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:

Okay, look. I used to be a really stubborn, whiny baby about grammar, judging everyone’s writing no matter where I saw it. After a lot of learning from people who definitely didn’t have to teach me anything, I have a more open mind about variations in language depending on context, medium, and audience. My new philosophy is to do what’s appropriate for whoever I’m trying to reach.

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful…” is a phrase that pretty much sums up winter weather in the Mid-South. Winter time means goodbye patio weather, sunshine, and outdoor activities and hello layers upon layers of clothing, the warmth of home, and the seemingly never-ending stretch of the holidays. Snow days are always a fun treat, but how do you make sure your marketing efforts don’t get put on ice? Try these 5 tips to make the most of your winter marketing!

I have heard too many times in my career that business owners don’t think they need a digital marketing strategy, preferring to invest instead into one or more billboard, radio, television, or print advertisement contracts.

My second favorite thing about traveling is writing about the trip. My first favorite thing is the trip itself! Once I get back home, I enjoy reliving all the moments – good and bad – that make travel so exciting, eye-opening, and just plain fun. Travel is a gift for content writers; it widens our minds, offers new food for thought, and gets creative juices flowing.

Thanksgiving is synonymous with many things: turkey, family gatherings, gelatinous cranberry goo, and gratitude. In fact, giving thanks and showing gratitude may be the two things that you hear about most often throughout the fall season. But, there is a fun etymological difference between the two words. Being thankful is an emotional reaction to something good or beneficial that happens to you. Gratitude is an attitude of appreciation under any circumstance. So how do you cultivate a culture of gratitude through social media content?

We believe in working with community-based businesses, so they can in turn uplift our community as a whole. We put work into our community daily, and in return, they have taken care of us. Campfire Collective continues to grow. Our work continues to be recognized. In return, we’ll continue deep diving into making our community a better place every day.

A few years ago, I was asked to create content for a direct mail campaign, asking alumni of a prestigious school for donations. The money raised would give a few buildings a much-needed upgrade. Luckily, the mailing would go out at the end of October, so we had a great theme to work with – Halloween. Working with a designer, I came up with the idea of a fun postcard with the headline Our Old Haunt Could Use a Little BOOst From You!