How to Navigate the New Instagram
Instagram Just Pissed Off the Entire Internet
Best Practices: How to Engage Users with Facebook Live
Why Business Cards Still Matter & 3 Go-to Sites
The Create & Cultivate App Is Here!
Create & Connect: Going Elsewhere with Drea Sobieski
5 Apps That Will Make You Look Like an All-Star This Year
Move over, paper resume. This year, we’re taking our portfolios digital with these apps that are perfect for displaying your work right at your fingertips.
Create & Connect: Aiming For Success with Michelle Madsen
With Michelle Madsen blogging full time, working photo shoots, meetings on top of meetings, and even slotting in time for a trip to Canada, it’s amazing to think that someone who works so hard for their own brand, as well as others, is just so relaxed. So naturally, we had to get into her mind to see how she deals with the busy trap while still keeping her cool.
Create & Connect: Sisilia Piring Works Hard, Cuddles Hard
Hear from Sisilia herself on why the Logitech K380 Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard works with her fast-paced lifestyle. This week on the Create & Connect series presented by Logitech, Sisilia tells us all about what's coming up next, what inspires her, and a former job with a "sassy" boss.
Create & Connect: Mel Rod's Stylish Life Depends on Her Phone
In 2010 when Mel Rod created her now popular style blog MelRodStyle, it was more of a fashion journal. Five years later, having secured past partnerships with major brands like Keds, Smashbox, and Tacori, we’d call it more than an online diary. The speed at which she needs to operate is warp, moving between staying true to her brand, and engaging her readers on social. Every day brings the potential for something new-- plus, the influencer has a wedding to plan. She is on-the-go more than ever, and still admits to preferring the old-school “bulk” of a laptop to her phone.
Fashion With Function: How Mira Is Changing That Wearable Tech Game
Mira, Mira, on your wrist. It's the fitness bracelet embraced by bloggers like Sincerely Jules that can be easily worn with other stackable bracelets, or solo. If you're confused, you're not the only one. Only recently has the intersection of fashion and fitness hit its stride. Think: Adidas Originals, Alo Yoga Wear, and Mira-- a game-changing fitness tracker and bracelet.
Gone are the days of rubber bracelets that merely track your steps or your heart rate. Everyone wants a Mira. So we checked in with Melissa Dowell, Mira's Events Marketing Operations Associate to chat all aspects of Mira's healthy and fashionable world.
Motivate Your Monday: 10 Tweets to Start the Week Right
Let's talk turkey. It's Thanksgiving week, which means airport lines, pumpkin pie, and feeling awkward during catch-ups with old friends and the uncle you haven't seen in 10 years.
So, to kick the week off and bring you a bit of #MondayMotivation we're bringing you 10 Tweets we love-- some to make you laugh and inspire, and others to give you something to talk about when you run out of convo starters between bites of stuffing.
WTF Is Periscope? And Why Should You Be On It Right Now?
Kayvon Beykpour and Joseph Bernstein saw a problem: they felt that despite the billon plus smartphone users all over the world, the camera was still an underused resource. A bit of a head-scratcher considering the 400 million active users on Instagram alone as of September 2015. But the digital entrepreneurs wanted to know why there wasn’t a way to see what was happening right now, anywhere in the world. Not in pictures, but in live stream video.
Their goal was to “build the closest thing to teleportation.” To jump around the world in seconds to see things that inspire us, make us laugh, motivate and excite, teach us, and ultimately, make us band together.
They created Periscope. An app that had so much potential it was purchased by Twitter while still in beta.
And then it topped 1 million users within its first 10 days.
So how is this going to change social media?
Live video-streaming is not new. Apps like Meerkat existed before Periscope. Webcams existed before Meerkat. But there is always one platform that takes an idea and makes it beautiful. After all, photo-sharing existed before Instagram, but no one spends hours lost in a Flickr hole.
Let’s talk business. What Periscope can offer brands and bloggers is multifold. At its most basic it allows for direct-live-to-consumer marketing and connection. Watchers can comment and heart videos and choose to “follow” channels, much in the same way they can on Instagram. Whistle alerts can be sent every time a broadcast from someone you follow starts.
Within the app, videos can be watched for up to 24 hours and users can share these broadcasts with their Twitter followers. (Something that Twitter blocked Meerkat from doing once it acquired Periscope.) There are also already apps designed to capture and store your Periscopes— like Katch— so that they can be embedded on your blog or company’s site. Brands will also be able to promote live events. All of this has the potential to lead to brand loyalty and sales. If someone sees something they like on Periscope, it’s free advertisement and an instant commercial platform.
Same goes for bloggers. Not only will it change the way they connect with their audiences, but it could also lead to sales for brands they work with. Whether it’s Shea Marie of @peaceloveshea taking you behind-the-scenes during NYFW or Claire Thomas of @kitchykitchen live-streaming a recipe and tagging knife brands that she’s using. Which is a key feature in potential Periscope-born partnerships: bloggers can tag brands within their stream that they are either already working with or are interested in partnering with in the future. It's not just live-streaming, it's a live revenue stream.
So how is this going to change the social world?
Human connection. Information sharing. Real time unfiltered news. The humanity in the app is where the raw power lies.
Beyond the inevitability of the business side-- the sponsored posts and paid-to-promote content-- Periscope's unmediated access to anything from anywhere puts the individual in control of information. Sure, bloggers and brands will be able to craft and control their image, but to be able to “channel-surf” from NYFW to the moon to a discussion about women’s healthcare to a protest in Rome, connecting with people all over the world, has unlimited potential.
"This going to change the social world."
Tweet this.
The app is offering a "Teleport" option, which takes users to a random place in the world and shows them a broadcast.
It is also provides a "Mutual Broadcast" option, where you can start a private broadcast for people who you follow and follow you.
Part of the beauty of Periscope is in its simple truth, and the somewhat utopian hope of its founders. The hope that the most important events and conversations will be documented. Its possibilities are as endless as there are people and places in the world. The stories are everywhere. Life is everywhere.
We just need to pick up our phones, and Periscope.
Create & Connect: On-the-Go with Go-getter Puno DosTres
When you work as a creative, the need to produce quality innovative work is always on your mind-- even if that means you’re working on multiple projects at once. That’s how us creatives function, and we find solace in the chaos of multitasking. Our friends at Logitech get it, and that’s why we’re in love with their new K380 Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard. A piece of tech that allows us to do just that.
In celebration of the release of the K380 Multi-Device, we’re highlighting some of the hardest working women in the digital space. All of whom have multiple projects under their belt, and whose careers have thrived off of multitasking and efficient productivity.
Off The Grid: 5 Innovative Instagrammers Thinking Outside The Box
By nature, Instagram is meant to be a visual gateway to people's lives, creative minds, and storytelling. Quite often, we find ourselves following people that use Instagram in the same way that they use Twitter to update their followers with status updates, but there are accounts that know how to use Instagram to full its full potential and go way outside of the box.
With a set vision and story to tell on your Instagram, followers will always be more inclined to look at your Instagram and look at the thought behind it, rather than stop and look at your photo while they're scrolling through their Instagram feed. That's why we've compiled a list of some of the most impressive Instagram accounts that have inspired us to go beyond a single post and make a feed that can live together as a whole.
Ask Camille Styles: How Do I Build My Following?
On Instagram, we asked what you wanted to learn from the lovely Camille Styles and your questions came pouring in. Camille is a blogger and party stylist living in Austin, Texas, and the author of the book Camille Styles Entertaining. As her name would suggest, she has an impeccable eye and is known for transforming a space and making the whole thing seemed effortless. Below, she answers a question that we're sure tons of you are wondering about, and this is just a taste of her wisdom! Catch Camille live at #CreateCultivateDALLAS, where she'll be speaking on the panel Brand Vibes: How to create a brand that lives beyond the blog bubble.
Snap To It: Using Snapchat to Build Your Brand
How's this for a snappy statistic (pun totally intended): 41 percent of teens use Snapchat, and it's the third most popular social network (after behemoths Facebook and Instagram). In the 18-29 demo—the ultra-coveted millennial age group— 26 percent cop to using Snapchat, and a remarkable 70 percent of those users are women. There are about 26 million Snapchat users in the U.S. alone, and they send a whopping 400 million snaps a day. So if your brand isn't already on Snapchat, now would be a good time to start! Here, we've got you covered with a few tips and tactics to for making the most out of it, whether you're jumping in for the first time or just want to grow your audience. Now, snap to it!
Smash Past The Noise: How to kill it in a crowded Instagram space
My head is still reeling from the wealth of useful insight & information I learned at the most recent Create & Cultivate event in Chicago. Most notable were those addressing what it takes to stand out in today’s crowded social media space. Whether you chooseone platform or a few in particular, the tip to stand out from the masses, is by just that. Standing out!
