Tag Archives: journalism

“Eat It,” in Baseball & Social Media

baseball, eat it, social media, posting, facebook, twitter, instagram, linkedin

Before posting on social media, think of baseball

When you hear the expression “eat it” you might reflect on several things: a command from your mom when you were young and refused to devour what she put on your plate; years ago, your friends daring you to taste something revolting (i.e. goldfish, in the olden days); or a parody of Michael Jackson’s 1982 classic “Beat It” by Weird Al Jankovic.

“Eat it” is also an expression often heard on the baseball diamond. It’s used when a fielder is about to make an ill-advised throw of a “live” ball: a ball that has just been hit and is in play. The fielder wants to make an out because that’s the name of the game on defence: to get outs. The throw may be considered ill-advised when the hitter or other base runner is likely going to beat the throw. The other fielders see that throwing the ball likely won’t result in an out, any may mean the ball is thrown away and the runners advance. So, they yell out “eat it” in an attempt to get the fielder to hold on to the ball and minimize the offensive damage.

In this case, “eat it” is a command to devour it yourself: don’t give it away, surrender its effects, or push it on someone else. It means that you, the one holding the ball, needs to take the most advisable action: NOTHING. Continue reading →

Flipping The Switch To Content Marketing

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content marketing, journalism, sales, promotions, advertising, B2B, B2C

Content Marketing is about as complicated as digital journalism.

What does an experienced digital journalist and trained fiction writer have to offer to companies for the purpose of content marketing? Plenty. The tools and experience are already in place. He/she just flips a mental switch and continues doing the same things in a different way.

One quick visit to Wikipedia tells us that content marketing “is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers.”

The two words that I hone in on, naturally, are “media” and “content,” because I have spent all my working years creating and producing content for media. My area of specific expertise is digital media. Lucky for me, digital media is the ‘here and now’ and the foreseeable future for media. By the way, in my world digital media also includes social media.

So, the question is: what specifically am I able to offer companies that are in search of someone with writing and content development abilities? People generally abhor being sold to and much prefer being told stories and presented with useful information. I offer a long history of successfully doing these two things. Continue reading →

The morning workaround, for an early hours hater

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Yup, that’s me

Mornings, to me, are like a bleach stain on a favourite shirt: something that should never be there. I should never be involved with mornings in any way. Specifically, anything active that happens before 8 am – 9 am preferably and 10 am ideally, though unrealistically – is not meant to be for me.

Which isn’t to say that I can’t “do” mornings. I did, for years. I was quite adept at pulling myself out of bed at 6 am and sometimes even sooner, dragging myself into the shower, dressing and grooming myself adequately, finding something to eat on the go, picking up my pre-packed belongings, reaching down to clumsily tie my shoelaces while cursing the night-borne tightness in my back, throwing on a jacket if the weather required it, and stumbling out the door.

In the years that I commuted to Toronto, I managed to put one foot in front of the other well enough to get to my local bus stop, where I waited for the bus that took me to the nearest GO Train station, where I boarded the train and set my still-weary body down to rest. Yes, I still desired more rest.

Continue reading →