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.
8 proven steps to take one idea and turn it into ten social media posts
Being able to quickly take your most important ideas and turn them into content is important for any social media marketer. Especially those looking for content creation for beginners, or small business owners who have a lack of time, or resources (I understand because that's me also).
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.
Beach Themed Deals for Amazon Prime Day
Prime Day 2021 is here, and I rounded up some of my favorite beach and camping-themed deals.
What Small Businesses Need To Know About The 2nd Round Of PPP Loans
For millions of small businesses that are still struggling because of the pandemic - there is good news coming out of the White House this past week — the Biden Administration is modifying the new PPP rules to be more small business friendly.
Branching Out of Your Marketing Niche
Brand passions are important but my two cents: have your niche, but don’t be afraid to pivot—if 2020 taught us anything, it’s that businesses, brands, and people who are able to adapt have a better chance of surviving what life throws at us.
How To Start a NEW Business During a Crisis
Sisters, Claire + Bronwyn from Mighty Market planned on opening their zero waste, clean beauty, and bulk refill brick and mortar shop in Downtown Martinez East Bay) - little did they know, a worldwide pandemic would shut down retailers across the world. Quickly they adapted to creating an eCommerce website to sell products, and used social media to connect with customers.
Small Business Owners Need to Focus on Connections and Creativity
Ozzy and his partner have taken their pie/ice cream shop and cupcake shop and brought them online - partnering with local Sonoma County brands for promotions, doing dessert delivery, and always staying true to their Sonoma County roots.
Small Changes to Pivot Your Small Business Strategy During COVID -19
For some, when we are put in situations where we have to adapt quickly -- we find a way to pivot our small business strategy. For other business owners or marketers, it isn't so easy to change how you do business, but there are things you can do to make small steps to pivot your marketing.
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.
The Case for Using LinkTree in Your Marketing
Having a landing page on your own website helps with digital retargeting ads, SEO, and general branding (since the free version of Linktree doesn’t have many choices for changing up the style, fonts, or layout). But what happens when marketers don’t have easy access to create new landing pages on your website?
Virtual Happy Hour - Keeping People Connected through Video and Wine
A Virtual Happy Hour is a great idea for friends and family to connect, even when in quarantine during this coronavirus pandemic. Here are some tools on how to set up your virtual happy hour (wine, and a husband, not included).
Celebrating 11 Years as a Social Media Entrepreneur
I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur—maybe because I never had employees under me. I guess when I think of entrepreneurs, I think of traditional “small business owners” like my dad, who has employees. I realized that my mindset—thinking of my work in such a small way—was holding me back from spending money on myself and on my social media marketing business.
Customer Service Needs to be a Part Of Your Marketing
The old ways of looking at customer service in marketing have little to do with each other. Once marketing brings in a new customer, they hand them off to support and begin focusing on the next lead. Social media marketing has changed the game and brough customer service and marketing together to create a holistic customer experience.
Easy Tools for a More Productive Work Day - It’s a Short List!
My favorite tip for any marketer or small business owner is to goal plan. I can promise you it will help keep you sane, and you will have more time. I use two simple tools to help me maximize my time when I work from home every day.
Two Questions: Marketing Your Business After the Wine Country Fires
Questions from Small Business Owners on how to marketing your business after the Sonoma and Napa Fires. My answer: Be as transparent and empathetic as possible.