Hi there,
This week I had my first speaking gig since February! I had the pleasure of sharing some of my top tips on media relations at Blue Array’s RemoteSEO, alongside the wonderful Amie Sparrow and Hannah Butcher.
I had only done a couple of small speaking events previous to RemoteSEO, and in the week running up to the meet-up, I was feeling progressively more nervous. And it wasn’t so much nerves about presenting particularly – I was just terrified that no-one would think I belonged on a panel alongside two industry experts that have a lot more experience than me.
While pitching some campaigns on the morning of the event, I had visions of journalists posting screenshots of my pitch emails on Twitter, exposing me as a fraud and explaining all the reasons I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. (Dramatic? Me?)
I believe this is what is called imposter syndrome – and though I feel weirdly more justified in experiencing this feeling, as I still am relatively new to the industry, I am told that people in all careers experience feeling like an imposter at their own job, despite having 10+ years of experience under their belt.
But no two people perceive or approach things in the same way, which is why it’s so interesting to hear from a whole range of different experts at different points in their career – not just the directors, managers, and MDs.
In the end, the event went pretty well – no-one exposed me as a fraud or questioned why I was there. And while I’m sure this won’t be the last time I feel like a fraud, it’s taught me a valuable lesson that even if you don’t think you have something new or interesting to offer, or don’t feel qualified to share with others, there is always something you can bring to the table.
For further listening on imposter syndrome, and to learn how to tackle it, I’d hugely recommend listening to this podcast ep with Tiffany Da Silva.
Happy Friday and enjoy this issue of Work in PRogress!
📩abigailebennetts@gmail.com 📩
Abi x
Issue #8 – Fave PR Campaigns
My fave PR campaigns from the last two weeks…
- We’ve all heard of ‘Data is Beautiful’ but what about when ‘Data is Ugly?’. Subtitled ‘Where data goes to die’ this Reddit page reveals the worst data visualisations, and is absolute comedy gold. Thank you to Olivia Smith for bringing this into my life.
- I loved this piece from The Pudding which uses data to reveal how the name Karen became the cultural flashpoint “Karen.” Read about Karen here.
- I thought that this super reactive and topical campaign by Marmalade which reveals the busiest McDonald’s drive thrus just as the first stores was opening, was brilliant (and probably a very useful tool for some golden arches fans!).
- I really enjoyed this topical data visual which uses data from New York Times’ interviews of 511 epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists from the US and Canada to present when they expect us to be returning to a range of typical activities post-COVID-19.
Develop your skills..
Learn something new and discover useful resources this Friday morn with my fave tips, tricks and informative articles from the last fortnight:
- To kick things off this week, I wanted to share this article by the team at Reboot Online who have asked five top-tier journalists everything from the best time to pitch, to each individual journalist’s linking policy. Take notes!
- We all live for the links but what if link acquisition sat at the centre of everything? I really enjoyed this highly original article by Dave Endsor.
- Katy Powell wrote a super insightful article about ‘How to make your digital PR work for social too!’. Some great tips and examples to illustrate how to go beyond just building links with a campaign and reach thousands.
- As ever, Jessica Pardoe scribed up a really articulate blog post about communicating with journalists, after a frankly horrifying PR email was outed on Twitter on Wednesday. Read the article here.
- I learned so much from this incredibly open interview with Areej AbuAli about diversity in SEO.
- Finally, I absolutely loved this article by Hannah Butcher which reveals the stressors experienced by 20+ digital marketing professionals. There were SO many interesting insights about how to deal with stress from some big-time names (including John Mueller!!), and it was so comforting to read and realise we all more or less worry about the same things – regardless of our age or experience level. Read Hannah’s brilliant article (and the rest of her blog) here.
Must-attend events…
I am very pleased to see loads of amazing webinars, online conferences and meet-ups returning to our screens, and with it, the return of the ‘Must-attend events’ section of the newsletter.
😍😍😍
Fantastic events to virtually attend over the next couple of weeks include…
- BristolSEO – Join Faye Watt as she is (virtually) joined by Louise Parker, Beth Barnham and Lisiane Ndong to discuss all things data-driven content marketing, link-building and schema. I’m really looking forward to this one!
- Turn Digi – Hosted and founded by Jo Turnbull this one-day online event has a whole range of fantastic speakers lined up including: Andrew Optimisey, Azeem Ahmad, and Maret Reutelingsperger, chatting about PPC, Local SEO, topic clusters and more.
If you organise (or know of) an amazing digital PR, SEO, or digital marketing event please do submit the details of the event below (it’s hard to keep up with every event that’s going on each week!), and I will share these events with subscribers each issue.
Submit your SEO, digital PR or marketing events here
This issue’s Work in PRogress – Shannon McGuirk
This week’s Work in PRogress is the wonderful Shannon McGuirk, Head of PR and Content at Aira.
Read the full interview with Shannon on my blog, linked below.
And that’s it!
Please direct all feedback, suggestions and any events, training courses or campaigns you think should be included in this newsletter to: 📩 abigailebennetts@gmail.com 📩
And catch up on other issues of Work in PRogress here.
Abigail Emily Bennetts 