An acquaintance of mine on Facebook--oh stop acting like you don't start sentences with those words all the time. Unless you're a Luddite. In which case, why are you reading this blog and not churning your own butter or shoeing your horses or something while it's still daylight?--recently noted that since he had left his job, he could now tweet with impunity, since he didn't have to worry about marketing anymore. Oh my.

I'm not a huge fan of this um "friend," so I didn't say anything. But I do have a soft spot for people who read this blog, so here's what I would have said: "You are incorrect." He was incorrect to 1) think he didn't have to worry about marketing anymore, 2) to think he could tweet with impunity (especially, given the fact that he is unemployed), and 3) to think that he was ever not marketing.

News flash: We're all always marketing. We're marketing, in big and small ways, when we go to the gym, when we gain weight, when we go to graduate school or drop out, when we get hung over or laid, when we get married, when we stay single, when we post photos on Facebook, or don't post photos, when we wear shorts or jeans or capris, when we have pets or don't, when we wear makeup or don't....if you're breathing, you're marketing. And to think that you can somehow choose when you're going to market...alas, no. All you're doing then is choosing to market poorly.
Marketing is interacting with other humans, it's leaving a path through life, it's being alive. (Oops, almost became a Barbra Streisand lyric there.)

I, for example, have a personal Facebook page and a public page. At this point, I don't accept any friend requests anymore--sorry, Bradley Cooper, you missed your chance--since at one point, I was perhaps a little less savvy about marketing and put up quite a few status updates and photos that um, perhaps I didn't think out too well. (Translation: http://youtu.be/QYHxGBH6o4M)

So, as I got deeper into this business, I realized: this is who I am. I could try and hide it...meh. Lying is so boring. Or, I can embrace it: bingo! Its now part of my organic marketing. Or something.
My point being: you are always marketing. Every social media imprint you leave, every comment, every joke, every photo you click "like" on, every group you join, every stupid thing you re-tweet, every party you attend, the people you date, the types of food you eat...you are marketing. And if you think you aren't, then you're marketing something even worse...your lack of intelligence.

Before you get cranky and join a Luddite commune (unless it's a free love kind of commune, and then high five, son!), email me @carlotazee.com and let's see how I can help you improve your marketing...or at least avoid making some of the more egregious mistakes I made.

Reach Out

I was reading an opinion piece by a small business owner the other day, and afterwards I girded my loins and read the comments. I usually go out of my way to avoid reading comments, because life is too short to seek out haters, but I was feeling kinda feisty.  I found one comment in particular fascinating; the writer, long unemployed, said that in our “newly” class-conscious America, the unemployed were going to remember which individuals and companies had treated them badly, and not patronize them or their business anymore and in fact start doing everything at home, on their own. One woman even wrote that she’d be framing her own pictures from now on. (Testify, my sister!) 

Um. Okay. First of all, let me make it a hundred, no a thousand percent clear that I have nothing but empathy for people who are unemployed, who have seen their previous way of life gutted. To be unemployed is to feel you have lost not only your lifestyle, but your independence, your value, your friends, etc. We live in a society in which the unemployed are treated like lepers, like third-class citizens, in which it’s easier to discuss being diagnosed with cancer than to admit you’ve lost your job. So, I don’t blame people for being angry. If being angry is going to make people demand long-overdue and necessary changes to our socio-political climate, bring. It. On! (Grrr!)

On the other hand, the idea that any one person can do everything on his or her own, that you don’t need society, that you’re going to punish society…seriously? No one ever did anything on her own.  That’s just one of those popular fictions that we all pretend to believe, like Jennifer Lopez is no longer a soul-sucking diva or that Madonna is totally fine, totally at peace with aging. (Ha.) We live in an time wherein life and opportunity is dictated by social media and our connectivity to each other.…but some people think they can ignore all that and live entirely on their own? Okay, enjoy churning your butter and sewing your own clothes, and I suppose bartering for whatever other goods you need. The cats and I will remain in…well, I suppose Queens technically counts as a form of civilization. I’m going to keep reaching out to others to help improve their lives and, at the same time, my own.