 Thank you. Hi everyone. Hope you're enjoying your day so far today. So this talk is called how to build your platform around compassion and I think this is so important to talk about because I run a nonprofit as you just heard. A lot of people forget about compassion, especially in for-profit businesses. So just like to you know talk about it and you know reiterate the fact. So I do run diverse gaming coalition. We fight for change in online and real-life communities through modern concepts and pop culture. And I started this organization when I was 16 years old. I'm 19 now. And I started it because at that age I had dropped out and received by GED from high school because of the lack of compassion that I was faced in high school and bullying and all that factoring in kind of led me to drop out. And when I did that I knew there were there were other people who had felt the same way that I did that they felt they didn't belong or they weren't welcome. So I created diverse gaming coalition and what we do with diverse gaming coalition is we create fun and innovative ways to talk to people. So one of these ways is our anti-bullying comic book called life on the outside and it follows a non-binary person of color in a high school setting. Such as one of the ways that we utilize that into our curriculum. And I think it's also important for everyone to kind of think about, you know, creativity in the workplace. So I want to talk a little bit about facts on bullying. And so about 58 percent of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things them online. Over four out of ten says it's happened more than once. But 90 percent of teens who have seen social media bullying say they have ignored it. And you see these facts and they are about teens may think, oh, why does this relate to me? But it does because you as an adult with your businesses you all model this behavior. And I think it's so important to show compassion in your business to again model this good behavior. So when teens see it they essentially do not want to contribute to these statistics. So again, no matter what your business is bullying affects everyone, you see it happen all over the place. And for instance, have you ever gone on to social media site? I'm on Facebook a lot. And you just scrolling through your feed and you see this news article or a post someone makes, maybe it's controversial. And you just go on the comments section and there's just like very weird and like angry comments on there when there really shouldn't be. So when I look through this, why do people need to be like posting this? Why does anyone care really? So when I see this, it's really important to reiterate the fact everyone that not everything on social media needs to be posted because it really creates a lot of controversy, a lot of tension. And it's really important that Facebook is used for a specific purpose and not to be used to stir the pot. So social media is a big part of our businesses, especially with my business as a nonprofit. We use social media all the time because that's where our base is on. So I want to talk a little bit about good social media practices because when we think about our business and social media, we really don't think about how much that impacts our business, but it really does. So going towards like the post that we put on social media, a big one is you should always respond to comments even if they're bad ones. And I say that and if you're on your personal Facebook and you're responding to a comment, it always causes some sort of controversy between you and the person that originally posted the comment or someone in person that's commenting. But when it's your business, it's a little bit different because it's your business. And when I hope with your business, you're more clear and concise. And you're more just to the point about things rather than your own personal opinion with your personal Facebook. So for example, what I post on my personal Facebook in no way reflects the opinions of diverse gaming coalition because that's not how it should be unless something about bullying that we're talking about. But otherwise, none of the opinions that I post on my personal social media should reflect my business. So when you're posting things on your business page and you're commenting on those posts, think about how the two differentiate. How would I talk to or how would someone on Facebook talk to someone through Facebook or the comment section or post compared to your business? Because that's really important. And when you're posting on Facebook or you're replying to these comments, you have a more professional tone to it. And I say respond to comments because a lot of most of the time on Facebook, with comments, Twitter, with replies, most of the times that's where the most kind of controversy and the most controversy happens. So keeping up with that is very important because that's where a lot of the tension is especially with big corporations. Again, be clear and concise with your posts, having something, having bland content, having something that isn't really clear to the audience. I can't tell you how many times I've been on social media and also you sponsored posts and I don't understand what it's for at all. So just being very upfront with your audience, but also being aware of who your audience is, keeping your posts diverse, so not just posting about the same thing, making your audience bored, making them just want to unfollow you or unlike you, talking about the great social good your company is doing, while also talking about the products and services that you offer. A big thing is don't let emotions play a part in your posts and that's kind of what I was talking about with the comments part of this. Because again, there's a fine line between your personal social media and your business. So when you mix the two, it creates a very bad vibe for you yourself and your business. So don't think that you need to say everything or post everything through your business's social media because that's not the case at all. You don't want to lose support, lose followers, lose customers because that's what's most important and that's what keeps your business running and thriving. But while doing this all, stay true to what your company believes in because there's a lot of instances where companies where they'll say, oh, we have this great social good thing that we're doing, but sometimes they'll do it just to say that they've done it and to tokenize one thing or not be genuine about it. So when you're doing the social good that you are doing in your company, be very genuine about it and that goes across the board for everything in your business, whether it is for social good or not, whether it is for compassion or not. Don't do it because you feel like you have to do it. Do it because you want to do it and do all this while having fun because burnout in the workplace and stress can lead to some of these business practices accidentally happening. So do it and keep cool, keep your calm and really stay focused to what your message is. Now, this is the most important part. So if you are working with a bigger company, there should be a section on your company's website or social media that is dedicated to the social good that you are doing. This is really important because it helps customers easily find, oh okay, they're doing this, they're donating this money, they're creating these grants, whatever it may be, have a section on your website for that because customers actually look for that and they tend to support more companies that are more open and adamant about that. So we're going to look at a couple examples of social good projects that companies are doing. We're going to look at a good example and a bad example. So our good example is our kind bars. This is a screenshot of their website. If you look on their website, there's a lot more to it. If you scroll down, it's actually a very good resource to look at. So I suggest going onto their website and looking at it. And what kind bars are? They're granola bars. They sell them in supermarkets all over the country. And they're very clear about their message. They have what they call their kind movement and they talk about their message and what they do. And then if you scroll down a little more, if you're on their website right now, you can see that they have their hashtag and their call to action. And I think they've donated a lot of money, too. So they have that very clear on their website. And you can see at the top on the toolbar, it says, you know, shop about us and then our mission. So they have it very clear on their website. And it's open for everyone to see. And if you also go on their social media, they post about it a lot, too, which is very good. And then our bad example. I was at a word camp talking about this in Lancaster at the beginning of the year. And someone had made it a thing to bring this up. And I thought it was a very good thing to bring up. But our kind of more bad example is the Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial, which we probably all know about. But this was a bad example for a lot of reasons. But the main reason is that they're trying to use this high profile celebrity superstar to promote no more violence in, you know, protesting settings. And it was just a very bad, well planned commercial. The intentions of it were good. But when it all played out, it was just a mess. And it was all over the news. And everyone just seemed to hate it. So the reasoning why this was such a bad commercial is because one, they, you know, used their this celebrity Kylie Jenner, who is not very educated on this topic, and used her as like the celebrity to this campaign. But then also, if you look in the commercial, she hands this police officer a Pepsi, and then like everyone's peaceful and happy, and everyone's, you know, you know, the world's a better place because a Pepsi was handed to a cop. And that's obviously not the case. It's obviously not real life. So what Pepsi did is they kind of used their product to say, like, oh, look, we're like creating peace in the world when really it just was kind of used in a bad way to promote their product. When really that their product didn't need to be promoted in this ad at all. They are a billion dollar company. There was no reason that they needed to, you know, show off a Pepsi can at all, because everyone knows what Pepsi is. Whereas the kind movement, if we go back, when you scroll down the page a little more, they have their hashtag and their ads and their grants that they're giving out, and they don't use their kind bar as like a driving force to like their advertisements. They really focus on their movement more than the advertisement part of it. So that's why that's the difference between the two. They truly care about the issue and they're not just trying to sell their product. So I talked about those two companies and then what we're going to talk about next is kind of individually how you can better yourself on social media because talked about the business a little bit. But again, it's kind of difficult to separate the business aspect and the personal aspect. So just a kind of couple questions to consider when you're posting something on social media. How will this affect me? Can this affect my relationship with others who will be viewing these comments and this content? Is it harmful? Can this affect others? And do I really need to post this comment? And this all sounds pretty straightforward and something that I shouldn't have to say, but you'd be surprised how many people can really hear this. And even me, sometimes I forget some of these things. So it's really just helpful to hear this kind of being reiterated once in a while. So we talked about the social media aspect of the business. Next, we're going to talk about the SEO because we talked about social media and we talked about it on our website. But how can we get the best SEO out of this? Because you want people to know the social good that you're doing. You want people to relate to your message and really understand your message. So just basic parts of SEO that we should all know. Keyword and repetition of that keyword is important. Research your competitors. This is also another very helpful thing to do. Not to research them to steal their ideas, but to research them and see what they've been doing and the impact they've been creating from what they're doing and kind of getting ideas off of that. Because again, you want to do this because you truly care about it, not because you want to make money off of it. Have your internal links and external links kind of out there so people can find you easily. And also keep your target audience in mind. Like the kind bars. They have customers because they have very delicious granola bars. But they also keep their audience in mind because, you know, that's a whole message or bars are named kind bars. So, you know, with their message, they get a very young audience and so they're very prominent on social media and the hashtags and all that. So they're very good with that. And they follow all of these pretty well. So want to kind of end off with a quote from Dalai Lama. It says, if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. I talk about compassion a lot and I think about this quote a lot because compassion is so important in your everyday lives and you'd be surprised how much your life can change if you just think about compassion at least once a day and say, hmm, maybe I'll hold this door open for someone. A couple days ago, I was waiting online at Chick-fil-A and I saw this mom come in and she was with her two young kids, a toddler and an infant. She was holding the infant in one hand and she was like trying to wrangle the toddler with the other hand. And the toddler was just kind of bouncing around and his shoe fell off. And I was like, oh, this woman's having a hard time. So I went and I tied the kid's shoe, but then I realized that they were on the wrong foot. So then I swapped them and when I did that, she was like, that was the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. But it's just, you know, realizing that and realizing, you know, other people and what they're going through and how you could really make an impact on someone's day, it can make their life a hundred times easier. So yeah, I'm Amy Pearl. I'm the founder and executive director of Diverse Gaming Coalition and that's my Twitter. So if you have any questions, I like to make this a little bit shorter because I like to really have an open conversation about this. So if anyone has any questions or wants to talk about anything, go ahead. Nothing? In regards to comments, yes, how do you, where do you draw the line? And so I have a committee organization that I work with and sometimes we have a sort of media policy that how do you address that instead of saying, well, we have a policy in place to allow this kind of communication or what fit in your experience. Is there a delicate way to approach that? That's a really good question. Having a social media policy in place is a very, very good start and it's probably been very helpful for you. But when that kind of situation happens where someone just kind of doesn't care and wants to just say, wow, you're hating on my freedom of speech, one, a very, very good thing to do is go back to that social media policy and point out the part where it says, hey, this is the part in our policy. We have rules here. If you can't follow these rules, unfortunately, you're going to have to leave. Another good point to put out there is that a lot of people like to be very adamant about their opinions on social media and they will just go until you agree with them or vice versa. So really in that situation, it's very good not to engage with them, to disagree with them, but engage with them to kind of be on neutral grounds and say, hey, you may not agree with my opinion, but we have people that are on this page, on this, in this community that find this as a safe space and find this as a place to go to when they feel unsafe in other situations. This is an instance where this can make people feel unsafe. So unfortunately, you're going to have to leave or you're going to have to take that comment down because that's the most important thing, at least with my social media is a lot of safe spaces for people to talk about anything, to vent about anything. So when someone comes in that is very malicious like that, we tend to first respond to them, but if they keep kind of going, just kind of, you know, weaning them out and saying, hey, this is not going to fly here because you still want to stick to your message and stay true to your company's message. So having people in your social media space be as comfortable as possible is the most important thing. One of the things that we have learned is that pros don't like to be invited to meetings. Yeah. So when you say they have to come to our next meeting at the same time, they don't like, encourage them to the point where they just stop posting because they don't want to be, yeah. And that's the thing, people think they have power on social media and online when in reality they would not say that to your face. So it's very, it's almost funny how they like to do that, but when you kind of hit them at a dead end, that's when they tend to stop and just kind of wave away. And unfortunately, that will always be online and on social media. Being anonymous online is a huge factor to that, and that will unfortunately never change. But again, showing your compassion online and kind of just killing these trolls with kindness is a method I like to use because it confuses that moment. Anything else? Still got like 20 minutes. Talk about anything. Yeah. I know I came in a little bit late, so I'm sorry that you could already open up for this, but how would you define compassion? Good question. So compassion, when you google compassion, it actually says that it's a pity for someone when that's not compassion at all. Compassion's not about feeling bad for someone and then doing something nice in return. Compassion is a trait that's in you and something that comes over time. And compassion is about doing something because you want to do it and doing something because you genuinely care about it. And that's where a lot of people get confused today. They want to do something nice because then they could post it on Facebook and Twitter and show everyone that they're doing something nice. But in reality, compassion is a trait and it's not just something that you can do and it's not something that can happen overnight. It's something that's embedded in you and something that everyone has learned or will learn in their lifetime. You're welcome. How do you teach that? For starters, doing things like these, it's a good start and just kind of being a champion of compassion yourself because people like to imitate people that they look up to and if you are compassionate, that's a big thing. And when you are compassionate and say you're a teacher and I'm a student and I see my teacher is so compassionate, so sweet, so kind and she just cares about everyone that makes me want to model that behavior. So just being like a role model for someone is a very good start and just also kind of reiterating the fact that compassion is a thing because people forget about that a lot because people have bad days, people just want to blame other people for their issues. But when you kind of get them to cool down and kind of think about why was it such a bad day? Oh, maybe you're right. Maybe it wasn't such a bad day. And then they kind of get that a little bit of a spark of compassion going and they say, oh, well, yeah, I guess it wasn't a bad day. And then, so just kind of being that model for someone is very, very important because we unfortunately don't have a lot of that anymore, but it's still very important. Anybody else? How do you suggest responding to bad comments? Good. Yeah, so I am more often getting flooded with bad comments and good comments because of the work that I do. And being in online spaces and gaming spaces, it happens very, very often. So when this does happen, again, kind of killing them with kindness is a method I like to use. And there's a lot of different methods. But personally, that's a method that I like to use because it gets them kind of confused. And why is she being nice to me if I'm saying all these bad things? But doing that, I've found his kind of wean them away from saying things or even commenting back. Also, sometimes it gets to a point, especially in my work, that I just have to delete the comments entirely. I don't suggest that in every instance because if you have someone saying, oh, you suck, like you're not going to delete that, they have the right to their opinion. But if someone's saying like really bad things, like they're being racist or homophobic or anything along those lines, or if they're even just making anyone uncomfortable and unsafe, that's a kind of indication that you probably should delete the comment. Now, when that happens, sometimes they'll comment back and say, oh, you deleted my comment. You don't want to talk about X, Y and Z. And that's not the case at all. Just keep ignoring it. Keep getting rid of it because that's not something that should be on any profile at all. Anybody else? Okay. Well, if no one has any questions, I mean, you still have 14 minutes. So if anyone wanted to talk to me personally, or you guys wanted to talk to each other about what we just talked about, I feel free to do so. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.