Author: Reginald Andah

The following links are blogs I’ve done for various companies while working under Actual SEO Media, Inc. Below the links are also my own blogs I’ve posted in the past.

Gentle Dental Care

• Get The White to Brighten Up Your Life
• Attain Your Crown Here
• Let Your Teeth Shine
• Restore Your Teeth

TSSPRO Sealants

• The Pro Sealant
• Seal Your Stone

Texas Stone Sealers

• Your Stone Finish
• Get Your Stone Sealant

Southern Front Door

• Get Your New Door for the Holidays
• Find Your Way to Your New Entryway
• The Southern Touch
• Need a New Door? Come to Our Store!
• The Southern Door Company
• Your Door Experience
• The Southern Door Store
• Get Your New Entryway Today
• The Professional Installation Service
• The Company With Professional Work
• Your One-Stop Shop for Wholesale Doors
• Time for Your New Entryway
• Experience Your New Entryway
• Get Your Door at Southern Front
• The Premier Door Company
• Experience a New Home Look

Go Admiral

• Get Your Air Quality Here
• Houston Admiral Texas

Texas Insurance Agency

• Flooded With Disaster
• Get Your Home Insured
• The Insurance Agency You Can Trust
• Protect Yourself Even at Sea

Due to the mass of social media marketing tools out there such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others, ordinary people like you and me are finding it more difficult to be known. Many individuals are taking the step to get their names out there. Because of such staggering competition, it is easy for anyone to blend into the background. How do you stand out? Innovate yourself!

 
You need to be an individual willing to go ahead of the curve rather than follow it. There are tons of people who are vloggers, bloggers or podcasters but don’t get a lot of attention. Yet, some do the exact same thing and are among the most popular in their media craft. What’s the difference? These people are not using just one media tool at their disposal. They are using multiple. Popular media users don’t only have Facebook their using, but they also have a Twitter, an Instagram, and a YouTube channel. It’s essentially a numbers game. The more outlets you use to promote yourself, the better the chance you will have to get more followers to your page. This goes for businesses, small companies, and people alike. Also, linking your other media sites to your current one in use is a great way to gain some ground with viewers. Some will see you going the extra mile and support you on your online journey.

 
Another essential way to be innovative would be to use videos! You’re probably thinking, “So many people use videos now, it’s cliché.” Most would agree with you, but it is still effective. By utilizing this online tool, you create a one-on-one presence with your viewer on a more personal level. Think about it. Would you trust a person who hides his or her face? Or would you be more comfortable with a person who revealed who they were? I, for one, would pick the latter rather than the former. Videos are also quick snippets of information that can say who you are, what you do, and what your goal is all while introducing other links or channels you may have as well. Instead of just killing two birds with one stone, it takes care of all matters in one clip. With such a handy asset by your side, why not use it?

 
Speaking of revealing who you are, the last tidbit of advice is to be transparent. Because of the plethora of media posts out there, scams, unfortunately, have had more opportunity to lurk and prey on the “uninitiated” users online. But thanks to the wealth of knowledge provided by the internet, scams are now easier for everyday people to spot. Because of this, people can detect when they see something fake online. For example, if a YouTuber posts a “how to get rich quick” scheme posing in front of a big house and expensive cars, it is most likely bait to get you to buy what he or she is selling. It’s all fake news! People don’t want to hear lies. Be real! If you’re doing something like a podcast, share the trend of viewers, whether it be good or bad. If you put yourself on this pedestal of nothing but achievements, people will feel like they cannot relate to you and sense your life is “too perfect,” losing interest. However, if you let them see the positive and negative of your social media craft, they will more than likely see you as an upfront individual who isn’t perfect and support what you’re doing.

 
Don’t become another marketing statistic. Go beyond just putting a face on your brand and take the extra effort to show how passionate you are. If one outlet isn’t working, try multiple. Don’t give up because your one video didn’t get as many likes, or your blogs didn’t get as many followers you were hoping. Innovate yourself and become what you’re passionate about! If you can see the spark in what you do, there’s no doubt others will be able to see it, too.

For those of you who are unaware of what net neutrality is, it is a system utilized by Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) to give you fair and equal access to the internet in terms of speed. Think about a standard highway. There are three lanes with one being the slowest speed, another being intermediate, and the last being the fastest. With net neutrality, all lanes become the same speed. This is especially good for upcoming businesses who need the internet to capitalize on opportunities for consumers. Net neutrality also gives an even playing field for small companies to climb to the top and topple its competitors. Thus, the reason why a social media app such as Facebook defeated its former competitor MySpace. The public who utilizes the internet generally gets equal access to the speed of the internet as well, depending on the provider.

 
However, with the recent repeal of net neutrality, another problem is being created. Imagine being the CEO of a company, and you want any possible advantage to get ahead of your competitor. To do this, you provide an ISP more money for you to stream web content faster. If you offer online sales, images, loading screens, payment pages, etc. will load more quickly, causing the consumer to want to buy more things on your site. If you’re a company who focuses on video content such as Netflix or Youtube, the faster internet access will provide better streaming, which in turn will grant the consumer more quality videos to binge-watch.

 
There is also a deeper issue here concerning the consumer. “Free internet” will become a relative term because the people who cannot afford to pay ISP’s the top dollar will, unfortunately, be at the bottom end of the “social totem pole.” This change in hierarchy means slower internet for those who don’t have the financial means to pay. For those who do have the necessary funds, they will have the means to take total control on what you view or access. If the economic structure of our economy wasn’t already unfair, this change might turn detrimental. Enterprises such as tobacco industries can commercialize their products solely in urban areas, causing higher rates of death and school dropouts due to addiction. Online education systems can eventually choose what content to stream based on the economic status of certain areas with those with higher status being granted more access and those with lower being given less.

 
The potential danger to the repeal of net neutrality can cause more of a dividing line between socio-economic classes. For an example of what our classes already look like, imagine a graph depicting three bars. The first bar is the lowest, which would be the lower class. The middle bar is the middle class, and of course, the highest bar is the upper class. Most people think this would have a natural curve upwards if one were to draw a line connecting the tops of these bar graphs. Unfortunately, if you were to draw this out on a chart and draw a line, you would see the upper class already has exponentially more wealth than the lower class and middle class combined. The only class able to move from its current position to the upper class is middle class. If the middle class keeps paying more to be in the upper class, such as taxes, internet, etc., it will eventually be non-existent. Only the two classes upper and lower, would remain.

 
What this potentially could mean for you as an individual, striving to make a future for yourself, is you cannot advance and try to economically build a better life for yourself no matter how hard you try. Internet is a fabric now interwoven in the very niches of our society. Without equal access to it, those lacking wealth to begin with, no longer have a chance to be on top. In the future, the repeal of net neutrality can cause a spiral into dictatorship to where only the wealthy rule and the poor stay at the bottom.

When one thinks of the “American Dream,” it is an idea centered around working to be able to live. It makes sense for the most part. You work to achieve your goals. If not, you become stuck in a competitive economy. However, do people really sit down and give our economic structure any thought?

Ideally, the average citizen is born with expectations to contribute to society when the individual is fully matured. In preparation for that time, we start school at the age of 5, sometimes younger, and continue with our education until high school if one does not become a dropout. If about thirteen years of your life wasn’t enough to prepare you to become an exemplary citizen, you are encouraged to go to college where you spend two more years of your life taking “required” classes not apart of your major and two more additional years towards courses that are towards your major. All of this time is to grant you the opportunity to receive a document stating you are a little more qualified to perhaps get accepted to a more stable job. If you would like a career to put you in a different financial class system and different tax bracket, which taxes you more if you’re still middle class, more of your time needs to be dedicated towards education.

By the time you’re done actually getting the degrees you need to maybe get the career you want, life has passed you by, and you’re a full-grown adult, wondering where the beginning stages of your life went. You might think it’s not worth even thinking about such things anyway because you might have kids or other responsibilities to tend to, requiring you to work full time at a job you’re not even sure you want but know you need. I am not criticizing our system because it isn’t the ideal “Utopia,” but there are improvements we can make as a society to allow our ways of life to be more fulfilling throughout our time on this rock we share called Earth.

We know basic knowledge is a necessity. So why not restructure our education towards knowledge we actually need to know. For example, history is essential because we must understand where we came from to discover our past mistakes, who we are, and what we want to be. So why is only part of history told while neglecting to say the entirety of the story. After all, telling half the truth is still a lie. Also, math is an essential part of how our economy runs, but there should also be a reasonable line drawn on how much you actually need to know. For instance, I was taught Calculus in high school, knowing full well I would not utilize such a subject matter for any of the future career opportunities I had in mind. Even to understand what future career you want or who you want to be, there needs to be a grace period of finding yourself and self-reflection our world just doesn’t have. There’s always this “on the go” mentality. If you’re not going with the busy flow, then you are labeled a “loser” who won’t go far in life because it is the way our lives are engineered to be.

To get to the actual “American Dream,” we don’t need a grandiose stride towards something bigger. We simply need small steps in the right direction to achieve our larger picture of a more rewarding life. When Thomas Jefferson drafted the United States Declaration of Independence, I’m sure our repetitive slave-like working day to day habits was something he was trying to prevent when he wrote the phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Let’s start with something such as gearing colleges towards classes students actually must take towards their major. Cut out any classes not beneficial to their career goal as well as the arbitrary credit hour requirements undergraduates and graduates alike “need” to get a diploma. Less time taken for the unnecessary and more time towards the necessary will save citizens, students, and government entities time, money, and political strife. If such a method works, apply it to other aspects our world is in dire need of. I guarantee if we all take a moment to think about the improvements we need instead of continuing our “on the go” mentality, we will start seeing the “American Dream” turn into a reality.

A former associate of mine, who is currently studying education for her college degree, informed me of a program required for her major, where she interacted with preschoolers. The preschoolers were told to color a tree. She was instructed by the teacher to give paper and crayons to one of the students in the preschool classroom. Thinking this would be a good learning experience for the child, she proceeded to give the preschooler multiple crayons to color with until the teacher of the class stopped her. The teacher said to only offer the child green and brown colored crayons. Naturally, she asked why. She was told trees have brown stumps and green leaves, so those are the only two colors the child would need. Being the patient person she is, she had to grit her teeth and do as required.

The teacher’s deduction for a simple picture such as a tree couldn’t be further from the truth. Depending on the season, a tree’s color varies. It also depends on the type of tree, such as how cherry blossoms are pink. This is just one issue to an expanding problem in our generation. Creativity is being snuffed from our society.

Colleges have even started to decrease the functionality of departments centered around the arts. With the majority thought being gravitated towards careers that earn more income for the individual, majors focused on expressing original thought appear to be the less popular choice. A society focused more on their own profits rather than advancing morally and intellectually as a whole, is doomed to fail.

Innovative thinking starts with original thought. Whether you’re a Christian, atheist, or another religious affiliation, our existence in itself is a by-product of an original idea. Something as complex as our bodies and the earth started with thought. Buildings, trade ports, ships, water irrigation, food production and etc. could not exist today without different individuals’ original idea. Thus, reality starts with thought. The absence of creativity develops a drone-like society which follows the ones in power without ever questioning why he or she is following their lead to begin with.

Unfortunately, this is the path we are already going down today. With so many people following other YouTubers, stock markets, business owners, and entrepreneurs just to get rich quick, few actually give time to come up with their own successful original idea. This idea of getting rich quick only to benefit one’s self is also inadvertently leading us down a dangerous path of selfishness. Breaking free from the follower mentality and questioning thought itself is the first step in the right direction we all can take as individuals.

One of my personal hobbies is to look up documentaries or interesting discussion topics online. I like expanding my mind and thinking about issues people usually do not touch on because most of us are too busy in our day to day tasks to pay heed to them. I stumbled upon a podcast delving into how what we do as a society has now changed to what we do for corporations.

At first, I found myself disagreeing with what the speaker said. He stated we do more to benefit corporations now in our daily routines than we do for each other as a society. After all, occupations such as teachers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, policemen, and farmers are viable positions serving society and its people today. However, the more he spoke, the more reasonable points were made.

For instance, when it comes down to a basic job search, the ones heavily promoted are for industries serving its company. In food industries, the ones heavily marketed to us are fast-food chains, which are knowingly unhealthy for the consumer but advertised despite its negative impact on the human body. Oil industries consistently recruit more engineers even though oil itself is a nonrenewable resource we cannot depend on forever. Tobacco industries continuously seek out more customers regardless of the fact its very product can kill its consumers.

Why are these companies, who do nothing to benefit society as a whole, not stopped? I believe any reasonable person faced with a choice to benefit society or contribute to a corporation would want to help people rather than the latter. Unfortunately, money dictates our economy. In fact, money is so ingrained into the structure of how we live; most believe we cannot live a long prosperous life without such a form of currency.

Ironically, humankind has been able to live prosperously without relying on currency in the past. However, as this technological age we’re in progresses, owners of corporations do not want to lose the power their money has gained them. Because of this, products are put out into the market where businesses are more focused on promotion rather than research. Instead of spending a majority of their budget on concepts such as genetically modified foods, advertising comes first since its cost-efficient and produces more. Some farmers are convinced to adopt genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into how they produce to cut back on expenses and yield commodities faster. These are the same GMOs linked to poor health and even cancer. The FDA has been speculated to bend to the whims of manufacturers working for these companies.

Our ignorance of these concepts is also a significant factor because companies depend upon it to have us consume products potentially harmful or is harmful to us. And because there is so much profit to gain in the positions they provide, we are willing to step on each other just to get a little more ahead. I suppose the real issue when it comes to corporate jobs versus society jobs is when did life become about supporting those with money rather than each other? Fingers can be pointed to whose at fault, but it is ultimately our decision as a community to decide where the world goes from here.

A coworker of mine who is currently taking classes at a university told me about a discussion he had with his peers. The professor asked, “Who is your favorite superhero?” My coworker said it was a question to open the discussion about idols and beliefs. What caught my attention, however, is the fact he told me no one said Superman.

This came as a surprise to me because Superman is arguably one of the most iconic superheroes of all time. He is personally one of my favorites because no matter how difficult a situation gets, he always finds a way to do the right thing. Makes sense, right? Altruistic morals should be the epitome of what a hero is based on. Yet, Superman was not the first choice nor a popular one.

Why is that? Then, another thing came to my attention. Superman represented an age where faith was a prominent notion to live your life by. We have now taken a shift to a generation where individualism is the pinnacle to live by. On the surface, caring and improving one’s self sounds like a great philosophy to adopt. Though, over time this obsession with self can turn into selfishness rather than selflessness.

Popular heroes now still ultimately save people, but their personalities can steer people’s beliefs on what a good role model should be. For example, Batman protects the citizens of Gotham, but the fact he insists on doing everything alone can deter him from saving the day. Rather than exploiting this negative, it appears to be commended as he saves the city anyway with or without someone’s help on most of his escapades. Iron Man prevents dangers in the world, but his ego prevents him from seeing fundamental lessons in life. Instead of allowing such lessons to be portrayed, it is neglected almost entirely, making it seem there isn’t any repercussions he needs to face.

Because of such emphasis on these heroes, it can be said they contribute to the continuous issue of entitlement. Moral discipline is a necessity in society, which is an essential attribute Superman was based on. I say “was” because the current adaptations of this hero portray him in a new light, so to speak. Current mainstream media outlets such as video games and movies peg him as a villain or a broken man who is potentially dangerous. This influences the view of such a renowned hero to be more hateful than loved. Is Superman apart of a dying generation or an idealism still needing to be implemented in today’s society?

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton