Welcome – it’s about time!
This blog has been a long time coming. I’m pleased to take the plunge and join the ranks of bloggers out here in cyber space.
This is my first blog post and it’s a weird feeling to essentially be writing to an audience that doesn’t exist… yet.
I guess the trick is to write as naturally as possible as if I were chatting to an old friend… whoever you are!
It’s an even stranger feeling to be writing as myself, me the brand. For years now I’ve been blogging, branding and marketing other people and other companies and the time has come to push myself, me… Derek. To be honest with you, that feels a little alien.
If you’ve made it this far by reading this then I would like to extend my warmest welcome to you.
My aims for launching this blog is to impart the knowledge I have learned over the last 10 years in my roles as Entrepreneur, Marketer and Digital Marketing Strategist and also to catch up on lost time for procrastinating all those years.
I hope to network, meet other SEM’s and generally, just pursue a long time ambition.
The question I’m asking myself now is…why the hell has it taken me so long!?
To be quite frank, I don’t know.
Analysis Paralysis? Fear of rejection? Laziness?…
Well, possible the first two but it certainly wasn’t laziness. I’m sure my wife would agree when I say that I’m a workaholic!
I have devoted endless hours to learning and developing my craft. I suppose I just got so bogged down with so much learning and ‘doing’ that I neglected the part where I stop, give something back, build relationships and network with other like-minded people. I know it’s ‘the done thing’ for Internet Marketers to blog and ironically, it’s something I evangelize about with my clients on a daily basis and yet, it’s only now, 10years down the line that I feel comfortable to put my head on the block and put a public face to my name.
It takes a lot of balls to put your name up in lights and I’ve never been one for the limelight really but that said, I now find myself at a time in my life where it isn’t such a big deal anymore. I’ve been doing this long enough that I am genuinely proud of the skill set I’ve developed, so i suppose I have at last reached a point where I’m happy to think of myself as an ‘authority’ of some sort. I’m not the finished article, I don’t believe anyone is but I do now consider myself sufficiently experienced to pass on what I have learned for the benefit of the community at large.
So stay tuned for my ramblings about SEO, and all things web marketing. Time to #PracticeWhatIPreach
In a similar vein and for many of the reasons I’ve just discussed, I’m also quite late to the party as far as social media is concerned. Of course, I’m immersed in it on a daily basis with my consultancy clients but on a personal level, I’ve delayed building professional profiles for too long.
I must confess that I have dabbled with social media and found that it tended to suck valuable time from what I should really be doing. For a digital marketer this is somewhat embarrassing… I know! #cringe #lol.
All of that is about to change and I am pledging to take my very own social media Oath:
From this day forward I, Derek Devlin, hereby solemnly swear to be active on Social Media, to tweet and retweet, to like, share and pin on a daily basis or so help me god.
Derek Devlin, June 2013
Now hurry up and follow me on twitter or circle me on Google Plus!
Also, please feel free to get in touch, either directly of by leaving a comment on the blog…
I hope to use this site as a platform to network and meet other marketers please contribute and get involved.
It’s your turn to put your head on the block and say hello! 🙂
About the Author
Derek Devlin Derek Devlin is a distinguished Marketing Graduate and Entrepreneur who learned most of what he knows in the trenches as an Affiliate Marketer. A digital marketing enthusiast for 10years, he is an expert in SEM, Conversion Optimization and Web Analytics and now consults as the Head of Digital Marketing Strategy at one of the UK’s best up and coming digital agencies - Made By Crunch.
