Category Archive

Business development

State of the Empire, 2019

IT’S BEEN 84 YEARS. Ok, it’s actually only been 12 years since I launched the Offbeat Empire, but 12 in internet years might as well be 84, y’know? Here’s what’s up with the Empire this year…

How to report a crappy ad

Historically, I’ve tended toward native advertising (which means placement we sell ourselves, like Offbeat Bride’s Vendor Guide listings or vendor spotlights)… but these days we’re shifting more toward serving up ads delivered by ad networks (banners that are sold and delivered by third party companies). What this means for y’all, the Offbeat Empire’s readers, is that sometimes you might see ads on the Empire that are fucking gross… that we didn’t sell, and don’t even know are there!

How Facebook algorithms and a stupid post about cranky wine relate to the election

Around 9am last Thursday, Megan regrammed a silly Instagram picture of these bottles of amusingly-named wine. This set off an insane chain of events that resulted in, five days later, 13 million people seeing this piece of content.

Put another way, the weekend before one of the most divisive presidential elections in US history, the robots that serve America our information decided that what 13 million of us really needed to see was a throw-away post about wine labels that said “FUCK” on them.

For me as a publisher, this was an insane content marketing story to watch unfold. Come with me on this journey as I unpack what it says about the media, the work of my editors, my company, and even the American election.

Instagram and the shifting social media landscape

This past year, I’ve been fascinated by the growing influence of Instagram. Of course Offbeat Bride has been on Instagram for years, but it’s always been a relatively small following — we’re talking 17k Instagram followers as compared to 155k on Facebook. Let’s talk more about what this means for biz dev…