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Marketing and business strategy podcast for executives and marketing leaders who want to improve outcomes from marketing.
Marketing veterans Devin Bramhall (Animalz, Help Scout) & Margaret Kelsey (InVision, OpenView) use their combined 20+ years of experience to increase the business impact of marketing by creating shared understanding of its purpose and outcomes among marketing leaders, founders/CEOs & others in the C-suite.
Created in partnership with Share Your Genius
An award-winning B2B podcast production company: https://www.shareyourgenius.com/
Devin Bramhall [00:00:01]:
Her assistant took me in front of a mirror and stood behind me and proceeded to describe in detail all of the things that were ugly about me.
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:12]:
I will say tight deadlines are not emergencies. Chaos is not emergencies.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:16]:
It took over a year to get the strike removed and YouTube made them take a course or something on appropriate versus inappropriate content to give the all clear. Isn't that wild?
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:27]:
I'm Margaret Kelsey.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:28]:
And I'm Devin Bramhall.
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:30]:
And this is Don't Say Content.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:33]:
A show created in partnership with Share Your Genius.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:37]:
There's actually a kind of perfect lead into this the topic for today. Because working in customer support before going into content marketing, I had that principle drilled deeply into me by our developers, which is I would receive five emails in one day maybe about something.
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:52]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:52]:
And think it was a huge deal. And we had 5 million users.
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:57]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:58]:
And the developers would be like, how many people reported this? And actually five is somewhat significant because usually if five people report it, it's representative of a greater chunk. If I'm like two people this week emailed about. They're like, we don't care. We don't care, right.
Margaret Kelsey [00:01:15]:
It's not big enough.
Devin Bramhall [00:01:16]:
To me it was an emergency. It was a really big deal. And that is what we are talking about today. Content marketing emergencies. And specifically that there aren't any. It is a non existent thing.
Margaret Kelsey [00:01:33]:
Yeah. And that we can spin ourselves into obviously thinking that something is in fact a content marketing emergency or have others in the organization believe it, but truthfully that's why I went into this as a career and that I'm not a first responder or an ER nurse or doing brain surgery or whatever it is. I cannot handle that pressure. So I took this career path.
Devin Bramhall [00:01:58]:
I did try googling it because I thought, oh, I wonder if there's some secret guide to emergency content marketing. And I was actually relieved by the results. I saw like the first like 10 results. Which is as far as I went. There isn't one really like crisis comms that could include content marketing, but there was no post that was like the ultimate guide to emergency content marketing or content marketing emergencies. I was like, this is great. This makes me feel better about the world.
Margaret Kelsey [00:02:27]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:02:28]:
There's such thing.
Margaret Kelsey [00:02:29]:
How many times have you felt or been drawn into the fact that something is an emergency in content marketing?
Devin Bramhall [00:02:35]:
Never gotten but always do you know what I mean? So I would say we should probably spend a minute trying to define what a content marketing emergency might be if it existed. Because I have a feeling we're just going to come out saying, there's nothing still, but the emergencies I'm saying in air quotes were when my CEO would freak out about something, then I would get nervous and scared or. I remember back in the day, if you made a mistake when you sent your company newsletter, if there was a typo or something, it felt like an emergency because usually the CEO thought it was a big deal. And then you'd get 100 emails saying, there's an error, an insignificant error. Typically that, like, everybody understood what you meant, but those felt like emergencies when I was earlier in my career because I couldn't disassociate embarrassment from making a public mistake to, like, an actual problem for the company that I had created.
Margaret Kelsey [00:03:45]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:03:45]:
Which rarely ever happened. If.
Margaret Kelsey [00:03:48]:
Side note, I feel like people stop. Have stopped doing that. Or maybe I'm just not as close to it anymore. Stopped pointing out the typos and stuff as you now you still get them.
Devin Bramhall [00:03:57]:
Someone did share a story about that. She's this. Oh, this is from Adrian. Okay, cool. She. I worked with her at one of my clients. She said, I once sent out an email to tens of thousands of people pointing them to an analyst website which declared a SaaS provider as a market leader. The problem was, I think she meant imap I was using at the time, a decade ago.
Devin Bramhall [00:04:22]:
Didn't allow for testing of the tracking URL. Oh, the URL broke, obviously, when the UTMs were applied. It took several hours to hunt down the analyst webmaster and have him enable the link. By that time, I'd already received hundreds of emails telling me how dumb I was. She said exactly what I did. She's like, hardly an emergency, but it felt like that to me at the time. And I'm like, of course, because this was 10 years ago. I'm like, of course it did. That's when that felt like a big deal.
Margaret Kelsey [00:04:51]:
Yeah. And I think that's funny, right? What is actually an emergency. Something is in danger. Yeah. Nobody was in danger here. They were mildly frustrated that they tried to get information that they thought was provided to them and they had to wait a little while to get that information. It's not an emergency.
Devin Bramhall [00:05:06]:
Or like, you launched the campaign that was, like, around a landing page or something, and you sent the big blast out to a million people and the landing page, like, is broken. That's bad in terms of you just messed up your campaign on a really dumb mistake. Which is. That's bad in terms of it's a shitty mistake to make.
Margaret Kelsey [00:05:32]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:05:33]:
And you would feel the pain, but it's not an emergency because again, no one dies. Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey [00:05:39]:
And I would say if it's anybody's emergency, that's a developer emergency. That's not a. That's not even a content marketing emergency. Also, side note, shout out to Adrienne using the very vintage phrase webmaster.
Devin Bramhall [00:05:52]:
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey [00:05:55]:
I haven't heard of a webmaster in quite some time.
Devin Bramhall [00:05:59]:
Also, she's young too. She's. I think she's probably, I would say around my age, but I'm oldest one in every room these days in content marketing. I think she's in her 30s. Like she was doing some hard stuff.
Margaret Kelsey [00:06:11]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:06:12]:
At an early age.
Margaret Kelsey [00:06:12]:
She was young. Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:06:14]:
I actually have. Okay, this is adjacent, but not the same. I created my own content emergency once.
Margaret Kelsey [00:06:26]:
What did you do?
Devin Bramhall [00:06:27]:
This will surprise no one. It was my first job out of college. I was working for a high end boutique in Boston because I wanted to become a fashion writer. And so I had done some fashion shows in my senior year. And I met this woman who was like the biggest boutique in Boston at the time, right. Really fashion forward, especially for Boston, but also in general. And she turned out to be a Devil wears Prada in the literal sense.
Devin Bramhall [00:07:02]:
Like, she would look me up and down when I arrived, with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed in and she never smiled, which means she always hated my outfits. Her assistant or the other guy that worked there once took me in front of a mirror and stood behind me and proceeded to describe in detail all of the things that were ugly about me, my physical self, right. So this is the environment I'm working in, right.
Margaret Kelsey [00:07:39]:
You got hazed.
Devin Bramhall [00:07:40]:
Yes. And it was constant. And so I was very high anxiety at the time, very unhappy. And one day, the writer for. What was it?
Margaret Kelsey [00:07:55]:
The Daily Candy sounds like something that existed.
Devin Bramhall [00:07:59]:
It was really popular newsletter in Boston at the time. It was. You wanted to be in it. And this woman drops by, but I don't know she's from the Daily Candy. I just think she's a person asking for the store owner, Eve. And we are all talking and I am like, I think Daily Candy is so dumb. It's so basic and boring. And I just have this whole rant on it.
Devin Bramhall [00:08:32]:
And the woman was like, I work there. I am the editor.
Margaret Kelsey [00:08:39]:
Oh my God. Did you just fold up?
Devin Bramhall [00:08:42]:
I wished I could, if I had, could become origami at that time and fold myself into the tiniest little origami shape, I would have. And what's worse is she tells Eve, who already is a toxic person who like hates you, but pretends to, like, you. It's like already really toxic. And for some reason she doesn't fire me.
Margaret Kelsey [00:09:11]:
Yeah, that's wild.
Devin Bramhall [00:09:13]:
Which I was like, could you, though? Actually, I think I.
Margaret Kelsey [00:09:16]:
They say that's actually the most toxic is if somebody's always mean and always rough, then you have, like, better protection, but if they swing from, like, nice to tough to nice to tough, that's the most actual toxic environment that you can have outside of even just like straight bad.
Devin Bramhall [00:09:33]:
She, like, gave me a bunch of her clothes, designer clothes that she was quote, unquote, getting rid of, but then while she was giving them to me, made it very clear that it was because my clothes sucked and she wanted me to dress better. And so anyway, I stuck my foot right in my mouth, which certainly wasn't the only time in my life, but that is my version of an actual emergency because it was horrible and so embarrassing.
Margaret Kelsey [00:10:01]:
I think I might have shared this one before. When I was at InVision, we did this, like, design talk series, which was just a webinar. Yeah. And I sent out. We had 2,000 people that would attend these things. They were so well attended and across the entire world. And I sent out the presenter link to all of those people. And so what I also feel bad is, like, when I join a webinar now, I'm like, nervous that I, as a joinee, am going to be able to somehow speak on the line.
Margaret Kelsey [00:10:28]:
I like go into like mute, double mute, because everyone that joined could speak on the line. I think it was everyone that called in via the phone. I think the link was fine, but if they called in with the phone to listen in, they were like live on the line and not knowing it. And then it so happened.
Devin Bramhall [00:10:45]:
Was it that happened to me? It was. I think it was last. Was it last year that I spoke at Inbound with Ashley?
Margaret Kelsey [00:10:50]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:10:51]:
They had this speaker call and I got on it and I thought it was like automatically muted. So I just was like. And I wasn't even sitting at the desk because I figured I could just listen in. And they weren't talking about anything important. Like, it wasn't. It was like nothing. They weren't providing any net new information. It was going on and I was annoyed, so I can't remember who called me. Somebody called me and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm on this stupid call. I don't know why I'm on it. It's just a waste of time. And then like, somebody texted me and she's a girl. We can hear you. And I Think it's like the funniest thing ever. Because I don't care.
Devin Bramhall [00:11:29]:
I do not care. And again, it was like, I wasn't saying, like, HubSpot sucks, I don't think, but I was definitely like, this call is. It's a waste of time. You know what I mean? Like, they really inbound expects a lot from their speakers, and they give you precisely nothing to help. And so it's. It gets to a point where you're like, all right, my time is precious and I don't get paid for this. And everybody on the thread is like, oh, my God. They think it's like this big deal.
Devin Bramhall [00:11:55]:
And they're like, oh, my God, like, so embarrassing. Meanwhile, I am laughing so hard. I was like, this is amazing. We have definitely. The foot and mouth thing is my personal brand.
Margaret Kelsey [00:12:07]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:12:08]:
And look, I did apologize after to the organizers because I was like, look, I take your job seriously. Obviously, it was no shade to them at all. They did an amazing job, but I was myself.
Margaret Kelsey [00:12:18]:
I know. Shout out to our personal branding episode where it's like, you have a personal brand whether or not you're who cultivating it or not.
Devin Bramhall [00:12:26]:
I do. You know what? I'm actually happy about it now, though, because this was actually a surprise to me. I found out recently I've had multiple people in the past month tell me that I'm intimidating. And they're like, you don't know that. And I was like, no, I think I'm nice and a little bit awkward and definitely not formal in any way, but I learned that about myself, and I don't know what to do with it.
Margaret Kelsey [00:12:54]:
I think it's intimidating when you know that you're gonna get the truth from someone or exactly how they feel, right. I feel like people who aren't intimidating tend to have lots of filters, so they always are saying what the other person wants to hear or whatever, but it is intimidating to have somebody just show up and be like, I know that I'm gonna get the unfiltered realness from her.
Devin Bramhall [00:13:18]:
That wasn't even the thing that they said was the intimidating part.
Margaret Kelsey [00:13:23]:
Oh, why did they say you're intimidating?
Devin Bramhall [00:13:25]:
That's wild. They were like, oh, you've done a lot of stuff. Or, I don't know, it had something to do with, like, my public persona or something. And I was like, what? But anyway, I always think I'm the least intimidating person in the room because I'm the most casual, but apparently, I don't know, but anyway, so content marketing emergencies.
Margaret Kelsey [00:13:44]:
Is there anything? Maybe if you're working at like a pharmaceutical company in content marketing that might be pretty high stakes.
Devin Bramhall [00:13:55]:
I guess in this case we would need to define what an emergency is because an emergency to me is in the life or death range where something bad that threatens the well being or life of someone could happen based on with whatever you did.
Margaret Kelsey [00:14:16]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:14:16]:
And all I can think of are snafus. Where. And they're more like PR snafus. I have one emergency from when I worked at a tech company. The content marketing that we did post. Big mistake we made saved the company. So like I've seen content marketing work as a savior for really bad mistakes. Yeah, I remember like if Help Scout went down, usually it was in like along with a whole bunch of others.
Devin Bramhall [00:14:47]:
But like you still had to notify your users. And so that wasn't their fault though. It was just the messaging and the way we handled it with our users from a.
Margaret Kelsey [00:14:58]:
And ideally it's not necessarily even emergency because you have some stock emails of, hey, if this kind of thing happens, this is the kind of message we would send our users, right.
Devin Bramhall [00:15:07]:
Yeah. I think a lot of people, especially at least at SaaS companies, have that sort of contingency planning for like you should.
Margaret Kelsey [00:15:12]:
Crisis communication. I think that's it. There is crisis communication and somebody could make a case that is in the realm of content marketing if your team is small enough that you don't have a dedicated PR team, but outside of that, I think snafu. I like content snafu, but that's more.
Devin Bramhall [00:15:30]:
Like in the realm of PR. I did find one article that I loved the title of that I thought was gonna be the one I was gonna make fun of. It's from Fast Company, which was like, yes, they're definitely gonna write a lame article. The title is Marketing Emergency: Nobody's Making Content Worth Reading. And I was like, actually that's a really good. It's from 2012. And I was like, actually that's a really awesome title because it stands the test of time.
Margaret Kelsey [00:16:00]:
Yeah, yeah, that's hysterical. And also, yeah, Marketing emergency. Nobody's making content versus Reading. If you would have asked me what year was that published in, I would have said recently. So that's also hysterical that it's 2012.
Devin Bramhall [00:16:14]:
And it ranks on the first page.
Margaret Kelsey [00:16:16]:
Yeah. For a content emergency.
Devin Bramhall [00:16:18]:
Content marketing emergency.
Margaret Kelsey [00:16:20]:
Yeah. Outside of like highly regulated spaces or spaces that are maybe in like health tech or whatever.
Devin Bramhall [00:16:26]:
But that's still PR.
Margaret Kelsey [00:16:28]:
Yeah, that's true.
Devin Bramhall [00:16:29]:
It's all PR. Okay, so I posted about this on LinkedIn and about the idea of content marketing emergencies and how they're dumb and don't exist. And I didn't really know what to ask anyone. I just wanted to hear what people would say about the topic. And what's really funny is it's a perfect example of marketing itself. In addition to the answers people gave, which is I asked an open question about the topic of there are no content marketing emergencies. I did say if you have any stories or whatever I like, thoughts, opinions, Everybody just ended up posting content marketing emergency examples. I ended up getting a bunch of stories and I was like, they're like, this isn't really an emergency, but exactly.
Devin Bramhall [00:17:17]:
It was like, oh yeah, your messaging has to be really succinct. Like I had to have asked a very specific question. Tell me why you agree or disagree that there are no content marketing emergencies.
Margaret Kelsey [00:17:29]:
And I love that they wanted to share the thing that was closest to an emergency but had to caveat it with it's still not technically an emergency. However, this caused me some anxiety.
Devin Bramhall [00:17:41]:
There were some funny comments on there too. Lauren Lang wrote, a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Margaret Kelsey [00:17:48]:
Oh yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:17:49]:
And I was like, lol, I love this.
Margaret Kelsey [00:17:52]:
That's my response to most sales enablement requests.
Devin Bramhall [00:17:55]:
Yeah, yeah. I'm like, listen, I wish we turned.
Margaret Kelsey [00:17:58]:
Around in two hours. You're like, mmm mmm.
Devin Bramhall [00:18:03]:
That should the like, tagline for every content marketing, every marketing team at every company.
Margaret Kelsey [00:18:11]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:18:11]:
That's on the front of the proverbial.
Margaret Kelsey [00:18:13]:
That should be like the SLA to the broader company is just that tagline.
Devin Bramhall [00:18:18]:
Chirag wrote that. This was amazing. She just wrote, lol. I work in an agency. I was crying because I'm like, I did that too, obviously. And so I feel I know exactly what she's saying. I'm like, yes. Everybody feels like everything is emergency inside the house and outside the house.
Margaret Kelsey [00:18:40]:
Yeah. In the agency world, I only lasted 10 months at an agency. It was a PR agency in South Beach, Miami.
Devin Bramhall [00:18:49]:
And that's not your vibe at all.
Margaret Kelsey [00:18:51]:
Not my vibe. I actually helped open that Club 11. That's like a high end strip club in Miami. And so before this is a funny story, before it opened, they were one of our clients and we had a lot of the local news network and we were sending them pitches all of the time being like, it's not a strip club. It's like a high end Cirque du Soleil style entertainment. Here's the sound system that's like the best sound system that ever Existed in Miami. We were hyping up all of the other pieces, but we were, like, literally writing, it's not a strip club. It's not a strip club.
Margaret Kelsey [00:19:30]:
It's not a strip club. And then I find myself there on opening night, and we have all the local reporters in and whatever, and it's like candy to the main stage. Candy to the main stage. Like, oh, like 100. A strip club with a great rooftop restaurant, but, like, an absolute strip club. That was when I would, like, looked around, and I'm like, I need to get out of here. Like, I cannot last, but everything was an emergency to your point, because it was like, whatever client was most likely to fire us was the one that we paid attention to. It was so chaotic.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:04]:
Yeah. Also, I love the. What do you call that when you're like, we are not as a strip club. We aren't like, gas burning.
Margaret Kelsey [00:20:10]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:11]:
Yeah, but there's a whole. There's a concept for. If you have to say it that much.
Margaret Kelsey [00:20:16]:
Yes.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:17]:
Then probably you're a strip club.
Margaret Kelsey [00:20:20]:
Yeah. And they, like, literally had a whole bunch of. They had bussed in or flew in a whole bunch of, like, strippers from other areas for that opening night. I was like, we just literally told all of these reporters and all these journalists for the last six months that it was not a strip club. Invited them to the opening night to watch strippers.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:42]:
Is there. Can you get in trouble for that?
Margaret Kelsey [00:20:45]:
I don't know.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:46]:
If you're, like, legitimately a strip club and classified as such, I think you.
Margaret Kelsey [00:20:51]:
Can call yourself whatever you want. I don't know. I don't know if you need a license. I don't know the legalities of strip clubs. If you need, like, a license.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:58]:
I think i'll call myself a giraffe from now on
Margaret Kelsey [00:21:01]:
You can. I'll call you a giraffe too, if you'd like.
Devin Bramhall [00:21:04]:
That's a great story.
Margaret Kelsey [00:21:05]:
An intimidating giraffe.
Devin Bramhall [00:21:08]:
Intimidate. Yes.
Margaret Kelsey [00:21:09]:
So that wasn't a content marketing or PR CRIs. It. Well, a little bit of a PR crisis as much as it was a life crisis of me looking at myself in the mirror and being like, I need a new job.
Devin Bramhall [00:21:19]:
Yeah. It's also just, like, a really good story. I'm so glad we found a place for that to be relevant for you to share because it's very good. Scott. Scott Kyles posted something. I always love seeing Scott when he comes into our comments. He wrote this was typed like an email. Yeah, but every marketing project is an emergency, signed management.
Margaret Kelsey [00:21:43]:
Yeah, exactly. They'll make you feel like it is.
Devin Bramhall [00:21:46]:
That is very true. Yeah, I don't even. God, I. You know what? I do remember when I worked for a company a long, long time ago that I don't want to name, but I remember we did something with our pricing or something that was sketchy because I remember I hated it too. And so I was like, this is misleading. And I didn't like it. It was something like that.
Devin Bramhall [00:22:18]:
And this woman called our bluff. Actually, a lot of people did, but this one woman, she was trolling us. Like she started this whole campaign against us and she was posting everywhere. She was starting threads in other forums. Like she had it out for us. Like it was her full time job. And it was a headache for me because I ran both customer support and marketing.
Devin Bramhall [00:22:48]:
And so I had to deal with it at all ends. That's the stuff I wish I kept. Like, why did I not keep those insane messages from her so I could remember them when I'm feeling sad? But anyway, they got to the point where I can't remember. I think we had some, like, balloons delivered or something. And we ended up putting a picture of her face on it. And we were like. Because she was trolling us for so long, she might have even sent us, I don't know, I don't remember, but that was like, that felt like an emergency because she would not leave us alone.
Margaret Kelsey [00:23:21]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:23:21]:
And it was back when you would have noticed her. Do you know what I mean? She really. It was possible to notice her. It wasn't. She wasn't lost in the shuffle by any means.
Margaret Kelsey [00:23:31]:
That's so funny. Not quite as serious, but at InVision, there was this, like, Twitter account that would always join those design talks. And we used to use Twitter as almost like a. We would tweet out quotes live from the event and people would like. Like, we used it as like the webinar chat because we would do like a hashtag. And back in the day we had to cobble these things together. And again, there were so many people in it that there were so many that would be on Twitter using the hashtag that we would reply to on Mola. And there was this one Twitter user and her name was Judy.
Margaret Kelsey [00:24:02]:
And she was very engaged and very happy most of the time, unless you used an emoji. And then she would go off on how much she hated emojis and how stupid they were and how it wasn't real communication. And it was like, so funny to see, like, I would watch it happen where it would be like somebody else on the webinar would comment something back to her and use an emoji, and I'd be like, no, not to Judy.
Devin Bramhall [00:24:29]:
You remember that time in content marketing, though, when it was fun like, that you did actually have a chance to get to know your users. Like, I miss those days a lot. That was some of my favorite times. Like, at Help Scout. Like, it wasn't just me either, because the customer support folks, some of them were legends in the industry and. Or they just participated. And so it was, like, really fun. Like, we'd go to this one conference put on by Support Driven, and it wasn't. It's small in comparison, probably a couple hundred people, but it was my favorite because you, like, people knew us there. They were so friendly and fun. And you're like, oh, I've talked to you on Twitter before. Or, like, wherever.
Margaret Kelsey [00:25:12]:
Yeah. And I really do feel like that was the time when, like, content marketing could build a community. I'm not saying it can anymore, but I feel like we were at that beginning stage where we were just hacking together whatever tools and channels we could to create community rather than being like, oh, we need to do this and this. It was like, I don't know, I want people to be able to, like, talk to each other while they're on the webinar. And there wasn't really great functionality for that at the time. Let's just do a hashtag on Twitter and point people there. And people were also more willing to engage. And, like, it didn't feel like these social networks that you had to have such a codified Persona on them that people would just use them to communicate rather than, like, thoughtfully think about, does this fit with my feed or does this mess up my blah, blah, blah. People were just using them.
Devin Bramhall [00:25:58]:
Yeah. Sometimes I worry that the people don't know where to put me in their minds because I'm not consistent enough about the things I talk about. And then I'm like, oh, I don't care, actually, so. And then I'm like, oh, no, but.
Margaret Kelsey [00:26:12]:
That'S not an emergency. That's not a content marketing emergency I need to solve.
Devin Bramhall [00:26:14]:
That's just a. Oh, my God. Wait. I keep thinking about emergencies that are just embarrassing for me. I just thought of another one. This isn't really about content marketing, but it's content of me that was on the internet.
Margaret Kelsey [00:26:30]:
Uh-oh.
Devin Bramhall [00:26:31]:
I. In college.
Margaret Kelsey [00:26:33]:
I don't know if I like where the story's going.
Devin Bramhall [00:26:37]:
Oh, my God. This is actually. This is a funny story, or I don't know. It's a story. When I was in college. I was friends with a bunch of people and among those folks were art people. And one of them was a photographer and he was like part of our group of friends. And he was doing.
Margaret Kelsey [00:26:58]:
This is going exactly where I think it's gonna go.
Devin Bramhall [00:27:00]:
Exactly. Yeah, it is. It is 100% going there. So two of my girlfriends and I, like, agreed to do. They were nude photos, obviously, because the story is exactly what you think it is, and I'd never done that before. And I really trusted him. He was professional, it wasn't weird. And so I was like, wow, this is going to be, like, really intense for me.
Devin Bramhall [00:27:22]:
I was terrified to do it, so of course I had to do it. And came out great. Went to the exhibit. The photos were really cool. He also gave me a disc of like 50 of the photos he took.
Margaret Kelsey [00:27:32]:
This whole show is just nostalgic words like webmaster and discovery.
Devin Bramhall [00:27:38]:
It was a cd which I then uploaded to my computer because I had to use an external drive because it was a cd. So I had those files on my computer. Somehow, at some point years later, like many years later, those photos were on Google Drive, in Google Photos, and they were not private. And I was in Switzerland at one of my best friend's houses and I was googling myself for some reason. And I saw like the block. That's back when the block of photos of you showed up first. And I was like, there was only like two or three. And I was.
Margaret Kelsey [00:28:20]:
How old are you?
Devin Bramhall [00:28:22]:
Oh, I was in my 20s. Yeah, like, I was not. Yeah. Or maybe early 30s. I can't. No, late 20s. I, like, quickly clicked away. And then as soon as she left the room, I found those photos.
Devin Bramhall [00:28:32]:
I was like, we must, but I don't know how long they were up there because it was probably like an update to Google Drive. And they're like, oh, now all your photos are whatever, searchable.
Margaret Kelsey [00:28:43]:
Yeah, the default is public unless you change the setting. And. Oh, that was another content on marketing emergency. Not nude pictures.
Devin Bramhall [00:28:54]:
Obviously not because it's your story. Like mine are always going to go there.
Margaret Kelsey [00:28:57]:
I feel like I've shared these ones before too, though, but it was back when Dropbox didn't have like enterprise level permissions on folders in the way that they do now where, like, now the organization can set, like, what folders can be shared publicly or can a default not. Nobody can share this externally outside of the organization. And I was at InVision again. Lots of my snafu has happened at InVision and I was working on the design Disruptors documentary. We had a bunch of community screenings all around the US So we would send them like high quality material that they could print off as like movie posters and stuff and put their logos on. And as I was emailing hundreds of organizations, I was sending out the full InVision Dropbox. Not just, not just the folder.
Margaret Kelsey [00:29:47]:
But I blame that on the permissions and user experience of Dropbox at the time. There's no way that I should have been allowed to be able to send out the entire InVision Dropbox. And so somebody finally emailed me and they're like days later, like a week after, I've been like sending out 20 emails a day to different organizations and they're like, I don't think I should have access to all of this. I'm like, holy shit.
Devin Bramhall [00:30:10]:
Did anyone at InVision find out?
Margaret Kelsey [00:30:12]:
I told my manager at the time, just because I wanted to get ahead of it, just to be like, yo, I fucked up.
Devin Bramhall [00:30:18]:
That's amazing. No responsibility of yours whatsoever though.
Margaret Kelsey [00:30:21]:
Clearly no at the time. Again with the content marketing emergencies. Feel like an anxiety attack. I definitely had one of those. And that was like not, I think long after or before the design talks webinar thing with the people being able to speak. So there was just a series where I'm like, I don't think I should do this job. Yeah, it's like the stakes are so high right now.
Devin Bramhall [00:30:43]:
You're like, I really. You really cut your teeth at.
Margaret Kelsey [00:30:46]:
Yeah, the wrong links just like mess up at a. At a very large scale when you're managing very large programs.
Devin Bramhall [00:30:52]:
Okay, wait, I have a few stories that people shared, but also this made me think of another one that isn't an emergency. This is basically going to be the episode where we list a bunch of non emergencies, but if you think about how we got to know each other better, it was through a mistake. So I was running Animals at the time. One of your. You were at.
Margaret Kelsey [00:31:16]:
Appcues.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:17]:
I was gonna say Lastian. Ooh Appcues. And one of our writers who is working for y'all had plagiarized part of the article and we didn't catch it.
Margaret Kelsey [00:31:27]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:27]:
And we had checks for that. So we. We messed up like hard. And we like later on, like six months, like however much time later, Jay was interviewing you for his podcast. And I remember he gave me a heads up about it. He was really nice. He was like, listen, I think he gave me an out too. He would.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:48]:
I don't. Like, I would never.
Margaret Kelsey [00:31:49]:
He interviewed you for that podcast too, right? It was like a co-interview.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:52]:
Yeah. I think he was giving Me a chance to, like, say, please, for the love of God, don't if I wanted to, but I was like, no, keep it in there. I think that's great. It's a good story. So that's an almost a moment where content marketing saved an emergency by bringing that emergency into the public eye.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:11]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:11]:
Because it was the way that I had handled it.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:14]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:15]:
That won everybody's trust. And you highlighted that for us.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:19]:
And that was the thing. I think with your background and customer success and customer service, I think you knew that there's two sides to every conversation. If there's something wrong, there's the person that says, this is a really big deal. And then there's a person that says, no, it's not. And if you're the person that, like, did something wrong or whatever, if you take the side of, no, this is a really big deal, and I'm going to take this seriously, and these are the things I'm doing. You almost, like, psychologically force the other person to be like, it's not that big of a deal. You know what I mean? But. And that's the thing.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:52]:
Air out of the room.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:53]:
The worst thing you could have done to show it up and be like, hey, this isn't that big of a deal. And then I would have had to been like, this is a huge deal. This is a huge deal for my company's reputation. This is a huge deal for our working relationship. By taking the side that this is a big deal, you almost, like, force the other person to be like, it's really not that big of a deal.
Devin Bramhall [00:33:08]:
Right. I don't even know which person to say this first person or third person, but I think one of the things that's always been important to me is to be specific, too. So it's not just saying, oh, this is a big deal, but, like, really list out for you how in detail. I understand it's a big deal for you and our relationship. And then the second thing that has to follow that is action immediately. It was weirdly, a situation that I remember fondly because the team at the time, it was like, me, Haley, Andrew, I think Jimmy was even part of it too, but, like, we all hustled to fix this.
Devin Bramhall [00:33:49]:
And I remember Andrew completely rewrote the article overnight and just wrote a fresh article that was really good. Like, we all came together to, like, within 12 hours have part of it fixed. And then that bought me some time with you to have a conversation, et cetera. So the action is a really important part. Just saying it only buys you a moment of grace.
Margaret Kelsey [00:34:14]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:34:14]:
You then have to show up.
Margaret Kelsey [00:34:16]:
Yeah. That's what my therapist taught me is that's a good apology. Is first, exactly the facts of what happened. Second, how you imagine those things made the other person feel or why that would be a big deal to them. And the third is that this is the steps I will take to make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's a perfect encapsulation of an apology.
Devin Bramhall [00:34:35]:
Yeah. Keisha Velasquez, who is a friend of mine who lives in New York. I love her. She was the only person, I think, that really answered my actual question, which is like, share a reaction to this or an opinion or thought. And hers was basically the. She says, the thing that comes up for me is a desire for content to be included in early stages of campaign planning and strategy meetings. I've been on some teams where they think to. Where they don't think to include content until later in the planning and execution phase.
Margaret Kelsey [00:35:05]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:35:05]:
And so that creates. Not again, not emergencies, but she's totally. That is another adjacent example of. Yeah. That creates a lot of, like, semi emergencies within your marketing campaign because usually if you're brought in later than the very beginning, something's going to go sideways.
Margaret Kelsey [00:35:23]:
Yeah. It's just chaotic, right?
Devin Bramhall [00:35:25]:
Yeah. And I. I thought that was a really good example because a lot of. I think there's a lot of marketers that feel that way that were like, oh, you brought me in a week before launch.
Margaret Kelsey [00:35:35]:
Yeah. And I have 20 million assets to produce and create.
Devin Bramhall [00:35:39]:
Cool.
Margaret Kelsey [00:35:40]:
Thanks.
Devin Bramhall [00:35:40]:
And they're like, oh. And the executives are like, oh, but marketing takes two seconds, so.
Margaret Kelsey [00:35:44]:
Yeah. And we also haven't aligned on a tagline or our messaging or whatever. Okay, cool. Yeah, but I will say tight deadlines are not emergencies. Chaos is not emergencies, right. None of these things.
Margaret Kelsey [00:35:58]:
I hope that people listen to this podcast and if they have one, truly one that's an actual emergency, I think we would love to hear it.
Devin Bramhall [00:36:06]:
Okay. So Mark Rogers, he used to work for me. Animals. Hi. Now works at Fresh Paint. And Fresh Paint is. It's hard for me to explain because it's too smart for me, but it's about maintaining privacy in marketing for healthcare type companies, making sure that you're following HIPAA rules and all that stuff. So kind of like it's consequential stuff, right. You know what I mean? This is actually. And so he said a few months ago, there was a legal ruling that had a big impact on healthcare marketing. Marketing team at freshpaint dropped everything to talk to lawyers, formalize a point of view on the ruling and publish a response. We were the first to market with a response and have heard from multiple new customers that a deciding factor in purchasing fresh paint was our content and point of view around the legal ruling. And again, like every, like all of us, he's. So it's not an emergency, but.
Margaret Kelsey [00:37:03]:
But it was a tight deadline.
Devin Bramhall [00:37:05]:
Yeah, no, I think it's a good example of leveraging content marketing in an emergency situation within an industry as a means of supporting your existing users. And then the extra bonus for them was that they got new customers that way, right. It was a great trust builder. And I think that those are like the news jacking of content marketing that I think is really cool. I remember when I worked for personal organization app there, one of them, One of the other personal organization apps closed and we overnight the developers. This was not my idea. This is my CEO's idea.
Devin Bramhall [00:37:40]:
They coded up a export import thing and we published it. So it's export your stuff into Spring Pad if you're. Whatever. And that was a great like growth hacking exercise. So I like the reaction. Using content marketing to react to a thing that happens that's similar to an emergency and capitalizing on it but also providing a greater good, right. Like they genuinely helped people, which I think is cool.
Devin Bramhall [00:38:06]:
And that's. To me the helpfulness is the most important part of content marketing. Okay, the last one, okay, this one's kind of funny, but it's completely anonymous because this person asked for it to be, but there's a company somewhere that once that has a YouTube channel that they do live streams on and someone with an inappropriate profile picture commented on one of their live streams on YouTube and they didn't notice it. And so it was on over, like over the weekend or whatever and like with the person's profile picture. And 48 hours later they get a note from YouTube noted citing the community guidelines because it was an inappropriate picture on their page, which they I guess were still.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:03]:
It says, oh, because you can technically like approve comments or whatnot.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:07]:
Yeah, they put a strike on their channel for displaying inappropriate content. Isn't that crazy? It took over a year to get the strike removed and YouTube made them take a course or something on appropriate versus inappropriate content to give the all clear. Isn't that wild?
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:25]:
Yeah, that's brutal.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:26]:
I thought that was a good story because they said even that. I think one person on the team had seen it over the weekend, but was like, we'll deal with this on Monday. Again, not an emergency.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:40]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:41]:
And they apparently YouTube made such a big deal out of it that they had to spend a year removing a strike on there.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:50]:
That's hysterical.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:51]:
Yeah. I was like, that's a. That's bizarre, but also a really interesting story. Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:55]:
So there's no such thing as a content marketing emergency that we know of?
Devin Bramhall [00:39:58]:
No. We could not find a single emergency, but the example, like, the stories and examples y'all sent in were awesome. That was really fun. I actually had a lot of fun reading them. And that's not even all of them. It's just the ones that I pulled for publishing. So if you have a non.
Devin Bramhall [00:40:15]:
Emergency, too.
Margaret Kelsey [00:40:16]:
If you just have a funny story.
Devin Bramhall [00:40:17]:
Yeah, I think if it's funny, just send it to us.
Margaret Kelsey [00:40:20]:
Yeah, because we might do a recap episode.
Devin Bramhall [00:40:24]:
Yeah. Just more stories.
Margaret Kelsey [00:40:26]:
Always a pleasure.
Devin Bramhall [00:40:27]:
Yeah. I'm like, I forgot. Do you know somebody said to me recently about. I think it was two people, actually, very recently, which is why I stood out to me. Cited our closing. Oh, you're doing only okay. Half a third of you are doing fine.
Margaret Kelsey [00:40:44]:
You know, they like.
Devin Bramhall [00:40:45]:
It was, like, memorable enough for them that they remembered. I was like, that's pretty good. I like that. I like.
Margaret Kelsey [00:40:49]:
Look at us. Personal brands. Minor pep talks with a side of sneer.
Devin Bramhall [00:40:55]:
Minor. You know what? You always. This is what I love. Every episode, whatever we talk about, you find a way to package into a really clever, funny phrase or term and that. Yep.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:09]:
Thank you, my dear.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:10]:
You haven't sent me any good subject lines in a while.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:12]:
That's true. I'll work on that.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:14]:
Even though you don't need to send me the Riverside link anymore. I just liked the. The subject lines. Yeah. You could just send me emails with nothing in them and random subject lines.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:25]:
Okay.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:26]:
About anything.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:27]:
Yeah. Maybe I'll, like, come up, like, a new pun word and I'll just send you all the puns that I can.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:31]:
Think about for that word as many times as you want.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:35]:
Awesome. I will do that for you.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:37]:
Okay, y'all, that's a wrap. Thank you, as always, for listening.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:42]:
We'll be back next week. And just remember, you're doing great. You're doing great.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:47]:
30% of you are doing great. The rest, you gotta get your shit together. Come on.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:53]:
You know, you know which side you're on this week.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:55]:
You know, you know.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:57]:
See you next week.
Devin Bramhall [00:41:59]:
Bye.
Margaret Kelsey [00:41:59]:
Bye.
Devin Bramhall [00:42:02]:
Wait a second. Can we include this? And it's Margaret eating on a podcast.
Margaret Kelsey [00:42:08]:
Nope. Nope.
Devin Bramhall [00:42:10]:
Throw back to season what? Pre-season one.
Margaret Kelsey [00:42:14]:
Pre-season one. You got people fired up about that.
Devin Bramhall [00:42:16]:
I know. I was gonna say link. LinkedIn freaked out because they thought I would be eating on the pot. Actually, I think that was on Instagram. Either way.