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Updates
8th January 2022

How Dumb Were You at 22?

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22… That’s a lie. I’m painfully aware of the fact I’m soon to be turning 32. On the plus side, I’m old enough to realise that 32 is no age at all. Likewise, age is relative – like many things in life. But enough about yours truly. […]

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Industry
23rd October 2021

Face Value: Has the Pandemic Eased Our Loathing of Selfies?

Thumb through a nineties photo album and marvel at all the wonderful sights you’ve seen in your life. The Eiffel Tower. The Statue of Liberty. The Pyramids. Scroll through a noughties Instagram feed and you’ll likely see those monuments again – only this time, with a big, manufactured, cookie-cutter grin in the foreground. Ah, selfies. […]

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Updates
26th September 2021

Nailing Your Presentation Skills…as Told by BrightonSEO

If I had a pound for every presentation I’d watched at BrightonSEO this year…well, dear reader, I’d have 18 whole pounds. No fewer than 360 minutes did I spend scribbling on the topic of just about anything, including: Hiring sustainably Keyword research Content strategy Causal inference Google’s latest trickery… …and a whole lot more. You […]

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Updates
27th August 2021

Lessons in Marketing - and Humility - From Failed Party Planning

Remember that Netflix documentary, Fyre, where everybody was invited to an exclusive party promoted by the world’s best-known influencers? Scale that down by about a million, and you might remember a little ‘party’ I feebly tried to promote in the first half of 2021. In November 2020, beleaguered by the thought of #Lockdown2, I came […]

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Industry
27th July 2021

Are You Really That Honest on Social Media?

Big smile. Stomach in. Chest out. For all those ‘candid shots’, there’s at least one cynical social media scroller rolling her eyes. She knows that picture-perfect moment took hours to ‘perfect’. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Facebook is where you lie to your friends; Twitter is where you’re honest to strangers”? A recent social […]

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Industry
25th June 2021

Principled, Paid and Partisan: The 2021 Reuters Digital News Report

It’s been a tricky time for journalism in the last year…or since 2016…or since the world went online, really. And yet, the trade soldiers on. Now in its 10th year, the Reuters Digital News Report is back with a vengeance. You might remember that I like to cover the report every year. It’s a labour […]

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Industry
20th May 2021

Should We Let Our Emotions Guide Us in Business?

Emotion. Agitation or disturbance of mind; vehement or excited mental state. (Ten points if you get the film. If not, read through to the end for the big reveal*.) It’s safe to say that emotions have been running high over the last few months. There’s no single reason either – it could be any of […]

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Data, Updates
6th May 2021

Levelling Up: The Geek’s Guide to Growing Your Freelance Business

While many of you were merrily wishing the rain away this May Day, Craig and I were holding an AGM: awesome…growing…methods. Or something. We can’t strictly call it an AGM because we had one in September. If sitting down with a notepad and doughnuts counts. This time around, our meeting had a little more structure […]

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Industry
14th April 2021

Is Swearing the Secret to Better Marketing?

*Disclaimer: this article contains swearing in abundance. Please look away now if you’re easily offended. You’ve probably noticed that there’s a little more swearing on LinkedIn lately. Perhaps we’ve all let our guard down during the pandemic. Maybe we’re going for the shock factor. Or maybe it’s part of our branding. Are we “getting shit […]

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Updates
1st April 2021

Lessons in Public Speaking, Courtesy of My Nan

LinkedIn was a quiet place in March. The dulcet tones of Katie Lingo and the Friday posts to which you could set your watch were nowhere to be seen. In the streets, the children screamed. The lovers cried and the poets dreamed. *Ahem. Not quite. But it’s fun to pretend that people might be wondering […]

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Industry
19th March 2021

The COVID Age Is No Place For Viral Campaigns

Lessons from Twitter, Burger King and Ultravox A sleepy Sunday viewing of Britain’s Favourite 80s Songs left an indelible message in my head. While discussing the new wave discography of 1981, radio DJ Paul Gambaccini made a passing comment: Under normal circumstances, it would have been a runaway #1. But occasionally, a record for the […]

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Industry
7th March 2021

Should We Give Advice for Free?

Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. Great. She’s gone all Sunscreen again. Well, not quite. There comes a time in every entrepreneur’s life, or indeed, parent’s, when […]

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Industry
27th February 2021

Six Uncomfortable Truths About Copywriting

“Accept certain inalienable truths. Prices will rise; politicians will philander. You too will get old.” There are some truths in life we cannot escape, and not just those we hear in weird 90s essay-cum-Baz-Luhrmann-hits. Like death, taxes and household cables contorting themselves, another inalienable truth is this: Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. Once […]

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Updates
9th February 2021

We Need to Talk About Alcohol

Of all the revelations from the last 12 months, one of the most ‘sobering’ was a grim statistic: alcohol-related deaths have hit a record high. Data from the ONS states that 5,460 deaths between January and September 2020 were caused by alcohol. Now, I’ve been thinking about writing this for a long time. It just […]

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Updates
29th January 2021

So, You Wanna Be on TV?

When I asked my fellow writing pals if my trysts with reality TV would make for engaging content, I didn’t think they would actually say yes. Welcome to January 2021, where inspiration is lacking, but stubbornness prevails. I have committed to another year of #Write26, so you’re going to hear about what it’s like to […]

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Industry
8th January 2021

Why We Must Stop Pandering to the Algorithm

This morning, like many others, I woke up to a barrage of messages from my family Whatsapp group, arguing about coronavirus. Long story short: seven diametrically opposing views do not make for happy families. What has this got to do with pandering to the algorithm? Everything. My wise old matriarch delights in sharing her daily […]

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Data, Updates
31st December 2020

The Takeaways from One Year of #Write52

There we have it – somehow, in what has been the longest and shortest year of our lives, 2020 is over. We’ve all learnt a lot this year and have embarked on our own projects. Here’s hoping you can gain something from this personal endeavour: #Write52. What is #Write52? If you’re not familiar with it, […]

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Industry
17th December 2020

Writing for SEO or Writing for Humans? The Constant Battle

Somewhere out there, hordes of SEO specialists are screaming at me: writing for Google and writing for humans are not mutually exclusive. If your content is good enough, they will say, then it should serve the purpose of keeping readers happy, and getting a thumbs up from search engines. But isn’t the quality of writing […]

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Industry
10th December 2020

2020: The Year That Personal Boundaries Forgot

The other night, an exchange with my co-director got me thinking about boundaries. Despite the fact that we’ve spent most of 2020 behind screens, it feels like we’re more up-close-and-personal than ever. I was absent-mindedly responding to a personal message on Instagram. A York man, whom I’d never met, was giving me advice on how […]

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Updates
1st December 2020

Why Are We Still Pushing the Six-Figure Ideal?

A week ago, I was followed on Twitter by a chap promising to help me become a “six-figure copywriter in six months”. His pinned tweet told me he’d just won a $65 an hour job. £50 an hour. Let’s do some maths. To reach £100,000 at £50 an hour, we’d need to work 2,000 hours. […]

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Industry
26th November 2020

Did You Start a Newsletter in Lockdown?

The year is 2002. A student, absentmindedly humming Girls Aloud, thumbs her way through the school newsletter. She feels a pang of guilt as she reads one excruciating line: “Sadly, we received no entries to our competition last month.” Ouch. Does anybody read these things? Fast forward to 2020. The velour tracksuits are gone, but […]

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Updates
19th November 2020

Black Friday 2020: Retail Frenzy or Digital Disaster?

We’re one week away from Black Friday and I’m still pulling Excitable Edgar’s dragon ash out of my hair. Is it that time of year already? If you’ve not been on the internet this week, first, check your pulse, then check social media. The Christmas adverts are back with a vengeance. And with them, the […]

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Updates
12th November 2020

Did Bad Marketing Cost Trump the Election?

Popping the cork of a Tesco Finest prosecco bottle might sound like standard practice at Katie Lingo HQ, but last Saturday there was a reason: the defeat of Donald Trump. Trump supporters, look away now. You’re about to see a scathing, although balanced, attack on your man. For all his money, Twitter followers, 72 million […]

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Updates
5th November 2020

Tone Deaf or Virtue Signalling? Watching Our Words in #Lockdown2

At the turn of November, I shared a ‘guilty’ Instagram post stating that I’d been feeling a little ‘tone deaf’ with my content. There you were, watching old Floppy Hair telling us to stay home. I was prancing around in a Halloween costume. Thankfully, my three whole followers told me there was nothing to worry […]

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Industry
30th October 2020

Why a Second Language Will Make You a Better Writer

Those of you who’ve taken a cursory glance over my LinkedIn profile may have noticed I hold a Spanish Language and Linguistics degree. Truth be told, it’s not something I shout about too loudly, and usually only comes up after a few…shall we say…sangrias. I keep tranquila about it because: I’m so terrified of getting […]