Weekend Roundup: Dec. 9
What I've been working on:
Last time I wrote one of these, I mentioned a Christmas-related project I was pulling together for RightNow Media's social media channels. As of Dec. 1, that project started — it's an advent series in which different members of our team take a portion of the Christmas story (1-2 verses) and create some sort of artistic piece inspired by it.
I thought of it a little later than I probably should have (whoops), but we're pulling it off anyway. I work with such incredibly gifted people, and it's been fun getting to share their individual creativity with our online community a little more. And I love getting to keep the focus of our content on Scripture. Their perspectives on each verse have brought so much depth to the story, I can't get over it.
The project lives primarily on Instagram, though I'm posting it to Facebook, too — follow along and let me know what you think! Hoping to build out more social-only content and campaigns like this in the future.
I also mentioned in my last weekend post that I've been using a lot of my margin to build out some higher-level strategy for RightNow's social media marketing. We recently hired a VP of Marketing and Communications, which is super exciting; but when I first started in late July, there wasn't necessarily any guiding marketing direction in place.
For someone who loves the big picture and coming up with ideas, this was a dream; but for someone who is also 24 and in charge of representing an organization publicly, online, it was a little terrifying. I decided I needed to get a bird's-eye view before I started doing too much down in the trenches.
I spent a lot of time talking to other employees, combing through our website, and revisiting old material to get a firm grasp on RightNow's mission, vision, and values; and collect themes in language and story along the way. I then boiled all that down to a one-page "marketing guide," and have used that as a basis for the direction I'm pushing our social media. It may sound a little extreme since, you know, no one is using it but me; but it helps me to have some purpose and parameters to work within on the day-to-day.
The front end of that process lived mostly in notebooks. (Prepare for some real low-quality photos, y'all.) I have a pocket-sized Moleskine that I use for stream-of-consciousness thoughts/meeting notes/reminders(/terribly executed drawings/grocery lists/etc.) where most things get their start:
Then I have a larger notebook that I use for more deliberate brainstorming and project-mapping. The first few iterations of my marketing strategy are in it, alongside content ideas, fleshed-out goals, and notes from various classes, talks, and podcasts:
Once I have things pretty firm there, they usually get moved into Evernote, along with the rest of my brain. Here's what the distilled, "final" guide looks like in there:
Crafting the guide, even if it's unofficial, was incredibly beneficial to me and helps give me an idea of how to structure my day-to-day and future plans. It's not even that I use the actual thing all that much — but I do use the knowledge it took to make it constantly, and I doubt I would have it so ingrained if I hadn't "had" to produce a comprehensive document. It's nice to feel like I have a firm grasp on the heart and direction of the organization, especially as we start laying out plans for 2018! (Wut.)
Randoms for your weekend:
Speaking of analog process, Austin Kleon was on the Hurry Slowly podcast recently and he was brilliant as always.
Speaking of podcasts, Charles Post was recently on both Mountain & Praire and The Rich Outdoors. I think I've mentioned Charles before on here, but if not, he's an ecologist and creative whose work I absolutely love. I don't know how I was first introduced to it, but follow him on Instagram for sure — he's always involved in interesting projects, and he has such unique and important perspectives on conservation/environmentalism. Bridges the gap to a lot of people who care about those topics without realizing they do, if that makes sense.
Strava made a global exercise heatmap and it's dope.
Seth Godin made a list of books to read and that is also dope.
Speaking of lists, the New Yorker's Not-to-Be-Missed shouts of 2017.
