J. Karma Bennett
Employment
07/11 – present Future is Fiction Communications
Social Media Strategist, Publicist, Writer
I create social media, marketing and publicity campaigns for authors, startups and small business and I write freelance articles for various websites. Audiences I’ve written for include professional DJs, teens that watch TV with their smartphones, mystery readers, web designers and business CEOs. The social media spaces I work within most frequently include Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Reddit. While running this business I have:
- Taken a professional innovation strategist’s website from a world ranking of 8.5 million/unranked in the US to ranking 2 million in the world/360,000 in the US
- Nursed new sites from site to finish: from getting an SEO-optimized url, to installing WordPress, to choosing and customizing the theme, to editing and optimizing the content to helping spread the word once the site is launched
- Been selected as “featured author” on the writing site Protagonize in just three months on the site
- Written press releases, media kits, and email campaigns that target relevant producers, bloggers and editors
- Mailed samples to interested media outlets and followed up politely but extensively
- Created SEO-friendly copy for web pages and smart phones
- Written blog posts and drafted e-newsletters
- Accrued 42,000 followers on a music social network (Blip.fm), consistently ranked among the ten most popular users
- Helped clients find their voices on social media, set up their social media campaigns and tweeted on their behalf in a voice appropriate to their brands
- Maximized the opportunities to promote the client’s project in a way that best met the needs of the outlet, whether that’s with a giveaway, interview, guest post, review or more creative promotion
- Researched media outlets to find the social networks, forums, and other sites that would be responsive to the client’s project
- Improved clients’ websites so the layout led readers to the call-to-action that best met their goals
- Installed plugins on the back end of clients’ WordPress blogs that increased their engagement and streamlined their productivity and use of social media
- Followed news trends to discover timely media opportunities
- Optimized authors’ Amazon pages for maximum sales
05/07 – 05/11 Ulysses Press
Publicist
Ulysses has been voted by Publishers Weekly as one of the “Fastest Growing Small Publishers” for three years. This feat was achieved by a team that scours the web for upcoming trends, and turns that research into trade paperbacks in under-published niche subjects. My duties:
- Arranged speaking engagements for touring authors: established venue, booked flights, hotels and cars; coordinated with bookstores to insure a successful event with adequate books for signings
- Worked with editor to produce copy that met the strict grammatical standards of the publishing world
- Represented the company’s voice to the outside world with press releases, media advisories and letters
- Arranged interviews between authors and bloggers, journalists, and producers
- Managed entire publicity department in an environment of tight deadlines
- Created complex yearly, monthly and weekly campaign plans for a diversity of projects
Produced and edited HTML for the company’s website
05/06 – 05/07 ReadyMade Magazine
Intern
Described as “DIY for Urban Hipsters,” ReadyMade is a magazine that focused on sustainability and crafting long before either were buzzwords for cool. Their circulation is 500,000.
Computer Skills
Software
- InDesign
- MS Office
- Quark
- Filemaker Pro
- Dreamweaver
- Fireworks
- Acrobat
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- Knoppix
- Open Office
- GIMP
Web:
- WordPress (.com and .org)
- Movable Type
- Tumblr
- Posterous
- Cision
- Mailchimp
- Tweetdeck
- Hootsuite
- HTML
- CSS
Education
2002 BA Creative Writing/Sociology
Florida State University
- Granted the Torchbearer Award for excellence in student government
- As Executive Director of CPE, managed the university’s oldest agency with a budget of $36,000
- Organized campus-wide events and arranged speaking engagements like Howard Lyman and Jello Biafra, and increased attendance at events by 75%
- Created a special collection at the university library to document the school’s history of social activism
- As student senator elected to the Sweepings Committee (budget $200,000)
- Gained funding for controversial campus entities despite widespread opposition
2011 Web Design
AcademyX San Francisco
Extensive three-month course covering HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, Adobe Fireworks and Search Engine Optimization
Community Involvement
- membership Coordinator Northern CA Book Publicity & Marketing Association
- public relations, news reports WVFS 89.9 Radio
- charter member United Students campus political party
- two-year active member United Students Against Sweatshops
- sixth-most popular DJ on the music network Blip.fm 41,000 followers
- additional volunteer experience GAPIRG, FPIRG, FSU LGBTSU