This year Halloween got the short end of the stick, at least on the East Coast. Hurricane Sandy came barreling through knocking out power, destroying homes and shorelines, and disrupting my favorite damn holiday. This post was originally meant to be done before Halloween, but circumstances dictated otherwise. I feel a certain lack of closure for October, so pretend it’s Halloween and scare the living daylights out of yourself with some better-late-than-never guide to the scariest places on the internet. And remember: lights off, sound on.

After asking “what is the scariest/creepiest thing you’ve seen online,” and dredging through some of the less-than-pleasant depths of the internet (thanks for all your horrifying suggestions), I put together the list of the top 5 ways to scare yourself silly on the internet.

And please note, none of the shock/gore/not-safe-for-life suggestions made this list. I wanted it to be more scary/creepy, and somewhat safe for all ages (but for real, don’t show this stuff to your kids).

5. /r/nosleep

Let’s start off with some good old fashion scary stories. Only instead of telling them around a campfire with friends, we’ll be reading them on the internet with complete strangers. Reddit’s /r/nosleep community’s slogan is “because you weren’t planning on sleeping anyway,” and ain’t it the truth. Over 100,000 users subscribe and contribute to the community which is entirely dedicated to scaring the crap out of each other with original scary stories. No photos, no video, just text posts recounting terrifying encounters and first person accounts. To keep this from quickly devolving into a “hey that can’t be true” debate on every thread, r/nosleep is pleasingly specific on how to post and discuss stories, saying “Your story should be believable within reason… Remember, everything is true on NoSleep.” Read alone with all the lights off; there is no other way.

Double the Creepy
Although NoSleep is king, /r/creepy and /r/creepypasta are good if you like a scare and can deal with the truly scary site design of Reddit. (I kid, I kid!)

4. Screamers

Screamers are the horror junkfood of the internet. They’re good for a quick, panic inducing scare, but that’s about it. “Screamers” are defined by UrbanDictionary as “A YouTube video or a Flash game used as a practical joke to try and scare the viewer or the player abruptly.” These aren’t so much for you to view as much as “sharing” them with unsuspecting friends. Below are two classic screamers that might give you a mini heart attack, even if you’ve seen them before. And remember to put your sound up!

Play the Maze Game

3. Bongcheon-Dong Ghost

This one is a manga-style depiction of an urban legend in South Korea. The story goes that the ghost of a distraught mother who committed suicide wanders around a district of Seoul (the Bongcheon district, not the Gangnam district) looking for her dead child. A teenager walking home encounters her and well… I’ll let you read the story and see for yourself. Click and scroll down to read.

2. Ben Drowned/Majora’s Mask

In September 2010, a user made a long series of posts on 4chan’s /x/ paranormal forums, claiming he had acquired a haunted version of Majora’s Mask for Nintendo 64. He posts videos and testimony of the haunting as it happens, telling of a “Ben” that previously owned the game who drowned. This first hand account is straight up scary, especially since it’s backed up by video of everything happening, and especially if you’ve played Majora’s Mask. It’s long, but completely worth it. The link below goes to a creeppasta site, and not to the original 4chan post (because the original post is gone, and because I don’t want to send any innocent souls to 4chan). Also is the first video in to get your heart pumping.

Ben Drowned on Creepy + Pasta

1. Marble Hornets

This is what I consider one of the scariest web series on YouTube, and certainly the best depiction of the Slenderman urban legend. The myth of the Slenderman dates back to 2009, where a series of photos were posted to a paranormal picture thread on SomethingAwful.com. The legend took off and immediately inspired Slenderman art, creepypastas, and eventually the Marble Hornets vidoes. You can read more about the history and other instances of Slenderman here

The creator of Marble Hornets claims that “The following clips are raw footage excerpts from Alex Kralie. A college friend of mine.” The creator then goes on to say that Alex was making a film called Marble Hornets, but that something halted to production of the film, and began haunting Alex. When Alex said he was going to burn the footage, the creator persuaded him not to, offering to take it from him. Years passed, Alex moved away and was never heard from again, and the footage eventually made it’s way to YouTube. You can watch the introduction below with an explanation of the series. And don’t worry, there’s no scary things in this video, just the back story. The series starts of slow, but picks up in creepiness quickly, and new videos are still being posted about once every month.

*Bonus: Drink Yourself Silly Too

I hope you enjoyed my little list. If you need a stiff drink after seeing the horrors of the internet, I have just the thing: How to Make Skittle Vodka. Here’s the how-to video I posted from last year. Enjoy and don’t forget to share this post on Facebook and Twitter using the buttons up at the top!

The book I helped edit was recently published! It’s called Napoleon Wasn’t Exiled by Victor Rallo, and has just released; I’ll post an update with a link to Amazon.com when it’s up. It’s my first credit as an editor in a published work, so yay for that. And it has given me the itch to get into gear in finishing my own stories to get published, but that’s a post for another time!

Something that I’ve been working on that I’ve very proud of is… (drumroll) the new home of Post It Poetry! The new home of my Post It Poetry project is at www.postitpoetry.com (Go ahead, take a look. You know you want to.) I’m still working on streamlining how to upload images of poems, but the site is up and functional for now, so get writing!

I made a few videos for fun as well… One in the spirit of Halloween (and The Sweetest Temptations blog, check them out!) and another during Hurricane Irene after I filmed outside during a state of emergency evacuation like a crazy person, then edited behind sandbagged doors until the power went out. So yeah, enjoy those.

I have some other things projects cooking as well,so keep an eye out!

We exchanged a few emails and a few days later I answered Brian’s questions to feature on GetBusyMedia. You can read the full interview below, or over at GetBusyMedia.com.

For me, it was a great opportunity to respond to some targeted, well thought out questions. My favorite was the last question:

Q. What is the best piece of advice you could give a small business regarding social media and getting more engagement with their customers?

A. Keep the “social” aspect alive in your social media. Don’t think of Twitter and Facebook as radio stations where you broadcast messages to your customers. Find which content is relevant to them by engaging in conversations and always continue to release new content on a regular basis.

The interview was also featured on SmallBizTrends.com as a case study on How To Do Social Media Right!

-The Interview-

Did your foray into social media begin as a side project and build over time or did you fully immerse Basil T’s from the beginning?

Our social media marketing campaign began around June in 2009 when I was hired on to work on Basil T’s web presence. The work was part-time at first, but by the end of the summer, we’d already had tremendous success on YouTube, Facebook, and with our email newsletter list. In the Fall, I was hired on full time to do all the online content management, and was fully immersed in blogging, producing videos and engaging customers online for Basil T’s and Undici.

Which aspect is your personal favorite?

I have a background in writing, so researching and writing content for our blogs is always a highlight for me; I really enjoyed learning and writing about Pizza Napoletana and posting on www.PizzaNJ.net. But my overall favorite has to be hearing back from customers that enjoy our online and offline content. Sometimes we’ll get emails or a YouTube comment about a customer that ate the bolognese sauce at the restaurant, and then made it at home after watching our video recipe on it. I also thoroughly enjoy having the title of Social Media Chef.

What tools do you use to track and analyze your efforts?

We use pretty much everything at our disposal to track and analyze. We monitor our reviews across several different sites daily, our web traffic using Google Analytics and Pages insight, Facebook insight, YouTube insight and several dozen Google Alerts. We try to track which content is the most effective, and learn by what gets the most attention. If our video recipes are getting more attention than our photo galleries and blog posts, we’ll shoot and edit more videos. But it all starts with keeping an eye on what you have out there.

Can you provide any key examples or statistics about how successful your efforts have been?

Our Facebook page for Basil’s quickly grew to one of the most “Liked” pages in the area; we’re nearing 1,500 Likes consisting of mostly local customers who come to our restaurant and are interested in our content. I often post links to our YouTube channel, which is nearing 11,000 upload views and post the videos to our Facebook page. And in the video descriptions on YouTube, there’s a link to our Facebook page; by cross promoting and linking everything, when one of our platforms grows, they all grow.

How much time each week or day is spent on your social media campaign?

I work a 40-50 hour week, and most of my time is spent doing something related to social media for the two restaurants. It sounds like a lot, but between filming videos, editing them, tagging/posting them, writing blog posts, responding to posts and emails from customers, and putting together our monthly newsletters, you can see where the time goes. The email newsletters aren’t exactly what you would consider “social media,” but all the content that is made for it is distributed through our social networks too.

How well do you think the restaurant business and emerging media tie together?

When someone wants to find a place to eat, they will look online. It’s important that we have a good presence online, and are active in the places people look online, whether this be Yelp, Twitter or Facebook. After someone has been to your restaurant and they want to come back or make a comment on their experience, new media is the best tool to engage them, keep the conversation going and get them to share their best experiences with the public.

Do you see a definite ROI on your campaign and how long into the process could you see it?

Absolutely. We could really see how effective our campaigns were after the first few months during the summer, and then again after I was hired on full time and more resources we re-allocated from traditional marketing (print ads, radio, etc.) into new media.

Do you use things such as your Facebook fan page and twitter account to interact with customers and receive feedback?

Yes. We regularly post specials and events to inform our customers of what’s going on. The main way we communicate with customers is through email marketing, but posting and starting conversations through Facebook and Twitter allows for a greater level of communication. If someone had a great meal and posts about it on our Facebook wall, I can respond and include follow-up content such as a special or video relevant to that customer. And while this can also happen through email, Facebook and Twitter are more casual, so people are more likely to start conversations on these platforms. Plus, the conversations that we do engage in on these sites are public for everyone else to see as well.

How have you seen diving into this campaign head on affect other aspects of the business, if it all?

It really helps open communication with our customers. We’re able to promote events more effectively, get the word out about specials quicker, and change things we receive customer feedback on.

What is the best piece of advice you could give a small business regarding social media and getting more engagement with their customers?

Keep the “social” aspect alive in your social media. Don’t think of Twitter and Facebook as radio stations where you broadcast messages to your customers. Find which content is relevant to them by engaging in conversations and always continue to release new content on a regular basis.

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When it comes to social media, engagement is the name of the game and Preston Porter and Basil T’s are way ahead of the curve compared to other small businesses just getting started.

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures.

Most of them from Undici’s wine lecture dinners. I even get to taste the wines (sometimes). Check out the rest of the pictures on Undici’s Facebook page and drop me a comment!

I’ve been working on some new projects for work.

One of the most recent being the new and improved VictorRallo.com. Made in WordPress, with plenty of interesting videos and articles. I’ve also been going to some really exciting events like Bellissimo Brunello, a brunello tasting event in NYC hosted by James Suckling. James was kind enough to send us some VIP invites. You can read our post on the event here.

I’ve been blogging, writing, and giving Post It Poetry some TLC.

SocialMediaChef.net has been getting the short end of the stick lately. I’ve been posting a bit more over at PrestoWrites!, so keep an eye for more writing to be posted there soon. Post It Poetry has new submissions, so be sure to swing by there and check them out. You might even work up the courage to write and submit one yourself! I’ve been thinking a lot about this project, and have some significant changes coming up the pipe soon…

I’ve been at Starbucks…

Which is where I wrote this post. While I was writing, a white stretch limousine pulled up. Sadly, nobody famous stepped out.

Click here to jump to the next part of the presentation!

Hello and happy Fall to all! My apologies for the lack of posts; this Social Media Chef has had a very, very busy Autumn. I’ve spent the majority of the last month or so preparing and promoting several amazing wine tasting events for the restaurants I work for. Tasting booklets, promotional materials, email blasts, blog posts, Facebook events, the works. All ending with four final wine tasting events to send out the wine tasting season with a bang. They all had great turnouts and I got to meet some wine folks in the process. Here are links to some of the content from the events, in no particular order:

Wines and Cheeses of Italy
The closing event of Jersey Shore Restaurant Week. Huge crowd of 300+ tasters!

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Meet & Greet Tasting with Isabella Oddero
A tasting and bottle signing with the lovely Isabella Oddero.

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Accademia del Vino: The Wines of Renato Ratti
The final wine lecture in the 3rd season of the Accademia del Vino Wine Lecture Series at Undici.

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An Evening with Joe Bastianich
A rare tasting of Bastianich and La Mozza wines with restaurateur and wine guru Joe Bastianich!

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And as the wine season ends, I have just enough time to catch my breath before jumping on a plane to Italy!

After hours of editing travel footage and tasting dozens of wines from every region, I’m finally traveling to Italy. My travels will take me to Piemonte (specifically Alba) to collect some video, photos, and write articles during the trip. I can’t reveal the full details surrounding my work on the trip just yet, but expect some exciting news in the near future. It will only be a short 5 day venture, and I’ll be chronicling all my travels right here (of course), so keep an eye out for new posts coming soon!

Around 3:30pm on August 30^th, the power in Monmouth County went out. I jumped on Twitter via my phone to check with fellow tweeps in the area to see how far the outage spread. Within a few minutes, dozens of posts from people around the area were talking about the blackout. Desperately trying to keep up, I posted “Anybody hear why the power’s out? #njblackout tag and spread so we can follow.” Over the next hour, tweets popped up using the hashtag with news of an explosion in Tinton Falls, links to the JCP&L maps showing the spread of the blackout, and updates on which roads to avoid with downed traffic lights. Tweets started appearing around 6pm about areas with restored power, and places to grab dinner for those still in the dark. Local Twitter community for the win.

What I learned

• That Twitter is a great communication tool for what’s going on right now, especially during times where other forms of news and communication are down.
• Although it’s great to connect with people all over the world via Twitter, local Twitter communities are especially useful/awesome.
• There are a lot of folks on Twitter that have never met willing to go out of their way to help each other out.
• I should have a flashlight in my office from now on.

What my office looked like during the blackout.

What happened to you during the blackout? Leave a comment with your experience in 140 words or less!

There are dozens of posts and videos (at least 100) about the Wine Bloggers Conference going into detail about many of the things people loved about the event. You can read my top 10, but not really top 10 list for more of my favorite things at the conference. With this short video, I tried to capture the feeling of specific moments during this event that came from the local wineries, the land, the wine itself, and of course the wonderful wine community. See you all next year in Charlottesville!

What was your single favorite moment of WBC10?

1. This event was amazing. It was my first large scale blogging conference, and there was far too much awesome to fit into just ten points.

2. Who has time to create a top ten list when you could be talking to people from the conference on Twitter?? Twitter and the tag #wbc10 was a huge communication tool before, during, and after this event. It made communication so fluid, and let everyone share every detail of the event from every angle in real time; I can’t imagine the event without it. I’ve connected with some really great people through Twitter, and been able to keep the conversation going with the bloggers I met at the conference. Plus, there are so many people sharing all the great posts on the event, how could you think about writing when there’s so much to read?

3. Why sit on your computer making a list when there are so many palate-blowingly good wines you could be tasting? The amount of wine I got to taste at wbc10 was staggering. (and in some cases, lead to staggering) There were so many quality wineries with so much delicious that if I bought even one bottle of every wine I liked from the conference, I’d be broke before I finished this list.

4. Instead of typing a list inside, you could be touring one of the many stunning Washington wineries! (I of course am stuck in New Jersey, allowing me to write this list for you with a clean yet thirsty conscience) I  got to visit Cougar Crest (which had a refreshing Grenache Rose), Skylite Cellars (with some strikingly good Syrah), and Pepper Bridge (with a tasty Merlot that was right up my alley).

5. I’m going through the notes on all the great keynote speakers, and I don’t see anything about writing a top-ten list. I see I jotted some things down about the endless debate area of wine review writing and wine blogging, the strong online writing community and it’s varying opinion on paid vs unpaid writing, and the ever evolving future home of the wine review. As a blogger who is still getting into the vast world of wine writing, these keynotes gave me a much clearer image of the online wine writing landscape. But nobody said anything about lists!

6. In fact, the only list I remember hearing was the Twenty-four Theses at the More Effective Writing in Your Blog breakout session. Twenty-four well written, well stated points: now that’s a list. And as a writer, I greatly enjoyed it. I’m also far too busy going through all the ultra-helpful points covered in the Vlogging breakout session.

7. If I was to make a list, at least three of the points would be crediting the event staff, and the folks at Zephyr Wine Adventures who made the whole shindig possible. Extra props to Reno for being everywhere at once. That dude moves so fast, at one point I swore there was two of him running around.

8. I should be packing my bags for a return trip to Walla Walla instead of typing. The town was charming, the people were welcoming, and the local wine community thriving. If I wasn’t on the exact opposite side of the country, I’d be checking back into the Comfort Inn this weekend.

9. I might just give up blogging all together to peruse my new passion for ice sculpting

10. And lastly, why would I make a top ten list when there are already several awesome, well written, and entertaining top-ten lists out there? In case you’ve been stuck with the fail whale all day, these are what everyone is talking about:

Top Ten Pre 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference List! Seriously!

Not Another Top Ten List From the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference!

Top 10 Highlights from #WBC10

Top 10 Things I Learned at Wine Camp

Ten Things I Learned at WBC10

The Beer Wench did a Top Ten list in Tweets. Check out her Twitter here

So, those are my top ten reasons why I’m not going to- oh my. My subconscious has been infiltrated by the great wine-minded community I spent the weekend with! Oh well, I suppose having the best wine bloggers in the industry rub off on you isn’t so bad. Cheers!