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I've done a lot of crazy things in my life. For example, I moved to Ft. Lauderdale in my early 20s with a guy who I was "like, totally for sure was the one." Of course, he wasn't. Less than a year later the whole relationship had imploded like an episode of Dynasty -- all we were missing were the shoulder pads and clouds of Aquanet.
After all of the mental "what could have beens" had been reduced to ash, I found myself miserable and marooned in Florida.
Now, I know that Florida may sound like a dream to some of you, but I am not a Florida person. I hate hot weather and one 80-degree Christmas was enough to cure me of any fond beach thoughts I might have had. More importantly, however, I was alone.
More alone than I'd ever felt in my life. With no friends or family.
So, one night, after about 20 straight days of sobbing, marathoning Sex and the City, and swearing off men forever, I realized something -- if I didn't leave right then, in that moment, I would be trapped there forever.
I spent all night packing and calling friends.
The next morning at 6 a.m., I threw everything in the back of my silver 1998 Pontiac Grand Am, cranked a well-worn CD of The Doors Greatest Hits, and drove 800+ miles to North Carolina. Because I had friends there, and, well... truthfully, that was as far I as I could travel with the cash I had in my wallet.
It was probably one of the dumbest things I've ever done -- I was broke, I had zero plans or prospects, and I had never driven more than two hours by myself before. It was also the best decision I ever made in my life.
After a few months of odd jobs, more crying, and putting my life back together, I was able to move home to Northern Virginia — and that's when the next chapter in my adult life really began.
A chapter that allowed me to truly get to know myself, find my footing in my career, get married, and so on.
Now that I'm comfortably in my mid- to late-30s, I long for those impulsive days in my 20s, where I would take chances in the face of great risks. Don't get me wrong, I'm exceedingly happy.
But I'm also very set in my ways. The smallest change will stress me out for no good reason. And if that change involves the technologies and platforms I use each day, I'll act like the world is ending.
What does it say about me that I used to be able to roll with the changes and make massive, life-altering decisions in a split second, but now I consider every Facebook update or Google product change a personal attack?
In 2018 alone, Google removed more than 2.5 billion ads running on their platform due to violation of their policies. For the most part, these were illegal event ticket resellers, bail bond advertisements targeting vulnerable communities, and harmful (i.e. malware, identity theft) phishing schemes. However, some of those infractions were committed by well-intentioned marketers who didn't realize they were violating Google's policies with their ads. That's why the team at Google has announced they're adding a Policy Manager into the Google Ads interface next month -- and here's everything you need to know about it.
When we talk about marketing, we tend to get mired in data and other in-human measurable details -- don't get me wrong, those are important. But we also need to focus on how we make people feel through our words and, most of all, our visuals. Take the color blue, for example. How does that color make you feel? Calm? Sad? Relaxed? Lazy? That answer is going to vary from person to person. So, in this installment of our "Psychology of Design" series, IMPACT Account Executive Rachel Palmateer unpacks the emotional triggers associated with blue, how to make blue work for you, and best practices for using blue in design.
B2B marketing organizations collect a wide array of data about our customers; from basic demographic information through buying habits, preferences and products used. But do we use this information to its full potential? Marketers can take the guesswork out of creating targeted and effective marketing programs by using data that we already have at our fingertips.
This guide dives into the holistic state of marketing data as it is today, the challenges within and the opportunities you can harness through using data to its full potential.
It wasn't that long ago that "Stories" -- social photos and videos that are only viewable for 24 hours -- were considered a Snapchat-only product. Now, however, they're a core functionality for the millions of personal users and brands on Instagram and are slowly becoming more widely adopted on Facebook, Instagram's parent company. To increase brand use of the Stories tool, Facebook has announced brands are now able to archive and share their Stories, prolonging the shelf-life of their content -- and here's the full breakdown of what you need to know about this product update.
OK, this week's #TBT is more of an intervention. I don't know if there's some sort of diabolical internet God up in the clouds who delights in torturing me but, this week, I've come across more than my fair share of absolutely atrocious, lazy blog article conclusions.
Figure 1: Archive footage of me at 6 a.m. today after reading a blog that literally had no conclusion. The blog article just stopped.
I have reached my limit. I can no longer be silent while these content atrocities are committed.
So, to save my sanity and to help you not tank your company's next blog article, here are the three things you should never, ever do in a blog conclusion and the exact process I use to write an amazing blog conclusion every single timein a way that's super easy.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Until next week!