[MUSIC] So once we understand our audience, what's our role with them? >> That's a really good question. One of the biggest mistakes that, that content strategists make when they're first starting out is they tend to define their role, relative to the media that they're using. In other words they'll say, well I'm a blogger. Well, you don't want to just be a blogger. You want to be something to that audience. And you want to be more than just one media. And so, the first question I would ask is really, step back and say, who are you? And relative to the audience you want to develop, what are your skills? And what knowledge do you bring to them? And then basically, that leads itself to the second question, which is, which of two roles do you want to play? You can either be an expert, and those are the people that are at the center of the audience. They're the ones that the people go to to get information. Or do you want to be an influencer? And those influencers are the ones that know all the experts. And they tend, through their interactions with the audience, to determine what the topics are, what the different van, view points are, and they basically help establish what the audience will be talking about at any time. And so as a content strategist, I'd want to look at say, are we going to be an expert to this audience? Are we going to be an influencer? Or, are we going to go back and forth with different topics, you know, how best to do that? >> So you might be a combination of the two, depending on the topic and the moment. >> That's correct, there's some, there's some things that we know that we're going to be the go to person. There are other ones where we know the people to go to, to find the answers. >> Mm-hm. >> And we could easily play both roles, but we need to define those as we go in, to figure out how we're best going to do that. >> So, the only think I haven't heard in this, and I want to follow up and ask is, this all sounds like I am a blogger, you are an expert, and the aud, you haven't start, we haven't started with the audience. Does this flow from what the audience wants? What the audience needs? Where the audience goes? Or does it say, I'm going to impose on this on them? >> No it's the exact, you were right the first time. It's understanding your audience, and saying, where does the valuable skills and knowledge base you bring to them, determines how you're going to fit in with them. But the thing you don't want to do, the biggest mistake is if you define yourself in terms of the medias we discussed earlier. The key as I, as you see on this slide, a lot of people say, I'm a blogger, and I'm going to write a blog, and I'm going to write to the audience. Well, what does that mean? What you really want to do is say, look, I, I want to going to go into retailing, and so I'm going to be a retail content strategist. And as a result, that means that I'm going to do whatever, and it could be, I'm going to start my own TV channel. It could be that I'm going to do podcasts or webinars, or a whole raft of things. But more importantly, at the bottom of this chart, you see there's a very specific audience. And so what you want to do is look at how that all fits together, in terms of the way you want to target the audience, and what you can deliver to them. Because the key thing is we want to create value to them, in their eyes, and then we want to deliver it to them in the way that they are most likely to receive it well. And so one of the things we're going to talk about as we go through this module is the importance of thinking multi-media. In other words, I may write a blog, but then I ought to take my blog and think about putting it out as a video. And then, maybe I want to take some bullet points and put it out on Slideshare, where business people could watch it. Or maybe I'm going to do a podcast or, or an audiocast. In other words, we need to think about delivery in multimedia because as we saw earlier, all our audiences are on multimedia. So you've gotta go where they're going to go. And one of the things I like is, is listed at the top of this slide, is that most people don't realize that YouTube is second only to Google as a search engine. In other words, there's almost as much traffic happening on YouTube as people are searching for solutions and things that they're passionate about, as are happening on Google, and that really shows the importance of a multimedia approach. >> And then there's inside the organization. We know, from the first MOOC, tens of thousands of people took it. About half of them were at big, or really big, organizations, five, ten, or more, thousands of people. Half of them were at moderate to small organizations. Does everything you say apply inside the organization? Do I really have to, as the chief financial officer or the scientist or the, the value chain person or the, in not for profits, the person leading development? Do I really have to sort of, learn about my customers, meaning people inside the organization, how they use media, what their needs are, just like I did outside? >> Yes, and that, that's almost more important. When you're trying to develop an internal audience, you need to know how they're using media, and how they're talking about things. Because the way that they're doing it, may be different than they do on the externally. And so they're going to be talking through formal channels, but they also might be talking through informal channels. Quick story. My daughter wanted to get a job at a company in Columbus, Ohio, and so I said while you're sitting out there, there's an app that's called Secret. And Secret is one of these anonymous apps where people are talking, but you don't know who they are. I said, while you're in the waiting room, just pop it open and see what's going on. And what she found was a group of, of managers at this company. They were kind of talking really badly about, you know, some projects they were working on. Well, that's another type of a social engagement. And so the key is, you need to think about how people are connecting up with each other, and the way that they're working, so that you can fit that in when you become a content strategist internally as well as externally. >> So that opens the last, sort of question I have in this arena. And that is, one thing it would be to say to people, so what do you want to know more about? What do you like? Essentially, what's positive? >> Right. >> Does it also make sense to say, look, if you want to follow me, not only for what's positive. >> Mm-hm. >> To sign up, too, if you really are upset about something. >> Right. >> because then you'll see when I make comments or we get data that you might want to object to. >> I, I think that that's, that's equally strong. I mean, a lot of times you can say, here are both sides of a conversation. But you can also say I'm looking at this side. But if you don't agree with me, tell me. People love to use social and engagements to really refine their opinions. And so I like it when people take you know, umbrage with something I said, because I learn and they learn and we, in turn, get to see where other people are at. And so I like the negative, as well as the positive, on any given topic, because there's always two or more sides. You really want it to be a wide open conversation that really gives you the best insights and also gets some more, most people involved within the audience. [MUSIC]
