Thoughts on building LinseyCorbin.com

I just finished a very special project: linseycorbin.com. Talk about a tough client.  My wife was my first BRAND and one that's still near and dear to my heart. Literally. As with all projects, there is more than meets the eye, so I wanted to share some thoughts and observations. 

Fancy is dead. The days of fancy frameworks are over. Most of these died with flash, but even today custom design elements, plugins, etc. cause more bad than good. They break in browser updates, and they're difficult to make responsive (responds to various screen sizes). It's the content (especially for athletes) and not the fancy framework that creates the differentiation keeps people coming back. Compare Google to Yahoo or Myspace to Facebook. In both cases, fancy died. 

Let analytics be your guide. The beauty of digital is you can see exactly how people use a site, what they care about and what they click on. It was a little disturbing to see the amount of time spent on photos of my wife, but I knew from the analytics the photo page was important.  The remainder of the site navigation was built accordingly. 

Establish a Hub and Spoke model. Linsey has hundreds of thousand brand impressions in various social media channels and media outlets. I call these touch points the spokes. Her website is the hub. The hub is always a richer brand experience than the spokes. It's also an experience you can measure and control.  In a dream world, the spokes are driving traffic to the hub, because the Hub is real estate you own. 

Don't build a Hub on real estate you don't own.  With the growth of social media, I've seen several athletes in this sport abandon their hubs. This is a big mistake as you lose reach and analytics to can monetize. You don't own social media channels. Thus, if Facebook issues a "pay to play policy" for brands – which they've done – you're at their mercy.  If you've build an audience on your own real estate, then you get to the call the shots. 

All design matters.  The framework of the website simple. (not by accident, see #1). As such, I knew the fonts and more subtle deign elements were critical to get right. I worked with Brian Lindstrom Trek Bikes and Newbaric to guide this journey. We also used some design he had created on cycling kits, and bikes to provide continuity of the site and other touch points.

One step at a time. Similar to winning an Ironman, the digital branding process is a grind. Nothing is built overnight and the ecosystems are constantly evolving. The latest version of linseycorbin.com is an improvement on many levels function and design.  What's more important is how we use this platform to create stories and unique brand experiences moving forward.  

Drone Video

I just completed my first video project using my Drone - which I've named Donald by the way. The objective of the video was to showcase the run course for next year's USATF Cross Country Championships in Bend, OR.  We made the video "course accurate" with hopes to capture the runner's experience. The two runners follow the course layout to the nearest kilometer. The distance overlays (0.5KM, 1.0KM, 1.5KM, 2.0KM - if you noticed) fall on drone shots at the corresponding distances. We also chose to sacrifice clarity (light shining through titles) for style points,  as the title of the video, press release, and video description provide the finer details.  

With that said, here's a look at the finished product. 

Here's to the Underdogs

My favorite stories are underdogs overcoming the odds. They always have been and probably always will be. For that reason alone, I loved last night's Super Bowl 49.  Initially, I was pleased to see that not one 5 star recruit (highest high school ranking) started in the game.  What impressed me even more is many of the game's heroes were not only considered sub-par out of high school, but also sub-par out college. Let's take a quick look at the underdog playmakers on each team. 

Patriots
Julian Edelman - Game winning TD - 7th Round Draft Pick 
Danny Amendola - 1 TD - Undrafted 
Malcolm Butler - Game winning INT - Undrafted 

Seahawks
Michael Bennet - 4 QB knockdowns  - Undrafted 
Chris Matthews - 109 rec yards - 1 TD - Undrafted
Doug Baldwin - 1 TD - Undrafted 

Obviously underdogs, and obviously difference makers in the biggest sporting event of the year. This fascinates me.  I love the power of the human spirit and what it can accomplish. Well done gentlemen, you just made my day. 

Bottling Ivan Video

I visited Missoula near the end of 2014 to collect some content for Big Sky Brewing Company and layout plans for 2015. Lucky for me, the brewery bottled Ivan the Terrible Imperial Stout the same week. Yellow is a prominent design element in this packaging, so I decided to change my camera settings to only capture this color.  In post production, I also added some overlays and transitions to provide a look and feel that aligns with the brand. 

In terms of messaging, my initial question was: "OK, what story does this tell?" Then, I reminded myself that our multi-media and multi-channel marketing strategy is telling the larger story over time. Each touchpoint has to have continuity with this story, but doesn't have to stand alone as its own saga. 

 

Meet the Brewery Mom

I recently spent the morning with Jane Lund.  We call her the BREWERY MOM at Big Sky Brewing Company. She's the mother of two of the brewery's faithful leaders: Bjorn and Kris Nabozney. She's also a critical piece of the equation. For over 19 years, Jane has produced the ART you see on the brewery's packaging and the wooden signs you see hanging from the tavern walls. I've always been impressed with Jane's work ethic and diligence she brings to her craft.  A roll up you sleeves and get it done mentality that has become part of the brewery's culture.

I thought this story was worth telling. So I did. 


10 black & whites

I split the last two days of October and the first two days of November on a four day Steelhead excursion with Deep Canyon Outfitters.  Thanks to instagram it's was my first trip as a hired "photographer."  I  returned from the trip only to find out I had been nominated for the #black&white photo challenge. There are no winners or losers to the challenge, just a grassroots, and  fun way to explore a new medium. I enjoyed this process so much, I decided to share my 10 favorites here as well.  Enjoy. 


my digital marketing resources

Today on twitter, I was asked for my "digital marketing" resources.  I thought this response deserved more than 140 characters, so I wanted to take the time share here.  

Blogs
I read on my iPad every night before bed.  This "digital marketing" reading list includes: Seth Godin, Dan Zarella, Brain Pickings, Hubspot, Simply Measured, and the Social Media Marketing feed on Flipboard. 

Podcasts 
I listen to podcasts when I travel. My three favorite digital marketing podcasts are:  Inside Social Media,  Social Media Marketing, and Duct Tape Marketing.  I also have a Lynda.com subscription I cherish.   

Books 
I've recently turned to books–yes books– in a quest to better understand the foundations of our digital behaviors, or just behavior in general.  For this insight, I've been reading Joseph Campbell for story structure and Steven Pinker for human nature. 

Well...  this is my list. I'm sure it's missing some gems. If you think so, email them to me at chris@corbinbrands.com Thanks in advance. 

 

 

a year in review

This time last year, Linsey and I decided to move from Missoula Montana to Bend Oregon.  We loved our previous 13 years in Missoula, but decided it was time for a change.  With this move, I decided to let my conscience be my guide, do what I love, and enjoy the journey.  I closed my prior work in the world of water and shifted all my focus to building digital brands. The tiles below highlight the work I've completed in the last 365 days. It's work I'm proud of–and more importantly–work I enjoyed.  I consider each tile a notch in the belt and a lesson learned. A big thanks belongs to the brands below and other support (friends, family, colleagues) that have played a role in the last year. 

Thank You. 

​

What I'm Made Of Video Series

I've dedicated the last 4 weeks to shooting & editing a 4-part video series capturing Linsey's journey to the Ironman World Championships.  The overall objective of the series was to capture the hard work, dedication,  and support for a dream to win a world title.  Linsey didn't have the day she had hoped for (12th),  but–truth be told–that's what makes the sport special.  In the wake of an "off" day, I'm reminded of this quote:

“It’s hard to beat a person who never quits. ”
— Babe Ruth

In case you missed the series, I've embedded each video below.  A special thanks belongs to the media partner Triathlete.com and contributing sponsors:  Trek, Clif Bar, Saucony, SRAM, Normatec, and Kamut.  Also, thanks to Cue Songs for licensing all of the Bronze Radio Return songs heard in the video series.  


My first BEND brand

When I moved from Missoula to Bend, I made a list of local brands I'd like to work with in this community. At the top of this list was Backporch Coffee Roasters. In addition to enjoying their product on previous visits, I respected the vision, passion, and craft of founder Dave Beach.   For example,  Dave has refused  to serve me a single origin Cappuccino, because the freshly roasted beans needed to sit an extra day. This is a dedication I appreciate and a brand I want to build. 

I eventually talked Dave into letting me build a new digital brand in the form of a website and I'm pleased to present the finished product below. 

As  you'll immediately notice, the site map, structure, and design elements are simple. Very simple. This is not accidental, and we worked very closely to minimize the content and maximize the brand experience, based on how and why customers use the existing site.  

 

34 lessons in 34 years

I started this annual reflection at the age of 31.  Each year I add a new lesson and a new fly.  In no particular order of importance…

1. It’s your life.  No two people are the same. Embrace the gifts, challenges, and opportunities given to you.

2. Nothing is ever as good or bad as it seems.  The bottom is not that low and the top is not that high.

3. Family matters. At least to me. Good, bad, and ugly, I know my family loves me and this gives me strength. Find strength in your family.

4. Find your passion. Branding, fly fishing….  Passions make life worth living and people with passions make the world go round.

5. Do what you love. This is generally the easiest thing for you to do. What you think about when you go to bed and what you think about when you get up? Do that.

6. Fill wasted time.  Road trip or long commute? Fill your iPhone with audio material you don’t have time to read.

7. Carpe Diem. I’ve heard for years: “you’re young.” Don’t wait for the perfect time, because it will never come.

8. Use your words. The brain is a powerful engine and words drive this motor. What you think and say is what you will become.

9. Stay on your feet. Run simple and stand up.

10. Make lists. Simple “to do” lists have become my greatest productivity tool. Email, call, errands, projects, media, etc., all have their own weekly “to do” lists.

11. Buy tickets not toys. I have no shortage of toys, but reflecting back, it’s the trips I remember most, not the “things” I purchased.

12. Nobody is watching you. I’ve always thought people were watching me. What will they think if…? Don’t make decisions based on what other people will think, make decisions for your best interest.  (The 18-40-60 Rule)

13. Do your best. Win or lose you did your best, what more can you ask for? You gave your best.

14. You grow in the valleys not in the mountains.  Times get tough, that is inevitable. As bad as they may be, these experiences craft our character and build our strength.

15. Continuously learn. Read, listen, watch, write.  Never stop learning.

16. Everything is relative. Everything. A 15-inch trout is a great catch, until you land one that is 20 inches.

17. Riches have nothing to do with money.  Today, I'm going on a fishing trip with my dad.  At moments, it will be impossible to be richer than us.

18. Set Goals. I set about 50 goals a year each divided into six priorities in my  life:  family, faith, fitness, finances, focus, freelance.

19. Tell someone the goals you set. This will increase accountability and likelihood of achievement.

20. Buy a dog. Health and happiness will follow. 

21. Eat right and sleep well. I used to think both were a waste of time and resources; I now realize they are two of the greatest inputs to energy and performance.

22. Be spiritual. Not offensive, wacky, sign-holding spiritual, spirituality that gives you peace and purpose. Spirituality that allows you to embrace your blessings.

23. Live where you want.   If fly fishing, running, riding, recreation, craft beer, and community are important to you, live there. If they’re not, live somewhere else.

24.  Love. Marriage is my most prized possession.

25. Don’t be a critic.  It’s easier to be a critic than correct; respect the man in the arena.

26. Find your happy place. Go there when you need to calm the inner beast. 

27. Cheer for something. I always assumed I’d quit caring about sport when I hung up my high school cleats. I now relish the opportunity to cheer for my wife and cheer for the HOGS–Woo Pig Sooie!

28.  Keep a few friends. You don’t need a thousand friends, just a few really good ones.

29. You lose 100% of the races you don’t start. If you try, you’ll know. The “what-ifs” will haunt you, so you might as well try.

30. Measure. If you don’t determine metrics and measure, its impossible to gauge progress.

31. Have integrity. Without it, what do your really have?

32. Experiment.  “All of life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

33 . Go down the rabbit hole.  Follow a passion, thought, idea, feeling, etc. as far as it can possibly take you. Once you've arrived at this point. Keep digging.  

34. Focus on Right Now. Cue the Van Halen. Vision is great, but I've found my best work gets done when I'm focused on the the next task at hand. 

 

getting better

I've pretty much narrowed my goals to one.

Get better.

Two years ago I was watching Linsey race the Wildflower Triathlon in California. I decided to take my iPhone out of my pocket and shoot a video of the race. I edited the video on the phone and posted it to her YOUTUBE account shortly after she crossed the line.

Here's a link to the video.

Two years and 300 thousand YOUTUBE views later, I'm still shooting Linsey's race videos. In pursuit of my simple goal to get better, I've watched countless hours of lynda.com videos, purchased Adobe Creative Cloud, and, most recently, purchased a Sony Nex 5T. 

Below are two race videos from Linsey's 2014 race campaign. Even better, she won both events and broke the American Ironman Record in the latter.  Speaking of the latter, it began with 5,433 GoPro images and landed in the composition you can view below.

 I'm not good, but I'm better. And, this remains the goal today.   


life's more fun working with passion

I'm not talking about me (although, also true).  I'm talking about the brands I work with daily. No one better represents this passion for their work than Mark Miller at Precision Bikes. After 25 years as a jewler, Miller took the leap of faith for his love: Bicycles.

Ten years later, he has built something special in Lafayette, Louisiana.  He's built a bike shop with a culture and community that's infectious. So infectious, it pulls from a three state region (MS, TX, LA). Anyone can carry bicycle inventory, but you're hard pressed to find a shop with the passion than Mark Miller brings to the bike business.  

On my first trip, I caught this bug in Lafayette (as well as some po' boys, biscuits, etoufee, etc.). Fortunately for me, Precision Bike's digital BRAND didn't match the unique experience Mark Miller had created when you walked through the doors of the shop. This is what I love to do–build digital brands–so I jumped at the opportunity.  

This project consisted of a new digital brand and a video series. 

New Digital Brand

This process started with building an entirely new responsive website. The first and most important piece of the equation is the look and feel.  One observation, I made right away is nearly every bike brand is black, white and red.  Precision had already embraced this design, so the website also carried this brand continuity.  Mark made a strategic decision not to sell online, so we wanted to make sure the page creatively showcased the inventory he had on hand, as well as the importance of stopping by the shop and joining the shop culture, hence, the imagery of the groups rides. 

From an SEO perspective Precision Bikes is fortunate to have a content creating machine in the form Ruud Vuijsters (say that 3 times fast, or just say it once, actually).  He's blogging on a daily basis and Google loves content creators, so we made sure the blog streamed through to the home page for Google crawlers. The brands carried by the shop are also linked back to the blog. Finally, we established additional touchpoints in the form Google+ and a Youtube channel, to increase organic search traffic. 

Video Creation 

Once we built the website, we wanted to begin to telling the brand stories through the use of video. I flew to Lafayette (more biscuits, boudin & cracklins, po' boys, etc.)  and spent two days chasing Mark Miller with a video camera.  For the record, this chase begins at 4:30 am daily. I've included the first of a video series below: PASSION.  It's impossible to turn on a camera and not tell Mark's story of passion.  

As I made my video edits, I learned an important lesson: LIFE'S MORE FUN WORKING WITH PASSION. 

He hates those cans

In 2009, Big Sky Brewing Company was required (by law) to destroy all of the test cans run on it's new canning system. Seriously. Forced to destroy perfectly good MOOSE DROOL. The brewery used a couple of .50 caliber rifles for the job, to lessen the pain. 

Nearly 5 years later, the brewery is selling .50 cal bottle openers and I saw this as an opportunity to tell the story our painful past.  I had to go with the funeral music. 


Big Sky Brewing Giving 2013.

For years, "Mum was the word" regarding annual giving at Big Sky Brewing Company. Seeing as the company broke $100K in giving for 2013, I thought this should change.  The video below showcases this giving. We didn't want people to think we were taking ourselves too seriously, so I inserted a meowing cat in the middle of the video.

Enjoy! 

 Here's a link to the full post, including accompanying text.  

How to increase twitter followers 20K overnight. Win Gold.

When I turned on the Olympics last Thursday, I took note of one athlete in particular: Jamie Anderson. I naturally gravitated to her digital media and grabbed a capture of her twitter profile. 

Screen Shot 2014-02-10 at 4.42.30 PM.png

13.3K followers and an olympic dream.  Well, that dream came true for Jamie and her reach was rewarded according.  Here is her current twitter profile and climbing.  

Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 7.50.10 AM.png

And a summary for the week looks like this, including 20,268 new followers yesterday without sending out a single tweet. 

Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 8.23.50 AM.png

Anyone who has ever "organically" tried to grow a twitter account can appreciate the magnitude of this overnight success.  Here are some thoughts on this Slopestyle caliber jump:

  1.  Massive Media Engine.  Most media outlets (all with their own reach) are pointing its viewers to Sochi. Success under this fire power brings digital media reach to the "stars" of the games. 
  2. Stories. As Jamie found success, the stories spread, 1 of 8 siblings, free spirit, etc.  The Olympics are about stories and Jamie had one to tell. 
  3. Gradual release. Previously, you'd wait from prime time TV. With the age of digital, the media is released over time (TV hitting nearly 1 day away) which increases the noise of the reach. 
  4. Everyone has their own channel (adding to #1). People love to talk about current events on social media. Even if you missed the New York Times piece on Jamie, chances are you saw one of your friend's posts. 
  5. Authenticity. If you watch Jamie, you get the feeling she's real. The reason I grabbed her screen capture in the first place. 
  6. Never been done before. Jamie had additional eyeballs on the Slopestyle course as the event was one of the first out of the gates and new to the games. 
  7. A big name points to the event.  Besides, leading the games, and being new, a big name–Shaun White (1.3 million twitter followers)–also pointed his reach directly to Slopestyle when declined to compete in the event. 
  8. Follow another success.  Sage Kotsenburg captured a gold medal and similar twitter growth the day before Jamie. This peaked interest in Jamie's performance. 
  9. Win.  Winning is the greatest point of differentiation. The silver medalist's twitter reach grew by about 4% the number of followers as Jamie.

Jamie Anderson arrived in Sochi with a dream and a twitter profile. Now she has a gold medal and reach. Congrats! 

The key to luck: TRY

This past weekend I made the journey to the fabled North Umpqua River in Oregon. Pointing my truck south from our new home in Bend, I understood the challenge. A take from a winter run steelhead on a swung fly is no easy feat, and the fish of the North Umpqua are known for their snobbery. My homework told me:

  • Finishing school for steelhead fly fishing
  • Tricky currents, uncertain wading, difficult fly presentations
  • Success is measured in days per fish, not fish per day 
  • Flows are low and few winter run fish have arrived 
  • The legendary Steamboat Inn is closed for the season 

Even so, I wanted to go for the experience. I wanted to see the ecosystem, build a fire, drink a beer, and make a spey cast in pristine waters. All in hopes for a LUCKY tug from a willing participant.  Well, I found that LUCKY tug (video below) and it still has me smiling, when I think about it. 

On my three hour drive home, I pondered the simplicity of this fly fishing success. TRY. The key to luck is to TRY.  No matter what people say, if you don't TRY you'll never know. 

I'm glad I did.