Whether you’re already a master of your craft or you’re still learning, events and workshops are a great way to add some new skills to your repertoire.
Here we’ve rounded up 4 events happening in November for actors:
It’s tought being a freelance writer.
Until you’ve built up a client portfolio, chances are you’re scouring the web looking for opportunities to write – and get paid for it.
To make your life a bit easier, we’ve rounded up 7 websites for you to add to your bookmarks right now.
This week we’ve interviewed a social media manager to get more on-the-ground tips of how to leverage social media to drive traffic. We’ve rounded this up into 3 quick tips to help you!
If you’re marketing using a blog, or if your blog is a large part of your business, then chances are you’ve heard of keywords.
Keywords do what they say on the tin – they’re the essence of what you’re writing about, and they’re also what Google uses to decide how and where to rank your content.
Now, the old way of thinking was very much “the more keywords the better” … but this doesn’t make for very good reading for humans, and Google has started to realise this. It’s already made changes to its algorithm to prioritise blogs that write for their users, and not for search engines.
Here are 5 tips for keeping your blog content keyword-rich, without ruining the reading experience and landing yourself a hefty penalty:
We’ve all heard of the social media giants. But what about the social media sites that are localised to a country, or two countries?
If you’re trying to break into international markets and are looking for new social media platforms to help you – this post is for you.
If you’re trying to market your show, your service or yourself, chances are you want to read up on digital marketing. However, trends move so quickly that it’s sometimes tough to keep up.
Here we’ve rounded up four that don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, which will hopefully make your strategy a little easier to plan.
We’ve rounded up the top 6 skills to help you grow your career in 2019. Whether you’re a freelancer that runs their own business, or a creative mind marketing your work to the masses, here are 6 skills we think might be useful for you in the coming year.
A recent study by Harvard University showed that men tend to get better economic results out of negotiation, and that whilst women negotiate assertively on behalf of other people (or their company) they’re less likely to be as forceful when negotiating for themselves.
Whatever stage of your career you’re at, negotiation skills are crucial- whether you’re bartering down a third party provider or sat in front of your boss, asking for a payrise. The study also showed that the gender gap when it comes to negotiating narrows when women have been on a negotiation training course… if you needed another reason!
Analytic skills aren’t just for digital marketers and finance managers, they’re for anyone responsible for calculating business growth, forecasting results or problem-solving an issue. Having a solid analytic foundation is key as you work your way up the career ladder and are expected to be more and more involved with big-picture business plans.
You don’t have to be a numbers-whiz either: data analytics skills can help you calculate things like employee turnover, identify fraud and manage your own business.
Honing your strategic management skills is a great way to ensure you’re ready for the jump between middle management and being part of the senior team. Despite this, Forbes reported that less than 10% of leaders exhibit strategic skills, and tend to fall-back on fire-fighting operational skills, which can lead to a lack of overall direction for the company or team they’re working in.
If you can sharpen your own strategic know-how you’re putting yourself in a very strong position versus your competition.
Did you know that in 2018 only one in five small-to-medium business were run by women? And that in the UK, there are nearly twice as many male entrepreneurs than women?
If 2019 is the year you strike out of your own and put your business-nouse to use for your own projects, then an entrepreneurship course might be just the thing to give you a the competence (and confidence!) to make it on your own (and balance out those statistics).
Whilst you can’t learn the passion that entrepreneurship demands, you certainly can learn how to manage every aspect of your business (as likely you’ll start as your own CEO, CMO, CFO and office administrator).
It might sound basic, but excellent writing is one of the most common skills asked for by employers – and it’s also one of the biggest employee skills gaps according to a 2018 report.
This doesn’t just mean writing in a way that’s grammatically correct: different industries needs different types of writing. For example, you might need to learn shorthand in order to take business minutes accurately, or you might need to learn how to write bid proposals, reports, white papers or specifications.
Think about your current career path and whether there’s any writing elements that feel like they’ll push you out of your comfort zone, because those are great places to start building your skills.
Public speaking seems to evoke one of two reactions in people: either they shrug, or they immediately break out into a cold sweat. If you’re in the latter camp, then you’re not alone. In fact, nearly 25% of people say they have Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking.
A study by Psychology Today suggests that a large part of the fear comes from how skilled you perceive yourself as being at public speaking (and on the flip-side, being a confident public speaker does not entail being a skilled public speaker). So whether you’re a shrugger or a sweater, put public-speaking on your “done” list in 2019.
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
Happy New Year!
It can be tough constantly having to come up with new ways to be engaging online.
Especially if your business relies on social media as one of its key marketing channels.
So this January, we’ve made the hard work easier for you by coming up with 3 new ways to give your social media a bit of a jolt-start this 2019.
We all love stories – and it’s not just up to writers to do them. Some of the best performing social posts of 2018 were ‘live-tweet’ stories, where audiences followed a situation as it unfolded in real time.
Now this might sound complicated. After all, what have you got to tell a story about?
Well, depending on your field, how about these ideas?
We talked about the ‘white noise’ social media posts in 2018, and we definitely do not want to carry those through to 2019!
Instead of looking at social media as some kind of broadcast opportunity, focus instead on seeing it as an opportunity to hand-pick what you want to show off about yourself/your business/your brand.
In fact, studies have shown that having less content can promote higher engagement in each content piece.
We all know that building own brand often includes networking, regardless of your industry. But how about partnering up with someone in order to take your social media to the next level this year?
Working with someone else in your field (or in the wider sphere of your industry) gets their audience in front of yours, and your audience in front of theirs. You could do this as a one-off (perhaps doing short-form video content, or an image series)
Have you got new ways that you’ll be spicing up your social media feeds this year? Let us know in the comments below!
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
I know what it’s like. Christmas is coming and you’re busy – you’re shopping, visiting family. Having one-too-many glasses of mulled wine. Your work mojo goes down the closer to Turkey Day we get – and sure enough, you’ll find yourself a bit less interested in doing the normal “admin” tasks, like keeping on top of your social media presence.
But it doesn’t have to be hard. If you’re smart, you can clock off on December 24th and not clock back in until January 1st. Whilst still keeping your social media accounts as lively and fresh as ever.
How?
If you have a website for your work (or even for pleasure) chances are you’ve gone into your stats and sat there and thought: ‘why aren’t more people coming to my website?’
Well, there’s a long and a short answer to this.
The short answer is because you’re not showing up on Google for people to click through and come to your website.
The long answer is why you’re not showing up on Google, and that has something to do with your domain ranking (which is the numerical value that tells you how relevant and awesome Google thinks your website is), your search relevancy, and whether your site is SEO optimised.
Now, I know. You see the word ‘SEO’ and your eyes glaze over. All the fun has been sucked from the world.
But it doesn’t have to be hard. Let’s look at 5 super quick, super easy tips that will help you get more traffic to your website without having to delve too deeply into the scary world of SEO.
1. Get other (bigger) websites to link to you
If a big website links to your little one, Google sees this and goes “oh wow, there must be some great content on there.” This is especially easy if you have a blog on your website, or somewhere you put creative content.
Have a look at websites that accept guest posts, and see if they will include a link to you in the author bio. That way, you can piggyback off other websites’ successes!
2. Make sure your website is doing what it says on the tin
Google likes this to be simple. If you say your website is a website about your acting and then spent 89% of your time posting reviews of your local coffee shops, Google is going to get confused. And that will hurt your traffic numbers.
So check your meta-description, check your website name and make sure what your posting on your website fits with what you said you’d post.
Think of it like a book. If you pick up a book called Fairy Tales from Germany you expect the stories to be fairy tales from Germany. Not recipes for seventeen different types of casserole.
3. Shout about your website
Tell people about it! This works in person, as well as on social media. Make sure you have your website link in all your bios, and if you publish an awesome new post, make sure this goes on your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter. And don’t stop sharing it either. Schedule it back into your feeds in a month’s time so people that missed it the first time around can read it then.
4. Get clever with your keywords
Now, bear with me, I know this sounds marketing-y. And that’s because it is. Keywords are your book synopsis, they’re what your website (or your post) is about. So let’s say you have a page on your website to buy tickets to your latest shows. Write some content in there for Google so that it knows that this page is all about buying tickets. Use the phrase buy tickets as often as possible without forcing it down your reader’s throats. Then Google will know what’s going on with that page and move it up the rankings.
5. Make sure your website is easy to use
If people click on your website and it takes 50 minutes to load up, chances are they won’t click again. And Google has the memory of an elephant. So make sure your images are small and aren’t holding you back (this is a great tool for making them smaller) and do a little walkthrough of your website from the point of view of your audience. Do you have something for them to click on at the end of every page that’ll keep them on your website? If the answer is no, try and make a little journey for them.
Think of it as a treasure map, with you leaving little bits of treasure all over your site.
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
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