Julia McCoy - Express Writers

The Story Behind Express Writers (As We Celebrate 3 Years)

June 19, 2024May 23, 2014 by Adam Oakley

So, Express Writers has been around now for three years. This blog, by the CEO (Julia), takes a look at our crazy journey. I hope you’ll be inspired; I think you’ll be amused; if anything, it will be a fun read. I promise. And if you’re here reading our celebratory blog today, there’s probably a 95% chance you helped in our success somehow, from giving our CEO a handshake to buying our content or writing it. And since you’re probably a little bit invested (or a lot), it’s worth a read. Express Writers was launched mid-May of 2011; the launch was not funded, invested or marketed by a third party; total costs to launch were kept under $170; and the single person responsible was myself, a 20-year-old female who dropped out of college to leave a nursing degree and pursue her passion, copywriting. Who Is Julia? In 2011, our founding date, I was a typical broke college student, working overtime at McDonalds, a job I’d started in 2005; pulling all-nighters, working 10 hour shifts at a time. I was also a full-time college student studying nursing (RN), piling up more than 12 credit classes per semester, going through summer. In the middle of all that, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like my restaurant shift; I was discovering in school that nursing, my golden “hope and dream” as a child, was not for me. Naturally, I was an inspired young person, with a natural talent in computers and writing. In a pastor’s family, and taught to be quiet in public, I loved to come up with ideas on my own and implement them. How did the change from what I was doing to what I love doing happen? I simply woke up one day and asked myself, “What does Julia love to do the most?” And I was inspired and motivated to find the answer—not just think about it. I knew the answer when I looked back. My passion was writing. To understand my passion, you’ll need a glimpse at home-schooled, four-eyed, 8-year-old me. I had started writing a novel that was 200 pages when it was completed by the time I was 12 (with a subsequent trilogy in the works). It was a medieval fiction tale about a knight, incorporating my love of the post-Dark-Ages and a lot of research I had done about that era. Instead of playing in the yard every summer afternoon, I was in the house drumming my ideas out on our Windows ‘95 computer when I was 11 years old. I dreamed, ate, slept that story. I created it; I loved my characters; sometimes I was too caught up in it. To get some outside expertise on my writing, I was involved at Writing.com, an awesome online community where writers can sign up and publish their own portfolio, feature their writing online, start networking and meeting fellow writers. (I would recommend this resource primarily for fiction and peer networking: you can’t earn anything from it.) I had an established account there and was getting book reviews for sample chapters, talking to people who were three times my age. They were reading my book samples and loving it. At least 10 people said they would buy it as soon as I published it. When the book was completed after countless stages of re-reading and revisions with my family and adult friends of my family, I started mailing copies out. I sent my book in to at least 20 writing contests, only to be rejected by all. (One sent a lovely letter saying their entire staff read the book and loved it, but I needed to be a little older than 12.) I lined up a publisher after researching over 100 of them: I was going to use Lulu.com, a self-publisher. I wanted to do this myself. (I had a really hands-on type of entrepreneur-mindset from that age.) The big morning comes—I woke up to work on last touches, my dad and mom are there in the room and they’re talking about my publishing goals. I insert my 3 ½ floppy, where my book was stored, in the drive: those horrible beep sounds erupt from the evil Windows 95 machine like a mad cow on steroids…and I read an error message that states, Floppy drive has failed. Reformat? Reformatting meant wiping the drive. My dad jumped to the computer; we both tried to work on every idea to recover the drive contents—but alas. It had failed. The book was gone. Fast-forward a little. To be accredited in homeschooling in Pennsylvania, homeschoolers had to take huge, long tests every 5th, 8th, and 12th grade. They included SAT and ACT content, and it took about 7 hours to sit down and get through them. I scored past-college grades on every English test, in each grade level, from reading comprehension to creative writing. I loved doing these tests. They weren’t a test; they were fun. When I took my entrance tests for college, I scored out of every single English class requirement except the mandatory one. Year 2005. When I was 14, I started two companies, a local cleaning services company and a computer repair company, employing myself. I walked door-to-door on summer days to market them. I did better with the computer repair company; I knew how to troubleshoot computers and fix just about any minor issue, from network issues to programs not installing. (Minor stuff.) With the computer repair company, I earned about $5,000 my first year, driving to local’s houses and fixing their computers. I only got one gig with the cleaning company before I decided to drop it. (I wasn’t the best cleaner in the world.) I also started working at McDonalds after I got a permit for underage workers (that little blue card). Year 2007. I was 16. I learned HTML code myself; I helped build my dad’s website; I was a moderator on several forums; and I started getting into paid surveys online, … Read more

Julia McCoy of Express Writers Interviews Jayson DeMers, CEO of AudienceBloom

January 1, 2021February 24, 2014 by Adam Oakley

On February 14, I interviewed Jayson DeMers. He was unavailable via conference or video, so we utilized a live Google Doc (what awesome technology!). Jayson is the CEO of AudienceBloom.com, a content marketing & social media marketing agency, and has been in web and online marketing since 2010. I asked Jayson DeMers several questions centering around 2014 online content practices for him to answer, and he obligingly accommodated with very helpful answers. Julia: Please tell us a little about yourself and what you do in regards to web content/Internet! How do you serve others with AudienceBloom, your company? You and I were starting out about the same time, if I’m right? (in 2010-2011) Jayson: Sure! I grew up in Seattle, WA, where I still live and run my business, AudienceBloom. AudienceBloom is a full-service content marketing, SEO, and social media agency. Personally, I love writing and publishing helpful, informational content and advice across publishers like Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, and Huffington Post. And yes, I started AudienceBloom in April of 2010, so you and I were starting out about the same time. What Jayson DeMers Thinks About SEO & Content Post-Google Updates Julia: How do you think keyword optimization in content has changed since the Google updates (Panda, Penguin, etc)? Jayson: I think it’s all but dead now. Whereas keyword density used to be a popular term and metric used to decipher the SEO-optimization level of content, it’s now seen as a manipulative, antiquated practice and metric. These days, the only metric that matters is quality, and quality is measured by social shares, reads, and inbound links to the content. Julia: What are other noticeable content changes have you encountered post-Google updates? Jayson: Really, it’s just about content quality and shareability now. Keywords, keyword density, and other long-obeyed SEO content metrics are a thing of the past. Great content that adds value, builds your brand, and establishes credibility and authority is all that matters now. Julia: What do you feel about guest blogging today? We’ve all heard the buzz that Matt Cutts, leader of Google’s Webspam team, recently discounted it. Jayson: I’ve got an upcoming article in Search Engine Journal that outlines exactly how I feel, but in a nutshell, I still strongly endorse (and engage in) guest blogging. Not as a link building tactic (which is what Cutts warns against), but rather as a brand building, credibility building, authority building tactic that increases my audience and reach. Furthermore, guest blogging provides referral traffic which can convert very well. It’s a brand-building tactic rather than a link building tactic, and that’s what should be the focus in 2014. Web Copy Trends in 2014, According to Jayson DeMers Julia: What do you think the trends are for web content in 2014? What should we be aware of (good practices) and what to avoid (bad practices)? Jayson: Most companies know by now that they need to produce and publish content, but what I’ve found is that their idea of the quantity of content is far less than what they actually need. Many people think that 3 blog posts per month is sufficient. But in reality, 1 per day should be the goal for a small business. Furthermore, content distribution is going to be key to running a successful content marketing strategy in 2014. After publishing content, it needs eyeballs, and that’s where many companies don’t know what to do. Distributing that content strategically to get the right audience’s eyeballs on it is going to be critical for staying ahead of the competition. Bad practices to avoid will be posting content that isn’t interesting or valuable to your audience, not posting enough content, and not engaging in an offsite content strategy. Julia: Thanks for your time! 🙂 Jayson: You’re very welcome! Thanks to you as well.

Google Hangout with Robert O’Haver and Rand Fishkin, CEO of MOZ, on Web Content Trends for 2014

August 4, 2022January 31, 2014 by Adam Oakley

We had the opportunity to attend and pose a live question during a Google Hangout on Air hosted by Robert O’Haver with guest speaker Rand Fishkin, CEO of Moz, 20-year Internet veteran also known for co-authoring Art of SEO and co-founding Inbound.org. View the Hangout on Youtube Since Rand was answering questions live on air, I was able to post two questions for him, which he answered during the Hangout: Rand’s question to our first question, what does he think about guest blogging, was sending us to his blog on the matter: Why Guest Posting & Blogging is a Slippery Slope. He posted this early in the week when checking on the G+ questions: Rand’s blog on guest blogging is well-worth a read if you are looking for in-depth thoughts, including answers to certain fallacies and assumptions about the matter. His answer to our second question, what does Rand think in general of web content trends for 2014, was live on air. We’ve transcribed it: Rand: So Julia wants to know, I and many others I know and work with would love to know what Rand thinks in general of web content trends in 2014. So I’ll answer the second one, since we talked about the first one. So web content trends: the way I see things going is essentially we have sort of what I call two big trends going on. One is a massive increase in the number of marketers who are interested in and performing content marketing; and because of that, you have much, much more competition than you’ve ever had before. That increased competition is causing a second trend, which is what I call consumer or content fatigue. People who use social media to find content, find things on Reddit, get stuff emailed to them by friends, use Facebook, are getting overwhelmed; the amount of content that they are receiving, or you know being able to access, is just exponentially larger than it was a couple of years ago. And so, what these two trends together combine to do is they make it such that a content marketer today and for the future is going to have to do two things in my opinion. Number one, focus on quality over quantity. Right? You can’t just say to do content marketing, I’m going to put out a blog post every night. I don’t think that’s what true, great content marketing will entail. I think it‘ll be: I have something truly valuable to share, I have a great way to present it, I have really put in the effort, I will put something out there that is far beyond the quality of what anyone else has done. The second piece of that is not just great quality, but uniqueness of presentation. So, being the exception to the rule is going to be more and more and more important. That means the standard, long scroll-y infographic that everyone has seen a hundred thousand times, it has a little chart for a little thing, that might not be so great anymore. The silly little, fun little YouTube video might not work as well as it used to. The standard blog post with just some blocks of text might not work so well. But, we’re seeing the rise of things like Svbtle as a blogging platform because it’s very unique and it really is the exception to the rule in terms of things like presentation. We’re seeing a lot more visual assets do particularly well; high quality, interactive elements and quizzes and these types of things. The NY Times had a great language-based quiz that tried to identify where you were from based on how you answered particular questions. So, you know, there’s opportunity. Presenter: Robert O’Haver I think, you also mentioned it, but the importance of not just puking up what someone else has written, but be unique with it, and stay relevant. Rand: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Rand, for such a great and informative answer to our question!

Julia Interviews Marc Landsberg, CEO of Social Deviant

December 31, 2020January 28, 2014 by Adam Oakley

I had the pleasure of interviewing Marc Landsberg, CEO of Social Deviant, on Friday, January 24, 2014. See Marc’s blog and see his company online, Social Deviant. We were originally planning a Google Hangout, hosted by Open Communications, Mark’s marketing team—but it refused to work for us. Yes, maddening! Especially because we had our video cameras all ready! But, we were still able to meet in a recorded phone conference, and had a great conference together. What Marc Thought of Express Writers! I started by introducing my company and asking Marc about Social Deviant. In return, Marc first started off by talking about how he appreciated, and saw the need and value for, the specific and large amounts of content Express Writers publishes. Marc is a 25+ year marketing veteran with a global exposure to CMOs, CEOs, for a long time, having built and sold his own businesses across the years. He saw a frustration in this world among agency owners where people did not create real-world content, which he saw as fundamental for their success—not an afterthought. Smart marketing of the future is smart content marketing, and they are synonymous. He saw the value in what Express Writers does from noticing a lack of the type of content we deliver. For instance, in one blog we talked about how to optimize your Pinterest posts. Marc saw that this offered real-world value to our followers. Too many agencies, Marc said, saw things from a 30,000 foot view—and the content topics we are delivering are spot on in today’s Internet. Social Deviant Serving Big Names Marc then talked about the value his brand, Social Deviant, brings to clients. “A toddler in a man’s body,” his less-than-two-year-old company focuses on helping their clients build smart social media strategies, identifying target audiences, thinking about business objectives and marketing goals, defining the content mixed model, and putting this into social platforms; including specific management, development, and optimization. SD links a strategic approach with a conceptual, creative approach instead of a programmatic idea of reposting, etc. It’s a different approach, top-down rather than bottom-up. He outlined how he’s been targeting key metrics and building a content strategy for several clients. Just two years old, Social Deviant has already built out an entire strategy plan for amplify and publicize a new route in air travel across social media, and a specific retainer project for a big brand for Miller Coors Kraft Beer. Why Social Deviant? I asked Marc about his reasoning behind the company name Social Deviant. He believes in deviating from the typical and wants to revolutionize, in several ways, the field he works in. It’s also just as much as important, how you do it as what you do. Great reasoning, Marc! Content & Social Media Next up were my questions for Marc. Since he has probably seen it all when it comes to social media, I asked him what he thought of the role that content played in social media, specifically for example: how do blogs work for social media? Content & Social Media = Synonymous Marc said this is one of his favorite questions. What Social Deviant has done is equate social media with content. Social Deviant has basically made social media and content synonymous. Social media is content, Marc said. He said Express Writers’ content is great—because everything they do for clients is about content. Strategic issues arise, for example, how to measure and manage over time; how staffing can deliver smart content marketing; with POV on lots of this. Social Deviant has done a little “sleight-of-hand” to equate social media marketing to content marketing and include things like business metrics and content types, formats, frequency and volume, the social platforms, syndication and optimization strategies. He’s developed a 7-or-8 point list of content strategizing for all of his clients, making social media = content marketing synonymous. Less Teaching In This Area? I asked Marc if he has noticed less of a need for teaching, with more and more people realizing they need content. He said clients choose Social Deviant because they embrace the fact they need to be better content marketers. SD only pursues like-minded clients. Marc says: if you stink at advertising we’re probably not your guys, and I don’t have the time or energy to convince you that that’s the wrong approach! Instead, he is looking for clients who know they need to be smarter. The question isn’t just about social media, it’s about how to be a better content marketer, when clients approach SD. Content Marketing As A Whole SD also looks at all aspects and pieces of content marketing as content, and put a calendar together based on all aspects. They are re-defining what the marketing calendar looks like, driven by content. Put the word social aside, replace it with content. If you have a 12-month calendar, X budget, Y business objectives, what do you need to do to deliver on your marketing objectives? That could be a billboard, a long-form video, a Vine, infographic, images, all of the above. All of this is content. Which of these units make the most impact? Marc admitted it could be cheating—but he has put everything around content, which puts his company in a central role with all his clients. He’s taken the specific word social and replaced it with content. At the ANA Social Summit in San Francisco, Social Deviant presented their new content calendar, driven by content formats that includes all online and offline content types. Interesting—at a social media summit, they presented an integrated content calendar! Incidentally, it’s now being used by big names like Farmer’s Insurance and was a hit when it was presented. Marc said that what Express Writers does is very specific, very fantastic, and a great compliment to work that he’s doing. I told him we should hook this together! He said that we absolutely should, and offered to strategize together on a Join.me meeting with terrific … Read more