Work With Me

I am a storyteller, corporate marketer and communications expert, content strategist, and experienced writer and writing coach. Please connect if you would like to work with me on journalistic projects, organizational storytelling, employer branding, or evolving your literary writing. See my resume below. (Creative CV here.)

Twitter: @Natalie_Writes

Contently portfolio

LinkedIn profile

nataliebeth@gmail.com 

 

Natalie Singer-Velush

COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER ▪ STORYTELLER ▪ CONTENT STRATEGIST ▪ EDITOR ▪ AUTHOR

I take content to the next level. I am strategic communicator, marketer, and compulsive noticer who has created, directed, and promoted compelling content, internal and external communications, and marketing programs. When organizations need a head-turning multimedia storytelling project or highly trafficked brand campaign, they’ve come to me. I have blasted off successful digital marketing campaigns and lit a match under audience and employee engagement. With a strong foundation in journalism and corporate storytelling, I’m fluent in brand voice, content marketing, metrics, social media, CMS and SEO. I quickly build trust with stakeholders to successfully tell their stories in credible, exciting ways. My mission is to create and drive successful, one-of-a-kind content and marketing programs that showcase the inspiring and intelligent work of brands and organizations I believe in, and through this work engage audiences and motivate actions for good.

Specialties: Chief storyteller, editorial and communications strategy, internal and employee communications, employer branding, long-range and daily editorial content planning, managing content and communications teams, social media management, marketing campaigns, blogging, magazine and news publishing (digital & print), copy editing, trend-spotting.

Topics of expertise: Technology; data and people analytics; HR and recruiting; employee communications; public relations and media communications; jobs and careers; global health; literary and performing arts; criminal justice; education.

As Nora Ephron said, “Everything is copy.” But it better be good copy. 

EXPERIENCE

Storyteller, Marketing Communications Manager, Microsoft Workplace Intelligence, 2018-present

On Microsoft’s Workplace Intelligence marketing team, I manage a thought leadership program that explores and illuminates the data-driven future of work. I create high-profile, external-facing multimedia stories and marketing campaigns that help show the world how behavioral data can solve complex organizational problems and make life better for workers. Collaborating with some of the smartest thought leaders and solution design experts who are re-imagining the way we work, I explore how humans can be more productive, more effective, more balanced, and feel happier. My work includes building and managing the thought leadership website Workplace Insights, creating and executing a strategic editorial calendar of journalistic stories, white papers, case studies, technical content, webinars, videos, and other content formats; and acting as a key driver of earned media in order to generate leads and build awareness for both the people analytics and employee wellbeing categories and Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics products.

Communications Manager | Managing Editor – Microsoft, 2016-2018

As the Managing Editor for Microsoft’s Employer Branding Microsoft Life team, I helped drive an editorial and content strategy that showcases how employees live the Microsoft culture and future employees and curious outsiders perceive it. On our culture storytelling team, I honed brand voice and inspired audience engagement. I developed, edited, and wrote original feature stories and campaigns on topics ranging from the launch of a new kind of modern workplace, to the evolution of chatbots, to the world’s most purrfect employee cat group. To ensure a robust, unique, inspiring, and ever-evolving culture story, I planned and maintained a content calendar, project managed editorial and creative workflow, and coached a team of writers, photographers, and graphic designers. I managed and curated Microsoftlife.com and, employing my experience with website architecture and taxonomy, helped guide the site through a redesign. Collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, I developed campaign creative from concept through execution and I used data to consistently drive engagement and measure success.

Microsoft Life and my work was recently featured by Contently as one of the top 5 companies that have figured out how to blend culture, messaging, and human resources.

Projects include a multimedia #Pride campaign; a strategic story about innovative treehouse offices that spurred more than 100 instances of earned media coverage around the globe; a project about how chatbots are changing human relationships; a peek behind the curtain of the largest employee giving program in the world; anthem and campaign videos; and a delight story about cat-obsessed Microsofties blending their work and pet passions into the purrfect mix.

Previously in this role I served as the Managing Editor of MSW, the company’s employee communications portal. In that role, I was the editor and senior writer for the employee storytelling program, which showcased innovation and culture change inside the company; I edited and marketed the weekly internal newsletter, distributed to more than 130,000 employees globally; I curated and programmed the home page daily; coached and developed writers; and I partnered with stakeholders, executives, and teams across the company to amplify top news.

Executive Editor, ParentMap magazine & parentmap.com, 2012-2016

I set direction and drove content strategy for the Pacific Northwest’s leading family lifestyle digital + print news magazine and brand, shaping voice and driving customer acquisition and retention. I acted as chief storyteller, sharing cutting-edge ideas and news with a growing audience. By being a noticer, I connected the dots for parents and educators, experts and academics. Employing metrics and conversion and retention tactics, I drove a strategy that tripled digital and social traffic and drove up brand recognition and trustworthiness. I served as a key member of the Leadership Team and set editorial and marketing strategy.

As executive editor I oversaw all owned media in the form of print content, digital content at http://www.parentmap.com, and I acted as social media manager covering strategy for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I managed a team of editors and contract writers and directed content products, editorial campaigns, marketing materials, and large multimedia projects and series on such topics as gun safety and the career-work balance. I managed a website redesign, including the development of a new taxonomy to organize 12,000 pieces of highly trafficked content. During my tenure, my team won more than 35 Parenting Media Association awards.

Author, Content Strategist, Writer, Editor, Speaker, 2012-present

I am a content strategist; freelance journalist and content creator; editorial and storytelling consultant, author; blogger; essayist; em-dash admirer.

I report and write news and narrative profiles for freelance clients including The Seattle Times, The Washington Post, the Harvard Law Bulletin, the ACLU, and University of Washington; I have blogged at ParentMap, Huffington Post, and Mamapedia; I have worked as a content strategist for news magazines and as a legal researcher and commentator for InSession (formerly Court TV), I publish literary nonfiction essay pieces in journals and anthologies; I edit copy and content on a project basis.

I developed “J School in a Day” workshop, which launched in 2016 with the Society of Professional Journalists Western Washington. Drawing writers, marketers, subject-matter experts, and academics from around the region, the workshop teaches the basics of journalistic storytelling from a panel of experts and helps attendees assemble their own tool kits to help tell better stories in their work.

I developed and lead the “How to Pitch An Editor, Not Piss Her Off” workshop at media and writing conferences, universities, and organizations to help marketers and others be most effective pitching content and stories for earned media.

I am the author of “California Calling: A Self-Interrogation,” released March 1, 2018 from Hawthorne Books. The book won First Runner Up in January 2017 for the Red Hen Press national nonfiction book contest, and I was a finalist in Fall 2016 for the Autumn House Press national book contest. I am a contributing author to the 2015 YA anthology “Love and Profanity: A Collection of True, Tortured, Wild, Hilarious, Concise, and Intense Tales of Teenage Life.”

Jobs and Careers Columnist, The Seattle Times, 2011-2012

Blogged weekly at The Seattle Times NWJobs Career Center Blog about sticky workplace issues, work/life balance, employee hacks, market trends and self-employment. Helped drive traffic by providing well-written, niche content infused with voice.

News Reporter, The Seattle Times, 2002-2008

Nimble and organized storytelling within a fast-past, daily news publishing environment. Expertise in research methods, reporting, writing, sourcing, data analysis, social media cross-promotion and community engagement.

Demographics and Government/Politics Reporter, The Desert Sun, 2000-2002

Reported on immigration, the Coachella Valley’s booming Latino population, the gay and lesbian community, aging issues, low-income families and growth. Led Census 2000 coverage. Manipulated and interpreted raw data and analyzed research to find trends.

SERVICE

Board member, Society of Professional Journalists Western Washington.

Teacher/Mentor, Pongo Teen Writing, King County Juvenile Detention and Washington State Child Study and Treatment Center.

EDUCATION

Masters of Arts, Creative Writing, University of Washington, 2016.

Bachelor of Arts, Journalism, San Francisco State University, 2000.

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