Digital Portsmouth Recap + Those Branding Questions I Mentioned

Last night I was honored to be a speaker — along with Quiana Agbai and Crystal Paradis — at Digital Portsmouth‘s event, “The Art of Copywriting.” Now if you regularly give talks to large crowds, speaking in front of 100+ of your peers is probably no big deal. But what I regularly do is sit […]

Ten Tips for Coming Up with Great Blog Ideas

The toughest thing about blogging? For many of us, it’s coming up with worthwhile blog ideas. Once you have the right topic, it’s all downhill from there. (At least, that’s how it usually goes for me.) But, yeah, it’s the ideas that can be a killer. A good starting point is to put yourself in […]

How Great Customer Service Can Keep You Out Of Court

I had just sent my husband a text reading, “This place in incredible,” when I heard my son, Leo, crying. Not just the whiny cry of a six-year-old who wants Cheerios instead of scrambled eggs, but a real, something-is-seriously-wrong cry. Like most accidents, it all happened so fast: One minute, he was jumping happily on […]

Miss Massachusetts* Explains “What’s Up” With Her Generation

She’s never watched MTV. To her, “fleek” is the new “cool.” And no, she doesn’t feel guilty about illegally downloading movies. A few weeks ago, I was in a discovery call with a new client. We were trying to create marketing collateral that would resonate with their target consumer: the college student. Luckily for us, […]

Staying Relevant: Two Major Hurdles for Facebook

In just over 10 years, Facebook has changed how we live, work and think, becoming the primary way many of us stay in touch with friends, share family photos and keep up on news. And of course, waste time. When I went on a digital fast last fall, Facebook was the hardest thing to give […]

No, I Won’t Write Blog Posts for $12 a Pop

As a partner at a copywriting agency, one of my key responsibilities is pricing projects. I spend a lot of time speaking with people, learning about their copywriting needs and then writing proposals. Sometimes a prospect won’t have the budget to hire us. I get that. We’re a small business, and we don’t have the […]

Write a Kickass Craigslist Ad: Six Tips

Write a Kickass Craigslist Ad: Six Tips Looking to offload an old chair or futon? How about that jogging stroller you’ve never used? Craigslist can be a boon if you know how to use it. As with any ad, when it comes to writing a Craigslist ad, your best bet is to be clear and […]

Color Matters: Why Facebook’s Blues Make You Trust It

Fast Co. has a great post up from Buffer’s Leo Widrich, and it’s all about color. Widrich pulls together different data about how color works (or doesn’t) in marketing. According to the research, our own Hired Pens online color scheme suggests “credibility,” “clean” and “direct” with a little “excitement” thrown in for good measure. Sounds […]

What the Dalai Lama Could Learn from Fast Company

“Is it wrong to hide the Dalai Lama’s posts?” I asked on Facebook a couple of years ago. “They’re just so frequent.”* I wonder if Tenzin Gyatso saw this recent profile in Fast Company, which featured Rufus Griscom talking about how to build online communities around your content. We liked what RG had to say. […]

Why Does This Little Girl’s Blog Have Over a Million Visitors?

Nine-year-old Martha Payne started a blog last month analyzing her school lunches. Boring, right? But, with over a million visitors in just six weeks, she has something to teach the likes of Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver. Why is her blog so successful? She pretty much sums it up in her profile: “My dad says […]