Maya Gandara

Question for the class: Are we really holding onto the idea that social media managers don't have enough transferrable skillz to be content marketers? A buddy recently shared this from a convo with someone hiring for a content role: (paraphrased) "You work in social, do you even have a background in content?" Huh? My brother in B2B, what do you think social media is?! I understand that social media is a channel and content marketing is, well, everything. But let's be real -- social media IS content. It's constant, evolving, always (always) on strategy, creating, writing, customer research, brainstorming, pivoting, omni-channel, multimedia, audience-led content. I fear that some content folks are gatekeeping the definition of content to exclude social. Seems a bit sus to me 👀 And before I go, as someone who has done BOTH, the transition from owning content to owning social was way harder than owning social --> owning content. Am I wrong here?

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Editor PSA: If you post a call for pitches on social media, asking freelancers to - Spend time coming up with specific story ideas - Write detailed pitches to your brief - Submit them before a certain deadline Take the time to respond, even if it’s with a generic no.

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Hey, freelance writers! It’s *last call* for “pay what you can” group coaching. I have a few slots left for my May 7 group coaching call at 8:00 a.m. (Central European Time). Who should sign up? Any freelance writer who… ✅ Has questions about running a freelance writing business. ✅ Wants 1 hour of group coaching…but doesn’t want to pay hundreds for it. (Pay whatever you can contribute. Honestly.) ✅ Is free tomorrow (May 7) at 8:00 a.m. (Central European Time). Why are these sessions “pay what you can”? I’m looking to get feedback and testimonials on the service, so you’ll be asked to fill out a brief survey after the call. Good for you. Good for me. 🙌 ➡️ If you’re interested, let me know in the comments or DMs, and I’ll get you all the info!

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When does 1 + 1 = 1/2? In your writing. In fact, the MORE you try to convince your reader, the LESS effective you’ll be. Especially if it’s more of the same. When you edit your writing, look out for: -two similar quotes -two paragraphs that could be combined -two intros (or two conclusions) Two is half as effective. Be ruthless. Choose one!

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I post a lot about editing copy, but I’m also a copywriter. Yep, I write words too! That means I know what it’s like to be on both sides of the fence (i.e. applying house styles AND following writing briefs, giving feedback AND receiving it). If you’ve been thinking about hiring an editor for your marketing department, agency or copywriting biz, here’s why you should hire an editor who’s ALSO a copywriter: 👉 I won’t mess with your copywriting formulas or SEO keywords. If anything, I’ll help you sharpen them for impact. (A fresh eye makes all the difference!) 👉 I’ll ask for your brand voice, marketing/content strategy and customer personas to make sure your marketing is aligned with your business goals. 👉 I can provide copywriting services to support your team during times of need. Since I’m already familiar with your brand and marketing strategy (not to mention key staff members), I can hit the ground running. 👉 I’m not a stickler for correct grammar and usage. If you’re using sentence fragments and spicy vocab to build rapport with your audience, I respect these choices and only make corrections to improve clarity and flow. 👉 I don’t just work with Word files – I can adapt to different platforms and mediums. Not only do I mark up Google Docs, PDFs and PowerPoint slides, but I can also make edits directly on your website, social media and email platforms. If you're ready for a pro editor (with copywriting nous) to cast an eye over your marketing materials before they go live, check out my website for service rates. Or send me a DM and we can get the ball rolling. FYI, I can also offer retainer packages tailored to your needs! #editing #copywriting

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This is actually one of my favorite stories from my freelancing journey. For about seven years, I had a client that had myself and about 100 other writers writing social media posts for companies. Basically, any company could come in, request a monthly batch of 12 to 20 posts and they'd get thrown into the pool of writers for any of us to grab. Any and all industries were present, meaning that some days, I could get anything from automotive repairs to house painting to Japanese restaurants to septic tanks (and yes, all of those happened). Usually, when a job came available, you had about 5-10 seconds to grab it because 100 other writers were also trying to grab jobs and fill their quota. To prevent hoarding, each writer could claim no more than five jobs at once, and once claimed, you had 36 hours to do the task. Needless to say, getting jobs was competitive. Except for one time. I make no secret of my opposition to Donald Trump and MAGA. I don't care if it costs me work; my integrity is not for sale. I have less than zero interest in promoting their views, no matter what the price. So one day, a political campaign enters the queue, and I claim it. Usually, political campaigns were for nonpartisan local races. The candidate told us which themes they wanted to hit, and we'd write posts accordingly. These could be things like plans to redevelop a plot of city-owned land, ideas to lower taxes, ways to better manage water usage in the town. This was different. This was a woman openly running as an election denier in a Republican primary for a House seat. And so I did the only thing I could: I dropped the task. Dropping a task in this job was VERY risky. Once you dropped a task, it was highly unlikely you'd see it again. Unless it was a subject I knew nothing about (hydraulics), I wasn't dropping a task without a very good reason. This was a very good reason. I'd take another assignment elsewhere before I'd risk helping that woman. I didn't need the money that badly. If she was going to get the posts she wanted, she'd do it with another writer. Except...she didn't. Two hours later, one job remained in the queue: hers. Normally, finding a single job in the queue is like finding a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's factory: rare and something to jump on. You'd find jobs at the 36-hour mark when writers couldn't complete them (I called that vulturing), but never after a couple hours. But her job stayed there. And stayed. And continued to stay. Occasionally, someone would claim it, but five minutes later, it would be right back there again. Somehow, all 100+ of us individually decided that we weren't doing this assignment. And this was individually, because we didn't know each other or talk to each other. We had no interactions and couldn't have planned this. We just all decided for ourselves that we were not doing this job. Eventually, she had no choice but to cancel her order. That's one of my proudest moments for integrity and principles.

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Interviews are a secret weapon for unique content 🤫 Generalist writers are at a major disadvantage when writing about a technical niche. But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for subpar content. When we’re working in a new niche we put a lot of groundwork in. Our advanced briefs help our writers level up their content. But they still aren’t experts… The solution? Find an expert and interview them. Interviews are an extremely valuable research medium for a few reasons 👇 P.S. I've been putting together a workshop where I breakdown how my team produces over 400 articles per month. Comment below or send me a DM message and I'll share it with you once it's ready.

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💥 💥 Calling all *ASPIRING freelancers* (leaning towards offering copywriting & brand strategy) and *CURRENT freelancers* (either in the copy game or looking to expand their marketable skills to include copywriting & brand strategy)... 💥 💥 I'd love to have a two-way brain picking session with you! I'll tell you all about how I built a successful copywriting & brand strategy business, if you tell me about what's blocking you from getting there... Tag anyone who might fit the bill, or send me a DM.

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✏️ Editors: How do you handle disrespectful writers? If a contract editor is having trouble with a writer (being blatantly rude and abrasive toward feedback), how would you handle it with the writer or client? Would love to hear other editors’ or content managers’ thoughts!

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How do y'all market yourself as a writer? I'm curious to see what tactics y'all have been using and how much success you've had. This applies to either marketing your own writing services, or marketing a book that you've released. Comment below and let's see if there are some common tactics that work better than others.

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Client:  "Make it conversational....but also include this list of keywords." The keywords: "fun party ideas NYC | fun birthday party ideas NYC | fun gender reveal birthday party ideas NYC"

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This is a good read. My take is: I like to include some kind of spelling and grammar check in my team's editing process. What does this extra set of mechanical eyes bring? Well, it's excellent for catching rogue curly quotes, unintended double spaces, repeated repeated words, and other hard-to-spot issues. It lets the human editors concentrate on the more interesting challenges of line editing, say. As humans, we do make mistakes, too! We can get too close to a text to see it with truly fresh eyes. Spell checkers don't have that issue. But they also don't have the context to understand when, in dialogue, a writer plays with "incorrect" language to shape different character voices, for example. Effective editing is a balancing act of objective correctness and subjective meaning, especially in fiction. Automated systems can help with the first (also not perfectly, I'll note), but with the second? Not so much. The tool doesn't build the house--the builder does.

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Charging per word must be the silliest "standard practice" in the writing industry. Because writers aren't just paid to put down an "a, an, or the" on a Google Doc, with a bunch of other words. We're paid for 🌟 thinking about how to solve a problem with those words 🌟 coming up with a narrative that makes the reader interested in those words 🌟 researching our a$$es off to ensure the words we use are accurate, logical, understandable (and not plagiarized) 🌟 using the right words in the right places to achieve the right goals And a per-word rate can't match up to the heart and soul that we put into making each piece the best piece we've ever written. This is why I always try to charge per project. But where the clients don't understand it, I (grudgingly) convert my project/hourly rate to a per-word number. We don't pay a teacher by the number of words spoken in a lecture, nor a doctor by the number of patients they diagnose. Writing seems to be one of the few white-collar professions where this nonsensical payment framework still continues to rule. I pray for a day when it no longer will. P.S. How do you feel about this? #mishkawrites #writing #writer #freelancewriter #contentwriting #contentwriter

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1 writing tip that will level up your posts We live in an era of short attention and people won’t read long paragraphs. So, learn to say more by saying less. Here’s how you do it: 1. Write your post freely. 2. Read sentence by sentence. 3. Delete every unnecessary line. 4. Does the post keep the message? 5. If it does - perfect. If it doesn’t - fix it. To level up your game even more, do this: 1. Check every WORD you’ve written. 2. Delete every unnecessary word. 3. Write your sentences shorter. 4. & keep your message clear. 5. Say more by saying less. It's on you to learn, adapt and write better. P.S. Do you read long paragraphs on LinkedIn?

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Freelance writers! Don’t ever do an unpaid writing test… In my experience it’s usually a scam. That company will take your writing and disappear or at least say that you failed and still use it. Last Friday, there was a LinkedIn update advertising a freelance writing opportunity. It linked to a Google form asking writers if they’d be open to writing a 500 - 1000 word unpaid test article. When I commented on the update about this, an employee at the company justified this requirement by stating that it was “optional”. But I believe that was more a reactionary statement to my comment. Here’s what is going to happen… There are many writers in desperate situations. And they will do anything to get out of this situation, even take on an unpaid writing test. They will probably work their socks off and write an excellent 1000+ word long article to make a solid first impression and beat out the competing writers. The company might assign 20 different topics to 20 different writers and then will have 10 to 15 decent free articles they could use. I know this because I was a desperate writer when I got into freelance writing over a decade ago. I was broke and needed money to pay my bills, so I took on a lot of unpaid tests. A couple of tests lead to more work, but 90% of them are scammers who will either ignore you after you submit your writing or say that you failed. However, it won’t stop them from using your work in their marketing for free. I have seen my unpaid tests used for all sorts of things, and when you complain, they just ignore you as they know you can’t afford to sue them. Quality clients who can afford to pay writers won’t waste their time with unpaid tests. They will usually pick the best writers and give them the job or do paid tests. As they want to find the ideal writer(s) quickly. If a company asks you to do an unpaid test, just turn them down, especially if you have samples. If you are starting completely fresh and have zero samples, you could consider it, but it is so easy to build a portfolio now. You could write a guest post for another site or publish articles on your own blog or newsletter. There are so many sites like Medium and Substack where you can publish for free. The most interesting part is that this company that wants writers to do the unpaid tests caters to the betting industry. And we all know how notorious they, too, are for taking advantage of desperate people. Have you ever had to write an unpaid test? How did that go for you? Last Wednesday, I hosted the masterclass, How to Beat AI and Get 4 High Ticket Freelance Writing Clients in The Next 60 Days Without Using Sites Like Upwork. In it, I shared an outreach strategy to help you get quality clients who won’t beg you for an unpaid writing test. Would you like to watch the on demand version? Comment “MASTERCLASS” below, and I will give you free access. #freelancewriter #contentwriter #freelancecontentwriter

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Many of your native English-speaking hires outsource the work to us (non-native speakers but pros at our job) at half your rates. It's sad how we lose many opportunities just because of the region we're born in. #freelancewriters #nativevsnonnativeEnglishwriters

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Fellow writers, can we talk about ways to stimulate ideas for pitches when you're feeling sort of creatively barren? I don't know if it's the state of the industry right now that has me at a loss (kind of like, what's the point??), or if it's something else, but what are your strategies for getting the creative juices flowing? #freelancing #freelancewriting #writers

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