The One Thing All Media Experts Know About Engaging Your Audience

The One Thing All Media Experts Know About Engaging Your Audience

I looked up at the audience to see them on their phones or staring at the ceiling and one of them doing some emails. They were bored. I had lost them.

 

I knew why.

 

I was reading them a list of bullet points from a screen. I hadn’t put the effort into the one thing I always put effort into, because, I was supply teaching, standing in for someone else.

I had fallen into the biggest trap by mistake. I had forgotten the golden rule about engaging the audience.

 

Content FIRST. Platform second.

 

When it comes to marketing or speaking, or spreading a message to anyone, or any form of communication, it’s easy to become obsessed with the platform.

 

You feel the pressure of standing on the stage, or you get thinking about which platforms people will see your ad on… but it’s the CONTENT that comes first.

 

Sounds obvious right? well, It’s not! Because it even took broadcast media quite a while to suss it out too.

About fifteen years ago I was in the depths of working in Radio. Radio: the traditional broadcast medium where we put content together, blasted it out through speakers and people listened – there was no other choice. Audience engagement was pretty easy.

 

At the time we were starting to rethink how Radio was working. Twitter and Facebook were starting to grow, and we were aware that youtube was starting to be a place people went for information. We sat in a room and decided that it had to evolve and we came up with the idea that we should put the brand of the Radio Station in the middle, and then engage with our audience on as many platforms as possible.

 

This approach worked. This approach stuck.

 

So if you are ever sat in a meeting where someone says “we just need to do some facebook ads” or “we should get some videos on youtube” they are platform gazing, rather than focusing on the content.

 

For content to engage with your audience you need to go through the following 3 steps:

1) What is your point? (Also, what do you want to get out of it?)

2) What do you want your audience to remember, and feel?

3) Who are you talking to? Where are they, and what are they needing?

 

It is only when you’re at that third point do you begin to work out what platform will work best and how you tweak it to the platform.

My mistake was to try and deliver someone else’s content without thinking “what is MY point?” or what did I want them to remember? I was just worried that the powerpoint slides made sense. And because of that – I lost the audience.

 

Never again!

 

If you are communicating in any way: Content First, Platform Second.

The Alternative Guide To Networking

The Alternative Guide To Networking

“I love networking”…  said no one ever!

 

The word is enough to send shudders through many people I meet.

 

Whether you like it or not, networking is key to building the relationships that will propel your career.

 

No one will work with you without some level of familiarity and trust, and that can only be achieved through meeting with someone face to face.

 

The biggest things I hear are that; networking feels forced, people never know what to say, and they find the whole thing uncomfortable.

 

On the other hand I quite like networking, I always have, but I didn’t know what I was doing was networking when I started talking to people – because that’s all it is. This list will help you to shift your mindset around networking.

 

  1. Networking Events Are Brilliant

So I need to caveat that even though I like speaking to people, I still struggle with networking events. I am still nervous before making contact. I still hate that uncomfortable moment of approaching someone and saying hello.

 

The reason I think they are brilliant is that those moments are SUPPOSED to be uncomfortable and “awks” but at an event titled “Networking Event” then the whole thing is expected. In fact, by approaching someone at a networking event where you are expected to talk to someone, you are more than likely to be met with the pure relief that they didn’t have to do it. You saved them from the initial awkward moment.

 

So networking events are brilliant because you’re supposed to be having the awkward moment and everyone feels the same. The “awks” moment is forgiven and the chat begins!

      

2. Small Talk Is ACE (Secret: It’s All About The Follow Up Question)

If we continue on the theme of “it’s supposed to be awkward”. And that everyone accepts that small talk is a step to a deeper chat. Then small talk is ace. It leads into the next thing.

 

The small talk question: “What do you do?” Or “what’s keeping you busy at the moment?”. Or “how was your day?”. Is a vehicle into the follow-up question – which is when the conversation actually begins:

 

You: How was your day?

Them: It was good

You: What was good about it? / What was the best thing that happened?

Conversation begins

 

You: What do you do?

Them: I am a barrister

You: Oh whereabouts? / What does that entail?

Conversation begins

 

You: So what’s keeping you busy at the moment?

Them: Actually my kids are a real focus at the moment

You: Oh how many do you have?

Conversation begins

     3. Newsflash: You Don’t Have To Go To An Event

There is an assumption that to network you have to go to events, meet new people or people above you in your career status. Well yes, this is a good assumption. But. In my career, the opportunities have come from those people I have been working with over the years. My peers, my colleagues and my friends.

 

You are actually networking all the time.

 

I network in many ways. I have got work from joining a netball team. I will often ask people to go for a coffee just me and them. I will meet someone through a client and that will lead to more work. One of the benefits of my podcast is that I get to meet more people. I met one client after she replied to an Instagram post, and I followed it up while I was on a beach in Greece.

 

Networking can take on the form you choose – which means you are in control of how it happens and you can do it on your terms. The key outcome of networking is to create trusting connections, that form business relationships. Not every conversation will end there, you don’t know the outcome of the conversations. But. You do know the outcome if you avoid meeting people.