Baltimoreans: ever complained about your city? Do something about it when you come to CreateBaltimore next Saturday, 2/16 at Johns Hopkins. Here’s five reasons why heading to CreateBaltimore will make Baltimore a better city—for you and for all of us.
Disclaimer: I’m helping to organize CreateBaltimore this year. But I wouldn’t write all this if it weren’t true! Read the rest of this entry »
Well, I’m planning to hold another one in the spring. An awesome group turned out for my last workshop, and I have had many requests to hold another similar event. Depending on how much repeat interest I get, I can vary the format or keep it the same.
I don’t have any details worked out quite yet, but if you’re interested in coming to a workshop in the spring, enter your information in the Google form below. I promise I’ll only sell your emails to vampires and unicorns, no humans or companies.
Cringe every time you have to update your company’s “About” page or even your own bio? Or perhaps you were an English major in college, but you’ve grown a bit rusty?
Come to my Web Writing and Editing Workshop! We’ll cover how to:
We’ll meet at the Emerging Technology Center in Canton, 11/13/12 from 6 to 8 pm. I hope to see you there!
Done right, content marketing grows your audience beyond people who already get the point and buy your product or service. With content marketing, you can preach to those who aren’t yet ardent voices of your choir.
Yet there is value in taking time, every now and then, to preach to the choir. I write about this now because of a recent conversation with a fellow content marketer. I was spouting off ideas of blogs where he could distribute content. When I brought up a popular, well-read blog in his industry, he objected, saying publishing there would be too much “preaching to the choir.” The people who read that blog, he argued, aren’t buyers. They’re other vendors, or companies who are already working with another vendor.
In the real-life conversation, I conceded his point without pushing back. But since we talked, I’ve been thinking about how preaching to the choir is actually a very important part of content marketing.
Here are a few reasons why: Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday was my last day of working full time for Right Source Marketing. No, I don’t have another job lined up.
And I’m not looking for one.
Instead, I’m taking action on every “live each day like it’s your last” cliché. I’m pursuing my dream of writing, editing, and teaching fiction and poetry.
For the foreseeable future, I’ll be:
Deciding to take this leap was both terrifying and exciting. Right Source does great work, I learned a ton as an employee there, and I will be sad to lose the day-to-day support of a wonderful team. Yet, at least for now, this is the right choice. I know that a traditional career in the business world is not for me.
Have a book to recommend? A marketing, writing, or editing project you need a creative, strategic contractor for? Interested in social media training for your employees? Simply want to get in touch? Shoot me a note at tracyc@tracycgold.com, and don’t be surprised if I suggest we go for a hike or bike ride instead of a coffee!
Just a tidbit today, from the intro of my battered old copy of The Fellowship of the Ring:
“We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers—thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.”
– Peter S. Beagle
Can never reread The Lord of the Rings enough.
This post originally appeared on Marketing Trenches.
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for making business connections—but it is just that, a tool. Even the most active users miss on some simple ways to optimize the way they use LinkedIn. This was true for me—I recently attended a seminar on LinkedIn by Colleen McKenna, and learned a few ways to kick my LinkedIn presence up a notch.
Now, I’m not going to give away Colleen’s secret sauce (you’ll have to head to one of her seminars for that) but below are a few tips from both my experience and Colleen’s talk on how to make the most of your LinkedIn presence.
1. Think about your goals. Why are you on LinkedIn? To find new employees, partners, and contractors? To be found? A mix? Your goals should drive your entire presence.
2. Post a picture. Please. Of your face. You should have a professional looking headshot as your LinkedIn photo so people can put a name to a face. If you’re uncomfortable with recruiters or prospective clients seeing your picture next to your professional credentials (a valid concern), you can change your privacy settings so only your connections can see your photo.
3. Use LinkedIn to remember names. LinkedIn can help you with offline networking too—simply checking out someone’s profile after meeting them at a networking event, even if you don’t connect, can help you remember their name and what they do. This is another reason why having a picture is important—it will help people remember you.
4. Make the most of your headline. Colleen really stressed this one—your headline does not have to be your job title alone. Job seekers, use “Talented [Your Profession] Seeking New Opportunity” not “Unemployed.” Students, use “Aspiring [Your Profession] Seeking Internship,” not “Student at [Your University].” Keep it concise, but make sure it communicates what you do and what your skills are. Here’s mine:
5. Post statuses. Updating your status gives you visibility on your connections’ LinkedIn home page. If you have found something online your business connections would like, or have good news to share about your work, spread the word by posting it on LinkedIn.
6. Write a rich but concise summary. Your summary should be about you, not your company—don’t just copy and paste the “about” page of your employer’s website. Your profile should be about what you do at your company, not what the company does as a whole. Tip: use concrete details like results you have generated and tasks you do on a daily basis to show people how awesome you are, not tell them.
7. Explore LinkedIn applications. Colleen encouraged us all to add Amazon’s Reading List application to our LinkedIn profiles. I was skeptical—I wasn’t sure how the fiction I love would be relevant to my professional connections. However, Colleen got more comments on this list, she said, than anything else in her profile. Sure enough, a few hours after I added Reading List to my profile, in came a message from a connection. She had written her senior thesis on Steinbeck and wanted to know what I thought of East of Eden. If you’re not a big book person, you can still enrich your profile with apps like Slideshare for presentations, WordPress for blog posts, and any number of others (the directory is here).
8. Add sections to your profile. LinkedIn offers several sections beyond the standards so users can showcase volunteer experience, projects, foreign languages, even test scores. This is especially helpful for young networkers who may not have extensive work experience, but adding more sections can add weight to any profile.
9. Connect with care. Your LinkedIn network is only as valuable as the strength of your connections. For some professionals—like recruiters or salespeople—it is advantageous to connect generously, but personally, I favor being a tad picky. I’d like to think I could recommend—or at least answer questions about—anyone I am connected to on LinkedIn. If you want to connect with someone and think it might be a stretch, be sure to personalize the message you send with the invite to explain why you want to connect—and why this person should want to connect with you.
10. Join and participate in groups. Some groups are full of spam, but others are generally valuable. For example, in the marketing industry, the Marketing Director Support Group is a great place to get and give advice. Do a little research, think back to your goals, and you’ll likely find a group that will help you reach them. If you can’t find a group, just start one!
Did you find anything new in this LinkedIn advice? Have anything to add? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
This post originally appeared on Marketing Trenches.
Pinterest delights DIYers, bakers, wedding planners, and anyone who likes looking at cute puppies. This year’s social media darling, Pinterest has become one of the top traffic referral sources for retail and magazine sites. For websites in general, in January 2012, Pinterest drove more traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined.
Holy cow.
Marketers, have no doubt: consumers love Pinterest.
But what the heck is Pinterest, and what should your brand do about it?
Have no fear—this post is here to help!
What is Pinterest?
Have you ever had a bulletin board in your bedroom or above your desk, with little reminders, ideas for later, and pictures of your cat? Or think of the bulletin board full of posters and notices at the gym or the local coffee shop.
Now take that bulletin board, imagine it online, and you’ve got Pinterest.
Basically, Pinterest is a socially connected public bulletin board. Users create “boards” based around a theme or topic, and then grab images from around the web and “pin” them to that board. Of course, Pinterest is connected to Facebook and Twitter, so users can share their pins with all of their friends.
You don’t need to sign up to browse Pinterest, so it’s easy to take a peek to familiarize yourself. For an example of a very cool personal Pinterest presence, check out Steve McGauhey (who is male, unlike about 70% of Pinterest users on this female dominated platform), and for a brand presence, check out Whole Foods’ profile.
How do I know if my brand should be on Pinterest?
While Pinterest is already a big deal for some brands, it’s new, might be a passing trend, and might not have the right audience for your brand. Before you spend too much time investigating Pinterest, make sure it could be right for your business.
One note: whether or not you decide to get involved, Pinterest’s popularity should spur your brand to use more images. Even if you’re not on Pinterest, adding an image can double your page views.
To figure out whether or not Pinterest is worth your marketing resources, ask yourself the below questions. If you can answer “yes” to most of these questions, dig deeper into Pinterest.
How to get started on Pinterest
If Pinterest is right for your brand, here’s how you can get started:
Have you used Pinterest yet? Let me know what you think in the comments. And of course, feel free to check out my personal Pinterest page—fair warning, it’s mostly cute puppies.