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Meet The Creator - Rebecca Haddad

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Fabulate
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Rebecca is a content specialist with more than 14 years' experience across print and digital marketing. A former journalist, Rebecca has written for some of Australia's biggest lifestyle mastheads before moving into digital content creation, strategy and training. Rebecca works primarily in the travel, health and business sectors, providing ad hoc content services including blogs, articles, style guides, thought-leadership pieces, proofreading, strategy and social media training. Past and present clients include Dubai Tourism, The Student Hotel, Macquarie University, Lonely Planet, Mindful Parenting, The Upsider, Culture Trip, Cover-More, Tourism Australia, THE ICONIC, France Tourism Development Agency (Aus & NZ), and more.What is it you enjoy about creating content?I find immense satisfaction in ‘humanising' brands - crafting engaging stories and content about and for the people behind a brand, be it employees or customers. Every brand has that personable, human element and it is great to work with businesses of all sizes to identify those real stories and amplify them to digital audiences. It sounds selfish, but I also love the professional development opportunities that come from working with brands across a range of industries. I enjoy learning about the different messaging nuances and audience behaviours across varied industries.What is your approach in bringing a client's story to life through brand journalism?After researching the brand and its evolution, I like speaking to the people behind a brief. I find a company's identity and ethos is best expressed by its employees (though a tone-of-voice guide/brand guideline is also invaluable!). I like to ask questions that go beyond the stock standard - it means you can identify unique angles that truly engage an audience without an obvious ‘hard sell'. Tell us about your journey to become a content creator.Humble beginnings over here. I started as a journalist working at Bauer (then ACP) in the Youth and Parenting Titles department. My first published piece was a 200-word article on Shakira (hey - you have to start somewhere, right?). From there I joined the youth magazines team at Pacific Magazines and then on to Pacific+ Custom publishing when it was home to Virgin Australia's in-flight mag. It was there that I was bitten quite hard by the travel bug and swapped Sydney for sand for a three-year stint as a luxury travel writer in Dubai. There, I made the transition to content marketing, working for Dubai Tourism. I've since worked with and for a spectrum of great brands and organisations, from universities to hotel chains and C-Suite teams. It's been a fantastic journey. How do you determine the tone, voice and style is right for a particular piece of content?While most brand teams have tone-of-voice guides to share as a base, it's important to understand the audience first: what motivates them, what ticks them off, their drivers for doing what they do. Each audience has very different behaviours and consumes content in completely different ways. What's the most useful thing a marketer can provide in the brief that allows you to understand their brand?Who their audience is, what their specific marketing goal is and the ins and outs of the product or service they are promoting. The more we understand about what we're offering - and its uniqueness to the market - the easier it is to create and curate content for varying audiences. Marketing teams that can provide key USPs, audience personas and objectives upfront make the whole process a lot smoother. What's the piece of content you are most proud of?That's like choosing a favourite child - there are quite a few pieces I like for a variety of reasons! I am proud of the travel stories I've been able to share to global audiences. I also love the web copy and social media overhauls I've created for small businesses and challenger brands. As long as the end product is content that resonates, I'm happy - and I hope the client is, too!You can find Rebecca and her creative portfolio on the Fabulate platform, by clicking and viewing her profile here.