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.

Recipe for Social Media, Digital Marketing, Social Media Shana Bull Recipe for Social Media, Digital Marketing, Social Media Shana Bull

Linktree Alternatives and Other Apps to Link in Your Instagram Bio

I've written about Linktree before and voiced my opinion about not using the Instagram bio app (my point of view is that you should capture the web traffic on your own website – not someone else’s). In case you haven’t heard of it, Linktree is a popular third-party app that allows you to add a link to your bio containing additional links to other websites, or perhaps to sections on your own website. Many bloggers and marketers use it to skirt around the “one link” rule on Instagram. The app creates a landing page on which you can add links to promotions, events, contact pages, sales pages, or your own blog.

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Recipe for Social Media, Digital Marketing, Wine County Shana Bull Recipe for Social Media, Digital Marketing, Wine County Shana Bull

Recipe for Instagram Class - Santa Rosa Workshop

Yes, having gorgeous photos is important to Instagram - but trust me, it isn’t the ONLY thing that connects you with potential customers through social media. I will provide you with simple tricks that will grow your community on Instagram, get people engaged with YOUR BRAND and get them to purchase.

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Digital Marketing, Social Media Shana Bull Digital Marketing, Social Media Shana Bull

Facebook Pages Attempt to Be Transparent with Info & Ads Tab

Facebook rolled out the Info and Ads section on Facebook pages back in June, and it has been talked about over the past few months, but people are JUST NOW starting to really catch on. This new update allows anyone to see all the ads the Facebook page is currently running. The dark posts, ads that are meant for just one target audience, or different ads all with different promotions… Yup. ALL.

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Digital Marketing, Social Media, Recipe for Social Media Shana Bull Digital Marketing, Social Media, Recipe for Social Media Shana Bull

What Social Media Community Management Should Look Like

At the end of the day, the relationship that customers make with brands is what they are going to remember. If a potential customer asked a question about your product or service through social media, and you got back to them right away, they will remember that. The opposite is true as well, people now have an expectation that brands will get back to them on social media, and when they don’t, that leaves a bad taste in their mouth. I provided some tips and tricks of how to batch your community management time within a few minutes each day so it’s not overwhelming.

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