A lot of people have been asking and wondering: after the black square, what comes next? We’ve seen posts on Instagram reading, “This is not a moment, it’s a movement” and yes, great Hamilton reference, but how do we ensure that holds true? We need to hold brands and businesses to high standards right now. Lots of organizations issued statements and made promises throughout the month of June. How do we hold them accountable?
Read MoreThis is the seventh post in the “A Conversation With” series, where I interview talented folks about their areas of expertise, whether that’s marketing or advertising. You can read past entries in the series here.
This month, I interviewed Katya Ryabova, owner and founder of SMM Headquarters, based in Toronto. We discussed who should be using Google Ads, how to get started with them, and other best practices. I hope you enjoy her insights!
Read MoreLet’s be real: do you regularly review your Instagram Insights? For many business owners, looking at your analytics quickly falls to the bottom of your to do list. It’s daunting! There’s confusing jargon and the data can be tricky to interpret. That’s why today on the blog, I’m walking you through how to review your Instagram Insights so you can use them to take meaningful action.
Read MoreThis is the sixth post in the “A Conversation With” series, where I interview talented folks about their areas of expertise, whether that’s social media, public relations, or communications. You can read past entries in the series here.
This month, I interviewed Tianna Mañón, a self-employed media specialist based in Rochester, NY. We discussed building relationships with journalists, what makes a good pitch, how to tell great stories, and why representation in newsrooms matters. I hope you enjoy her insights!
Read MoreWhen it comes to marketing, Instagram is an amazing platform. You can include great visuals to captivate your audience, write compelling captions to engage your followers, and share behind-the-scenes content in your Stories to showcase more of your brand. One tiny thing that’s harder on Instagram, though, is getting people to click on links. In our post on 11 Things Not to Do on Instagram, we mentioned that links in Instagram captions aren’t clickable. This seems to get forgotten quite often! The only place you can include a link is in your Instagram bio. That’s why you’ll frequently see people mentioning “link in bio” in their captions.
Linking to the homepage of your website in your Instagram bio is the simplest thing you can do. It’s a good start, but it’s pretty basic. It’s more effective to link to specific calls to action based on captions in your latest posts. For example, you might have a new blog post you want people to read, a cool product you’re launching that folks can shop for, and a newsletter you’re encouraging folks to sign up for. How do you choose which one to link to in the bio if there’s only room for one link? Luckily, there are a couple of great ways to optimize the link in your bio so it can drive your followers to multiple CTAs!
Read MoreWhen you work in social media, writing copy for posts becomes second nature. At this point, I have tons of practice and hardly have to think about what goes into great social media copy. But there’s a lot of bad social media copy out there! From grammatical errors to cringey messaging, boring language to overly self-promotional posts, social media is rife with lame posts that don’t engage their intended audience. That’s why today I’m sharing seven of my best tips for writing social media copy that doesn’t suck!
Read MoreIt’s been just over one year since I went full-time with my business. On May 6, 2019, I sat down at my grandma’s old desk in the guest room, booted up my new MacBook Air, opened up the Gmail business account I’d just created, and wondered, “What the heck do I do now?”
The good news is, I figured it out, slowly but surely. Day by day. One of the many tricky things about working for yourself is that there’s no go-to person you can ask for all the answers. I’m lucky to have awesome self-employed friends who were always down to brainstorm, a super supportive husband, and a great community of people cheering me on.
When I quit my day job, I had just 2 clients on retainer. That was it, and I was terrified. The stats look a little different now: I worked with 44 clients in my first year of business. There was a lot of variety to my work: 12 writing projects, 10 nonprofits, 9 one-on-one consultations, 6 paid speaking engagements, 2 higher education institutions, 2 small businesses, 1 startup, 1 political candidate, and 1 multinational corporation that I can’t talk about (yet) because of an NDA.
I’m really proud of everything I’ve accomplished with my business in this first year. So today, I’m taking an opportunity to look back and reflect.
Read MoreThis is the fifth post in the “A Conversation With” series, where I interview talented folks about their areas of expertise, whether that’s social media, marketing, or communications. You can read past entries in the series here.
This month, I interviewed Lianna Pisani, a digital communications strategist based in Toronto. We discussed how to measure social media ROI, the value of qualitative data, and so much more. Please note that the views in this blog post are solely Lianna’s and do not necessarily represent those of her employer. I hope you enjoy her insights!
Read MoreSocial media is constantly changing, and it can be hard to keep up. There’s a lot of jargon in the marketing industry as a whole, and the social media niche is jam-packed with its own befuddling buzzwords. To make it all a bit more accessible, I’m walking you through 50 social media terms you should know.
Read MoreHave you been underutilizing your LinkedIn profile for years? We’ve all been there. It’s easy to neglect. People love spending time on Instagram looking at pretty photos, and many folks are flocking to TikTok to bask in the creativity and be entertained. So are people really still using LinkedIn? Certainly! LinkedIn has 160 million users in the U.S. and 260 million monthly active users worldwide. The site boasts 20 million companies listed and 14 million open jobs, with 90% of recruiters regularly using LinkedIn
If you want to take some time to update your LinkedIn profile one of these days, how do you make sure it’s not boring? You want to stand out and make a positive impression. Here are my best tips for crafting a kickass LinkedIn profile.
Read MoreDigital, Social, & Creative by Emily Hessney Lynch.
