Word & Mouth Blog

Where food, hospitality, branding, and human behavior all crash into each other. I write about restaurants, wine, placemaking, customer experience, and the small details that make people talk about a business long after they leave.

For even more snarky takes on marketing, pop culture, branding, and the internet, visit my Substack, Burnt Popcorn & Branding: Substack

  • A mix of hospitality, branding, customer psychology, hospitality culture, and internet behavior from someone who’s worked behind the scenes in marketing long enough to know what feels authentic and what feels painfully forced.

  • Yes. Especially if your marketing currently sounds like ChatGPT wrote it.

  • No LinkedIn thought leadership energy here. Just strategy, storytelling, and occasional side-eye toward trends, Chat-GPT written branding advice, and “disruptive” ideas that all look the same.

  • People in marketing, hospitality, branding, retail, wine, or anyone who secretly judges restaurants by their menu design before reading the food list.

Healthy Lifestyle Shana Bull Healthy Lifestyle Shana Bull

Embracing Your Worth: Transforming Personal Challenges into Professional Confidence

Discover how overcoming personal challenges, such as a health battle, can transform your professional outlook. Learn actionable steps for marketers to build resilience, set boundaries, and foster supportive work environments that value and respect individual worth. Gain insights into creating a positive, empathetic workplace culture and embracing your professional capabilities.

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Healthy Lifestyle Shana Bull Healthy Lifestyle Shana Bull

How to Create a Healthy "TikTok Salad Recipe" Inspired by the 5 Foods you Should Eat Everyday

Get creative in the kitchen with this easy and healthy TikTok Salad recipe. Incorporate spinach, apple, broccoli, garlic, flax seeds, and an apple cider vinaigrette dressing. Plus, you can customize it to your liking. Don't forget to post on TikTok and share with friends, and learn about the 5 foods you should eat every day for a balanced diet.

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Healthy Lifestyle Shana Bull Healthy Lifestyle Shana Bull

One year Since my Last Day of Anal Cancer Treatments

One year ago I rang the bell at the Kaiser cancer treatment center. One year ago I finished my anal cancer treatments - radiation & oral chemotherapy. And now, one-year post anal cancer treatments —Moving forward, one of my goals in life is to encourage everyone to listen to their body, and go see a doctor, community health center, etc when they feel like something is off.

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Word of the Year: Embrace 2021

Whether you have kids at home or feel paralyzed by not being able to find a job, there are small things you can do to embrace your goals. This isn’t about jumping in headfirst and hustling (read: burning out). This year should be about taking slow, actionable steps to get you further than where you are right now - and embracing your word of the year like I am.

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So, Are We Setting Goals For 2021?

2020 turned out to be something that NOT any of us could have predicted. With massive job loss and stay at home orders due to the pandemic, 2020 goals changed. Even though my New Year Resolutions looked different, I still made time to goal plan and create small goals to get me to the next step in my career and for my health. Here are some action items for setting 2021 goals.

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Small Business Superpower: Connections with Your Customers Matter

The brick & mortar hair and skin salon has continued to focus on the connections that they have with their customers, and that can be seen as soon as you walk into the salon through smiling faces and repeat customers. When the SIP order went into place for Sonoma County, they had to shut down their salon and turn to online delivery orders, as well as a new Facebook group

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Social Distance Yourself From Social Media: How To Spring Clean Your Social Media Habits

If you feel like you need to social distance yourself from social media, you are not alone. I am trying not to check the news as much, or mindlessly scroll through Facebook or Instagram stories. Here are my top 4 tips for spring cleaning your social media during this COVID-19 pandemic.

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Restaurant and Winery Marketing Gets Creative While We Shelter in Place

With the shelter-in-place order, wineries and restaurants all over California are having to rethink their traditional model of people coming to them. Creativity tends to flourish during times of crisis, so I wanted to give a few shoutouts to brands that I think are doing a great job of embracing the horrible reality that we're dealing with right now.

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