Anne McAuley Lopez With Agency Content Writer

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s time for Charlotte Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here an other episode of Charlotte Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Ann Macaulay Lopez with Agency Content Writer. Welcome, Ann.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:00:30] Hi. Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm, how you serve in folks.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:00:37] Oh, well, thank you for having me. Yes. I’m a content writer. I’ve been a content writer since 2010. So a lot of things in the online space have changed. And currently my business is called Agency Content Writer and we provide website content for website pages, website projects, partnering with designers, website designers, and we also provide blogging services to businesses as well as nonprofits.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] So what was the genesis of the idea to get into this line of work? Is it have you always been a writer?

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:01:14] I’ve always loved writing, but somehow I ended up in data type jobs when I graduated from college, and when I was laid off, I looked at my resume and thought about what I was doing, realizing that what my job description was didn’t feed my soul. And the other thing that I was doing at the job or things that we do as entrepreneurs. I was networking on a very micro scale. I was writing our newsletter and I really enjoyed that and I enjoyed the process of working with an editor. So when I went to a networking event for job seekers, I realized that you could rebrand yourself like a lot of people are doing now. I think too, is what are your skills and how can you take those skills to the next level or take them somewhere else and do something else? But with the skill set that you have, not having to learn a lot of new things. And that’s really where it started. I found a wonderful my first client, she was doing PR but was expanding into social media and marketing, and I started writing social media posts for her. When she had a need for a blog writer, she showed me the ropes of blog writing. And when I look back and when I look at what I do now, it’s actually still what she taught me back then. The basics are still the basics, and I grew from there.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:38] Now, when you’re kind of working in going from a writer who writes for themselves to a writer who is writing in a business context, how do you kind of capture the voice of your client? Because writing to me is so personal, like the person who’s hiring you in their head, they have what they would like it to be, and then you’re trying to kind of guess and try to give them back the content that they feel represents them in their brand.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:03:06] Yes. Yes, there are. That’s probably one of the biggest the most asked questions that I get. People say, what’s the process? How do you get what’s in my head onto my website? That’s it. And I actually wrote an article about it. It’s on my website, but it’s in different forms. I meet my clients wherever they are, so if you are a talker, we might record our conversation kind of like we’re doing today, where you talk about your business. And within that conversation, I typically hear topics that are good for website pages and blog content. It may be an email interview if they kind of are like, I need to do a brain dump, or they may send me some notes or what I call a recipe car. Just some basics. Some clients don’t really need the kind of personal branding. We’re really working on SEO and getting information about their industry out there. So like for home services, that might be the the path that we take. So it’s in different ways depending on what the goal for the client is. And I’ve, I’ve worked with lots of different clients and lots of different ways. I had one this is funny. She would email me literally in the middle of the night and say, okay, here’s my brain, don’t make it pretty. And I know exactly what she meant. And I did. And sometimes we had a couple of ideas in there and we had a couple of articles, but ultimately it was in her voice, really. And I was doing the the judge making it pretty for SEO, search engine optimization and adding keywords and links and all the things that Google loves for us to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:43] Now, you mentioned that since you started, obviously things have evolved quite a bit and there’s more social media channels, there’s a lot more places to share, content to distribute content, to acquire content. Is there any advice you can give a person like let’s take this interview right now. Today we’re doing an interview. You’re sharing all this thought leadership, you’re sharing personal information about yourself. At the end of the day, we’re going to deliver back to you, obviously, the audio file, but we’re also going to give you a machine transcription. The word. So you’re going to have all the words in a pile. How would an expert content writer like yourself repurpose some of these assets that you’re going to have now at your disposal?

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:05:29] Well, I would take the transcripts and make it so friendly. I actually have clients and that’s what we’ve done together. And then we create some new content as well. But that’s a great it’s a great way to repurpose, as you said, to your point, where, you know, whether you’re starting with an audio file, a video file with a transcript, we can make that into blog content. For me, I feel like I’m maybe in the minority because I’m a writer. First, I take my writing and now I’m I’m making videos and audios from it. But I think it takes a while to kind of either way, develop your voice and your messaging so that you can repurpose that content. You can also take it and use it in your newsletter. You can use it across social media. So when I get that file from you, I will share it across social media or share your post across social media so that people learn more about what we’re doing here in Charlotte.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:26] But isn’t this something that a person who might be overwhelmed by, Oh, I got to create content. This is such this big burden. I have to constantly create new content. It puts a lot of pressure on somebody, even if they want to hire somebody like you, to the amount of content, Like you can repurpose content and it’s okay. And, and it’s and it’s more affordable and it’s easier in a lot of ways to take existing content and slice and dice it and put it in different piles and curate and do different things with it rather than always feel the pressure of I have to invent new content.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:07:00] Exactly. Exactly. There’s you know, we usually start with like, what are the most commonly asked questions about your business or your organization? And then it’s what do we want people to learn? And are you launching a new program or product or service? And then we kind of dive into a little bit more of the nitty gritty for something like this, like an interview like this. There’s different pieces, like if you listen to this with a content repurposing mindset, we could break this up for every question that you’ve asked or every couple of questions and use those and say, okay, this is our question of the day on social media. And if we post one question a week, say Friday is Question Day from this small interview, we would have enough content for every Friday for the next, what, 4 to 6 weeks?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:51] Right. And that becomes a very efficient way.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:07:53] To create manageable. Think of it that way. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:56] And then and especially if you put somebody as skilled as you, you can take something and then make it into lots of things. It’s like a chef at a restaurant. They can, you know, take one thing and make it into, you know, kind of a meal.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:08:10] Idea for me. I borrow, borrow. I don’t steal, borrow. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. So we’ll put the carrots out this Friday and the celery out next Friday.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:21] But so as you’re dealing with clients, you have a niche that you’ve landed on. Like, are you better for like enterprise level organizations or big agencies? Do they hire you or small businesses? Do you have a niche that you like to work with?

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:08:35] So typically it’s smaller agencies. So I have a website partner right now. For example, she does design and development, but she does not offer content to her clients. So that I call a very good marriage. That’s a great a great partner for me because we’re both asking the same kind of questions so we can both do what we need to do and we’ll have a call with our clients that we have in common to both talk to them and ask the questions we need to ask. And then I might do a deeper dive on the content side for them, and she’ll do a deeper dive on the design side where I don’t need to be on a design call. That’s not my that’s not what I do. So there’s a smaller, I would say smaller agencies, smaller businesses and nonprofits. So I would say if you have a website that hasn’t been updated in a few years and you’re like, you know, I really need we have new messaging, we have new product or service, we’re kind of redoing our branding. Where do I start? And definitely they could call somebody like me. I can introduce you to my website partner and you can call a website person and they if they don’t offer content, then I can help you with content. And sometimes we re-use content. We just give it a little, make it a little prettier or add some keywords and some links and things like that that are good for Google. So my industries that I like to work with, I’m currently working with accountants and bookkeepers, home services clients. So like landscapers, pools, those types of folks, nonprofits. And I say with nonprofits, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, I, I will be passionate with you. Really, For any client, if you love what you’re doing and you want to get the word out about it and grow that business or organization, let’s let’s have a conversation. And I’ve got experience in different industries, also securities. The other one I was going to say.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] Now, in your work, do you work with local businesses in Charlotte or are your clients all over the place?

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:10:43] They’re all over. I, I would love to expand my work here in the Charlotte market. We just moved here in May from Arizona, so I still have some Arizona clients. I’ve got clients in Minnesota that I just met through networking. But I’ve worked with clients all across the country and can do that pretty easily there. With technology, I feel like in this kind of post-pandemic world post lockdown world, we’ve all figured out how to use Zoom and other technology so we can connect easier. And that makes it really easy for me to to do my job without needing to meet people in person. I do love to meet people in person and am looking to expand my Charlotte network, of course.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:23] Now, how do you kind of see some of the trends in content creation evolving over the years like and, you know, including your career in this space? Because it seems like it’s always changing and there’s always something, you know, that’s the latest and greatest place you have to put content.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:11:40] Yes, that’s probably there’s a lot of it’s probably the biggest challenge. There’s a lot of shiny objects in this world of digital marketing, as I’m sure you know as well. And finding figuring out who your clients, who you want your clients to be is really the first piece of that. Who’s your target market and then where are they Spending time online is where you market. You might like Facebook, but my clients are not on Facebook. You might like making TikTok videos, but are your clients really there? I don’t know. So you really want to be where your clients are. And one of the things that’s happening now, that’s a big conversation. This is the third time I’m talking about this in the last couple of weeks on an interview is artificial intelligence is kind of rocking the content writers world chat. Gpt and other platforms are creating content. I went on last week and did a little experiment, not on chat GPT. There were no openings. It was all filled up on the servers. So I went to another A.I. product and I did a little experiment and for a very specific client with a very specific need, which is here’s the keyword, here’s the link that we want you to use. Write an article about anything that includes this keyword and this link. Those are very specific directions. It’s not telling a story, it’s not an interview. It’s go do some research and get creative. And okay, So my first test in I was me learning along with the software, right along with the site, along with the I.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:13:23] And what came out was a very like an article that was twice as long as what I needed. It was just I did a lot of cutting, which I don’t like to do, but I was able to get what I needed and it took me probably twice as long as it than if I had written it. But the next article I did. I was smarter and I took I was able to take links from any link, but I chose links from the client’s website, which I had written myself and put those links in along with some notes. And the I learned along with me and what I got was a really good basic blog post that I could then add keywords to, add the headings, add all of the magic that we do to format for a website so that Google loves it. I ran it through a checker to see if there was any other content online that was exactly this, because that’s my worry with I and there was nothing. I had branded it enough for the client that the eye helped me, but it didn’t write the whole article. And I don’t I don’t know that it ever will be able to do that to make it good content for a website, Right? You want a little bit of your flavor in there for your business. You don’t just want a computer generated kind of thing, right? Kind of piece of content.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:43] Yeah, I think at this stage it’s great for maybe thought starters or first drafts. It’s just I don’t think it’s there yet to have that personal like you said that where you it’s in the voice exactly of that specific client it might be able to go in a voice of a celebrity where there’s tons of content for that celebrity out there. But to get like a brand in a market, it’s going to be hard. But it’s I think a lot of people are going to use it as a blunt instrument and then we’re going to be bombarded with content like that.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:15:13] And it’s going to.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:15] And it’s going to be hard for the.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:15:16] Content.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:17] Right? But it’s going to be hard for a customer or client to discern like your skill that can make something like you says using it up versus an eye that can’t. And then the AI is free and yours you charge. So there I don’t know. We have to do a better job to help them discern why it’s better to to pay someone, an expert to help rather than just rely on some free kind of blunt instrument.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:15:45] Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And really, the output wasn’t anything I would hope that somebody would post. I was talking to my sons and one of them is a computer science. My second oldest son is a computer science major, so AI is very big with in his community. And he said what they’re what they’re worried about now is things like students writing papers with AI where you’re not really learning how to write a research paper, doing the right thinking and research that you. Should be doing. So we’re still.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:21] All right. But remember, when we were.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:16:22] When we were a plagiarism checker, is it going to show up? No. But the kid who actually wrote their paper hopefully gets a better grade than the one who who relied on.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:30] Right. But remember, we went through this with calculators where they were like, how can you have a person have a calculator? Then they’re never going to learn how to calculate a.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:16:38] Phone in the classroom.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:39] Right?

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:16:40] So good point. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:41] So we go through this, you know, fear of technology, how to use technology. There’s always a transition period that I think that happens whenever something new disrupts what was old. And we’re at the beginning of I, I mean, it’s not the beginning beginning, but it’s definitely in the front end of this. So it’s only going to get more sophisticated and better over time. It’s not it’s not going going to go backwards. It’s only going to get more robust.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:17:10] Yes, I agree.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:11] But you need it in anything.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:17:12] I mean, we were worried about the Internet, too, and. Right. We need a website. It’s kind of part of.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:18] Look, and I’m sure there’s people who have had parents that didn’t want answering machines and, you know, switch to cell phones.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:17:27] My grandma didn’t even want a push button phone. She called the phone company and ask for her rotary dial phone back.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:33] Right. So that I mean, that’s there’s always a group that is once things the status quo so that never is going to change. Now in your career, you’ve not only are you a content writer, but you’ve also wrote a book. Can you talk about your book? We don’t get to ring the bell.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:17:52] Thank you. Yes, I did. It was released December of 2021. I have a condition called chronic myeloid leukemia that is managed with just taking a targeted chemo pill. Before this pill was available, which was the late 1990s, early 2000s. This was about a 3 to 5 year lifespan after diagnosis. So I wouldn’t be here talking to you. That hits home sometimes. That’s that’s pretty wild. I’m I’m a little miracle walking around. So we’re our type of cancer, this type of leukemia. We take this pill, but we’re never a lot of patients never come off the medicine and we never get to ring the bell that other patients who get traditional chemo or radiation, they ring a bell and they post their picture online and they’re so excited. Yeah, I’m in remission. We don’t get to do that. And that’s that’s where the title of the book came from, because, you know, in the beginning there was kind of some jealousy of the people who got to ring the bell. Now I see it as it is. It is symbolic. There are folks who unfortunately have to go back into treatment sometimes. But it’s it’s that you’ve you’ve fought this hard. Let’s ring the bell. And we don’t get to do that. We just CML patients. We just take our meds every day and go about our business. It is there was a period of time where I wasn’t able to do as much.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:19:29] Writing is very head heavy and when you have brain fog, you can’t really write. So I helped my I help my friend build her estate planning law firm back in Arizona. I worked for her for a couple of years and use the skills, my admin skills and process creating processes that I learned as a business owner and helped her grow her business while I was getting better. It is now really a chronic illness and I didn’t appreciate when people would tell me before this. I didn’t appreciate when people would tell me I have a chronic illness. Like what does that mean? Like just get up out of bed and go do your thing. And it’s really not sometimes your body really doesn’t cooperate. So I have a late start day or I have an early start day yesterday and today or early start. So tomorrow might be it’s Baltimore Saturday, but tomorrow might be a late start kind of a day for me because my body’s just not going to cooperate. And that’s okay. I’ve learned over the years that I set my schedule in such a way that if I can do something productive in this time. Block Usually in the afternoon, then I do something productive. But if my body needs to rest, I rest. And I think I’m healthier for it mentally, physically, spiritually, for having this journey and having a better understanding of people who have chronic illnesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:52] And that’s a good lesson for everybody. You don’t have to go and live life with the pedal to the ground. There are times where you have to pull back and coast a little rest, a little regroup and then go at it again. And you just have to find the rhythm that works for you.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:21:08] Yes. Yes. It’s hard like that goes against my natural instincts. I fought it tooth and nail, Lee. But the better thing to do is to kind of go with what your body is telling you.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:21] Right. And ultimately you’re going to get to where you need to go. So you don’t have to to rush there and get there. Maybe today, maybe we’ll get there later this week. And it’s okay.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:21:33] Exactly. Yeah, very true. Very true.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:36] So what could we be doing for you? What do you need more of? How can we help?

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:21:41] I would love to meet web designers and developers, agencies, smaller agencies here in the Charlotte area during the marketing space. I’d love to have a conversation with you just about what I do, what you’re doing, and kind of our our take on things, because there are a lot of things changing as we’ve talked about today. I, my websites, agency content writers, I have a very newly released YouTube channel where I’m uploading a lot of the podcasts, video podcasts that I’ve been on to that channel, and I’ll be creating some new content as well. And on Instagram agency content writer and on LinkedIn.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:22] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success and and let’s keep this momentum going one more time.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:22:29] The website agency content writer.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:34] Well and thank you again for sharing your story you’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Anne McAuley Lopez: [00:22:39] Thank you for having me. Lee This was a pleasure. A lovely conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:42] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you on next time on Charlotte Business Radio.