How to Promote a Drag Show

September 14, 2020

Brooke Lynn Hytes performing at Play night club in Nashville, TN.

I am continually surprised by how poorly LGBT events (and drag shows in particular) are promoted.

However, instead of reading people to filth complaining on Facebook, I realized that the marketing basics may not be common knowledge to everyone.

So, in the interest of helping all LGBT events succeed, here are the the basics of promoting a local drag show, according to me:

Overview — there are the three main components of promoting most drag shows:

Communicating basic show information.
Making sure that the venue acknowledges that the show is happening.
Having the entire drag cast actually tell people about their gig.

Law / Marketing

Why Not All Law Firm Blogs are Created Equal

April 24, 2017

Man working on laptop by Bench Accounting via Unsplash

Although legal blogs can be major brand development tools for law firms, they are just as likely to become horrible money pits — especially when a legal marketing firm is involved.

Some legal marketers are urging law firms to build offsite blogs as part of a distributed content strategy, but this frequently only benefits the marketing firms giving the advice.

Austin / Daily

Notes from Austin, Twitter’s relevance, Project Runway: Junior

December 8, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. Lessons from Austin: I recently went to Austin for a social media conference hosted by the Engaging News Project and UT Austin’s journalism school.

Some observations:

Experimentation: Social media evolves quickly and journalists are still experimenting with the best ways of using various platforms. It was however shocking to see journalists discussing tactics that marketers and advertisers have been using for years.
Is Twitter worth it? Many people observed that Twitter doesn’t drive a lot of traffic to our websites (compared Facebook.) However, Twitter is a vastly more effective tool for reaching influencers and finding real-time breaking news. Facebook’s algorithm is also fickle, so investing too much time in Facebook-exclusive content may be a mistake.
Goals: The most glaring problem that many newsrooms seem to have is failing to create a solid strategy for social media efforts. Concrete goals are essential to using a platform productively. Do you want to drive traffic to your site? Nurture sources? Reach a particular audience? Sell native ads?

Books / Marketing / Thomson Reuters

Machiavelli and Marketing

April 19, 2016

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is one of my favorite books. I re-read it constantly.

This Italian political treatise is about 500 years old, but contains a lot of insights into human behavior that translate well into modern life, particularly politics and marketing.

I recently thought of my favorite passage from The Prince during an awful client meltdown.

This situation will be familiar to many of my digital marketing friends:

The client previously had significant engagement on their blog and social media.
Organic visibility fell off now that Facebook and other social networks started pushing paid ads.
The client doesn’t want to spend money on social media advertising, and blames your firm for supposedly providing subpar content.
A competitor comes out of the bushes, and makes unrealistic promises of organic reach and other snake oil remedies.
Client is now pissed.

When dealing with a client who refuses to accept digital marketing changes, I think about Machiavelli’s warning to leaders who face resistance to change:

blog theory / Marketing

Digital Content Thieves

January 4, 2015

Man on laptop at cafe by Tim Gouw via Unsplash.

The New Yorker recently ran a disturbing profile piece called The Virologist.

The profile is of Emerson Spartz, a Chicago-based internet entrepreneur. Spartz runs several successful websites, including OMGfacts.com, a clickbait site.

Most of the articles on Spartz celebrate him as the “king of virality,” but the New Yorker piece actually gets into the mechanics of OMGfacts.com’s parasitic model.

The company’s success can be attributed to two algorithms: The first algorithm scans the internet for trending memes and content, which they repost. The second algorithm allows the site to quickly test and implement the headlines with the highest click-through rate.

Marketing

A Case of the Shingies

December 8, 2014

I watched this YouTube video of Shingy in silent horror.

Shingy is AOL’s “Digital Prophet” – a hack whose prophecies range from mundane descriptions of trends to pure gibberish.

I was surprised by the visceral reaction that I had to the “Shingy 2014” video.

The content isn’t terribly different than his other rambling speeches and TV interviews, but something about this video pissed me off.