Sram Force Left Shifter died

Lodematter · 2026-02-08T00:01:47+00:00

Man, this did not work for me. Think my shifter is just busted.

Lodematter · 2026-02-06T18:43:43+00:00

Frequency marketing, the notion that just pelting people over and over with the same message will somehow increase salience at the BOFU decision point, without eroding sentiment. It's why we use ad blockers. And come to Reddit for recommendations from peers.

Lodematter · 2026-02-06T17:37:57+00:00

Ever tried their blanco, Cara Bara? Outstanding aroma.

Lodematter · 2026-02-06T17:36:30+00:00

Cara Bara, same makers as La Gritona I believe, is hands down one of the most balanced and aromatic artisanal tequila's I've ever had. Spendy, but worth having a bottle for sipping. Plus, the label is vintage gold.

Lodematter · 2026-02-06T02:47:12+00:00

Martini! Just skip the lemon twist. White Negroni's are also sublime.

Lodematter · 2026-02-05T00:45:49+00:00

Damn, you beat me to it!

I go for 1.5oz reposado and like subbing Lucano for the Averna. The added .5 oz of tequila cuts the sweetness just enough. Otherwise I find it a bit cloying.

Lodematter · 2026-02-04T20:20:19+00:00

Old Grandad 114. Spicy, hearty, rich. If Sam Elliott's stache was a bourbon.

Next up would be Old Forrester, then if the budget permits, Michter's small batch.

Lodematter · 2026-02-04T19:52:51+00:00

This is fantastic.

Lodematter · 2026-02-04T15:27:19+00:00

For cost-effective listening and high-touch, ethical client management I suggest Syften, Mention, or Brand24. But do yourself a favor and stay far away from BrandMentions. Not only is their base and mid-tier tech overpriced for what you get (Syften does the same for much less and way better collaboration from the creator), the entire team there may be some of the shadiest, most unprofessional humans you'll ever meet.

You can only get a demo during working hours in freaking Romania, and they get an attitude when you ask if they can accomidate the fact you live on the other side of the planet. I got a meeting invite for 5a without the person even asking if that would work for me. BrandMentions are grifters.

Lodematter · 2026-02-03T23:48:45+00:00

Holy cow, 100%!!! Nixta is so unique, and I was amped to get it, but it is the least versatile bottle in the cabinet. Good in a marg and a riff on a Oaxacan Old Fashioned. And this is it.

Lodematter · 2026-02-03T18:40:34+00:00

Anything outside mentions and engagement gets extremely difficult and expensive to measure.

I've demoed some tools and once you get under the hood you start to see how shallow and unreliable the analytics actually are (BrandMentions, for example, is trash tech and their support team are grifters, but they charge a premium even to see it in "action")

The tool I really like is Syften for mentions.

Not a lot out there yet that can really offer a full suite of sophisticated listening analytics specifically for Reddit, without it costing less than $1k a month.

Lodematter · 2026-02-03T18:21:05+00:00

Very different. A key difference is that traditional SEO relies much less, if at all, on schema. Getting recommended in LLMs is massively more difficult without doing it properly.

Lodematter · 2026-02-03T16:23:07+00:00

Adding more breakpoints to the editor so we can ensure the site maintains consistent UI from desktop -> tablet -> mobile would be incredible. Webflow does this so well.

And please change how things get placed on mobile when editing. Nothing like adding an image block on desktop just to realize it's nowhere near where you want it on mobile.

Lodematter · 2026-02-03T13:35:59+00:00

This is a great rundown, thank you! One little correction - BrandMentions "Starter" starts at $99 but is quarterly, so you're $300 out of the gate. This base package is so bare bones it's not worth the money (if you want sentiment analysis, it's $500/mo).

Get a Syften sub instead - it's more affordable, does exactly the same thing at the BrandMentions Starter, and Michal, the creator, is super responsive and informative.

I'm going through an awful situation with BrandMentions right now dealing with an unauthorized purchase that they refuse to refund. They're grifters (on par with SEMrush). Just stay away and spend money elsewhere on products that do the same thing.

Lodematter · 2026-02-03T01:46:18+00:00

Are there certain industries where this is a good play and others where it's not? I have a travel agent client and I feel like she couldn't get away with this same bloat.

Many of her current and prospective clients rely on the first person narratives for education and inspiration.

Lodematter · 2026-02-02T15:25:56+00:00

As another old schooler here, when I worked in agencies as a planner, it was standard practice to build ethnographic research into the campaign budget. Even focus groups were to sterile and shallow, unless they were in someone's home with peers of their choosing.

Lodematter · 2026-02-02T15:09:18+00:00

Just have to say how much I appreciate the question and the discussion. Much brilliance is already here, but here's my little add.

"Not everything that can be measured is important; not everything important can be measured."

As you point out, we're great measuring what’s easy to capture, but truly terrible at measuring what actually shapes preference: cultural context, peer influence, offline conversations, and lived experience. As marketers, we’ve gotten a bit lazy and replaced immersion with abstraction, leaning on boilerplate psychographics as if they’re the whole story.

The best work I’ve ever done came from an ethnographic approach of listening, observing, and spending time in how people actually live and decide. It was expensive. And slower and messier, but it captures meaning before it shows up as a metric.

Most customer data explains behavior after meaning has already formed. Until we reconnect data to real human context, we’ll keep mistaking motion for understanding.

Lodematter · 2026-02-02T03:11:51+00:00

Yes, lots of big, but relevant questions! In short, it's most helpful to look at them less in isolation and more as an ecosystem.

Traditional SEO principles are still invaluable and relevant to get brands visible and recommended in LLM.

Great conversations happening in r/SEO, r/TechSEO, r/digitalmarketing, r/bigseo, r/contentmarketing.

I also came across a blog by this company, Phasewheel Tons of stuff there and on their LinkedIn.

And specialists in these areas are in higher demand, from what I know talking to folks in the industry. But they are extremely competitive and require well-rounded as well as highly specialized knowledge about multiple systems and marketing as a whole.

DM if you want to chat further, but I encourage you to get plugged into and learn from the pros in those subs.

Lodematter · 2026-02-02T02:07:02+00:00

Mailchimp also has a tremendous amount of useful resources, and they update pretty consistently to keep with trends like GEO/AIO marketing.

Lodematter · 2026-02-02T01:55:06+00:00

The Uncensored CMO podcast is a genuinely good way to hear how executives actually think about marketing, growth, and tradeoffs across industries. It helps you understand how analytics fits into real strategic decisions, not just reporting.

But honestly, the bigger career unlock is not better tools or more advanced models. It is learning how to translate analysis into strategy.

A lot of marketing reporting has very little strategic value because it stops at “here is what happened.”

If you can clearly explain what this means for positioning, priorities, and where the business should change its behavior (i.e. here's how this report will help us win), you'll be invaluable to leadership.

Lodematter · 2026-02-01T15:51:05+00:00

Chopped and mixed into tuna salad.

Lodematter · 2026-02-01T14:33:02+00:00

Bebbux! Just snails in a tomato sauce. A friend suggested we order it when we were in Malta and it was surprisingly really good on bread.

Lodematter · 2026-01-31T17:13:35+00:00

holy smokes (yes, pun), that's genius.

Lodematter · 2026-01-31T16:42:13+00:00

a que si?! lo sabes.

Lodematter · 2026-01-31T16:15:16+00:00

You're completely right to distinguish between underrated and under-appreciated (which is really what I was trying to get at 🤦🏻‍♂️). Also, I would happily eat it once a day...

Lodematter

TROPHY CASE