Author: Fatemeh Fakhraie

Founder of Muslimah Media Watch. Content marketing nerd who likes figuring out how stuff works and writing about it. I learned everything about being an adult from The Golden Girls.

I’m in the May/June issue of ISNA’s magazine

Muslim Women Changing the Narrative

Islamic Horizons is the official magazine of the Islamic Society of North America, and it’s full of stories by and for American Muslims.

Sabina Khan-Ibarra, the creator of Muslimah Montage, interviewed me, along with author Jennifer Zobair and Zahra Billoo, the Executive Director for the CAIR San Francisco Bay Area, for the newest issue. The article is all about ways that we’ve created avenues for ourselves to discuss issues important to Muslim women.

It’s a pretty great article, so check it out if you have time (the article starts on page 36)!

Have you updated your Twitter profile?

Have you updated your Twitter profile?

I updated my Twitter profile a few weeks ago. Have you done the same?

I know everyone’s grumbling about it looking like Facebook, but I kind of like it. I especially liked the pinned tweets feature, which is really handy for keeping something important at the top of your mind (or profile).

In case you’re wondering, the profile dimensions are 1500×500 pixels. If you already have a profile picture, Twitter will automatically resize it to fit within these dimensions. Whether it still looks good is another story.

It’s almost April already?!

March has really flown by quickly, friends. It’s been an incredibly busy and wonderful month, though!

Things have been buzzing at brass Media. We’ve worked hard this month to put out important information about content marketing for financial services. I co-wrote a white paper on the basics, and put out blogs about valuable content and consistent brand presence. (more…)

A new year and a new look

There’s something about getting back to work after time off in November and December that makes January a really long slog. It doesn’t help that the month is usually five weeks long, either.

But I’ve been keeping plenty busy. We’re preparing for a busy year ahead at brass Media, and I’ve been writing up a storm. I helped my coworker Kayla with a piece for CU Insight about how to vet a new social media platform and wrote a piece for Credit Union Times on which social media platforms younger demographics are migrating to and how to market to them there:

You’re going to need to rethink your social strategy when it comes to teens or young adults. The truth is, they’re not going to be as engaged on Facebook as their parents or older peers. If you want to reach them, you’ll need to go where they are.

We’re also gearing up for more webinars at brass. Kayla and I will be hosting one in February on how to monitor your brand online, with helpful tips on RSS feeds, Twitter searches, and Google Alerts.

I’ve been as busy on Instagram as ever, writing a piece about what not to do on Instagram. I also kicked off the month with a theme week, highlighting religious buildings I’ve had the privilege to visit during my travels. I’m planning to continue my theme weeks in 2014, so be sure to follow me on IG if you haven’t already!

You’ll also notice that I’ve revamped my website. I decided to greet the new year with a new (digital) look, and so I’ve chosen a different theme that still captures my love of minimalism. You’ll also notice my colorful new social media icons! They’re from the very talented Mohammed al Yousfi, and I downloaded them here. With a little help from WordPress, I set them up myself.

What do you think?

We don’t need no “liberation”

Fakhraie Abu-Lughod

I’m really excited to finally receive a copy of Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod. I’m looking forward to read the book because Abu-Lughod is an excellent writer on issues relating to Muslim women.

But I’m also really jazzed because, as you can see above, a piece I wrote for Muslimah Media Watch (MMW) appears in the notes (page 287, to be exact). The idea that Abu-Lughod used something I wrote on a blog I created to critically analyze Muslim women’s media representation is incredibly humbling.

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Are you into comic books?

I haven’t given much attention to comic books. I’ve read a graphic novel here and there, and own a single Catwoman comic book (she’s just so badass). But I think I’m about to get into comic books in a major way because Marvel’s new Ms. Marvel is a teenage American Muslim girl.

ms marvel

I talked to Al Jazeera America about my excitement over Kamala Khan:

“She is going to be a window into the American Muslim experience,” said Fatemeh Fakhraie, the founder of Muslimah Media Watch, a forum on Muslim women’s representation in popular culture.

Fakhraie said the new superhero “normalizes this idea of the American experience as Muslim,” adding that “A lot of us are bumping up against that the idea that a lot of America is white, while that isn’t what America is, we’re not all white and Christian.”

Check out the piece and keep an eye open for the new comics. G. Willow Wilson, whose work I really enjoy, is writing for Kamala, so I’m really excited to see what’s coming up.

What I’ve been doing all month

October has been a busy month so far. It seems like the calendar just melts away once we get to September, doesn’t it?

I’ve been up to plenty this month. I spent the first weekend of the month in San Jose, having a great time with friends and family. Since then, I’ve been writing up a storm.

I published my first piece for CUInsight.com, a website that looks at everything important to credit unions. This includes marketing, obviously, and my piece touched about how important blogging is for financial organizations (and every business, really):

Think about it: if all you’re doing is tweeting your Instagram photos and Facebooking your Pinterest boards, you’re not really getting anywhere. Think of a blog like a central hub; social media serves as the planes, trains, and automobiles that get readers to your building. If you only send members to content in other places, no one has a reason to visit you.

brass Magazine’s Winter 2013 issue is out, and I wrote about how important social media is to the job hunt, including strategies on how to use certain channels to help you when you’re looking for a new place to work :

We’ve all seen the social media fails resulting in fired employees. Obviously, cussing out the boss or posting pictures that would make grandma blush is a bad idea. But if you use it correctly, social media can be your stepping stone to a new (or better) job.

And while I’m on the topic of social media and financial organizations, brass Media’s third webinar is next week! Kayla Byers and I will be talking about how important Twitter can be for financial institutions, and different ways to use it.

I’ve also been taking a free online course from Google on how to use Analytics. Sign up and take it at your own leisure if you’re looking for some in-depth information on using Google Analytics. Also, if you’d really like a special certificate when you pass! I got mine today!

photo

I Left My Heart in Silicon Valley

I was lucky to attend a social media strategy workshop for American Muslim professionals on Monday. The Amplify Online project, sponsored by the New American Foundation, held a training at Google’s Mountain View campus that brought about 25 of my amazing colleagues together to talk strategy and perception.

Fatemeh at Google

The morning had a fantastic presentation from Anser Hussain and Javed Ali of Illume Magazine, with excellent tips on social strategy and content generation. Then Alex Cole from Hattaway Communications provided a sobering look at perceptions our fellow Americans have of American Muslims. Hattaway has a great PDF available on their site that includes much of the information.

The afternoon was chock-full of great presentations from social media channels, including an informative presentation from Alex Hillis on Google+. Since I’m starting to get into G+, hearing tips on how to make your Google Hangout live-stream to your YouTube channel were incredibly helpful. Many thanks to Alex, Erica Anderson from Twitter, and the fabulous Facebook ladies Krista Kobeski and Melissa Oppenheim for their time and insights.

And thank you to Ben Blink from Google and the Mountain View campus for hosting us! The Google campus was as amazing as you’d think. Even though everyone raves about their bikes, snacks, and ping-pong tables, what really impressed me was their sense of hygiene: all toilets came equipped with heated seats and programmable bidets! Meeting and connecting with inspiring American Muslims and learning about digital strategies were definitely my cake, but those toilets were the icing.

To top off a wonderful day, I spent the evening with some old and new friends at San Francisco’s Woodhouse Fish Co., and finally got the chance to meet Ethar El-Katatney in person. Ethar was MMW’s first Egyptian writer a few years after I founded the site, and it was such a pleasure to finally meet her!

Ethar El-Katatney and Fatemeh Fakhraie

Many thanks to everyone who helped make my Bay trip as wonderful as it was short. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to connect with all the fantastic people I know in the area, so I’ll definitely be back soon!