Content Creation Archives - Deborah Beckwin

July 27, 2020

Spongebob Squarepants Meme "Me Helping Clients" with a buff Patrick Star and "me trying to do stuff for myself" with Patrick Star with a nailed board in his head while holding a hammer.

Client Work vs. My Own Work

Do You Feel Like This Meme? Ah, the struggle to balance my work with with client work! 😩 I saw this meme that my friend and colleague posted the other day, and I thought, wow, this is at the heart of my business. We really do need each other to succeed because we can’t do everything by ourselves. It’s probably at the heart of your business, too. You realize that there are some things that people can’t necessarily do on their own — such as heal from childhood trauma or recover from heartbreak or mourn the loss of a loved one. If you’re a therapist, intuitive, or any sort of healer, you’ve trained and gained experience helping others grow and live their best lives. For me, I’ve trained and gained experience in helping others consistently connect with the people they want to help through the written word. That’s also known as content marketing and strategy. 😉 And I want to make sure that people aren’t nailing themselves in the head when it comes to their own content! And sometimes, you just want to do that yourself — write your own content, post your own social media, have your own unique voice out there. But who has the time? The Time Crunch with Work So, I get it. I also find it hard to carve out the time to create my own content. Sometimes, I feel like this Patrick Star meme. And it’s not because I don’t know how to write. […]

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 […]

January 8, 2020

Give Your Ideal Audience The Content They Crave

Happy New Year!? So, let’s dish because it’s been a minute since I’ve been on my own blog! How is your blog doing? Is it dead? Write any new content lately? What your content plan for 2020 look like? ? If you’re in the mental health field and are a successful business owner, you may know the value of consistent, quality content. But you may not have the time to write or expertise blog posts every week, couple of weeks, or even every month. You’d rather be focusing on serving your clients. And believe me, I get it. I have been so busy lately working on a major project that my blog here has fallen into a hole of “I’m too busy.” It happens to even professional writers like me. But content marketing is for future customers — whether they be clients you see in a private practice or industry clients you serve. Business may be great now but eventually clients move on and projects end. So if you’re focused on your current clientele, then who is focused on your future? And let’s face it — things are hard for a lot of people. People are craving content that enlightens them, reassures them, and helps them on their healing journey. So you may be providing those kinds of life-changing services to your clients, but is your content helpful and inspiring? And do you have time to create it? I’ve helped people just like you to create content using their unique […]

February 20, 2019

Just Say No to Content Mills

I’ve been a writer and editor going on seven years, and it really surprises and saddens me how people still undervalue writing. And I find that content mills undervalue writing. So what exactly is a content mill? It’s a company that corrals a large amount of writers and pays them poorly AND takes a percentage of the profits. How poorly? Try a blog post for $15. And that may sound like a reasonable price to you. But if you want your writing to be well-researched, without errors, and thoughtfully written, there’s no way you can consistently get that for such a low price. Why? Because now you’re looking at volume. Someone is going to just poop out a post in 10 minutes because they need to take on a lot of work in a short amount of time to make ends meet. Do you want someone to look at your content in that way, without much regard for accuracy or quality? I’ll just say this right now – you need to be paying at least three figures for a blog post – no matter, how long or short the post is, no matter how much experience the writer has. The idea of using these places is that someone can vouch for your work, that it isn’t plagiarized (hello, Copyscape!), that there aren’t typos – there’s a level of credibility and professionalism that you’re allegedly purchasing. But the problem is, the only people being able to have a profitable business are the […]

February 19, 2019

How Your FAQs Can Help Customers Find You

Don’t discount those frequently asked questions that come up in your business! The other day, I was talking with a friend about a DIY project she had going on at her house. She needed some sort of specialized tool or technique, but she couldn’t find it online. And that’s my first stop if I don’t know something. I tend to look online on sites like YouTube if I need to know how to do a certain task. Gone are the days of trudging to the library to look for hard-to-find knowledge (hallelujah!) because now there are billions of videos on how to do mostly anything. The same goes for blog posts and articles. Even AI assistants such as Alexa and Siri help us to answer our everyday questions. People are always searching for how to do something. But sometimes, they’re not able to find it. My friend ended up calling a local hardware store and the owner replied that they received calls on this particular concept all the time. Surprise! She found one of their frequently asked questions! We’re all used to the FAQs on websites, but do you have a business where a FAQ isn’t necessarily about what you do as a business, but more about a particular skill or tool you have? If so, this is an opportunity to use that frequently asked question as a way to market your business by helping your potential customer. If it’s a simple task, consider writing a blog post about it. […]