Communities

People & Pages

Collections

Post has attachment
Sheshnag Lake - Jammu and Kashmir - India
Sheshnag Lake - Jammu and Kashmir - India
travellifejourneys.blogspot.com
Add a comment...

Post has attachment
Gangtok - Sikkim - India
Gangtok - Sikkim - India
travellifejourneys.blogspot.com
Add a comment...

Post has attachment
Dabhosa Falls,Maharashtra,India
Dabhosa Falls,Maharashtra,India
travellifejourneys.blogspot.com
Add a comment...

Post has attachment
Gokarna - Karnataka - India
Gokarna - Karnataka - India
travellifejourneys.blogspot.com
Add a comment...

Post has attachment
Add a comment...

Post has attachment
Content Marketer of the Year Shares the REI Story

Leadership. It’s a lively mix of team building, innovation, excellence, humility, and results. These are just a few of the characteristics we look for when selecting the finalists for CMI’s Content Marketer of the Year award. As we begin to unveil our 2018 finalists in the coming weeks, we want to give you a closer look at last year’s honoree.

Paolo Mottola, managing editor at REI Co-op and the 2017 Content Marketer of the Year, has demonstrated again and again how content can drive more than interest and engagement – it can drive action.

If you #OptOutside, you probably already believe REI’s brand promise that a “life outdoors is a life well lived.” But even occasional hikers and those whose adventures are limited to chaperoning Girl Scout campouts find REI’s content inviting, approachable, educational, creative, and bold.

That’s the result of a deliberate strategy designed “to get more people understanding that the outdoors is accessible for all,” Paolo says.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 5 Steps to Strategically Reboot Your Brand’s Content Marketing

Mix and match content types, formats, and levels

And it explains why you won’t see models or stock photos dressing up REI’s content. “We express that through our members and we shine a light on their real stories,” Paolo says. This kind of authenticity is palpable to experienced and amateur recreation lovers. Not everyone’s ready for content on how to run 100 miles and not everyone needs a tutorial on how to build a fire, but Paolo and team make sure they offer information for both groups and everyone in between.

REI doesn’t use models or stock photos in its #content. Authenticity is a must, says @paolojr.‏
Click To Tweet

REI’s content mix includes everything from blog posts to video how-to’s and from short films to, more recently, podcasts. The brand launched two shows this year, Wild Ideas Worth Living and Take It From Me.

“There’s a ‘share of ear’ we want to be a part of, and the intimacy of long-form audio creates a lot of different opportunities, more than we have with video or the written word,” Paolo says.

Wild Ideas is a traditional interview format with REI’s host, Shelby Stanger, talking with “outstanding outdoorspeople.”

Take It From Me also uses an interview format, but with a creative twist. Paolo describes it as a “relay race,” where the interviewee in one episode becomes the interviewer in the following episode.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Podcasting Pioneers Explain Value of Audio Content and Rookie Mistakes to Avoid

Stand for something

While much of REI’s content resonates with a wide audience of adventurers, some of its boldest initiatives have been designed to expose – and celebrate – specific audiences taking part in outdoor experiences.

#OptOutside

You need look no further than social media to see both newbies and pros proudly tagging their content with #OptOutside. The hashtag started on Black Friday 2015 when REI invited the nation to reconnect with their families and friends instead of shopping for holiday deals. REI closed its doors and paid employees not to work but to enjoy the day outside.

It wasn’t a one-time publicity stunt. The company has shut its doors every Black Friday since. In 2017, an estimated 8 million people took part, according the company’s 2017 Stewardship Report, which details REI’s sustainability efforts, political activism, gender equality strategies, and nonprofit support.

8 M people took part in #OptOutside. @REI’s invitation to do outdoors on #BlackFriday. @EditorStahl
Click To Tweet

In early 2017, REI’s film about Brothers of Climbing documented the organization’s mission to increase diversity in outdoor adventures. As BOC co-founder Mikhail Martin says in an interview in REI’s Co-Op Journal, “We want to bring the community together. We want to see people of color experience a higher level of comfort in the outdoors. We want to hear more children saying they want to be rock climbers instead of the typical basketball or football player.”

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How REI Is Unlocking the Power of Long-Form Video

#ForceofNature

More recently, REI tackled how women are represented outdoors, through an initiative called Force of Nature, which, as REI CEO Jerry Stritzke wrote in an April 2017 post, “claims the outdoors as a place to opt out of cultural pressures to conform – the ‘supposed-to’s’ and ‘shoulds’ that underpin outdated stereotypes – especially for women.”

The initiative grew out of a survey REI commissioned in early 2017. The results were predictable in one sense: 85% of women surveyed said they “believe the outdoors positively affects mental health, physical health, happiness, and overall well-being,” and 70% reported that being outdoors is liberating.

But it also revealed that most of the women who responded lacked a f…
Add a comment...

Post has shared content
Originally shared by Brian Truono Photography - 113 comments
We made it to the end of 2016! I've chosen a heck of a year to take on this very ambitious 366 day challenge. I set off with the goal to bring you all a daily photo post (images not shown in my portfolio prior), garnered from imagery captured in previous years, lost in a pool of hard drives, but also photographed from this year's travels. You see it as a quick flip of your thumb or scroll of the mouse, but behind the scenes, each day's post involves hours of digging deep in archives, finding an image that spoke to me and presenting it to the world. Every image is tagged, mapped, and meticulously massaged to my liking. I researched locations to bring out facts, wrote musings and ramblings, and cursed often at my nagging writer's block.
One thing to note: I have no complaints about this choice – it's been one of the best projects I've taken on. It has forced me to experiment, relearn processing techniques, hone my skills and even find a lot of beautiful images I had already captured and forgotten about (many of which are my new favorites)! For anyone who desires to be an artist or further their skills – go do and do often. Don't stop and keep moving forward. All castles are built brick by brick.
I started on January 1st of 2016 and today's post should be the last, however, there were a few days skipped due to personal reasons or lack of internet during travel days. You'll see those remaining posts in the coming days.
Somewhere in all of this, for those in the know, my wife and I welcomed a new daughter to the world last March. As all parents know (and we quickly learned), sleep is depreciated heavily in these early years. But we keep our beautiful daughter involved and at nine months old now, she has already visited 18 states and 21 National Park locations. I'm quite proud that she's getting the opportunity to travel and experience the world.
I want to say thank you to all of you for the support and encouraging likes, comments and shares over the past year. And a mega-big thanks to my wife who believes in my efforts and keeps me on task. I do this because it gives a smile to those in need, offers a path to learn something new, and even provides a pause in the every day monotony for many. This is far from being a lucrative endeavor, in the monetary sense, but the value in experience often outweighs the negatives. Keep supporting your artist friends, their dreams and their passions because they make the world a better place. It's a long winding road to success but let's enjoy the view at every turn.
I wish you all a happy, safe New Years and I look forward to wandering in wonder with you next year!
Day 360/366
The Last Drop - Sequoia National Park, California
#366challenge2016 #photoaday #photooftheday #Sequoia #NationalPark #FindYourPark #Sunset #horizon #California #photography #HappyNewYear #Goodbye2016 #Hello2017 #outside #optoutside #beauty #nature #ThisLand #WanderInWonder
Photo
Add a comment...
Wait while more posts are being loaded