connectivity

How This Marketing Program Cleaned Up: A Case Study in B2B Storytelling

A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it. * * * Pop quiz time: You run Marketing at a B2B company that sells industrial floor-cleaning equipment. You want to amp up awareness and demand with your audience of commercial and municipal facilities managers. But it’s… well, industrial, floor, and cleaning. What would you do as a tactic in your 2020 content strategy? Pick one: Point a camera at your CEO in a regular fireside chat to demonstrate how the brand is there for you in these trying times Hire an Instagram influencer and their family to literally eat off a scrubbed, sparkling, Covid-free floor Launch an old-school, year-long essay contest to find stories about janitors If you’re Tennant Company… you go all-in on #3. And I love it. It speaks […]

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A Journey to ’25 Random Things’

Three weeks ago, William tagged me in a “25 Random Things About Me” chain letter. I’ve hung around with William a few times, but reading his list feels a lot like a peek at his diary: Here are his hopes, fears, and his profession of love for Twizzlers. I’m tagged again by Tim (“I’m a writer… but poetry is what I love to write the most”), then Kris (“I love Bailey, my Jack Russell cocker who puts her paws over her face when I scold her”), and red-headed Stephanie (“I am addicted to television.” And, comically, “This is not my natural hair color.”) I’m sensing that this thing is bigger than I might have thought. I do some research and discover the concept: Generate a list of 25 “things, facts, habits or goals” about yourself in the notes section of your Facebook profile and publish it there. Then, tap 25

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I Suspect Everyone Else Is Smarter, Better-Looking, Taller, Cooler, Cuter, Has Newer and Shinier Objects than I Do (and Is More Modest)

When you are prone to measuring yourself against others, like I am, and when you both work and live out chunks of your life online, as I do, the Internet can be a bitch. It’s easy to get caught up in measuring your impact online, and to suspect that your own self-worth is tied to it. It’s easy, for example, to measure your popularity and self-esteem in terms of the number of “friends” you have on Facebook, the number of followers on Twitter, the extent of your professional contacts on LinkedIn, your cache of Feedburner subscribers, your Web site’s Google PageRank, tags on Flickr, comments, links, visits, clicks, referrals, Karma on Plurk, and—worst of all!—your Technorati degree of “Authority,” which implies a sort of collected clout and power that, for most of us, doesn’t really exist outside of the unblinking screen that is our dashboard to the world. Those of

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American Idolatry

Last week I signed on for the Comcast triple play, which brought our triumvirate of phone-internet-TV under Comcast’s wing. It also simultaneously catapulted us back to the Land of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), a place from which we had reluctantly decamped after our last TiVo box died months ago. With DVRs, we’ve learned to start the recorder, then begin watching shows 10 or 15 minutes after they actually begin. The practice allows us to blissfully sail straight through commercials on a kind of joyride. Fast-forwarding makes me feel giddy and anarchic, like I am engaging in something revolutionary—albeit a lame sort of Digital Age revolution, its rebels armed with thumb-controlled remotes, asses planted firmly on the couch. So last night the kids and I were parked for the season finale of “American Idol,” a program that we love to both deride and debate about… but never miss. For us, the

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New Media as Community Theater—All the World’s a Stage

I am a total sucker for community theater, especially musical theater. What I love isn’t so much the corny show tunes or the predictable story lines, but the players’ infectious energy for taking risks. I was reminded of this a few weekends ago when I went to see a local production of Godspell. Because I have an artsy teenager who does tech crew, I’ve sat through lots of high school musicals over the past few years. I always come away shining with true admiration for the kids on stage. As we all know, adolescence is really tough. There’s probably no time in your life when you are more prone to self-doubt and insecurity, and there’s no time (at least for boys) when your voice performs less than predictably. It’s easier to blend in with the crowd than to call attention to yourself. It’s easier to not set yourself apart. Godspell

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