayer utilized method within the law so that no tax liability wou ld be incurred later or if there is, it would be less. In tax avoidance, there is already a tax due to be paid and the taxpayer resort to illegal means so that it will not be able to pay the owed tax. This type entails concealment or misrepresentation of earnings that are taxable immediately.. Tax mitigation is also similar to tax avoidance. Both resort to means not prohibited by law. Sometimes, these two concepts are used interchangeably. Tax mitigation is known as tax planning to mitigate or reduce tax liability. It is a conduct made to reduce tax liability without conducting tax avoidance or which is contrary to the intention of the Parliament. There are conducts which are allowed for tax mitigation and which are not in the case of tax avoidance. It is important in distinguishing one from the other, especially the two concepts which are tax avoidance and tax evasion because it will help the taxpayer in understanding the consequences of each conduct to reduce tax liability. Since tax avoidance is a criminal offense punishable by law, knowing the distinction would save one from committing this criminal offense while saving money from taxes without breaking the law. It will help taxpayers to arrange their affairs and keep taxes as low as possible. The tax code is confusing not only for average people but also for those knowledgeable professionals. Hence, it is important to define these two concepts so as not to fall into a criminally punishable offense. The Ramsay Principle: My understanding This principle emanated for two cases : W. T. Ramsay Ltd. v. Inland Revenue Commissioners, Eilbeck (Inspector of Taxes) v. Rawling, [1982] A.C. 300 and IRC v. Burmah Oil Co. Ltd., [1982] S.T.C. 30, H.L.(Sc.)decided by the House of Lords in connection with tax payment and schemes resorted to avoid it. In this case, the company in order to lessen the amount of taxes for the transaction of transfer of assets and payment resorted to scheme by drafting sets of documents,

Translation Theory Revision Essay Example for Free

Translation Theory Revision Essay Translation – The process of translation between two different languages involves the translator changing an original text (the source text – ST) in the original verbal languages (the source languages – SL) in a different verbal language (the target language – TL) S. Bassnet def: Translation is rendering of a SL text into the TL so as to ensure that: 1) the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar, and 2) the structures of the SL will e preserved as closely as possible but not so closely that the TL structures will be seriously distorted. Susan Basset: Telling the same things in a different language in a way that sounds natural, getting the point across. Translation types: Semiotic classification: Intralingual – an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language Interlingual – an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language Intersemiotic – an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems. Binary classifications: Free translation translator replaces a social, or cultural, reality in the source text with a corresponding reality in the target text Literal rendering of text from one language to another word-for-word. Overt – is a TT that does not mean to be an original. The individual text function cannot be tha same for TT and ST since the cultures are different. Covert – ST is not linked to the ST culture or audience; both ST and TT address their respective receivers directly. Domestication vs foreigization: translation methods that move the writer toward [the reader], i.e. , fluency, and those that move the reader toward [the author] (domestication) , i. e. , an extreme fidelity to the foreignness of the source text (foreignization). Documentary (preserve the original exoticizing setting) vs instrumental (adaptation of the setting to the target culture) Text Type Theory: Katharina Reiss. Determine, what kind of text you are dealing with: †¢ Informative – plain facts (newspaper article) †¢ Expressive – creative composition (poetry) †¢ Operative – including behavioural responses (ads) †¢ Multi/audio-medial (films or visual/oral ads). Equivalence: Dynamic equivalence (also known as functional equivalence) attempts to convey the thought expressed in a source text (if necessary, at the expense of literalness, original word order, the source texts grammatical voice, etc. ), while formal equivalence attempts to render the text word-for-word (if necessary, at the expense of natural expression in the target language). J. C. Catford †¢ A formal correspondent – any TL category which van be said to occupy the ‘same’ place in SL †¢ A textual equivalent – any TL text or part of text that van be said to be the equivalent of the ST Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) †¢ A firmly empirical (kogemuslik) discipline †¢ Describes and maps translations †¢ Proposes hypotheses as why the translations are like they are †¢ Avoids being prescriptive The aim of DTS is to acquire insight into the nature and function of translation as a cultural and historical phenomenon DTS leading figures: Gideon Toury, Andre Lefevere Early translation theory Cicero – senise-for-sense. Synthesized in Latin Greek philosophers. The founder of Western translation theory. The 1st to comment on the process of translation. Translation serves as the study and imitation of rhetorical models. Free translation that is focused on the meaning. Horace model – target orientation. Aesthetically pleasing and creative translation. Art of Poetry. Quintilian – remarks on translations are v much in the Ciceroian tradition. Makes a difference between: metaphrasis – replacing a single word with a single word; paraphrasis – replacing a phrase with a phrase. Jerome model – translation Bible – latin „Vulgateâ€Å" (405. y). Translated sense-for-sense, rather that word-for-word. German Romanticism: individual author’s vision. Author is a creator. Shlegel: all writings in act of translation: Schleiermacher: translator could take the reader along and make him walk with the author or in the other way around.. Word-for-word translation onorthodox view of translation. †¢ Herder, Goethe, Humbolt, the Shlegel brothers, Shleiermacher †¢ translations of Homeric epics, the Greek tragedies and Shakespeare †¢ Emergence of the German tradition as opposed to the French †¢ strive for an independent literary culture Goethe: 3 stages of translation: 1) aquainted us the foreign language in his own terms (Luther Kings’s Bible) 2) French tradition – use of its own criteria, own rules. 3) The same idendity between source and target language. Eugene Nida. Formal equivalence – attention to the transfer of message, both form and content Dynamic / functional equivalence – seeks the closest natural equivalence for the source language message Principles: 1. making sense 2. conveying the spirit and manner of the original 3. having a natural and easy form of expression 4. producing a similar response †¢ 1. give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work. †¢ 2. reproduce the style and manner of writing of the original. †¢ 3. have all the ease of the original composition. Nida’s equivalent effect criticized: †¢ too concerned with the word level †¢ difficult or impossible to achieve †¢ overly theological Nida differentiates between: †¢ Linguistic meaning. the meaningful relationship between words, phrases and sentences. †¢ Referential meaning. â€Å"the words as symbols which refer to objects, events, abstracts, relations† Methods: hierarchical structuring, componential analysis, semantic structure analysis †¢ Emotive meaning Toury? s norm theory: Defines social norms. Preliminary norm: concerned with translation policy. The initial norm: expressed through operational norms which direct actual decisions made during the translating process. Corpus studies †¢ Corpus – compurerized collection of documents †¢ A token – each word as it occurs †¢ A type – each different word The type-token ratio is a text? s lexical density(tihedus) Postcolonialism: †¢ Resist domination †¢ Emphasis on the impact and significance of translation in a context of political, military, economic and cultural power differentials (vahe) †¢ Is characterizied by hybridity (ristandumine) and self-reflection. English theory Early English translation of the Bible: John Wycliffe – published Bible’s English version (late 14th c). Tried to translate the meaning, but preserve its form. William Tyndale – 1525 Bible’s German version (Greek) The King James Bible 1611 Bible’s English version Early translations of the Bible in English †¢ Wycliffe Bible 1380-1384 revised by John Purvey in 1408 . Published Bible English version. Trying to translate the meaning but preserve its form (w-for-w) †¢ William Tyndale 1525 (w-for-w) †¢ Bishops Bible 1568. †¢ The King James Bible the Authorized Version 1604 -1611 John Dryden on translation: 1) metaphrase – word-for-word; 2) paraphrase – sense-for-sense 3)imitation – absolute freedom. Tytler 18th c: 1) translation should give source language complete context. 2) style and manner should be similar. 3) reader should see it as fluid as original text. Essays on the translations, self-standing thoughts on translations, artistic activity = transl. Edward Fitzgerald: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Persian poetry, imperial attitude.  quatrain rhyme scheme: AABA Early theory and practice of translation in England: draws on two traditions: †¢ Classical Latin translation, from the Greek †¢ Early Christian Latin translation from the Scriptures, the Hebrew, Aramaic King Alfred (871-99) and his policy of translation. †¢ Augustine’s Soliloquies and Gregory’s Pastoral Care †¢ Gregory’s Dialogues †¢ Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People Benedictine reform a revival of monasticism, ?lfric’s homilies a need to educate the uneducated.

Hard Tmes Essay -- Papers

Hard Tmes Snakes....specialists of deception. They enter our lives unnoticed and set out to accomplish evil plans. Snakes are twisters. Like a rattle snake, it attracts your attention with its tail then at the last moment strikes a venomous blow only to see you fall from the point you have risen. Snakes challenge your choice with sneaky tricks and can even lure you to disobey God. If that isn't enough I have to also cope with the stress of school, the racism in the community and the obsession that a young man gets for the opposite sex. My problems may seem little, but even the smallest thing can be a factor of what has caused a scared and frightened teenager to hate the world. I've always seen myself as me. Steve Marshall. An averaged height, not really popular, sixteen year old Afro-Caribbean who's often discriminated against by narrow minded child like people because of his race, a boy who likes to take good pride in himself because there is no-one else to do it for him. I mean my father has never been there for me, nothing but broken promises and lies which hurts me so much, but not even the pain that I bare could ever deny me loving him. The only thing that may seem unusual about me is the fact that I am often sick and I have to take three pills a day to keep me healthy. Ms Ramstad a.k.a Peaches or mum, well step-mum; after all she is married to my dad. She tries her hardest to look after me but I think she believes that she doesn't have the same authority over me like my real mother would. My dad abandoned us when I was young and ever since Peaches has struggled and tried her best to cope on minimum wages with the responsib... ...car me with those huge needles. No way, that would have never happened, but I do give it to Steve the disease he was successful in his mission. He was the toughest snake my life has ever handled, and the biggest factor to my demise. Yes that's right my demise. He has knocked me off my Pedestal and climbed right up. That can only mean that he has successfully taken my place. He should be me. Well everything I ever wanted to be. Now I have realized that the world is full of lying cheating and backstabbing people, so who can blame a broken teenager for hating the world. Even though he isn't here now Steve the disease belongs in this world not me. So this is the last chapter in the diary of my life. The life of Steve Marshall before I commit the tragic event called suicide. I really can't go on through all these HARDTIMES.

New York Times vs. Sullivan

Issue: Does Freedom of Speech protect a newspaper when it makes false defamatory statements about the conduct of a public official if the statements were not made with knowing or reckless disregard for the actual facts? The holding does not match the issue. If the fourteenth amendment is going to be incorporated in the holding, then it has to be in the issue. Also, the issue needs to be posted in a constitutional way.   For example: By not requiring Sullivan to prove that the advertisement personally harmed him and dismissing the same as untruthful due to factual errors, did Alabama’s libel law unconstitutionally infringe on the First Amendments freedom of speech and freedom of press protections? Statement of the Facts: The New York Times published a full page ad soliciting funds to defend Martin Luther King, Jr. In the ad were accusations of brutal force employed by the Montgomery police force against King’s followers. L.B. Sullivan, the police commissioner at the time, claimed the ad maligned his character. He sued for, and won, damages from the lower court. The Holding/Decision of the Court: The Court held that the First and Fourteenth amendments protected a publisher from libel only if the false and derogatory statements were not made with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth. Reasons/Rationale: The Court made its decision based on three closely-related facts: †¢ First, the commercial nature of the advertisement; †¢ Second, the existence of actual malice; and, †¢ Finally, the tendency for the alleged libel to be connected to the plaintiff. The New York Times was paid to publish the ad. However the fact that it was a paid advertisement does not make it a ‘commercial ad' in that it waives constitutional guarantees of Freedom of Speech. To consider it as such would discourage newspapers from accepting â€Å"editorial advertisements† which would have a dangerous tendency to shut out this form of information promulgation. Furthermore, it would curtail freedom of speech and shackle those who do not own publications.   This would be in violation of the First Amendment, which aims to secure â€Å"the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources†. There was no actual malice in this case although negligence can be ascribed to the NY Times for not exercising due diligence in ensuring the facts published. The paper had merely published a paid advertisement. The publisher cannot be accused of knowingly publishing falsehoods. Being a public official, Commissioner Sullivan had to accept the reality that his work would be under constant scrutiny. A higher level of proof is necessary to prove that the defendant printed material with intent to malign Sullivan’s character, especially since the alleged criticism was about his official functions as the police commissioner. Finally, the alleged libelous ad did not bear any mention of his name. While the ad criticized the activities and â€Å"brutality of the police†, there was never any direct mention of Sullivan or the office of the police commissioner. It could not then be said that the ad was a directed, defamatory and malicious attack upon him. In fact, the acts described in the ad – the padlocking of the dining hall, among others – were not even directly ascribed to the police, much less the police commissioner. On a side note, there is even suggestion that the commissioner manifested a guilty conscience in respect of the acts protested in the ad. The court therefore ruled in favor of freedom of speech over the right of a public official to defend himself from attack. Such cases have often been cited as jurisprudence to justify the level of criticism that can be inflicted on a government official. For acts related to his official functions, there is virtually no limit to the attacks that can be levied so long as they are not done with reckless disregard for the facts. Justice Black concurs on the basis that the 1st and 14th amendments do not merely delimit a state's power to award damages to officials for criticism of their official conduct but completely prohibits a state from exercising this power.   He is of the opinion that the defendants had an absolute constitutional right to publish their criticisms regardless of whom they were aimed at. It is regrettable that the court stopped short of a holding unequivocally protecting our free press. Justice Goldberg concurs on the privilege to criticize official conduct, despite the harm which may flow from excesses and abuses and consistent with the prized American right â€Å"to speak one's mind†.