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From Headlines to Hashtags: Katie Thompson's Journey from Journalism to Content Marketing
25 Plays1 year ago
In this podcast episode, Andrew Laws engages in a lively conversation with Katie Thompson, founder of Pink Lingo. They cover Katie's transition from journalism to content marketing, including the inception and growth of her business. Key topics include the challenges and rewards of moving from journalism to SEO-focused writing, the importance of networking in business, and maintaining work-life balance. This episode offers valuable insights for anyone interested in content marketing, entrepreneurship, and career evolution.
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Transcript
Introduction to Season 3
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, welcome back to the Untitled SEO podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lawes of Yesseo. And we're now on season three. This is season three, episode one, and we're sticking with the land, the live action networking. I keep moaning at my friends, the people in creative industries in SEO.
The Importance of Networking
00:00:18
Speaker
Don't talk to each other.
00:00:19
Speaker
We don't, we're not really competitors, but we just, we need to get to know each other a bit better. So I'm going to do it live on the podcast. So I have a guest with me today and I've not been able to say this to a guest on the podcast before, but happy birthday. Oh, thank you very much. I would say it's just, I was just checking, checking a few details and LinkedIn told me, sorry, I want to let you say your name first.
LinkedIn Birthdays: Connections or Sales Pitches?
00:00:42
Speaker
What's your name? My name is Katie Thompson.
00:00:46
Speaker
So Katie Thompson, yeah, I was looking on LinkedIn and LinkedIn told me it was your birthday yesterday. Now, I think this is a bit odd because it's another step with LinkedIn going a bit more Facebook. Yes, definitely. What I love now is that this year I've noticed people are turning into sales pitches so you get really automated happy birthdays from people who get in touch once a year. And now they say, would you like some guest posts?
00:01:12
Speaker
It's slightly different to kind of the Facebook thing. I really took pride in the fact that I made a note of my friend's birthdays and when they were. So I'd always try and be the first, you know, in the morning to like just send a SMS message or something, just say, happy birthday. Now kind of Facebook just largely enforces it on everybody. You go and look at the friend's wall and there'll be hundreds of people who they don't know.
00:01:36
Speaker
and because it's Facebook they won't be offering them guest links. Yeah, sadly not. Although that did happen to my professional Facebook page as well, someone just commented saying would you like IDA links and whatever, but that's fine. There's nothing to it, there's nothing to it. No, no, I've been getting the full all-platform attack from some links sellers recently, you know, they'll email me
00:02:00
Speaker
through various parts of my website, which I wish I would attach little tags
Katie Lingo: From Side Hustle to Full-Time Business
00:02:04
Speaker
onto. So I know that it's people where they're making the email address from. And we're not here to talk about that. Here to get to know each other kind of a bit. So, Katie, what is it you do? What are your offers? So I run a business with my husband called Katie Lingo. It did start off just as me, just as a freelancer, about 2016, sort of as a side hustle.
00:02:30
Speaker
And then I was a bit fizzier. I went to sort of two days a week in my main job to kind of keep all from the door and then got fizzier and went before time, got an office, got that registered, hired my husband, and here we are today. So we mainly provide content marketing services. The majority of our clients are sort of digital marketing agencies. So those are going to be invisible, or visible if you like, on, you know, if you've got a massive content project, you can find that resource in the house.
00:02:59
Speaker
So what job were you doing before you said you were doing it as a side
Transition from Journalism to SEO
00:03:03
Speaker
hustle? What was your job before? Were you in marketing? Yeah, I mean, my career as many people as I've discovered, have done is I started out in sort of journalism. So I was in print magazines, going back to more than 10 years when I just didn't think. And then, in fact, I resolutely said, I'm not getting into marketing. But then I think there's content marketing sort of paying
00:03:27
Speaker
more into the core sort of thing. I kind of transitioned with it, so went out print into digital marketing agencies, so rather than just the writing side things, so SEO, BPCs, ROI and other stuff like that. And yeah, it's just kind of expanded my skill set from one sort of just journalism relating to marketing training.
00:03:50
Speaker
I think it's it's one of the absolute best routes into to copywriting in my experience. I'm a writer but I've never been a journalist but I've always written for I used to write for and publish zines a lot when I was in my 20s which is I kind of think is just like bad journalism all the things you learn to do as a journalist like well you impartiality checking your facts and all these like real high quality things when you're publishing a punk scene
00:04:16
Speaker
to about 400 copies, none of that's there at all. But when I first started working, I first started working with a copywriter who was a journalist, and I still work with him now, Jen, if you're listening, hello. And it was such a revelation to work with somebody who has that as a background, because all of the difficult parts
00:04:39
Speaker
of crafting copywriting or at least getting the tone right and doing more of the research work just sort of seems to come naturally to people who have been in journalism. Absolutely, I think it makes you more of a people person as well. I don't think you can be an introvert, you can be a journalist because you speak to people for more lives of life and like I say it kind of cones your research skills and makes you naturally curious so you can bring that into your marketing governance skills.
00:05:07
Speaker
I have a friend who was, she was a Fleet Street journalist, starting in like the late sixties. He said she'd worked, I think she'd worked on a local paper and she got the job from Fleet Street and she was really excited. So she turned up the first day and the editor says, I'm not going to swear, so I'll loosely paraphrase it. He said, what are you doing here? He said, she said, well, what am I going to write about? She's like, well, he said, you need to go out and find something to write about.
00:05:34
Speaker
I thought it was kind of quite a revelation. I'm not a journalist. I've always assumed kind of journalists just queue up and wait to be handed tasks. Here's a press release about a squirrel riding a jet ski. Go on, just go and run. Go out in your picture and feel the words. So, do you still do any journalism work?
Maintaining Journalism Roots
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, I was sort of doing it for someone and stuff or anything.
00:06:03
Speaker
Some things I do, I end up getting things published in my trade magazines with some of my clients that have a diverse range of channels, like with, for example, like three times a record, trading signs and magazines and things like that. So it's still lovely to have something in print. Oh, yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
I've not got over that. I wrote, the last thing I had printed, I always say I'm not a writer, but I mean, if you're in SEO, you do write, even if you normally work with freelance copywriters or in-house copywriters, you always have to write, and I think you have to know how to. It's kind of inexcusable really not to be able to spot quality writing. Yeah, but the last thing I wrote, I haven't got it here.
00:06:47
Speaker
but it was about a large industrial machine, either that or industrial glue. That's where the skill of creativity comes in because I've been working with this client for about 15-16 years and I've got to write another press release about glue. I kind of quite like that though, I think it's quite fun.
00:07:09
Speaker
Do you know what, because you see so much on LinkedIn about all digital PR, it's always such sexy stuff. It's big fast fashion clients, it's big gaming groups, something like that. But I think there's no disrespect to any of that. But if you're a PR
Finding Stories in Mundane Industries
00:07:26
Speaker
agency or someone specialising in just the dumbest.
00:07:33
Speaker
That's often speaking brutally as a service provider. That's often where the money is. Because the journalist who works with me, she's also a hair expert. She writes for hair magazines, which there are loads apparently.
00:07:48
Speaker
as you see I don't read them, sorry, it's an awful thing to say on the podcast, it's not a visual, but yeah, I've got the proper dad rillopad here. And there's so many people clamouring to write for those kind of titles, same thing as when I did more music writing. It's like there's just a lot of people trying to fill a very small number of voids, but a friend of mine once said there's never money in anything sexy.
00:08:14
Speaker
and you sort of find the least sexy niche or area possible. And I'm not sure there is any, because you can always find an interesting story in there somewhere. Absolutely, yeah. I think, you know, let's say if you are working with a construction company or something, you're going to be boring, but they've built a big stadium. That's really fun. That's an exciting case study. I think there's always something creative and exciting to come from it. It's just about how complicated you are.
00:08:44
Speaker
Have you ever worked with a client who thinks they're boring, but you immediately see something really quite interesting in it? Yeah, definitely. I don't know what, that has just made something to come to mind. It wasn't a client, it was actually a student. I was at a careers fair last year. And I think he was telling me about how, like ethics in AI, it was only about 14 years old.
00:09:11
Speaker
he's not only a teeny bloke, he's like, you're joking. He's like, that is fascinating. There's so many different tangents he could go up and stuff. There's so many things we could talk about there. But he was just, I think he was quite shy and just, whereas I'm just really loud and funny. So I was like, no, I could talk about this for hours. I've done presentations on this. I've done podcasts on this. Please talk about it. So he is quite funny. I don't know if it's like imposter syndrome or what is it more of a reflection of the person rather than the industry they're in. Are they not sure of themselves?
00:09:39
Speaker
But sometimes, you know, that's half our job, isn't it? It's to teach the hell of people and get excited about it even if they don't. Yeah, I think for a lot of clients, it's just that they've been working in that industry or with those products for so long that they don't spot it. But there's a story which I've probably told loads of times on this very podcast of a client who we're talking about, we're doing content strategy, you know, what are you going to talk about? What should we write blogs about? And he's like, I really don't think there's anything. And he, behind him,
00:10:07
Speaker
on the wall, there was a picture of him stood next to, I think it was Guy Ritchie, and he was holding Guy Ritchie's Oscar. And I was like, well, do you think that might be something interesting? This is a client who made whole TV series for Sky and people like that. I was like, you don't know how lucky you are having something that's so easy and such broad appeal when you're back to the old industrial atesives. They're going to hear this one day and go, why don't you keep talking about what's on the computer?
00:10:34
Speaker
That being said, it is nice when you get a client who is really easy.
Lifestyle Business and Work-Life Balance
00:10:38
Speaker
I've got a client that does dog friendly holiday lets. So we just put dogs on everything. That's universal appeal. Yeah. Dogs. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's nice to get get the easy one now and then. So so I'm interested. Is your husband from a journalism background as well? No, he's not actually.
00:11:02
Speaker
He's always said that with his career, he's kind of just born into things by accident. I think we were raised differently. I was raised as one of six kids, and my parents were very ambitious and drilled things into me. Whereas he's one of two kids and just had two really lovely parents who weren't living by care. So he has worked in all sorts. He's done accounting qualifications. He's worked in travel. He's worked in IT, with state agents. But he found that he really had an app for IT.
00:11:33
Speaker
And so he did like a qualification in that as well. And he was working at a travel company, but went from reservations into IT and soon became really onto you guys. So now he isn't having any form of qualifications per se in pricing, but he does have that sector as a team. So now we're never running anything really technical. I just know it comes a lot more naturally to like data centers or something. He's already got the news on that sort of thing. Whereas I would have spent that much.
00:12:02
Speaker
researching it. So, yeah, I've kind of, I always say I've taken on growing and taught him work. But he's talking about we teach each other because that's working together and that's being acting. My wife's a horticulturist and I think the idea of me working with her would terrify her. She doesn't like me, she doesn't like me touching her tools. A lot of people say that and I think I was definitely at the beginning, you know, very reluctant to kind of
00:12:33
Speaker
Do you want me to change the brand name?" And he was like, I don't know. He's like, you're the extra. I'm the introvert. You can be the face. So now I say I'm the face and he's the greatest. That's cool. So how long do you think you'll expand? Are you going to take on extra people? I'm not sure. I mean, as is many freelancers will tell you, you get periods where you're just so busy.
00:12:58
Speaker
I need stuff, but I'm just, I guess I'm just driven by fear. And then, oh, whatever I quite want, then I can't please you. To be honest, the term lifestyle business is something I only really came across in maybe sort of COVID time, being totally honest. And I just never heard of it as a concept. So he and I, yes, we would never say never, but we're quite happy being
00:13:25
Speaker
enough to have room over our heads and office for the next four days and feed our cats. So this was not sounding ambitious. No, no, I don't think that's it at all. There's like a default setting that most people running a business or working for themselves are expected to be. And I've been doing it for 23 years now. And it only occurred to me two or three years ago to sort of figure out how businesses are supposed to run because I just didn't know. I didn't know about purchase
00:13:54
Speaker
I still don't know that much now. I apologise to my business coach who is listening to this. He's probably just bursting in tears. But yeah, there is a sort of an expectation. I don't know where that comes from. I don't know who it is. No one's ever like actually pushed me to try and make more money. I just don't want to still be working when I'm 100 years old. Well, this is it. Yeah, I mean, my husband Craig always says the goal is to be on a beach and have the business running itself.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, but what's going to get more lazy and I really like my job. So I'm a control freak somewhere in the middle or somewhere where I could rely on people and have more days.
00:14:34
Speaker
I don't know. I think the lifestyle, I like the lifestyle job thing. I mean, both my team members, like a lot of SEO agencies, I've worked with loads of freelancers and have a relatively small team. They're both only on a handful of hours a week. And that's because they've got their parents and young children apart from anything else. So they don't want to work full time. And then I did the same when my child was young. There was no way I wanted to work full time.
00:15:00
Speaker
But kind of the old cliche of, well, my parents' generation, the baby boomers of like, if you don't work yourself half to death by retirement, you've not succeeded.
Impact of COVID on Business Dynamics
00:15:09
Speaker
Like, nuts to that. I don't want to do that. Oh, definitely, yeah. I think that is, you know, that sums up the relationship to your teeth, doesn't it? So it's interesting now, I think, particularly post-COVID as well, people are actually re-evaluating what's important in life. And, well, you know, your child's only going to take its first step once at work, you know.
00:15:29
Speaker
No one ever wishes they worked for. That's what Craig always says on the deck there. Can you just get it out for more? No, no. I don't think people will ever say, I'm pleased that I missed all these things. Yeah. So did you start during COVID? No, no. I would say COVID was kind of a big problem for us. I mean, technically, I started in 2016 whilst working in agency. Then I went down to about two days a week in 2018.
00:16:00
Speaker
Um, and then, uh, just at the beginning of COVID because, uh, the two day job was in travel and I was in marketing and travel. I got the call one day. Well, we can't tell any trouble. So sorry, there's no quick marketing. And I'm like, fair enough. It ended up, but I was actually this poor woman on the other end of the line. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't like reassuring. I think it's fine. This means I have to go on. I have to go five days ago. It was a re-prepared time because obviously everything
00:16:30
Speaker
was online in any way. So if anything, we were really busy. So I think just stars aligned. But yeah, touch work. I don't want to say COVID wasn't good, but anyway. But we have our wonders and loses right now.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think it presented some unique challenges, but the world, well, my world, I can only speak for myself really, especially being in business, it works better now. I've got rid of my car because I used to drive all around the county to have hour-long meetings with, I love my clients, I really do, but I quite like the fact I don't lose half a day when I go and see them now. Yeah, this is it, yeah. Now it's more kind of like, innovative, I'm going to go
00:17:13
Speaker
I used to go around and drive around dropping off Christmas presents, but I think I was just born as a lot smaller. No, I don't love everyone, I always love presents, but now I'm also like a kind of sustainability first sort of myself, so I don't need it anymore. Yeah, very cool.
Networking Preferences
00:17:31
Speaker
So I was going to ask you some general questions about kind of finding business and going about things.
00:17:37
Speaker
I meet a lot of copywriters in networking groups. Are you an active networker? I'm selective with it. I think everyone who's trying to start their own business has gone through the wringer of whatever you feel about things like B&I. B&I always comes up. I'm generally, again, no disrespect, but referral networking is not for me. And I echo the sentiments of other people who've said this, which is
00:18:07
Speaker
are you referring that person because you genuinely have worked with them and you can't invent them or is it because you are obliged to under the contract of whatever this parallel network is? That's absolutely why I don't do formal networking because when I went to that network it was a room full of, I've got friends I made there, yeah great for making friends but it was a room full of plasterers and builders and I don't know how I was going to find them plastering and building
00:18:35
Speaker
you know, leads. And then I thought, they're never going to find SEO leads. And I thought, well, this whole thing's just not not going to work. My favorite networking I go to is, it's all around the country now, but it was started by a friend of mine, an associate here in Ipswich. It's called pub networking. And we go to the pub.
00:18:54
Speaker
I don't really. It's slightly more structured than that, but the atmosphere of that one is so much better. It's so much more relaxed because no one's standing up and giving their sales pitch. This is it. Yeah, you know, it's just kind of an inline saying, hi, I do this, I'm doing this. Whereas I'm not saying it needs alcohol or anything, but like to be in that informal setting. When I meet someone, look, write an SEO, I'm sure you've been many times, like, you know, they have like social evenings, like, oh, I've got someone there.
00:19:23
Speaker
or never met them before, maybe I've had a drink, I will rip the pee out of them, fanta with them or whatever, and make an impression, make them laugh, add on LinkedIn, maybe fill out them in a few months. For me, I don't like selling to people, it's just, it isn't it, you know, I would much rather plan around.
00:19:43
Speaker
I don't think you do need to sell. I mean, the whole concept of what we're both involved with for a living is inbound marketing. And it's not really going out there and shouting. I'd sort of say it's not the market seller yelling about his apples. It's the person presenting a really nice fruit stall that people see from across the market and go, that looks really nice. Can I speak to you about your apples? Yeah, definitely. That's a weird analogy, isn't it? You're right, though. Now, I have been to networking with
00:20:14
Speaker
You know, I'm just in here wiggling and saying, okay, hi, I run this agency and I just, just, just, just relax. Hey, stop talking about yourself. Just ask some questions. People love to talk about themselves.
00:20:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Everybody who works for me, whether they're, if they're a regular freelance or a team member, they get sent a copy of the Dale Carnegie book, the How to Win Friends and Influence People. Yes. And I always add that with the caveat that the title has aged really badly.
Unconventional Networking Icebreakers
00:20:45
Speaker
It sounds a bit greasy and weird, but it's actually a lovely, lovely book. It might as well just shut up and actually pay attention to people. Right. It's that simple. It's almost too simple to try to get it.
00:20:57
Speaker
I also had one extra thing which I posted on LinkedIn once, which is arm wrestling. And I found that to be a really good icebreaker. What? Sorry, say that again. Arm wrestling. Genuinely, I mean, alcohol may or may not be involved, but I think I put it on LinkedIn. I said it's a great way to kind of break the ice if anyone's feeling awkward. It gets everyone kind of to crowd around, so if you're going to route, you can sort of
00:21:25
Speaker
get an idea of someone as they're a good loser or a good winner. I think, you know, how much, was it Tyler Durden in The Wide Hub? He said, how much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight? Well, take that, but kind of just fill it down into tiny little funny comments. I think I fully look forward to you launching your arm wrestling based kind of business networking meeting. I think that's brilliant. I think what is life about a little mindless violence? I grew up on Rick Mayall comedies, so
00:21:58
Speaker
I think you've rounded off this podcast very
Conclusion and Future Events
00:22:02
Speaker
well. I think it's been really nice to speak to you, Katie, and to get to know you. Is there anything you want to share before we wrap things up?
00:22:12
Speaker
I'll be at Brighton SEO in April and hopefully if you're thinking about my hair, yeah, hopefully in the same year as well. Cool. I'll put links to your website and your LinkedIn in the show notes. So it just remains for me to say thanks for listening everybody. I'm going to say goodbye. Katie, would you like to say goodbye? Thank you for listening around and I shall see you soon.