TCC Podcast #75: What Copywriters Need to Know about Social Media and Working with a VA with Brit Mcginnis

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, it was always a question of how do I reconcile all of these different interests. And, I really only thought of copywriting as something I could do honestly when I started watching Mad Men in senior year of college. That was about peak Mad Men. And I watched that, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s kind of the perfect marriage of art and content and crunching numbers”, and all that, but I still didn’t work in advertising up until about three years ago. I’d spend a lot of time floating as a virtual assistant, and just again, basically trying to learn, trying to find what I wanted to do, all the while just trying to learn different disciplines because I wanted to give things a chance. I wanted to learn all these different things. So once I made the leap to copywriting, which was right around the time I joined The Copywriting Accelerator, oddly enough, I was ready and I had all these different cross-discipline skills. So it’s great, and I’m really happy to be a copywriter now, but I’ve had a very, very windy path. Rob: What does your typical client look like today, Brit, and what’s the typical thing you’re doing for them, you know, whether it’s copy or social media management; what does that look like? Brit: Well a lot times people come to me asking for advice or guidance on how to—as weirdly enough with my own path—asking how to do I marry my desire to make content or, my desire to have a really connected brand, with this need to promote it; with this need to have a presence.... Basically, what do I need to do within the basic requirements do really just do what I want to do? A lot of times that bloggers; a lot of times that entrepreneurs. I’ve had very small companies come to me. I’m looking to work with bigger companies all the time just because I want to push myself, but a lot of times I find that just smaller companies and even solo-preneurs are the most eager to marry the technical skill with the artistic skill, for lack of a better phrase. Kira: Brit, I’d like to hear about your time as a virtual assistant, and what you learned from that experience that you’ve carried into your business today. Brit: Well, it’s a great career! Laughs. If people want to do a post-college career or if they want to take, basically, try “copywriting lite” I very much suggest being a virtual assistant for a little while, or hanging out with virtual assistants. I actually want to develop resources in 2018 on how to work practically with a virtual assistant. But, I loved it; I was very lucky to work with a community of mommy bloggers and health bloggers, just really be coached into how do you run an online business effectively by these enthusiastic, passionate women. It was 97% women; that whole niche, it’s fantastic. But they were so interested in just making things work, and they’re the most growth-hackery of all growth-hackers. They were always sharing tools; they were always sharing advice; they were sharing updates, just talking really analytically about technical updates and it was inspiring. It was inspiring to see people who were so interested in the process and so interested in helping each other and, you know, you learn fast; you learn how to transcribe, you learn WordPress tricks, you learn how to manage a community.... You do everything that you need to do, because this field really values learning and being agile. So, all great skills that I take with me now. Rob: So Brit, let’s say that I’ve reached the point in my business where I need to hire a VA to help me with whatever the various things are: maybe it’s interviewing; maybe it’s getting control of my inbox; maybe it’s finding leads for me. What are some things I need to know, or be aware of, before we engage to make sure that that relationship works out and that I don’t end up, you know, frustrated and needing to find somebody else to help me two months later? Brit: So, the first thing you need to do is truly assess what you need the virtual assistant for. I’ve definitely worked with clients in my distant past as a VA who didn’t quite know what they needed, or, we started working and then they realized, “Ugh, I really don’t like surrendering control of this one thing to someone else,” and I still see that as a copywriter who focuses on social media. So if you want to work with a VA, just think to yourself, what am I sincerely all right with giving up? What am I okay with if it’s done at 98% instead of 100%? Which, hey, if you hire a good VA then it will be done at 100%, or they’ll tell you immediately. So the control is a huge thing. Another thing I would say is that, you need to think to yourself, what am I comfortable with in terms of someone working frequently? Just because, if someone is willing to be on-call for you, that’s fantastic, but you’re going to have to pay for it. If someone is going to work two days a week, that’s great—that’s probably going to be more affordable. But you need to be okay with them setting their limits and respecting their limits. The worse VA-blogger, VA-entrepreneur, VA-anything relationships I’ve seen are someone expects the VA to be on 24/7 but they’re paying the equivalent of three days a week. Kira: Right. So Brit, you know, you’re the community manager in our Facebook group. There’s nearly 7,000 copywriters in our group; it’s highly highly engaged and, of course we’re biased but we think it’s an excellent group. So when you’re managing a community, what are some of the principles behind it, or do you have, you know, set rules when you’re jumping in there and creating, growing, helping your clients grow community? Brit: Well, firstly, you have to want it. (Laughs.) You have to want to engage the time, and the care, and the answering your questions. It really does take time. Managing our group takes time, it takes attention; it takes editing; it takes thinking ahead. You have to be willing to engage in that and really, really want it. And you have to be prepared to be frustrated.