Blog - Deborah Beckwin | Strategic Advisor

July 25, 2023

X Marks The Branding Hubris

Enter the Branding of the Billionaire Genius Myth Elon Musk is not a genius, no matter what the media has told us. This “genius” is destroying Twitter because greedy stockholders held him to his bluff to buy the company. As you probably know by now, Twitter is kind of being transformed into X (the announcement could be have been created via ChatGPT?), a company name that Musk has wanted since PayPal. I say kind of for a few reasons. When Musk tried to take down the Twitter signage on the San Francisco office, the SFPD shut it down. X as a trademark is owned by Meta, Microsoft, and many other companies. Close to 900 active trademarks are held in the US Patent and Trademark Office. The Twitter handle X is taken by someone else. Very interesting times indeed. These do not look like the branding moves of a genius. What’s in a Name? Billions of Dollars! The media propped this man up as some genius, but clearly he doesn’t know the value of the Twitter brand. Brand agencies and analysts estimate that Twitter’s brand value ranges from $4 billion to $20 billion. Twitter was created in April 2006, so to flush down all that value, starting from the iconic logo to some already copied, poorly conceptualized, inaccessible font. Inside Twitter HQ in San Francisco, it was down with the bird and up with the X: The co. is projecting the X logo in the cafeteria and changed conference room names […]

June 2, 2023

Two business women of color sit on a window sill smiling and talking

How to Successfully Work with a Content Professional

I’ve been thinking about my experiences as a content professional over the past 11 years and what I wish I could tell past, current, and future clients about how to have a successful engagement with a writer, strategist, or consultant. And then I saw that Melissa Malec, a UK-based B2B content writer and strategist, came up with this nifty carousel on LinkedIn, which was based on her expertise and the expertise of six other freelance content folks. Definitely worth reading. There may be some overlap, but these are some things I’ve found have made consulting engagements more productive and enjoyable. Have a marketing plan. Remember: even if they have extensive experience in marketing, a copywriter or a content strategist is not a marketing CEO or marketing manager. Copywriting and content strategy should be parts of a larger marketing strategy. If you don’t have a strategy or plan, you’re basically flinging spaghetti on the wall and hoping it sticks. And that won’t get you visibility, clients, or revenue. If you’re just starting out, check out SCORE’s marketing plan guide. Do your homework. When you hire a content professional, you hopefully scoped them out. You looked at their testimonials. You looked at their portfolio. You had a good conversation with them where you learn how they work and if they’re a good fit within your organization. You paid for a trial post or article. But you should know what this consultant will be doing and why and how that drives your bottom line. Be […]

October 28, 2020

A stack of gingerbread cookies in a bakery window

Tasty, Customized Solutions — How I Work

Just wanted to share some insights into how I work and what you can possibly learn from it, especially if you’re a business owner. “Take what you need and leave the rest.” I love this idea from the recovery community because sometimes, we can get hung up on doing things by the letter of someone else’s idea of what works. And it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately in terms of my own business. For example, today I decided to take down my content creation packages. If you go to my services page now, there are no submenus. I have always sold based on what my clients need — and that is always bespoke and customized solutions. Conventional Advice May Not Work I had one (former) toxic mentor and one (current) supportive mentor suggest that I create these packages. And, it made sense at the time. I was excited to create services that I know people need. But none of them sold. OK — technically, one package did sell in an exchange for other mentoring services. But it was still customized! It can be really easy to blame myself, and sure. Maybe the value wasn’t clear enough. Maybe I wasn’t fully tuned into my ideal audience. And it’s true — I wasn’t tuned in enough because they typically don’t purchase this way. What Are Other People Doing? If I look at other colleagues and see how they sell their services, I typically do not see any packages. They sell services […]

October 1, 2020

A white woman dismissively holds up her hand and looks away as a woman of color looks annoyed.

Checking Your Inner Karen — White Women in the Workplace

This a post I have avoided writing for years, because I just didn’t want to deal with the possible blowback of white denialism. But it’s on the 4th anniversary of the last day (September 30th) I worked for an employer in a 9-to-5 capacity. Hooray for self-employment and biz ownership! The Concrete Ceilings of Patriarchy and White Supremacy So it seems like a good time to reflect back on how patriarchy and white supremacy have been barriers in my career as an employee — by white women in particular, and how they uphold patriarchy and white supremacy explicitly and implicitly. And they don’t have to go full-on ballistic Karen to do that. These concrete ceilings I believe are the main reasons Black women end up being the fastest demographic of people who end up creating businesses and start-ups, but are still less likely to obtain funding (CNBC talks about it here). Simply put: Black women like me go into business for themselves because of the barriers of advancement in traditional employment. Aggressions, microaggressions, being consistently paid less than their white counterparts, being consistently passed up for promotion, full-on racist and sexist behaviors from fellow employees and managers…it all pushes Black women out the door. Black women create businesses mainly out of sheer necessity. And other marginalized groups, such as disabled folks and LGBT folks (and you can imagine the intersections if you’re queer, disabled, and Black), probably have to do the same thing because of the lack of work protections […]

February 26, 2020

How a Religious Television Network Successfully Used a Predictive Text Meme

The other day, I saw this tweet from the Catholic TV channel EWTN and was surprised: “For Lent, I’m giving up…” (finish with predictive text) pic.twitter.com/BzAFz9tVt3 — EWTN (@EWTN) February 11, 2020 I was a little shocked that this got into my timeline from people who are probably closer to pagan than Catholic. But it caught my eye just like that Variety tweet did during the Oscars. I had to double check to see if this was the same EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) I knew back from when I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. And it was! On the way to church with my family, through long winding roads up in the hills, we would pass by the TV station. I never would have thought that this most likely not well known religious channel would have a viral tweet. But they used a pretty common type of meme to do it: the predictive text meme. You can call it a sort of divination, or a just a way to have fun, but according to Know Your Meme, predictive text as a meme has been around on Twitter for a few years. So if you’re been on Twitter for any amount of time, then you’ve probably seen these memes before. But this was the first time I had seen a brand use a predictive text meme. And just like with Variety, I would not expect EWTN to use a meme or popular culture for their social media feeds. (They used […]

February 26, 2020

How Variety Used a Different Brand Voice to Drive Twitter Traffic

After being on and off social media since 1997, sometimes I’m still shocked at its power. I should have written about this on the 10th, but you’ll be reading this on the 26th, 16 days after this happened. ON Sunday, February 9th, I watched people on Twitter watch the Oscars. That’s because 1) I didn’t want to actually watch the very monochromatic Oscars and 2) it’s more fun to watch people watch TV than to watch TV. Still, despite the near whiteout conditions of the Oscar nominees, I was only rooting for two people: Matthew Cherry, whose film “Hair Love,” was nominated for Best Animated Short film; and Parasite, a Korean film up for a few awards including Best International Feature Film and Best Picture. Cherry won, which was lovely. And Parasite won four Oscars: Best Picture, Directing (by Bong Joon Ho), International Feature Film, and Writing (Original Screenplay). My timeline was intensely ebullient with each win. Seemed like everyone was hoping against hope that Parasite would win Best Picture. When Parasite did win, it was a Super Bowl type of synchronous excitement. Here’s a tweet that caught me off guard. #PARASITE FADSJKFDASLKJFALJKFASELJKDFSAKJLFDSAKJLADFXJKLFDSAJKDFASKJLASFDJKLFDASJKLFSDAJKLFJKL@#JK@RKWEFKJLFWEAJKL WE DID IT KIDS!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/cY2VaNAAwZ — Variety (@Variety) February 10, 2020 Variety as a publication has been around for eons and their Twitter page is usually quite sedate. They report entertainment news. The reports are not typically salacious. It’s Variety. So when this tweet came through, I lost it while everyone else was losing it. I couldn’t […]

June 18, 2019

A woman sits by a window while typing on her laptop

$4 A Word and Thoughts About Your Worth as a Writer

The Worth of a Writer’s Labor Setting a rate as a freelance writer is something that can cause many to have some heart palpitations and dalliances with imposter syndrome. Questions that can plague one’s mind: Am I really worth this much? Will anyone really pay me this rate? Writing, and the arts in general, has been consistently undervalued because it looks rather easy to do. And it’s a frustrating mentality to battle. It’s seemingly easy to just throw up a website or to create a blog post or to design a logo. If you’re in the creative arts, you know that this is not the case. You’ve put in hours of time, effort, and education into your work. Spaces like content mills tend to propagate the undervaluing of quality writing. Is She “Worth” It? What writers get paid and when sometimes can be a bit nebulous, which is why there’s a website called Who Pays Writers, which freelancers can contribute to, detailing the per word rate and how quickly writers get paid. For copywriting and content writing, AWAI’s pricing guide is a great place to start. When it comes to how much writers are paid, there’s been some recent buzz on Twitter about this quote from a Cosmopolitan profile on writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who has a debut novel coming out soon: “When I started doing the ‘I don’t get out of bed for less than $4 a word’ thing, people started paying me $4 a word.” The reaction has been […]

February 20, 2019

Watch Your Tone When You Have News to Share

But when change happens, it still takes time to adjust – even when it’s good change. Take, for example, changes that happen in a business. You may need to raise your service rates or the cost of your product. Or, your business may have been acquired by another business. Or, you may be phasing out another product or service. Lately, I came across the following three emails from companies announcing changes. I found issues with the tone of these emails and how I was addressed as a customer. Email #1: On second thought… I use this app for my invoicing and contracts, and it had been acquired by a larger company a while ago. They were very excited about the acquisition because they touted this app to be “free forever” because of the merger. OK, cool. Strange, but cool. Fast forward to about a month ago, I get this email. It is so cheery sounding and self-congratulatory. I’m grateful for all the enhancements and upgrades, but apparently, that’s the motivation or reasoning for the change: This app is no longer free. And if you look at the thread of comments under there, you’ll see how people feel about this change – not very happy! To go from “free forever” to $18/month is not the kind of change that people will handle well – especially as freelancers. It’s a big jump in pricing! In retrospect, I would say that a merger making things “free forever” is highly suspect. But either way, […]

November 7, 2018

red, white, and black sign that says " WE OFFER 3 KINDS OF SERVICES GOOD CHEAP FAST BUYOU CAN ONLY PICK TWO" Pick Two — These Two, a blog post about quality work by Deborah Beckwin

Pick These Two If You Want Quality Work

We all want quality work done when we hire someone. And we all know the adage above, and yet we’ve all worked with clients who want the mythical unicorn of all three. I love this website: http://fastgood.cheap/ because it shows you that this unicorn really does not and will never exist. Try and see if you can get all three switches to be on at once. But out of the three pairs of service types, I argue that most folks really do want fast and good work. Yet we all know where the rub is — the cost. Cheap & Fast or Good & Cheap? There are times you may want good and cheap work, primarily when you’re not in a hurry. But how often are business owners willing to wait on work? There may also be times that you want work done cheap and fast. Maybe you just need some prototype or a mock-up of a product. Quality may not be important in this case, but maybe it should be. So back to the cost. Sure, it’s great to get a deal–and who doesn’t love a deal? But you have to decide what’s important to you and whether you’re willing to save the time and effort it would take to skimp on quality. Are You Willing to Invest for Quality Work? It’s an investment to upgrade a website, to start having consistent, well-written blog posts, to create an email campaign. And the people who create this content are typically professionals. […]