Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore…

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the web,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a Blab;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that Seth Godin soon would be there;

The marketers were nestled all snug at their stand-up desks;

While visions of viral videos danced in their heads;

And the CMO in her ‘kerchief, and I in my hipster cap,

Had just settled our brains for a 10 minute power nap,

When out on the landing page there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.

Away to the Chrome window I flew like a flash,

Opened a new tab and refreshed the page.

The analytics on the breast of the returning visitors stat,

Gave a lustre of success to my blog post, like that,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a big traffic spike and 5000 emails,

With shares and retweets so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be a REDEF pick.

More rapid than eagles the readers they came,

And commented, and Tweeted, and called us by name:

“Now, Buzzfeed! now, HuffPo! now HBR and ReadWrite!

On, TechCrunch! on, Medium! on, TheNextWeb and Reddit!

To the top of the list! to the top of the feed!

Now approach away! approach away! approach away leads!”

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the front page the readers they flew

With the sleigh full of clients, and Mark Schaefer too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the listening post

The prancing and pawing of each little web host.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney Liz Strauss came with a bound.

She was dressed all in fur, from her head to her toe,

Because the weather in Chicago is cold, there’s snow;

A bundle of clients she had flung on her back,

And she looked like a boss, just leading the pack.

Her eyes—how they twinkled! her dimples, how merry!

Her cheeks were like roses, her nose like a cherry!

Her droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the hair on her head was blonde, as you know;

The cap of a pen she held tight in her teeth,

And the ideas, they encircled her head like a wreath;

She was very tall and had mischievous eyes

That danced when she laughed, you might be surprised.

She was quick and intuitive, with a razor sharp wit,

And I hugged her when I saw her, in spite of myself;

A wink of her eye and a twist of her head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work,

Shared lots of wisdom; then turned with a jerk,

And laying her finger aside of her nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney she rose;

She sprang to her car, to her team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard her exclaim, ere she drove out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”