OAK (formerly Penn Central)

[stlokc]

It's interesting to me how food and restaurants have risen to consume such a huge portion of our mindset when discussing retail offerings. And I don't write that as an accusation - I'm the same way. But the first offering announced in this development is a huge restaurant, Capital Grille, one of the second two places announced, RH, has a restaurant incorporated into it, and yet more food in whatever capacity (from Eately to fast food) has taken over the "speculation game" on this thread already.

[Pete]

^

It's the same with the OKCTalk social media posts.

When you think about it, even though something like Restoration Hardware is very cool, only a very small percentage of people will actually buy something there. But with bars and restaurants, even if someone never goes most like to think they might, so anything about food and drink gets a lot of attention.

It's the same about office buildings. If they are tall and add something to our skyline, there is some interest. Otherwise, most people don't care about a building they almost certainly will never have reason to go in. As cool as the Citizen project is, our posts about it got very little traction on social media.

By the same token, convenience stores get lots of engagement because it's the place that almost everyone visits on a weekly basis.

[April in the Plaza]

It's interesting to me how food and restaurants have risen to consume such a huge portion of our mindset when discussing retail offerings. And I don't write that as an accusation - I'm the same way. But the first offering announced in this development is a huge restaurant, Capital Grille, one of the second two places announced, RH, has a restaurant incorporated into it, and yet more food in whatever capacity (from Eately to fast food) has taken over the "speculation game" on this thread already.

Yeah, most of the RH discussion on the OKCTalk instagram post is centered around the restaurant, which does make sense. The average person isn’t in RH’s target demographic, but they could probably swing brunch on the rooftop every so often.

[catch22]

^

It's the same with the OKCTalk social media posts.

When you think about it, even though something like Restoration Hardware is very cool, only a very small percentage of people will actually buy something there. But with bars and restaurants, even if someone never goes most like to think they might, so anything about food and drink gets a lot of attention.

It's the same about office buildings. If they are tall and add something to our skyline, there is some interest. Otherwise, most people don't care about a building they almost certainly will never have reason to go in. As cool as the Citizen project is, our posts about it got very little traction on social media.

By the same token, convenience stores get lots of engagement because it's the place that almost everyone visits on a weekly basis.

It shows a stark contrast between the forum and social media and why there doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap. This is typical for other hobbies I follow. Forums go way too in depth for the typical social media engagement. People will argue for 10 pages on the difference of a building material or sidewalk width. On social media a new gas station will get thousands of shares but very little discussion on the forum.. No judgement either way but it is interesting to observe the difference.

[BG918]

^ The difference is fascinating. I’d love to see the analytics - my guess is those who participate in forums likely skews younger and more highly educated vs those commenting on social media posts.

[Pete]

It shows a stark contrast between the forum and social media and why there doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap. This is typical for other hobbies I follow. Forums go way too in depth for the typical social media engagement. People will argue for 10 pages on the difference of a building material or sidewalk width. On social media a new gas station will get thousands of shares but very little discussion on the forum.. No judgement either way but it is interesting to observe the difference.

I used to write long articles with lots of details then realized no one was reading them.

On social media you have to have at least one image that grabs the attention of people who are endlessly scrolling. Then lots of other images to tell the story. I frequently annotate images so at least some text is processed by the viewer.

Even here, you'll see tons of questions asked about something specifically addressed in a short amount of text. People aren't interested in reading, at least not more than a few lines.


The simple reality is that for anyone under 50, their primary source of information is social media. So, I've had to adapt our message and presentation to make the desired points and impact.

And I know I talk about this a lot but the engagement levels on OKCTalk's social media are incredible. We are now nearing 100K in engagement on Instagram and have been as high as 500K on Facebook. Twitter seems to be declining in popularity but our engagement numbers there are still exponentially higher than any in the state, apart from OU & OSU football and the Thunder.

As it is, I now post on our News page, another time in a thread (and sometimes more than one), update the Links page on Instagram, then post on Insta, Facebook and Twitter. I really need to start on TikTok and I've yet to delve into stories/shorts/reels but that is another load of work.

[Pete]

BTW, our social media followers -- especially on Instagram -- skew younger than here on OKCTalk.com.

And almost 60% female whereas this site is more like 90% male. Facebook is similar with 65% female.


LIke anywhere on the Internet, our social media gets negative comments no matter what is posted. However, that is lessening and once you look past the soreheaded comments about traffic and parking, the overriding sentiment is excitement about the general direction of OKC. And when you scroll through our posts, you come away with the impression we have turned a pretty big corner.

So much so we are now starting to see the inevitable backlash such as complaints about rising costs, traffic, gentrification and general ruination of our past way of life. Of course, all those things are still available it's just that in key areas we now have lots of new options as well.

When we get a huge RH Gallery store and one of the largest Arhaus locations in the country on the same day, it's hard to ignore the world is starting to pay attention to what is happening here.

[citywokchinesefood]

BTW, our social media followers -- especially on Instagram -- skew younger than here on OKCTalk.com.

And almost 60% female whereas this site is more like 90% male. Facebook is similar with 65% female.


LIke anywhere on the Internet, our social media gets negative comments no matter what is posted. However, that is lessening and once you look past the soreheaded comments about traffic and parking, the overriding sentiment is excitement about the general direction of OKC. And when you scroll through our posts, you come away with the impression we have turned a pretty big corner.

So much so we are now starting to see the inevitable backlash such as complaints about rising costs, traffic, gentrification and general ruination of our past way of life. Of course, all those things are still available it's just that in key areas we now have lots of new options as well.

When we get a huge RH Gallery store and one of the largest Arhaus locations in the country on the same day, it's hard to ignore the world is starting to pay attention to what is happening here.

Have you considered posting on the OKC/Oklahoma subreddits? Reddit does skew towards mostly males I believe it is about 65/35 for Male/female ratio. Years ago the Oklahoman did some consistent posting that was fairly well received, but they didn't maintain it for long. A lot of your articles about some of the bigger/fun projects like OKANA or opening up MAPS projects would likely be well liked by the community.

[HOT ROD]

^ The difference is fascinating. I’d love to see the analytics - my guess is those who participate in forums likely skews younger and more highly educated vs those commenting on social media posts.

BG, I think it's the other way around - forum members are older and highly educated, social media younger and not too wise.

[Pete]

Have you considered posting on the OKC/Oklahoma subreddits? Reddit does skew towards mostly males I believe it is about 65/35 for Male/female ratio. Years ago the Oklahoman did some consistent posting that was fairly well received, but they didn't maintain it for long. A lot of your articles about some of the bigger/fun projects like OKANA or opening up MAPS projects would likely be well liked by the community.

No, because I want people to come here or social media, not Reddit.

I do make some money through advertisements and the kind people here who pay for a subscription fee. No way to monetize Reddit that I know of.

[stdennis]

No, because I want people to come here or social media, not Reddit.

I do make some money through advertisements and the kind people here who pay for a subscription fee. No way to monetize Reddit that I know of.

You just post links on reddit to here or your other social media sites. I don't know how much traffic it would drive here though. Since most people seem to read the headlines more.

[warreng88]

I used to write long articles with lots of details then realized no one was reading them.

On social media you have to have at least one image that grabs the attention of people who are endlessly scrolling. Then lots of other images to tell the story. I frequently annotate images so at least some text is processed by the viewer.

Even here, you'll see tons of questions asked about something specifically addressed in a short amount of text. People aren't interested in reading, at least not more than a few lines.


The simple reality is that for anyone under 50, their primary source of information is social media. So, I've had to adapt our message and presentation to make the desired points and impact.

And I know I talk about this a lot but the engagement levels on OKCTalk's social media are incredible. We are now nearing 100K in engagement on Instagram and have been as high as 500K on Facebook. Twitter seems to be declining in popularity but our engagement numbers there are still exponentially higher than any in the state, apart from OU & OSU football and the Thunder.

As it is, I now post on our News page, another time in a thread (and sometimes more than one), update the Links page on Instagram, then post on Insta, Facebook and Twitter. I really need to start on TikTok and I've yet to delve into stories/shorts/reels but that is another load of work.

It's interesting that even when you talk about something you know is going to a "concern" to the social media crowd (looking at you parking), it is still brought up ad nauseam. The perfect example is the Bungalow 23 project. It was clearly stated in the second to last paragraph what the plan is for parking. On IG, I just went through and commented on anyone asking about parking to "read the article". It is a sheer laziness that people go to and there isn't a great way to fix it. Even if Pete said "A new project will take the popular food hall concept and turn it inside out with 3 additional restaurants, 5 bars and ample parking" people would still ask about parking...

[Roger S]

I say send them all to San Francisco for a week to find parking.... They will quickly learn to appreciate the abundance of parking we have here.

[Anonymous.]

Parking gets complained about a lot on new developments everywhere in America. But it is extra spicy in OKC because we are only recently seeing the results [limited parking] of highly desirable areas because they finally exist. Like Pete mentioned, the car complainers are becoming less and less frequent as OKC is learning to adapt.

From my observations of the social media comments - It is mostly the extreme suburbanites that are car complaining. They live in Yukon or Mustang and couldn't name a single boundary of Midtown or Uptown due to inexperience. If they want to be a patron of these new desirable areas, they will learn to adapt - just like everyone else has.

So picture it like a gradient:
On the left you have extreme suburbanites that basically stick to suburbia.
Middle you have people who live in suburbs but frequent the new desirable areas.
The right you have people who actively want to live near these hot spots, or do actually live in them.

The car complainers are highest on the left and lowest on the right. OKC is shifting more people from left to right as the city continues landing new exciting projects.

[Pete]

It's interesting that even when you talk about something you know is going to a "concern" to the social media crowd (looking at you parking), it is still brought up ad nauseam. The perfect example is the Bungalow 23 project. It was clearly stated in the second to last paragraph what the plan is for parking. On IG, I just went through and commented on anyone asking about parking to "read the article". It is a sheer laziness that people go to and there isn't a great way to fix it. Even if Pete said "A new project will take the popular food hall concept and turn it inside out with 3 additional restaurants, 5 bars and ample parking" people would still ask about parking...

The exact same thing happens here.

People ask questions or make false statements because they don't bother to read even short posts. This is why social media can be used for very bad intentions; people just look quickly at something and make all types of assumptions.


I've accepted all this for the most part and try hard to tailor the message to the audience.

[catch22]

The exact same thing happens here.

People ask questions or make false statements because they don't bother to read even short posts. This is why social media can be used for very bad intentions; people just look quickly at something and make all types of assumptions.


I've accepted all this for the most part and try hard to tailor the message to the audience.

This has been going on for some time before, but I call it the TikTok problem. In this current period of time people have developed a serious attention deficit disorder. TikTok amplified it and FB/IG Reels have come along to magnify the problem: people are only willing to consume content in 10-25 second intervals and it has to have background music and sound effects. It's quite sad. I can sit back and read pages and pages of something, or devote an hour or two to watching tutorials, documentaries, etc. but many cannot hold their attention for longer than a minute. It's bad. You can only do so much I guess. Content on social media has to be formatted with the expectation that your audience will only stick with it for less than a minute, and more commonly only less than 15 seconds.

[PaddyShack]

Parking gets complained about a lot on new developments everywhere in America. But it is extra spicy in OKC because we are only recently seeing the results [limited parking] of highly desirable areas because they finally exist. Like Pete mentioned, the car complainers are becoming less and less frequent as OKC is learning to adapt.

From my observations of the social media comments - It is mostly the extreme suburbanites that are car complaining. They live in Yukon or Mustang and couldn't name a single boundary of Midtown or Uptown due to inexperience. If they want to be a patron of these new desirable areas, they will learn to adapt - just like everyone else has.

So picture it like a gradient:
On the left you have extreme suburbanites that basically stick to suburbia.
Middle you have people who live in suburbs but frequent the new desirable areas.
The right you have people who actively want to live near these hot spots, or do actually live in them.

The car complainers are highest on the left and lowest on the right. OKC is shifting more people from left to right as the city continues landing new exciting projects.

I am a transit complainer... I live in the burbs and want to get to the hot spots without using my personal vehicle, but the transit is nowhere close to being in existence. So I have to drive in and park...

[Pete]

^

It started before TikTok dating back to at least Twitter.

The nature of social media feeds is there is an image with a blurb. Sometimes you can click through for more info but you have to see something on your endless scroll to even motivate that small amount of action.

On Insta, you only see one image unless you click through. That's why I try very hard to take and create at least one image that will grab attention.

[catch22]

^

It started before TikTok dating back to at least Twitter.

The nature of social media feeds is there is an image with a blurb. Sometimes you can click through for more info but you have to see something on your endless scroll to even motivate that small amount of action.

On Insta, you only see one image unless you click through. That's why I try very hard to take and create at least one image that will grab attention.

Right, I just meant that TikTok has really amplified it.

[Pete]

I'm guilty of a short attention span and I'm sure it's due to the internet and social media.

Even before the pandemic, I grew to dislike having to sit and watch a movie all the way through in a theater. There was a time in my life when I'd go to the movies 4-5 times a week; this was when I was in L.A., involved in The Biz and wanting to see almost everything that came out.

I have been to the theater once n the last 4-5 years. And it was painful to sit there.

Even worse, if I'm streaming a movie and it starts to drag in the middle (as almost all Act II's do) I'll just go on Wikipedia and read the rest of the plot. Most of the time I'm grateful I didn't waste any more of my day.

A few years ago I had to sit through class for about 4-5 hours a day over a weekend. I wanted to kill myself, even though I found the subject very interesting. How on earth did I sit through 18 years of formal education?


It's got to be worse for younger people that have only known the way things are currently.

[Roger S]

I'll take it back a step, ok many steps further back, I noticed it when people started using acronyms on Usenet before the internet existed.... To this day I resist using acronyms.

I can sit still and be perfectly comfortable for hours with no more stimulation than the sound of a breeze, or a creek, in the back ground though. I consider it a blessing to not have to be distracted with something every waking hour of the day.

[Celebrator]

This whole mind-set is really troubling. How are we going to get people to sit and do things like draw up engineering plans and architectural renderings if no one wants to sit and be patient! Yikes! I mean, hardly anything worth anything--hardly anything with enduring value--can either be created or consumed in brief.

[David]

This has been going on for some time before, but I call it the TikTok problem. In this current period of time people have developed a serious attention deficit disorder. TikTok amplified it and FB/IG Reels have come along to magnify the problem: people are only willing to consume content in 10-25 second intervals and it has to have background music and sound effects. It's quite sad. I can sit back and read pages and pages of something, or devote an hour or two to watching tutorials, documentaries, etc. but many cannot hold their attention for longer than a minute. It's bad. You can only do so much I guess. Content on social media has to be formatted with the expectation that your audience will only stick with it for less than a minute, and more commonly only less than 15 seconds.

There's a reason the phrase "elevator pitch" developed, there's nothing new to the concept of getting the details across in a succinct and interesting format.

[Roger S]

This whole mind-set is really troubling. How are we going to get people to sit and do things like draw up engineering plans and architectural renderings if no one wants to sit and be patient! Yikes! I mean, hardly anything worth anything--hardly anything with enduring value--can either be created or consumed in brief.

Having been in engineering since before I even graduated college.... Not a lot of patience in this industry..... Developers want the engineering done yesterday so they can start building..... Our cart is always way in front of our horse.

[catch22]

There's a reason the phrase "elevator pitch" developed, there's nothing new to the concept of getting the details across in a succinct and interesting format.

That’s true, but not quite the same phenomenon. An elevator pitch is a cold pitch setting by chance. You have moments by coincidence of being in the right place at the right time. With social media, even people who are actively seeking your content lose interest in only a few seconds. Imagine inviting someone over because you want to hear their pitch, but then walk out of the meeting after 15 seconds.