Freelance Business Writing

I am pleased to welcome two new clients to Tiger Lily Media:

• Project Uplift NFP, based in Rockford IL, is a non-profit seeking to help rebuild communities by working on affordable housing, job training, and urban revitalization.
• BalanceHealTransform, based in Oakville, ON and founded by Chopra Center Certified instructor Maxine Speck, teaches Primordial Sound Meditation and Deepak Chopra’s Perfect Health Program.

I have already gotten started with both, helping with website content, blog posts, and Facebook profiles. I look forward to continuing work after I return from vacation in early August.

After many years working with small businesses, I have decided to expand into new areas. Tiger Lily Media will now provide writing services in small business and two other core areas: non-profit organizations and book marketing for independent or self-published authors. These new core areas may seem very different, but the services, being based in social media marketing, are very similar.

Let me explain how I made these choices.

Having been greatly inspired by the work I do with the Halton Women’s Centre and The Pixel Project, I will be focusing a larger portion of my work on non-profit organizations.

A full list of services is available on the non-profit writing page of my website. In a nutshell, I hope to help non-profits take advantage of all of the marketing opportunities available through social media and blogging. This new focus allows me to apply the marketing knowledge I have gained in my seven years running my own business to organizations that need affordable marketing solutions.

Similarly, I will use my experience in self-publishing a book to help other independent and self-published authors market their books. Again, my services are explained on my book marketing page, but they consist of a combination of social media marketing tools and more traditional book marketing, like cover copy, bios, and press releases. I also offer proofreading and indexing services (for mass market non-fiction, not academic or technical works.)

I will be shifting the focus of this blog too, to incorporate the new services in my business.  Look for new posts soon!

What do you need to be successful in social media marketing? Time.

What is the one thing that small and medium business owners typically lack? Time.

So, how do you, as a small/medium business owner get into social media marketing when you don’t have time? You could work evenings and weekends (although you probably already do). You could do what big companies do and hire a designated social media person to handle your blog, Facebook page and Twitter, but that could get pricey.

You could also hire a freelancer. Freelance social media writers can provide you with the content you need to maintain a social media presence.

How does the freelance/small business relationship work for social media? I can’t answer for everyone, but I set mine up as a partnership. We work together to determine topics for your blog and Twitter feed. I write a certain number of blog posts and “tweets” per month, but you are free (and encouraged) to add your own posts and tweets whenever you are able. In this way, you can keep current information out there, without having to worry about doing everything yourself. You can also be sure that your voice is heard.

Yes, this post is a bit of shameless self-promotion for my business. But it is also an offer of assistance to small business owners who may not have the resources necessary to take advantage of the marketing opportunities in social media.

If you want to get started with a blog or Twitter but thought you couldn’t because of time or financial constraints, you might want to consider a freelancer social media writer. A freelancer typically costs a lot less than a full-time social media person, while bringing a fresh perspective to your business and new ideas about how to market it via blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

You may notice that my last blog post was dated sometime in early 2009. I think I may have even made reference to reading something in my next post. Well, the next post didn’t come as soon as I had planned. I got very busy writing other people’s blog posts and Web pages and I decided to write a book, which I am just now completing. (More on that another time)

I know–excuses, excuses. I also know it looks bad for a blog writer to let her own blog lapse, but the vagaries of the freelance writing business mean that when I’m busy on other projects, my own writing must take a back seat.

I’m back now, with new content on my Web site, and new blogging and Twitter services. With this renewal will come a renewed focus on the blog, just as soon as I get the book out the door and  in print, which I expect to happen over the next couple of months. Posts here will be sporadic until then, but I will make an effort to keep far more current than I have in the past. I promise!

A recession is not the time to cut advertising. So says John Quelch of the Harvard Business School in a recent newsletter article. He states that “brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.”

Quelch is talking about television advertising, but that is an medium that is out of reach for all but the largest businesses. For small businesses, the key to continued marketing in a recession is to make it affordable. And, although you may not realize it, copywriting is an option you can afford.

Copywriting is especially valuable in the world of online marketing, where large volumes of well-placed content can draw traffic to your site, and provide inbound links that can improve your search engine ranking.

So, how can you use copywriting to your advantage? Start a blog and link each post to a page on your Website. Write short articles, about 500 words or so, and post them on an online database with a link to your Website in the “about the author” section. Boost the copy on your Website – create a page for each niche market you serve.

Those are just a few of the ways that copywriting can help you. Yes, I have a vested interest in promoting professional writing, but you can even do this stuff yourself. Or, if you have an idea but lack the time or inclination to create an entire article, pass your rough notes onto a copywriter for finishing. It will take less time for the writer and he or she may even charge you less for it.

To find out more about article writing and blog writing, see my earlier posts.

In my previous post I implied that hosting a blog on your own site is preferable to external hosting. I feel I should explain that more.

Hosting a blog on your site can help with search engine marketing. If you’ve read some of my other posts or know anything about search engine marketing, you know that there are two keys to success: content and links.

Sites with lots of relevant content tend to rank better on Google for the keywords that people use to search. When your blog is hosted on your site, each post becomes a new page on your site. If your posts discuss your business or related topics – as they should – then you have an easy way to add tons of relevant content to your site.

Links are another way to boost traffic to your site from search engines and Internet users. There are two types of links – internal and external. Both are needed and, in this case, the external blog can still help you. In each post you can add links that point to your main site. If link building is the main purpose of your blog, then an external blog will serve you well.

When your blog is on your site, you can create internal links to and from your blog posts. Internal links help search engines navigate your site. Links that contain keywords are even better because the search engines see them as prominent, which makes your site even more relevant for those keywords.

Keeping in mind that I am woefully late to the blogging game, and that this blog is intended for small business owners who lack an IT department/local computer geek/marketing budget and must set up their own blog, I will endeavour to share my opinion of common blogging tools. Well, the two common blogging tools that I have used. Added bonus – both are free.

First is blogger.com. Owned by Google, Blogger is easy to use and quick to set up. Visit blogger.com, click Create Your Blog Now and you’re off. The dashboard (the interface where you add and manage your posts and settings) is clearly laid out and easy to follow. For novices, Blogger is a great tool. It helps get your feet wet in the world of blogging.

Blogger is an external host. That is, the blog is not hosted directly on your Website. You can change your Blogger settings to move the blog to your site but I found this task difficult. In all fairness, this is not Blogger’s fault. The change involved something called a CNAME and I couldn’t find a setting to change it in the clunky interface of my Web domain provider (the organization I bought my domain name from). Since I have a moderate level of technical expertise and I couldn’t figure this out, my advice to any non-technical people is that you may need a good IT or Web person with you to help.

You could also do what I did. Instead of having to bother with the CNAME, I just switched blog tools. I now use WordPress and I love it. You need a moderate level of technical expertise set up WordPress, but once you do, it is great to use. WordPress also makes it easy to host your blog on your site, if you have that bit of technical knowledge that I mentioned.

Note that to create a WordPress blog in your site, you need some knowledge of the folllowing:

• adding a subdomain to your site – not necessary if your entire site is a blog, but definitely needed if you want an address like http://www.tigerlilymedia.ca/blog/
• adding a SQL database to your site and adding a user with full access rights
• editing the WordPress config file to include your SQL database, user name and password
• changing other areas of the config file, including a bunch of authentication numbers that have to be both long and unique (luckily WordPress has a tool to generate these numbers)
• transferring WordPress files to your Website

Once the files are on your site you can access the dashboard from within your site. WordPress provides you an admin password to use for logging in on the WordPress admin page associated with your site. From there, the dashboard is straightforward to use.

WordPress is open source and people are always adding new plugins to use with it. There are also a ton of templates to choose from to enhance the look of your blog. As a moderately technical user who likes to keep things simple, I recommend WordPress highly.

I am an obsessive bookmarker. I live in perpetual fear of losing the link to some snippet of information that, however tangentially related to my current project, could prove useful in future. You should see my list of Favorites. While I have made good use of the folder option, and continue to do so, my Favorites list could be considered excessively long.

At last count I had 49 folders in my Favorites, with many of those containing subfolders. In addition to these categorized items, I have quite a lengthy list of others that did not seem to fit anywhere, so I left them to languish in a kind of non-category, all listed together in no particular order. This system actually works fairly well for me, although I recognize that more judicious use of the Delete key is probably in order.

So what is my point? If you are doing any kind of writing for your business, be it a blog or an article or even a Web page, try to keep a list of references. You never know when you might need them again. Maybe you’ll feel the need to elaborate on a point in a future article. Maybe someone will ask you where you got your information. Or maybe there’s a piece of information that you think would be a great starting point for a future article.

There are a couple of ways to manage your bookmarks. You can use your browser or a bookmarking site.  

In Internet Explorer bookmarks are called Favorites. In Firefox and Netscape they are called Bookmarks. If you are not familiar with folders, I suggest you take the time to learn. Just like the folders in Windows Explorer, bookmark folders allow you to set up your own categories and save Web pages within them. This makes it easier to find your favourites at a later time. 

As an aside, I feel the need to offer my non-expert’s two cents’ worth about the capabilities of each browser in this area. In the interest of full disclosure, I will also tell you that I am highly predisposed to hating anything Microsoft does. I use their products grudgingly because they are the standard for most businesses.   

All of that being said, the reality is that while each browser may have its strong points, when it comes to managing bookmarks, Netscape is far superior to the others. The standard Firefox bookmark manager looks a lot like Netscape, but doesn’t offer the easy drag-and-drop interface that Netscape has. (Note that anything with Firefox is subject to change since there are always new add-ons available.) And Internet Explorer’s clunky interface comes nowhere near either of the other two. All of the browsers allow you to bookmark groups of tabs – a very cool feature for anyone who does a lot of Internet research, like me. But for simple management and organizing your bookmarks, Netscape wins hands down.  

Adding a bookmark in any of the browsers is straightforward: from the page you are on, click the Bookmarks or Favorites menu option and then choose the “Add” or “Bookmark” option. To add a folder, choose the “Organize” or “Manage” option. With Netscape and Firefox you get an interface that looks a lot like your Windows Explorer, so it should be fairly easy to figure it out.  

If you want to access your bookmarks from any computer anywhere, a social bookmarking site like delicious is a great option. Create an account and you can start saving your bookmarks. You can do so by using the “Save a new bookmark” option on Delicious, and then copying and pasting the URL (Web site address). Or you can download the Delicious toolbar and whenever you are on a site of interest, just click the Tag button. It’s that easy.  

When you save a bookmark on Delicious, you can give it tags, or categories. That makes it easy for you to keep track of where your bookmarks are, and it opens up possibilities for networking with other people who share your interests.

In my last post I talked about getting content ideas for blogs that depend on current events.  

So now that you have your ideas, what’s next? 

My last post talked about where to get ideas for your business blog. As I discussed my ideas, I noted that there are two main types of blogs used for business marketing – the how-to and what I like to call the “current events” blog.  

In the current events type of blog, writers comment on happenings that pertain to their business, their products and services, or events that might be of interest to their target demographic. For example, mortgage blogs are all over the current discussion as to whether Canada is or is not in a recession. (I know because I write a mortgage blog).  

For some businesses, like mine, the current events blog is not entirely applicable. As a copywriter, I rarely encounter breaking news that requires immediate sharing with the readers of my blog. But I do know where to find current news, and here are some tips for those of you who are stymied.  

• Google News – Have I mentioned that I love Google? If not I will be sure to do so in a future post about Google Analytics. To get to Google news, just go to your Google domain (google.ca for us Canucks) and click the News link at the top. Enter the topic of interest in the search box and Google will bring you the latest headlines. If you need a regular feed of current news items, search the pane on the left for the News Alerts link and set up an alert to have Google send you headlines on a daily, weekly or as-it-happens basis. Be warned that too many alerts will clog your Inbox and drive you nuts, but judicious use of this fabulous tool can be really helpful.
• Social News Sites – I personally use Digg, but there are many others out there, StumbleUpon and Reddit included. All of these sites provide links to new and cool information. They are searchable by category and keyword and rated according to popularity among their community of users. A lot of what you find will not necessarily relate to your business, or business in general, but you can find some valuable, useful and well-written articles and sites.
• Your Favourite Newspapers – Every national and local paper has a Website. Just check the sections that pertain to you. A couple of warnings: this method is not as efficient as Google News and it can lead to many distractions as you stumble upon stories that are too interesting to ignore but not at all relevant to your business.
• Other Blogs – Yes you want your blog’s content to be totally original, but you can still get news from others. If you see an interesting post, explore it online. See what others are saying and then offer your own opinion in your blog.   

There are lots of ideas out there. All you need to do is find them and get in the habit of commenting on them once or twice a week. Luckily, the searching is made easier by some really easy-to-use sites.