Sam has experience writing:
- Feature articles and interview-based profiles and case studies
- Newsletter content
- Blog posts
- Recipes and tutorials
- Packages of social media posts
- Press Releases
Throughout the past eight years, she has worked with a mix of print and online publications, content marketing agencies, and businesses.
She writes for a couple of viral online publications where she learned about optimizing for click-throughs and engagement.
As a former social media manager and event planner, she understands the business of creating experiences for people. Her clients are in a few industries including food and beverage, travel and hospitality, wellness and health, marketing, and event planning.
Sam's approach to content fuses reader empathy, experience creation, today's tech, and solid research skills. Her aim is to create content that is easy to read and easy to skim.
She works with clients in a few niches including:
- Food and beverages: Topics include craft beverages, wine, organic food, locally sourced food, and restaurants serving quality food.
- Travel and hospitality: articles about local attractions, boutique hotels, guesthouses, events, and festivals.
- Digital marketing: This naturally evolved as a niche since she works with marketing agencies who hire her to write their own social media content, social media ad copy, case studies, and blog posts. In fact, she is a contractor for one of the top SEO/SEM apps mentioned somewhere in her bio (shhh!).
- Health, wellness, and fitness: She loves breaking down complicated topics into conversational, easy-to-understand prose. She has written for several medical professionals, fitness trainers, a workout app, a climbing gym, and a surf school.
She is currently a bylined contributor to a few print and online publications covering food, wine, consumer technology, and interview-based features.
Sam's primary blog is an active lifestyle blog that features health-related content. She has collaborated with The American Heart Association, Nordic Naturals, NBC television, university research groups, book publishers, and others. She was selected to join three different fitness blogger ambassador programs that led to educational, networking, and trend-spotting opportunities.
She also ghostwrites patient education articles for medical providers including dentists, endodontists, chiropractors, primary care physicians, and plastic surgeons.
Sam is a part-time staff writer for a high-traffic online food publication. In addition, she has covered food, wine, craft beverages, and nutritional topics for print and online publications as well as small business clients.
As a blogger, she created recipes, took food photos, wrote content, and amplified that content through social media platforms like Pinterest. She also managed ongoing social media for a restaurant and a winemaker. The content included tasting tips, recipes, announcements, and fun facts about food and wine culture.
In addition to content writing, Sam works as a social media marketer and an event planner. The lives and breathes the world of small business, content, and nonprofit marketing.
Digital marketing is her primary business-to-business niche. She ghostwrote content for over a dozen boutique marketing agencies, SEO consultants, and website designers on that subject.
Sam currently holds four relevant certifications, including Hubspot Inbound, CoSchedule Marketing Strategy, Twitter Flight school, and Hootsuite Social Marketing. In college, she studied communications, including coursework in journalism, advertising, public relations, political campaigning, and interactive multimedia.
Sam's active lifestyle blog enjoys daily search engine traffic in the areas of fitness, wearable fitness tech, and home gym equipment. Sam participated in three fitness blogger ambassador programs and attended IDEA World's fitness convention. As a content writer, Sam regularly creates content for gyms, studios and fitness tech companies. She also assists small gyms, studios, and recreational schools with social media.
As a contributor for a regional publication, Sam interviewed scientists and wrote features highlighting their research, expertise, and the scientific process.
She also frequently ghostwrites for medical professionals and some of the leading health information sites. She loves breaking down challenging concepts into everyday language.
Sam is an ongoing contributor for a high-traffic consumer tech publication covering productivity, health, and entertainment apps. She also wrote for wearable tech brands, and a leading marketing SaaS platform. She loves creating content that is both helpful and easy to understand.
Sam has extensive experience in the field of special events. Over the years, she worked for sporting events, a theatre, and an art festival.
Part of planning an event is making attendees feel like guests.
Sam also helped a bed and breakfast hotel with content marketing including social media posts and blog posts.
Please reach out to discuss your project as rates per word vary for more research-intensive projects or if you need image sourcing.
Sam often writes about green products, businesses and lifestyle choices.
This content includes articles, blog posts, product descriptions, and social media copy.
As a part-time staff writer for a high-traffic food publication, Sam keeps on top of consumer-driven food trends. She also covers the history and science behind some of our favorite dishes. In addition, she freelances writing articles and social media copy for publications and food brands.
Highlights include:
- She wrote weekly social media packages for a restaurant and a winemaker.
- She wrote feature articles about food science, agriculture, and fisheries for publications.
- From Neanderthals to TikTok, she wrote about history and cultural elements of food, drink, and celebration.
- She even wrote promo copy for an independent cookbook publisher.
Offline, Sam writes blog posts and social media content for small businesses in the hospitality, event, and travel industry. These fields are closely connected as traditionally people travel for events, conferences, and businesses as well as vacation.
She has the experience of managing blogging and social media for an event and also for a small hospitality brand during the COVID-19 crisis. These fields were (and still are) hit hard by the crisis. She was able to pull from her background as a journalist and mediator to share updates that are authentic, rational, calm, and carefully crafted.
As a frequent traveler herself, Sam can anticipate the needs of other travelers and highlight appropriate information within the content.
With over eight years as a blogger, Sam has extensive experience in all aspects of creating and maintaining a blog and blog posts.
She has a 360-degree view of blogging, providing a holistic approach when writing articles and blog posts. The International Bloggers Association selected her for an "Award of Excellence in Writing & Design."
Since she started blogging, she has written more than 600 blog posts including her personal projects, guest posts, and ghostwritten work for clients. The content takes different forms depending on the ideal audience persona and purpose including:
- Recipes
- Tutorials
- Magazine style tips articles
- Interviews with authors, influencers, or celebrities
- Personal essays
- Product reviews
- Shopping guides, gift guides, and product comparison guides
- Curated roundups
- List style posts or listicles
- Brand sponsored advertorials or native advertising copy
She started her blogging journey as a volunteer for a local international film festival. She started the festival’s blog and social media accounts resulting in good media coverage and a few sold out screenings. This experience inspired her to launch her active lifestyle blog covering food, fitness, style, beauty, wearable tech, and fitness tech. She built her blog's traffic from zero through white hat SEO, mailing list building, effective content strategy, and social media marketing and engagement. She also maintains a smaller book and entertainment blog.
Blogging in three niches allowed her to explore all aspects including:
- Content strategy
- Keyword research
- Blog formatting
- SEO
- Basic photography and light design
- Affiliate marketing
- Advertising
- Content marketing
- Advertorials
- Social media optimization
- FTC disclosure guidelines relating to influencer marketing
- Managing reader giveaway promotions
Sam loves the blogging world because she learns something new every day. She devotes time each week to learning about content marketing, copywriting, and social media.
Sam has written Facebook posts and content for small and large brands, public events, and nonprofit organizations.
She started Facebook marketing in 2013 when she managed a Facebook group and page for a film festival. She went on and worked with other events and dozens of businesses over the past seven years.
As a blogger, Sam used Facebook to promote her site which led her to a side gig as a social media micro-influencer. As an influencer, she wrote sponsored posts introducing brands and products to her Facebook page fans and Instagram followers.
As a freelance writer, Sam frequently writes packages of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest content for brands. In addition, she works as a social media manager for a festival, a group of bed and breakfast facilities, and a winemaking facility. She previously managed social media for a marketing agency and a couple of other small businesses.
She holds a Social Marketing certification from Hootsuite Academy. The certification training course and exam covered various aspects of Facebook management including profile optimization, advertising, content strategy, content creation, policies, and other best practices.
Sam has professionally created Twitter content for small and large brands for over six years. Her past and current clients included a couple of marketing agencies, and SEO application, a winemaking facility, and a couple of festivals.
Sam is also active on Twitter and uses it to promote her blog. As a former micro-influencer, she created sponsored tweets for companies in relevant niches.
Images and well-chosen hashtags increase Twitter engagement. Sam keeps tweets short enough to accommodate a link and a hashtag. When possible she aims to attach media such as an image, video, or quiz.
She holds a Social Marketing certification from Hootsuite Academy and also completed Twitter Flight School. The certification training course and exam covered various aspects of Twitter management including profile optimization, advertising, content strategy, content creation, and other Twitter best practices.
Samantha writes news and feature articles for regional news and national online publications.
As a contributor, she pitches article topics, finds sources, interviews sources, and writes articles.
Since the primary publication she writes for uses a modified Associated Press style, she is well versed in AP style writing. Topics she covers include business, scientific research, local events, food, craft beverages, and personality-based feature articles.
Before Sam started freelancing as a writer, she ran a blog.
As a blogger, she monetized through sponsored content or native advertising.
This involved:
- Learning about the advertiser's business and product. Usually, she used the product or service.
- Brainstorming ideas that would appeal to the blog's existing audience like how the product may address a pain point.
- Creating the content, this involved writing, basic photography, shooting videos, and designing the content.
- The content took a variety of forms: recipes, tutorials, unboxing videos, lifestyle essays involving the product, or walk-throughs, social media posts showcasing the product.
Sam frequently features product reviews on her blogs. The reviews feature a short product description. In addition, Sam writes e-commerce product descriptions and meta descriptions for private clients. The goal is clear descriptions that help the reader visualize the product and benefits.
Over the past five years, Sam wrote newsletter articles for a variety of clients.
Newsletter content tends to be shorter-form than many blog posts or articles. However, it is often a little more in-depth than short-form like Tweets, Instagram captions, and other micro-copy. Sam is experienced in writing these kinds of content as well as newsletter articles.
Newsletter articles tend to be shorter and digestible but this varies depending on the brand voice and audience.
Sam approaches profile and biography writing from a variety of angles.
As a social media manager, she has written social media profiles and Facebook "Our Story" content. Her own LinkedIn profile passively brought her thousands of dollars in work as an inbound marketing asset attracting prospective clients to her. In other words, she practices what she "preaches."
As a freelance journalist, Sam loves writing feature profile articles and biographic articles about thought leaders and innovators. She has written over a dozen published features on scientists, small business owners, artists, politicians, and community activists.
She also writes profiles about businesses, organizations, and brands using a similar approach.
Possible Deliverables:
- Social media biography
- LinkedIn Profile
- "About Me" and service pages
- Speaker biography
- Longer-form feature article
- Biographies to supplement press releases and media kits
A good press release reads like a news article. That way, the publication has options. They can either run the release as-is on a slow news day or use it as background for a more in-depth original article. Either way, the goal is to make the editor and reporter's lives easier so they are more likely to feature your non-profit, business or brand.
Using her journalism, content marketing and academic background Sam crafts case studies and other longer-form content.
Each case study is unique depending on whether it is based on surveys, crowdsourcing, interviews, journal articles, or existing documents. For that reason, it is crucial to discuss the goals, intentions, and focus of the project.
