Instagram Is Obsessed With The White Heart Emoji

It seems like the white heart emoji is popping up everywhere, so I decided to poll my followers. Although only one person responded on Twitter, it’s clear they’re not a fan. Meanwhile on Instagram, 88% said they like it, which was based on a larger sample of 17 people. This poll also had more engagement on Instagram than all of my previous polls, so my followers were eager to say how much they love it.

The white heart emoji was added to iOS 13.2 at the end of October 2019. New emojis are released every year, but it’s usually harder to tell which ones become immediately popular.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Brands

Valentine's Day posts

It’s interesting to see Valentine’s Day posts on social media from brands considering it’s a Hallmark holiday. I’ll highlight the posts I like and ignore the embarrassing ones I stumbled upon. Let’s just say that making a pun about the word “sweet” isn’t going to make the cut. Perhaps you’ll get some ideas for next year!

My favourite Valentine’s Day posts fit into 3 categories: roundups, greeting card templates and community. Roundups are easy to create while greeting card templates require more design resources. In 2018, I wrote about brands creating templates for Instagram Stories, so it’s cool to see this trend continue on a larger scale. Community posts are always a smart choice too!

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How Pinterest Helps Me Relax

Pinterest profile

Between my full-time job and blog, I spend a lot of time on social media. At the end of the day, I find myself looking for something calming to look at. Something that doesn’t make me obsess over followers or engagement metrics. Something that’s simply pretty. That’s why I rediscovered Pinterest.

Working on a mobile game about celebrities and fashion led me to spend more time on Pinterest. It lets me uncover the latest trends while seeing content that’s tailored to my style and I love that.

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3 Writing Tips From Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen and Sarah Prince

Meeting Sarah Dessen was very exciting because I loved the movie How To Deal and she was one of my favourite childhood authors. Due to the timing of her book signing, I didn’t publish a blog post about it immediately for personal reasons. It was very special though and not because we have the same name. “You spell it the right way, but let’s not offend the Sarahs with the other spelling,” she said.

Sarah told the crowd a funny story about being on live TV while wearing an Apple Watch and it rang when her husband called! She had to take it off and throw it offscreen to make the sound go away. Now she doesn’t wear it anymore.

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Connecting With Chelsea Handler

A few years ago, I blogged about how LinkedIn recruited celebrities to join. I said that I was in favour of it and I hope they commit to it like other social media channels. Most of them abandoned it, but it doesn’t matter because one of Chelsea Handler’s articles really stood out to me.

In March 2016, Chelsea Handler wrote an article on LinkedIn about the power of showing up. A few months later, I was thinking about the article while standing in Starbucks near St. Andrew station and I found the link, then tweeted about it. I re-read the article this week right before I had a chance to tell her how much I loved it in person. It was worth reading again.

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