Alcohol-Signalling, Mommy Wine Culture, and how we use our culture making power on social media

June 3, 2019 By Kelly Diels

Some people close to me and some people I admire from afar are in recovery from alcohol.

And that raised my awareness around the way I’ve often signalled rebellion or relaxation in my social media using updates or images of wine or cocktails or other variants of “Mommy Wine Culture” (it’s a thing).

Two years ago, when Toi Smith and I were strategizing about the social media images and messages I would share, we factored this in. I decided, in my own business and culture making, that I would no long include pro-alcohol signalling in my social media images or updates. Deciding not to alcohol-signal is one of my feminist marketing decisions.

I never want an “and now, a drink” post to be a trigger or a temptation for people in recovery.

And maybe I should be using my culture making power to foster a recovery culture in which alcohol isn’t a shorthand for coping with trauma or inhumane pressures or an occasion for relating to each other, socially. Maybe.

(I’m not advocating prohibition, I definitely do NOT land in the pro-drug-war camp, I’m just starting to noodle the long and destructive impact of alcohol in my family lineage as well as in our cultural and national histories — alcohol was literally used as a weapon of colonization!)

I’m not saying this is the answer or The Rule but it’s one of the ways I’m using my culture making power: by trying to support my beloveds (known and unknown) who are in recovery.

Perhaps explicitly considering the way we alcohol-signal, and making a decision about it, (yours may different than mine) might be a valuable process for other culture makers, too.

#WeAreTheCultureMakers #FeministMarketing #FeministMarketingPractices

More Tools for Culture Makers

June 2, 2019 By Kelly Diels

When Gloria Steinem speaks or attends events, she always brings a few young feminists and activists with her.

That’s deliberate. She’s leveraging her fame and reputation to lift newcomers. This helps the rising stars get familiar and comfortable with the arena, and embeds them in a network of supporters and champions so they can do their work with more resources and community care.

Opportunity always has a face. We cannot rise without each other.

This strategy — using your resources and reputation to lift people starting out — is good for all of us.

It’s another culture-making tool.

And you don’t have be famous or established as Gloria Steinem to make these kind of moves.

Right now, from wherever you are in your journey, you can tweet and talk about and share the work of people whose voices you want to amplify. You can introduce people to each other. You can refer. You can mentor. You can get on the phone and fortify a friend right before she asks for a raise or pitches a proposal.

These are feminist work and business practices, and this is how we deliberately use our culture making power to grow a better future — one in which we all flourish.

Because we are the culture makers. And together we rise.

#FeministMarketing #TogetherWeRise #WeAreTheCultureMakers #ToolsForCultureMakers

Feminist Marketing Tip #1220: A Feminist Approach to Stock Photos

May 31, 2019 By Kelly Diels

Images are an essential business resource and they have culture-making power.

For a long time, I knew that but I didn’t know how to herd that set of kittens.

So I avoided images altogether.

I knew what I didn’t want to do — perpetuate the mandatory pretty that’s a form of internalized misogyny AND perpetuate the whitewashing and homogenizing of our culture — but I didn’t know what to do instead.

Stock photo banks didn’t much help. If you search “business woman”, for example, you get a slew of images of pretty white women in pencil skirts.

There wasn’t a lot of visual diversity, in ethnicity, in body shapes, in age, in gender presentation, in ability…

And I saw that playing out in the brands of Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brands and in the my peers.

People I respected a lot would put out empowerment images of ‘goddesses’…and time after time, image after image, those goddesses appeared to be 100lb, 20 year old white women in bikini tops and flowing skirts on a beach.

This didn’t feel terribly empowering to me. It felt pretty exclusive.

It felt like an affirmation of the sexist, racist status quo.

I believe that’s *not* what most of the culture makers I know are intending to do with our images or our work.

But we have to attend to the cultural consequences of those images rather than justify them with our intentions.

I’m not sure using stock images of professionally pretty young women or sanitized lifestyle shots is good for business, either.

How do we distinguish our work around female power or women & work (or, or, or) if we’re all using images of professional models in sheath dressses gazing into a phone or professional model goddesses in power poses on beaches?

I digress. (Not really.)

My point: there ARE image banks and collections that can help culture-making entrepreneurs find images that stand out; truly represent them and their clients; announce their work in the world; AND advance our culture-making objectives.

Here are a few to check out:

And also check out this post that has a seriously comprehensive list of inclusive stock photo banks and collections:
https://askwelmoed.com/free-paid-stockphotos-diversity-in-…/

ONE MORE THING:
I now need to nuance and complicate this marketing tip, so in this paragraph I’m specifically talking to entrepreneurs with dominant identities. (As as a white, cis, straight woman, I’m including myself here.) Diversifying the imagery in our businesses is one step. It’s not the entire job of dismantling systemic racism/sexism/heterosexism/transphobia/ableism/ageism. We have to build our analyses and become more culturally fluent. If people with dominant identities attract people into their businesses but don’t understand their experiences and are not equipped to support them, they can do harm. (h/t Melissa Toler; you can find her here.) And if we create marketing campaigns that look and sound progressive, but don’t change our internal practices, then it’s just window dressing, not substantive change. So yes, definitely, let’s change our imagery. But more importantly, let’s make sure we question and change our business practices so that the images we use align with how our companies and platforms actually function.

#FeministMarketing #WeAreTheCultureMakers #TogetherWeRise #DiverseStockImages

Feminist Marketing Tool #220

February 20, 2019 By Kelly Diels

One of my biggest expenses in my own business is apps and software, so it makes sense to me that I try, wherever possible, to use my tech budget for apps founded by feminists or founded and led by people of non-dominant identities.

That’s how I turn my apps and software into deliberate feminist decisions and feminist marketing tools.

It’s one of the ways we invest in and grow our feminist community (and an inclusive future!).

Feminist Marketing isn’t simply about wrapping external messages in a pink empowerment bow; it’s about our daily business practices — from what tech we use to which copywriting tactics we choose.

For me to choose these tools, the companies don’t need to be flawless (none are; this is capitalism; I’m trying to make the best choices possible in the system we have, not perfect choices) or tick off every single one of my desired social justice boxes…

…but they’re often so much better than their alternatives, both from a functional and community-impact perspective.

In the selection process — eg when I’m thinking I need an app or a software to solve a problem in my marketing or make it better — I use my diversity & inclusion criteria

(is the team diverse? are there people of colour in executive leadership positions? are the founders and/or CEOs people with non-dominant identities? what are their labour policies?)

as some of the ‘features’ I’m looking for in a product.

I use a Selection Matrix to compare functions of the products/services I’m considering; it includes my inclusion criterion so I can make the best, most culture-making choice.

As with every purchasing decision, I might not get every feature and function I’m hoping for, but the more the better.

Side note: This is a sample Selection Matrix that I use. I regularly share it with my clients so they can implement this feminist business practice in their platforms, too.

If you’d like to get a customizable, form-fillable pdf version of my Selection Matrix so you can use it to evaluate YOUR apps, you can sign up to get mine, here:

Often my social justice criteria helps me find an app that I wouldn’t otherwise have discovered, that has the features I need, and so I can choose it — and in so doing, make an investment in an inclusive present and a fairer future.

So here are a few of my core feminist marketing tools that are also founded or led by women, POC, WOC…

1) When you teach and sell online courses…

Namastream

Namastream is an online teaching platform where you can store your courses AND sell them.

Cool feature: it integrates with Zoom so after a live class, you don’t have to manually upload your recordings, which has been the bane of my existence.

Namastream is founded by two feminists, Jennifer Barcelos in the USA and Sandy Connery in Canada. Sandy and Jenni declined Venture Capital from investors because it was going to distort their business model in ways they thought were destructive. So now, when they need to raise capital to finance the next round of product features, they hold low-cost workshops where they teach business skills to their user base and use that cash to cover development costs.

NOTE: Namastream is where I host my 1o week Feminist Copywriting Certification Program

2) When you want to schedule social media…

MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is a social media scheduler that saves and then republishes your posts so you’ve got an ever-growing archive of reusable media. Massive time saver.

MeetEdgar is founded by Laura Roeder (who cofounded B-school with Marie Forleo back in the day). The MeetEdgar team includes people of color in leadership positions and the team 60+ people is substantially diverse.

3) When you want to make it easy for clients to book time with you…

Calendly

Calendly is a scheduling app that integrates with your calendar. You give people a link and they can see when you’re available and book that time with you. (No more back and forth by email!)

Calendly is founded by Babatope (Tope) Awotona, a first-generation immigrant to the US from Nigeria; his company offers medical and dental coverage, flexible hours, work-from-home options, and “inclusive parental leave”.

4) When you want to create great-looking images…

Canva

I don’t have a lot of graphic design skill (none, really) and Canva makes it easy for me to put together polished images that I can quickly resize for the various platforms I use.

Canva is a bit of a unicorn, meaning it’s a company with a billion dollar valuation. Other unicorns include Google and Facebook — they’re so rare that they’re mythical creatures.

Even rarer in the realm of the unicorn: companies founded by women of colour. Women founders receive a paltry 2.2% of Venture Capital investments; the ratio is even worse when you break out the figures that apply to women of colour. According to reports from #ProjectDiane, in the last decade, startups led by black women received only .0006% of Venture Capital investment and Latinx founders received a paltry 0.32%.

Which makes the success of Canva, which was founded by Melanie Perkins, a young woman of colour from Australia, a truly remarkable story.

5) When you want to host events and sell tickets…

Eventbrite

I use Eventbrite frequently, mostly for in-person events but also for online events. It hosts an event description, collects payment, allows you to have applications/surveys, and sends reminder emails to registrants.

Eventbrite is cofounded by Julia Hartz who is also the CEO; Eventbrite won awards for having great workplace practices and culture.

6) When you want to STOP wasting paper on printed programs for your events…

Yapp

This one is a new discovery (h/t Misha Gallagher). Yapp is an app that attendees of your event/conference can download on their phones and follow the conference agenda, get additional notes/slides/resources and even connect with each other. You can also poll and survey people to get feedback on presentations and your event.

I like this a lot because it pains me to see 200 paper booklets left behind on tables after an event. That environmental waste can be prevented by using Yapp,

Yapp was cofounded in 2012 by Maria Seidman.

7) When You Want to Sell Your Creative or Digital Products Online…

Gumroad

Gumroad is especially good for artists and makers, but I’ve used Gumroad for Virtual/Online Summits where I’m offering tiered packages of virtual services.

For me, the great thing about Gumroad is that it does preorders. The person places their order but their card doesn’t get charged until the day of the event.

Gumroad was founded and is led by Sahil Lavingia, who was born in the US to immigrant parents from India and grew up mostly in Singapore. He founded Gumroad when he was 19 and it was originally funded by VC; since then he’s changed his business model and bought out some of his original investors so he could pursue a path of organic growth rather than striving to become a monopoly that dominates an industry. He also donates 8% of his profits to social causes, including hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, relief efforts for floods in Kerala, funding the Presence-of-Blackness project in speculative fiction, and a Mexicanx publication.

8) When You Want to Build an Online Community but You Hate Facebook…

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is pretty robust, functionally, and way less addictive/noisy than Facebook so it’s a great place to host online groups, which is what it was specifically designed to do. Mighty Networks is founded and led by Gina Bianchi.

Want to use my Selection Matrix to evaluate YOUR apps and subscriptions?

One more thing…

If making sure your MARKETING PRACTICES are feminist is a non-negotiable for you…

then you might find the Feminist Copywriting Certification Program REALLY USEFUL.

It’s a 10 week course that helps you build a new copywriting foundation on informed consent, shared values, vision, and deliberate ACTION. (Quite a change from the status-quo copywriting that presses pain points, manufactures authority, fakes scarcity, leverages privilege, and deliberately triggers unconscious buying.)

The next Feminist Copywriting class starts March 11, 2020 and you can learn more, here.

You might also like these related posts:

Are Feminist Marketing Tools useful in your business? You can find more, here.

Feminist Marketing Tip #531: Ask for Way More Than You Need

June 4, 2018 By Kelly Diels

Okay Culture Makers and Feminist Marketers: Let’s talk about Audre Lorde.

Let’s talk about her book, A Burst of Light (aff)

In A Burst of Light, she’s writing about creating great work and fighting injustice and raising children and loving and reeling from cancer. She’s writing about living. She’s writing about dying.

Obviously, as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”, Lorde knows things — including how to get things done. How to make. How to create — even and especially in a world hostile to your existence and your work.

One part of what I absorb from Lorde’s writing is inspiration and fortification on the macro level: as she urgently outlines — often in taut, sparing aphorisms that feel like a heart beat — the system we’re living in is intolerable and vicious. It viscerally underlines how necessary it is for me to do my part to change it.

And another part of what I learn from Lore is more micro. I glean from her writings and example many wildly practical, tactical strategies for making things in seemingly impossible situations and how to get more of your work out into the world.

Lorde, for example, was able to organize a significant international feminist conference hosted in the Caribbean with NO institutional financial /administrative support whatsoever.

How did she do that?

She knows, she writes, a secret for getting things done.

On page 124 of A Burst of Light, Lorde outlines her secret to being both an ambitious change-maker, for getting things done, and for making audacious things that didn’t exist before (like, say, an entire conference!).

It’s the secret for creating abundant, lavish, collectively-held projects on limited resources.

It’s the secret to collaborating with teams and colleagues to launch shared events and projects.

It’s the secret to getting by in daily life and surviving and thriving a system that is designed to overwhelm and consume our energy and time.

It’s something Lorde learned from her decades of writing and also organizing events and people and protests and collaborations — and it’s something she’s learned and relearned while trying to live with and through cancer.

Her secret, she writes, is this:

“One secret is to ask as many people as possible for help, depending on all of them and on none of them at the same time.

Some will help, others cannot.

For the time being.”

That leveled me. YES. Ask for more help than you need. Ask more people, as many as possible.

I know we already hear the exhortation a lot: ask for help!

But Lorde’s secret stretches further than that piece of advice. She tells us not only to ask for what you need but to ask for MORE than you need. And ask it of MANY people, not just one trusted person.

Do you see how far outside our boot-strapping success socialization that idea is? We’re trained to be independent, self-sufficient entities wherein it is a weakness for us to ask for or receive help.

I thought about it, and the only people who regularly, explicitly and shamelessly ask for my no-strings-attached/no-compensation help are my children.

Everyone else kind of apologizes for intruding. Me, too.

It seems to me, from my little corner of the world, that we collectively believe that unless you’re paying, the only people who are allowed to ask for help are kids.

And for those of us who are socialized as girls or women, it’s a radical deviation from what Jo Casey calls our “feminine conditioning”. As the socially designated care-taking gender, women are supposed to be the ones who help, not the ones who ask for help.

Which makes asking for help all the more radical and culture-making.

***

Still, many people — of all genders — who are raised in a culture that venerates individualism will often hesitate to ask even one person for help, lest we inconvenience them, or they can’t help and we feel rejected and they feel ashamed…

That’s the practical genius of Audre Lorde’s secret. AGAIN: Don’t ask only one person only for help. Ask more people for more help than you need.

It works in daily life, both domestically and in the workplace.

It also works with meaningful collective projects that have no institutional underwriting and require volunteer efforts.

It works with organizing people and coordinating events for good causes.

If you need one great letter written to solicit funds for your good cause, ask three writers for help. If two say yes but then one backs out, you’ve still got the letter you need – and you’re not mad and they don’t have to feel bad. No bridges get burned.
If you need one baseball coach, recruit three and let them have each other’s backs and a break, sometimes.
If you need twelve essays for an anthology, don’t ask twelve people to contribute. Ask dozens. Ask every bright light you know. Put it out there, far and wide, to people you don’t know.
If you’re putting together an online summit and you need 5 interviews, ask 20 people.

Asking more people for more help than you need seems like a form of self care, to me. It means you won’t burn out doing everything.

It also means you’re not waiting on a breakthrough or support from an influencer or institution (which likely wasn’t forthcoming anyway).

And more crucially, it means won’t burn your people out, either, because you’re not relying on the same three generous souls to do the work of 30, over and over again.

Instead, you’re relying on 30. Or 300.

And here’s what I’ve learned from deploying Audre Lorde’s secret-to-life: now I feel less like an intruder when I ask more people for more help. When I spread my needs across a network, I can’t overwhelm any one person – so there’s no shame in asking.

That was the second part of her tactical advice: rely on all of them and none of them.

That way, if someone or even several someones back out at the last minute, the project won’t collapse and you’re not going to be upset with them. No biggie. You’ve still got it covered. Asking for more help than you need, from more people, actually preserves relationships. It turns what we could think of as obligations into opportunities.

To care. To care for each other, to sustain each other, and to do great work in the world. Together.

Invite people – and meaning, and success, and justice – in.

Ask more people for more help than you need. Spread your needs across a network. That way you don’t burn out; they don’t burn out; and the thing gets done. That’s a boost for everybody’s bodies of work and for our collective. That’s the secret to getting things done as a feminist marketer: deviate from your social conditioning; divest from individualist shame; and invest in community effort. ASK FOR MORE HELP THAN YOU NEED.

And contribute whatever you can, whenever you can, if you can, when it’s your turn to receive the ask from your friends and colleagues.

When we don’t have institutions underwriting us, we have to underwrite each other.

And that is how we culture-make and invent the institutions of the future.

By making things. By helping each other make things that matter.

Because together we rise.

This Feminist Marketing Tip is part of a series. I publish a new one every Monday. You can find more of them here.

#FeministMarketing #FeministMarketingTip #WeAreTheCultureMakers