By Falila Mohammed
Have you ever thought of doing something radical and drastic? If you have, did you do it?
Maybe we’ve all thought of doing something extreme, like swimming with great white sharks or climbing Mt. Everest. We wondered if we could do it, but we never really gathered enough guts (and maybe bucks) to do it.
Well, Christoph Rehage is different. He set an extreme goal for himself, and that is to walk from Beijing, China to Germany. That’s definitely a unique way to travel across two continents.
He began his expedition on November 2007 and finished on November 2008. He took selfies during his trip to document his journey.
He compiled these photos and created a time-lapse video of his transformation from being clean-cut and beardless, to a rugged and bearded version of himself. Also, you might want to take note of the distance that he traveled – roughly 4500 kilometers. Mind you, he walked!
“I had been planning this trip for over a year before I even started, and getting as far as I got was an experience for which I am very grateful,” Rehage wrote in the description of his video on Vimeo.
“All of the distance from Beijing to Ürümqi was completed solely on foot, straight good old walking. There are instances where you can see me in the video, sitting on a plane or riding a boat, but those are during breaks I had to take from walking, either to sort out bureaucracy issues or to take care of some personal things,” Rehage added.
Here are a few random tweets from Twitter Nigeria this week..
INSTAGRAM TRENDS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2018
Instagram has now reached 800 million users (and counting).
For many influencers and brands, Instagram is the most important social media platform.
Whether you’re looking to promote your YouTube channel or develop yourself as an “Instagram blogger”, influencers won’t be shunning the photo sharing app any time soon.
Throughout the past few years, Instagram has evolved a lot – and Instagrammers are always looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to the latest social media trends.
Here’s what we predict you can expect to see from Instagram in 2018…
* Sandwiching and Other Attempts at Beating the Algorithm
In 2016, Instagram threw its users a curve ball.
Suddenly, the photo sharing app went from showcasing content in a strictly chronological order to one determined by an algorithm. As engagement started to drop for many users, brands and influencers scrambled as they tried to find ways to “beat” the elusive algorithm.
Towards the end of 2017 a few brands started employing tactics to get around this tricky infrastructure, designed to (supposedly) obscure promoted posts.
Enter a new technique, known as “Sandwiching”.
Some big name brands are utilizing this method in an attempt to outsmart the elusive Instagram algorithm.
According to an article on tech website Digi Day, Sandwiching is strategically placing promoted posts between imagery forecasted to have high rates of engagement, based on existing data.
For example, say you’re an influencer looking to increase the engagement of a particular post. You could try “sandwiching” this post on your Instagram in between two posts you know your followers will enjoy and interact with (like a contest-related post, giveaway, etc.)
Theoretically the post in the middle will be “boosted”, by having a post on each side of it with high engagement.
While it’s impossible to fully “crack” the Instagram algorithm, we forecast that there will be plenty of other attempts to beat the system in 2018.
