Compelling stories. Connected communities. Plus a little showmanship.

For the few, the proud, the people who are still checking this blog: 

I am going to be basically taking this blog offline for a bit, and then rebooting it in an entirely different direction in the next couple of weeks. 

Let’s be painfully honest: there are too darn many blogs on social media and SEO out there right now.  I do feel like I have something slightly different to say about it, and a little different voice and perspective that others. 

But the thing is, that’s just not where I want to put my energy and my passion right now–saying something slightly different about a topic that is massively over-covered elsewhere right now.  

Also, since I moved to a new department and position a couple of months ago, I’ve been completely buried in client work.  It’s been great–but I’ve realized I’d much rather do client work than write about client work.  Plus, I get ample opportunity to write about my client work through “official channels” at LeapFrog Interactive (the team blog, case studies, etc.)  Not to mention the odd tweet on Twitter. 

I’m a renaissance gal at heart (hence the lovely harpist in one of the rotating header images).   So this blog is going to become an expression of that, to some degree.  That’s all the hint you get.  Sorry.  

Consider this your fair warning.  If you’re linking to me now, feel free to drop those links till you have a chance to see the new direction and figure out if it’s still a fit.  No hard feelings–and I deeply appreciate your “editorial stamp of approval” on what I’ve posted here previously. 

(Note:  To those who’ve asked about That Darn Kat, my personal blog, it’s going to be undergoing some changes, too, but it’s not going away.)

Thanks!  ~ Kat

My family just made two purchases this week:  Guitar Hero III and Dance, Dance Revolution. 

You may be asking yourself “What does this have to do with internet marketing?”  Well, I think I’ve decided that search engine optimization is to copywriting as Guitar Hero and DDR is to playing music and dancing.  Yes, they’re fun, creative activities all on their own.  Yes, it’s great to get positive feedback from people such as “Hey, nice job!” 

But there’s something undefinably gratifying about having statistical evidence that you rock. 

I’ve been busy this week doing end-of-month analytic reporting and analysis for some of my SEO clients at work.  I feel like I’ve done a good job for them, but “feeling like” you’ve done a good job is not nearly as nice as looking at those numbers and realizing you’ve really made a big difference in their traffic, average time on site, and conversions.  

For me, this sums up in part why writing for the web is where it’s at, and why SEO and web copywriting is such a great career direction to take if you’re a copywriter.  Creative directors and clients can be harshly critical.  Heck, they wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they weren’t.  Creatives (particularly writers) can be a sensitive sort.  So when your ego is taking a beat-down after a first-draft review, there’s nothing quite as gratifying as pulling up client stats and seeing concrete evidence that you don’t suck. 

It’s also yet another reason why if you’re a writer, you should be blogging.  It’s a great gauge of your ability to capture and retain an audience with your words.  Wordsmiths are usually not so hot with the numbers thing, but it’s well worth the time and effort to get up to speed on reading and understanding web analytics.  If you need to improve, you need to know that.  Once you start improving, you’ll be able to see it in improved numbers. 

If you’re already doing well, the boost to your ego is really sweet.  Think of it as a nice high score on Guitar Hero.  Sure, you may have already known that you could play “Pride and Joy.”  In fact, it’s probably more meaningful that you can play it on a real guitar, in real life (and there’s a nice analogy in there for copywriting and analytics, too.  As nice as the numbers are, you also need that real human feedback).  But you’re still going to type your name in the leaderboard proudly when you get a high score, aren’t you?

I’m officially an ADDY-award-winning copywriter.

We had our local ADDY awards gala, the Louies, this week.   One of our projects for Vanity Fair Intimates, the Lily of France “Find Your Sexy Style” site won a Gold ADDY for Consumer Website / Flash.  I was the copywriter on that project, so it was really an honor to see the work get that kind of recognition.

That said, (and don’t get me wrong, I am really grateful that we received the award, and hopeful of our chances in the Regional awards), I was more than a little disappointed to see that only two awards were given out for the entire “Interactive” category.  I’ve heard that’s not uncommon.   But I find it a little odd, particularly when there were 11 awards for “Non-Traditional Advertising” and 48 awards for “Collateral Material.”

Considering that even the most print-entrenched trade publications have been saying for a while now that the entire industry is moving to digital, I wonder what the takeaway is.   Are there not enough quality entries?  If so, I’ve seen some of the interactive work being produced locally–it’s not because there’s not great work being done.  It may not be getting entered in the competition, but it’s getting done.

I also wonder about the judging process.  Collateral material entries send actual samples, but interactive entries are judged based on a screenshot?  Um, isn’t the category “Interactive?”  Maybe it’s just me, but I have to wonder if a site with a really amazing AJAX user interface or interactive video isn’t going to lose something as a screenshot.

At any rate, the gala was a lovely event, and it was great to see the other work during the Preview Party.  There really is some excellent work being done in this city.  Congratulations to all the winners.

I have an interesting little work-related anecdote to share. I can’t divulge details, but I got some responses on two different social media properties to some stuff I posted on behalf of a client. The response to one submission was generally quite positive, the kind of positive, direct brand interaction we hope for when we do this stuff. The responses to the other were a little combative (which is to be expected when you’re representing commercial interests in social media).

I always run my proposed submissions through another set of eyes for approval and accountability to the brand.  One of the two submissions in question was brief, funny, opinionated, off-the-cuff and a little snarky. The other was a longer, more polished, upbeat and pleasant.

Guess which one got the positive response, and which one got the negative response?

You got it. The first one got the kudos, the second one got pushback.

Takeaway: “Safe” writing is not safe, at least on social media. You will get friction regardless, but you’ll get more from posting bland, flavorless comments than from being human. As a brand marketer, you may not be entirely comfortable talking this way. Or letting your agency or sponsored blogger or poster, talk this way.   You simply can’t copy and paste your existing messaging into social media.

Which may be the best argument yet for using an agency or sponsoring a blogger to do your social media marketing for you. Because then, you have that layer of “brand protection.” Even if things go train-wreck wrong, there’s a degree of separation between you and whomever is participating in social media on your behalf. Plus, honestly, unless you’re prepared to really immerse yourself in the world of social media, it’s far less likely that things will go train-wreck wrong with your social media campaign if a pro is handling it than if you are.

But that’s just my $.02.

I spent most of last week out of town on a business trip. It’s too early to tell whether it was a successful trip in the conventional sense, but I did learn a few things of value, and gained a fantastic story to add to my “travel horror” collection. It already includes the impressively terrifying tale of my trip from Tokyo to Indiana flying a combination of military “space available” (which is the aviation equivalent of hitchhiking) and commercial air–with a toddler strapped to my back, and lugging a suitcase and a car seat.

Hey, I was in my twenties. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But I digress. Last week’s trip taught me that I travel well, and that I can present capably to even a really large potential client. And to always bring one carry-on and no checked bags, even if you have to gate-check your carry-on for the teeny, tiny plane.

Once the airline has your luggage (or, just for the sake of argument, your three traveling companions’ bags), they effectively have you held hostage, forcing you to sit in a dark, depressing airport late at night while the ONE guy the airline still has working after 10 pm pulls every piece of luggage off the plane personally.

Of course, you’ll need that hour and a half of downtime so that you or and your traveling companions can sit on hold with the airline to make other arrangements, because since you actually taxied out to the runway before they decided to cancel the flight, your tickets are showing up as already used and unable to be transferred.

How do their computers know that you boarded a flight, without knowing that they canceled that flight? I have no idea. Ask Continental Airlines.

It’s probably for the same reason that a Continental Airline representative insisted for ten minutes that one of my companions bags was in Cleveland, despite the fact that he repeatedly pointed out that he was actually HOLDING the aforementioned bag at the time. In Newark.

On the positive side, Amtrak completely rocks. It made me nostalgic for my days in Japan, riding the Ueno line. Frankly, Amtrak is more comfy than the Ueno line. It also lacks the need for those guys with the white gloves who push you into the train when it’s already full. They’re like human shoehorns. But that’s another tale.

Criticism, and the ability to handle it, is probably what separates most aspiring writers from most working writers.  The inability to let anyone else read your work for fear they won’t like it is pretty much a hindrance to ever getting paid to write.  Similarly, “safe,” bland writing, with all the soul and personality of an insurance adjuster on Valium, is not likely to win you any gigs, either. 

To be any good, you have to be personally invested in the work you produce.  I’m often surprised at my coworkers’ expectations when I get feedback and critique from clients on my writing.  I think they’re expecting me to get all neurotic and defensive.  I usually just say “It’s only copy.  It’s not personal.”  That statement both is and isn’t true. 

What I write is my opus, in a sort of Jungian sense.  Aggregately, it makes up my personal body of work.  It’s not “just copy,” and it does matter to me personally, as a whole, and in considering each individual finished piece.   But I don’t take criticism of what, for a sculptor, would be a rough piece of unfinished raw material (otherwise known as a “first draft”) personally.  I also don’t expect that each piece, even when finished and “released into the wild” of social media or even the more static web, will make everyone happy or be a study in perfection.

I do take the criticism, for the same reason my kids take the medicine I give them when they get sick.  Because it’ll make you better. 

Not all criticism is valid, or valuable.  But a writer in any media who can’t do anything but get defensive and deflect criticism is “protecting” herself from what could be the most valuable tool in improving the overall quality of her work. 

It’s probably not too surprising to hear that I received some criticism of my work today.  It was valid, valuable criticism, and it immediately prompted me to do better.  Did I enjoy getting it?  Sure.  And right afterwards, I had to zip off to get my halo polished and my wings waxed. 

But seriously, if someone gives you honest criticism, they’re giving you a gift.  You just have to be big enough to handle it, take it in, and apply as necessary.  I’m a better writer today because of the criticism I received yesterday, and I’ll be a better writer tomorrow because of today’s feedback.

And when I get home, I can just pop in Oblivion and hack goblins to bits to work out that lingering post-graciously-handled-criticism aggression. 

Happy LeapYear!  At the interactive agency where I work, that’s a special day near and dear to our hearts, so we celebrated.  So to save you from jumping all over the web for the best blog posts, here is this week’s installment of Stories Worth Sharing.

Analytics: Great (and funny!) article by Avinash Kaushik on getting buy-in from your superiors by embarrassing them.

Branding / Social Media:  Mike Jones of Userplane has a nice article on The Role of the Brand in Social Media on Search Engine Watch that’s worth checking out.   Includes my favorite social media related quote of the week:  “Many brands are wary of exposing themselves on social media sites, but as anyone who’s been involved in social media for more than five minutes knows, they’re too late. Their brands are already exposed, and the community is talking about them, whether they choose to get involved or not.”

Public Relations / Corporate Communications:   Conversation Agent’s Valeria Maltoni has a neat (and brief, if you’re time-challenged) post challenging brands with the question “Can you be authentic?”

Copywriting:  Betcha didn’t know that Sears was started by an awesome rural-raised copywriter, did ya?  Well, now you do.  Check out one of the more fascinating Copyblogger articles I’ve read in a while, on how to get the peanut butter of narrative context into the chocolate of your e-commerce.  Tasty.

The Bard is heading out on a business trip early next week, so I may be a little slow to moderate comments.  Please bear with me.  Have a great LeapWeekend!

I received a notice today that Jotspot is relaunching as Google Sites.  After taking a quick look at the sample sites, it seems pretty clear that they’re positioning the new application as a competitor for collaborative sites such as 37Signal’s Backpack.

The example sites include use of Google Sites as a company intranet,  project management site, and virtual classroom.  One can assume that it integrates with Google’s other applications, including Gmail, Google Chat, and Google Calendar, making it potentially more powerful than it might at first appear.

Uploading of files and attachments appears to be supported, with the standard package having 10MB of storage space and Premiere and Education editions of Google Apps  offering 500 MB of additional storage space.

As collaborative, community-focused sites become more the rule than the exception, there will undoubtedly be more companies offering easy ways to rapidly deploy and simply update those types of sites without programming and HTML ability.

My main question is, with the concerns many individuals and organizations have about privacy issues, will organizations trust Google with the kind of proprietary information that intranet and project management tools generally contain?

I was going to write a lovely little explanation about how “internet bards” need to be able to gather and share the best stories, just like the original bards did.  But you and I both know this is a link post.

I know.  Link posts are weak, sad, and everyone does them.  Read these anyway.  They’ll make you think whether you agree with them or not.

Social media:  Ignite’s post on 6 Steps for Developing Social Media Content.  Step 5 is Arrange an Editorial Calendar (to save your sanity!)

Content Strategy:  Dosh Dosh’s take on how the content you don’t publish defines your site (and your personal brand).

Community Moderation:  An interesting discussion on The Admin Zone forums about what to do if you discover a sex offender on your forum site.

Web Copywriting:   Holly Buchanan’s awesome guest post on writing to female personas on Copyblogger.

Online Reputation Management:  Lee Odden wrote a great, detailed breakdown of Online Reputation Management for Individuals on Top Rank.

With all this emphasis on online connectedness, it’s nice to occasionally meet people out there in “that big open room where the ceiling is sometimes blue and sometimes black,” (otherwise known as the real world).

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting several of my social media cohorts in the Louisville area for the second meeting of the Social Media Club - Louisville chapter.   The meeting was held at Ramsi’s Cafe, one of my absolute favorite places in the Ville.  Great atmosphere, great food, great service–not so great acoustics.

Brian Wallace at NowSourcing spoke on selling to clients (and totally pwned my weak StumbleUpon profile page), Aaron Marshall from DBS Interactive talked about selling your CEO on social media, and Nick Huhn talked about converting your coworkers to social media.

A fine time was had by all, and I’m very much looking forward to next month’s meeting.