Copywriter Brit McGinnis steps out of the club's Facebook group to join Rob and Kira for the 75th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. (Don’t look now but we’re three quarters of the way to 100.) We cover a lot of ground in this wide ranging interview, including:

•  how Brit went from journalism to virtual assistant to social media and copywriter

•  what her business looks like today (typical clients, typical projects)

•  why you might want to work as a virtual assistant

•  what you need to know BEFORE you start working with a virtual assistant

•  her thoughts on starting and growing a great online community

•  how to get the most out of our Facebook group

•  the rules of Facebook etiquette that she wishes everyone knew

•  what copywriters should do to step up their social media game

•  why we should be thinking about Pinterest more than we probably do

•  what’s going on with Facebook ads (the ad glut)

•  how her business has changed since joining The Copywriter Accelerator

•  what copywriters who are struggling with boundaries could be doing differently

•  why she stepped into her role as “the horror copywriter”

•  her advice to copywriters who are thinking about their personal brands

•  what we need to know about the cannabis market

We also asked Brit about the mistakes she’s seen copywriters make in their careers—stuff you definitely don’t want to be doing. We say this a lot, but it’s yet another good one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

 

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

BlackBow Communications

Madmen

The Copywriter Accelerator

Twitter

Kat Wells

Brene Brown

League of Legends

Night Mind

The ABCs of Cannibis

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

 

Full Transcript:

Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 75 as we chat with copywriter Brit McGuiness about leaving journalism and embracing the strange; what she does for her social media clients; how to not suck at Pinterest; and why she owns two Texas Chainsaw Massacre t-shirts!

Kira: Welcome Brit!

Rob: Hey Brit!

Brit: Hello; good morning. Welcome.

Kira: Great to have you here as one of our team members, and the “face” in the Facebook community: the community manager! So we’re really excited, about to learn more about your strange life and Texas Chainsaw Massacre t-shirts! To start, Brit, can you just share your story? How did you end up creating Black Bow Communications?

Brit: Absolutely, and first let me say I’m sorry for saying ‘welcome’ just now; I’m very excited to be here, so that just stumbled out!

Kira: (Laughs). It’s okay!

Rob: We’re so glad to be here on your podcast too, Brit.

Kira: (Laughs.)

Rob: That’s kind of awesome.

Brit: (Laughs.) Well, I love working with podcasts and it’s always fun to see and hear the millions of different intros. In fact—segue—I ended up listening to podcasts all throughout college, and I actually started wanting to work in public radio. So, I took up a great internship there in my college, all the while working in journalism, and just wanting to learn and absorb everything I could about different kinds of media. The first copywriting-based thing I really took on was when I lived in Ireland for a little while in junior year of college. I worked with a media company that managed the content and social media for the Irish government, of all places. And I had this underlying conflict of, “Wow, I love creating content; I love being a journalist, but, I was also the person who would stay up late and play with HootSuite in my dorm room, so,