Culture

Perfecting Your Instagram Strategy

April 15, 2015 By Gavin Richardson

I am a sucker for infographics, and this one comes via MarketingProfs and Salesforce.

Instagram has become one of my favorite social platforms. The ‘cruise’ through people’s lives via images is fun. Although it feels a bit of Deja Vu when I go over to Facebook and see the same photos. I deal. There’s no doubt that there is power in images and people will identify with folks and businesses based on some of the images they see. So how does one do Instagram right? My personal slant is to keep things personal (it is ‘social’ media). Personal sides of the business. Give something for people to smile over, feel good about their day or selves. No one wants to get on Instagram and be bummed out.

Daily Routine of Famous Creative People

August 20, 2014 By Gavin Richardson

Had this shared with me from the folks at Podio, a collaborative work app. They mapped out the daily routines of some of the more famous creative people in history. I see a lot of sleep and leisure mixed in with their creative work. Much of their fitness or workout times were just going for walks. Very few workaholics in the bunch.

Want to develop a better work routine? Discover how some of the world’s greatest minds organized their days.
Click image to see the interactive version (via Podio).

Fear Based Clicks

May 28, 2014 By Gavin Richardson

When I was a young child I have a real vivid memory of my dad showing me the front page of the newspaper and highlighting a fact that the headline of the paper, which contained an article about his company, and the dramatic photo on front page were totally unrelated. Yet, the headline and photo were above the fold, so if you looked at the paper you associated the photo with the headline immediately. A totally intention layout by the newspaper editors to get papers bought by those glancing at them at stores or in vending machines.

The lesson he was trying to share with me was that the news will play its tricks to get you buy the paper, tune in, or (in today’s world) click on their article.

NOTE: I also regularly use this story on my dad because he’s an avid Fox News watcher which I feel masters the art of getting peoples fears spun up into their emotions.

As a person with a vested interest in the news, albeit a niche market, I am totally disgusted when I see a site that pushes the buttons of stereotypes and peoples fears in order to get someone to click a link.

CURRENT CASE IN POINT

A ‘news’ site called ‘the US Patriot’ posted an article about the families of two boys who were shot and killed breaking and entering a elderly ladies home in the Sacramento area suing the elderly lady and a family member of hers (family member was who apparently the one who did the shooting). The local Sacramento Fox affiliate has a full story on shooting, which happened earlier this month.

Here is how the US Patriot folks are getting you & others to click on their link for this article.

1. Attach an image of bunch of young black men to the article for Facebook to pick up on. This will scare the crap out of people and probably piss off some folks who think it is a travesty that black families of thugs are suing an elderly lady. If you had a line up of pretty white boys smiling, this article wouldn’t get nearly the amount of clicks to their ‘news’ site. A sad and tragic truth.

2. When people are on your site, have some other image of a group of black youth that could be construed as a gang in order to get people to click on the article and stay on your site. Your amount of page views will help to boost your advertising revenue. So do whatever you can to get the visitors you have to stay on your site. I don’t care to go surfing the internet for a photo, but I would wager a bet that this photo is actually some stock photo you can buy.

All this, when in fact the boys were caucasian and far some threatening mugshots or gang photo.

I would love it if our culture didn’t respond to stimuli such as this, but even in this article I have a headline that might capture some fear based attention. Not my intention, but I realize it’s possible. Blatant disregard for truth and transparency in reporting about the news is a gross injustice to humanity and sites like the USPatriot should be marked off peoples list of credible sources for anything.

Reminds me of a plea from Jon Stewart on Crossfire, “Please stop”. These sites are bad for America.

The Big Payback Today

May 6, 2014 By Gavin Richardson

Today, in Nashville, is a big day for non-profits. Non-profits across the middle Tennessee area are plugged into an initiative through the Community Foundation called, “the Big Payback“. Through ‘The Big Payback’ website you can donate to a host of non-profits doing good works in our area. We know that non-profits are always in need of financial support, at least it seems that way. The work they do is critical to our society as they fill in niche gaps that go un-noticed or ignored by government services. Without them we would find ourselves in a much less human world.

I’m supporting a few non-profits that I’d hope you might join in with me in supporting in the Big Payback.

Project Transformation is a summer (soon to be year round, fingers crossed) reading and wellness program for low-income / at-risk children and teenagers. They set up their programs in l0w-income areas and provide reading support for children and teens so that their comprehension and skills do not diminish over the summer months. In many cases they improve. This group also provides nutritious meals and other wellness activities and education for the participants.

Open Table Nashville is a outcropping of some of the work that was done with tent city, before the floods. This group provides advocacy, relational, and step by step support to our city’s homeless population. They know our homeless. Seriously, they know them, know their story and are trusted by our homeless. With that trust and relationship they work with individuals and couples to get them off the streets and into adequate housing where they can begin lives anew. It’s a beautiful thing.

Miriam’s Promise is a adoption group that provides services for adopting families at affordable costs (offset by their fundraising support). As well as working with adopting families, MP will walk with mothers who are considering putting their child up for adoption from start to finish, and even after finish. They will also do a lot of education support around the community.

Nurses for Newborns is one of those great programs that targets families at a most vulnerable stage, pre-natal & birth. Babies have a lot of needs in pre-natal stages in order to set then up for success. After birth those needs continue, they just change a bit. I’ve always felt if we had better, or more accessible pre-natal and early birth care for each mother & child we’d have a ton less societal issues in coming years. But try and get people to buy into pro-active measures versus re-active measures. It’s a chore, luckily these folks are doing this work.

Go Now and Support The Big Payback

Church is an Option

May 5, 2014 By Gavin Richardson

Some of my clients sent this over to me as they were pretty certain I’d enjoy a little stab at church.

One of the elements I like about this is the blatant ‘we will cater to whatever whim you have’ when it comes to programming & worship in the church. Now, providing some services for people is fine, but often times they are provided under the ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ motivation versus an actual mission of the church. When church is, essentially, a place of transactional goods and services then it is an option for me to choose from (like any other business). When church is a community and place of transformation then it is harder to call it an option versus an integral part of ones life.