Christina Gleason . com

Official website of writer, editor, and blogger Christina Gleason.

Christina Gleason – Superhero?

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Wow, that didn’t take long! In addition to hundreds of unique visitors to my brand new Web site yesterday – which is quite literally brand new because I set up my nameservers on Monday night and got my hosting settled on Tuesday – I’ve already been unmasked as a superhero!

Dude, I’m a superhero? Awesome!

But seriously, I appreciate the amount of publicity you guys have given me, and the free press!

Twitter’s gone a bit crazy, too, and my inner diva is loving it.

chiropractic: @ChristinaGayle Great to see your mood is upbeat. http://christinagleason.com/ looks great and I suspect many good things will come.

lorenbaker: @ChristinaGayle I’m really happy for you and hope that this unforeseen event will be one of the best things to ever happen to you!

professor: RT @streko just contracted @christinagayle for some blog postings – don’t sleep on this one people!

vinceblackham: I just scored me a slice of @ChristinaGayle…her writing services, that is! You should too!! http://www.christinagleason.com

pmctosh: RT @ChristinaGayle: It’s official! http://christinagleason.com/ ME: like the phoenix folks, she’s risen up from the ashes. Congrats.

godhammer: If you deal in online + content + marketing & don’t know, follow, and immediately try to hire @ChristinaGayle, you’re missing out huge.

EclecticBird: @ChristinaGayle I think I’m going to have to beg you to teach me how to freelance for myself 🙂 Hire yourself out as a guru.

godhammer: @ChristinaGayle You rock. @pearsonified @copyblogger You guys paying attention? She rocks. Period.

SoCaliScribes: @ChristinaGayle GIRL you didn’t waste NO time!

TheKenJones: @ChristinaGayle It’s also nice to see pictures of you without the secret agent sunglasses 😉

ReTweetTrends: http://is.gd/j74u (expand) formerly known as quality gal, @christinagayle is now open for writing and content creation business http://christinagleason.com

TheKenJones: The Artist Formerly Known As QualityGal @ChristinaGayle is now available for freelance work at http://christinagleason.com/ Pls RT

joehall: @ChristinaGayle where can i get a quote?

yummyman: @ChristinaGayle I love the site, nice job, great photos and nice layout. I am excited for you.

…And that’s just going back 8 pages in Twitter search, after I launched the site. This doesn’t include the hundreds of supportive tweets I got in the 24 hours before that. It does wonders for my self-esteem when people I look up to and respect in the industry not only acknowledge my existence (which was a surprise in many cases – yeah, I have self-esteem issues) but rally behind me!

Have you blogged about me lately? Let me know so I can keep track and share with the rest of the class. Google blog search isn’t being very forthcoming, as it didn’t even turn up the superhero piece for me. Link me, baby!

Build My Blogroll

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It’s a new blog, and it needs a new blogroll. Who should be on it? I want to include great SEO resources as well as great writing resources. So if you have a great blog or never miss reading someone else’s great blog, leave me a comment. I’ll sort through all the comments later and see how many blogs I can add before the blogroll starts to look ridiculous. 🙂

Social Media Really Does Bring People Together

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Over the last 24 hours, I have been slightly losing my mind. The economy sucks, as we all know, knowing you’re in “good company” doesn’t help when you’ve been laid off from your job. Especially when, just two months ago, you thought you’d never have to look for a job again. (Which was huge, since my husband and I have suffered at least one layoff per year for the last five years.)

Instead of completely freaking out, which was a real possibility, I threw all of my personal belongings in a box, stopped crying so I could drive home, and hopped on Twitter.

Within five minutes of my first tweet about being laid off, I had DMs from half a dozen people. Within a few more hours, dozens of people had contacted me to extend their sympathies and to offer any help they could.  I’ve had a few feeler emails asking for my rates and areas of expertise. I’ve cobbled together a quick listing of services and introductory rates in editing, article writing, and blogging.  For now, everything is negotiable.  I’m sure the rates for my services will sort themselves out once I see how busy I’m going to be!

I would like to thank everyone who offered their help in setting up this Web site, particularly the anonymous person who generously donated a copy of Thesis for me. (Once I’m back on my feet, I’m totally getting myself the developer version so I can use it on my other sites.)

Thank you all for your kind, supportive words.

Thank you to those who have told me to “keep in touch” so we can work together on a project. (My Gmail is overflowing, so I hope I don’t lose your messages! I’ve got a support ticket in with my hosting company to set up my new email here, so stay tuned.)

Thank you to everyone who has joined my network on LinkedIn.

Thank you to the folks at SMX who are doing some face-to-face networking for me. (Wish I was there!)

Out of the dozens of people who have reached out to me, I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve actually met in person. The rest of you are all people I’ve met in the Twittersphere or elsewhere online. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to know you, and to have earned enough of your respect that you were so responsive when I needed support.

Social media rocks.

Formerly Known as QualityGal

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In case you missed it, my name is Christina Gleason. You may be more familiar with me by my former identity, QualityGal. Until February 9, 2009, I was the Content Manager at We Build Pages. Oh sure, that wasn’t my official title. But I created the content writing team from the ground up, recruiting and managing over 250 writers and editors to write thousands of pages of content, so I think it was a fairer description of my job than anything else that was bandied about.

I helped develop a  proprietary writer panel for the management of writer assignments. Sadly, I only got to use the new incarnation for two business days before I was let go. This tool had been in development since July 2008, and I’m sad that I won’t be able to enjoy it without all the bugs.

I developed an online style manual along with two of my editors, Jen and Michelle, which helped promote the quality of the content we produced. I also developed several very basic tutorials about SEO writing.

With the experience I gained from my time as a Google Quality Rater, I’ve always ensured that the content produced by the writing team I managed was valuable to users. User intent is so firmly ingrained in my brain that I would never, ever attach myself to any “content” that could be construed as spam or trickery. And that’s not because Google penalizes spam and trickery; that’s because it’s the right thing to do. I want to help make the Web a better place.

I’m now a solo act. I’m available for freelance work. Keep your eyes peeled for more information about my services and introductory rates.