Blog

Why a whole blog about what setting to use on a coffee grinder? You see I often refer to myself as a 'reluctant coffee snob'. I spent 16 years of my life in Australia which over that time established itself as one of the mecca's of third wave coffee. Or simply put, Australia roasts and makes great coffee. So whether I wanted it or not I was constantly provided with a great cup. This has made my taste buds definitely turn a bit snobby. Once I moved back to America I had to adjust a bit and decided to step up my at home coffee game.

It is no secret that HubSpot's CMS Hub (website builder) is the HubSpot tool that has gotten me the most excited since it's official launch in early 2020. In fact it even made me enjoy working on websites again. Ditching Wordpress was easily the best thing I did for my business the past year. You can read more about that in my post

Coffee and communications go hand in hand. Not just as a metaphor (What Your Coffee Can Teach You About Communications) but also to fuel our creative processes. So while this blog may seem a little off topic at first I think it is an important addition to anyone who works in communications or simply values a great cup of coffee at home.

Ok to start with I have to admit that I am not a web developer by any means. My knowledge of HTML and CSS is incredibly basic. Though I want to share from that perspective as I am sure most people reading this are in the same boat. If you are a developer and are looking for more advanced techniques than I encourage you to jump right back to Google to continue your dive.

It was spring break of my sophomore year of high school. There was no surf and most of my friends had managed to get off our small island in the pacific. With no waves I sat in my room with the time to finally piece together an idea I had for a website.

"I tried Google Ads and didn't see any response, basically it doesn't work."

This kind of response is one I have heard multiple times from people who have tried tackling the world of Google advertising, especially in the nonprofit world. Though Google wouldn't be where it is today if this was true. I also know that many of the nonprofits I have worked with would not have seen the growth they have over the years if you removed Google Ads from the equation.

It's a global pandemic. Life has changed. Some businesses are being hit hard. Others, not as hard and others somewhere in between.

When things get turned upside down like they have, it make sense to go into "hunker down" mode. It's understandable to want to cut all expenses and anticipate the worst. You shouldn't feel bad about these very valid (and sometimes practical) responses.

It has been nearly a decade since I entered the world of digital marketing and ran my first ads on Google and Facebook. So much has changed since then and when I stop to add up the money (mostly not my own) I have spent on these platforms it is staggering. Though what is even more staggering are the results and impact investing in these platforms has had. We live in an incredible era as communicators. I often have to pinch myself when I think about the real life stories of people who have connected to life changing experiences through these ads, these small yet significant moments of communication. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Maybe it makes you want to go start running Facebook ads for your business or organization? Well I am here to explain why that is more often than not a really bad idea.