What comes after Edelman?

The short version: I resigned from Edelman and am going solo.

The long version: After 3.5 amazing years at Edelman, where I went from being a temp to a full-time employee as an Admin, got drafted into the me2revolution to do research as Conversation Analyst and that morphed into internal communications and trainer as Digital-Culture Evangelist when we merged into Edelman Digital. I hang my hat after being a Senior Analyst of Digital Culture and Research since October.

Why on earth would you hang up your Edelman hat?

I am ready to start coaching musicians, artists and writers in how to use social media to manage their online communications.

A story…

On Wednesday night, I was at Matilda for a tweet-up I organized for Y-love. After I introduced Yitz to everyone, he told the group how we knew each other. He talked about how I coached him on using search, RSS, Twitter and other social media tools.

Down the table from him was author Amy Guth. Same story. When Amy’s first novel, Three Fallen Women, was released. I taught her how to monitor for her name, helped her organize two blog tours and nudged her in the direction of Twitter.

I don’t do Yitz’s marketing, nor do I do Amy’s marketing. I coach them on how to use social media tools to further their careers and personal brands. I explained how to keep in touch with fans, and then left the doing up to them.

That’s what I’m going to do. Coaching artists, musicians and authors about how to use social media tools to become their own marketing department. I’m currently looking for publicists, labels, and publishing houses that need to train their artists. And of course, I look forward to working with individual artists or others who would like this sort of coaching.

That can’t be all you’re doing, though, can it?

Remember that speech I gave at Chicago New Media Summit? I’m ready to do more. Drop me an email if you want me to speak at your conference, association meeting or to your staff.

I’ll also be working with Dawdle.com, a little bit with Aspirant Marketing, something something with my start-up MyWineTxt.com. A lot of a little, but for now, that’s my plan. Expanding the list musicians, writers and artists that I coach. Building a life that allows me flexibility in geography and helps me change the careers of individuals, by putting the tools I love so much to work for them.

I gotta add… Not one person at Edelman has been anything less than supportive and I am so grateful for the support and kind words. I will be staying at Edelman part-time for the next month or so as part of the transition.

So… Any questions?