WELCOME TO
MELISSA MAE
HAWKINS
Hey 👋 it's great to e-meet you! I'm Melissa, a digital storyteller based in the South West, UK.
Did you know facts are
22 TIMES
more likely to be remembered if they are part of a story?
What is a digital storyteller?
I call myself a digital storyteller because, if you were to package my experience into a box, that’s exactly what you’d get. For over five years, I have created engaging narratives and compelling campaigns across multiple content formats for a variety of brands and organisations. I’m obsessed with effective storytelling. From the inception of an idea through thorough research and the execution of captivating copy, I pride myself on being able to find the right words to convey informative and inspiring information to diverse audiences on a distinct range of digital platforms. Keep scrolling to take a look at my portfolio...
Copywriting
Writing engaging blog copy for an independent cinema
This brand wanted to increase traffic to their site through the publication of SEO optimised blogs. Each blog addressed popular search terms and provided internal links to upcoming releases that were likely to appeal to the reader.
What happened?
- The brand saw a positive increase in site traffic across the lifetime of the brief.
- The blog resulted in a significant click-through rate to other pages on the site, including upcoming film listings and booking pages.
- The conversational style of the blog posts encouraged users to leave comments, sharing their favourite Spider-Man film.
Crafting destination pages for an award-winning airline
This brand wanted to update their destination pages for locations in the Middle East. Each page needed to answer a series of high-traffic queries, include localised insights, be SEO optimised and follow their well-developed tone of voice guidelines.
What happened?
- The new destination pages offered users the opportunity to explore a variety of locations, from landmarks to visit to local safety information.
- The brand published all destination pages on their site with little changes made by their in-house editor.
- The brand reported an uplift in website traffic and an increase in search ranking positions for terms like ‘flights to [Destination]’ over the course of the project.
Building brand values with a celebrity beauty brand
This brand wanted to define their philosophy, mission and values ahead of their global launch. I worked with their in-house marketing team to write detailed copy for their site including their brand story and product descriptions.
What happened?
- The brand didn’t have tone of voice or style guidelines defined before this project so I worked with them to find a brand voice that fit within their vision.
- We established clear guidelines that helped guide other copywriting briefs, ensuring all new copy was consistent.
- The brand’s new website helped contribute toward a successful launch week.
Other brands I have worked with:
social media
Implementing meaningful social strategies for a variety of brands
What is a meaningful social strategy? A meaningful social media strategy involves a thoughtful and purposeful approach to engaging with an audience on various platforms. It begins with a clear understanding of the target audience and their preferences, and ends with content that answers search intent and recognises customer values.
Why is this important? Did you know 81% of consumers say brand trust is a deciding factor when making a purchase? The reason why brands do the things they do needs to be weaved into content narratives; customers want to be involved in the bigger conversations and social media can bridge the gap between both business and individual.
Campaign spotlight: #IAmSpeaking for the publication of Unspoken
This campaign accompanied the launch of Unspoken, an anthology of lived experience written by a collective of women within Disgraceful Magazine. Both the anthology and the campaign raised awareness of violence against women, offering victims a toolkit of resources that offered support.
The #IAmSpeaking campaign empowered women to share their stories to support other women who may have had a story to tell. The campaign offered seeded paper with every anthology order, encouraging readers to write their stories down, plant them and watch them grow. Social media posts also ensouraged readers to share their own stories alongside the hashtag, as shown below. Many readers took part in the campaign, the anthology received thousands of downloads, and with each purchase, profits were donated to Women’s Aid.
Creating reactive content for high-engagement opportunities
Working with Disgraceful Magazine, I use reactive content as a strategy to encourage content interactions. By engaging in real-time conversation and responding to trends, reactive opportunities allow brands to reach wider audiences.
What happened? Responding to the Euro win by the Lionesses, we shared a short video celebrating the feat. Paired with a trending sound and optimising both on and off screen captions with searchable key terms, the video gained 313K views, 30K likes and 1000 saves.
What happened? Celebrating Andrea Spendolini’s gold-medal win, we shared a short video to spread the news. Paired with a trending sound and optimising both on and off screen captions with searchable key terms, the video achieved 68.K views, 4K likes and 100 saves.
Using social media to establish and grow my personal brand
Using LinkedIn, I have established and grown my personal brand by creating engaging content and forging virtual connections with creatives in the marketing and communications industry. Commenting on social trends, marketing insights and attention-grabbing campaigns, I have achieved results like these...
What happened?
By making online connections and growing my personal brand, I have been invited to host talks, workshops and guest lectures at University of Plymouth, University of Manchester, The Mancunian and The Women in Media Conference 2022.
Creative software proficiency:
strategy
Increasing website traffic with SEO optimised long-form content
In my role of Marketing Manager at Big Star Copywriting, I conducted comprehensive research and produced compelling, SEO-optimised weekly blog posts for the company's WordPress blog. The publication of this long-form content on the company site resulted in:
- Organic traffic up by 80% compared to performance in 2022.
- Notable improvements in Organic keyword rankings including: blog copywriting service (#3 > #2), food copywriter (#13 > #7), b2b copywriter (#12 > #8), property copywriter (#5 > #3), and english copywriter (#7 > #4).
- Overall 2023 site leads up by 73% in comparison to 2022.
Publishing and promoting lead magnets to increase conversions
At Big Star Copywriting, I orchestrated the planning, design, and publication of a trip-wire offer to encourage users to sign-up to our newsletter. This lead magnet, a ten step SEO checklist for new websites, saw the following results:
- Consistent sign-ups since the lead magnet’s publication in January 2023, with an average of 20 dowloads weekly.
- An automated email sequence open rate of 86% following the initial download.
- A click-through rate of 32% to additonal offers and copywriting services.
Using analytics to inform digital content strategy
Content backed by strategic insights and well-crafted consumer personas ensures effective communication across digital channels. At Disgraceful Magazine, we noticed a dip in engagement once the Covid-19 pandemic lifted and our 18-25 year old audience returned to university, work and their social lives.
We noted that the way our readers consumed content changed. While in lockdown, users had more time to scroll through downloadable issues of the magazine, but after they preferred bite-sized content formats that could be consumed quickly. Due to this, I made the decision to create and launch a new platform that, instead of publishing bi-monthly in-print magazines, published digital content weekly. The launch of the website resulted in:
- A 170% increase in weekly traffic to the Disgraceful Magazine site.
- 63% more monthly newsletter subscribers.
- An average dwell-time of 3.48 minutes.
Tools I use regularly:
journalism
Sharing stories to inform, educate and inspire
Disgraceful is a free digital magazine that sets out to educate and empower women through insightful stories and informative resources. I founded the publication in September 2020. I wanted to create a platform that would offer women in the creative industries a chance to experiment with different forms of storytelling. Quickly, the magazine built a global readership and today, it continues to work with women to publishing insightful experiences, offer support and give new writers the confidence to find their voices.
Writing magazine features and topical commentaries
Alongside managing Disgraceful Magazine, its team of volunteers and its weekly content schedule, I write a variety of articles for both printed publications and digital platforms. I write articles on a vast range of topics including women’s political issues, pop-culture, marketing and media insights, trends and local news stories. Articles I have written have been published in local news publication, Metro and independent publications.
Article spreads I have designed using Adobe InDesign:
Building an engaged readership and online community
As of 2024, The Disgraceful Magazine online community and readership spans the UK, USA, Asia, Australia, Middle East and Europe. In 2024, our across-platform online audience will continue to grow as we build more partnerships with educational institutions, brands and other organisations.
- I’ve built a social media audience of over 10,000 users across platforms.
- The publication’s website achieves an average of 15,000 monthly views.
- I’ve built a newsletter list of 2000 subscribers.
Want to work with me?
Contact me via email on hello@melissamae.co.uk
