There’s no question that the podcasting market has taken off since 2020. Due in large part to pandemic restrictions, podcasting gained popularity as a new way for consumers, individuals, and businesses to connect without contact. In fact, almost 90 million people listened to podcasts in 2022 and that number is quickly increasing. Why should you consider podcasting for your business? Here are my top three reasons why podcasting continues to be an important marketing tool.

One of the fun facts about Campfire Collective is how we got our name. Head Trailblazer Shannon Briggs is a huge fan of stepping away from the digital world and getting out into nature. Fortunately, Memphis has an abundance of lush and beautiful green spaces!

One of my favorite things about marketing is putting myself in the shoes of the intended audience. What will catch their eye? What will they find important? How will their attention travel through the information we want them to see?

After carefully crafting every sentence, you’ve finally gotten your blog, article, or press release written. Now what? As tempting as it may be, the next step is not to send it directly to your editor or client. Resist the urge to cross your writing project off your list and PROOFREAD.

Spring is almost here and the flowers are starting to bloom. Along with a welcome change in temperature, the season is associated with rebirth and new beginnings. Whether it's through TikTok videos, Instagram reels, or other video content, it is important to refresh your content strategies for the spring and summer.

I say this with all the love and care in my heart: you are behind on marketing your event. Do I know when your event is? No. Do I know what you have done so far? Also, no. Yet, from experience, I am 90% certain that my statement is true.

“Can’t we just run ads and not worry about the other stuff?”
“Why do I have to pay to be on Facebook? Posting is free.”

These are both common conversations I have with clients, colleagues, and friends. They are justified! As social media marketing becomes increasingly more complex, understanding the roles of different types of content are even more important. While “paid content” and “organic content” can sound like fancy marketing industry terms, it all boils down to whether there is money involved. Paid content involves ad dollars, and organic content does not. Yet, both are important for different reasons, and together they can make a social media strategy reach its full potential.

At some point, in the ’90s I think, people started using “backslash” for every slash associated with computers. I’m not sure why, I guess it makes them feel all Matrix-y, like a very fancy hacker? In any case, nowadays a lot of people don’t know there’s a difference. Behold:

Each year thousands of football fans around the country tune into the Super Bowl. For creative communications professionals like myself, the Super Bowl is all about the awesome ads. This year, the Super Bowl featured a wide variety of commercials from market leaders like T-Mobile and M&MS. Here are my top 5 ads from Super Bowl 57.

When my business started to scale several years ago, I realized it was time to stop going with the flow and establish some measurable benchmarks. With some trial and error, I found a system that works for me, and now Campfire Collective, so much so that I am sharing it in the hope that others can find inspiration for setting a framework for their business, life, or personal goals.

Love is in the air and the team at Campfire Collective has one true sweetheart we can all agree on: Memphis. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we gathered our thoughts together about what makes our city and community so worthy of our affection. Some of our reasons are the same – we do love our food! – and we hope some will spark new ideas. From all of us to all of you, here are just a few of the things we love about Memphis:

Oh, Valentine’s Day! The day when true lovers exchange tokens of affection – or the day when commercialism rears its ugly head. Your point of view may depend on your mood, or your relationship status. Love it or hate it, however, Valentine’s Day is a huge revenue-spinner in the U.S. and smart marketers know how to use it to their advantage. For a copywriter, the day provides plenty of sweet ways to add a little fun to your content.

Ahh, alliteration! Is it a delightful device or a pitfall of perilous phrasing? Considering that it took me 30 minutes to come up with the headline and the first sentence of this entry, I’m leaning towards “pitfall.”

As I began putting together a plan for Campfire Collective, I always knew that one important component would be community service. I wear my heart on my sleeve for Memphis – if you’ve read my blogs and the Campfire Collective newsletter, you know I can’t hide my love for my hometown. This community has embraced Campfire Collective and made our success possible. Without your support, our endeavors would have fizzled out instead of catching fire!

I never used to mess with the em dash—the oldest, most responsible child—mostly because I didn’t understand what it was for. But y’all, em dashes are like the multi-tool of punctuation. Look at the em dash in all its glory—just waiting for you, the reader, to give it context. They can stand in for parentheses, commas, colons—use them all over if you want, just be consistent with how. Do you like the look of it without surrounding spaces, like I do? Or — and it pains me to break my own consistency here — do you like them with spaces? Do your thing, but what I want is for you to pick one and stick with it, at least throughout one project.

In 2018, I participated in Kat Gordon’s visioning workshop. For those of you who don’t know her, Kat is the creative genius behind Muddy’s Bake Shop and her success is inspirational! Her visioning workshop is based on the methods she and her team of “gnomies” use to plan and make decisions for Muddy’s.

January always seems to be the month of plans. New Year’s resolutions are often a jumping off point for sometimes extravagant plans for the year ahead. Businesses start fresh with new campaigns for the first quarter of the year. Plans include some anticipation: How much time will we need to accomplish this goal? What kind of equipment will we need for our newest exercise routine? The team at Campfire Collective has looked at reports from 2022, as well as our own yearly analytics, and have put together a few marketing trends we believe we will see take off in 2023:

Is it just me, or has this year flown by? While 2020 and 2021 dragged on, the year 2022 seemed to pick up speed. Thanks to vaccines and boosters, pandemic restrictions didn’t affect our gatherings as much this year. The extrovert in me was thrilled by this and tried to make up for lost time. I flooded my calendar with activities, which made each day, week, and month pass by that much quicker.

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to take a look back at trends – from bigger headlights on cars to the rise of the mocktail in bars. We can’t claim to know much about automobile industry trends, but we do have a few social media experts on hand. As we close out the calendar year for 2022, here are the social media trends that popped for the team at Campfire Collective during the past twelve months: