Mila Araujo gave a presentation on writing in the online space. She discussed opportunities for freelance writers online as companies increasingly use social media. Mila emphasized promoting yourself on platforms like LinkedIn, blogs and Twitter to establish your expertise and find new opportunities. She warned about plagiarism online and tools to monitor your work, advising writers to write for passion over links. Mila provided tips on networking, taking feedback and thinking like readers to succeed as an online writer.

1. Writing In The Online
Space
Presented by Mila Araujo
@Milaspage
Nov 11, 2013 McGill University Writing Center, Montreal

2. So Nice To Meet You!
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Mila has a diverse background in management, public
relations, non-profit, and events. In her previous roles, Mila
organized international conferences on health care, as well as
programs to promote health for seniors and children in
partnership with the Government of Canada. In 2009, she
worked with Modica Communications on the development of the
Centre for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility.
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Mila is the Producer of 140 Conference Montreal, 2012
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Speaker, Writer on Social Business &
Strategy, Lifestyle, Leadership and Employee Engagement.
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She is also the Director of Personal Insurance for Ogilvy & Ogilvy
Inc.

3. A Few Places Where You Can Find My Work
You can also click here to see some of the places I’m honored to have been referenced in.

4. Writers Have The Greatest Advantage
Right Now! Why ?
• 79% of companies are using or planning to use social media
(According to HBR.org)
• Social media requires writing and creatives who can deliver
messages and tell a great story
• Not everyone can afford an ad agency, but anyone can get on
social media, or build a blog. More and more people are turning to
freelance writers.
Tip: Want more interesting stats? Check out Technorati “State of the Blogosphere”

5. The writer is the unsung hero of every
story
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When you read something for commercial purposes, the writer is rarely featured.
It’s the story that sells
Writers are a piece of a puzzle
The brand is interested in their own image, therefore, you must become your own brand.
Write YOURSELF into the story
Rule #1:
• You must promote yourself and your skills OR
No one will know what you are doing!

6. Promoting Yourself In Simple Ways
1.
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Write a Bio
Take a picture of yourself and put it in your bio on all networks
Check out About.me, if you do not have a blog yet
Linked In – Fill in the publications section, summary and special projects
Twitter
1. Bio
2. Link to your LinkedIn, About.me page or blog site
6. Google Plus

7. The bad guys are always out to
get the hero.
Plagiarism is rampant on the Internet!
How do you protect yourself?
• Set Up Google Alerts for your name, and the name of any of your featured articles
• Do periodic searches for a couple of weeks after any article you publish to find new
incidents search:
• your name
• your website name,
• key words or phrases from your article

8. The bad guys are always out to
get the hero.
Mark Schaefer, wrote an
article on {grow}
Read it here
which highlights the situation
with plagiarism and
unprofessionalism on the
internet, it does not get more
real that this.

9. The bad guys are always out to
get the hero.
• Check the trackbacks on your blog or website, if the article
appeared on your blog first you may get a trackback.
• Add text and links to the content of your RSS feed so that it
identifies the content originated from your site, and also creates
opportunities for trackbacks you can follow.
• Yoast WordPress SEO is a great tool for this. It adds extra text to
the bottom or top of your post (you choose) stating where the
article first appeared. GET YOUR CREDIT!

10. You are a lot more popular than
you think!
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What you find in search may surprise you, from the search
you can check to see if people respected your terms of use.
• Tip: Make sure your licensing is clear on your site or on any
works you produce.
• Creative Commons allows you to choose your licensing and
gives you a code you can put on your site. Check it out here.

11. Do The Same Kind of Search on Twitter:
Protect and Build Your Brand
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Look for your name
Variations of your name
The title of your post
Hashtags relative to your post
You will ALWAYS find new people sharing your content, but not
referencing your Twitter name or you. Reach out to them and thank
them, add them to your community!

12. Examples of Search on opportunities to build community
Results
If you do not search you miss
Finding references that
didn’t link to your twitter
names

13. Google Presence and What it Does for You
• Google Authorship**
• Plus 1
• Access to various communities
(This link provides an overview of how to fix items when then are not showing up under your Google Authorship)
Warning:
**Not all sites that allow for guest blog opportunities will put the correct code
in their site for you to get the proper Google authorship credit. So find out
what the policy is of the site before you decide to guest blog if link backs or
authorship are driving factors. You can check if your article is properly
attributed here: Structured Data Testing Tool.

14. Flowchart for Troubleshooting
Google Authorship by
Searchengineland
Click to download in PDF

15. The Fallacy of Guest Blogging for Links
and Page Rank
• When you get into writing online, everyone will tell you, “Guest
posting is good. It gives you track backs that boost your page rank
and SEO.”
The Bad News:
• Most sites use automatic no follow tags in their links – so there is a
good chance the link you get will not help page rank and will be
worth nothing on an SEO level.

16. The Good News on Guest Blogging
Guest blogging allows for various other positive opportunities:
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Establishing yourself as an “expert”
Exposing yourself to new communities
Writing in new areas of expertise
Bettering your writing skill – the more you practice the better you get!
Learning from new experiences, meeting new people and taking on new
challenges
Do it for passion – not links!

17. SEO, Hummingbird and Writing Online
• The Hummingbird update essentially completely changed the operating
model for Google search, as with any google update it had many people
talking about it, worrying about it, and wondering what they could do.
• Hummingbird is simply a humanization of the Google search system.
Google is trying to understand human query and search and they’ve
made some modifications to help that along.
• The good news is, if you were writing for humans, and providing good
quality, original content, then this update should only make your posts
stronger.

18. The Various Factors Contributing to SEO
• The Periodic Table of SEO search factors by Searchengineland is
a good tool to show how many factors go into ranking.

20. Top Tools for Writers
As a writer you will find yourself
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Doing research
Reading a great deal
Making notes (always take notes)
Coming up with ideas all the time – so… ALWAYS TAKE NOTES
You NEED Tools! Click here for the list
In this blog post, I feature the Top 10 tools for writers to stay organized, efficient and successful in the online space

21. How to succeed working as a writer anywhere
Ask questions
Research
Be Resourceful
Take feedback or “criticism” as golden knowledge – never take it
personally
• Not everyone will like you, but the right company will! Find it.
• Be yourself, be passionate and love what you do. Find the human aspect
in everything! In this day and age, we re communicating as humans - if
you can do this across all fields, you will succeed!
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22. How to succeed working as a writer anywhere
• Look for the human side to the story
• Speak to individuals within the firm, the people who created the product or those
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on the front lines of service and dig for your story
Research complaints and be proactive in turning them into stories or information
pieces
Put people in the organization at ease, be patient – the story will show up.
Laughter is a great start.
You are an investigative journalist! Your human perspective will be your gift in
writing for the online space.

23. Turn their story into the story of the
reader.
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Understand the mission, vision, and motivational factors of the company.
Understand what they hope to achieve by their communication.
Strike an emotional cord
Show how the product, service or information is valuable to the reader
Think like the reader – that is your goal – deliver deeper value.
Being an outsider is the greatest advantage because you have fresh eyes and a
fresh mind!

24. Most importantly
Stephen King said it best:
"If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the
tools to write.“
Join communities, build communities, and read.
This is how you stay relevant!

25. If I helped you, please let me know!
A final tip:
Always ask for testimonials or referrals!
You can let me know what you thought by leaving one for me on my Linked In, or here!
Thank you!
Milaspage.com