National Book Lover’s Day

It’s National Book Lovers Day, because there is a day for everything!

I’m definitely having a reading year in twenty and seventeen, and heavy on the Dystopias for some reason! Started by re-reading Margaret Atwood’s Madaddam Trilogy – soon to be the next great HBO series. Then, a middling Atwood-lite called California by Edan Pelucki. Some speculative political fiction with Indian Country by Kurt Schlichter. More Atwood as I re-read Handmaid’s Tale for the 8th time. Even MORE Atwood with the more recent, and just-OK, The Heart Goes Last. Finally, this year’s winner so far, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel.

What are YOU reading?

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Charleston’s #1! A Copywriter’s Perspective

Watch your step for giant Palmetto bugs and random typewriters

Today we learned that Travel + Leisure magazine has once again named Charleston SC the America’s No. 1 city, and No. 2 in the world. “Readers were asked to rate cities they had visited on sights/landmarks, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people/friendliness, shopping and value.”

Of course, that’s a survey of people who are just passing through. What’s it like for those who live here and try to make a living in the copywriting trade? I am referring specifically to ME.

Humble Copywriting Origins

I hit town in 2006, knowing precisely nobody. I fanned out in every direction, burning up my 28K dialup internet (!) carpet-bombing every web design, marketing, advertising and video production agency from here to hell-and-gone. (Hell-and-gone includes Asheville, Raleigh, Charlotte, Greenville, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Hilton Head, Savannah, and Augusta. Mostly due to “good timing” I got a few bites, a few initial gigs, and things slowly (SLOWLY) took root.

Mixed success, as you can imagine. I can say that the agency relationships I have made here in Charleston, including great names such as Colophon New Media and Metatation have endured.

Charleston Copywriting Must-haves

I have done my share of writing for two big Charleston staples, real estate and travel & tourism. Both have been very good to me. Check out my thoughts on local Real Estate writing here. And some fun travel and tourism stuff here. (Scroll down to Charleston Travel/Tourism Blog)

Now, there’s also Technical Writing.  The type of writing where (in Charleston anyway)  “tab A into slot B equals cruise missile.”  I can do it, I even completed some tech writing coursework at Trident Tech, but I guess I have never pursued it aggressively enough.

I ended up doing quite a bit of technical writing at Philips, though. That wasn’t the plan; it just turned out that way. Ah, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, the one that quite literally got away. (They closed the office and it got away!) But before it did, one of my pieces for them won a Bronze Addy award, so there’s that.

Ten years later, how’s it going? Well, it’s definitely going. Social is bigger than ever, and a big part of my mix. I went and earned a Social Marketing Certification from Hootsuite. This has been pretty helpful in framing the conversation when discussing a client’s digital marketing options.

Charleston Copywriting Outlook: 2017

Meanwhile, businesses are shaking off the cobwebs, and celebrating the new economic optimism that seems to be going around. Meaning, lots of web refreshes going on, from a six-page interior designer website, to a 30-page dentist’s site to a FIFTY page digital marketing agency website! (2017: the year the cobbler’s kids get shoes!!) Now, 2017 is setting no records, but it sure beats the windswept desert that was 2016!!

So that’s the copywriting life in America’s Number One city. As the Bedouins say, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. If you’d like to be part of this rich copywriting pageant, contact me at  LivelyExchange (at) gmail (dot) com!

Photo: Charleston Post and Courier

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S.E.O.verload!

Re-post!

When it came to Search Engine Optimization, I always thought of myself as a halfway decent spinner of key words and phrases. I had at least heard of meta tagging, and I could craft a 120-character description tag with the cold steely precision of…some cold, precise steel thing.

Even with this cursory knowledge, I admit I used to think that SEO was akin to coating a website with a fresh coat of…optimizer, I guess, and walking away to let it dry.

That was before Humility Week. Since I started this full time copywriting gig in Charleston, I have learned that you never let it dry. You keep painting and painting until, to paraphrase Seinfeld, you can actually feel the internet getting smaller.

You design a website. You blog the crap out of it. And you promote it through any and every social networking site that’s even remotely appropriate…and even some that aren’t.

It’s a whole new world for me. But thankfully, one thing is still true, as far as I can tell: Content is still king! So say we all!*

*Friday’s gratuitous Battlestar Galactica reference.

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