Summer 2021: Creative Moorhead

Are you familiar with Creative Moorhead? Quite simply, Creative Moorhead is a group of creatives who live, work, or attend school in Moorhead, Minnesota. The organization seeks to showcase local creatives across a variety of disciplines from visual artists to yoga instructors.

Creative Moorhead’s first public art project was installed late last week. The Outdoor Gallery features the work of nine artists installed on five buildings in downtown Moorhead – Rustica, Moorhead Public Library, The Rourke Gallery, Ace Hardware, and FM Printing.

This piece is called “Next Stop Fergus Falls,” and serves as a nod to my hometown as well as my love of the gritty aesthetics of the railroad. This digital collage is a duotone and features images from my personal collection of “good stuff” that I’ve collected over the years – a photo of the Ottertail Valley Railroad building that I shot and developed as a student at MSUM, a more recent shot of a graffitied grain car near Rahr Malting in Shakopee, a vintage map of Minnesota, and a well-worn clip-art image of a steam engine.

If you’d like to check it out, the piece is installed on the west side of FM Printing in Moorhead. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see what Creative Moorhead will do next!

Prints! Would you like a print of this artwork? 18×24 digital prints are available by request, $35 shipped. Drop me a line to purchase!

Take-Out Bingo Update (Thanks Covid…) Current 12-9

Small update to the Take-Out Bingo cards… with the new mandate that bars and restaurants in Minnesota halt in-person dining and drinking, a couple of our favorites drop off the list for the time being. Harold’s on Main, Altony’s, and Sunset Lanes will not be open for take-out. We look forward to supporting them when this is all over.

Update 12/9: Mick’s Office and JC Chumleys are off the card as well. Hopefully we’ll see them back in action soon.

 

PDF Link

Moorhead Take-Out Bingo - November 2020

Moorhead Take-Out Bingo Update

Some very small updates to the Moorhead Take-Out Bingo cards. We said goodbye (for now) to Tastee Freeze which will emerge in spring under a new brand. As always, I suspect I’m still missing something. Feel free to message if so!

You can grab the graphic or here’s an updated PDF to print and enjoy!

Support your local Moorhead businesses!

RIP City Pages

Today it was announced that Minneapolis’ City Pages was closing immediately as a result of declining ad revenue due to the pandemic. In an era where print publications are already challenged to stay afloat, COVID-19 has claimed another victim… and it hits home with me.

I’m a life-long music lover. As a teen in the early 90s, a copy of City Pages bridged the gap between my small town and the Twin Cities’ music scene. Whenever I visited family in the Twin Cities, I’d grab a copy of City Pages and dig through its pages, checking out the concert schedules at places like First Avenue, the Turf Club, and The Uptown Bar. I loved reading about bands and culture in “the big city.”

Fifteen years later, my website MNBeer.com was honored with “Best of the Twin Cities” three different years.

Almost 20 years later, I’d find myself in the position getting pitched on City Pages’ ads while managing the marketing and creative for a Twin Cities outdoor retailer. The City Pages rack sat in our entryway, and I grabbed one every week.

Today, I’m saddened to see the news that City Pages is no more. Unfortunately this follows a trend in print media – locally the Fargo Forum has moved from a daily print publication to a two day per week publication. Similar changes have happened with other local and regional publications.

As a designer for both print and digital, I have to admit that print will always win my heart – I love tangible items and appreciate the texture of the paper, ink coating (varnish, UV, etc.), and the weight of nice piece of collateral. That said, I also realize that print can be costly and not-so-great for our environment (think trees, chemicals, solvents, etc.). Still… I’m not ready for the end of print, especially with publications that I’ve felt a strong connection with over the years.

Best wishes to the City Pages staff – I hope they all land on their feet when this all shakes out.

Moorhead Takeout Bingo Update

Our post from May got a little extra attention this week thanks to Moorhead’s wonderful former mayor (thanks Del Ray!) and some others, so it seemed like this might be a great time to add an update. We added Mick’s Office, JC Chumley’s and Casey’s (which was originally overlooked), consolidated the liquor stores and shelved  the “shake” places. I suspect I’m still missing something. Feel free to message us if so!

You can grab the graphic or here’s an updated PDF to print and enjoy!

Support your local Moorhead businesses!

Check Your Work

In the wake of all of the covid-19 craziness, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the news, your new schedule, and the thought that you’ll be enjoying your Guinness and corned beef at home tonight.

Given everything going on, this is a good time to check all of scheduled social media posts, blog posts, email messages, and scheduled advertisements. Are you advertising an event that’s no longer happening? Have your hours changed? There’s no time like the present to look over all of these things and make sure that posts and ads are still relevant.

If you run a business or non-profit with posted walk-in hours, be sure to update your website and social media accounts as well. And while we think it’s great to notify your subscribers about changes via email, it’s good to remember that even the best email is still only read by a portion of your subscribers.

On a related note, there’s no time like the present to remind your staff about your expectations for communication for your organization. People love to share information and though intentions are usually good, this is where misinformation and rumors begin. My practice in the retail world was to: a. limit information shared with our staff who had the “gift of gab” and b. remind everyone that our messaging will be available to customers on a set date and that it will go out through our normal channels.

We know that marketing can be a moving target at times. If you need help with your creative and communication, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

Ten Minute Marketing Project: Google My Business

Let’s make this short and get right to the point. If you have a business or organization and don’t manage its presence on Google My Business, go do it now.

If you don’t have control of your organizations’ listings, you are not alone. Many listings go unclaimed. Other listings that were once attached to a particular employee stop getting updated when that employee leaves the company. Who owns your listing?

With a little time and effort, you can take ownership of your Google My Business account and harness a valuable, FREE, marketing tool.

A free listing makes it easier for potential clients to find you and allows you to take control of your information. Claiming your business gives you access to things like:

  • Business Hours
  • Photos
  • Posts (Offers, Updates, Events, Products)
  • Reviews (And the chance to respond to reviews)
  • Listing on Google Maps

Best of all? It’s free. You can’t afford not to claim and verify your listing.

We know you’re busy. And while you may be an expert in your field, you may not have time to handle the marketing and advertising. Drop us a line if you’d like help building out your profile on Google My Business or other review/listing sites and social media sites. We’re here for an initial buildout, consulting, or regular updates. Drop us a line today!

2 Minutes of Social Media: Hashtag Overload

We’ve enjoyed Instagram since it’s inception. It’s pure visual simplicity allows your images to lead and drive your story. Simple. Clean. Uncluttered. Perhaps even “real” at times.

But those #hashtags! Are you overdoing it?

Much like the old trick of hiding keywords and links on websites (don’t do this), many Instagram users throw down a long list of hashtags with each post. Surely if one hashtag draws a little traffic, 50 will draw 50x more, right? Right?

Much like the old adage, some studies suggest that less is indeed more.  As much as you might want the world to know that you “#love having a #beer with a #beautiful #friend,” perhaps it’s time to reevaluate those hashtags and find tags that really fit. As with anything on the old “Information Superhighway” being relevant is key.

Love? Beautiful? Friend? Entirely overplayed. And as much as we like beer, perhaps mentioning that you’re enjoying #MNBeer or giving the brewery in your photo an @whatevertheirnameis might give you some more traction.

Our advice, take some time to evaluate your hashtags. Don’t just paste the same 30 tags on each of your posts. Take a look at your photo and decide what’s relevant. Does it fit the photo? Does it fit my business?

It’s also worth noting that users who follow hashtags have the ability to mark your tagged posts with “Don’t show for this hashtag.” Though this reporting doesn’t seem to lead to an immediate ban, it seems logical that this sort of information could be a useful tool for Instagram.

 


 

Looking for help with your social media? Whether you’re just getting started or looking for some help evaluating your current plan-of-attack, we can help. Drop us a line today!