If you tell your audience about your product, they may like it, and they may even go and buy it, but if you tell a story, you will build a relationship that will develop a long-term customer.

As we move into this new generation of marketing with busier consumers, and the demand for written content is being replaced by more visual and auditory content, a new stage of blogging is here, the age of podcasting.

Born between 1997 and 2012 (7 to 25 years old generation z makes up roughly a third of the world population and 40 percent of America's consumers. The internet has always been a part of Gen-Z life and culture.

As you move into the new year, I am sure you have a slew of new goals (as do we), and as you begin to develop your strategy to meet these goals, I would encourage you to focus on three main concepts.

To keep your audience long-term, it is critical to move beyond podcasting. Our ultimate goal is to find content that can overlap shared values and develop a branded content project that will then provide value (entertainment value, educational value, functional value, etc.) to our target audience.

“Visual Branding” is all the visual elements that make up a brand. This includes everything from the logo (of course), founder’s photos, brand photos, brand videos, and initial marketing content.

Branded content can have lots of meaning in context, but at its core, it is a style of marketing that builds brand awareness by focusing on a brand’s and customer’s shared values. Branded content is the opposite of…

Food Photography is beautiful. Food is connective, transcendent, and uplifting. There are as many different types of food as there are people. Dishes can have deep cultural meaning or historical background. There are types of food or dishes that have been created that have then gone extinct, only to be revitalized in the digital age. Cooking is a hobby, a career, and a necessity. There are so many layers to cooking, eating, and creating food. How on earth do you being to capture all of it in a photograph?  

What are the actual, practical benefits of working with a small business? As a small, lifestyle-focused, film boutique, we have worked almost exclusively with indie creatives, businesses, and entrepreneurs. We have learned just how beneficial it is to be able to work with someone who is of the same mindset as you. Larger companies and big corporations are in it for the paycheck. Small businesses do need to make money but the reason why they are willing to struggle a little more to get that money is that owning that business and working directly with people is something they care about.

Passion is the fire in your belly that demands you take it somewhere lest it burn you from the inside out. It is a constant feeling of affirmation letting you know that you’re doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing. But it’s a very abstract concept. Much like love, we are told, you’ll know it when you find it. What happens though when we do find it? Or we find it but we are unable to pursue it as a career? What happens if we never find it?

Curate the Vibe. What do you what the onset vibe to be? Do you want formal and professional, do you want laid back and casual? Do you want it to be a collaborative experience or do you want to be given exact instructions from the client? To a certain degree, you have the power to decide what the atmosphere will be. The people we work with will vary. What may work for one client may not work for another. It is our job to be able to read the people, read the project and figure out what will work best for them and for us.

One of the most exciting events as creatives is when you access a new portion of your skillset that you didn’t realize was there. Most independent creatives will agree that new opportunities constantly present themselves when you are open to them and that is how you often discover those new skills. One of the most exciting parts for us this year was discovering our passion for food photography and filmography.

We turn to Pinterest for inspiration, Instagram to see what other artists are up to, and Facebook for praise on our art. The minutes between all of this screen time is what we have left for our brain’s right hemisphere to go wild, but by then it’s been inundated with every idea in the world but our own.

From Hollywood to your local movie theater, the concept of diversity has never been more centerstage.  With the recent success of films such as Marvel’s Black Panther, award-winning LGBT drama Moonlight, and even ensemble-focused action flicks such as Power Rangers, it is becoming increasingly apparent that America’s moviegoers are no longer satisfied with the traditional model of a white, male, heterosexual protagonists.