Mekael Duclos

Find me at the intersection of strategic marketing & design | 🔁

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

You can really tell when you're working with a founder who is passionate about their product vs just building for profit

The difference in momentum is glaring and the impact is tangible

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

@PaddyG96 When it comes to yt content + video production, how do you go about finding the balance between leaning into trends and establishing your own style/cadence?

[Alex Cristache @AlexCristache]

"Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own." - this quote supposedly by Baron Rothschild is the guiding principle of contrarian investing. How does it relate to #design?

Simple. Go against the grain. Redefine yourself to stand out.

Instead of fighting in an overcrowded service market pick your fights mindfully. When everyone is selling "full service", you sell specialized services. When everyone is doing generic subscriptions, you sell customized, personalized services. When everyone is doing low-communication, you hyper-communicate. When everyone is doing heavy animations, you do minimal, etc.

Make yourself the obvious alternative to the trend. There will always be a market for it.

* Visual is using #MindfulPalettes no. 98 which is dropping later today.

[Alex Cristache @AlexCristache]

To this day, the #MindfulPalettes no 33 color palette remains one of my favorites, and a great palette to officially welcome the Summer!

Clear skies, sandy beaches, and nature's green just basking in the bright, golden sunlight!

Have a great summer! 🌞

[Ruben Hassid @rubenhassid]

gpt-4o claims to outperform claude opus.

I don't trust benchmarks.

So I ran my own tests:
test #1 → analyze a 42-page PDF

[Holly - I like tech @AnxiousHolly]

Samsung is mocking Apple again

[Alex Cristache @AlexCristache]

Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and you just have to make it happen. Kept hearing this word (lean) lately and I kept visualizing this concept.

So here it is, a simple logo design concept where the typography carries the message.

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

Let me know what you think, and feel free to check out my portfolio!

https://t.co/r3Ir3ZAyZA

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

Avoiding putting my picture for as long as I can but maybe I should also consider shortening the texts

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

How do you write your "About Me" page on your portfolio? Would love to see examples of how some of you created yours

It can feel so awkward like bragging but you have to be your own biggest fan

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

How do you write your "About Me" page on your portfolio? Would love to see examples of how some of you created yours

It can feel so awkward like bragging but you have to be your own biggest fan

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

To check out the site, roast or support, click here or visit the link in my bio!

https://t.co/bnObGn7v4L

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

FINALLY finished crossing the T's and dotting the i's!

My portfolio website is officially done... Complete with a (little too personal) "About Me" page.

Will always find new things to change/update, but I'm excited to share it with everyone now‼️

Give me ya best shot #roast

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

Brand owners!!! Stop asking Google "What is the most effective digital marketing strategy?"

You'll only waste your valuable time and $$$ building a generic strategy.

Or even worse...

One made for a completely different brand.

Allow me to shed some light so you can DIY a better strategy

Some common digital mktg strategies you'll come across include:
- Social media (SMM)
- Search (SEO/SEM)
- Paid promo/ads (PPC)

The biggest challenge for brand owners is knowing when or why to use each strategy

The vast majority of other strategies (content, email, affiliate, influencer, UGC, etc.) will often fall under these 3 pillars - Making it incredibly difficult to discern which combination of channels will provide your brand with a digital marketing strategy that ACTUALLY achieves your business goals.

This is where understanding integrated marketing strategy becomes crucial.

Find the strategy that is most tailored to YOUR brand & business objectives!

Here's what that looks like:
1) Define your niche/audience; Who are they & what channels are they on?
2) Identify the content they engage with; What mediums/value do they prefer?
3) Align with your end goal; Does this contribute to your overall brand objectives?

Need sales from your website? Users to download your app? Listeners for your podcast? Maybe you truly just need a platform and followers/reach?

All of these require a unique strategy, even when operating within the same niche.

Your digital marketing strategy must be as unique as your brand!!

#digitalmarketing #studioduclos

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

@AlexCristache I'm sure it's all of the above and many more variables at play as well

Regardless, very few others I've seen have the same level of understanding of color theory as you. Remarkable every time

[Alex Cristache @AlexCristache]

It's been a while since I've played with my #MindfulPalettes-based poster collection.

Here's my take on "we all live in a bubble" - multiverse theme using color palette no. 66.

#PosterDesign #Gradients

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

Content creators, take notes!

Paddy clearly breaks down his strategy & roadmap for developing viral YouTube content

Incredibly valuable insight that can also translate well to other platforms and mediums of content creation

[Paddy Galloway @PaddyG96]

This YouTube video with a client got 18 million views.

So f**k it… I’m gonna break down the entire strategy behind it.

This will be the most useful thing you read about youtube this week:

[Brian Collins @briancollins1]

Why did we build a five-acre retreat in Woods Hole?

.....

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things..

- Mary Oliver

.....

Our forest retreat is steps from the Atlantic Ocean. Had we been born of an earlier era, my colleagues may have become painters or writers of stories filled with sailing ships and far off lands. My more adventurous colleagues, explorers of the sea.

Instead, born into an age of hyper-connected media, space travel, robots and beings of artificial (if not alien) intelligence in the middle of collapsing natural ecologies, we concern ourselves with design and the future, instead. And new futures arrive on our doorstep every morning.

As we design and invent new tomorrows with our clients, partners and friends, we realize that time is coming at us entirely unformed, now. And as that time is filled with possibility, our imaginations can shape it.

Within imagination is the threshold to a meaningful existence. And nature, the woods and a coast filled with dramatic weather (as we have on Cape Cod) presents forces that will awaken the most resistant one. You can find creative redemption here among the trees and along the shore.

It did so for painters from Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning to writers Tennessee Williams, E.E. Cummings and Mary Oliver, and architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. People flock here from across the globe just to visit the landscapes that inspired Edward Hopper.

I get to pass those landscapes, daily.

COLLINS needed a place far away from the great energies of the cities we live in, not always amidst the grind of a technological, urban beat.

And as we go deeply into the unknown of AI, imagination itself will be our most fierce ally. So we must be fluent in all of its most potent forms.

Imagination also seeks community. So, when we design, we design not only for us or our clients, but for everyone. In that way, our work might become a gift not only for ourselves, but for the communities we serve.

Thus the reason we wanted to create what we now call TreeHaus on Cape Cod. It was, frankly, partly selfish.

Half of my heart, like many create people's, is built to compete and strive and jet to distant cities. But the other half is built to read old poetry on a windy coast, draw in sketchbooks and live with colleagues and friends in a old house in ancient woods filled with books of fairy tales, legends and myths.

So now we do both.

Without slipping into sentimentality, we have learned more about each other reading aloud, making breakfast together and drying the dishes than in any staff meeting.

Knowing full well what we are all now up against in our world, we have learned that we can be saved by the beauty of our world, too.

And, as my colleagues who visit us here in Woods Hole will tell you, it always, always vibrates with possibility.

Especially when drying the dishes.
.

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

Just lost 100+ tweets.. All of my drafts

Most were short but there were some gem threads that I've made and I'm incredibly sad I couldn't save them

Hope you all started the week on a more positive foot

[Mekael Duclos @mekaelduclos]

A brand that does not take on some form of marketing will fail, 100% of the time

More than ANY other business function, marketing equips you with the ability to target your customers & grow at scale

But why is marketing not a priority to most businesses? You mention 'marketing' and most peoples' eyes will gloss over

Everyone has their own idea of what a marketer does. The field is so vast that you could be talking about

- go-to-market strategy
- social media & content
- search marketing
- advertising and more

The HARDEST PART about the variety is how 'digital marketing' has become nearly indistinguishable from simply performing normal tasks on digital platforms - So everyone thinks they have experience in the field

And these days, everyone's trying to be a marketer, creator, media manager, etc. There's too much saturation and the average performance is LOW

The ability to perform/conduct marketing & design functions has become much more accessible. You try things, you fail, and it leaves a bad taste

It's not that marketing is ineffective or the field is dying... you just needed better strategy

Platforms change, audiences adjust, content requires optimization

Using a combination of results-driven strategy and creative design will help you target your audiences with the most effective marketing

Much like sculpting beautiful statues from marble blocks, there's a perfect strategy just for you, for YOUR BRAND.. Just waiting to be carved out of the channels of our digital world
_____________________________________

#digitalmarketing #studioduclos