New comment by ethin in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2023)"

  Location: Minot, ND, US
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: Ada, C, C++, .NET (all languages other than F#), Golang, Java, Javascript, Python, Rust
  Résumé/CV: Available on request
  Email: ethindp@pm.me

Hi HN, I’m a recent computer science graduate looking to become a software engineer. I unfortunately don’t have much professional experience, other than my Google Summer of Code intern with TianoCore, where I worked on the EFI Development Kit, A.K.A. EDK II. However, I feel that I make up for that with my eagerness to learn new programming languages, technologies, and tech stacks, and my strong work ethic. During my time as a student at university I wrote a compiler, a basic operating system, and contributed to several low-level hardware crates in Rust for embedded software engineers. I also wrote an add-on for a screen reader, and before that I assisted a developer in making a GTA mod accessible to individuals with disabilities.

Colorado Dem gov slams DeSantis for ‘socialist attacks’ on Disney, GOP gov hits back at ‘baseless allegations’

Polis criticized Florida in a Tuesday tweet over his support of the state legislation stripping Disney of its special self-governance powers and for DeSantis saying he was looking into legislation regarding Twitter’s poison pill to Elon Musk’s offer.

How to Edit TikTok Videos

TikTok is absolutely huge right now—and will be long into the future. 

It has almost 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. alone, and is one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store, topping giants like YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Why has it become so popular?

TikTok has boomed due to the potential for anyone to become an influencer on its platform. You don’t need to be a professional to create cool videos or even have a huge following to go viral. All you need is a phone and a personality—then your audience will come to you. 

However, content creation does come with a warning: not every video you create is going to be perfect the first time around.

Editing is a great way to sharpen footage to improve the quality or create something that would be impossible with just one take. Perhaps you want a video where you are having a conversation with yourself. Through editing, this is possible. 

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to editing videos on TikTok, this in-depth guide will have you creating viral-worthy TikTok videos in no time.

How to Edit TikTok Videos

Luckily, it’s pretty straightforward to edit TikTok videos, and in-app features allow you to make changes and adjustments without complication.

Step 1: Create a Video

You’ll need to record a video before you start editing one. Open up the app, choose the length of video you want to create, and get recording. Record several clips if you mean to stitch clips together, or upload footage if you have video content already.

Now let’s get editing.

Step 2: Adjust Clips

Tap “Adjust Clips” if you want to cut your videos down to size. Simply move the red lines on either side of the video bar to change the start and stop points. Tap and hold video clips to rearrange them or delete them. You can also split a video in two by using the white line that runs down the video bar.

Step 3: Add Filters

You can quickly add a filter to your video by clicking on the “Filters” tab. Blanket filters come in four categories:

  • portrait
  • landscape
  • food
  • vibe

Pick whichever seems most appropriate to your video, and you’ll be good to go.

Step 4: Add Sound

Sound is a vital part of any viral TikTok video and it’s super easy to add a great song to your creation. 

Tap on the “Sounds” section at the bottom of the screen to explore all of the pre-loaded music the app offers. You can browse trending songs or search for a specific track you have in mind. Once you’ve found the perfect sound, choose where you want it to start.

You can also play sound while you record to better sync your shots with the music—a great feature for when you are joining in on TikTok trends.

Step 5: Add Effects

Effects are what make TikTok videos stand apart. Tap on the “Effects” tab to add a huge range of visual effects to your video. You can speed up your video, reverse it, add special filters, and create transitions between video clips.

Step 6: Add Text

Tap on the “Text” tab to add captions to your TikTok video. There’s a huge range of fonts to choose from and you can also change the color and alignment of your copy.

Type what you want to appear on your video, as well as the font and color. Then choose at which point you want it to appear on the video and for how long. Simple.

Step 7: Add Stickers

Finally, you can add stickers to any part of your video. These include polls, timestamps, and emojis.

7 External Editing Tools for TikTok Videos

TikTok’s internal editor is a fantastic tool, but it does have its limitations. For example, you can’t add the “Ken Burns” effect (which creates motion from static images) or record time-lapses. That’s why many TikTokers prefer to use an external editor to take their videos to the next level. 

Some require editing skills, but there are others that can be used by anyone.

1. CapCut

Tools to Edit TikTok Videos - CapCut

CapCut is a free all-in-one editing tool owned by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. It’s packed with all the editing functions you need (trimming, filters, stabilization, and splitting) plus all of the functions you’ve been dying to experiment with (such as zooming, filters, stickers, and loads more). The app also has a massive library of licensed music you can use for free in your videos.

2. InShot

Tools to edit TikTok Videos - InShOt

InShot is an undisputed leader when it comes to editing video clips for social networks. Best of all, it’s easy to do from your iPhone or Android device. As well as the standard editing features you’ve come to expect, InShot has an abundance of visual and audio effects, and you can also import your own tunes. There is a slight downfall, however, that InShot doesn’t have its own built-in music library. 

3. Zoomerang

Tools to Edit TikTok Videos - Zoomerang

Zoomerang is a simple and easy-to-use video editing app that’s perfect for anyone looking to get started editing TikTok videos. Inside, you’ll find helpful tutorials, a library of more than 100 effects, filters, music, and loads more. You can buy a subscription to have an ad-free experience, but the free version works perfectly well. 

4. Videoshop

Tools for Editing TikTok Videos - Videoshop

The Videoshop app is available on the App Store and Google Play. You can add music, captions, and a wide range of effects and filters. You can also adjust the video speed. Videoshop is one of the best apps for merging and splicing clips from different videos.

It also allows you to upload videos directly to every major social media platform—making an influencer or digital marketer’s job just a little easier.

5. Funimate

Tools to Edit TikTok Videos - Funimate

Funimate is another excellent app for editing TikTok videos. The app is available for free on the App Store and Google Play, but you’ll need to pay for advanced features like removing the Funimate watermark.

Free features include splicing clips, adding music, and inserting a range of effects and stickers. What makes Funimate stand apart from other video editing apps is its daily challenges. These are a great way to enhance your editing experience and get better every day through new and exciting ways. Funimate’s prompts are great for inspiring creativity.

6. VEED

Tools to edit TikTok Videos - VEED

Do you prefer to sit at your computer?

No problem. Just use VEED

They offer an extensive editing suite complete with all of the functionality you need to create killer TikTok videos. It also has its own in-built library of music, making it easy to find the perfect song. If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. VEED has a great user platform, which is simple to learn, and you’ll soon be editing like a pro.

7. BeeCut

Tools to edit TikTok Videos - BeeCut

If you’re looking for a free video editor that works on both Windows and Mac, you can do worse than BeeCut. This popular editor is easy to use and comes packed with a suite of editing tools. You can add filters, transitions, and overlays, as well as a host of TikTok effects. 

5 Tips for Editing TikTok Videos

The beauty of TikTok’s platform is that anyone can make awesome edits to their videos. If you’re serious about editing your video, follow these tips:

Tip 1: Focus on the Sound

Sound is one of the most important elements of a great TikTok video. (Here’s a lesser-known secret: it’s almost as important as the video quality). If you’re not going to layer sound over your content, then make sure you’re using a good quality microphone when speaking and minimize background noises.

You must also remember that not everyone will play videos out loud. In fact, 92 percent of viewers watch videos with the sound low or off—so it pays to add captions to your videos so that people can still enjoy them in silent mode.

Tip 2: Try the TikTok Photo Editing Trick

The TikTok photo editing trick is a neat way to create stunning, vibrant images. Plus, it’s not hard to do. Just add these settings to your images:

  • highlights: -35
  • shadows: -28
  • contrast: -30
  • brightness: -15
  • black point: 10
  • saturation: 10
  • vibrance: 8
  • warmth: 10
  • tint: 39
  • sharpness: 14
  • definition: 23
  • exposure: 0
  • brilliance: 0

Tip 3: Save Your Favorite Effects and Filters

Have you ever come across an awesome effect or filter on TikTok and wanted to use it in your own videos? You can now save filters and effects to your favorites section for easy access when editing your next video.

For tracks, tap on the “Sound” tab at the bottom of the screen and click “Add to Favorites.” For effects and filters, you can find the name above the TikToker’s account details.

Tip 4: Use the Green Screen Effect

The green screen effect lets you change your drab background into literally anything. You can find it in the “Effects” section in the bottom left-hand corner when creating videos. You can either use a photo as your background or a video. Choose whichever you like then hit record.

Don’t forget you can change your background between clips to mix things up!

Tip 5: Add Voice Effects

Is there anything worse than the sound of your own voice? On TikTok, you don’t have to settle for it. Once you’ve recorded your video you can use the “Voice Effects” tab to change your voice into a robot, a chipmunk, or dozens of other fun alternatives.

TikTok Video Editor for Advertisers

TikTok also has a great editing dashboard for businesses or personal brands looking to utilize their audience for sales. Advertisers can access a suite of editing tools to make their video content suitable to upload on TikTok through these steps:

  1. Find the editor under the “Create a Video” section of your Ad Manager dashboard.
  2. Choose a video from your existing assets or upload a new one.
  3. Click on the music note to add music to your video. You can even choose from a library of popular music inside the editor.
  4. Click the “T” to add text captions.
  5. Add transitions, effects, and crop your video in the post-production section.

Frequently Asked Questions About Editing TikTok Videos

Can You Edit a TikTok Video After Posting?

No, you won’t be able to edit any part of your video once published. Your best bet is to create a new video.

Can You Edit a Saved TikTok Video?

Yes, you can make exactly the same edits to a saved video as you can to a video you’ve just recorded.

What Is the Best Editing App for TikTok?

TikTok’s in-app editor is very good and fit-for-purpose. Otherwise, CapCut, Zoomerang, and BeeCut are great alternatives with extra features.

What Can You Edit on a TikTok Video?

You can edit virtually everything including the sound and speed. You can mesh clips together, add text, sound, filters, and other images.

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Conclusion of TikTok Video Editing Guide

It doesn’t matter if you’re just using TikTok for fun or to promote your brand, knowing how to edit your videos effectively will help make creating high-quality, engaging videos with the potential to go viral ten times easier. 

Growing a following on TikTok doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think. 

Instead of messy content, do yourself justice through high-tech editing.

Which TikTok editing feature will you use the most?

How to Create a Facebook Contest that Grows Engagement and Audience

With close to 3 billion active monthly users, Facebook is the biggest social media platform on the planet. That makes it a valuable channel for driving your business goals. After all, the key to successful marketing is to define your target audience and meet them on their favorite platforms.

While not everyone is on Facebook, one thing is certain, it still is the world’s most popular platform. Whether you’re in B2B or B2C, you definitely should leverage Facebook’s multitude of features to market your brand and products. One Facebook marketing feature in particular that yields a good return is the Facebook contest feature.

Facebook contests are an excellent way to grow your audience and drive engagement.

Why Should You Create a Facebook Contest?

Facebook contests have been around for some time, but they’re still one of the best methods to grow an active audience and build meaningful engagement with your brand. Here are a few reasons why you should consider creating a Facebook contest:

1. Extend Your Reach and Increase Followers

One of the most significant benefits you’ll reap from running Facebook contests is that they’re an excellent way of extending your reach. Creating a contest your target audience engages with results in your contest and brand being shown to their networks. With the extended reach comes the added benefit of you gaining more followers.

2. Increase Brand Awareness

Another reason you must incorporate Facebook contests in your social media marketing strategy is that they are a great way to increase brand awareness. Whether you promote your Facebook contest organically, use paid promotion, or both it’s inevitable that you’ll reach people you couldn’t have otherwise reached. As a result, more people will become aware of your brand and product.

3. Get More Engagement

Facebook contests get more engagement than average posts for the simple reason that they’re a much-loved form of interactive content. People prefer interactive content over static content with 66 percent of marketers citing increased engagement rates after employing interactive content in their campaigns.

4. Provides a Data Collection Avenue

Effective marketing campaigns are data-driven. That’s because data enables you to gain a better understanding of your target audience, allowing you to create more personalized campaigns.

Running a Facebook contest is helpful in this regard as it provides an opportunity to collect data about your audience. Whether the contest is in the form of a quiz or simply an engagement-based contest, you still come out with a goldmine of data at the end of the day.

With these and more benefits, there’s no reason why you should ignore Facebook contests. They’re an excellent way to drive engagement and build an active audience for your business. Of course, they’re also an excellent way to raise brand and product awareness and thus drive sales.

How to Create an Effective Facebook Contest

Now that you’ve seen the value of Facebook contests, let’s quickly dive into how to create an effective one. Not all Facebook contests are created equal. Knowing how to create one that your audience will participate in is essential to the success of your campaign. Here are a few pointers to help you:

1. Determine Your Goals and How to Measure Results

The first step to creating an effective Facebook contest is to define your goals for the contest.

What do you want to achieve with your Facebook contest?

You can achieve a lot of business and marketing goals with a contest, a few of which can include:

  • market research
  • brand awareness
  • data collection
  • crowdsourcing product development
  • launch a new product
  • build an email list
  • drive sales
  • gather user-generated content

Determining the goal of your contest is essential as it will help you design one that’s best suited to help you succeed. It also helps you know which key performance indicators (KPIs) you should use to measure your contest’s success. Examples of KPIs you can use include:

  • number of participants
  • likes
  • shares
  • new followers gained
  • number of clicks on your contest
  • email sign-ups
  • reach

With your goals and KPIs determined, you’re ready to start designing your Facebook contest.

2. Select the Type of Contest You Want to Run

You’ve determined the reason for running a Facebook contest. Now the next step is to choose the type of Facebook contest that will help you achieve said goals. There are three main types of contests you can run on Facebook:

Giveaways

These are the simplest Facebook contest type and, as the name suggests, involve giving away a prize to the lucky participant(s) who enter the contest. Most giveaway contests require a participant to engage with a post (like, comment, or share) to enter.

Photo Contests

Photo contests are an excellent way of driving engagement and collecting user-generated content for your other marketing efforts. These usually involve picking a theme for your contest and asking your audience to post photos (preferably while using your product) in line with that theme.

Referral Promotions

Referral promotions require a bit more work to design and manage but they’re one of the best ways to generate leads for your business. Participants have to share (or refer) your contest with a friend or people in their network to enter the contest.

An effective Facebook contest aligns your marketing goals with the right type of content. To aid your decision, you must understand your audience and the type of contests they prefer.

3. Determine the Contest Rules and How You’ll Run It

Every contest needs rules to govern how participants enter. As you design your Facebook contest, you must pay careful attention to how you determine yours.

Determine the rules of your Facebook contest and make them clear to participants.

For example:

  • What actions must participants take to enter?
  • Will you allow multiple entries?
  • Is the contest open to all countries?
  • What can constitute grounds for disqualification?
  • Are there any age restrictions?

Remember, you’re not running a contest just for the fun of it. You’re running your contest to benefit your business. As such, the rules you set for your contest must help you with that. They must be aligned with your goals.

The rules of your Facebook contest will also determine how you will run it and the kind of data you will collect. Examples of how you could run your contest include:

  • Designing a funnel that requires participants to submit their email addresses or other data.
  • Using a Facebook messenger bot to lead users to an opt-in page where they perform the required action to enter the contest.
  • Using engagement as a means to declare their participation in your contest. This could be anything from tagging friends to following your account and everything in between.

Besides setting rules for entering the contest, you must also determine how the winning participants will redeem their prize.

4. Choose the Right Prize

One of the fundamental pillars of an effective Facebook contest is the prize you’re offering. Hallmarks of the perfect prize include:

  • Personalized. Your offer must be something that your target audience is interested in. It must not appeal to people who aren’t your target audience.
  • Product-related. To ensure your contest helps boost your business, your prize must be tied to your core business. For example, if you’re a dentist, offering cutlery as a prize won’t help you reach your ideal customer.
  • Pain point specific. Understand your ideal customer’s pain points and tailor an offer designed to address one of them. Doing so will help direct participants to your other product offerings.

Choosing the right prize for your contest is crucial to ensuring higher engagement rates. It also ensures most participants fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).

5. Design Your Facebook Contest Page

With so much content being published on Facebook, it can be easy for people to miss your contest as they scroll through their feeds.

To improve the chances of your contest being seen, your design must be optimized for visibility. Here are a few tips to help you do that:

Write an Attention-grabbing Headline

The headline is the first thing users will see. Make it stand out by using descriptive language. Also, ensure it paints a picture of the benefits of winning the prize.

Invest In Professional Images

Invest in professional eye-catching images. Images play a great role in stopping users from scrolling. They’re also helpful in quickly conveying your message.

Write a Brief but Detailed Description

Give users all the information they need to get excited about the contest. Your description must also explain how to enter the contest. The best way to format your description is to use bullet points.

Use a Simple Form

Make it as easy as possible for your interested parties to enter your contest. If you’re using forms, make them simple—don’t ask for too much information. Complicating the sign-up form will negatively impact your conversions. The only exception to this rule is if you’re offering a huge prize that’s worth the effort.

Design a Prominent Call-to-action

Your call-to-action (CTA) must not only be prominent but it must be clear what the next step to be taken is.

Besides these best practices for designing an effective Facebook contest page, you can also consider other optimization options. A typical example would be to use a countdown timer to add urgency.

6. Promote Your Contest

Your Facebook contest’s main goal is to grow your audience and increase engagement with your brand. To do that, it must reach as wide of an audience as possible.

That’s why part of your Facebook contest creation process must include a promotion strategy.

Increase your reach by promoting your Facebook contest.

A few Facebook content promotion tips you can employ include:

  • Paid ads: Organic reach can only get you so far. To reach a wider audience, leverage Facebook ads to promote your contest. You can also use retargeting to advertise your contest to people who’ve viewed your content.
  • Share it with your email list: Promote your Facebook contest to your email list to ensure maximum participation. It also helps you keep your subscribers engaged.
  • Spread the word on other social media channels: Leverage your other social media platforms to spread the word about your contest.

With your contest in front of the right audience, you can expect high participation rates.

7. Choose and Announce the Winner

All good things come to an end, including your exciting Facebook contest. You need to wrap it up by picking and announcing the winner. You have two options when it comes to picking a winner:

  • Randomly picking a name: Randomly picking a name is the best way as it’s impartial. Use tools like Random Name Picker or Comment Picker to make it easy.
  • Selecting the best candidate: This works best if you set specific criteria for your contest. However, make sure to explain how you came up with the winner and why.

Once you’ve picked your winner, you must announce them on your Facebook business page and other channels you promoted the contest on. Bonus points if you can make it a Facebook Live event.

8. Follow Up After the Contest

Picking the winner of your Facebook contest is not the end game. The end game is growing your business. That’s why you must have a follow-up strategy. One of the best ways to do this is to send out an email to participants offering them a discount on your products as an appreciation for participating in your contest. Nurture a relationship with the people who participate in your contest and you’ll be able to turn them into loyal customers.

Facebook Contest: FAQs

How do I increase engagement on my Facebook contest?

People love personalized content. To increase participation, ensure you know your target audience and create a contest tailored to them.

How do I know if my Facebook contest is a success?

Always set goals for your contests and determine the KPIs you’ll use to gauge the effectiveness of your contests.

Are Facebook contests worth the effort?

Executed well, a Facebook contest is a cost-effective way to achieve many business and marketing goals. Yes, they’re definitely worth it.

How can I ensure my Facebook contest reaches a large audience?

Promoting your Facebook contest is a critical part of running a successful contest. Make sure to promote it on all your other channels and platforms.

Facebook Contest Conclusion

Looking for interactive content that will help you grow your audience and drive engagement with your brand?

Then you must consider running a Facebook contest. With added benefits like lead generation, a boost in sales, and much more, including them in your online marketing strategy is a no-brainer. 

Executed well, your Facebook contest is an excellent way of getting ahead of your competition.

What has been your experience with Facebook contests as a marketing strategy?

New comment by 59243 in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2021)"

Expensify | Software Engineer – React/JS/PHP/ReactNative/Java/C++ | Remote | Full-time|
https://we.are.expensify.com/#workwithus

Join our passionate team of top-notch engineers to solve a real-world problem, and help people spend less time managing expenses and more time pursuing their real goals. As we revolutionize the way people manage their expenses, being part of the Expensify team means building the easiest, fastest, and most efficient platform to automate everything expense-related.

For the best possible fit, we are looking for someone who:

Has experience writing real-world software to solve real-world problems. –
Communicates well, both interpersonally and in their code. Is a natural problem solver, knows how to solve problems by automating their solutions.
Understands the role and impact that programming can have on the organization as a whole.
Wants to develop and grow their skills in programming and leadership within the organization.

We are looking for people who have a strong understanding of algorithms and design patterns that can apply those concepts into a production level codebase. Knowledge and experience with Javascript, React, React Native, PHP, C++, Java, iOS or Android is a plus.

Please visit https://we.are.expensify.com, and we can’t wait to meet you soon!

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