What’s more important: driving traffic to a website or driving traffic into your store? Increasing some vanity metric or increasing sales? These questions lead to a future filled with successful social media marketing programs for retailers!
My colleagueMike McDowellfromSocial Joey and I will be speaking about The Future of Social Media in Retail on August 21 at #RTOWorld18 in St Louis.
We’ll share today’s best practices and results from brands, franchises, and small businesses as well as tomorrow’s tactics for which retailers need to plan. We’ll cover:
Facebook posting – how often, from where, and what types of content
Facebook Ads – boost or create stand-alone ads?
Instagram posting for local retailers
Using Facebook Messenger as an ad network and as a customer service channel
Who should be conducting your social orchestra?
If you’re attending this awesome conference hosted byAPROandTRIB Group, please join us on Tuesday afternoon for this presentation and conversation!
This compilation available only in the UK was the first import record I ever had. Teenaged me: “Wait, records are different in other countries?” Hooked.
It had a cool remix of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and great packaging as you can see here.
Various Artists Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved Mercury Records 1994
I generally dislike tribute albums. But this Kiss tribute from 1994 was cool and the red vinyl version was even cooler! It featured some great signature bands of the 90s including Gin Blossoms, Toad The Wet Sprocket, and Lenny Kravitz.
Garth Brooks’ performance of my favorite Kiss song, “Hard Luck Woman” made me a Garth fan!
Free As A Bird The Beatles Anthology 1 Apple Records / Capitol Records 1995
Free As a Birdwas released in 1995 as the first “new” song by all four Beatles in 25 years. It was part of a multi-media blitz of the AnthologyCD releases and the Anthology mini-series on ABC television.
Yes kids, in 1995, multi-media meant CDs and a TV show (plus a lot of promotion on something called FM radio).
At the time, Free As a Bird was received as a novelty. It was a publicity stunt as part of the Anthology releases. Most fans watched, listened, and said, “Okay, it’s good, but play something from Rubber Soul or Sgt Pepper again!”
But 23 years later, Free As a Bird is BRILLIANT. If you haven’t heard it in a while, give it a listen again please:
How did we get here?
Perhaps our standards just that much lower now. As musicians stopped playing actual musical instruments, did we lower the bar of what constitutes a good song?
In spite of the media’s phony accolades poured upon the likes of Jay-Zee, Beyoncé, and Adam Levine as “geniuses,” the universe hasn’t produced songwriters close to Lennon and McCartney in decades.
Even an unproduced, unfinished scrap song demo from John Lennon is brilliant compared to anything by Kanye West.
A True Beatles Song
I’m a huge fan of the Anthology albums and the mini-series. At the time, I had thought of the new songs Free As a Bird and Real Loveonly as interesting codas. But now I consider them full-fledged Beatles creative achievements.
And unlike Real Love, which is fantastic in its own way, Free As a Bird was not a complete recording. Real Love allowed Paul, George, and Ringo to come in as a backup band to provide backing vocals and a guitar solo to John’s nearly-complete song. But on Free As a Bird, the other three Beatles created 75% of the song that John started.
Also, in writing this, I realize for the first time that Free As a Bird can be abbreviated as FAB. Heh…
2018
I’m glad Free a Bird was made back in 1995 and not 2018. If created in 2018, someone may have convinced the surviving Beatles to use auto-tune. John Lennon auto-tuned. Imagine that…
I’m thrilled to be moderating a timely panel at next week’s#FCMContitled, Build Your Budget to Meet the Customer’s Changing Consumption.
Joining me are two Rock Stars in the franchise marketing space who will share their ideas and experiences in building marketing budgets with an eye on changing consumer media consumption:
Terri Snyderis the EVP, CMO, and Board Member atCheckers & Rally’s and has an impressive history of leading marketing at franchise and global brands such as Dominos, Pizza Hut, and TGIFridays. I had the pleasure of interviewing Terri recently for mySocial Geek Radio podcast and found her insights and trend-spotting abilities in the restaurant space to be second to none!
Sally Facinelliis the Vice President of Strategic Growth atSilvercrest Advertisingand has been working in franchising for 22 years. Growing hundreds – if not thousands – of franchise brands and businesses means Sally will have fantastic ideas to share on marketing budgets in this changing space.
Please join us on Wednesday, June 20 at 3pm at the Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead in the Hope 1-2 rooms. For more details or to register for the conference, please check outFranchise Consumer Marketing Conference.
Pre-Game with the WFN!
On the eve before the FCMCon, theAtlanta Chapter of The IFA Women’s Franchise Network is hosting an event that you won’t want to miss. The topic is “Training within Franchise Systems”, the speakers are excellent, and the networking opportunities will be fantastic!
The Atlanta WFN is the biggest and best chapter in the nation with an executive team that puts together great educational programs and community service events all year!
The most important part of any travel for business or pleasure is planning out the proper soundtrack for your trip. With the 2018 International Franchise Expo starting this week, I wanted to share my playlist of my favorite songs by New York artists, recorded in New York, or about New York.
Love Supreme – John Coltrane
Take The A-Train – Duke Ellington
Blue Monk – Thelonius Monk Trio
I can’t decide on which classic jazz song should lead off. I settled on all three of these.
Pennies from Heaven – Louis Prima
Face it, when you set foot in New York, you feel as excited and sugared-up as Buddy in Elf.
New York, New York – Frank Sinatra
I don’t really like this particular song, but I feel like I must include it.
Piano Man – Billy Joel
This song always painted such a perfect a picture of an old piano bar in the city. I can smell the beer on the microphone.
Personality Crisis – The New York Dolls
Psycho Killer – Talking Heads
I Wanna Be Seated – The Ramones
One Way or Another – Blondie
If I could go back in time, I would go straight to 1977 at CBGB.
Shattered – Rolling Stones
Bite the Big Apple…
New York Groove – Ace Frehley
Great tune! That is all.
Angela – Bob James
Soft jazz song that you will recognize as the theme to the gritty NY sitcom Taxi.
In The City – Joe Walsh
More theme music – this time from the cult classic film The Warriors!
Double Fantasy – John Lennon
I can’t choose just one song from this album that defines New York City for me.
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues with Kristy MacColl
Yes, it’s a Christmas song. But it also paints an amazing picture of New York City. It’s beautiful & ugly as well as sad & happy all at the same time.
Unplugged in New York – Nirvana
Recorded in New York but not really a NY record. It’s the best live album ever, so I just look for any reason to put it on any list.
New York Minute – Don Henley
Layers and layers of good stuff here.
The Great American Nightmare – Rob Zombie
It’s been the theme to The Howard Stern Show for 20 years. That’s pretty New York.
New York State of Mind (Live) – Billy Joel
Two Billy Joel songs on this list? Yep.
And, go for the live broadcast version from the post-911 televised Tribute to Heroes concert.
And for those wondering where Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen are … I’m sorry, I just can’t.
Social Geek Blog 