The InspireFirst Podcast by InspireFirst.com

September 10, 2020 Twitter Chats, Content Marketing, and Cooking Gluten-Free with Erika Heald

In episode 7 of our show, we’re joined by Erika Heald. We talked about content marketing, her gluten-free cooking blog, and we talked about the community at #ContentChat on Twitter. She is a ghostwriter and consultant who focuses on helping organizations drive customer loyalty.

More About Erika Heald

Erika Heald is a content marketing consultant who focuses on helping organizations define and document a content marketing strategy that drives lead generation and customer loyalty. Erika is also the host of the weekly #ContentChat Twitter chat on Mondays at 12 noon Pacific.

Erika’s Book Recommendations

The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance by Steven Rogleberg
The Messenger is the Message: How to Mobilize Customers and Unleash the Power of Advocate Marketing by Mark Organ

Content Marketing World Tickets Promo Codes
– HEALD100 or JANN100

Email the show with questions, comments, and ideas at [email protected].

Leave us a voicemail at 855.932.7263.

Please indicate if you want your email or voicemail to be read or played during the show.

This post was proofread by Grammarly Premium.

Interview Transcription

This interview was transcribed via AI, so it may not be 100% accurate.

Speaker 1: (00:01)
You’re now listening to the Inspirefirst podcast, where we discuss the art and science of good writing. Our mission is to inspire you to succeed with your writing and publishing goals through in-depth interviews and expert insights. Get ready to grow as an author blogger and marketer with our host, whose content has reached millions of readers worldwide. Chris Craft,

Chris Craft: (00:23)
What’s going on finding people is Chris Craft the host of the Inspirefirst podcast. I’m happy to join you today. I’m also happy to be joined by Erika Heald. Um, who’s an excellent content marketer and content writer in Sacramento, California. Uh, we talk a lot about content marketing, her love for gluten-free cooking. Um, also we talk about Twitter chats and a whole lot more. If you enjoy today’s show, please rate us five stars and give us a great review wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And also check us out online at inspirefirst.com. Now on to today’s show. Erika Heald is a content marketing expert and executive ghost writer. As a consultant. She focuses on helping organizations define and document a content marketing strategy that drives lead generation and customer loyalty. Erica is also the host of the weekly content check Twitter chat on Mondays at 12 noon. Pacific. Welcome to the show, Erica, how are you? I’m doing

Erika Heald: (01:32)
Well. I’m trying to keep cool here. It’s over a hundred degrees.

Chris Craft: (01:36)
Oh my goodness. What’s going on? You got fire tornadoes and all type of stuff going on. What is in the world? Is the world coming to,

Erika Heald: (01:43)
I know usually we’d only have maybe one day like this and then, you know, a week of normal weather, a couple of times during the summer in San Francisco would never be in the triple digits, but the Bay has been having, um, the weather too. So it’s pretty nutty.

Chris Craft: (01:57)
She moved from the Bay to Sacramento. It’s been

Erika Heald: (02:01)
Just a little over a year, so I guess a year and four months, maybe so kind of great timing. Cause I think it would be less fun to have been sequestered at home, um, in a new apartment with a bunch of neighbors that would have been a little hairy

Chris Craft: (02:20)
On a much more pleasant note. We were speaking offline about our mutual friend, Maureen, Jan, how did you meet the wonderful Maureen?

Erika Heald: (02:28)
I’m pretty sure we must have met, um, on Twitter cause that’s, uh, you know, one of my happy places to be, but the first time I met her in person was definitely at content marketing world in Cleveland, which is my favorite conference to go to each year. So sad this year, it’s just going to be virtual. So I don’t get to go to Cleveland, which people always like Cleveland. You’re excited about Cleveland. Yes. Cause we’re, you know, I love going there and you know, if I were going again this year, Maureen and I would definitely be having some old man cocktails is our affectionate name for those really strong, beautiful classic cocktails, like a Manhattan. Um, we’d be having one of those and uh, catching up. So I’m bummed that we don’t get to do that this year.

Chris Craft: (03:10)
No, what, we’ll be talking a little bit more about content marketing world later in the interview, but we love to start with a story in the journey, uh, for our guests. So, uh, tell our listeners a little bit about you and your story Erica.

Erika Heald: (03:25)
Sure. So, you know, growing up, I was one of those kids that during the summer I would go to the library every week and I knew what the limit was or the maximum number of books you could check out each week because I checked them out. You know, that was who I was. I always, you know, again, growing up in a place where it would be really hot during the summer, you’d want to stay inside with a good book under the air conditioner. And I did a lot of that. So it’s probably not that surprising that I, you know, from the earliest age, I was always writing something, you know, putting together some sort of little Xen that I would Xerox, you know, my mom’s work or, you know, something like that all the time. Um, so kind of grew up like that and knew I wanted to be a journalist and um, really kind of work towards that goal by doing yearbook and all that kind of normal stuff and then went to journalism school.

Erika Heald: (04:20)
But of course I graduated in the mid nineties and went into a job market where, you know, move to San Francisco figured out, Oh wow, journalism is this marvelous hobby to have when you have a real job to actually pay your bills or you could have two jobs, which is how I started out having a full time job in journalism in a part time job. And I said, you know, maybe I should be doing the same exact work for a company and have one job and be paid twice as much. So that’s kind of how that happened.

Chris Craft: (04:52)
That’s great. And then, um, so if you don’t mind me asking, where did you go to college?

Erika Heald: (04:57)
Uh, San Diego state and people are like, Whoa, that’s a party school. I’m like, yeah, ironically I went to a party school, but it was that they had a really good journalism program and they were as far away from home while staying in California. And that was really important. Cause I wanted to, you know, have a change of scenery and meet new people and have a different, um, vibe. Cause you know, you grew up in Northern California, you want to see the rest of the state in a, it was really fun living down there, but I couldn’t have, could not have imagined staying there forever. Cause I’m an nor Cal girl.

Chris Craft: (05:28)
Well, you mentioned, uh, in your early childhood memories, uh, putting it together, you know, homemade magazines and whatnot. Uh, I have a similar story. I remember doing that with, with short stories, just putting together pieces of construction paper and illustrating it, writing my own short stories. Do you have any, uh, very specific vivid memories of some of the early, uh, publications that you put together?

Erika Heald: (05:54)
Yeah. Um, I would always use a paper so that way I could make sure that everything was aligned properly. Goodness. Yeah. So I would use graph paper and the blue line ones, because that way when you photocopied it, the lines wouldn’t show. Amazing. Right. So I would use that and primarily I would do stuff that was related to music. Cause I have been obsessed with like British alternative music, my whole, my whole life. Like I’ve been buying records since I was in junior high and I would break, read things and interesting important magazines and then like cut out little like a photo and then have like a little snippet, a little tidbit from an interview or things like that. And then I would send them to my pen pals because I had a bunch of pen pals, um, across the US one in Australia and one in the UK. And we would just trade, you know, mixed tapes and letters about what daily life was like, you know, back in the day. And so I’d get back these mixtapes with all sorts of cool stuff. And um, so it mostly be about music and pop culture, uh, things. So it really kind of hilarious.

Chris Craft: (07:07)
Wow. Any Radiohead stuff you write about?

Erika Heald: (07:11)
Um, back then, it was mostly, I was super obsessed with The Cure. I was one of the founding members of the U S Cure fan club and um, Bauhaus I’ve loved Bauhaus, Jesus, Mary chains since junior high and New Order and all that good stuff.

Chris Craft: (07:27)
Wow. Really neat music here too. Um, you’re also, uh, very into the, the gluten free diet. Can you tell our listeners about your gluten-free kitchen block?

Erika Heald: (07:39)
Sure. So it’s funny because I grew up in the central Valley and I knew, um, California central Valley and I knew that I was allergic to a lot of things, but you know, it’s not until I was an adult that I did real good allergy testing and they told me, well, basically I’m allergic to grass. I am allergic to weeds and I’m allergic to most trees. So, you know, I’m kind of allergic to nature, which is a huge bummer. But back then nobody said, Hey, you know, you’re allergic to grass, you shouldn’t eat any wheat. Like that was just not something that they advised. And you know, you thought of wheat as you know, it’s a whole grain, it’s like this separate thing. Well, we is a grass and some of it’s kind of weedy grass. And um, I was having allergic reactions and just didn’t even know it.

Erika Heald: (08:28)
I thought, Oh, as you get older, your skin goes, you know, all to heck and you know, you have problems with digestion and that’s just getting old, your body fails you, life goes on. But I went in for, um, you know, went in for something bothering me. Like my finger was bothering me and the doctor said, well, you know, you clearly have a wheat allergy and you need to stop eating that and stop eating gluten. I don’t remember being super offended. Like why, what are you talking about? You know, you barely even looked at my hand and she’s like, well, I looked at your arms, how long have you had pink puffy arms? And I was horrified, right? I’m like, I’ve never had a doctor say that to me. And I kind of stewed about it. And I was really, you know, ambivalent and kind of like, Oh, I can’t believe it.

Erika Heald: (09:13)
Cause I’ve always been a Baker. And I love to, you know, I love to bake and cook and I was just kind of crushing to think, Oh, I’m gonna have to learn how to do this all new. But she was right after two weeks of not eating any wheat, my arms are no longer pink. And so it was pretty clear that I was having an everyday allergic reaction because I was eating wheat and gluten is used. I mean, gluten is found in lots of things and we just used an, a filler as a filler and so much processed food. And so I was like, well, if I’m going to have to relearn how to bake everything using gluten-free, um, flowers and different, you know, tactics for thickening things, no more using all purpose flour to make a roux as a base for something I’m like, well, I might as well start a blog. So that way I document what I’m doing and hopefully help other people too. So that’s how, it’s my long story as to how that came to be.

Chris Craft: (10:06)
And how do you balance updating the blog and engaging your readers with some of your other client work?

Erika Heald: (10:14)
Well, you know, as you can see, I haven’t been able to do much blogging over the summer and that’s been, you know, because of client commitments and just in general, summer’s kind of slow. People are not really excited about baking during the summer because it’s too hot out. Um, but what I do is I try to have time on my calendar each week where I actually schedule time to work on stuff for the blog. And I also try to teach, uh, treat the blog as a customer. So as one of our clients, so that way, you know, that way it can becomes like a testing ground for, you know, new, new ways of approaching content strategy or new tools to use and become something where I can show here’s the actual content strategy and results, um, in a way that, you know, you’re not having to end on a mise it or have people wonder, you know, what was really going on. So it’s kind of nice to have a living case study, um, for my day to day work.

Chris Craft: (11:13)
That’s awesome. We’ll definitely link to that blog within the show notes we’re on with Erika Heald, um, uh, I think where we’re from and where we live, um, inspires us and it, especially as creative people. So how does living in Northern California influence you as a creative person?

Erika Heald: (11:36)
Well, you know, um, I think everyone here kind of embraces the being weird, being yourself. Um, and th the spirit here in Sacramento now really reminds me of when I moved to San Francisco in late nineties where things were very, you know, creative, lots of people having interesting kind of projects, lots of funky junk stores, you know, there’s murals here everywhere, and there’s this huge emphasis on farm to fork. So, you know, eating really nice local food, grown by farmers that you get to know because you see the, their name, the farm’s name on restaurant menus, you get to meet those farmers by going to the farmer’s market. So, you know, for me, I think, you know, from a creative standpoint, just being in an atmosphere where you’re always trying something new or seeing, you know, you walk around a corner and you go, wow, look at this gorgeous mural, you know, it’s, um, it’s an R two or like there’s one, there’s a huge Elvis mural. There’s just all sorts of like fun, funky things everywhere. And it’s pretty laid back here significantly more chill in Sacramento. Um, and so that’s definitely helped kind of rekindle, uh, the creativity as well.

Chris Craft: (13:00)
That’s awesome. Um, you mentioned Twitter earlier and you’re a rock star on Twitter, like you said, it’s your happy place. So two questions about Twitter, uh, what do you like about Twitter as a social networking platform? And, uh, tell us about your content chat, Twitter chat and how it got started and where it is today.

Erika Heald: (13:20)
Sure. Um, what I really love about Twitter is what I also really loved about live journal, uh, back in the day, because live journal and Twitter were both these places where you could pretty easily kind of join in conversations and find your tribe of people that had your same kind of niche interests. So you might live in a small town or you might live, you know, and even at a bigger city and be like, how would I ever find somebody with all of my same interests, right? How would I connect with somebody who does what I do well with Twitter? I found my content marketing tribe pretty quickly and easily because it was being built by Joe Pulizzi and the content marketing Institute folks. I’m like, okay, all of a sudden here’s a whole group of people that are my people. It was amazing. Uh, so yeah, I mean before then, I certainly used before they became active.

Erika Heald: (14:16)
I certainly use Twitter, but once I started participating in the content marketing world cm world chats, that was really for me when Twitter became this place where I was meeting, um, new friends, making business connections, uh, it really, we literally opened up, um, a whole new Avenue for me for just thinking about and understanding better how to do my own kind of work. And now content chat is a chat that’s been around for seven years. And I was initially just, um, a regular participant. I could, you know, log on during my lunch hour and participate in the chats. Um, and it was run by, um, Janiece fry it, and she ran it for a number of years and then handed it off to, um, another woman, Lucy who ran it for, ran it for maybe a year, I think. And then Lucy was got really busy and wasn’t just, you know, the chats weren’t happening.

Erika Heald: (15:21)
And I realized that I really missed kicking off my work week with having that lunch with, you know, all of these like minded people and my friend Martin Lieberman, um, suggested that I talk to Lucy and, you know, offer to take it over. And she graciously handed, handed it over to me like three and a half years now, four and a half years ago now. Um, and the rest is history. I’ve been running it since, and it’s just so lovely, you know, to have a place to talk about hot topics in content marketing, but also just, um, to let people kind of share their great ideas and what they’re doing and to connect with other people in real time.

Chris Craft: (16:00)
And I assume you, uh, plan out, you know, way ahead of time. So, uh, what does the process look like for in how many topics do you have in the tank, you know, as you plan out future weeks for the chest.

Erika Heald: (16:16)
Um, in normal times I plan out usually a quarter in advance and it’s actually pretty, pretty simple for me to do since twice a year, I do a community. Check-in where I see, like, where are people struggling? What are they focused on? What are some topics that have really become important to them? Then I go out and find the right subject matter experts to be our guests, or if it’s something that I’ve been working on a lot, then I’m the special guest. I have to say that since March 17th, um, I basically threw out my Twitter schedule for, for Q2, because suddenly all the stuff that was already planned was not real relevant, because people were having a hard time just coping with the day to day, figuring out how to, um, you know, how to recharge and relax and just, you know, take some time to themselves.

Erika Heald: (17:18)
So, you know, it became an every week figuring out what we’re doing. But, now we are back to scheduling it out in advance and it really just starts with having that conversation twice a year with the community to see, you know, where their, um, education gaps are and interests lie. Then reaching out to folks and scheduling them in. I’m lucky. Cause now I have Alec on my team, Alec Irvin, and he’s helping me with some of that outreach cause that’s certainly the thing that takes the most is connecting with the people, getting them scheduled. All of that kind of good stuff.

Chris Craft: (17:55)
It’s a perfect segue to, uh, just the COVID-19 part of our discussion. You know, obviously people are trying to cope. I just read a headline saying that, working parents are at the end of their ropes, both emotionally and financially, just trying to figure things out. On the business side of things, um, how has COVID-19 change how you approach sales and marketing for your consultancy?

Erika Heald: (18:25)
Definitely the first few months of it were hard, cause everybody was kind of in bunker down mode and kind of not thinking about investing in content strategy. Now it’s really, I’m kind of putting it out there that there’s kind of two different ways that I, you know, can help. One is, obviously, doing the more traditional strategy retainers where I come in, look at what you have and kind of dig through everything and put together a really robust content strategy and all of the associated trappings. The other thing that I’m doing, um, is coming in and kind of being that fractional chief content officer and working with, you know, working with a content team that doesn’t have that more senior content leader because frequently you have, um, marketing leaders who have, let’s say like a sales background or an events background, but not necessarily a content background. Um, and so then they hire me to really be that mentor for their team. And for me, I love that because it gives me the opportunity to work with marketers who are earlier in their careers and, you know, be a resource for them, help them figure out the path that they really want to, follow in content marketing. And that’s just so incredibly rewarding.

Chris Craft: (19:47)
Oh, that’s, that’s great. And I take it that, you know, since the whole world is virtual, how much before the pandemic, did you know your duties involve in person engagement? Or have you been, you know, pretty much virtual since before the pandemic?

Erika Heald: (20:09)
It really is dependent on the client. I have some clients that really love doing more in person work. Like I had a, a retainer client that I would usually be in their office one day a week.That was their, you know, that was their retainer time for the week was me in the office with them because they wanted to be able to have that spontaneity, in the same way, you know, so I was really embedded with their team. They were definitely the exception. For the others, it’s usually that we would do, um, make me quarterly or by annual planning in person, or do you have something like a persona development and customer journey mapping kind of exercise in person, but usually just prisons. Yeah, they are because you can do them virtually, but it’s just not as, um, it’s not as engaging and you don’t have everyone’s full attention the same way. Cause when you’re

Chris Craft: (21:07)
Totally agree. Um, let’s think ahead to the future. Cause let’s get out of this crazy present. No, I’m just joking. Honestly. I think there are some great opportunities right now that you know, this unfortunate pandemic because presented, but you know, we’ll talk about that on note at another time. Where do you think content marketing will be five years from now?

Erika Heald: (21:32)
I’m hoping that it’s a lot more interactive and I’m hoping that is from more platforms, really embracing AI in a meaningful way, uh, which, which has to start though with giving consumers really access to and the ability to tailor their data. Cause right now companies know so much about their customers, but the customers aren’t able to necessarily help companies understand what that data means as far as how they want to interact with the company, what kind of content they would actually like to receive. So companies are frequently still just guessing based upon some of these data points and frequently they’re guessing incorrectly about a number of things when it comes to their clients because they don’t have that full omni-channel view of what people are doing. So they assume, you know, oh, you play video games, you must be a 14-year old boy.

Erika Heald: (22:35)
It’s like, no, sure. Not it’s nice in me, any kind of content that assumes that, cause that’s gonna make me pretty mad. Um, or, you know, Oh, if you, you know, own a house, then you must also own a car. Well, actually I don’t. So I hate getting phone calls and spam emails trying to sell me car insurance. I don’t have a driver’s license or, I’ve never had one. I’m a city girl, I have a bicycle. So when you send me, you know, something saying, I can help you get better rates on your auto insurance. I’m like better than $0.

Chris Craft: (23:14)
No that’s no, I like that future. That you’re, uh, that you’re presenting. I’m a, I’m a nerd in terms of, you know, data. I like to say that when I work with a client, you know, it’s a balance between, uh, pleasing the search engines, but also pleasing, you know, human eyes and their senses. I think getting better insights on what people truly want. Oh man, that’s, that’s a, that’s a nice feature there. Right?

Erika Heald: (23:47)
We’ll make our jobs easier and make our customers happier. Oh man.

Chris Craft: (23:51)
And it’ll make the sales cycle a lot shorter for people like us too.

Erika Heald: (23:55)
Heck yeah.

Speaker 4: (23:58)
All right. Listen,

Chris Craft: (23:58)
Talk a little bit about your, your ghost writing work. Um, how do you go about learning your client’s voice and creating content in their voice?

Erika Heald: (24:08)
Well, if I’m lucky and it’s going to be a significant amount of ongoing work after I’ve defined the brand voice for the company, I then, you know, share that with the executive and say, all right, you’ve gone through this process with me to define the company’s brand voice. Now, how are, how is your voice slightly different from that? Like, you know, cause that way you’re starting from, okay, obviously we don’t want to be completely different than the company’s voice, but everyone is a little different, you know, you’re not your company. Um, even if you’re the founder, you’re still not necessarily exactly the same, unless you’re one of those companies like, you know, Virgin led by a Branson where yeah, the company is intertwined with the founder’s personality and that’s become the brand, but that’s the exception. That’s not your typical company. So, I usually try to, you know, have that kind of, um, exercise with them. And if not then I just make sure that when I’m doing my initial intake meeting, that I actually have it recorded and I get a transcript. So that way I’m not trying to remember how they said something. I actually can see the specific kinds of terms and phrases they use. So that way I can have, you know, a real record of that and use that to kind of shape my own internal style guide for that executive.

Chris Craft: (25:34)
I love that. So you start with the macro, you start on the business side, you know, the whole organization and then you kind of go down the funnel and get specific with the individual that you work with. Do I have that right? Exactly. That’s great. I love that approach. Um, let’s uh, let’s do a quick tool. Shout out. Uh, what do you use for, for transcriptions?

Erika Heald: (26:01)
I have been using Rev yeah. Using rev, which is something that I’m actually, I think Maureen had initially shared with me. Um, but then more recently I’ve started using Otter AI and that’s actually another really good tool.

Chris Craft: (26:17)
Cool. Yeah. I’ll, uh, I’ll leave those in the show notes as well. As a solo agency owner or a solo consultancy owner, uh, how do you balance your, your client-focused responsibilities and the more administrative aspects of the business budgeting, et cetera?

Erika Heald: (26:36)
You know, I try to use technology whenever I can. So, um, you know, certainly I use Freshbooks, uh, which some folks, you know, are like, Oh, why not? QuickBooks? It’s like, Hey, Freshbooks was good enough for the high-tech PR agency that I worked for. It is good enough for me. It’s so easy. So that right there, it makes my life very simple. Um, but in general, um, you know, use technology where I can use it. I, you know, certainly have an accounting firm do my taxes. Put specialists in charge of things that are not your passion or your area of expertise and, you know, figure out who those trusted individuals are that you can work with for delivering things. Cause you know, it’s not, you’re not doing a service to your client, if you’re doing a bunch of small tedious administrative tasks over and over and charging them for your hourly rate, that’s not good.

Chris Craft: (27:35)
Good. No, you’re exactly right. We’re on with Erika Heald here on the inspirefirst Podcast. You’re going to be talking in a couple months, uh, at Content Marketing world. And I would love to hear about that as much as you can disclose about this, a virtual speaking opportunity. I think Maureen’s going to be talking as well. So what can you tell our listeners about what you have planned for October?

Erika Heald: (28:03)
Well, I’m really excited because Maureen and I are going to be sharing real life, examples of content marketing for agencies, because of course what happens so frequently is agencies get really accustomed to having fantastic word of mouth and you know, that’s great, but eventually word of mouth may not be giving you the kind of pipeline that you need to sustain your growth. Um, and even more importantly, you really should not be training new employees on how to do their job. Like let’s say for instance, somebody who’s new to the organization and new to doing B2B, um, communications should not be learning how to do that on a client social media account. Like that’s not, that’s not what your client’s paying you for and that’s not fair to the employee, but what they can be learning on is your own inhouse campaigns for yourself. So I think Maureen and I have both had a lot of experience, both as individual agency owners and from working on that aspect of marketing and agency internally, I was a high wire PR and I also was a contract chief content officer for Almond Dietrich and SpinSucks.

Erika Heald: (29:22)
So, you know, we’ve both been in the agency world and been our own agency owners. So I think we have a really fantastic real life examples of how to make it work, whether you have, you know, just yourself or if you have, um, you know, a small agency, how you can really make sure that you’re using content marketing to show your expertise and to repurpose work you’re already doing.

Chris Craft: (29:51)
And it’s a good tie into the, the thought leadership aspect of content. Uh, and especially if you’re a founder running a small agency, um, you know, going back to that question about the voice. I mean what better way to, uh, to market by, you know, putting out your own content and showing your expertise and your domain knowledge through your own content, whether it’s written content or audio or video. Right,

Erika Heald: (30:18)
Exactly. Exactly.

Chris Craft: (30:21)
Oh man, I can’t wait to hear what you got guys cook up. That’s going to be great. I think it’s going to be really fun. Um, I always like to hear about the books, blogs or podcasts that other people in the industry are engaging with. So, what are you reading or listening to these days?

Erika Heald: (30:40)
Well, I actually have, uh, two books on my desk that I’m reading at the same time. Cause I’m one of those people. Um, I know there are lots of folks who like to, you know, one book at a time. I’ve never been that person. Um, so I’m actually reading the messenger is the message, which is, um, how to mobilize customers and unleash the power of advocate marketing. Um, employee brand advocacy is one of my favorite topics. And this was written by Mark Organ, who was the founder of Influitive, which is a fantastic influencer advocacy platform. And I had just attended their online conference a couple of weeks ago. And so I picked up the book and I’m so excited to dive into it cause, um, Mark is absolutely brilliant and the Influitive platform is such a great, um, employee ambassador, uh, platform. I love it.

Erika Heald: (31:36)
And then the other book I’m reading is the Surprising Science of Meetings, um, by Steven Rosenberg. And he’s the expert in kind of the behavioral psychology behind more effective meetings, which is, you know, now that everything is online, you really have to be thinking about how you structure meetings, um, you know, to ensure that you’ve got the right people in the room, that people are engaged, that you’re actually getting value from them. And that they’re not just something horrible on the calendar that people dread, which is the case. Unfortunately, for many companies that people hate going to their meetings because they’re just a big waste of time.

Chris Craft: (32:17)
Oh man, that’s so true. Um, thank you for sharing those. We’ll get those in the show notes, uh, listeners, so that you could go pick those up and get some good insights. I’ve learned so much in our chat today, Erica. Um, is there something that’s on your heart or mind that, that we haven’t covered that you would like to share with our listeners? I would say now, um,

Erika Heald: (32:40)
I would just encourage everyone to just be kind, be kind to yourself because to all the people around you and especially because to the people out there that are working hard, to keep us all safe and you know, people delivering your food, people, you know, serving you at restaurants or grocery stores or wherever, just be kind because you know, it’s tough for everybody and it can be hard. I think sometimes for folks to remember that. Um, but just, you know, being kind doesn’t cost you anything,

Chris Craft: (33:14)
Erika Heald Twitter, rockstar kind person. Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for joining us today, Erika, where can our listeners learn more about you and your business?

Erika Heald: (33:27)
You can find me. I’m at Erikaheald.com and on Twitter. I’m @SFErica and that’s Erika with a K no C.

Chris Craft: (33:37)
Right? Well, Erika, I have a feeling that this won’t be our last time chatting. We’ll love to have maybe you and Maureen on for a recap after Content Marketing World. How’s that sound?

Erika Heald: (33:50)
That would be fantastic because I think it’s going to be really fascinating to see how this event that I’ve gone to. Like this would have been my eighth or ninth year in person just to see how they translate this big event. So many people into a virtual conference. So I think it’s to be fascinating.

Chris Craft: (34:10)
Well, my friends until next time, take care. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of the Inspirefirst podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to give us a good review and give us a good rating wherever you’re listening to the podcast. If you want to learn more about InspireFirst, check us out online at inspirefirst.com. That’s inspirefirst.com and send us a tweet. Hit us on Twitter @inspire_first until next time.

The post Twitter Chats, Content Marketing, and Cooking Gluten-Free with Erika Heald appeared first on InspireFirst: Teaching You How to Be a Better Writer.

...more

Share The InspireFirst Podcast

The InspireFirst Podcast

FAQs about The InspireFirst Podcast:

How many episodes does The InspireFirst Podcast have?

The InspireFirst Podcast episodes:

FAQs about The InspireFirst Podcast:

How many episodes does The InspireFirst Podcast have?