Talking with Chef Catherine Gleeson of The Cook Nook

Catherine Gleeson

In the debut episode of The Pubcast‘s eighth season, Lillian Dunaj interviews Chef Catherine Gleeson of The Cook Nook, a recipe blog that also offers personal chef and catering services. Gleeson shares how her passion for cooking drove her to turn her hobby into a full-time business; what the right social media outlets are to target food enthusiasts; why she chose WordPress as her blogging platform and how she went about monetizing her content; and what her current favorite recipes are.

This podcast interview was recorded on Apr 5, 2019.

Talking with Matt Nelson, founder of WeRateDogs

WeRateDogs

Jerrika L. Waller chats with Matt Nelson, creator of the popular Twitter account WeRateDogs. With nearly 2 million followers, the account has been used to quantitatively assess a variety of canines, as well as dismiss haters and occasionally advocate against the current political administration. In this interview, Jerrika and Matt discuss how the account was created, the celebrities whose shout-outs helped promote it, the importance of copyright and attribution, Matt’s current studies in golf management, and more.

This interview was recorded on April 17, 2017.

How to hype an article

E-Book app recommendations

In the article, “Customizable e-book recs on the opening screen of your e-book app?” on Teleread, Joe Wikert discusses the usability of e-book apps and why having tailored reccomendations for readers is a much better way of keeping readers hooked than what they are doing now.

The following posts would be ample in drawing attention to the article.

Tweets:

Each tweet should include a link to the article.

“Why haven’t the e-reading apps given us recommendations for books?”

“Ever feel like you’re not up to date on the latest published books? Our ideas on how e-reading apps can change this:”

“Shouldn’t we be able to see what our friends are reading? Say goodbye to book clubs and hello to in-app recommendations and discussions.”

Instagram:

In the comment on the photo, each will have a link to the article.

A picture of a stack of books, and a tidy e-reader screen with the caption: “deciding which book to read next shouldn’t be a heavy task.”

A picture of a chat in an e-reading app asking “what’s a good new fantasy book out?” and then the “…” reply screen from the friend, with the caption: “your friends know what you like, they should be able to tell you.”

A video of someone scrolling through a list of upcoming publication dates for new book releases with the caption: “Keeping up to date on your favorite books should be as easy as scrolling through Instagram.”

Facebook:

A post with a link to the article, a small blurb, and a picture of a tablet open to an e-book app.

A post opening a discussion in the comments about the availability and accuracy of book recommendations within e-book apps.

A link to a survey about which book to read next (for interactive media) and then a question about how much nicer it would be to have these in e-book apps.

Tweet it like it is

Leave the short shorts at home (for now): 10 styles to ease into Summer

Tweets: This is a great platform, especially for magazines because it complies links into a live newsfeed that updates as soon as another company updates their content. By putting a link right in the tweet a user can jump from the New Yorker to this piece in no time.

Why we are over shorts for summer (with bit.ly or condensed link attached to take people directly to the article)

Why shorts are so last season (and last summer) (same as previous: link included)

Coming up short. What to ditch from your summer wardrobe. (link included)

Facebook: This is a great platform for sharing and for people who are ready and willing to waste their time. But seriously, Facebook is used more and more as a way to fill extra time or cure boredom, so people are more willing to click on pieces here, but don’t want to stay long, so emphasizing that this piece is a listicle is crucial.

We planned your summer wardrobe so you don’t have to- (this one is a little more engaging and offers to take the pressure off readers. In typical Facebook article fashion this would have a hero image associated with the article and some meta text underneath)

Summer style (hint: leave the shorts at home)- (this is a little more playful in terms of click-baity type things. The hint makes it more personal and leads people to click on links more often for find out the “secret” hidden in the issue).

10 ways to get your closet ready for summer- (this one isn’t my favorite. I think it would be clicked on, but a really solid image would be needed here to have this 10-listicle stand out from the 1,000 other ones that are also fighting for space in the same feed).

Snapchat: The flow makes it really easy to click through and grab bits and pieces from different articles. I also think this is the less serious, more creative crazy platform. There’s more room to have fun and to catch people’s eye above anything else.

When you feel summer coming: 10 ways to wear it well (gif of kris Jenner dancing)

Be your own #summergoals (gigihadid running on the beach)

Leave the shorts at home: Animated summer closet, with shorts tossed out- this is an animation, or gif type thing. Something with quick movement that’s cute but not too hard to figure out.

A Family Affair– SACCONEJOLY’s familial presence on YouTube

Sacconejoly


SACCONEJOLY is a Youtube channel surrounding the daily lives of the Saccone-Joly family. As of June 2016, the channel has roughly 1,600,000 subscribers. The channel has been up since 2009.

Anna and Jonathan Saccone-Joly upload a video to YouTube every single day. For the last few years, their daily vlogs have shown their lives with Emilia, their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, their two-year-old son Eduardo, and their six Maltese dogs. The family’s decision to have a go at daily vlogging came to a head on June 14, 2010, and they’ve yet to stop.

Videos are uploaded every day at 6 p.m. – the aura is that of a reality TV show, though much more consistent and actually real. In a 2014 article with the Telegraph, Anna and Jonathan said that although they used to share about 60 percent of their lives with their audience, that number has dropped down to about 40 percent now that they have children. One of their most popular uploads is their daughter Emilia’s birth video. However, many of their videos are simply of the “day in the life” variety; that’s part of what makes them so appealing.

The content of SACCONEJOLYs videos begin with a 7 A.M. wakeup, and much of the content is routine: Jonathan addresses the audience with an introduction, there are shots of what’s for breakfast; most days, Jonathan takes Emilia to school, with a little song to begin the ride (“Are you ready for the [pause] school run?”). He returns to the house only to head off for his personal training session with Anna; lunch, time spent with Eduardo, Emilia’s return from school, possibly business meetings. Evenings often see the kids eating dinner first, and then sometimes Anna and Jonathan will have a date night on their own in town. The vlogs end with a “Bye, friends!” and the audience knows that tomorrow, at 6 P.M. sharp, they’ll be watching a new video not unlike the one they’ve just finished.

Although it may seem irritatingly repetitive to watch the same sort of content on a daily basis, that’s part of what makes it so comforting. In the same Telegraph article, Jonathan discusses why they don’t talk about anything too serious or controversial on their channel. “When you’ve had a crap day at work you come home and you want to stick on the Saccone-Jolys. You don’t want to watch something to remind you about the hardships. You want to watch this little fun life with these funny kids and the dogs and Anna and Jonathan.” Viewers, many of whom are young adults with children of their own, appreciate the consistency in having a happy family on camera. Perhaps it helps them to feel that, if Jonathan and Anna seem to be having a great go at this whole parenting and family business, then maybe they can as well. And if viewers are having a rough time, they can at least always count on the Saccone-Jolys to put a smile on their faces.

Improving Social Media Writing Skills

Social media buttons


Please don’t sit on my bed in your outside clothes” by Susan Shain

Facebook:
-Before you get into bed tonight, consider this: What else has been on your bed? The pants you wore to the baseball game? Or maybe the purse you put on the bathroom floor in Starbucks? Here’s why you should start thinking more carefully about what you put on your bed.
-Your bed is a sanctuary. You sleep, read, and watch Netflix there. You know exactly who’s slept in it and where they’ve been. So why would you intentionally contaminate such a place with unfamiliar dirt and germs? Susan Shain explains why you should start being picky about what touches your sheets.
-Do you wear your pajamas on the train and then immediately get into bed when you get home? We hope not! Read about Susan Shain’s mission to prevent the outside world from getting into her bed.

Facebook uses slightly longer descriptions and is better to build up anticipation or interest about an article. It’s much easier to directly target a group or audience when you’re able to ask them longer or more questions about who they are/what they do.

I wanted to create scenarios people could imagine.
For the first post, I mention the baseball game and Starbucks bathroom because many people have been to a game or Starbucks before and can picture the environments.
For the second post, I wanted to talk about popular things people do in bed to, again, remind them of the atmosphere. I thought about mentioning sex directly in the second sentence, but figured it was implied enough by the third sentence.
For the third post, I wanted to create a silly atmosphere that might gross people out a bit and make them wonder about whether that’s actually something people do. And for the people who do actually do that, I wanted to call them out and encourage them to read about why they shouldn’t.

Twitter:
-Do you put the shoes you wear outside on your bed? Here are Susan Shain’s thoughts on why you shouldn’t
Take off those jeans and stop sullying your sheets right now!
-Crumbs aside, do you think your sheets are clean? You might be surprised.
Tweets need to be shorter than Facebook posts and might reach wider audiences. I think directly addressing people in Twitter works, and you have more freedom for how you form those direct addresses.

For the first tweet, I wanted to recognize a habit many of my friends have, which I know some people don’t even consider to be weird or gross. For the second tweet, I wanted to directly address readers as more of a “call to action.” Alliteration never hurts, either. For the third tweet, I combined the audiences of those who eat in their beds and those who don’t. I didn’t want to alienate those who eat in bed. Ending by saying they might be surprised piques their interest into wondering they wouldn’t be clean (besides the crumbs).

Snapchat:
-Reverse video of someone flopping down onto a really nicely made bed with very obvious outside clothes on.
-(Maybe) slow-motion video of someone laying back on a bed with muddy shoes, flips cam to show disgusted face of whoever’s filming.
-Show someone wearing outside clothes sitting in bed all tucked up. Flip covers back to show clearly dirty sheets. Pan up to show person shrugging.

When brainstorming, I thought of the news/media sections on Snapchat, like Refinery 29, BuzzFeed, etc. For these articles, they often have a little video with the article’s title, and then you scroll down. It’s nice to have a visual representation for an article, especially when it can be more fun than simply a picture.

For the first video, I thought making use of the reverse feature would be cool to represent someone changing their mind about letting outside clothes touch their bed. The second video was a more obvious representation of someone dirtying their sheets, with the addition of someone actively judging them. I wanted the third video to represent the idea that although you might not see it, there is still dirt in your bed when you let outside clothes touch your sheets.

Talking with Lorien Green, inbound marketer at Transparent Language

Lorien Green

Lorien Green of Transparent Language is an inbound marketer, using social media and original content to draw customers to the company’s three dozen Facebook pages. Tools such as HubSpot and BundlePost make the job easier, but it’s still necessary to craft the message to your audience. Lorien discusses how she uses and advertises on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ and also the importance of building a personal brand. Using such tools as Hustream and Kickstarter, Lorien has produced the documentaries Going Cardboard and the upcoming Shoot Again: The Resurgence of Pinball.

This interview was recorded August 16, 2014.

Talking with Christine Allen, the catharsis co-founder

the catharsis

Bridget Hess-Mahan interviews Christine Allen, co-founder of digital literary journal the catharsis. Allen discusses how online underground publishing has exploded in the last five years, thanks in part to how social media has made it easier to get the word out about new ventures. By day, Allen is also a creative associate and project manager at Providence Word & Thought Company, a two-person ghostwriting, editing, creative writing, and consulting firm.

Talking with Arjan de Raaf, Totally.Me CEO & CTO

Arjan de Raaf

Tanya Wlodarczyk interviews Arjan de Raaf, CEO, CTO, and founder of Totally.Me, a news aggregator for your social network profiles. In this discussion, de Raaf outlines the problems of big data, the challenges of founding a social media company, and how judicious prioritization can make a small company nimble enough to go up against corporate juggernauts.

This interview was recorded on November 20, 2013.

Talking with Josh Hamel, Hypable.com video game editor

Josh Hamel

Nicole Kempster interviews Joshua Hamel, video game section editor for Hypable.com and intern at Avant Strategies. Hamel launched Hypable’s video game section and saw it through a redesign of the WordPress site and how tagging and search engine optimization (SEO) have changed the creation and packaging of online content; for PR firm Avant, he is a content curator and social media inbound marketer. In this interview, Hamel discusses how to be an online freelance writer and the future of video games and video game journalism.

This interview was recorded on April 6, 2013. Since then, Hamel has left Hypable to focus on his internship at Avant Strategies.