Category: Marketing Automation

All about Marketing Automation that you ever wanted to know

  • Get Higher Conversion Rates with SMS Messages

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  • Highlighting Text Input with Jetpack Compose

    We recently launched a new feature at Buffer, called Ideas. With Ideas, you can store all your best ideas, tweak them until they’re ready, and drop them straight into your Buffer queue. Now that Ideas has launched in our web and mobile apps, we have some time to share some learnings from the development of this feature. In this blog post, we’ll dive into how we added support for URL highlighting to the Ideas Composer on Android, using Jetpack Compose.We started adopting Jetpack Compose into our app in 2021 – using it as standard to build all our new features, while gradually adopting it into existing parts of our application. We built the whole of the Ideas feature using Jetpack Compose – so alongside faster feature development and greater predictability within the state of our UI, we had plenty of opportunities to further explore Compose and learn more about how to achieve certain requirements in our app.Within the Ideas composer, we support dynamic link highlighting. This means that if you type a URL into the text area, then the link will be highlighted – tapping on this link will then show an “Open link” pop-up, which will launch the link in the browser when clicked.In this blog post, we’re going to focus on the link highlighting implementation and how this can be achieved in Jetpack Compose using the TextField composable.For the Ideas composer, we’re utilising the TextField composable to support text entry. This composable contains an argument, visualTransformation, which is used to apply visual changes to the entered text.TextField(

    visualTransformation = …
    )This argument requires a VisualTransformation implementation which is used to apply the visual transformation to the entered text. If we look at the source code for this interface, we’ll notice a filter function which takes the content of the TextField and returns a TransformedText reference that contains the modified text.@Immutable
    fun interface VisualTransformation {
    fun filter(text: AnnotatedString): TransformedText
    }When it comes to this modified text, we are required to provide the implementation that creates a new AnnotatedString reference with our applied changes. This changed content then gets bundled in the TransformedText type and returned back to the TextField for composition.So that we can define and apply transformations to the content of our TextField, we need to start by creating a new implementation of the VisualTransformation interface for which we’ll create a new class, UrlTransformation. This class will implement the VisualTransformation argument, along with taking a single argument in the form of a Color. We define this argument so that we can pass a theme color reference to be applied within our logic, as we are going to be outside of composable scope and won’t have access to our composable theme.class UrlTransformation(
    val color: Color
    ) : VisualTransformation {

    }With this class defined, we now need to implement the filter function from the VisualTransformation interface. Within this function we’re going to return an instance of the TransformedText class – we can jump into the source code for this class and see that there are two properties required when instantiating this class./**
    * The transformed text with offset offset mapping
    */
    class TransformedText(
    /**
    * The transformed text
    */
    val text: AnnotatedString,

    /**
    * The map used for bidirectional offset mapping from original to transformed text.
    */
    val offsetMapping: OffsetMapping
    )Both of these arguments are required, so we’re going to need to provide a value for each when instantiating the TransformedText class.text – this will be the modified version of the text that is provided to the filter functionoffsetMapping – as per the documentation, this is the map used for bidirectional offset mapping from original to transformed textclass UrlTransformation(
    val color: Color
    ) : VisualTransformation {
    override fun filter(text: AnnotatedString): TransformedText {
    return TransformedText(
    …,
    OffsetMapping.Identity
    )
    }
    }For the offsetMapping argument, we simply pass the OffsetMapping.Identity value – this is the predefined default value used for the OffsetMapping interface, used for when that can be used for the text transformation that does not change the character count. When it comes to the text argument we’ll need to write some logic that will take the current content, apply the highlighting and return it as a new AnnotatedString reference to be passed into our TransformedText reference. For this logic, we’re going to create a new function, buildAnnotatedStringWithUrlHighlighting. This is going to take two arguments – the text that is to be highlighted, along with the color to be used for the highlighting.fun buildAnnotatedStringWithUrlHighlighting(
    text: String,
    color: Color
    ): AnnotatedString {

    }From this function, we need to return an AnnotatedString reference, which we’ll create using buildAnnotatedString. Within this function, we’ll start by using the append operation to set the textual content of the AnnotatedString.fun buildAnnotatedStringWithUrlHighlighting(
    text: String,
    color: Color
    ): AnnotatedString {
    return buildAnnotatedString {
    append(text)
    }
    }Next, we’ll need to take the contents of our string and apply highlighting to any URLs that are present. Before we can do this, we need to identify the URLs in the string. URL detection might vary depending on the use case, so to keep things simple let’s write some example code that will find the URLs in a given piece of text. This code will take the given string and filter the URLs, providing a list of URL strings as the result.text?.split(“\s+”.toRegex())?.filter { word ->
    Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(word).matches()
    }Now that we know what URLs are in the string, we’re going to need to apply highlighting to them. This is going to be in the form of an annotated string style, which is applied using the addStyle operation.fun addStyle(style: SpanStyle, start: Int, end: Int)When calling this function, we need to pass the SpanStyle that we wish to apply, along with the start and end index that this styling should be applied to. We’re going to start by calculating this start and end index  – to keep things simple, we’re going to assume there are only unique URLs in our string.text?.split(“\s+”.toRegex())?.filter { word ->
    Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(word).matches()
    }.forEach {
    val startIndex = text.indexOf(it)
    val endIndex = startIndex + it.length
    }Here we locate the start index by using the indexOf function, which will give us the starting index of the given URL. We’ll then use this start index and the length of the URL to calculate the end index. We can then pass these values to the corresponding arguments for the addStyle function.text?.split(“\s+”.toRegex())?.filter { word ->
    Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(word).matches()
    }.forEach {
    val startIndex = text.indexOf(it)
    val endIndex = startIndex + it.length
    addStyle(
    start = startIndex,
    end = endIndex
    )
    }Next, we need to provide the SpanStyle that we want to be applied to the given index range. Here we want to simply highlight the text using the provided color, so we’ll pass the color value from our function arguments as the color argument for the SpanStyle function.text?.split(“\s+”.toRegex())?.filter { word ->
    Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(word).matches()
    }.forEach {
    val startIndex = text.indexOf(it)
    val endIndex = startIndex + it.length
    addStyle(
    style = SpanStyle(
    color = color
    ),
    start = startIndex,
    end = endIndex
    )
    }

    With this in place, we now have a complete function that will take the provided text and highlight any URLs using the provided Color reference.fun buildAnnotatedStringWithUrlHighlighting(
    text: String,
    color: Color
    ): AnnotatedString {
    return buildAnnotatedString {
    append(text)
    text?.split(“\s+”.toRegex())?.filter { word ->
    Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(word).matches()
    }.forEach {
    val startIndex = text.indexOf(it)
    val endIndex = startIndex + it.length
    addStyle(
    style = SpanStyle(
    color = color,
    textDecoration = TextDecoration.None
    ),
    start = startIndex, end = endIndex
    )
    }
    }
    }We’ll then need to hop back into our UrlTransformation class and pass the result of the buildAnnotatedStringWithUrlHighlighting function call for the TransformedText argument.class UrlTransformation(
    val color: Color
    ) : VisualTransformation {
    override fun filter(text: AnnotatedString): TransformedText {
    return TransformedText(
    buildAnnotatedStringWithUrlHighlighting(text, color),
    OffsetMapping.Identity
    )
    }
    }Now that our UrlTransformation implementation is complete, we can instantiate this and pass the reference for the visualTransformation  argument of the TextField composable. Here we are using the desired color from our MaterialTheme reference, which will be used when highlighting the URLs in our TextField content.TextField(

    visualTransformation = UrlTransformation(
    MaterialTheme.colors.secondary)
    )With the above in place, we now have dynamic URL highlighting support within our TextField composable. This means that now whenever the user inserts a URL into the composer for an Idea, we identify this as a URL by highlighting it using a the secondary color from our theme.In this post, we’ve learnt how we can apply dynamic URL highlighting to the contents of a TextField composable. In the next post, we’ll explore how we added the “Open link” pop-up when a URL is tapped within the composer input area.

  • The Influencer Outreach Tool that save you time.

    submitted by /u/AjPicard913 [link] [comments]

  • How Marketers are Navigating Q4: Traffic, Lead & Email Data from 150K+ Brands

    If you’re a marketer, it’s likely been a very – odd – Q4!
    On top of racing to the finish with end-of-year reports, campaigns, and project memos, you’re also in the thick of annual planning for the new year.
    And, to add one more complicated layer to the mix, many marketing teams are waiting in the balance to see how our uncertain economy and the continuance of unprecedented global events will impact their work.
    While we don’t have a crystal ball, our final analytics report of the year aims to give you an insightful glimpse of how industries are performing in Q4, and help you make the most informed decisions for your brand as 2023 begins.
    Without further adieu, let’s dive in.

    About this Data: These insights are based on data aggregated from 158,000+ HubSpot customers globally between November 2021 and November 2022. Because the data is aggregated from HubSpot customers’ businesses, please keep in mind that the performance of individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, might differ based on their markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage, and/or other factors.
    Mid-Q4 Marketing Themes
    Overall Themes
    With seasonality – which we began to see in our last recap – in full swing, industries linking to retail, travel, and leisure are seeing unsurprising month-to-month upticks in conversions, leads, and even traffic. Meanwhile, industries like construction – which are often less active during the end of the year and in uncertain financial times – are seeing some MoM and YoY decreases.
    Overall, year-over-year leads and conversions are trending up, which could be a positive sign for marketers who want to show that their work does impact their brand’s bottom line.

     

    Below, we’ll dig into a few specific marketing themes.
    Website Performance Continues to See Seasonality
    Website Traffic
    Compared to October, websites across industries saw a significant traffic decrease in November, with Construction and Financial Activities seeing the greatest dips. Only Leisure and Hospitality saw a significant MoM gain, which makes sense due to holiday-related travel and annual vacation planning on the rise.
    Luckily, many industries are seeing year-over-year traffic boosts.
    Manufacturing as well as Trade, Transportation & Utilities (which includes the retail industry) lead the pack with 6.3% and 6.2% increases respectively. The only industry which didn’t see a boost was Construction, which saw a slight dip of 2.6%.
    As we mentioned in previous reports, the construction industry’s performance could be due in part to the season as well as current macroeconomic conditions.

     

    Website Conversion Rates
    Month-over-month, website conversions were relatively flat across industries. This can happen due to seasonality.
    One big exception to the MoM data was Leisure and Hospitality which saw a significant 9.5% increase. Not super surprising during the end-of-year holiday and shopping season.
    Year-over-year, we saw the biggest conversion increases from Education & Health Services followed by Leisure and Hospitality. In previous posts, we’ve highlighted that Leisure and Hospitality brands are likely seeing growth due in part to global regions and key travel cities reopening due to fewer COVID-19 restrictions.

    Industry
    MoM
    YoY
    Sample size

    All
    -1.3%
    +9.2%
    127169

    Construction
    -2.5%
    +2.3%
    1177

    Education and Health Services
    +2.0%
    +17.6
    3374

    Financial Activities
    +0.8
    +1.7%
    3628

    Leisure and Hospitality
    +9.5%
    +13.4%
    972

    Manufacturing
    -0.7%
    -0.7%
    3606

    Professional and Business Services
    -3.0%
    +10.2%
    11,708

    Technology, Information and Media
    +2.2%
    +3.4%
    14,208

    Trade, Transportation and Utilities
    +3.69%
    -2.8
    3,087

    Inbound Leads See Positive Movement
    Despite lower or flat traffic and conversions, both YoY and MoM lead trends are actually ticking up across most industries: a positive theme for marketers who are hyper-focused on their business’s bottom line.
    Trade, Transportation & Utilities (which includes the bustling retail industry), and Leisure and Hospitality saw the largest MoM gains.
    Year over year, Leisure and Hospitality also saw a huge YoY gain along with Education & Health Services. And, as a consistent theme, only Construction saw annual and monthly decreases.

     

    Email Opens Hold Steady Despite More Sends
    While most email marketers expect to see email engagement drop as the holidays begin in November, there was only a 1.3% open rate decrease, despite a large 13% increase in sends (likely due to end-of-year campaigns and last-minute pushes to hit numbers). Additionally, more subscribers were likely opening and potentially engaging with emails this month as all industries saw a 10.3% open increase.
    Despite positive movements in November, marketing email is still dealing with some long-term challenges as opens and open rates have decreased by 14.5% and 10.1% respectively – even with more companies embracing a slightly more modest number of email sends.

    Metric
    MoM
    YoY
    Sample size

    Email sends
    +13.9%
    -3.9%
    144,733

    Email opens
    +10.3%
    -14.5%
    144,733

    Email open rate
    -1.3%
    -10.1%
    144,796

    Starting the Year with a Full View
    While these November numbers show some industries working their way back from slower growth in 2022 – and a few still continuing to keep up numbers in seasonality and current macro-economic times – it’s important for marketers to look at all possible data when planning out their strategies for January and the new year ahead. That’s why, on top of reports like these, it’s important to look at:

    Your annual and MoM website traffic and conversion data
    Your leads, sales, and revenue, especially as compared to direct competitors
    The direct and indirect ROI of your inbound campaigns, such as marketing newsletters.  

    To keep you informed as you kick your new marketing plans off next year, we’ll be launching a series of posts across the HubSpot Blogs in January to give you an overall look at how businesses performed throughout 2022, as well as insights on how business heads, marketers, sales teams, and other departments can adapt in 2023. Stay tuned!
    In the meantime, read through our previous reports below:

    Are Seasonality & the Economy Impacting Marketers in Q4? [Traffic & Conversion Data from 150K+ Companies]
    The Top Traffic, Conversion & Lead Trends in Q3: Data & Takeaways from 120,000+ Businesses
    Your Guide to Summer Web Traffic, Conversion & Lead Performance Across Industries [Data from 150,000+ Businesses

    Or, download our free State of Marketing Report below to dive deeper into what marketers focused on this year.

  • How to automate you,re business

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  • KPIs to see user active in my Database

    I have a database for marketing campaigns (mainly SMS and email) and I I want to know if the users are active. I suppose that to maintain database alive i should use some tool of marketing automation. What KPIs should I keep in mind? Thanks. submitted by /u/mikiki310 [link] [comments]

  • Marketers Say This Generation is the Hardest to Reach: How to Connect With Them [Data]

    Which generation do you think is the hardest to reach with marketing content?
    Is it Gen Z, hiding out on TikTok and exploring virtual worlds like Roblox? Or Millennials who many other generations think are busy with “quiet quitting?”
    While the two generations above are incredibly unique, it’s neither. The data we recently found might just surprise you. 

    According to our most recent survey of 1,200+ marketers, it turns out Baby Boomers (age 55+) are the hardest to reach: 

    Because Boomers are the oldest generation, and might even have more purchasing power than others, you’d think we’d know them — and where to market to them — pretty well by now. Right?
    The truth is, while marketers find it challenging to understand and engage younger ever-evolving generations, Boomers are the clear outlier.
    Why? It all goes back to how Boomers like to discover and purchase products, which stands out like a sore thumb compared to other generations.
    How Boomers’ Shopping Habits are Different
    You might think Boomers are the hardest to reach because they’re not always on the internet, but our survey of over 1,000 consumers shows that more than two-thirds of Boomers use social media. On top of that, searching online is one of the most common ways they discover new products.
    So what exactly is it that makes the 65+ audience so hard to reach? In a nutshell, most marketing efforts targeting either Gen Z, Millennials, or Gen X will likely reach all three generations to some extent – while leaving boomers in the dark.
    For example, marketers can effectively reach the three younger generations by advertising on social media, streaming services, and on YouTube — but this would do a terrible job of reaching Boomers, shown in yellow below.

    Just 17% of Boomers have discovered a product on social media in the past 3 months. This drops to 13% for streaming services like Netflix, and goes down to 8% for YouTube ads. In comparison, these are among the best channels for reaching Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X.
    So where can you actually reach the elusive Baby Boomers?
     
    The Top 3 Marketing Channels to Reach Boomers
    Television Ads Drive Boomer Product Discovery
    More than any other generation, Boomers prefer to discover new products through television ads, which is also where they discover new products most often
    Online Search is Second Best, but Boomers Do It Differently
    Online search is second-best for reaching Baby Boomers. While this channel is also a top product discovery channel across generations, Boomers are searching differently.
    All other generations heavily favor their phones for online shopping, while most Boomers are using their computers.

    Boomers Prefer Retail Shopping More Than Any Other Generation
    Another common and highly preferred product discovery channel for Boomers is in retail stores. 44% of Boomers have found new products in stores in the past 3 months, and 37% of them say it is their preferred method. Both numbers are the highest of any other generation.
    Keeping Up With Consumer Trends
    Boomers might be the most unique, but each generation has its own way of engaging with brands and their content.
    To keep you updated on how each generation’s shopping habits change over time, we’ll be running our consumer trends survey twice a year. For a more detailed breakdown of Boomers’ shopping habits, along with every other generation, check out our full Consumer Trends Report.

  • 5 Lessons Learned About Blogging After Biking From Canada to Mexico

    As a writer for HubSpot, the most I thought I would use our product was creating marketing blog posts and measuring their performance over time. I never envisioned myself actually using a CMS to, well, you know, build a website.
    But, that quickly changed in the Fall of 2022 when I created a blog that cataloged my journey down the Great Divide, a mountain bike trail that stretches from Canada to Mexico.
    Before I knew it, I was managing Pedaling4Pups.com and producing a handful of blog posts each week all while biking the 2700-mile trail. Even as a seasoned blogger, I was amazed at how much I learned about creating content — mostly when doing it on the go.
    Here’s what publishing a blog post looks like when you’re 12K feet above sea level:

    In this post, I wanted to share the lessons that I learned about content creation from my trip. Below are five tips you can use to create awesome content from the top of a mountain, on a sandy beach, or wherever inspiration hits you.

    How to Start Creating Content On the Go
    If you’re just here for the tips, scroll on down to the next section for the good stuff — I promise I won’t hold it against you.
    If you’re curious about the blog that I created and are wondering how I managed to publish 2 posts per week all while biking through thousands of miles of remote wilderness, you’re in the right place.
    I had two goals when creating my blog. First, I wanted a way to easily share updates with friends and family. What better way to do that than with weekly blog posts accompanied by a recurring newsletter that readers could sign up for?
    The other goal was more personal. I wanted to use my platform to generate donations for a charity. Readers could follow my journey while simultaneously having the opportunity to donate to a cause that I was passionate about.
    This led to me to create Pedaling4Pups.com, a dog-centric blog that would not only follow my journey on the Great Divide but would also support an animal shelter in Ukraine. While on the trail, I wrote two posts per week all by writing and uploading content via my smartphone.
    When I was at my campsite, I would type up content in my Notes app, then upload it to the blog whenever I had the luxury of cell service.

    It was an awesome way to pass the time and I was shocked at how easy it was to pull off. With pre-made templates and themes, creating a website took no time at all, and writing and uploading posts on a phone is more efficient than you may think.
    Skeptical? I would be, too. It wasn’t always a downhill ride (bike pun intended) and I had to adapt my content creation skills to fit each situation I found myself in. Read on to learn about how I did it and what you can do for your website if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
    5 Tips for Producing Content On the Go
    1. You can produce content literally anywhere.
    Creating content on the go is easier than you think. If you have a smartphone or a tablet, you’re already halfway there. I used HubSpot on my phone, but you can use any blogging tool that offers a mobile CMS.
    Even if you just have a pen and paper, sitting in a tent in the middle of the woods, you can still come up with stories, lessons, or other pieces of interesting content that your audience will want to read. Just jot it down while it’s fresh in your mind then transfer it to your phone or laptop as soon as you get the chance.
    As for the actual creation part, you will still need a platform to post your content on as well as internet access so you can share it with the world. Some platforms to consider using while on the go:

    Your Website: Don’t have one? If I can create one, then I’d argue most land mammals can, too (sorry whales). Just grab any free website builder and you’re off to the races.
    Social Media: Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Club Penguin — take your pick. There are plenty of social media sites to choose from and they all have their own features that make them unique.
    Community Forums: These days, it’s tough to be original on the Internet. But, that’s okay. There’s strength in numbers which means there’s likely a community forum or chatroom that would be interested in your content.
    News/Media Outlets: While I didn’t do this personally, I do know two content creators who did get some media attention for their perilous canoe trip down the Mississippi River.

    When it comes to uploading content, you might have to get a little creative as to when and where you’ll have internet access. Here are a few places to keep an eye out for if you’re in need of internet or cell phone charging while on the go:

    Libraries: Libraries always have free wifi and usually don’t care if you hang out for a while. They may even have computers you can use if you’re tired of uploading content via cell phone.
    Gas Stations: Gas stations are great places to upload content. Many offer free wifi and there are often charging ports scattered around the building.
    Rest Areas: Rest areas are a no-brainer if you’re traveling via a busy road. Along with bathrooms and snacks, these places are pretty reliable for free wifi and charging stations.
    Public Parks: While wifi may vary from park to park, keep an eye out for charging ports as well. I found parks were one of my favorite places to stop and steal a charge for a while.
    Restaurants + Coffee Shops: So long as you’re a paying customer, most businesses won’t mind you plugging your phone into their wall outlets. Some will even have free wifi you can use to upload your content.

    So, there you go. If I can find a way to upload a blog post here:
    Then I have the utmost confidence that you can upload your content anywhere, too.
    2. People still read personal blogs.
    That’s right. Social media hasn’t stolen all of blogging’s thunder. Sure, you can post like-grabbing pics on Instagram, or shoot viral videos on Tik Tok, but you can’t replace the storytelling ability that a blog platform offers.
    Blogs are excellent spaces to share personal experiences, and you don’t have to be sponsored by a business to be a popular blogger, either.
    In fact, our research shows that nearly a quarter of all creator businesses do not yet generate income (mine for sure didn’t). That means you don’t need to be a business to drum up an audience for your website, you just need to create compelling content.
    ​​
    Here are some tips for creating awesome content on the go:

    Be transparent: If you’re posting about personal experiences, make them real. People want genuine content and most are good at sniffing out when something is fake. And, as soon as they think you’re ingenuine, it’ll be hard to win them back.
    Be optimistic: Don’t drown in your sorrows or seek empathy too often from your readers. While this may gain you some attention in the short term, people will grow tired of hearing about the negatives if they aren’t ever followed by a few positives.
    Don’t shy away from conflict: Now don’t get me wrong. This is not me saying go out and stir up trouble. This is me saying that my two top-performing posts were the ones where I faced the biggest challenges on my journey. People want to hear about your struggles and how you overcome them so don’t be afraid to play up the dramatics when it calls for it.
    Break the 4th wall: Don’t be afraid to talk directly to your reader. This makes the experience feel more personal like they’re on the journey with you.

    3. Anyone can be a content creator.
    Before this trip, the most website-building experience I had was creating my bio on AOL Instant Messenger. I do know some coding, enough to know I know nothing about coding — certainly not enough to build a full-scale website.
    Fortunately, I had one thing going for me. I worked for a company that sells this website-building tool you might be familiar with. It’s called HubSpot, and like Squarespace or WordPress, one of its tools is a drag-and-drop website builder that makes blogging simple for non-technical people like me.
    Is this a plug for HubSpot? Yes, but that’s not my point. My point is, anyone can build a website if they have access to a drag-and-drop page builder.
    Mine took me about a week or so to design, and from there I was posting content in no time. I used a pre-built template for my web pages so none of my design involved hard coding and I was thrilled with how much customization I had access to with each of the modules that were already included on the page.

    The hard part was getting into the mindset of a content creator. You have to be a little vulnerable and willing to accept that some content won’t perform as well as others. In time, you’ll get the hang of it, but learning what works and what doesn’t can certainly pose an intimidating challenge for new content creators.
    4.  Content creators are everywhere.
    One of the coolest things about my journey was how many other content creators I ran into. My hands-down favorites were Jesse and Fien who manage the website “Two Tired Belgians.” These two adventurers are biking from Alaska to Argentina all in one, two-year trip — putting my measly little ride through the Rockies to shame.
    The good news is that you don’t have to travel 20K miles by bike to become a content creator. There are plenty of reasons to get into content creation and bikepacking is only one of many.
    Below, are a few other reasons why content creators do what they do.

    5. Remember, it’s just a blog.
    At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that your blog is just a blog. Don’t overthink it, just enjoy it as an outlet to share your experiences with others.
    After all, if you’re not making money from it, you should be having fun with it and testing what works with your audience and what doesn’t. If you aren’t having fun creating your content, your audience is not going to have fun interacting with it.
    I learned this lesson when I wrote about my tent getting sprayed by a sprinkler system in the middle of a frigid night. Trying to find some humor in the situation, I wrote about the experience as if I were at war with the sprinkler system and used military terms to describe how I moved my tent to safety or “engaged in defensive maneuvers.”
    I was soaking wet, cold, and sitting in the dark waiting for a sprinkler to stop spraying my tent. The last thing I wanted to do was write about it. So, I had some fun with it.
    I poked fun at myself for pitching my tent in such a ridiculous spot and sarcastically applauded my efforts to salvage the night of sleep. It was quirky and probably not all that funny, but it was what I needed to do to get a post out that day.
    To my surprise, this was one of my best-performing blog posts. Friends and family reached out to tell me how much they enjoyed the lighthearted storytelling and how they thought the whole situation was hilarious and was glad I shared it.
    While it wasn’t my shining moment as a bikepacker, it was memorable and by putting my own humorous spin on the situation, I shared a genuine experience that my audience wanted to hear more about — isn’t that the mark of a good piece of content? 
    Bonus: Dog content always sells.

    If there’s one fundamental truth that I can speak to about bikeblogging, it’s that dog content always sells. It might not make sense, it might be irrelevant, but sprinkle in a few pics of pups if you can and you might just see your engagement go up a little bit.
    Definitely not a science, but it’s a wagon I’m willing to hitch my horse to.