Tamar Weinberg

Why haven't you hired me already?

INTRODUCTION

Tamar Weinberg is a professional hustler: a passionate operations leader, team and customer champion advocate, inbound sales closer, digital marketing strategist, and freelance writer. She is also the author of the bestselling O'Reilly book The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web and Penguin's The Adoptee's Guide to DNA Testing: How to Use Genetic Genealogy to Discover Your Long Lost Family which revolve around creating solid relationships, something she advocates for when she motivates and inspires teams. She has spoken at dozens of conferences and has been recognized in a number of global publications, both print and digital.

As an early-stage employee of several successful startups, Tamar is a seasoned entrepreneurial-focused operations leader who is detail oriented, and has managing marketing, content, legal, communications, bizdev, sales, support, tech, and much more. She also loves content and editorial operations, is driven to set a high quality bar, and has built and grown teams worldwide.

Tamar was Mashable's 6th hire in 2007 and has helped grow the company tremendously through her sales efforts that have spanned six full years. Additionally, as Namecheap's social media face, Tamar has spearheaded all substantial customer acquisition efforts, growing the company more than tenfold since her arrival in 2009 through her strong personal emphasis on strategic marketing and customer happiness/experience.

For three years, Tamar served as the Editor-in-Chief and General Manager of TechGenix , managing an entire global team of fifty writers and a full/part time staff. She successfully grew the niche information technology publication to see over 1 million pageviews and hundreds of thousands of email subscribers.

Tamar seeks opportunities where she can remotely contribute to the overall growth of a small company, just as she did before time and time again. Her ideal role would be to manage teams and focus on operations, processes, content, or customer happiness/success, as those are problems waiting to be solved and she's a real time closer and fixer.

PROFILE

ABOUT TAMAR

As an extremely motivated, dedicated, and disciplined worker, Tamar Weinberg is a hustler living the Inbox Zero lifestyle. A self-starter who is able to tackle tasks small and large in just about everything, she has worked on all behind the scenes elements at major startups, from sales, to community support, to communications, to legal matters, to operations, to business development, to marketing, to system administration—and then some. Her passion started in computers, knowing that she wanted to do something where online community interaction was involved. Slowly, through some of the most unique roles (including a private investigator!), she found her comfort zone, realizing it was in effective communications to help grow companies. Her ideal role would be to join an early stage or established company in a leadership player/coach capacity where she is able to help wear many hats and build upon the company's bottom line.

SERVICES

Tamar loves operations. She is passionate about business and process optimization, working across departments, and is entrepreneurial minded. She is all about touching upon all facets of a business to help scale up small and large businesses. She's established and set up operational systems, processes, and policies, taken ownership of company productivity from human resources to marketing to technology, and thrives in a remote and fast-paced environment.

When Tamar was five years old, she very clearly told her parents, "I want to be an author when I grow up." A little over twenty years later, her first book, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, was published. For over a decade, she's been a prolific blogger and journalist, writing for top tech publications Lifehacker and Mashable, contributing to Real Simple Magazine where she ran The Tech Decoder, a column on tech gear, contributing to (and managing a team of writers) for a local print newspaper serving her community, and writing content pieces for popular sites such as Business.com, Inc.com, The Next Web, and Forbes. Today, she uses those skills to manage editorial operations, empowering writers to be their very best, working as a coach to inspire personal and professional growth, all while writing to support cross-departmental functions, touching upon product, marketing, support, and executive functions, including working to write or improve upon more technical topics.

With the rapidly changing digital landscape, Tamar has been an early advocate of the importance of customer experience in the marketplace, consistently reiterating how customer service acts as the intersection between service, marketing, and sales. This experience has grown through her real time responses to concerns expressed within social media channels and email for Mashable, a top global media property, Namecheap, a top domain name registrar and web host, and Lifehacker, a tech publication about productivity. Tamar holds to the notion that social media amplifies empowering customer service experiences and aims to provide that high level of support in a rapid fashion on a consistent basis. She has brought that to the realm of customer success as well, as her experience in sales has aided in customer retention and in making products get consistently better and better.

Tamar has worked in an inbound and outbound sales capacity. Her strength lies in converting the inbound lead, and to that point, she's a killer closer. She has worked with all types of clients across the globe: nonprofits, government agencies, Fortune 100, B2B, B2C, insurance services, marketing software, media agencies, and many more. Tamar's focus is on creative solutions, but more importantly, client relations and account management. She puts a strong focus on the client and takes pride in how effective her real time communications have translated into customer loyalty and repeat business.

In May 2012, she gave birth to her daughter, 16 minutes before midnight on a Friday night. On Saturday night, from her hospital bed, she closed a 6 figure deal. Mind you, this happened all on Mother's Day Weekend. Can she do the same for you?

Tamar is highly focused on community, in growing platforms, services, and websites to make users passionate about networks and brands. Her audience development tactics have grown communities sizably on their own platforms and through other normal touchpoints (social media, email, groups, etc). While she does practice marketing and can oversee marketing efforts, the biggest focus for tamar is audience development, ensuring that the audience gets signal through all the noise.

Regarding marketing, as an early adopter, Tamar discovered social media in the early 90s and was deeply immersed in the space before most even recognized its existence and potential. As social media became more mainstream, Tamar was one of the first digital marketing strategists offering social media, copywriting, and content marketing services and helped put many startups on the map. Among other digital marketing disciplines, she is familiar with search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, public relations, retargeting/remarketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and link building. However, she normally brings in the right people who are experts in their fields to actually execute, because while Tamar is good at a lot of things, she knows they're better at it!

Tamar builds her own computers and maintains a Linux server in her basement. As such, systems administration and tech tinkering has always been not too far from her fingertips, and she has operated as a sysadmin at several companies. She focuses these days on server installations and migrations with WordPress and ensuring that code stays up to date, but occasionally wishes to tackle other tough tech tasks.

REEL

WHAT TAMAR IS GOOD AT

  • OPERATIONS

    Tamar loves business operations, working on optimizations and as a leader and motivator of teams. But Tamar is also focused heavily on inspiring teams, creating a company culture that leaves when she does! Why? Because of trust. Because of belief. Because she truly inspires her team. She's handled every type of aspect of businesses, from logistics for ecommerce brands to legal matters at finance brands to communications at technology brands.
  • CUSTOMER HAPPINESS

    Tamar puts a tremendous focus on the client in the Zappos mindset. She created Real Time Email , a consultancy of sorts that speaks to her culture of being responsive as soon as a customer needs her.
  • REVENUE & INBOUND SALES

    Tamar puts a strong emphasis on relationship building to help grow a company's bottom line. She can upsell the existing customer and can convert the interested party. She is a killer closer.
  • BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

    Tamar forges partnerships with startups and businesses to amplify visibility between client and the business, making for two very happy new companies.
  • WRITING

    Tamar likes to write. She writes daily for client and herself. She is always practicing those exercising muscles. As an author, journalist, and writer, she's focused on building client visibility through unique storytelling, simplification, and much more. Read her blog on Techipedia for a taste of Tamar in a personal and professional context.
  • HUSTLING

    Tamar is a multitasking guru, a real time emailer, and an Inbox Zero observer. She hustles everywhere and anywhere, wearing dozens of hats simultaneously, managing the most mundane to the most complicated tasks. She has invoiced, budgeted, dealt with legal matters, responded to the boss's email, scheduled meetings, and everything in between. If she wasn't working 100% online, she'd probably have cleaned toilets by now (and wouldn't complain). It's all about what it takes to grow your company!

MY SKILLS (ALWAYS STRIVING TO IMPROVE!)

CUSTOMER HAPPINESS/ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

OPERATIONS

CONTENT

TECH CHOPS

RESUME

EXPERIENCE

  • 2020 to 2021
    Content Marketing Operations and Strategy Lead, PureVPN

    Led all content efforts for a 250+ employee VPN brand, working cross-departmentally with product, support, marketing, and the executive team, overseeing all paid/owned content (whitepapers, podcasts, video scripts, blog posts, press releases, affiliate content, landing pages) to ensure customer engagement, brand consistency, and a positive user experience. Content efforts improved search traffic by 80% in 8 months. Additionally, focused on general marketing operations, budgeting, vendor/media relations, SaaS tool evaluation, and recruitment of freelancers, team members, external vendors, and agencies.

  • 2009 to Present
    Social Media Customer Experience and Success Lead, Namecheap

    Responsible for all social media initiatives and inbound customer service via social media channels. Provided a foundation for customer support and client acquisition through proactive responses and creative marketing approaches. Trained company employees globally on social media policy and voice, building out a 24/7 social media customer experience team of over a dozen employees, as well as nurtured team members and helped with professional growth. This direction and leadership has resulted in hundreds of positive vibes from members both in the B2B and B2C space. Helped secure the title of "best (and most popular) domain name registrar" repeatedly on top weblog Lifehacker. Used competitive analysis on multiple occasions to grow membership base from less than 500k domains managed to now over tens of millions.

  • 2008 to Present
    Chief Strategy Officer, Small Business Trends, LLC

    Oversees advertisement sales, content and stales strategy, and social media strategy. Manages all account management as well with small clients, startups, media agencies, and public relations firms. Focused on customer acquisition as well as retention through a hybrid of creative strategy and relationship building.

  • 2016 to 2019
  • General Manager and Editor-in-Chief, TechGenix

    Built a strategic performance marketing and operational plan, then launched and managed a successful information technology media publication, attracting an audience of 1 million users monthly (grown from an initial 1,000). Managed recruitment, training, and onboarding of over 50 global writers. Managed P&L, tech infrastructure, and agency/vendor relationships. Established cross-functional operational systems, processes, and policies.

  • 2017 to 2018
    Co-Founder and COO, Supportful

    Created and established procedures and operations for a crowdfunding platform. Recruited vendors and employees, established a go-to-market strategy and branding guide, authored employee handbook as well as policies and procedures, built a help desk system & trained a success team, acted as a project manager for several ongoing initiatives, and led an editorial effort.

  • 2016 to 2017
    Social Media Correspondent, Third Door Media

    Breaking news in the social media space in real time for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land.

  • 2012 to 2019
    Chief Responder, Real Time Email

    Building a business is tough—building out a killer support team is even tougher. Not many people have the passion for customer experience—dealing with angry and upset customers or in getting back to customers in a timely fashion. Real Time Email was a consultancy that handled all customer communications in real time (with a smile!) for a number of small and large B2B and B2C brands, most of which were in the direct to consumer ecommerce space. The consultancy worked directly with customers, but also on an operational level with several clients, handling operations, logistics, and support.

  • 2007 to 2013
    Global Advertising Director, Mashable

    As one of Mashable's first employees (#6) who began working at the company when it was a small startup, Tamar has worked on all behind the scenes elements: business development, editorial, ad operations, marketing, invoicing, legal issues, communications, community support, training (remotely!), and more. She has worked with clients of all sizes from small one-man shops to enterprises. Her primary focus was converting inbound leads and upselling existing clients and encouraging renewals. She carried a 7 figure annual quota and consistently surpassed all goals, sometimes even doubling them.

  • 2007 to 2019
    Founder and CEO, Techipedia

    Established one of the first digital marketing consultancies focused on social media marketing, assisting with small businesses to Fortune 100s, and working with and managing remote teams to deliver unparalleled support and service. Focused on link building, search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, copywriting, content marketing, online reputation management, public relations, social media marketing, video marketing, and competitive analysis.

  • 2008 to 2009
    Editor, Tech Decoder, Real Simple Magazine

    Wrote product reviews on gadgets that would make people's lives easier for a print magazine with millions of subscribers.

  • 2007 to 2009
    Senior Editor, Search Engine Roundtable and Digital Marketing Manager, RustyBrick

    Posted groundbreaking search engine marketing and SEO coverage for an industry acclaimed media publication, including providing conference coverage and conducting interviews, as well as worked with clients on various projects, working on social media marketing & Pay Per Click campaigns.

  • 2007 to 2008
    Contributing Editor (Gawker Media), Lifehacker

    Published numerous daily editorial pieces on tech, productivity, and life hacks and managed the very active inbound tips mailbox in real time, responding to customer concerns and considering tips for publication on the website.

  • 2006 to 2007
    Web Hosting/Tech Support Administrator and Social Media Director, 10e20, LLC

    Managed Linux web hosting infrastructure for over 400 client websites. Installed, maintained, and configured software to ensure for server stability and security. Worked closely alongside product managers, clients, and developers to ensure seamless integration of agency-built software. Compiled extremely detailed product and server documentation and help desk reference guides to be used by local and remote partners and clients. Established a foundation for digital marketing during a time when social media was merely building momentum.

  • 2004 to 2005
    Private Investigator, Robert Jackson and Associates

    Focused on trademark research for Fortune 500 companies and the law firms that represent them. Using aliases, learned about various filed trademarks and produced investigative legal reports based on findings.

EDUCATION

  • 1999 to 2003
    Columbia University / Barnard College - Computer Science Major / Psychology Minor

    In addition to academics, was actively involved in paid positions for the College and University maintaining the student and administrative computer/network infrastructure as a Junior UNIX Administrator and Residential Computer Consultant. Also served as a contributing writer to the Barnard Bulletin, a singer in the Bat Kol a cappella, technologist for the Yavneh community, web designer for the Columbia Hillel, and a board member of McIntosh Activities Council (McAc).

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Among the top 50 most successful users on former social media news site Digg.com (the answer is always 42)
  • Named #11 on the Top 100 Most Influential Marketers
  • Guest Lecturer at CUNY Baruch College, New York University, and the University of Denver
  • Speaker and Guest Lecturer at the popular NYC educational program offered through The Learning Annex
  • Conference Speaker: PubCon, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), IZEAFest, and many others
  • Winner of many awards, such as the SEMMYs, Search Engine Journal's best social media optimization blog, and others
  • Expert Judge in multiple awards programs, such as the Search Engine Strategies Awards, the SEMMYs, SEOmoz's (Moz) Web 2.0 Awards, and Marketing Pilgrim's Search Engine Marketing Scholarship

TESTIMONIALS

  • "Tamar is lightning-fast and nearly always online." ~Stephanie Schwab, Crackerjack Marketing
     
  • "Emailing Tamar is like chatting with anyone else. We got as much done in an hour as I would get done in days with others! Communicating with her made project planning and running a breeze." ~Luke Alley, Avalaunch Media
     
  • "In working with Tamar, I always found her to be on top of things to an extent that one often finds in close knit and very experienced teams. In other words, she's a one woman army of diligence and proficiency. What's more, is her tech savvy means she can provide both leadership and wisdom. She's a pleasure to work with." ~Frederick Townes, W3 EDGE
     
  • "Tamar has a deep knowledge of community growth hacking and is a strong business leader hailing from years of tech startup experience." ~Jennifer Collom Bluemling, Borrowed By Design

STUFF I LIKE TO DO

NONPROFIT EFFORTS

After taking more of an advisory role at companies and doing less of the day to day (outside the occasional consulting gig for which she is open to hearing from you!), Tamar has been heavily involved in the nonprofit world, particularly with volunteerism efforts within her local community.

She is heavily currently involved in children's efforts and is working on building the first ever overnight Jewish STEM camp. But more than that, she took a tremendous role of bringing more than 400 restaurants to her driveway during the coronavirus pandemic, being featured on a number of TV segments and interviews in high profile publications, including NBC (video), Fox (video #2), Fox Business (video), Fox Business (video) and interview), News 12 NY (video), CNN (video diary), Tamron Hall (video), USA Today (video), 60 Minutes (video), the BBC (audio interview transcription), Sky News (video), and Healthline (article). Her efforts continue to this day.

STILL INTERESTED?

This one comes directly from Tamar. I'll give it to you straight.

If you want to hire me, please consider that I'm looking at one of the below:

  • Operations: I love working in a strategic operations capacity, being able to get my hands dirty and managing the entire organization. I want to work on all aspects of a business and am a generalist, not a specialist.
  • Content: I love training content teams. I can help create a strategy and implement that strategy. I also write and I write well. I published two bestselling books. I wrote for some key blogs. I have written for a major magazine as well as local newspapers. I know how to write!
  • Customer support/experience: This is a passion point because I do it well and love making people happy.
  • Community growth: I love evangelizing communities and making them awesome. I am aggressive about one on one communication.
  • Marketing strategy and oversight: I can inform a marketing strategy and oversee the people or vendors who work on the execution.
But please don't hire me for:
  • General marketing execution: Sorry, not a passion point anymore! This includes posting social updates with hopes that it translates to ROI. I am 100% committed to building relationships with customers, but I want to be realistic with you: posting updates to assume something comes out of it is futile. Engagement is key for me—both in dealing with positive and negative sentiment, and in making people LOVE you as a brand. I'm all about problem solving, but broadcasts are not my thing.
  • Outbound sales: If you want someone to rock your sales operation, let it be someone who does it better than I do. I can close the inbounds. There are better people who can handle the outbound side of things.

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