Introductions Thread

A lot less BS in these forums than on social media, that's for sure.

Hello, my name is Andrew.
I've been involved in digital marketing for the last 14 years.

Glad to be here.

Something I've been working on lately, a 4 step collaborative content creation process. It turns the notion of 1 writer for 1 article on its head. We do this all through Trello and it allows us to use affordable writers but create something extensive and exhaustive (5k+ words) at a good price (under 2 cents per word).

Step 1. Creating the outline. The outline is also where a lot of keyword research is done. We built out a tool called Entity Explorer that is good for this but we also use tools like Answer the Public to get it done as well. The outline serves as the foundation for the article and it's laid out, subheadlines and all.

Step 2. We research each subheadline and drop the research directly into the article. Research is easy to do so we have folks doing it for just a few bucks an hour. This is also where we have screenshots and stuff done, if applicable.

Step 3. Finally, the writers tackle the articles collaboratively. They have most research they need already done for them, so they're pulling it out and replacing it with unique content.

It's not uncommon to have 3 writers working on the same piece. I think there's a lot to be said about collaborative content, try it out. All you need here is Trello and Google Docs.

Step 4. Is the final edit. Grammarly is not expensive and Hemingwayapp is free and useful. Again, this is done collaboratively so multiple heads are tackling it and doing a great job in the process.

We have been able to pump out some pretty nice content at less than 2 cents a word this way.

I hope it helps.
 
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Welcome, @Andrew Scherer, I like that idea. Basically you could copy and paste sections from different articles from different websites, and then pay to have it rewritten. And since it's pieced from different places nobody will be none-the-wiser. I like that a lot.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Welcome, @Andrew Scherer, I like that idea. Basically you could copy and paste sections from different articles from different websites, and then pay to have it rewritten. And since it's pieced from different places nobody will be none-the-wiser. I like that a lot.
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Yep it is kind of like that!

Developing skyscraper content this way. In order to do so at a decent level, the outlines have to be very dense. To make them dense, you have to find topics/keywords that related vertically. Related entity research is helpful with this.
 
Interesting system, i imagine it keeps your writers on their toes as well.
How do you handle tone of voice etc?

BTW are you ex wickedfire?
 
Andrew Scherer said:
A lot less BS in these forums than on social media, that's for sure.
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Yes, it's interesting that anonymous forums often are better behaved than social media groups. For some reasons, people just can't help themselves getting into personal stuff on social media, even in professional groups. I think it has to do with some sort of basic psychology. We judge people based on appearance subconsciously and deduce stuff like political opinion, personality traits, baseless or not.
 
@JamaicanMoose welcome to the forum.

I really like the idea of this rapid prototype content and I'm wondering if it'll work for Pinterest. Do you use a service provider for your content or is it a writer you found?
 
Steve said:
Interesting system, i imagine it keeps your writers on their toes as well.
How do you handle tone of voice etc?

BTW are you ex wickedfire?
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I suppose every writer does have their own distinct style but differences might be hard to make out to a random visitor especially after stuff has been edited/written by multiple people. It all kind of just gets mixed together like putting blue and red food coloring in a glass of water.

Yes sir! Spent many hours on Wickedfire :smile:

BTW are you ex wickedfire?

bernard said:
I think it has to do with some sort of basic psychology. We judge people based on appearance
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I think you're right
 
Hello BuSo people.

I'm new to BuSo, but I've been in the advertising and digital marketing space since 2012 officially. I'm currently a Digital Marketing Manager in the tourism space and handle everything from SEO to PPC, Facebook ads, programmatic ads, YouTube ads, TV buys, channel management... and the list goes on. I also own a business on the side offering a variety of marketing services, mostly focused digitally. I've previously worked at a media company that owns several local news stations selling digital ads and TV, and prior to that I worked at an agency primarily focused on SEO and PPC in a variety of verticals.

I'm not new to forums. In fact, I was an admin of a car forum back in the day. I love data and I strive to continue to learn more about compiling and visualizing data. I try to back every decision I make with reliable data. I have a very dry sense of humor, which can come across poorly via text, so hopefully I don't offend too much. I'm just starting another project right now - won't get into too much detail yet - but it's a project that is comical to me considering some of the ridiculous nonsense I see happening in a specific industry that I think I could do much better than most of the other players in the space. I might share more info on that on BuSo another time.

I tend to ramble sometimes, so I'll cut this here. I'm looking forward to learning more and teaching some on BuSo!
 
Welcome aboard, @HgCNO2. You seem to have earned quite a bit of experience in the past decade. It's impressive how many different areas of this game you've had your hands in.

Are you still in touch with the media company with the local news stations? I'm curious if they're sweating bullets as the Boomer generation ages and passes on. I'd be trying to liquidate those channels quickly. Did you get any insight into this during your TV ad buying days?
 
In the market I worked in, we weren't really seeing any declines in ratings. Stations get reporting on this stuff usually quarterly, but will get this information more regularly as metered markets continue to spread (as opposed to diaries). Some of the larger, more metropolitan markets, on the other hand, were dealing with ratings falling across all stations in the market. Almost all TV stations will sell digital advertising, whether it be on their owned and operated sites or through programmatic networks or marketing services, so they probably aren't sweating revenue too much as long as they can adapt their content, thus revenue, to the medium that is most widely consumed in the market.

Ultimately, I think broadcast television is still a great medium for advertising toward the top of the funnel, but you need to be smarter when it comes to buying. I've pushed back against agencies trying to sell me on OTT when their claims are that OTT is targeted and TV is not. TV data is bigger now more than ever and with tools like Scarborough, you can get psychographics in the form of indicies to determine which programs index well for your target audience. Pair that data with rating (or better yet, thousands) data and you can get a very targeted TV campaign. At the end of the day, I think people will always care about local news, local weather, and live sports. Live news and live sports are the first two recommendations I always give people when considering TV because those two are the least likely to be DVRed. Nobody wants to watch old news and people often want to watch sports as it happens. I'd argue that there is no other advertising medium as high-impact at scale than TV. It's effectively interruptive compared to passive digital ads. Even the big tech giants know this; that's why you see Google, Facebook and Amazon running TV ads for their products.
 
Hey I know this dude. :wink: Welcome aboard.
 
Welcome to BuSo.

HgCNO2 said:
I love data and I strive to continue to learn more about compiling and visualizing data. I try to back every decision I make with reliable data.
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Do you use Data Studio?
 
bernard said:
Do you use Data Studio?
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Some Data Studio, but I want to learn Tableau. I've started playing around on the free version that makes the data public, so I'm not doing much in terms of private data on Tableau yet. From what I've seen in Tableau, it seems to be a way to easily organize the visualization in a PivotTable style. I'm pretty savvy in Excel and personally prefer to see the hard numbers than a visualization, but visualizing can tell a better story to those that need it quickly. That puts my challenge of applying Tableau at scale to better understanding SQL to pull the data into a live dataset barring API connectivity to different programs, at which point I'd need plug-and-play or a developer.
 
@HgCNO2, are we at a point where views on TV can be measured by impressions rather than taking surveys or whatever they used to do?
 
HgCNO2 said:
Some Data Studio, but I want to learn Tableau. I've started playing around on the free version that makes the data public, so I'm not doing much in terms of private data on Tableau yet. From what I've seen in Tableau, it seems to be a way to easily organize the visualization in a PivotTable style. I'm pretty savvy in Excel and personally prefer to see the hard numbers than a visualization, but visualizing can tell a better story to those that need it quickly. That puts my challenge of applying Tableau at scale to better understanding SQL to pull the data into a live dataset barring API connectivity to different programs, at which point I'd need plug-and-play or a developer.
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As you said, Tableau is amazing for visualizing data. You can accomplish the same stuff in Excel, but it takes a few more steps. With that said, I still used Excel almost exclusively out of habit.
 
Samwise89 said:
@HgCNO2, are we at a point where views on TV can be measured by impressions rather than taking surveys or whatever they used to do?
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Yes pretty much, depending on the market. Nielsen and comScore are the two big players in this game. Larger markets tend to be "metered markets." A metered market will basically use cable box data, maybe satellite box data and data fed back through Smart TVs, to give "overnight" rating data. They will be able to measure exactly how long programs are watched and all that data will be compiled with other information of yours including age, household income, and other demographic data in addition to psychographic data, for example, whether you have played sports in the last 12 months (indicating your likelihood to play sports or buy sporting goods in the future). Rentrak kinda blazed the trail for this and that's why comScore bought them. Nielsen realized the diary surveys were trash and are stomping through that blazed trail too. The smaller markets are less likely to be metered, so be sure to ask your reps if they are a metered market.

Note that ratings, which has been the standard for buying TV, are basically impressions. They're just a dumber way of doing the math, in my opinion. Impressions are simpler to buy on because an impression is an impression regardless of where you go. A point (read, rating point) is 1% of the market's total household. So one point in the NYC market (the number 1 market) is worth considerably more than one point in the Boise, ID market (currently market #102). It's also worth noting that 1 TV impressions != 1 digital impression. There might be a party of 12 watching a single TV ad, but it will count as 1 impression, as where for every member of that party seeing a digital ad on their mobile phone would be 12 impressions.
 
Hello everyone. Glad to meet you guys.

My background:
  • graphic design background
  • Stumbled on r/juststart in early 2019
  • was impressed by the world of SEO and really enjoyed reading case studies there (still do)
  • got into a slave-labour internship at a small digital marketing agency (100$/month, full-time). Worked there for 3 months, mostly web design/web programming
  • landed an entry-level job at a small SEO agency shortly after my internship. Working there ever since
  • learned a lot in the first 3-4 months about SEO, then things became sort of repetitive
And now I'm here. I guess I'm just annoyed that I have to work for my boss while not learning anything new anymore. He's a nice guy most of the times, but him literally being into that "How I only work 4 hours a week and how YOU can do that too!"-mindset is really off putting for me, bc me and one colleague of mine are the whole reason he is able to do this. Maybe I'm jealous, but mostly I just don't feel appreciated for the work I do.

And I have the odd feeling that I get paid below average for an entry-level job. If anyone knows some 'real' salary numbers for entry-positions - I would appreciate hearing them.

I signed up here because I want to start a case study and learn new stuff, gain new experiences. I have too many project ideas in different areas in my mind and I think it's probably not a good idea to start everything at once. I think starting a case study would help me to decide on one project idea and would held me accountable too.

So in short: Tired of working in agencies and looking for new adventures.
 
Hey guys, I've just signed up and I'm excited to get started but already I can see this is an amazing community.

I was a member of wickedfire and warrior forums long ago but left internet marketing when I got my site nuked by one of the black and white animal updated.

Anyway, with a growing family to feed I'm wanting to get back into IM to make some exxtra side money to help with a few bills.

I know the road is going to be long, success isn't going to be overnight but I'm stubborn as hell, focused, mature enough not to chase shiny object and more savvy that I was all those years ago.

LET'S DO THIS!!!
 
Welcome back.
I honestly think there one big market now that are EASIER than ever.
If you've got some 'old school' in you, you'll be fine. Just keep the tactics clean and your project will thrive for a long time to come.

I do wonder though. As a newb, how did you find outa bout BuSo? A referral?
 
@Kriger, welcome aboard. Glad to have you.

What were your past projects like? What level of success did they reach? What are you thinking about doing this time around?

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Hi, @Milk Box, glad you joined us. You'll find all the support you need here, and I'm sure you have a lot you can teach us from your agency experience as well.

I agree, you don't want to start all of your ideas. One is going to be better than the others, probably by far. I'd chase that one. Otherwise it's just "shiny object syndrome" and you'll be spread so thin nothing impactful manages to get done on any of them.

Your boss isn't wrong though. You can definitely be the guy that works 4 hours a week and makes bank. It sucks that he's riding off the work of you and your co-worker, but that's the game. We either get rich ourselves and provide employment for others, or we make others rich by being employed by them. It's a great system that offers great opportunities for the hustler who's willing to carve out his or her own path. We just have to remember to treat our employees, freelancers, and contractors good.

It sounds like you're going to embark on an SEO adventure. A lot of here focus on that. Sounds like we have some great discussion ahead of us.
 
Hey, @Ryuzaki. Appreciate your message. I should rewatch Death Note some time again.

Ryuzaki said:
Your boss isn't wrong though. You can definitely be the guy that works 4 hours a week and makes bank. It sucks that he's riding off the work of you and your co-worker, but that's the game. We either get rich ourselves and provide employment for others, or we make others rich by being employed by them. It's a great system that offers great opportunities for the hustler who's willing to carve out his or her own path. We just have to remember to treat our employees, freelancers, and contractors good.
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Heh, I guess that's true. If that's the game I would rather just get rich myself, than basically doing all of the work anyway and just get paid what two of our higher paying clients pay per month. If my boss wouldn't be a micromanager and making me feel like I'm a third grader every time he feels like I get too independent I probably wouldn't second guess every day why I'm not self-employed yet. I do appreciate that he hired me back then though.

Ryuzaki said:
It sounds like you're going to embark on an SEO adventure. A lot of here focus on that. Sounds like we have some great discussion ahead of us.
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SEO with some PPC sprinkled here and there. Looking forward to those discussions.
 
Milk Box said:
If anyone knows some 'real' salary numbers for entry-positions - I would appreciate hearing them.
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I'd say that probably depends a lot on where in the world you live and work.

About the case studies and ideas My advice would be to just pick one of them get some experience, and then once you feel like you've reached full potential with it either flip it or let sit as a cash cow, the only needs alittle maintaince work once in a wwhile, then start a new one and build that up and flip the first one, untill you find the one that does the trick for you.

Have you considered building your own agency using freelancers?
 
EyesExist said:
I do wonder though. As a newb, how did you find outa bout BuSo? A referral?
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@EyesExist I was starting to research the keyword golden ratio and stumbled onto a post here

Ryuzaki said:
What were your past projects like? What level of success did they reach? What are you thinking about doing this time around?
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Looking back on it now, past projects were spam but in fairness that was how it was done back then. MFA website then using Unique Article Wizard/eZine Articles to backlink to the sites.

It worked though and I made enough money to support myself party hard (early 20's with no bills) then when my entire portfoloio got nuked I hit rock bottom - lesson learnt here kids, invest in your business and rainyday fund. With no real option I had to go and get a job which is where I've been for the past decade.

I'm not sure which tactic to focus on first - I've a site online but it only has minimum content on it and I've not invested anything so wont be traumatised if I have to scrap this and start something else. What I don't want to do is run before I walk and I want to make sure the niche is in the right vertical if that makes any sense.
 
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