Category: Social Media + Influencer Engagement

Help Santa Find Harper and Zephyr

Dana PhelpsBlog, In Our Community, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , , ,

We’re running out of time! Christmas is just a little more than two weeks away, and somewhere young Harper and Zephyr’s Christmas fate might just depend on YOU helping us get a note from Santa in their sweet little hands.

In a letter dated December 5, 2015 on quite fancy stationery, Santa Claus disclosed that Harper and Zephyr are currently on the Nice List. However, he ends the letter with “I’ll be watching,” after saying to be good by sharing and listening to Mommy.

Letter from SantaCould Harper and Zephyr possibly be teetering on the slippery slope of naughty and nice? Will they take their toys and retreat to their own selfish play and turn a deaf ear to Mommy’s polite requests to pick up their dirty socks off of the floor if we don’t take to social media to find them? At the very least, wouldn’t it be a shame for the beautiful calligraphy work of Mrs. Claus to never be admired by Harp, Zeph and Mommy? We can’t rob them of this heartfelt holiday keepsake!

Santa’s letter is a mystery. It was found on Glenwood South in Raleigh on Saturday. Did it fall from Santa’s sleigh as he was doing a pre-Christmas fly-by? Was it the victim of an overstuffed mail bag of holiday cards? Perhaps it was delivered to the children that morning. I can imagine Harper reading it to Lil Z and insisting on carrying it along for Saturday errands with Mommy. As they were released from their car seats and clasped hands to skip to The Cupcake Shoppe, it fell to the curb, caught wind and drifted up the sidewalk, just as Mommy’s gaze drifted down the street to the The Raleigh Wine Shop. Oh wait, maybe that was me…and then I found a letter from Santa!

Please help us find Harper and Zephyr by sharing this post on your social media channels. We want to be good little Santa’s helpers and deliver this letter to its intended recipients.

Harper and Zephyr

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Blogger Spotlight: Sarah O’Grady

Cherith AndesBlog, Oh Momma Monday, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , ,

Kvetching, the official inspiration of Sarah O’Grady’s foray into bloggerdom. After developing a sassy take on New York City, Sarah found roots in Durham and channeled her experience into her now-prominent blog, Escaping New York. Her locale might have changed, but her honest, earthy writing style has not. Here’s Sarah’s take on North Carolina life, a mash-up of creative development at Lenovo (her day job), grocery shopping snafus and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” sing-offs.

Kicking Off a Kvetching Trend

I started blogging in 2006 while living in New York City. My best friend Keren and I came up with an idea for a blog called Kvetchette; our tagline was, “We complain so you don’t have to.” We’d post about things that annoyed us about living in NY, or about work, or celebrity gossip. We took turns writing posts about things like “Umbrella Etiquette 101” and “Dear Crazy Lady in the Massive Mercedes Who Almost Ran Me Over.” It pre-dated the snarky nature of digital media today (Gawker, HuffPo, Buzzfeed) so I like to say we were blogging trendsetters in some respects! I have had a few blogs since then, and have now settled into Escaping New York – my take on life after having escaped the Big Apple Bubble.

I blog because I love making people laugh, I love knowing I can help someone who is looking for answers, and because I’ll always be a writer at heart. Despite what else is going on in my world professionally or personally, it’s my creative “release.”

Juggling Parenting and Blogging

Sarah and her husband
Sarah and her husband

Well, I juggle more than just that – I also run content and creative at Lenovo. (I am woman, hear me roar, right?!)  I write at night after the kids have gone to bed and my hubby is holed up in his own office, busy building his media empire (The Cauldron, which he recently moved to Sports Illustrated! Shameless plug, I know.) Juggling all things “life” is part of the fun. I’m a worker bee… I need to constantly be in motion, thinking, doing, creating, exploring, brainstorming.

My Inspiration: $200 Chia Seed Snacks

Sometimes, a great idea for a blog post will come to me in the most random place. Like when I’m in Whole Foods, and realize that for me, Whole Foods is an escape into a world I only dip a toe into now and then. Like pretending I’m super health-conscious about everything I put in my body, because let’s be honest, I’m not. I love a Chick-Fil-A sandwich as much as the next person. So I wrote about it later that day. I mean, I can’t be the only one who puts on her fancy hemp hat when walking in there to spend $200 on random chia seed versions of things. So that’s what I love most about blogging. Having a point of view and sharing in with the world – and hearing from other people that I made them smile because they’ve totally felt that way too.

SarahOGrady3My Down-Time Fuel

What do I when I’m not blogging? I sing a really badass version of Itsy Bitsy Spider. I save recipes to my Pinterest boards for things I’m probably not qualified to be making. I bribe my children to snuggle with me. I come up with career ideas for myself, and file them in my brain under “Some Day.” And I convince my family to pile in the car each weekend and go explore corners of the Triangle, together.

If My Kids Could Blog…

Hot topics would include Top Ten Moments My Mommy Has Tried to Capture on Instagram (But Failed) and Top Ten Things My Mommy Has Tried to Make Me Eat But I’m Not Having It.

Sarah’s Top Picks Right Now

  • The Walking Dead franchise
  • CC Skye jewelry
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Date nights in downtown Durham, which is poppin’ right now – so many amazing options! 
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Blurred Lines: Social Media and The News

Sarah HattmanBlog, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , , ,

It has been nearly five years since I left television news for a career in public relations – or “the dark side,” as my friends and former colleagues in news call it. Five years isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it is plenty of time for social media to grow exponentially, shape the way newsrooms operate and change the way people consume news.

I remember it vividly. I was working at KRQE in Albuquerque, N.M. A colleague was walking out the door to cover a high-profile trial when the news director yelled from his office, “Don’t forget to live tweet!” It was 2009, and Twitter was exploding. During that year alone traffic on the site grew by 1,100 percent, and the total number of tweets increased by 1,400 percent.

Fast forward to 2015, and social media continues to become more and more intertwined with traditional media. Just a few weeks ago, I watched WTVD’s Stephanie Lopez record Facebook teases for her story about Dairy Queen’s Miracle Treat Day. Thinking about how social media is impacting journalism, I reached out to Sean Maroney, evening anchor at WNCN, and Andrea Griffith Cash, VP of content at Durham Magazine and Chapel Hill Magazine. I asked them to explain trends that they noticed developing in the world of news and social media.

  1. Sean: “Social Media is changing the landscape in T.V. More and more people say, ‘I saw your story on Facebook.’ It’s changing the consumption of media and the way we interact. They comment, they share, they’re engaged.”
  2. Andrea: “It used to be that I only had to consider if a pitch was good for our print products. Now, I run everything through several filters. Would this be a good print story? Would this make a nice blog post? Is it worthy of just a shout out on Twitter or Facebook? Could it work for our weekly e-newsletters?”
  3. Sean: “When I got my start more than 10 years ago, I was an intern on the assignments desk at WTVD. I would start my day with a list of about 60 numbers that I would call up and say, ‘You got anything for me today?’ That’s how we got our news – by calling the police department and other agencies to find out what was going on. Now we have a list of Twitter accounts that we follow.”
  4. Andrea: “For writers, that also means that their jobs aren’t finished when they turn in the story. Often, they are being asked to promote it on social media and possibly update it online, if it’s a news piece. They also might check online comments and respond to them. They might work on a video that ties in with the print piece. In a lot of ways, you could say the story is never finished.”
  5. Sean: “I recently moderated a social media panel as part of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. I told young journalists I understand that it is a race to be the first, but I encouraged them to be the first to get it right.”

Clearly, social media has changed the way members of the media report the news. How has social media changed the way you consume news?

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Snapchat: From Nudes to Suits

Clairemont InternBlog, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , ,

Editor’s Note: Blog written by our fabulous intern, Caroline Ellis.

When Snapchat was established almost four years ago, the premise was simple: correspond with friends via photos that last up to 10 seconds before they disappear. This type of technology has given social media a kind of impermanence discussed by Nathan Jurgenson in a post published on Snapchat’s blog.

Temporary Content: A New Side to Social Media

Snapchat introduced a concept known as “temporary social media.” Though a revolutionary approach, this idea also opened the doors for a more risqué use of the app, replacing the potential with an inappropriate stigma. In addition to the reputation Snapchat gained, there was that pesky little hack revealing that users’ photos were not deleted forever after 10 seconds, but instead these photos could be saved by friends unbeknownst to the users and uploaded online.

No longer was the reputation simply hearsay, but now consumers were legitimately concerned. Snapchat had to act quickly and effectively to restore its image. Over the course of its four-year run, Snapchat has evolved from a “sexting” app to business and lifestyle tool. Snapchat has foregone any illusion that users are unable to capture images, now alerting consumers when a friend takes a screen shot of their photo.

Stories: The Personal Side

The My Story feature, added in October of 2013, allowed users to share clips from their days with their friends. Disappearing after 24 hours, the My Story feature invited creativity with a literal day-to-day look at someone’s life. My Story created an environment where celebrities could enter the Snapchat world and allow their fans to see a personal and informal side of their lives.

Snapchat has become much more than a “selfie” app. In August of 2014 Snapchat launched Our Story— an expansion building off of the My Story foundation. This was the first time that users could see photos and videos from strangers around the world on their My Story feed. The premise of Our Story is to invite the collaboration of the Snapchat community in a particular part of the world to provide a glimpse into its daily life. Originally launched for the Electric Daisy Carnival, the feature allowed festival goers to upload their snaps for anyone to see. Snapchat’s next step was to expand to college campuses, establishing the application’s target demographic.

Discover: The Business Side

As Snapchat continues to evolve, the question becomes how they can appeal to a more professional audience as opposed to “selfie-obsessed teenagers?” The answer came in January when Snapchat introduced Discover. This addition to Snapchat allowed corporations–including the likes of Yahoo!, People, National Geographic, CNN and ESPN–to create interactive daily stories. The debut of this new feature allows users to stay updated with the latest headlines, scores and fashion trends all in the same place.

Of course the next factor in the equation is how small businesses can effectively use Snapchat. Perhaps it will come by way of the My Story feature with businesses using it to give clients a look into their everyday work lives. Maybe one day Our Story will showcase young professionals working in different cities around the world or will feature local businesses.

The future for Snapchat and small business is unsure, but one thing is certain: Snapchat has proven that it knows no limits, and this limitless mindset is what keeps it exciting.

Now it’s your turn.

Would you consider Snapchat as part of your marketing plan?

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Blogger Spotlight: Molly Stillman

Cherith AndesBlog, Oh Momma Monday, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , ,

Author of the prominent blog, Still Being Molly, and founder of the renowned TriFABB blog network, Molly Stillman strikes a refreshing blend of glam and earth. She deftly juggles the demanding roles of professional blogger and professional mom (because face it: what mom isn’t?), planning high-profile soirees with one hand while dishing out toddler Cheerios with the other.

Clairemont has been honored to partner with Molly on several projects, and we’re excited to spotlight this trend-setting mom in our “Oh Momma Monday” blog series.

Why do you blog?
Molly: I blog because I love to be creative, but I also love to share with and inspire others. Whether it’s an outfit idea, a DIY project, a recipe, a financial tip, or even just a personal story or anecdote, I love sharing it all with my readers.

How do you juggle parenthood and blogging?
Molly: It is tough and is a constant learning process. I work A LOT during nap time…pretty much as soon as my daughter goes down for nap, I am working until the time she wakes up. I also work at night after she is in bed. You just have to fit it in where you can. I really try to make sure that work doesn’t distract me from time with my daughter.

Tell us the scoop: what makes a good blog post?
Molly: For me, a blog post is a success when the reader walks away having learned something, having been inspired to do something or change something, or having laughed. I just want people to feel like they are hanging out with an old friend when they are reading my blog.

The million-dollar question: what started all this fun?
Molly: I had a LiveJournal in college (if anyone remembers what that was), and I used to just write stories, jokes and other random things. After I graduated college in 2007, I shifted my blog and just started writing for fun. I was an English major in school, so creative writing was how I flexed those “creative muscles,” if you will. It then just turned into a bit of a chronicle of my life and grew with me. I never, ever imagined my blog would turn into what it is today!

We’re ready for the backstage tour. What do you do when you’re not blogging?
Molly: I am probably chasing my toddler or hanging out with my awesome husband, John. I am also heavily involved in my church and have a great group of friends.

If your daughter could blog, she would say…
Molly: A car! A bird! A plane! A duck! A doggie! Chips! Crackers! Mommy! Daddy!

What are Molly’s top three “faves” right now? (Take note! She’s a trend-setter!)
Molly: Chipotle. All day. Every day.
The Blacklist (best. show. ever.)
La Croix sparkling water. I drink that stuff all day long!

Thanks to Molly for giving us the inside scoop on the life of a successful blogger (and a mom, at that!). Check out her tips and trends–from fashion finds to kid-friendly recipes. What questions do you have for Molly?

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