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.
Top California Vineyards on Instagram, by Hashtags
For wine lovers, Instagram hashtags are the perfect place to discover new wineries, taste new wines and learn about the latest trends in the wine industry. More than just pretty pictures, the social network has become the go-to place to follow your favorite wineries and vineyards on Instagram.
5 Ways to Use the Instagram Save Folder Feature
The Instagram Save Feature is super useful for social media marketers. Here are 5 ways to use the Instagram Save Folder to create content and engage with your target audience.
Top 11 Wineries in California on Instagram
My picks for top CA Wineries on Instagram are not based on who has the most followers, the prettiest pictures, or which wineries get the most Instagram location check-ins. While those are important, I chose these wineries based on their community engagement and unique brands… I chose wineries on Instagram that were true to their brand passions and connected with their target audience.
On The Subject Of Wine Influencers
Within this blog post, I feel the need to defend wine influencer marketing within the wine world. Many of the conversations I see taking place within Facebook groups definitely reminds me of when I started wine blogging – arguments about how it was hard to tell who was a real, dedicated wine blogger, and who was merely in it for the free stuff…. Who actually had a community they were talking to, and who else was just talking to other wine bloggers because they were friends with each other.
Now, it’s also about trying to figure out if someone who is emailing your winery asking for a free tasting in return for an “Instagram feature” is legit, and whether you should pay attention to, or ignore that person.