Hot Olive Agency
I help brands leverage organic content on social media, email, and more.
🤐 Marketers have been pretty quiet about this
On The Menu For This Week's Content Tapas [STORY] 🐶 Remember Nintendogs? [PREDICTION] 🔌 I'm calling it "The Offline Era" [TIP] 🎩 Create genuinely helpful content. I was waiting in the car while my husband and brother-in-law ran into Harris Teeter for… something. Me: “SPIKE! COME HERE SPIKE!" The 20-year-old Nintendo DS struggled to pick up my voice. I've been loving Nintendogs again, I realized I get bored fast. Game default Nintendogs, not mine. Mine are named "Spike, Gloria, Blondie, and...
❌ Why I hate SMART goals
Welcome to 2026 Planning Season! Maybe you mapped out your goals last fall, or maybe you just cracked open your shiny new planner this week. Either way, you’re in good company. This week, I co-hosted a LinkedIn Live with Social Media Club Global to talk about strategic goal-setting and content planning. Today, I’m breaking down the highlights for anyone rethinking what their “fresh start” actually looks like. On The Menu For This Week’s Tapas: [RECORDING] 🎥 Goal Planning Convo with Social...
✋ Before you start planning anything…
I started my annual planning back in October. Because I love annual planning. It’s the imagination and ideation phase of running a business. Q1 has a LOT of energy because everyone is excited about what's ahead. Gym memberships are at an all-time high. Planners are new and crisp. We're ready to tackle the goals we've made. Every January, I believe it: I sprint. I build. I execute. …then April hits. "I'm tired of this, grandpa." "Well that's too damn bad." I’m depleted. Habits have...
🎁 The Gift That Keeps On Giving
People have two speeds when you talk about the end of the year holidays... Clark Griswold: and then there's his family... If this movie wasn't a staple in your home, I have news: It's therapeutic (especially if you have a mildly dysfunctional family). As a fun wind-down to the year, I'm dropping a goofy newsletter: 6 Marketing Lessons Told By National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation No. 1: Branding Is Everything The Griswold Family Christmas Tree Throughout the movie, Clark (Chevy Chase) refers...
✂️ Good milk, great branding
Today, I'm revamping one of my best performing LinkedIn posts from 2024... So if it looks familiar, it is! Good creative isn’t:“We like this font better.” Instead, it's more like: “What can we remove and still sell this product?” Or even bolder: “What happens if we remove everything we think we need and put only the essentials?” We're talking about Oatly. Image pulled from Brent Vrdoljak's LinkedIn post (linked). The first package tells you very little. No big personality. No confident...
🫥 Content ≠ Optional Anymore
Have you ever wondered "why does every marketer seem to be so focused on content"? It's not because we love writing or creating videos or webinars. (Some of us do, but that's not the key driver...) It’s because content delivers a ton of value, both technically and personally. On The Menu For This Week’s Tapas: [INSIGHT] 🔍 How buying behavior has shifted [STAT] 📊 We scroll ~100 miles... [ACTION] ✅ 3 Content Pieces to Make First So... why do we need content? Content helps: Build trust Establish...
🌶️ Being boring is underrated
On The Menu For This Week’s Tapas: [BOOK] 📚 The Pumpkin Spice Café [TIP] ✍️ Just Run the Same Plays for BFCM [RECIPE] 🥘 I might as well call this 'Charcuterie Candy' Does anyone else read seasonally? Not in a “once-per-season” way. Do you curate your media based on the season of life? I'm quite literally reading for autumn. 🍂 This week, I finished "The Pumpkin Spice Café" by Laurie Gilmore. Yes, like The Gilmore Girls. I'm fairly certain that pen name was intentional... My friend Maria said...
😬 I almost paid for this twice
This week, I debuted on my first podcast!!! Jessica Freeman invited me to speak on her show The Ordinary Business™️ Podcast and I haven't posted a much about it because I couldn't WAIT to share it with y'all this week. This edition covers what we talked about, why it's helping me (and can help you, too), and a tasty lil freebie in case you wanna see the magic for yourself. ✨ [STORYTIME] 🗃️ Check Your Tech [3 GUIDING QUESTIONS] ❓Usage. Forecast. Price. [PODCAST EPISODE] 🎧 The “Do I Really Need...
⚔️ A Tale of Two Marketers: Brand vs Performance
I was telling a client last week the difference between Performance and Brand Marketing. I realized I had never written about this in the newsletter. So this week, I'm recapping all the ways I talk about this with clients. BEWARE: This is a long one. On The Menu For This Week’s Tapas: [REFRAME] 💹 Marketing Is Like Playing the Stock Market [VERSUS] 🥊 Brand vs Performance? (Spoiler: They're Better Together) [TOOL] 📊 Dashboards are a Performance Marketers Best Friend There are two main “houses”...
👵 Open This If You Have Felt Old on TikTok
It takes a while to find your career stride. Why does finding work you love take so long? Trial and error Repetition Learning office dynamics Inside baseball Healthy work habits Avoiding bad advice The list goes on. In my first ‘big girl’ job post-college, I took everything seriously: From the professionalism of my email sign off, to how I managed up with my avoidant (and borderline negligent) boss. I worked at a school, so it was incredibly cyclical. We held the same events, sent the same...
I help brands leverage organic content on social media, email, and more.