story about a guy who had all these dogs. Okay. And I don't think it was enrichment or something. What kind of dogs? He had a whole variety of dogs that he was rescuing. Man, that's loud. I can hear the barking already. I hope he got a lot of sleep. He had 179 dogs. Oh no. He got arrested. These are visual record. No visual recording. You look fantastic, by the way. My name is Ty. It's really nice to meet you. Rebecca. Are you putting it on Facebook or what are you doing with it? So normally, I have a YouTube channel, if you like. If you'd like to see some of the other videos I put up, and it's just basically a compilation of really positive conversations I have with people in a short time frame about whatever they want to talk about. Okay. And what's your doctor title? My thesis? No, you have a DR, so I was wondering what your doctor is. Yeah, tell me. I got my doctorate at Georgia Tech. It's in biochemistry. Oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah. I'm just getting his PhD there right now in material science. Where? Georgia Tech. Really? Georgia Tech. Who is he working for, by the way? If you don't want me to ask him, do you know who is... I don't know the person's name. You don't know? Supervisor? SOPER? Is it by chance? Is he working in the quadrangle? Have you been to campus? I have, and I've been to his lab. I can't tell you. Is it in the fancy part of the school? No, it's not. Mine wasn't either. Paper Science Development Institute? No, his girlfriend is in paper science, which they're well funded for that. Yeah, yeah. He's doing something with lead and strands. Okay, okay. It's a good school. I think one of the best things that I got out of being working there is realizing that I came in there with the idea of I had a great high school career. I had a great undergrad career. All I have to do is just keep studying and I'll be fine. But then I realized when I hit grad school, the playing field was completely different. And the only way to get better was by asking people for help and making a network of people who can get me through. That was one of the greatest things. And Georgia Tech has a great swath of people who can help you out. So normally what we have is a conversation about anything that you think is really important, something that you find motivating, something that you believe is true, something that you're certain about. Maybe you circled your life around, favorite TV show, anything you want. I've circled my life around the belief that we have to take care of everyone in the younger generation to bring them forward so that they're all have a fair opportunity at succeeding. Have a fair opportunity. You believe that everyone, that we have the responsibility to give the next generation a fair opportunity to succeed? Right. Okay, just want to make sure. That's it. What do you mean by fair opportunity? That those doors that might be shut because of because of presupposition, bias, prejudice, and then probably because of you know, levels of poverty. Okay. We have an obligation to do what we can to help people reach a minimum level of developing the competencies needed to succeed. Why do you believe we have this obligation? Because without it, we won't really have a successful commonwealth. Okay. Won't have successful commonwealth. Is that has that been demonstrated anywhere? Like in history? I mean, I think that you can look at stats for the impact of of yeah, school failure and the consequences of that on economic success as well as potential for you know, incarceration or. Sure, I can see that. Yeah, so there's stats that establish that. If it turned out to be the case that you totally could have a successful commonwealth without ingraining these ideas of, you know, fairness, people being equal, sexes being equal, races being equal. Well, I didn't use the word equal. Oh, okay. I said fair opportunity for success. I don't know. I mean, equity is different than equal and okay, not necessarily equal. So then just equal access to these opportunities. If you could, if by denying equal opportunities, you still had a successful commonwealth. Would that impinge your confidence that, you know, that it matters that yeah, that fair opportunity is actually important? Well, probably it does go deeper than that. Yeah. So I think that the Judeo Christian origin stories, okay, talk about Adam and Eve. And I think that the principle behind the idea that we are all of the same genetic makeup is the notion that you, if no one's a stepchild, then everyone's entitled to the same inheritance, the same access to the family as well. Okay, okay. So therefore, and I think that's the reason for the, you know, stories and genesis about how humankind came to be. Okay. That we are all of one, Brea College has it in their motto, which I can't think of it exactly, but somehow it's all being of the same blood. Right. Because we're all inherently the same organism, kind of species. Right. And I think that, right. No, nonetheless, we have been, we have a duty to, you know, to the rest of the species in the world too, of course, because certainly there's one train of thought that would say, you know, biodiversity is a gift and those who might think that there is a, the notion of gift of nature comes from an idea that there is a creator. Okay. Okay. So therefore, if there's a creator who made biodiversity happen and it serves a purpose for the good, and then we have an obligation to preserve that. So our sense of doing good by others and providing some measure of a base for everyone probably extends beyond the human species. So as an example, in the Herald Leader today, the head, the front page, I believe today, had a story about a guy who had all these dogs. Okay. And I don't think it was an enrichment or something. What kind of dogs? He had a whole variety of dogs that he was rescuing. Man, that's loud. I can hear the barking already. I hope he got a lot of sleep. He had 179 dogs. Oh, no. He got arrested for his prosecution, for taking, for not taking good care of those dogs. Yeah, he can't have that many dogs, right. But I understand why he's trying to do it. Hey, you may want to see why he's trying to do it. But the fact that they are, that we criminalize the failure to do it shows our society's belief that we have this baseline. We have a standard. Yes. So not just for humans, but really for a variety of life. Is your belief in a creator the foundation of this belief that you have? Well, I'm willing to go with that. If, is it possible to have someone else, for someone else to reach that same belief without using that as their foundation? I think it's possible if people go in, like as you said, if you break down who we are, you know, the DNA, all those ancestry in places that are so into doing that, we are all of one blood, that notion. So therefore if we are, then is there some sense of equity? But you don't need to believe in a creator to have that understanding. Is that what you're, is, did I, am I interpreting that correctly? Or do you have to believe in a creator to have that? I don't know. I'm not. My major was American Studies, not philosophy. I'm a lawyer, not a philosopher. I mean, I like philosophy, but I don't know for sure. I don't want to, I think that there are a lot of people, there are a lot of people who believe in a God who would very much in a striated society, right? I'm sorry, the helicopter. There are a lot of people who believe in a God, but who believe in a striated society. Yes, like caste system, for example. Right. And they believe firmly in a God, but they think that that's how God ordained the world to be, right? I was wondering like, there might be people who believe in fair opportunities of people, because we're all the same first people, but have no God belief whatsoever. Absolutely. I'm sure. I mean, I've known many people who probably do. They come, you know, just a humanist perspective. Right. But again, I'm not, I don't know, because I haven't really stripped that down to see what their thoughts are. Where are you at right now? Like, what do you mean? Like, how confident are you that this creator belief is actually the foundation of the belief that you presented about fair opportunities? I'm pretty confident that that's the foundation of my belief. Yeah. I'm just talking about your beliefs. Yeah. But am I absolutely, I mean, for me, faith doesn't exist without doubt. So cool. Whoa. That's the first time I heard that. I'm 32. Faith doesn't exist. I'm not twice your age yet. Yeah. I was so happy when I turned 30 because that's when you start building street cred on the whole, how old are you think question?  I was like, true, true, but I am old. Thank you for that. Okay. So we're done. One last question. Yes, sir. Do you think that, are you convinced that facing your system on faith with the addition of doubt is a reliable way to come to this conclusion about fair opportunities or is there potentially better sets of evidence or observations that you've made, for example, like all this or in this in genetic DNA, a better preface for establishing this foundation? Well, if there's a God and a creator, then you could simply say under a natural out there, it's what God created us to be at one blood. So that, you know, that comes out of, that could come out of the notion of a God and a creator. I think that for myself, I would never have sacrificed my life, the amount I've sacrificed in my life for others, except for my belief that the path, you know, I'm that my path is that to follow this notion of living for others. So it's in my adult life of Christ centered paths. So without that, I never would have done the levels of sacrifice I've done to try to live out the belief I just described. Okay. Or be, you know, dealt with. It was a really big motivation for you to do that stuff. It has kept me on the path to do it. Okay. But that's just not me. Okay. Good. So great. So biochemistry. Biochemistry. Your son's a material science? Material science. How far is he into his program? He's finishing his second year. Okay. That's the hardest year. Yeah. Because first year, you're just barely trying to hang on. People are, you're, it's a leading out program very much. So you're losing friends left and right.  It's by the second year, you have a discipline that you've exhibited that demonstrates to everybody, including yourself, that you belong there and that you're doing the work that needs to be done. But then third year, you're bored because you figured out the pattern to get everything done. And fourth year, you're just trying to get out. So how many years did it take you? I did four years of school and I also did one year off to work in Sweden while I was at Georgia Tech. I got a really good program there and it gave me extra time to write my thesis. Did you write it over there? Yeah. I got some, so my research program was a little bit...


What's going on, everyone? Sammy, your blade sports cards have been 23, Bowman Sterling Baseball Hobby, four box break, number 12, pick your team style. Read off a list of our names in our teams. Andrew E. with the Royals, Anton H. Blue Jays, Brian F. Cubs, Darren C. Marlins Athletics, Edward P. Tigers Mariners, Socrates J with the Rockies, Gabriel C. Orioles Debacks, Gordon P. with the Mets, Greg M. Reds Cardinals, Pirates Padres, Jacob C. with the Guardians, Jeff M. Yanks, Jeffrey H. Phillies and Raze, John K. Dodgers, Joseph G. Rangers, Joseph M. Angels, Justin E. Nationals, Lee G. with the Braves, Peter M. White Sox, Peter D. with the Red Sox, Phillip M. Twins, Russell G. Brewer's, Ryland P. Giants, and Stephen S. with the Astros. Let's good luck, everybody. Let's do it again, 11 to go in our next break. That is number 13. I did go ahead and mark every team down a little bit more as well. So there are 11 left on that. Teams are at least $10 marked down. I think everything outside of the cheaper teams will stay at about $19. They're under $20 to go. Good luck, everybody. Baseball that. All right, here we go. Kirk Pia, Spencer Jones. That is an Asturie Ruiz, rookie to 100 for the A's. This one there, Ooply and Gabriel Martinez for the Blue Jays to 150 on the Refractor Auto. Nice one there, Toronto. Juan Grissom and Tyler Freeman. Nolan Jones, Simon Juan for the Mets. Nice one there, congrats Mets. Velazquez, Jordan Groeschans, Asturie Ruiz. Nolan Jones, Christopher Morrell to 125. Elijah Green on the Wave Auto. Congrats, their nationals. Washington is loaded in this, man. Congrats, Nats. Very nice. Groeschans, Ruiz, and Alvarez Rookie, nice Alvy. We got a gold. House to 150, Colson Montgomery. Gold, Ricardo Cabrera, 32 of 50. Congrats, Reds. Reds do well in this, man, especially Vietnam. Vietnam and L.A. do well, but if you hit anything like this, like a Cabrera or a Steer, numbered card, you are looking good as well. Stowers and Kamenara. Vinny Pasconcino, Mark Vientos, Eric Brown, Jr. Nice one there for the Brew Crew on the base auto. There you go, Milwaukee. One last team's taken. Colas, Bonaler, and Cole Young. And we also have NT football ripping at the end of the day. Everybody that is a PYT, teams are on sale for that. We got a good team. Really, the biggest team left is the Jets, which is unbelievable. So thank you all. Moreno, Waters, Gabriel Gonzalez for the Mariners. Nice one there. Congrats, Seattle. Merrill, Jet Williams, Jackson, Currieu. On to the next one. We've got Jayce Young, Zack Neto to 199, Matthew Libetor-Rookie for St. Louis. Todd Knowles. Base auto for the A's, Henry Bolt. I got it right there, Henry Bolt. My God. Grats on that. Open, Basin, James Outman, and Trishon Costas. Georgia go back and score again. That's what I'm saying. What happened? I didn't even see you. Yeah, they did, but it was just a field goal.  They're on the zoo. That's true. Moreno, Corbin Carroll to 199, Jason Shereo for the Guardians. Base auto, Gabriel Martinez for the Blue Jays. Congrats, Blue Jays. Nice one there. Toronto, Francisco Alvarez-Rookie and a Christian Vecchero. Rithyan Vecchero. Get one to go in tier one Divis as well, everybody. One to go in tier one Divis. I think we got another gold tech coming up. Justin Crawford. No, true gold for the Braves is Vaughn Grissom-Rookie. That'll work. Nice one there. 250, Vaughn Grissom. A nice one here, Daniel Montecino. Going to the Padres, there you go, Greg. Nelson Rada and Trishon Costas-Rookie. Marcel Le Maier, Christian Vecchero to 100 on the Sterling Silver. Nice one there for the Nats. They also have a Lazaro Montez. Prospect auto, going to the Mariners. Seattle, what are we doing, man? Lyman just scored, oh, Frank. Maier and Jordan Diaz. Looks like it is. It looks like it, that can't be the case. Haste on that, maybe not, though. Let's look at the... Yeah, I think it is. Coming back. Yeah. It's a Mizzou game, it's a Mizzou Georgia game. It's pretty good, man. Maybe not. I can't tell. There's no way they'd still be celebrating. Yeah, we're gonna show the... Matthew Leritor, Gunnar Henderson-Rookie. That is 275, the Overpiguero. Going to the Pirates on the Rookie. Fuchsia. Bassado, Jet the Met, Jet Williams. One of the New York Mets. Cavalli and Kyle Stowers-Rookie. That's just a deflating turn over there. What's the FSU game look like now? William Bergoya, Jordani De Los Santos. That is a Pittsburgh Pirate hit. Nice one there, Pirates. Keith, selling us out on NT, or not on NT, on Tier One Divisions. Thank you, Keith. Brian B, picking up some in Upper Deck. Hockey. It's Mar-Johnson and Spencer Steer. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State too. It's actually pretty close. Carthaiya, Spencer Jones to 199, Gabriel Moreno. There you go, D-Bax. Finally, your boy, Michael Arroyo. Let's go. Congrats on that one there. Mariners, Mariners. Racking up hits again. Jackson Holiday, Lazar Roman says. We got a whack coming up here. Michael Harris-Rookie, Vinnie Pascantino. Got Dion Jorge to 150. It's an Eric Brown Jr. Two of 10, Black Lava Auto. Congrats on that one, Milwaukee. There we go, Brewers. Very nice. Brewers have done well, man. Brewers have done very well so far. They are still available in the next couple of four boxers as well. Josh Young and Oscar Colas. We've got an Orange coming up as well. Justin Crawford, Jayce Young. Orange Auto, Jackson Holiday. Look at the color match on that, man. To 75. There we go, Baltimore. I think that's Gabriel's seat. Yes, it is. Congrats, Gabriel. Good stuff, buddy. Jackson Holiday color match, 57 to 75. That's really nice. Brats on that. I don't go into a mag, Nelson Rada, and Trish and Casas-Rookie. Yeah, everybody, 11 to go. On four boxer, number 13. That's the most baseball spots we've got available today, 11 to go. Everything else outside of Sterling is sold out or has been ripped already. Four box, number 13, everybody. 11 to go. Hey, here we go. Got gold again. Lodge Green, gold, Kodai Senga, 11 to 50. Nice one there for the Mets on the true gold rookie. Frank with an upper deck spot, thank you, buddy. Nice one there, Manuel Beltre. I just go into the Blue Jays. Very nice, congrats. Toronto, Jordan Diaz, and Colson Montgomery. This is a good four boxer, man. Sterling Silver to 100, Jason Shurio. There we go, Guardians to 100. I love this Sterling Silver design, man. To 100, those are so clean. Nice one there, congrats again, Cleveland. Jackson Merrill, Jet Williams, and Jackson Shurio. Kumar Rocker to 199, Drew Gilbert. Nice one there for the Astro. There's still a Stro in this. Abel Bastidas, congrats on that there, Tigers. Nice one there as well. Detroit on the base rookie, Caminero, and Max Muncie. Marty like onto the second page of the Battle Pass. There's not really much to do in the Battle Pass. No, it's only 50, it's kind of wack. I can do it. They're supposed to add more, I think. Oh, are they going to? I think every week it's supposed to be a different. Different map from each season, I think, right, yeah. So I'm guessing they'll add stuff. Guerrero, Anthony Volpe, rookie, two at 99, Vaughn Grissom. Congrats on that there, Braves. That is a base auto, Mason Power Hour, going to the race. There you go, Tampa. Eric V with the Reds in 14, thank you, Eric. 14 is down to nine to go, I believe now. Jet the Mat and Jackson Shurio. Joseph C picking up a Flux mixer spot, thank you, buddy. Two of them, actually. Two of them, down to 14 over halfway on that one now. All right, last pack of the break. Everybody, Spencer Jones, Jonathan Mejia, Jason Shurio on the base auto this time. There you go again, Guardians. Guardians did very well. Very nice, Slazaro Montes, Vaughn Grissom, and Manuel Vargas. All right, quick recap here, everybody. Gold to 50 is Kodai Senga, as well as Vaughn Grissom. We had a Jason Shurio, Daniel Montesino, Jet Williams, Jordani De Los Santos, Manuel Beltre, Mason Auer, Lázaro Montes, Michael Arroyo, Gabriel Martinez, Elbel Bastidas, Henry Bolt, Gabriel Gonzalez, Eric Brown, Simon Juan, to 150, Gabriel Martinez, to 125, Elijah Green, to 100, Jason Shurio, to 50, Ricardo Cabrera, to 10, Eric Brown Jr. And then of course, this absolutely gorgeous Jackson Holiday color match to 75 on the orange. I'll do it for the break, everybody. Thanks again for the fill, up next, number 13.


Good morning, everyone, and welcome. This is Melissa Armel with the Stock Swoosh and I'm reviewing Disney. It was two day trades in Disney Friday and an option that was already called on the 9th, which was here. But Disney is a great example of really how to utilize my system for profit, because this was a bullish gap for the day trades and then it was a bullish gap for the option trade call. And it was just a huge trade for both, no matter what you did. Two day trades, one day trade, the option trade, everything. And I will tell you that there was a lot to learn from this gap, because many, many, many day traders attempted to short Disney in the huge gap up that it had on Friday and failed. Failed. You would have lost if you shorted the stock. The stock was a long stock as a buy. It was a buy before even Friday, which is one of the reasons why I call the option trade here. So I called the 120 calls expiring 426 on this day and it was late actually. But it gapped up in here, fell on this day, and had a huge move here. So it closed the night before at 1.1660 and it opened the following morning at 1.2790. A Jai Mungo move, 11 points up. And then on top of that, guess what? It was a day trade long. And you could have traded this all day.  You could have traded this in the morning. So we did this here and then here. And then that was it. But you could have actually gone back into it here. I mean, what a move in this stock. You could have done this three or four times on Friday as a day trade besides the option trade. The big trade was the option, simply because the cost of the calls that I called on the 9th was so cheap. Anywhere you got filled between 80, 90 cents was so cheap and they were worth between nine and 11 something when you rolled out of bed on Friday morning. So one of the benefits of doing day trading is you have the money right away and it's booked and you know it and you know everything before four o'clock. One of the benefits of options trades is that you don't have to use margin to trade stocks who are expensive like Disney, which is expensive in the sense that some people can't afford to day trade this with margin at over $100 per share. Now it's up at 130. But you don't need margin to do options. So you could have taken an $80 risk in this and made almost $1,000 with the option trade I call. So big gain, small risk and the option without margin if the stock moves in your direction, which in this case it did. So there's pros and benefits but of course you would have had to wait a couple days for this to go and you would have been down in it a little bit before it went. So there are pluses and minuses to everything you do. I think the best thing that you can do is follow a system and a strategy that directs you what's going to happen.  Day trading, you don't really wanna be patient. You wanna grab it and take it at the exact right moment which obviously is a benefit of being in the trading room with me because we were just right on top of this here right in the morning. But again, looking back, you could have done this later in the day. So nice bullish move in Disney. Stock is higher. So if you're interested in more information the next Golden Gap course is April 27th and 28th. And if you'd like to sign up for the options newsletter email me at Melissa at thestockswish.com Have a great, great week everyone. Happy holidays to everyone this week. It's gonna be an exciting, exciting earning season.


So I was thinking to myself the other day that if a music artist were to do all of the different music promo strategies across all of the music marketing spectrum, it would be a lot. You know what I'm saying? Like to be real, it's a lot to us sometimes and we get paid to do this stuff. And they also had me thinking that what would I rank certain promo strategies if I had to stack them against each other? Like, yes, there are different strategies that will undoubtedly put you in front of somebody, but some things are definitely much more worth doing than other things that you may have heard of. I have someone tell you to do. So that's exactly what I want to get into for this video. I want to rank some of the top promo strategies that I hear about the most so that hopefully it gives you a little bit of clarity on what you should be doing and what's worth your energy. Let's get into it. What's going on? My name is Kory Music Marketing Co-Finder Country Band Agency and today I want to rank some of my top music marketing promo strategies. I want to say my top strategies. These are the strategies that are pretty common. These may be things that you've heard me talk about. Maybe you've heard Sean talk about them. Maybe you've had another marketer talk about it. Somebody's probably put one of these tips of strategies across your way at some point or another. And if not, then I guess it's going to be a video of a couple of new promo strategies that you could try out and maybe put to work and see how they work for you. Now, like I said earlier in the video, I don't think that all marketing strategies are created equal. I think that some things are much more worth the effort, much more worth the time and much more worth the money than the other things that could also put you in front of people technically. So that's what I'm going to do for this video. I'm going to talk about some of these different strategies, rank them, we're going to go from worst to best in my opinion. And then I'm going to see how you guys feel about it because I'm going to see if you all agree with me if you all disagree, but I think this is going to be interesting. Now, before we get into all that, come and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. Links will be in the description below. Come talk to me, come engage me, come give me some video ideas, all of that good stuff. Also, go and check out the brand main elite courses. We have relaunched them and reopened them back up to the public. So if it's someone that missed out on the last round, you've been wanting to get in, you know what I'm saying? Trying to learn a little bit more about his music marketing. The link will be in the description below. Go and check that out.  Now with that being said, let's go ahead and get into it. So out the gate, first promo strategy, very bottom of my list is comment spamming. And you guys know who you are. All of you have probably done it at some point. You are enacting, I think the worst music marketing strategy there is. One, it's extremely annoying. No one likes to have their comments spammed on or their comments spammed by some random artists in some random link. It makes you look needy. It makes you look like you're begging for attention and no one wants to feel like their attention is being begged for. That's literally the best way to push people away from you. On top of that, it's just simply not a scalable method. Like let's say you get your comments spamming down to, I don't know, you're knocking out 10 comments in 10 minutes. So that's what that's 60 comments in an hour, you know what I'm saying?  You only have so much time in the day. You only have so much time that you can actually post these comments before you get blocked by Instagram or Twitter or YouTube or whatever platform you're doing it on. And it's just the worst possible marketing strategy that you can do.  You know what I'm saying? Just be real with you. I hate to be that guy, but I very, very strongly dislike you. You know what I'm saying? Like you get no love over here. So out of the gate, I think that's the worst music marketing strategy that anyone can do. Please don't do it. All right. So next up from there, I will have to give it to the $1.80 method. Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the $1.80 strategy. I first heard of it from Gary Vee. To me, it's a step up above the comment spamming strategy because you're still engaging with people's posts, but you're bringing some type of value with it. So the concept behind the $1.80 method is that you leave your two cents, right? So your thoughts, your opinions on at least 90 posts a day. So that's what the $1.80 comes up to, 90 times two cents equals to $1.80. You know what I'm saying? Y'all got it. We hear, we hear a cool bet. So like I said, to me, this is a step up to the comment spamming technique that I see a lot of ours do.   I also like to go skateboarding. You should go out to this park one time or sometime at this place. Now the person on the other side is going to sit and go like, hmm, this person just tried to connect with me around some general interest that I already have. And now they're a lot more likely to actually check out whatever you're asking them to check out, right? So the idea behind the $1.80 method is that you leave this two cents on a bunch of different posts from people that make sense for you. Maybe they're fans that you scout it out because they follow other artists. Maybe they engage with content that also falls within your niche. However you scout it out, these other people in the term of the day are worth you giving them your two cents, you do it, and then you leave something of value underneath their posts or in their DMs, et cetera, et cetera. Now the reason that this is at the bottom of the list for me is because it's time consuming. You know, it goes back up to it's not something that can easily be scaled up. If you're doing 10 comments in 10 minutes, so basically a comment a minute, that's an hour and a half just to knock out this 90, you know what I'm saying, these 90 comments, which I think is something that's worth doing in the beginning, especially when you don't have money to spend on yourself to do some of these things that we'll talk about. And it's definitely still a viable strategy, even if you still have a lot of advertising or other stuff going on around you. I just don't think it's something that can easily be scaled up because once again, it's not easy for you to do a thousand comments in a day. You would definitely get your account blocked on any social media platform. You would be flagged as spam. And then that would just stop the whole method, right? So that's why it's at the bottom of the list for me, not because it necessarily doesn't work, but because it's not easily scalable. And it takes a lot of your time, especially compared to some of the other things that we're going to get into on the list. So up next, we have getting press, getting PR, some of you guys may call it. And you might be wondering, like, why is it at the bottom of your list? Like press is dope, press is legit, not as a marketing tool. Now, I don't know how many publicists or journalists will stand behind this, but blogs and press don't really do much for music discovery these days. A couple of weeks ago, as I'm me making this video, Pigeons and Plains, which is one of the most reputable music blogs out there, made a post on their Instagram account talking about just how irrelevant blogs have become in the music discovery era because majority of music artists fans are finding that music through social media platforms, word of mouth and things like that. I don't know too many people that have found a new music artist that they love because of a blog or because of press. When's the last time you found an artist that you like because of a blog or some type of press or journalism or something like that? It's probably been a minute, right? So I don't think that press doesn't have its place within a music artist, you know what I'm saying, like overall strategy. But when it comes to marketing alone, it is at the bottom tier of a fan discovery, you know what I'm saying, like you will, you will, you're probably not going to get a lot of fan discovery out at $3,000 or that $5,000 PR campaign that you're thinking about and definitely not as much as you would get if you put that money into some other things. Now, yes, there will come a time in your artist career where it will make sense for you to start to get press around yourself. Press is really good for building brand credibility. It's really great for building up SEO. It's really good for like creating certain looks that you can celebrate within your community and within your fan base, but for pure marketing and finding new fans, zero, nothing. It doesn't, it doesn't do nothing for you. So if you're someone that's been thinking about going heavy on PR and press as a marketing strategy, you might want to think about it again, just to be real with you. So what are we going through so far? Number nine, comment spamming. Number eight, the dollar 80 method. Number seven, PR and press. Number six, I think I got to give it a Spotify playlist or just play listing in general. Now I don't think it's the strongest marketing plan. Like if your marketing plan only includes getting yourself into Spotify playlist or YouTube playlist or SoundCloud playlist, that's not really a marketing strategy. And that's because listeners from playlists, from real playlists are very passive. It's equivalent to listening to the radio. You've probably been in the car as a kid and the song came on the radio and you gave it a listen, not because you liked it or cared, but because it was just there. It was on something that you were already listening to. That's the equivalent to playlist traffic. There may be people in this playlist who hear you and give you a stream because you're in this place they listen to, but it doesn't mean that they care to necessarily go and check you out and become a fan. Yes, it's a gamble like anything else, but the chances are a lot more slim when it comes to play listing in general. So coupled that with the fact that Spotify playlisting, botting is like a very rampant problem in the placing community. And you know, it's something that I'm sure will pick up in other communities that are very playlist centric. That makes it a much riskier marketing initiative to take for the average artist. Now, I do believe that there is a place in time to add playlists into your marketing mix. One of those times to me is when you already have a pretty solid fan base built up. The thing that I have noticed from people who use play listing at a really high level is that they really use it just to pad out numbers. Like they're not really looking for any crazy fan growth. They're not really looking for like, you know what I'm saying, the most amount of followers that come out of it, they're just looking to add an extra 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, half a million streams into what they have going on. And this isn't just me talking about small indie playlists. I mean like playlists across the board. I know people who only get into Antipop or any of the big editorial playlists because they just know it's going to be a good look and it's going to pad their streams, not because they necessarily think it's going to bring them new fans and new serious listeners, you know what I'm saying. So play listing is good when you have a good network of playlist curators that are growing up their traffic in a legitimate way.   And when you fall into those categories, then yes, play listing can be a very powerful thing. It can help speed up the algorithm for you on Spotify. It can trigger a couple of things that may have been a little bit harder for you to trigger with traffic coming from other sources, but it can also be a very dark and seedy and scary place that if approached wrong, can really mess up your analytics and mess you up. It's not super long time, but for long enough, you know what I'm saying. At number five, right? Number five on my list, smack in the middle is posting in social groups and threads. Now when I talk about this, I'm mainly thinking Facebook groups. I'm mainly thinking Reddit threads. I'm mainly thinking discord groups. And I'm mainly thinking like whatever other community you come across. You may be on some forums or something like that. And the reason that I kind of have this so high up is because I think that this is a very viable marketing strategy that most people can implement that they don't implement. Like how hard is it for you to go on Reddit and find five or six threads that make sense for your music and then post your video in there and get some traffic on it that way? You know what I'm saying? Like how hard is it for you to go and engage within a certain community, build brand, build value, build face within that community, and then push those people over to your music. There's a pretty well known story about the group Brock Hampton. I don't know if you guys are all familiar or fans of Brock Hampton, but they're like this, this rap pop group that's been around for like at least the last like three, four years. And a very wildly known part of their origin story is that they found each other on Kanye Tither, which is a blog or a blog group built around Kanye, right?  Grew into his own community. And these guys found each other by engaging in that community. They have built up some sort of reputation within that community. They have built up a face card and there were people in the group that would go check their music out whenever they posted it because they were such frequent members of that group. I've heard similar stories about artists like Todd, the creator of our future. And I've seen it with my own eyes from clients and artist friends of mine who are just very active in certain groups on discord and Reddit and Facebook. And they've really built a community of people around them who like it and who would now check their stuff out whenever they drop because they brought value to that community. Now posting in these groups does zero for you if you bring no value to the community. For example, if you join a discord group and the first thing that you do is you dart for the music section, you spam your link and then you leave.  Why would they listen to you? You think you're the first person to drop your link in this group? No, of course not. But if you go into that group, bring some type of value. Once again, build that face card, build that brand within the group, then people will become more likely to check you out and want to actually hear what you have to say. So I think that when used correctly and when done the right way, these groups are a very powerful way to build community within a very specific sub niche because once again, they exist across all niches on a bunch of different places. There are lots of creators with discord groups. There are lots of Reddit threads to accept music submissions. There are lots of Facebook groups and there may be others once again that you guys know about that I don't know about. So next we have influencer marketing, but specifically getting your music or your content shouted out on repost pages. Now I'm sure you guys have come across them or seen them or maybe even followed some, but there are dozens of pages across Instagram, Twitter, even TikTok and YouTube. They offer reposted content for artists in exchange for a small fee. And this is personally one of my favorite music marketing techniques, one because there are just so many pages like on Instagram alone. There's like hundreds of pages within damn near any niche.  Like it's a lot easier to find like rap pages than it is to find like Afro beats pages and stuff like that. But most genres of music and most niches have at least a handful of pages dedicated to posting music for those type of artists. And if you find those pages and you're able to pay the rate that they ask for, then those pages can be very powerful in your marketing arsenal. One, if you use them correctly, it's very easy to get the public to believe that these pages are just covering you.   They're gonna realize that like, yo, I've never heard of you. You got a thousand followers and somehow you got posted on this page with half a million followers.  But if you do it enough and you do it effectively and by effectively, I mean that you create content that is interesting to this audience and looks like it makes sense on this page. Then over time, you can start to convince the fans of that page that you're just another artist that this page is covering. We've done it for clients before. I've seen it get done for bigger artists. And it's a very popular strategy that's not going anywhere. So if you have been skeptical of paying a repost page, you know what I'm saying? Don't be definitely make sure that you audit the page and make sure the traffic is legit. Look at their numbers on social blade and see how they've been growing for the last couple of months or the last couple of weeks. Ask around and see if you can find any of the promo that they've done on the page and maybe talk to their artists and see how it benefit them. Ask the page for screenshots of results or back in analytics to of course make sure you're not paying for bot traffic or fake traffic. But assuming that everything is legit and real, then 100% go for it. You know, and the more of these pages that you can build up and kind of having your arsenal the better because to be real with you, one or two pages doesn't really do much to you, even at like the biggest level. Like you can get posted on at DJ academics or at rap, which both of those pages have millions of followers and like one post on it isn't going to do much for you. You know what I'm saying? Like it's going to take multiple posts on that same account to really get an impact or activating a bunch of accounts like it at the same time to get almost that same impact. So when you're doing it, definitely go for quantity of followers, but make sure you're also going for volume of quality pages as well. That would give you a much more benefit and when it comes to influencer marketing through these repost pages. Number three is influencer marketing using actual people. Now I put this over influencer marketing with the repost pages for really only one reason. Like I personally like working with the repost pages a lot more. They tend to be a lot quicker to respond. They tend to be a lot cheaper. We all know that people influencer may we don't all know, but if you ever worked with any type of like people influencer person influencer, the prices can fluctuate. You could be paying $100 for one person to have someone quote you $40,000 for a post. So in that sense, I do think the repost pages are a little bit better. However, when it comes to people influencers, they tend to shift the culture a little bit more. Now these influencers in modern times are basically the new celebrities, right? Like you probably care more about an Instagram influencer or a YouTube or a TikToker than you do certain actors and actresses. That's just how this is how culture has evolved. So if you're able to tap into certain influencers, it can be a very powerful way to extend yourself into a niche, like almost any niche, because there are influencers that speak to whatever audience of people that you're looking to speak to. If you feel like your fans are artsy hippie people, then there's probably some artsy hippie influencers that have the exact type of audience. You feel like your audience is more grunge and into skate. It's probably some influencers that speak more to their demo. So the powerful thing about people influencers is that, you know, one that can be negotiated with sometimes it willing to do the work if they like you, you know, not saying they'll do it for free, but they might do it for discount or just even be willing to do it if they like you and like the music. And you can always take their content and repurpose it to do other stuff with maybe run ads, maybe get a shout out on these repost pages we just talked about. But it gives you a wide variety of options of things that you can do if you get these people influencers on board with your campaign. So for that, their number three, even though like I said, I personally don't like the negotiation process. They can be a lot slower to respond and they definitely will command higher prices on average compared to the repost pages. But if you activate the right influencer and activated in the right culture hacking moment, then you will have a very powerful marketing moment behind you. Number two is paid advertising. Now y'all knew I was going to put this on here, you know what I mean? I knew this was coming. But paid advertising to me is just like the pinnacle of marketing that you can do. One, it gives you direct access to potential fans. You don't have to go through anybody. You can't be gatekeeper. The thing will allow the methods that we talked about like the influencer marketing or the playlist thing of press and stuff like that is like you can be gatekeeper out that stuff.  Versus if you learn how to run ads properly and really hit the right targeted audience, like no one can stop you from doing that. As long as you pay your bill on time every month, you know what I'm saying? You don't run content that gets the account block like you'll be fine and you'll be able to consistently grow out. On top of that, almost every major platform has an advertising platform. Instagram and Facebook has one, Twitter has one, Snapchat has one, Reddit has one, Pinterest has one, TikTok has one, Spotify has one, even Twitch has an ad platform. Meaning that allow the general concepts that you're going to learn while running something like let's say an Instagram ad or YouTube ad will apply across the board when you different to the other ad platforms. Like yes, they all have their different functionalities and their different like user designs. But for the most part, the same KPIs matter on each platform. They're all tracking for the same stuff and they just each give a little bit of a different result based on what you're doing. But pay advertising allows you to go directly to the potential consumer.  It allows you to control the data and always have access to that data and that data becomes super valuable because now we're talking about learning from the data and realizing what type of people like you or what specific demo you're speaking to. We're talking about being able to retarget back to the data and push new things back to old people that are familiar with you and maybe have seen you. And then we're talking about just generally being able to like build on top of that data and create campaigns that further speak to more people like those people you just brought in. So pay advertising for me is right up there. You know what I'm saying? Like right near the top, right underneath what I'm going to consider to be number one. And another thing I did forget to mention with pay advertising is that with most of these ad platforms, pay advertising is the most budget friendly. Like some platforms like TikTok ads and like Twitch ads are super expensive. You know what I'm saying? Like they cost a lot more than other ad platforms. But for the most part, a lot of them will let you run ads for as little as a dollar a day.  Like you're tight on the budget and you don't really have a lot of funds to work with, then influencer marketing may not be the best thing for you. You know what I'm saying? Like you may need to dive into something like pay advertising first just to get some traffic going while you work on getting your funds up. You know what I'm saying? Like ain't nothing wrong with that. But pay advertising definitely top of the list for me because it's everywhere. It's on every platform. The data is malleable. The data is controllable. And like once again, no one can gatekeep you out of it. And that's been the biggest problem in music marketing and the music industry for a long time is artists being gatekeep out of things that would be very beneficial to their career. Number one music marketing technique trick hack promo tip, whatever you want to call it to me to me is content marketing. And I'm sure some of you saw this comment. If you follow me, you know, I'm all about influencer marketing, pay advertising and content marketing. But the reason I put content marketing at the top is one, your content dictates a lot of the things that you can do with these other marketing strategies. It dictates the way your ads work. It dictates what type of repost pages you're going to use for your shout outs. It dictates the type of influencers you may reach out to a lot of things start at content to if you activate your content right on the right platforms, you will be getting free growth and free traffic. So if you post a video on TikTok and that video goes up, free traffic. If you post a video on YouTube and it gets 2000, 3000 views organically, free traffic. If you post a video on Instagram and it ranks on a hashtag, that's free traffic. So just by getting into your content bag alone can start to open you up to a much wider audience and actually start to be the beginning of a lot of you guys' marketing plan. Like you may not look at it that way, but making videos on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and tweeting and all that stuff is a marketing strategy. It's a very powerful marketing strategy when you do it right and you start to understand not only what types of content resonate with your audience or the potential audience that you're looking to tap into, but also resonates with a particular platform and moves on that platform. For example, there's content that works better on TikTok than it does on YouTube or Instagram and that's okay. But the quicker you understand that and the quicker you get into your content bag, the better off you'll be. So if you're an artist that's been trying to avoid making content, like you don't want to be like that artist, like you're severely limiting yourself with the scope of how far your music marketing campaign can go because at some point, everything boils down to content. Like I tell clients that all the time, like we're content marketers, like there are literally things that we can't do if you don't make content for us that fits that scenario. So if I had to pick a number one, and I guess I do have to pick a number one, because this is my video right, I made the video. I'm going with creating content as the number one music promo strategy. Get into your content bag, lyric videos, POVs, freestyle videos, visualizers, music videos, I don't know, Instagram lives, skits, whatever content falls in the bag or something that you're interested in doing, it can only help, you know what I'm saying, just to be real true. So that's my number one tip. So let's run through it again, right?   Please stop. Number eight, the $1.80 method by Gary V, a little bit better than the comment spamming because Alicia being genuine about it, but still not super scalable, still takes up a lot of your time. Number seven, PR press does make sense at some point in your career, but most of you guys, it doesn't make sense in the beginning.  Number six, we got play listing. Playlisting can be a little shady. You know what I'm saying? Only playlisting isn't a marketing plan, but if you're in legit playlists with legit traffic then they can't help to boost your numbers and they can't help get you in front of people that do genuinely care. Number five is posting in social media groups, like Facebook groups, discourse, Reddit threads, and that's because these are free.  You can't just spam the group and dip. It doesn't work. Number four is influencing marketing through repost pages. Really great, potentially cheap option. There's lots of repost pages out there that speak to a bunch of different niches. They're easy to work with. They're usually negotiable. And you know what I'm saying? If you activate enough of them at the right time or at the same time, then you can get a very powerful impact on your campaign. Number three is influencing marketing using people. These people are the modern day celebrities. They control the culture of the internet and activating the right influencer can have a massive impact on your music marketing campaign, but it can be a little bit expensive just to be real with you. So it may not make sense for everybody to do, but it's definitely something to explore once you have a lot more budget at your disposal. Number two is pay advertising. The data is valuable. You can go direct to the consumer. So straight B to C and no one can get, keep you out of an ad account. Top, top thing up there for me. And then number one, once again, is creating content. It can generate free traffic for you. It can dictate the flow of the rest of your marketing campaign. And you know what I'm saying? It should be the fun part of making music. You know, like I tell artists all the time, like there's a lot of other things that you're going to stress about being a music artist in the music industry and creating content should be the fun thing. You know what I'm saying? Like don't let that be the other thing that stress you out. But as far as marketing goes, it's top tier. You know what I'm saying? Like content goes a long way in a society where you guys are basically competing for attention. So I'm curious to know what you guys think. Have you tried any of these problem strategies? Which one do you like? Which one do you not like? Let me know in the comment section below. I'm always interested to know what you guys think and how these things are actually working out for you. Other than that, if you feel like you learned anything today, please like and share this video. Hit those post notifications as well as I wouldn't want you guys to miss anything. Once again, my name is Kory and I'll see y'all next time.


Hey girl if you're new here so today is gonna be a busy day a work day for me I have to finish some editing and I have to take some content today since it's gonna be busy I like to start off my day right by taking my vitamins if you do not know I do take vitamins every day every single day especially now with everything going on in the world I take these every single day at 9 nutrient vitamin which is virtual I take two capsules and it's just easier for me to take vitamins than having to depend on me trying to eat meals to get the nutrients that I need on a daily basis so because it can be hard we all don't diet correctly we all like you know have our slip-ups on stuff like that I got I've been taking these ever since I was getting ready for my BBL surgery and y'all ask me all the time what are the vitamins that you take or what has helped you and I really love the ritual light means that they help me it just I just feel better overall as a woman and I love that it has no additives in it so I know exactly what I'm taking a vegan gluten-free no GMOs none of that BS no extra additives or anything like that which I love also if you have like a significant other in your household they do offer a men's multivitamin so if you want to get your man into like vitamins or anything like that or if you have a teen they have teen vitamins they have prenatal if you're like pregnant and then they have postnatal as well so yeah so those are the vitamins that I take literally every morning and I've been taking these for the last four or months now and they come right to my door I don't have to worry about oh my god did I order my vitamins like just in case I run out because I literally am almost run out of this and I just got a new one and I just got a new one in the mail so yeah like I said I don't have to worry about like oh my god I'm gonna run out I need to order so ritual is offering 10% off your first three months will using my link and you can use my code it'll be down in the description box below so you can get started on taking your ritual vitamins yeah y'all so like I said they're offering 10% off your first three months I need to do is click the link down below and use my code so yeah so anyway I am also about to take my I don't really swell up that much anymore but I'm gonna take some droplets as well just for some lymphatic drainage dropping droplets I'm gonna add this to my water just because I'm gonna have a busy day and I just want to stay on top of everything I do not play when it comes to my health y'all I just don't oh anyways and I want to make a protein shake real quick so I want to do that and then get to work because I have a lot to do today and also I think later on I think communication might go to dinner I'm not sure but yeah I have a busy day today so yeah so drink this and then I'm gonna come back and make my protein drink and I'm gonna show you how to do that just because I want I haven't ate breakfast yet and I probably won't eat anything yet I probably won't eat anything until later just cuz I have a lot of work to do so so like I said like taking my vitamins is essential but anyways I'm about to get to editing and then my camera is dying so I'll probably come back good morning y'all I'm gonna just continue this vlog look at me look like somebody mama y'all my body is wet right now and I smell like it smells like a wet dog and I hate it so much but I'm in a Starbucks line right now it's like a 945 and it means 10 because this morning I had okay so y'all last night I got so busy I was editing then I had you know my menstrual was really getting to me I really didn't want to finish my work but I pushed through like a big growl and so I did that my makeup took me a while cuz I had a finesse my way because it was coming off and I thought I was gonna get my hair touched up yesterday but I end up not so hold up I'm gonna order my coffee hi can I get a um a pumpkin cream cold brew grande and can you put almond milk in the actual coffee and can you make the foam with almond milk as well yeah we can do that let me in the drink and we're also gonna use all the milk to make that pumpkin foam right correct and then can you add an extra pumpkin syrup to it as well if you want like the extra pumpkin to go into the drink itself or into the foam into the drink okay anything else see you up at the window thank you thank you I couldn't work at Starbucks cuz I don't be that jolly in the morning but um yes I'm getting my hair touched up and my lashes filled in I cannot wait because my pictures was just not coming out right because my lashes so I might retake them later I have to do some work real quick because my homegirl changed my hair appointment but that's okay because my lash appointment is in like a 30 minutes and so I'm gonna do this work real quick send over the video get it approved while I'm getting my lashes done I'm gonna let it load hopefully she has Wi-Fi she should I'm about to do it in a Starbucks parking lot y'all the grind don't stop I remember I used to do this when I worked my full-time job I remember this when I brought my laptop to work with me and just edit on my computer cuz after I got off of work I was dead ass tired just fuck all the fucking time I was like oh my god like so I would bring my computer with me to edit my videos so you know the grind don't stop huh so I probably talk to y'all later on in my skin is going nuts because of my menstrual I don't like it buddy I'm so happy right now about something I'm not gonna share with y'all yet but move in silence it should I'm a pro thank you have a good one I know she's like girl your body but you are this is the coffee that I like I just can't get enough a best hey best hey y'all so I just got home and I think I told y'all earlier I was getting my hair touched up and I love my hair it's layered it's very natural I love it so cute and I got my lashes filled in as well so it's about seven o'clock and I have not started well I kind of started editing vlogmas for today so I need to do that I need to edit and then I got to film a video and then I think we're gonna put up the tree today so I need to hurry up it's like seven so it shouldn't take me that long to edit this video cuz they don't be that long so yeah so I'm gonna probably check in with y'all once we start like decorating the tree and stuff like that putting up the tree and I'll probably get in like some cute pajamas or something I might want to target to get some wine maybe I will see if I have time but I love my hair like I love it like this so natural and cute I love it I want my natural hair to be like this like in layers like this like so it's been it's the next day I just got done doing some work so now I'm about to help my mom set up the Christmas tree she's in the Christmas spirit cuz she already playing music and singing and stuff so so but I'm gonna have to like tell her like sis if you want me to help you you're gonna have to turn so let's go tell her the bad news my you got to turn that off I can't get copyrighted the house is already festive y'all but we have to do the tree we gonna do the tree and then after I'm gonna give me something to eat I thought she was getting cookies you're such a liar what that's what you said no no we can do a gingerbread on Monday you wanted to do Christmas cookies on time to you said Sunday cuz we don't do nothing no I never said that I said the tree and set up the tree no no and the tree and the tree while putting up the tree you can't put you can't make Christmas cookies and put up the goddamn tree at the same time because you gotta pay attention the tree is gonna take a how long is the tree gonna take I know you're not recording me yeah you my sappy and awkward well anyways y'all this is our tree stockings even on anything y'all watch this yeah my mama really just bought a couch for decoration it's nuts like this y'all mama do that you can't sit on the furniture in the living room I have never sat on this couch once and you hurryed up and maybe get up this is a restoration hardware couch y'all how much was this couch she's about to play Christmas music I'm just gonna shut y'all up y'all she's so strict I can't what you gotta set that shit up over there my ghetto I don't know I don't be paying attention to the trials here you pull fluff out that trigger up here eat which I'll let her know all the lights was already on it all the lights are already on the tree I mean we want it up where is smart very much let her know let her know she be just don't put me in a high she says sculpture tree towards the back and decorate so she was saying that just glue the tree back and just put the ornaments on curious on why I never come in the living room there's why she can't come can't come where in my living crazy girl hold it by the hook no no over a little bit over a little bit over the one the next one the next one yeah even if you see it uh-huh yes they will I don't know what they recognize all the what is that a minute I'm mad at one I'm not shaking no I'm not stylish it's just a little show just cuz you'll start flimsy it you know how long I had since y'all was like three that's crazy and it's still work like a diamond oh they gonna recognize that too hold on they're gonna recognize that too what yes I'm telling you they don't know my voice they know the song make my own damn Christian song up there right right here we go merry christmas merry christmas this is merry christmas don't nobody on merry christmas merry christmas they don't they don't recognize that from chris brown to money you can't see me definitely do you can't sing that better start placing these out football I hit it on the side I am are you going slow again and I'm gonna break me in front of Kevin and this cabin and this cabin Kevin's not here Kevin's not here because he's going care of me with other this is dedicated to my food my please no but I think you're fresh in the back of the fire who you get back the box is to put under the tree lonely people on Christmas they recognize that that's my own what song is it that jingle bells that is not jingle bells if you hum it it's different sure but your humming is pretty loud you ain't got a cap you ain't got a car you ain't got a car that's how you say it you ain't got a car no you sound far you ain't got a car should cry though people have accents so you ain't got a car you ain't got a car you ain't got a car What are you talking about what are you talking about mother candy canes now hey y'all so it's the next day and I love my makeup today I love my hair I've been trying so hard to perfect like my makeup routine just because I really don't go out that much so I don't do my makeup that much so sometimes I can forget some steps and stuff like that so I'm really trying to pay attention to what I'm doing like my steps and like I really love how my makeup came out I really love how I did my brows this time I just I'm feeling it okay so right now I'm about to go take some pics and y'all are blowing me up about this coat I'm about to take a picture in it and I'm about to post where it's from but it's from Miss PEP I got it from their Black Friday sale and I was like oh my god I need that cuz it reminded me of this Prada coats and I can't find the Prada coat so I was like let me just get this Miss PEP one so I could take a cute picture with my Prada boots so that's why I got it so that's what I'm about to take a kind of picture I'm about to take today and y'all look at outside it's a winter wonderland I cannot but we're gonna try and pull off something cute today so I'm gonna hurry up and take go take my photos and then I have a video to film so I'll probably talk to y'all and check with y'all later like a light a might


The acting Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, has ordered the posting of Christopher O'Laby as new Commissioner of Police Anambra State Command. The deployment of the new CP is part of the ongoing effort at reordering, overhauling and strengthening the security and policing architecture in Anambra State, the South East and the South-South regions of the country. The development is connected to the unending insecurity situation in the South East and South-South, which has led to the killing of many people. The first public relations officer, Frank Umba, said the redeployment is ultimately designed to improve the operational efficiency of the commands and enhance public safety and security. CP Chris O'Laby takes over from Simpi Monday, Bala, who has been redeployed to the anti-fraud section of the force headquarters annex in Lagos.


Alright, there goes the bion out, there should be a say in the board. Armor is good protection against an enemy. Well, that's a lot of dust. But what if the enemy is so small that it takes you down from the inside? That's what sand can do to a helicopter engine. And it's also why the Department of Defense is united in its hunt for a technology solution to protect aviators from this dangerous enemy. You can see the sand on that. At the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, scientists and engineers experiment with coatings in high-temperature environments with a goal of creating something, anything that will cause sand to slide off the inside of a turbine engine the way an egg slides off a nonstick skillet. We are going through a very methodical process to understand the science and then use the science to predict the material solution, what we call the engineered or tailored materials and that will lead to the right solution. Gauchal leads the Army's efforts to develop what he calls sandphobic coatings. Our goal is to have the particulars strike the blades or the wings and flake off. When we started looking into this problem, we found that in order to look at a very basic research level, we want to actually understand the physicochemical behavior. Once we can do that, then our idea is to take that model and then predict the type of material that would enable us to develop this sandphobic coating. Engineers have filtration systems which attempt to filter out larger particles, but Gauchal said micron-sized particles go through the turbine's combustor and adhere to the blades. This chokes the airflow and can lead to engine loss. We have a unique rig here, the hot particulate ingestion rig, actually allows us to put sand into the hot gas flow to rapidly prototype new coating materials and it allows us to do a world first, actually using high-speed imagery, we can actually confirm the molten state of the sand particles impacting on these thermal barrier coatings. There is a close collaboration going on within the community to solve this problem. The research community includes academia, industry and other government agencies, all working together toward a common goal, safeguarding against the danger of sand. I strongly believe in next three to five years we will have not maybe one but several solutions depending on the type of environment. It will definitely save a lot of soldiers' lives in the long run. Our solutions will make our soldiers' lives safer and will make our army strong.


Will you be in management and industry exploration? Are you interested in leading teams or taking responsibility for and seeing projects through? Do you enjoy showing people how to do things properly? When you have a group project in class, are you the one that takes charge? Do you like to keep an eye on stock trends and analyze data? Do you have a knack for budgeting and finance? If so, you should look into management industry exploration. This meta-major explores majors such as city and regional planning, real estate, accounting, information systems, international business, marketing, communication, natural resource management, and fashion and retail studies. Students in these majors graduate and hold positions as systems managers, accountants, computer security analysts, executives, and database administrators. So if you like business and entrepreneurship, it's time to ask, will you be in management and industry exploration?


forgiveness, his kindness, his mercy, and his guidance. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to extend his blessing and peace upon his beloved messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam. This as we seek refuge with him, with him, from the evil within our souls or from the ill effect of our misdeeds. Whoever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives guidance to none can mislead whoever misleads none can guide. I bear witness there's nothing and no one worthy of worship besides Allah alone. He has no partner and bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam is a servant and messenger. The warrior scholar Abdullah Abdullah Ibn Mubarak and a couple of verses of poetry he mentions is there anyone who has corrupted the deen other than kings and the scholars of law and the priests among them. See he singles out three factions of people, three categories of people. Those who corrupt the deen, most responsible for the corruption of the deen. And I choose not to translate deen because deen is not only religion. Religion we think of religion today as something which is very private. It is limited to matters of devotion because we live in a secular world that makes a distinction between the private and public spheres. And they say that public conversations or political conversations have no place in religion and true religion according to their understanding. But Abdullah Ibn Mubarak did not mean religion when he said deen. If anything he meant everything and all of the expectation that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has placed upon the human being. Be that prayer or fasting or a hajj, buying and selling, be it politics because Islam has advice for everyone in every sphere. Islam places a moral value on every human action that exists. Is that anyone other than the kings and the scholars of law and priests who are responsible for the corruption of the deen. And by kings he doesn't only mean those who are in public office. And of course the king can be also a reference to a president, a prime minister, a premier, but also the people of great wealth. The people of great wealth actually is what he means. Those with the greatest influence because of their wealth in society. And so individuals of course can be responsible for the corruption of life and society. But ultimately those with the greatest responsibility are those with the greatest power. So the scholars of law could be seen as also just scholars in general. The experts in general. But the priestly classes as well, those who are committed to devotion, those who are committed to devotional life and they abandon the worldly life. And then those who are concerned with the outward matters of religion and they abandon a focus on the heart and the corruption of the heart that all three factions become ultimately responsible. And this is something that our predecessors they passed down and had an understanding in that particular regard. Anas bin Malik, Raja Allahu An, he reports that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam said, oh would all ma tafqiduna min dinikum al-amana. He said the first aspect of your deen that you shall lose is trust. Wa aakhiruhu al-saraa. And the last of it is prayer. And another narration from Abu Umama al-Bahiri, Raja Allahu An, The first of the thing that shall be removed from the people, not just the Muslims, the believers, but the people is trust. And a last of the thing that shall remain is prayer. And many people, or many a person is involved in prayer but he has no good in him. And then the third narration from Zayd ibn Thabit, The first thing that shall be removed from the people is trustworthiness, or trust. And the last of the things that shall remain from their deen is prayer. And many a praying person shall receive no portion with Allah SWT. Trust, trustworthiness. Society, it runs on trust. Humanity runs on trust. A relationship between a parent and a child is built upon trust. A husband and a wife is built upon the trust. Citizens in a government is built upon trust when trust is lost. There is no longer a relationship. There is no longer a cohesion. And we know that our prophet Muhammad SAW was the most trusted man in all of human history. We know him as Asad al-Amin. That the Sahaba, they not only trusted the prophet's opinion and his ideas, they trusted his heart. They trusted his heart. And that's a different type of trust. That I can trust the expertise of my attorney. But I may not trust that my attorney won't betray me. They trusted the heart of Muhammad SAW. Even the non-Muslims, those during his time as enemies, they knew this. They called him this. The non-Muslims in our own age, people such as Michael H. Hart, wrote the book The 100 Most Influential People and Human History. And he put the prophet Muhammad SAW at the top. He wasn't a Muslim, but he was also a white nationalist. And this is where he said Muhammad SAW was the most influential person in all human history. An individual wasn't even a Muslim. He was the most trusted of all men in human history. He was most trusted by Allah SAW. Most trusted by his companions. He was most trusted by those who heard of him, those of us today. If Muhammad SAW was here today, then we would know other person what we trust even more. Not even our parents. We wouldn't trust anyone more than Muhammad SAW SAW. They trusted his wisdom. They trusted his heart. And you see glimpses of that. So many examples of this throughout the history of Islam. Take for instance, someone like Zaid Ibn Duthinna. Zaid Ibn Duthinna, along with nine other Sahaba were ambushed after Uhud. They were sent to a town. People were claiming that they wanted to learn Islam. And so they asked the Prophet to send someone to them. Zaid Ibn Duthinna, Khubei Ibn Adi, Asim Ibn Ka'b, the three of them among the leaders of that group. All of them ended up being killed.  He said, no, I would not even want a thorn to prick Muhammad to be in my place. That I would die if I could prevent him from even being pricked by a thorn. And then he himself, of course he died and Khubei Ibn Adi showed similar resolve. And Abu Sufyan, after witnessing this, he said, that I have never seen anyone, love anyone like the companions of Muhammad, love Muhammad. Abdullah Ibn Omar, Rajallah Haan, he was blessed with great wealth. And among his property he had many slaves. When those slaves accepted Islam and he noticed that they were involved with religious devotion, he saw some of them fasting, observed their fasting on a regular basis or they praying a lot that Abdullah Ibn Omar, he would set them free. Once he had discovered and felt that these people were sincere, go, you're free to go. Someone came to Abdullah Ibn Omar and complained and he said, well, don't you think they'll just trick you? That they'll just act as if like they're sincere Muslims and then you set them free for nothing? He responded to that person, man khada'ana lillahi in khada'ana lahu. That whoever deceives us for the sake of God, we will allow ourselves to be deceived and tricked by that person. In other words, if he's insincere, that's his problem. I set him free, lillahi, for the reward of Allah swt. Mu'ad Ibn Jabal before the Prophet SAW has sent them to Yemen. The Mu'ad was steeped in debt and he told Mu'ad, the Prophet told Mu'ad that when you go to Yemen that it is fine for you to accept gifts from people in order to retrieve the wealth that he had been taking from you. So after a couple of years, he was visiting Makkah on Hajj and he ran into Umrah al-Khattab at the Kaaba and they sat and they started to commiserate about the days of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. And while they were sitting one after another, servants were coming to Mu'ad and bringing him things and taking things away from him and then Umrah had noticed and he says, what is this? Who are these people? And he said, they're my slaves, they're my servants. And so Umrah says, you should ask Abu Bakr's permission to keep them. Mu'ad says, why do I need to ask his permission to keep what is mine? He said, no, I'm not going to ask Abu Bakr. That night Mu'ad, he had a dream that he was on the over a pit of fire on the brink of the edge about to fall into a pit of fire and he noticed that someone was holding him at his waist strap, keeping him from falling into the fire and he turned around and he saw it was Umrah al-Khattab. He woke up from this dream and then he led his slaves in prayer and then after this he turned to them and said, who did you just pray to? We pray to Allah, creator of the heavens and the earth. He said, go, you're all free for Allah's sake. These are the type of people that were produced by Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam. A similar story, Muhammad al-Jawad who is a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, sometimes called Muhammad al-taqi, who the Shi'a considered the ninth of the 12 Imams. He was walking by an orchard one day and he had noticed that there was a man sitting there with a dog and he noticed from the distance that this man, every time he took a bite, a morsel of his food that he would toss the piece to the dog to eat as well.  He said, I serve the progeny of Uthman ibn Affan, and so he said, I've noticed this strange thing that you do that you give this dog from your food, you share the food with this dog. Why do you do that? He said, I don't know, I just feel uneasy to eat in front of someone else and then not share with them what I have. Muhammad al-Jawad, he goes to the family and he buys their estates and buys the freedom of this man. Then he returns to the man and he says to him, I bought your freedom and I've also purchased this land for you. It now belongs to you. And then the man says to him, are you kidding? Are you really serious about this? Did you really do this? He said, yes, wallah. Then he says, then I gift this land to the progeny of Uthman for the sake of Allah. In other words, he was a slave and he gave it back to his owners. So you know what? They were so good to me. They were so good to me. This is the type of people who were nurtured by the teachings of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And this is the way that Islam is spread. That we often talk about the issue of Islamic conquest and Muslims feel uneasy when they hear people attack Islam and say Islam is spread by the sword. Islam cannot spread by the sword. No religion or faith can spread by the sword for that matter because faith is in the heart. Islamic rule often is spread by the sword. In a world of conquest, what else were they supposed to do? They have people at their borders, they don't know what their intentions are. They go there, let's say, okay, strategic alliance or a treaty or pay a jizjah, but that was the choice that everyone had in those days. Muslims were not just raiding areas and just killing people. No, they would go there and then their rule would be accepted and they ruled as minorities for centuries. The places that we know today is Muslim countries, Muslim majority countries. They only became Muslim majority countries a few centuries ago or a couple centuries ago, some about one century ago. Muslims were ruling as minorities and so Islam spread through the character and a reflection, which is a reflection of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi wa Alaihi wa Sallam. Wa Ma'a Ar-Sallanak Illa Rahmatillil Al-Alamin. This is what Allah tells us about our message, Alaihi Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. We know this to be true. And one final story I wanted to share with you about, one last, one final sahabi, an important story I almost neglected to mention. Abdullah Ibn Hudaf al-Sahmi, the Raja Allah Haan, one of the great Sahaba as well, and during the reign of Umrah al-Khattab, Raja Allah Haan, he and about 80 or more Muslims were captured in a battle with the Romans, the Byzantines. They became captives, POWs. And the particular individual who had captured them was trying to force them to accept Christianity, to convert to Christianity. He chose one of them. And he used to have this large brass cow and they would put oil inside of it and they would heat it until it boiled. And so he chose one of these men and he said, turn us up, become Christian except Christ. And he refused to do so and he tossed them into that oil.  Eventually they made it to Abdullah Ibn Hudaf al-Sahmi. And similarly he asked Abdullah Ibn Hudaf al-Sahmi, he refused. He refused. And he said, then we're going to toss you into the oil. So they grabbed them, they started to push them in the direction of the cow and he started to cry. Once they saw him crying, they thought, oh, he's going to change his mind, he's going to convert. And so they stopped and said, okay, so what do you have to say?   And I wish that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had given me a number of lives equal to the number of hairs on my body and then allowed for me to be tossed into this oil over and over and over so that I can get that greater reward, an immense reward from the times, the many times I'm martyred at this point. And so this man, he was astonished to hear this. And so he decided, no, he wasn't going to kill him, but he said to him, become Christian. So he said, no, I'm not going to become a Christian.     And he said, no, I'm not going to become Christian for that. Then he said to him, okay, then kiss my head and I will set free 80 of the prisoners of war. And he says, I'm my hadaf and I'm. As for this, I will do it. So he kissed the head of that man and set free 80 of the PLWs as a result of this. And the Sahaba used to make fun of them about this.  And he said, yeah, but through because of that kiss, I set free 80 souls before their lives were taken. So no, I take pride in that. So these are the type of men, people who refuse to compromise their beliefs, their convictions and we need to remind ourselves of this over and over and over, the great sacrifices that the people before us made to have Islam in our lives, the value of Islam, not only for us as Muslims, but for the world, that Islam has everything to offer the world. Because everything, the world has nothing to offer Islam.  We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he plant our feet firm upon his paths, that he illuminate our hearts with true, sincere and strong faith and that he keep us guided upon his paths and also do the same for our children and our family. I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, where the treacherous, the traitor, will be trusted. Where you'll call one of these amin, you'll call one of these amin, and the trustworthy person will be deemed a traitor in such times. We have a situation where confidence in the news has dropped. In 1979, 51% of the American public trusted what they heard from newspapers. Now, only 16% of the American public trust what they read in the newspapers. In 1993, 46%, they trusted TV news. Now, only 11% of Americans trust what they see on television. Do you trust your government? Do you trust the intelligence apparatus? Big tech, the scientists, the experts, quote-unquote. These are the people who told us about so many different things. Told us that men can have babies. Told us that homosexual love is just, it is a good thing. Told us that you must refer to a gender-confused person by the pronoun they prefer to hear. They also tell us that it's okay to kill your baby, even if a woman is about to give birth. At any rate, there's so many problems that we know, but we have to do more to restore trust among ourselves. We live in a world which is falling apart. And I think most of you, if not all of you, should be able to see that. We have to return to Allah's path, return to the sunnah of the messengers of Allah, peace be upon him, return to the commitment of his companions and all of those great people from Islamic history that we don't see in anyone else's history.