Episode 12 Show Notes

Better late than never

This week I’m a little—okay a lot— behind. At my new job we had Virtual ThinkTransit this week. It was an amazing three days—and the biggest one yet with over 500 attendee—but it also meant very long days and nights prepping and writing content.

So my chat with Steffani Cameron is a little late. Steffani is a freelance writer and maybe most well-known for being a digital nomad. Two dozen countries. A few continents. And emergency surgery.

Steffani came back to Canada a couple years ago and settled in Ottawa for a bit before returning back to B.C. and landing in Victoria.

Steffani maintains a steady roster of freelance writing clients and was published in the Washington Post with her first cold pitch (among other places).

Bonus…forgetting that Steffani swears a lot this episode is not for young ears. You’ve been warned.

Episode 11 Show Notes

This week I'm chatting with Mark Evans, a former journalist turned fractional CMO. Mark and I riff on what it means to be a fractional CMO, LinkedIn, writing, and storytelling.

Mark has a great podcast and newsletter you can find at Marketing Spark. Mark has really inspired me as I moved from employee to entrepreneur and now back to employee and entrepreneur. A lot of what I've learned from Mark comes from what he's posting on LinkedIn, so you need to check him out there.

You can read the full transcript for this episode (because I can't seem to paste it into Anchor) on this episode's page on my blog.

Music, as always, by Derek K. Miller.

Episode 10 show notes. Believe it or not, I hit double digits.

This week my guest is Tod Maffin (LinkedIn) who I met while he was at the CBC, which came after doing a stint in Marketing, which was preceded by radio journalism ... 

Nevermind, it will all make sense in the episode.

Tod runs engageQ Digital and you should be listening to his 1/4 of a Milo walk podcast Today in Digital Marketing. Tod and I talk about the new era of podcasting and a host of other things.

And Tod said something brilliant, but we'll never know because his mic was on mute. Yeah, that's in the blooper reel.

Music by Derek K. Miller

BTW...Tod tried the audio editor Hindenburg on the advice of our mutual friend Steve Dotto. From Tod's suggestion I tried it too. Well, GarageBand might be fine for podcasts, but Hindenburg is better. I put this all together in GarageBand, exported to MP3 and wasn't 100% happy with the sound. A lot of hiss and stuff in it. So I imported the MP3 into Hindenburg and, wow, even with an MP3 that I had already applied an EQ on and compressor...it sounded so much better. I also followed Tod's suggestions for how to use the more manual I-really-should-take-a-class-on-this audio effects and ... yeah this app is a big improvement.

Hope you can tell the difference.

Hmm, maybe they'd sponsor the show so I can get a license to Journalist Pro.

Episode 9 Show Notes: Jordan Behan on Repurposing Content

This week I’m talking with my friend Jordan Behan of Narrate Creative about content, productizing services, and when you should think about outsourcing parts of your content production (this was a not-so-subtle nod to me and my issues with Episode 6).

Jordan and I talk about taking things like video (which he publishes weekly and is sliced into blog and LinkedIn posts) as tools to get your message in front of enough people enough times to make an impact.

One of the most important things I’ve learned from Jordan isn’t just making the most out of all the content you generate, but how to package your freelance services into a product people can grasp.

Jordan’s Lean Marketing Playbook for SaaS combines his decade plus experience in startups, consulting, and writing into something companies can use to kickstart their marketing. You can reach Jordan on LinkedIn or through his website.

His playbook was the inspiration for my own Content Marketing Production Engine and my efforts at repurposing all the things I create.

Have a listen. Oh and don’t mind the dog. All he wanted was up with me and I couldn’t reach him.

Episode 8 Show Notes

Social media is a strange business. You know people for years, but only as a round picture in your browser. Sheldon Levine and I have known each other since early in the social media days but didn’t meet in person until he moved from Toronto to Vancouver.

Sheldon and I talked about one of his favorite topics—finding great content through data. From his days at Sysomos Sheldon saw that data—more than what Google Analytics could ever tell us—gave us way more insight into customers and the content they were looking for than ever before.

We still do the things Sheldon pioneered using social data to create content. And maybe one of the earliest ways newsjacking became a thing.

Let’s dive in…

If you want to learn more about Sheldon and the creative work he does for brands you can find him at:

Episode 7 Show Notes

I was really excited to finally get a chance to chat with Chuck Frey. We’ve been in each other’s orbits for probably a decade, but we haven’t actually spoken until now.

We talked about how to use mind mapping for writing, ideas, even project management. It’s a great synchronicity because not an hour before I recorded the episode, I was recording an episode with Brett Terpstra and he uses mind maps for writing. Mind blown.

Chuck is most famous for the Mind Mapping Software Blog and true to our conversation on using mind maps to improve your writing, he’s just released a free ebook—How to Streamline your writing with mind mapping software. I read it ahead of our chat and it’s a great primer on getting using mind maps not just to write a book, but how to track and promote it too.

In our chat, Chuck mentioned a series of post by Roger C. Parker on using mind maps for content marketing:

At the end of our chat Chuck started talking about an app called Speare for working with content in a new way. True the all the snafus I had last week recording, I only got part of the conversation downloaded.

It’s a shame because the tool looks really cool. Essentially, you break content into blocks and those blocks are assembled into a complete piece. I might have to give it a try.

Don’t forget to subscribe and if you’d like to learn more about my content marketing strategy and content services, check out my website.

Music, as always, by Derek K. Miller.

Ever have those fan boy/fan girl moments where you get to talk with someone who you’ve admired for years?

Yeah that was this episode.

I got to talk with none other than Brett Terpstra who:

We talk about creating writing apps, keyboards, Markdown, and even get a special tip how to take a mind map, preview it in Marked 2, and kick start your writing.

Mind blown.

Oh and I also learned I need to watch my levels better when recording with people. Don’t worry, you’ll understand when you listen.

Music as always by Derek K. Miller.

Episode 5 show notes

This week I have my first guest on the show!

Cassandra Jowett is the Senior Director of Marketing at Path Factory. Six years ago she started an in person group in Toronto for other content marketers, now this group has gone virtual with over 400 people in an invite-only Slack group.

In this episode, hear how Cassandra’s desire to meet other content marketers—and get a promotion—led to one of the most vibrant and supportive content marketing communities around.

This week I'm talking about my favorite part of content marketing—content calendars! I also got some tips and help from:

You can also download my Google Sheets Content Calendar template or read my recent post on creating a great content calendar.

If you'd like to learn more about me, visit my website.

Music by Derek K. Miller (penmachine.com/podcast).

I'm circling back to talk about creating a content marketing strategy. Strategy is hard. At least it is for me, but in this episode I give you some tips and advise how to create your first content marketing strategy.

If you'd like to learn more about me and my writing services you can visit my website.

Bonus: Learn about my new Content Marketing Production Engine program where I'll help you kick start your content marketing strategy into a successful content marketing program that gets results.

Music by Derek K. Miller.