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
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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.
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Yes. Especially if your marketing currently sounds like ChatGPT wrote it.
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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.
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People in marketing, hospitality, branding, retail, wine, or anyone who secretly judges restaurants by their menu design before reading the food list.
The Wine Marketing Strategy in the Post-Brain Rot Era: What’s Next?
Wine marketing strategy still stuck in 2018? Consumers want real connection, not more content. Here’s how brands can shift from algorithm-chasing to authentic engagement post-brain rot era.
Rediscovering Starbucks’ Core: A Lesson in Staying True to Your Brand
Starbucks' shift back to its core values offers key lessons for hospitality businesses—focus on quality, experience, and customer connection.
Achieve Your New Year's Resolutions - Tips for Lasting Success
As we enter the New Year, it's important for wine marketers and small business owners to set realistic goals and develop sustainable habits for success. Our tips for making your New Year's resolutions successful include understanding the difference between short-term and long-term goals, creating an action plan, and adjusting your goals as needed to remain flexible. By following these guidelines, you can stay motivated and on track to reach your goals in 2023 and beyond.
Struggling to Achieve Your Goals? Here's How to Overcome Common Excuses
We all have common excuses we tell ourselves when it comes to not achieving goals. With a little bit of effort, you can overcome excuses, change your habits and start achieving your goals.
Whether it's a lack of time, motivation, or energy, there are plenty of ways we can overcome the excuses that are holding us back from achieving our goals.
Why social media marketing won't work for your business without a social media plan
Social media marketing won't work for your business without a social media plan to ensure you’re creating content with a purpose; this is how you can quickly create a social media plan.
6 Tips on How to Enjoy Life Even When You Feel Overworked
We've all had those weeks where we're just counting down the days until Friday. And even when we do have a few moments to ourselves, we're often thinking about all the things we need to get done. Here are 6 tips for how to enjoy life when you are overwhelmed and overworked.
5 Tips on How to Write Engaging FAQ Answers Your Target Audience Will Love
Listen to your customers and create a FAQ document you can refer back to when planning ahead to create content for your website or social media. This way you can establish yourself as an authority figure in your industry or niche, and have a list of copy & paste content ready to go.
7 Social Media Scheduling Tools to Post Content
By using a social media scheduling tool, you can take the headache out of having to remember to post on social media every day. With most scheduling tools, all you need to do is create your content in advance and set a schedule for when you want it to go live.
Changes to Instagram’s Feed is Coming - What Does This Mean for Social Media Marketers?
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram announced that the social media platform will be updating the Instagram feed and this means social media marketers need to pay attention to how Instagram users interact with the feed - in three different ways. Engaging, fun and educational social media content (*cough* videos) will still be key to connecting and growing on social media.
Live Your Values as a Marketer
Great modern marketers are defined, perhaps more than anything, by their resiliency and agility.
They stay on their toes, ready to pivot and adjust amid constantly changing conditions. They have the ambition and openness to try new things, never boxing themselves in. They stay motivated and optimistic even in the face of enormous challenges and setbacks.
Shana Bull embodies so many of these qualities.