#javascript difference between two dates in days

Pairing: Kang Taehyun x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.3K

Warnings: bullying, cursing

Genre: slice of life; fluff; angst

Summary: Three times a popular girl and a nerd were enemies, and one time where they weren’t

a/n: this fic was inspired by my all time favorite movie, Legally Blonde. I enjoyed writing this fic and I really hope you enjoy reading it :)

Y/N L/N has never been someone who liked to be cast in the shadows. Always being the center of attention, y/n has become one of the, if not the most, popular girls in her town. Homegirl is always dressed like an icon even when doing mundane tasks. Girls like her have never really been into anything “nerdy.” She associates herself with more of the bimbo kind, if you will. It was never really a secret, but she studies incredibly hard to get the chance to go to her dream school and become a great computer scientist. Being in such a large friend group of female fashion icons, there was never really anyone who wanted to talk about topics with math or computer science. 

Kang Taehyun, however, is this awkward and incredibly smart boy. Never really associated with popularity, he’s only had about four friends in his life and absolutely no dating experience. He’d always been one to shy away from attention. At most times, he found himself quietly observing others. All this, and he’s still what you would consider the teacher’s pet. He gets all his assignments done, A’s on every test, and raises his hand for every question. As a computer science enthusiast, he has worked his butt off his entire life, filling his schedule with robotics clubs, different languages of code, and coding camps. Senior year was his year. He had finally got into his dream school, TXT Tech, and had already created a very very detailed plan for the future.

Review: Panic’s Nova text editor

Panic, the long-established makers of Mac utility software, seems fully aware that introducing a new, commercial code editor in 2020 is a quixotic proposition. Is there enough of an advantage to a native editor over both old school cross-platform editors like Emacs and explosively popular new editors like Visual Studio Code to persuade people to switch?

I’m an unusual case as far as text editor users go: my primary job is technical writing, and the last three jobs that I’ve worked at have a “docs as code” approach, where we write documentation in Markdown and manage it under version control just like source code. The editor that works best for me in tech writing is the venerable BBEdit. When it comes to editing code, though, BBEdit lags behind. My suspicion is that BBEdit’s lack of an integrated package manager has hurt it here. Also, BBEdit’s language modules don’t support extending one another, making it effectively impossible to do full highlighting for a templating language like JSX or Jinja.

When I was a web programmer, I was one of many who moved to TextMate, and used it for everything for a while. When the Godot-like wait for TextMate 2.0 became unbearable, I wandered the text editing wilderness, eventually splitting my loyalties between BBEdit, Sublime Text, and more recently VS Code. At this point, I suspect nothing will pull me away from BBEdit for technical writing, but for programming I’m open to persuasion.

So: meet Nova.

I’ve been using Nova off and on in beta for months. I’ve reported some bugs, although I may mention a couple here that I didn’t catch until after 1.0’s release. And, I’m going to compare it to the GUI editors that I’ve been using recently: BBEdit, Sublime Text, and VS Code.

Nova is a pretty editor, as far as such things go, and with files of relatively reasonable size it’s fast. With stupid huge files its performance drops noticeably, though. This isn’t just the ridiculous 109MB, nearly 450,000-line SQL file I threw at it once, it’s also with a merely 2MB, 50,000-line SQL file, and Nova’s offer to turn off syntax highlighting in both files didn’t help it much. This may sound like a silly test, but in my day job I’m occasionally stuck editing an 80,000-line JSON file by hand (don’t ask). This is something BBEdit and VS Code can do without complaint. Panic wrote their own text editing engine for Nova, which is brave, but it needs more tuning for pathological cases like these. They may not come up often, but almost every programmer has one stupid huge file to deal with.

Nova has an integrated terminal and an integrated SSH client, and even an integrated file transfer system based on Panic’s Transmit. In fact, if you have Transmit and use Panic Sync, it knows all of those servers out of the box. Nova has a task workflow system for automating building and running. You can associated servers, tasks, and more with individual projects; Nova’s project settings are considerably more comprehensive than I’ve seen in other editors. You can even set up remote tasks. Nova has a serviceable Git client built in, too. Like VS Code, Nova uses JavaScript for its extension API, and it has built-in Language Server Protocol support—it’s a superbly solid foundation.

Beyond that, some smaller features have become table stakes for modern GUI editors, and Nova handles them with aplomb. “Open Quickly” can jump to any file in the open project, as well as search by symbols or just symbols in currently open files; it has a command palette; you can comprehensively edit keybindings. It has multiple cursor support for those of us who like that, and a “mini map” view for those of you who like that, although know that you are wrong. Nova’s selection features include “Select all in scope” and “Select all between brackets,” a command I often use in BBEdit and miss dearly in Code. (Both Nova and BBEdit select between brackets and braces, although BBEdit also selects between parentheses.) This effectively becomes “Select between tags” in HTML, a nice touch. There are a few other commands like “Select all in function” and “Select all in scope” that I didn’t have any luck in making work at all; a little more documentation would be nice.

That’s worth an aside. Panic has created a “library” of tech note-style articles about Nova sorted by publication date rather than an actual manual, and it’s not always easy to find the information you want in it. I know this is just what a technical writer would say, but I’d dearly like to see a human-organized table of contents starting with the editor basics and moving to advanced topics like version control, server publishing and extension authoring.

The Zen of Language Servers

A lot of Visual Studio Code’s smarts depend on the implementation of a “language server” behind the scenes: language servers offer almost spookily intelligent completion. For instance, take this PHP snippet:

if ($allowed) { $response = new Response(405); $response->

If you have the Intelephense PHP language server plugin, Code understands that $response is an instance of Response and, after you type the > above, offers completions of method names from the Response class.

Right now, Nova’s mostly limited to the language servers Panic provides, and they’re… not always so smart. In that snippet above, Nova starts by offering completions of, apparently, everything in the open project, starting with the variables. If I type “s,” it narrows things down to methods that begin with “s,” but it’s all methods that start with “s” rather than just the methods from Response. The “Jump to Definition” command shows a similar lack of context; if I highlight a method name that’s defined in multiple places, Nova shows me a popup menu and prompts me to choose which one to jump to, rather than introspecting the code to make that decision itself.

But, this is a solvable problem: there’s (I think) no reason someone couldn’t write an Inteliphense plugin for Nova. If Nova’s ecosystem takes off, it could be pretty formidable pretty quickly.

Walk like a Mac

Even so, LSP support isn’t Panic’s biggest selling point. Unlike Sublime Text or VS Code, Nova isn’t cross-platform: it’s a Mac-only program written to core platform APIs. Is that still a huge draw in 2020? (Is it instead a drawback?)

You can definitely see a difference between Nova and BBEdit on one side and Sublime and Code on the other in terms of resource usage. With the two Ruby files shown in the screenshot above loaded, I get:

VS Code: 355 MB, 6 processes

Sublime Text: 338 MB, 2 processes

Nova: 101 MB, 2 processes

BBEdit: 97 MB, 1 process

Code is an Electron-based program, although Microsoft famously puts a lot of effort into making it not feel like the black hole a lot of Electron-based apps are. Sublime uses its own proprietary cross-platform framework. In fairness, while us nerds like to harp on research usage a lot, if your computer’s got 16G or more of RAM in it, this probably isn’t a big deal.

You notice Nova’s essential Mac-ness in other ways. Its preference pane is, like BBEdit’s, an actual preference pane, instead of opening in another tab like Code or just opening a JSON file in a new tab (!) like Sublime. And while all editors better have first-class keyboard support—and Nova does—a good Mac editor should have first-class mouse support, too, and it does. You notice that in the drag-and-drop support for creating new tabs and splits. Nova’s sidebar is also highly customizable, possibly more so than any editor I’ve regularly used. (Yes, Emacs fans, I know you can write all of Nova in Lisp if you want. When one of you does that, please get back to me.)

Unlike BBEdit, though, Nova doesn’t have a Mac-like title bar, or a Mac-like outline view of the project files, or Mac-like tabs. (Well, BBEdit doesn’t have tabs at all, which turns out to be a great UI decision once you have a dozen or more files open, but never mind.) This isn’t necessarily bad; people often say BBEdit “looks old,” and it’s hard not to suspect that what people mean by that—whether or not they know it—is that it looks like the long-established Mac program it is. Nova is relying less on “we have a Mac UI and the other guys don’t” than on “we have Panic’s designers and the other guys don’t.” Make no mistake, having Panic’s designers counts for a lot.

What may be more disappointing to old school Mac nerds is AppleScript support: none whatsoever. It doesn’t even have a vestigial script dictionary. Again, this may not be something most people care much about; personally, I hate having to write AppleScript. But I love being able to write AppleScript. BBEdit’s extensive scriptability is one of its hidden strengths. Nova’s Node-based JavaScript engine is probably more powerful for its own extensions and certainly more accessible to anyone under the age of 50, but it may be hard to call it from external programs.

So is it worth it?

That probably depends on where you’re coming from.

If you loved—or still use—Panic’s older editor, Coda, this is a no-brainer upgrade. If you used Espresso, a Coda-ish editor that always seemed to be on the verge of greatness without ever reaching it, Nova may also be a no-brainer for you.

If you’re a fan of Sublime Text, BBEdit, TextMate, or another editor that doesn’t have native Language Server Protocol support, you should definitely try Nova. Sublime and TextMate have more plugins (especially Sublime), but many extensions seem to be languishing (especially TextMate). BBEdit never had a great extension ecosystem to start with. All of these editors have strengths Nova doesn’t, but the reverse is also true, and Nova may catch up.

If you’re an Emacs or Vim power user, we both know you’re just reading this out of academic interest and you’re not going to switch. C’mon.

If you use Visual Studio Code, though, it’s way tougher to make the case for Nova. Code has a vastly larger extension library. It has the best support for LSP of any editor out there (LSP was developed for Code). Despite being Electron-based, it’s pretty high-performance. Code doesn’t have an integrated SSH or FTP client, but it does have an integrated terminal and task runner and Git client. If you don’t object to using an editor that isn’t a “perfect fit” with the Mac UI, Code is very, very good… and it’s free.

I don’t object to Nova’s pricing model—$99 up front including a year of updates, $49 for future years of updates—but I can’t help but wonder if Panic should have gone with super aggressive introductory pricing. Also, I saw more than a few suggestions on Hacker News about how there should be a Code-to-Nova extension translator; I’m not sure automatic conversion would be practical, but a guide on manual conversion seems like an excellent idea.

For my day job of technical writing, I’m going to stick to BBEdit. (One day I’ll write up an article about why I think it’s the best “documentation as code” editor on the market.) For programming and web editing, when I was working on both a Ruby and a PHP project—the former a Rails learning exercise, the latter an obstinate “I am going to write a modern PHP app without using a framework” exercise—I kept trying Nova’s betas and then switching back to Code for Inteliphense and, I swear to God, MacVim for Tim Pope’s amazing rails.vim plugin. I suspect Nova could duplicate both of those, but I’m not sure I want to be the one to do it. (Also, while Panic has decent reference documentation for writing extensions, I’d like to see a few simple end-to-end walkthroughs for those of us who look at a huge list of reference topics and don’t know where to start.)

But Nova isn’t just pretty, it’s powerful, and has a lot of promise. The editors I’ve been comparing it to have been around since 2015 for VS Code, 2008 for Sublime Text, and 1992 (!) for BBEdit; it’s not reasonable to expect Nova to blow past them in every respect right out of the starting gate. Even so, they are Nova’s competition. Catching up fast is an essential requirement.

Nestled within the archives of the Detroit Historical Society are a pair of surprising pop culture artifacts–copies of the draft lyrics for both the theme song of the 90s T.V. hit Friends, and for the Pointer Sisters’ 1984 single “Neutron Dance.”  The Detroit connection for these two songs may not be readily apparent to many, but if you check the sleeve of your well-worn copy of the Pointer Sister’s album Break Out, and pay close attention to the end credits of Friends, you’ll find the common factor is proud Detroit native Allee Willis.  Willis’ signature works may be her collaborations with Earth, Wind, and Fire, including their funk classic “September.”  However she has worked with a myriad of other artists, ranging from Bonnie Raitt to DMC, and Patti LeBelle to the Del Rubio Triplets.  In fact, you very well may have recently joined Willis as one of the 5,000 Detroiters who contributed their voices to her recent anthem for the city, “The D,” which she recorded over the course of five years at various events across the area, including stops at both the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.  Willis, hot on the heels of being honored with a Distinguished Detroiter award at the 2018 Detroit Music Awards, agreed to answer a couple questions for our blog about the draft lyrics, her creative process, and her other works.

On page 20, the chorus to “I’ll Be There For You” begins to shape up.

Across 27 typewritten pages, the lyrics to what eventually would become the 45-second Friends theme, “I’ll Be There For You,” reveal an involved process.  Willis began by working directly from the show’s pilot; “I watched the pilot and wrote down every characteristic of every character and then tried to make up lines about them.”   From these concepts flowed a litany of possible frustrations felt between the characters—ranging from dealing with the smells of second-hand aroma therapy to the tolls of freeloading roommates—contrasted with the now iconic affirmation of support expressed in the chorus.  Willis explained, “when you’re writing for something so specific as a TV theme you try every possible permutation of every line that you like. The only thing the producer of the show told me was that the title was to be ‘I’ll Be There for You.’ So I had at least 25 different choruses to sing for the producers with that line in it and at least 50 verses when I presented it to them.” About these unused lines, she continued, “if a line is really great and doesn’t get used in a song I catalog it and usually end up using it in something else. But the Friends lyric had to be so specific and so simple that I didn’t save any of those lines for further use.”

With Willis’ lyrics to set the tone, Friends drew millions of viewers each Thursday between 1994 and 2004.  Image courtesy imdb.com.

Reading the drafts today, there’s almost a sense of inevitability each time one of the final lyrics first appears.  Willis describes how these breakthroughs played out during the writing process; “The first line I got that I knew was a keeper was ‘Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.’  I always liked internal rhymes, especially on long lines.  And the ‘A’ in ‘DOA’ is a great syllable to hold if the note is long. Second one I got that I knew was a keeper was ‘Well it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year.’  Something was falling apart in the lives of all the characters and I liked making a play on a common phrase.”

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In her notes, Willis mentions performing early versions of the theme for the show’s producers on the studio lot.  While reading the lyrics, it’s tempting to attempt to sing along yourself to see how these early drafts might have sounded.  When asked if these nascent versions of the theme followed the now familiar final melody, Willis responded, “The melody, written by Michael Skloff, remained the exact same from the time it was written to what we ended up with. I usually write both music and lyrics but I needed one more song to fulfill my publishing deal, which I was eager to get out of. So I agreed to just write the lyric. I never expected it to be a hit.”

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Willis’ “Neutron Dance” is widely remembered for scoring the chase through the streets of—appropriately—Detroit near the beginning of the 1984 classic Beverly Hills Cop.  However it was originally conceived for a very different movie, Walter Hill’s cult “rock & roll fable” Streets of Fire.  Befitting that film’s bleak yet musical retro-futuristic setting Willis bridged the concepts of 1950s doo-wop with nuclear devastation, and brought in a bit of her own experiences.  Willis elaborates, “I hadn’t seen Streets of Fire before writing the song but was told that people were trying to escape a nuclear holocaust. So I knew that the hook line had to have something to do with fire, explosion, or nuclear something.”

Even within that premise, Willis made the song’s themes personal and easily relatable.  She reveals, “The entire song was written in under an hour. It was very autobiographical. It was the first time in years that I had gone without hits and I wanted to write a song about not giving up and that if your life isn’t working it’s up to you to make a change. Someone could push the button tomorrow and we’d all be up in smoke so get off your ass and do something—i.e. Do the Neutron Dance. When we (co-wrote with Danny Sembello) finished the song in 58 minutes we had everything but the title.”

Willis brainstormed a series of concepts evocative of nuclear war, before settling on “Neutron Dance.”

Among the photographic reproductions of her handwritten notes, Willis included the page where she brainstormed possible titles; “As a working title we had ‘I’m just burning on the barbecue.’ I knew the ‘I’m just burning’ was right but knew ‘barbecue’ couldn’t stay, especially because the song wasn’t about barbecue. I kept wanting to use the word ‘neutron’ and was driving down the 405 freeway in LA one day and the words just popped into my head like a glowing neon sign. ‘Neutron Dance’ seemed appropriate as it got the burning point across but added some fun with the use of the word ‘dance’.”  Willis explains that the song was “thankfully rejected” from Streets of Fire, and instead recorded by the Pointer Sisters.  It was this version which made its way onto the Grammy-winning Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.  Perhaps as an auspicious sign, in that movie, Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley sports a t-shirt from Mumford High School, Willis’ alma mater.

Beverly Hills Cop opened with a chase through the streets of Detroit set to the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance.”  Image courtesy imdb.com.

Of course, I also had to ask Willis about the endearing legacy of “September.”  Every September 21st, the song leaps back to the forefront the popular consciousness, making its presence known both over the radio waves, and in recent years as a trending topic on social media.  Was this annual relevance by design?  And just what was the significance of that date anyway?  Willis explained, “The only thing I knew about September when I started writing it with Maurice White, who had already started the music with the Earth, Wind & Fire guitar player Al McKay, was that he wanted ‘September’ as the title. We wrote it the first day we met. We tried singing every date of the month but the 21st felt the best. I only found out a month ago from his wife, almost 40 years after the song was written, that September 21st was the due date of their son. But at that time as far as I knew it was just the date that sang the best.”

Along with the lyrics, Willis also donated copies of several records that she worked on, including this 45 of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” from 1978.

Last month, ahead of schedule, September became a topic of hot debate when Taylor Swift released a fiercely maligned country-tinged cover of the funk classic.  Willis was initially supportive of news of the cover, but her response became more measured upon hearing it.  Willis has promised to address the controversy in her upcoming performance, “Allee Willis Loves Detroit,” at the City Theatre on May 18th and 19th.  When asked for a hint as to how she’ll be tackling the Swift situation, Willis shrewdly responded, “For that you’re going to have to come to the show! No teasers. I will just say that the show is very very funny, stuffed with hits, filled with detailed stories about how the songs were written, I auction off stuff from my vast pop culture collection, and I guarantee it’s unlike any other songwriter show you seen before. And I talk about Taylor Swift. Prepare for a wild evening!”

I got these a while ago and realised I needed to get reviewing ASAP, and I know the weather is still pretty cold in the UK, but I didn’t feel like holding on any longer!

About Donna Karan

THE WORLD OF DONNA KARAN

Donna Karan, a pioneer. A woman designing for women. Modern woman—forward-thinking, confident, and self-assured—succeeding in the world, while pulling off the balancing act of life.

Responding and reacting to real needs—needs she knew because they were also her own, Karan launched Seven Easy Pieces with her first collection in 1984—and revolutionized the way women dress. A bodysuit, a tailored jacket, a skirt, pants, a cashmere sweater, a leather jacket, and an evening look. With Seven Easy Pieces, women could create infinite combinations with these easy-to-wear garments. Karan intuitively understood the need and desires of modern women, designing collections that could take them from day to evening and simplifying life, without sacrificing elegance or sensuality.

As Donna’s own life evolved, she was confronted with a new demand: a teenage daughter raiding her closet. And so came the next generation New Yorker: DKNY.

Since its inception in 1989, DKNY has been synonymous with New York, inspired by the energy and attitude of the city. Drawing on Karan’s original principle of designing for the woman who never knew where the day would take her, DKNY has transformed into a global lifestyle powerhouse: the dynamic wardrobe of everything you need to live a New York life—wherever that may be.

MODERN. CONFIDENT. ICONIC. NEW YORK.

More than 30 years later, Donna Karan is one of the most iconic names in American fashion. Her iconic silhouettes and innovative system of dressing remain as relevant as ever, now reimagined in a modern-day Donna Karan New York and the next-generation counterpart, DKNY. Caviar and pizza. Black car and taxi. The skyline and the street. Together, Donna Karan New York and DKNY are the two sides of the city that inspires everything we do.

– taken from her website

The Spec

Colour: Black 124

Size: Small

Denier: 10

Materials: 75% Polyamide, 25% Elastane

Price: £9.99

Website: UKTights – Donna Karan Signature Collection Ultra Sheer Satin Control Top Tights

My Outfit

I kept it proper chic for work today with my sheer polka dot shirt (with my bodysuit cami top underneath) tucked into my bodycon pencil skirt and just for effect, I added my peep toe polka dot court shoes.

I left my hair down and curly-ish and added small studs instead of big earrings to keep with the look.

My Deets

Shirt: Forever21

Bodysuit Cami Top: New Look

Skirt: H&M

Tights: Donna Karan

Shoes: Phase Eight

The Review

From The Website: Donna Karan have an amazing hosiery collection out and it’s here at UK Tights. These gorgeous ultra sheer satin tights have a control top to help smooth and shape your bum and tum. They’re also beautifully fine as they’re a 10 denier.

* 10 denier * Sandal foot * Ultra sheer * Control top * 75% Polyamide * 25% Elastane

The Packaging: I found the packaging to be really rich, luxurious and enticing. Like I am talking Wolford and above level. The front shows the model’s legs (not too sure if she is wearing hosiery but I like to hop she is) along with the brand and the make. In the top right corner, it also gives you a breakdown of the size, colour, style etc. which I think is great!

The back states the sizing guide, along with the materials and a little blurb about the hosiery:

“Why choose between your favourite hosiery and your favourite toner? My Signature Collection gives you both. Your legs will look their absolute sleekest and most sophisticated everyday of the week. More than hosiery, it’s a confident way of life.”

When you get inside, you will find these really neatly wrapped around cardboard with a branded label (fancy or what?!)

At first I thought it was promotional card (and it turned out it was) with the following text about the different pairs:

“How you feel about your body determines your mood. It even determines how you carry yourself. And if you feel good about your body, you are more self-confident. Donna Karan Hosiery is committed to making you feel longer, leaner, leggier. Sexier. Because if you feel great in your clothes, you feel great about your body. And that makes all the difference.”

“The Nudes Hosiery made to match skin tones, perfecting the look and feel of a truly flawless bare leg. Better than bare, virtually invisible, virtually flawless.”

“The Signature Collection Effortless style and everyday luxury, embracing the most desired, timeless leg options, from ultra sheer to sueded opaque.“

“The Body Perfect Collection Legwear Modern shaping and toning that combine innovative design with luxurious comfort. Three leg options and two body controlling levels provides the style you want and the control you desire.”

“The Body Perfection Collection Everyday Smoothing A simple, luxe way to look better under clothing each and every day. Three styles offer minimal control with maximal smoothing, including rear and tummy toning. A way to smooth, a way of life.“

“The Body Perfect Collection Shapewear An innovative shapewear system as comfortable as it is sleek. Four silhouettes and three body controlling levels provide the perfect combination of modern style and targeted sculpting that’s right for you.”

Getting Them On: so I would certainly advise hosiery gloves with these as they are delicate and are prone to snagging (not put it to the test yet!) I did the scrunch and roll on the legs, taking care going over anklets.

Rolling up the leg is a breeze; they just glide right on. No need for tugging or pulling up too high either!

On The Legs: is like wow! A pure smooth finish with a subtle shine to them is exactly what I love when it comes to sheers! They make the legs looks utterly gorgeous without even trying!

The denier is superb for a nice basic coverage (which works for most workplaces) and I love how you still get your natural leg colour still shining through.

The quality of these are amazing; not one snag throughout the whole day and I am super impressed with this! Normally I end up getting a few as I am busy rushing around most of the time, but I am dead happy with how these turned out 12 hours later!

Now these are control top, however I have to say that it’s the most lightest control top I have tried to date. I actually forgot that they were when I got them on and during the day, I treated them like normal tights; I mean with control top you need to make sure that your bum sits in a certain pair of the hosiery etc. but I truly forgot. Perfect for those who like these tops (I am part of this clan) and want it quite low rather than a top which can squeeze the life out of you!

Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures up close pictures of this, but look further down at the waistband section to see more.

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The Toes & Ankle: completely sheer sandal toes on these, which I am loving! It works so well with peep toe and open toe shoes (and perfect for summer coming up too!)

No snags or runs or pulls around this area, and plenty of toe wiggle room too!

Around the ankles yo won’t find any wrinkling or crinkling as these are a complete smooth run from the toe seams right to the band!

The Waistband: now the waistband/control top is decent. You get a good size brief boxer on them which covers front and back (of course) with a cotton gusset inside.

The band itself is comfortable during the day, however it does start to dig in slightly the longer you wear them I found. It wasn’t too bad, but I had to pull away a few times to relieve some pressure off my tummy.

My Thoughts?

I am digging these! I love that sheer, I love the denier and I love this brand. The control top is a light and subtle one which does work (to the point you forget!) and these hold up so well during the day.

The quality is fabulous on these, and I would recommend it solely on that basis. Everything else is a plus point in my eyes!

Family friendly beaches on Oahu? What beach isn’t family friendly? Well, remember that all kinds of people visit Hawaii for all kinds of reasons. Our family friendly beach recommendations are places you can go with kids with safe waves, fun wildlife, and that AREN’T hosting epic surf competitions. True, if you’re there for the Vans Cup, Pipe Pro competitions or another surfing bonanza, spend some time enjoying the spectacle, but also go seek our these great family friendly beaches on Oahu for a different side of Hawaii.

Favorite family friendly beaches on Oahu

We will bend over backwards to make sure we get a beach day no matter where we are. Thankfully Oahu is an island and it’s surrounded by perfect sand and warm water. We did Oahu without ever hitting Waikiki or Honolulu. I know: crazy. But it was perfect for our family and we were able to enjoy the beach without the typical Waikiki experience.

West Side – Ko Olina, Oahu

For the first part of our stay on Oahu we were at Diseny’s Aulani. A beautiful resort with all kinds of fun, including its own water park, it is set just off the beach. The Ko Olina area has several coves with beaches perfect for young kids, including a public beach park. The crater-shaped coves of the area provide calm, warm waters and super chill beach days; some of the most family friendly beaches on Oahu.

Note:  like Washington State, nearly all beaches in Hawaii are public access, save a few that are federally protected (for military and such). This doesn’t mean the land leading up to the beach is public, but if you’re walking the beach, chances are very good that you have the right to nearly all the way around each island (where accessible).

Accommodations in Ko Olina

There is, of course, Disney Aulani in Ko Olina, but there are also several other properties and private rentals. When looking for accommodations on the West Side, be sure to confirm what sort of beach access your booking includes. Public beach access is plentiful if you know where to look, but being able to walk right out of your home-away-from-home is priceless.

For your lodging perusal and booking convenience… Booking.com (function(d, sc, u) { var s = d.createElement(sc), p = d.getElementsByTagName(sc)[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = u + '?v=' + (+new Date()); p.parentNode.insertBefore(s,p); })(document, 'script', '//aff.bstatic.com/static/affiliate_base/js/flexiproduct.js');

The North Shore – Haleiwa and Pupukea

Say “the North Shore” and you immediately think of surfing competitions, huge waves, and stories of locals giving visitors the cold shoulder (or worse). True, the North Shore is real Hawaii and it’s a very special place to those who get to call it home, but it’s not just what you initially think of.

The North Shore is home to a variety of beach types and countless access spots, but we found two spots that were perfect for playing and exploring with kids. Truly, some of the best beaches on Oahu are on the North Shore.

Sunset Beach – Pupukea

Aptly named Sunset Beach is just what you expect to find on Oahu, and particularly on the North Shore. The beach slopes down to the waves pretty steeply but then peters out underwater. You can actually walk into the surf pretty far, and with a watchful eye on a calm day, it’s an ideal family beach.  Heads up if you’re visiting in the winter though, this is where you’ll catch the many surfing competitions. It’s both awesome and not the Hawaii you may be hoping for.

Note: be wary of both rocks and a reef not too far into the waves. There is a lot of coral around Sunset Beach and you don’t want to leave with an injury.

Accommodations on the North Shore

We opted for a really wonderful AirBNB one block from Sunset Beach. We loved being in a neighborhood and hearing kids, as well as the flexibility of dining out or cooking at our place. Our particular accommodations provided us with all the beach equipment we needed: beach towels, chairs, umbrella, snorkel gear, sand toys… It was perfect for our family.

There are other options on the North Shore too, including the Turtle Bay Resort and a variety of hotels within Haleiwa. Really, book what fits your travel style and know that you’re on Oahu and you’ll probably spend minimal time there because there’s so much else to do.

Or if you’re looking for non-AirBNB lodging…

Booking.com (function(d, sc, u) { var s = d.createElement(sc), p = d.getElementsByTagName(sc)[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = u + '?v=' + (+new Date()); p.parentNode.insertBefore(s,p); })(document, 'script', '//aff.bstatic.com/static/affiliate_base/js/flexiproduct.js');

East Side – Kanehoe Bay and Lanikai

If your accommodations on Oahu are up on the North Shore, be sure to take the scenic route to get to Lanikai. You’ll wind past crashing waves and steep green mountains. They’re the views Jurassic Park is made of (and you can stop at the Kualoa Ranch where it was filmed). This will also give you the chance to stop off at a local shop or Foodland to get beach snacks and delicious Oahu food… cuz you’ll never want to leave the beaches of Lanikai.

Parking at Oahu’s Lanikai Beach is easiest in the morning. The beach is accessed through Kailua Beach Park or via one of the neighborhood thru-ways. Once there you’ll be in love with the soft sand and the perfect view. Lanikai Beach is so beautiful because it’s on an open bay with green sloping mountains at its mouth. Gorgeous.

Highlight: while apparently it’s not an everyday occurrence, we saw four or five young sea turtles at Lanikai. Immediately upon arriving at the beach we saw young hones (Hawaiian green sea turtles) surfacing and diving. We got in the water to swim and they would show up next to us. Amazing nature experience!

Accommodations on the East Side of Oahu

The towns of Kanahoe Bay, Lanikai, and Waimanolo all have hotels for a variety of budgets. You actually can book some pretty mainstream brands in one of these East Side towns to make your Oahu vacation more budget friendly. Booking.com (function(d, sc, u) { var s = d.createElement(sc), p = d.getElementsByTagName(sc)[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = u + '?v=' + (+new Date()); p.parentNode.insertBefore(s,p); })(document, 'script', '//aff.bstatic.com/static/affiliate_base/js/flexiproduct.js');

Family friendly snorkeling around Oahu

If I didn’t know better I’d guess that the word “Oahu” meant “Plentiful waters full of colorful fish and turtles.” Like with our recommendations for beachs, snorkeling can be enjoyed all around Oahu.

Rocky Coves of the West Coast – Waianae

The west side, from Waianae up to Keawaula is ideal for snorkeling on a calm day. There aren’t a lot of protected bays (with breakers) on this side of the island but if you find a nice beach access point with safe parking off the highway, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the wide variety of fish you’ll find. Remember, the Hawaiian Island are the tops of volcanoes so there are lots of rocky area for coral reefs to form and life to flourish.

Another highlight of the area was the honu, Hawaiian green sea turtle, population. They were visible even before we were watching them underwater. Hawaiian green sea turtles like to dine on algae, undersea grasses and sea weed, so fining a cove with just the right mix of rocks and plant life made for some incredible underwater moments.

Note: there is an appropriate/safe way to observe sea turtles underwater. The following are NOAA’s guidelines for swimming around or observing sea turtles.

do not actively approach sea turtles

do not attempt to feed the animals

do not encircle a turtle

limit viewing/observation time to less than 30 minutes

Sharks Cove – Haleiwa

One of our friend’s said that we shouldn’t include Sharks Cove in our suggestions for visiting Oahu so that it doesn’t get all crazy with tourists, and I can respect that. So here’s all I’ll say:

Sharks Cove isn’t much of a beach, but its lagoon is worth a visit. A long line of breaker rocks forms a boundary between the open ocean and crazy waves of the North Shore, and on the land side of the breaker is an idyllic lagoon. It’s got all kinds of fish and sea life to discover, some nice swimming holes, and it was great to visit with kids.

Due to limited parking and wanting to keep the area mellow, plan a short visit in the morning and then head up the road a bit to get your actual beach time, either at Sunset Beach or Waimea Bay Beach Park.

Tip: across the street from Sharks Cove is an awesome food truck depot. It’s got its own parking and is an ideal lunch spot.

East Side snorkeling – Kailua and Lanikai

The very same beach we enjoyed with kids, Lanikai, also proved to be pretty good for snorkeling. Primarily we were observing the young honu population (Hawaiian green sea turtles) but we also were watching for humuhumunukunukuapua’a and pufferfish. There were all sorts of small fish, but these were the big ticket species.

Tip: if you head further south from Lanikai you’ll come to Kaupō Beach Park in Waimanalo. The coves and reefs in this area are much rockier than Lanikai and may have a wider variety of fish.

Getting on the water off Oahu

Getting out onto the water is a must if you’re in a tropical location, particularly Hawaii. While you won’t find as many tour operators or boats for hire off Oahu as you do in a place like Cabo San Lucas, but there are still plenty of choices. We did a catamaran sailing adventure with Hawaii Nautical.

The highlights of getting out on the water vs just hitting the beach were watching the Hawaiian green sea turtles surfacing all around us and the Hawaiian spinner dolphins jumping and chasing everywhere we looked. The wildlife was really incredible and easy for the kids to enjoy without getting into the open water.

Another highlight of going on a catamaran was the crew providing unique experiences. We loved it when one of the guys on board dove into the water to bring up urchins, sea stars and even an octopus to show the kids. Also, a great Hawaiian lunch of kalua pork finished off our time on the water, so score there!

It’s amazing how writing about the beaches on Oahu and all of the fun water activities makes it almost okay that we’re in the Pacific Northwest most of the rest of the year. Really, you can’t go wrong with spending time as a family, a couple, or solo walking the beaches and exploring the nature around the Island of Oahu.

We’re excited to go back when the kids are better snorkelers, but in the meantime, anybody up for letting us dads hide in your suitcases when you head to Oahu? Seriously, let us know. 😉

Want to pin this for planning your own adventure lounging on and exploring the beaches on Oahu?  Go for it!

Social Media and Soaps

We use social media for everything.  Every type of brand and every kind of media uses social media to talk to their fans.  As a fan, I enjoy having that open channel to talk to others about my favorite products, television shows, and books.  It has its ups and downs, but it isn’t going away anytime soon.  Obviously.

Soaps use social media to get fans talking about what they like, what they don’t like and everything in-between.  As an American, I know how the American soaps run their twitter accounts.  It is a completely different experience than how British soaps run their social media.  For instance, ITV and Emmerdale.  After taking a long time looking at their main social media, I noticed while the network knows how to use certain social media channels it struggles with some others.

I look at how ITV’s Emmerdale uses social media and what works and what doesn’t.

Read on if you want to hear more!

How Emmerdale Uses Social Media

Emmerdale has a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook page.  They use twitter to talk to viewers, Instagram to show off behind the scenes or spoiler pictures and the Facebook is the original place for discussion of the episodes.

Twitter seems to be their newest venture.  They seem to mostly use it during live episodes and on the weekends to ask questions about characters and where we stand on certain storylines (that either ends up being interesting to read through or a firestorm).

Instagram is used to show behind the scenes photos, future and past character profiles and different parts of the village to start conversations.

Facebook is their original social media page.  They have focused episode recaps, polls, questions and spoilers for the week ahead.

If there is a big event coming (such as SSW), all the account start to work together to promote it.

My Opinion?

  Oh, look! It’s Robert and Aaron! *cries in a corner* 

  Seeing as I must infer a lot about corporate strategy and how ITV structures their corporation, I must say that Twitter seems to be the shows weak spot for me.

I assume there is a small group of people (possibly floating interns named LEON) that runs the Emmerdale and Coronation Street accounts.  I assume this because I haven’t seen a press release where ITV announcing they are using an agency to run the social media. For soaps, it seems to be in-house and through the marketing department.  Like most organizations, ITV farmed out their social media work to an advertising agency, Something’ Else. I assume this because in the Social Media Compliance Manual (it will be linked below) all content and all consent for fourth wall breaking must go through the marketing department head before posting.

With that said and inferred, Twitter seems to be the hardest to keep up with for the small team.  Which is understandable.  Twitter is a rough social media channel to use.  Not only do you have to keep the account updated, keep a consistent tone, one has to answer angry/happy/questioning fans, and start a dialogue about the different issues being addressed on the show.  This can be rough with a soap this popular and this wide-reaching.  The fans are dedicated and excitable which can lead to unwanted conversations and angry responses. I’m assuming different people are running the account day to day, the conversations can go different ways.  That ends up confusing people and causing unneeded anger.

This is because of tone issues and lack of consistency.

I think if they kept up one tone on twitter people could connect better to the account.  I find it uneven especially when it’s time for the episode to air. You can tell they set up the content cards in advance to match the episode.  It becomes cold and emotionless. You can tell a program such as Hootsuite is being used.  Sometimes after the episode is over someone comes on to talk to the fans.  Sometimes it can be fun or can be a disaster. Something to note, I can sometimes pick out when it is different people. This might be in my head, but I see it.  There is someone on the team that is full of puns, one likes to use slang words, and there is one that likes to use gifs as reactions. I can pin point each person’s voice. That’s not good unless it’s been established that there are multiple people on the account. They would usually notate who it is talking when that happens. This account doesn’t.

This leads me to the other problem with their twitter account.

Consistency.  Social media needs consistency, especially in tone and content.  This is where a social media calendar comes into play (which I think they don’t have set up for Twitter content).  Fans enjoy a good surprise or two, or usually, they thrive on social media when there is consistency. One expects to see a new episode of their favorite television show at its scheduled time, right? Well, that applies to social media as well.  People come to expect certain features or content to appear at its scheduled time.  The Emmerdale Twitter account is muddled, and it throws anything up whenever they feel like it.  The only time the account shows consistency is when the show is on, and that is scheduled.  The content cards come up when they should be trying to start a conversation that the channel never replies too.  That happens for the 30 or 60 minutes the show is on, but after that, the account goes back into chaos.

Same applies to the “Wish Wednesdays” and “Unlock Content” series.  The joke online when “Wish Wednesdays” show up is it must be award season! The “Unlock Content” series can randomly appear and disappear depending on what is happening on the show.  Either do it every day or pick one day and make it “Quick Spoilers” day.  People would be more excited about it if they knew it was appearing.  Also, “Wish Wednesdays” can only show up around awards season, that is fine, but the show needs to stop randomly bringing it up when fans are upset.  It doesn’t seem to work.

Twitter is a rough social media channel to run.  It takes a lot of trial and error and creative thinking to keep fans interested.  That might be too much for the small group of floating social media managers to accomplish.  That isn’t their fault.  A lot of networks, like ITV, still don’t understand the power of social media and how fans today are savvy enough to know when something isn’t working.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  I enjoy their Facebook and Instagram account (for the sake of this writing I’m leaving out the YouTube page because that is another entry altogether).

The Facebook page is run well. It is clean. I see consistency, and something fans can count on to talk about the show.  Their Facebook page is easier to monitor or use their “Take Down Policy” (another policy that applies to all their social media but only put into full practice by the Facebook account). When I go there, I expect to see the episode round up and the comments from the general audience.  It isn’t exciting, but it is clean and isn’t muddled in its messages.

The Instagram page gives fans a fun inside look into the show and the actors that bring our favorite characters to life.  You can see the break between weeks easily because the show uses a piece of the village to signal a new week.  Which is smart.  I noticed it likes to use its “Unlock Content” series here, but it isn’t overused.  I enjoy it for its simplicity, and the fans are generally quieter there. I believe people are there for the cute pictures rather than to argue about storylines or characters.  It is easier to create content for that social media channel than the others.

Conclusion

Why did I actually look at Emmerdale’s social media? I am someone who uses social media to keep up with this wonderful, maddening, crazy show.  As an American, I’m usually left behind on a lot of information, so I rely on social media to keep me informed.  This includes all the official Emmerdale accounts.  I have noticed their shortcomings when it gets harder to keep up.  I am also a big fat nerd about social media and how a dated form of storytelling (soap operas) keeps up with the times.  I can see Emmerdale is beloved and I think their social media should reflect that.  They will get the Twitter account right. It will just take some time.

UPDATE (11/18/2017)

Recently, the storyliners did a Q&A on Instagram.  Here is what they did wrong this time:

1) Wrong platform. What they should have done was ask for questions on Instagram and then filmed a video of the storyliners answering them. If they wanted it to be purely text, they should have done it on twitter or even set up a reddit for this type of Q&A.  (The reddit choice might not be for them though)

2) They should have put stipulations on the questions. As someone who writes I would have loved to see more about story structure, how the process works and if they ever had to do any quick rewrites and how does that work? While that is in there, the Q&A is muddled with plot questions or angry, crazy Robron fans that make us all look so bad. *eek*

3) I wrote about their social media management and how it feels all wrong. I see it again, and I am dying to see how they plan this out and if there is a team. If its one person like I’ve been told, oh it shows. Social media for this type of medium needs a team. b

After all these months the social media is still messy. There seems to be no strategy involved.  I think, looking in from the outside knowing very limited information, the person running the social media/digital is overwhelmed. This is why people need teams. At least three other people to figure out strategy, building the schedule and making sure execution is flawless. I know most companies refuse or don’t understand how social works or its importance in this type of industry. ITV is trying, but they are doing it all wrong.

Links

http://www.itv.com/competitions/sites/competitions/files/Documents/ITV_Social_Media_Guidelines_June2017.pdf

http://www.somethinelse.com/projects/social-media-itvs-biggest-shows/

We use social media for everything.  Every type of brand and every kind of media uses social media to talk to their fans.  As a fan, I enjoy having that open channel to talk to others about my favorite products, television shows, and books.  It has its ups and downs, but it isn’t going away anytime soon.  Obviously.

Soaps use social media to get fans talking about what they like, what they don’t like and everything in-between.  As an American, I know how the American soaps run their twitter accounts.  It is a completely different experience than how British soaps run their social media.  For instance, ITV and Emmerdale.  After taking a long time looking at their main social media, I noticed while the network knows how to use certain social media channels it struggles with some others.

I look at how ITV’s Emmerdale uses social media and what works and what doesn’t.

Read on if you want to hear more!

How Emmerdale Uses Social Media

Emmerdale has a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook page.  They use twitter to talk to viewers, Instagram to show off behind the scenes or spoiler pictures and the Facebook is the original place for discussion of the episodes.

Twitter seems to be their newest venture.  They seem to mostly use it during live episodes and on the weekends to ask questions about characters and where we stand on certain storylines (that either ends up being interesting to read through or a firestorm).

Instagram is used to show behind the scenes photos, future and past character profiles and different parts of the village to start conversations.

Facebook is their original social media page.  They have focused episode recaps, polls, questions and spoilers for the week ahead.

If there is a big event coming (such as SSW) all the account start to work together to promote it.

My Opinion?

  Oh look! It’s Robert and Aaron! *cries in a corner* 

Seeing as I must infer a lot about corporate strategy and how ITV structures their corporation, I must say that Twitter seems to be the shows weak spot for me.

I assume there is a small group of people (possibly floating interns named LEON) that runs the Emmerdale and Coronation Street accounts.  I assume this because I haven’t seen a press release where ITV announcing they are using an agency to run the social media. For soaps, it seems to be in-house and through the marketing department.  Like most organizations, ITV farmed out their social media work to an advertising agency, Something’ Else. I assume this because in the Social Media Compliance Manual (it will be linked below) all content and all consent for fourth wall breaking must go through the marketing department head before posting.

With that said and inferred, Twitter seems to be the hardest to keep up with for the small team.  Which is understandable.  Twitter is a rough social media channel to use.  Not only do you have to keep the account updated, keep a consistent tone, one has to answer angry/happy/questioning fans, and start a dialogue about the different issues being addressed on the show.  This can be rough with a soap this popular and this wide reaching.  The fans are dedicated and excitable which can lead to unwanted conversations and angry responses.  Since there are different people running the account day to day (my assumption), the conversations can go different ways.  That ends up confusing people and causing unneeded anger.

This is because of tone issues and lack of consistency.

I think if they kept up one tone on twitter people could connect better to the account.  I find it uneven especially when it’s time for the episode to air. You can tell they set up the content cards in advance to match the episode.  It becomes cold and emotionless. You can tell a program such as Hootsuite is being used.  Sometimes after the episode is over someone comes on to talk to the fans.  Sometimes it can be fun or can be a disaster. Something to note, I can sometimes pick out when it is different people. This might be in my head, but I see it.  There is someone on the team that is full of puns, one likes to use slang words, and there is one that likes to use gifs as reactions. I can pin point each person’s voice. That’s not good unless it’s been established that there are multiple people on the account. They would usually notate who it is talking when that happens. This account doesn’t.

This leads me to the other problem with their twitter account.

Consistency.  Social media needs consistency. Consistency in tone and content.  This is where a social media calendar comes into play (which I think they don’t have set up for Twitter content).  Fans enjoy a good surprise or two, or usually, they thrive on social media when there is consistency. One expects to see a new episode of their favorite television show at its scheduled time, right? Well, that applies to social media as well.  People come to expect certain features or content to appear at its scheduled time.  The Emmerdale Twitter account is muddled, and it throws anything up whenever they feel like it.  The only time the account shows consistency is when the show is on, and that is scheduled.  The content cards come up when they should be trying to start a conversation that the channel never replies too.  That happens for the 30 or 60 minutes the show is on, but after that, the account goes back into chaos.

Same applies to the “Wish Wednesdays” and “Unlock Content” series.  The joke online when “Wish Wednesdays” show up is it must be award season! The “Unlock Content” series can randomly appear and disappear depending on what is happening on the show.  Either do it every day or pick one day and make it “Quick Spoilers” day.  People would be more excited for it if they knew it was appearing.  Also, “Wish Wednesdays” can only show up around awards season, that is fine, but the show needs to stop randomly bringing it up when fans are upset.  It doesn’t seem to work.

Twitter is a tough social media channel to run.  It takes a lot of trial and error and creative thinking to keep fans interested.  That might be too much for the small group of floating social media managers to accomplish.  That isn’t their fault.  A lot of networks, like ITV, still don’t understand the power of social media and how fans today are savvy enough to know when something isn’t working.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  I enjoy their Facebook and Instagram account (for the sake of this writing I’m leaving out the YouTube page because that is for another entry altogether).

The Facebook page is run well. It is clean. I see consistency, and something fans can count on to talk about the show.  Their Facebook page is easier to monitor or use their “Take Down Policy” (another policy that applies to all their social media but only put into full practice by the Facebook account). When I go there I expect to see the episode round up and the comments from the general audience.  It isn’t exciting but it is clean and isn’t muddled in its messages.

The Instagram page gives fans a fun inside look into the show and the actors that bring our favorite characters to life.  You can see the break between weeks easily because the show uses a piece of the village to signal a new week.  Which is smart.  I noticed it likes to use its “Unlock Content” series here, but it isn’t overused.  I enjoy it for its simplicity, and the fans are generally quieter there. I believe people are there for the cute pictures rather than to argue about storylines or characters.  It is easier to create content for that social media channel than the others.

Conclusion

Why did I actually look at Emmerdale’s social media? I am someone who uses social media to keep up with this wonderful, maddening, crazy show.  As an American, I’m usually left behind on a lot of information, so I rely on social media to keep me informed.  This includes all the official Emmerdale accounts.  I have noticed their shortcomings when it gets harder to keep up.  I am also a big fat nerd about social media and how a dated form of storytelling (soap operas) keeps up with the times.  I can see Emmerdale is beloved and I think their social media should reflect that.  They will get the Twitter account right. It will just take some time.

Links

http://www.itv.com/competitions/sites/competitions/files/Documents/ITV_Social_Media_Guidelines_June2017.pdf

http://www.somethinelse.com/projects/social-media-itvs-biggest-shows/

We use social media for everything.  Every type of brand and every kind of media uses social media to talk to their fans.  As a fan, I enjoy having that open channel to talk to others about my favorite products, television shows, and books.  It has its ups and downs, but it isn’t going away anytime soon.  Obviously.

Soaps use social media to get fans talking about what they like, what they don’t like and everything in-between.  As an American, I know how the American soaps run their twitter accounts.  It is a completely different experience than how British soaps run their social media.  For instance, ITV and Emmerdale.  After taking a long time looking at their main social media, I noticed while the network knows how to use certain social media channels it struggles with some others.

I look at how ITV’s Emmerdale uses social media and what works and what doesn’t.

Read on if you want to hear more!

How Emmerdale Uses Social Media

Emmerdale has a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook page.  They use twitter to talk to viewers, Instagram to show off behind the scenes or spoiler pictures and the Facebook is the original place for discussion of the episodes.

Twitter seems to be their newest venture.  They seem to mostly use it during live episodes and on the weekends to ask questions about characters and where we stand on certain storylines (that either ends up being interesting to read through or a firestorm).

Instagram is used to show behind the scenes photos, future and past character profiles and different parts of the village to start conversations.

Facebook is their original social media page.  They have focused episode recaps, polls, questions and spoilers for the week ahead.

If there is a big event coming (such as SSW) all the account start to work together to promote it.

My Opinion?

  Oh look! It’s Robert and Aaron! *cries in a corner* 

Seeing as I must infer a lot about corporate strategy and how ITV structures their corporation, I must say that Twitter seems to be the shows weak spot for me.

I assume there is a small group of people (possibly floating interns named LEON) that runs the Emmerdale and Coronation Street accounts.  I assume this because I haven’t seen a press release where ITV announcing they are using an agency to run the social media. For soaps, it seems to be in-house and through the marketing department.  Like most organizations, ITV farmed out their social media work to an advertising agency, Something’ Else. I assume this because in the Social Media Compliance Manual (it will be linked below) all content and all consent for fourth wall breaking must go through the marketing department head before posting.

With that said and inferred, Twitter seems to be the hardest to keep up with for the small team.  Which is understandable.  Twitter is a rough social media channel to use.  Not only do you have to keep the account updated, keep a consistent tone, one has to answer angry/happy/questioning fans, and start a dialogue about the different issues being addressed on the show.  This can be rough with a soap this popular and this wide reaching.  The fans are dedicated and excitable which can lead to unwanted conversations and angry responses.  Since there are different people running the account day to day (my assumption), the conversations can go different ways.  That ends up confusing people and causing unneeded anger.

This is because of tone issues and lack of consistency.

I think if they kept up one tone on twitter people could connect better to the account.  I find it uneven especially when it’s time for the episode to air. You can tell they set up the content cards in advance to match the episode.  It becomes cold and emotionless. You can tell a program such as Hootsuite is being used.  Sometimes after the episode is over someone comes on to talk to the fans.  Sometimes it can be fun or can be a disaster. Something to note, I can sometimes pick out when it is different people. This might be in my head, but I see it.  There is someone on the team that is full of puns, one likes to use slang words, and there is one that likes to use gifs as reactions. I can pin point each person’s voice. That’s not good unless it’s been established that there are multiple people on the account. They would usually notate who it is talking when that happens. This account doesn’t.

This leads me to the other problem with their twitter account.

Consistency.  Social media needs consistency. Consistency in tone and content.  This is where a social media calendar comes into play (which I think they don’t have set up for Twitter content).  Fans enjoy a good surprise or two, or usually, they thrive on social media when there is consistency. One expects to see a new episode of their favorite television show at its scheduled time, right? Well, that applies to social media as well.  People come to expect certain features or content to appear at its scheduled time.  The Emmerdale Twitter account is muddled, and it throws anything up whenever they feel like it.  The only time the account shows consistency is when the show is on, and that is scheduled.  The content cards come up when they should be trying to start a conversation that the channel never replies too.  That happens for the 30 or 60 minutes the show is on, but after that, the account goes back into chaos.

Same applies to the “Wish Wednesdays” and “Unlock Content” series.  The joke online when “Wish Wednesdays” show up is it must be award season! The “Unlock Content” series can randomly appear and disappear depending on what is happening on the show.  Either do it every day or pick one day and make it “Quick Spoilers” day.  People would be more excited for it if they knew it was appearing.  Also, “Wish Wednesdays” can only show up around awards season, that is fine, but the show needs to stop randomly bringing it up when fans are upset.  It doesn’t seem to work.

Twitter is a tough social media channel to run.  It takes a lot of trial and error and creative thinking to keep fans interested.  That might be too much for the small group of floating social media managers to accomplish.  That isn’t their fault.  A lot of networks, like ITV, still don’t understand the power of social media and how fans today are savvy enough to know when something isn’t working.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  I enjoy their Facebook and Instagram account (for the sake of this writing I’m leaving out the YouTube page because that is for another entry altogether).

The Facebook page is run well. It is clean. I see consistency, and something fans can count on to talk about the show.  Their Facebook page is easier to monitor or use their “Take Down Policy” (another policy that applies to all their social media but only put into full practice by the Facebook account). When I go there I expect to see the episode round up and the comments from the general audience.  It isn’t exciting but it is clean and isn’t muddled in its messages.

The Instagram page gives fans a fun inside look into the show and the actors that bring our favorite characters to life.  You can see the break between weeks easily because the show uses a piece of the village to signal a new week.  Which is smart.  I noticed it likes to use its “Unlock Content” series here, but it isn’t overused.  I enjoy it for its simplicity, and the fans are generally quieter there. I believe people are there for the cute pictures rather than to argue about storylines or characters.  It is easier to create content for that social media channel than the others.

Conclusion

Why did I actually look at Emmerdale’s social media? I am someone who uses social media to keep up with this wonderful, maddening, crazy show.  As an American, I’m usually left behind on a lot of information, so I rely on social media to keep me informed.  This includes all the official Emmerdale accounts.  I have noticed their shortcomings when it gets harder to keep up.  I am also a big fat nerd about social media and how a dated form of storytelling (soap operas) keeps up with the times.  I can see Emmerdale is beloved and I think their social media should reflect that.  They will get the Twitter account right. It will just take some time.

Links

http://www.itv.com/competitions/sites/competitions/files/Documents/ITV_Social_Media_Guidelines_June2017.pdf

http://www.somethinelse.com/projects/social-media-itvs-biggest-shows/