3 Topics I'm Exploring *at the moment*
We love a fixation!
Topic #1: Digital Marketing
My background is in PR, but, hot take: it's not what it used to be.
PR expertise still has immense value, but it needs to be coupled with digital marketing tools in order to be most effective. Since I haven't had as much experience digging deeply into topics like funnels, email sequences, SEO/GEO and PPC ads, I'm starting now. It feels like the right time: I'm able to learn about best practices now, when AI has entered the chat, so it can integrated into the process. I'll rely on my own judgment to determine where I'm comfortable leaning on it and where it feels icky.
I'm hoping that as I learn more about the nuts and bolts of digital marketing, I can bring my creative background into the mix and leverage my skills (slash personal curse) as an endless idea machine and comedy writer to create some fun twists on the process (or at least to entertain myself).
Topic #2: Musical Theatre Writing
I am a creature of the theatre! Since toddlerhood, I've loved performing and telling stories, and none of that has changed.
Here's what has: after many years of not writing my own material because of that good old east-coaster mentality of "if I'm not the best, this can't be my career, so I shouldn't be doing this" (this is a whole other blog post), I've transitioned to "growth mindset" and am enjoying working on my own projects. I'm proud to say that I'm re-learning piano, learning guitar for the first time, and recently found out that I'm a soprano (no thanks to my 8th grade girls chorale director, who told me I'm an alto, leading to me thinking I had no range and was the worst singer in the whole world).
This month, I'm diving head-first into one area that I haven't yet truly explored: songwriting, and for the theatre, no less! Crafting dialogue is one thing, and writing a song is another, but the challenge of weaving a narrative and incorporating impactful moments of song that encapsulate what might otherwise have been a series of scenes is drawing me in at the moment.
Topic #3: Visual, Data-Informed Storytelling
With all of the words we're all consuming on the internet lately -- many of them produced by AI -- I find that I'm craving visuals. My brain finds them more stimulating, and I do think in some ways you can communicate so much with so little.
I especially love methods of telling a story with data, such as infographics. But see, there's so much more to it: when you're writing a story or telling a story, you're choosing what's important. You're highlighting specific elements and placing them in a specific order. That's what visual storytelling is about, too, but it's a different language: you need to understand the way people absorb images, and what tactics will make some information stand out over others. I'm a newbie when it comes to things like graphic design, but as a consumer, good design means so much to me.
So I'm on a mission to learn as much as I can, because I firmly believe that we are going to be consuming visual information more and more.
I'd love to connect with others on similar journeys through any of these topics. It always helps to hear what others are learning and HOW they're learning. Please reach out!
P.S. — I’m a communication strategist. I help business owners articulate who they are, what they do, and why, in an intentional way that helps them accomplish their big-picture goals. For more info or to work with me, head on over to my site, MessageandMuse.com.