Hi, I'm Greg Swan!

I'm a content marketing manager, content strategist, copywriter, and a (very) amateur surfer dude. I'm currently working at ClickUp in San Diego, California.

If you're ever visiting the area, feel free to give me a shout! I know the best breweries in town. 😎

My Story

I didn't know it at the time, but my roots in content began when I was teaching English to junior high students in Istanbul between 2013—2017. 🇹🇷

‍I always held a passion for international relations and journalism (it was my degree after all), so on one hot summer day in 2015, I locked myself in a local cafe and decided to pen an editorial on Turkey's sudden policy shift towards two local terrorist organizations.

Fun, right? Well, it was for me because I nerd out to stuff like that. 🤓

Then I submitted it to a bunch of publications, with little to no expectation of getting published.

And then...it was picked up and published on Forbes. "Somebody pinch me?" was my reaction.

Although I wouldn't return to the U.S. for another two years, I would later draw on that Forbes article when I started freelance content writing post-Turkey. It landed me a lot of freelance jobs (mostly for shitty crypto projects, which were booming in 2017-2018), which helped me build my portfolio of work. I wrote just about anything I could within semi-ethical means.

Then, in 2017, I would start my first full-time job as a content writer for a cannabis marketing startup in Sacramento, California. Yes, you read that right. I went from teaching English to writing product detail pages and lifestyle articles for cannabis brands.

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It was perfect timing, because in 2017 California was just legalizing recreational cannabis. This created a huge demand for cannabis marketing, which in turn led this startup to hire me as their first content writer. Boom! Or should I say puff? 💨

I learned a lot there. My first landing pages. Blog articles. Working with a small creative team. It was intimate and everyone hustled. And writing about weed really pulled on my creative strings. After all, how many different ways can you describe the effects of a strain?

(Hint: a lot. I used wine menus as inspo.)

My next big break would come sooner than I thought. After just 6 months, I would get an opportunity to work at "big-time" Amazon agency in San Diego, California. I got a referral from my best friend who still works there today, jumped at the opportunity to interview, and moved to San Diego before I even knew I had a job. I was ready for a change.‍

Tinuiti (known as CPC Strategy before they got acquired) would be a a game-changer for me. There was an energy there that didn't exist at my previous company. It was teeming with exceptional marketers that really knew their craft. I joined a team of two others and together us three were responsible for the entire content program of one of the fastest-growing agencies at the time. I learned SEO for blogs and landing pages, editorial planning, content funnels, wrote my first case studies and guides, created research reports, event content, and so much more.

I worked there for two years. But thanks to the startup-style culture and hyper-growth of the business (including a huge acquisition and rebrand in 2019), I believe I learned more there in two years than I could have at four or five years at a normal company.

And then?‍

Like most of us, I felt my growth plateau after a certain point. I wanted something new. That's when I decided to give tech a try. There was small, little known software startup in my local San Diego area called ClickUp looking for a copywriter.

And the rest, as they say... is history! 📚

Wait, did you want to know about me, as in what I enjoy outside of work? I'm tired of writing this so here are a couple photos of what I enjoy when not working.

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...and much more! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.