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Sooz Young
Okay. Welcome. Welcome to another episode of Digital Dominators brought to
you by Technology Coaching. I’m Sooz and I’m gonna be your host today.
And in today’s session titled, ‘How Companies Can Be Content With Their Content’ features an in-depth conversation with Kirsten Paul.
There’s Kirsten there.
She’s the founder of Brass Neck which is a premier communications
consultancy based in Edinburgh. Kirsten brings decades of experience in helping organisations craft impactful messaging and content strategies.
And as we explore the nuances of creating engaging content that resonates with audiences, you’ll gain actionable insights to elevate your company’s
communications game. Wow what an intro Kirsten!
Kirsten
I don’t feel old enough to have decades of experience.
Sooz
I don’t think any of us do. To be able to have decades of experience but it is though when we think about it right?
Kirsten
It is we’ve been I think we forget how how quickly time passed but it is all of those years of experience that make it where it is that you are today.
Sooz
So tell me, Kirsten, tell me how did you get from where you were to here?
Tell me about your journey.
Kirsten
So once upon a time, I was a lowly, university student that studied comms at, what’s now Edinburgh Napier.
And I, at the time I was one of the lucky ones that got into a graduate scheme. And when I interviewed, they were like, congratulations. You’ve got the job.
You were gonna put you in the tech team.
And I was like, sure.
You sure I’m the right person for the tech team?
Anyway, I think it was one of those things that was clearly part of the journey, my journey and have never looked back.
So worked in London for about eleven years with massive technology companies.
So worked with EMC before they were acquired by Dell, worked with Infosys, which is a huge Indian outsource or IT outsourcer, Worked with Adobe, worked with, Texas Instruments and really, really massive organisations and loved my time in London.
But after I had the kids, it was it was time to come home to Scotland.
And when I came home, joined Clarke Communications, and really worked closely with the team there to build up the technology division.
Because obviously, in Scotland, we are so so fortunate to have such a rich, massive, diverse, tech ecosystem up here, which I don’t think I think anybody that lives inside that twenty five bubble, you hear about, you don’t fully acknowledge it.
They don’t realise that there’s anything else outside.
No I mean literally I in when you’re in London nothing exists outside of London.
And so, yeah, came up here and really was blown away by what was up here, and worked closely with the team, as I say, to to build up our our tech credentials.
And in 2021 ,launched the Tech Boutique, which was the first PR tech boutique in Scotland and built that up to be really, really successful. I guess I had a moment a couple years back where coming out of the pandemic just was completely burned out.
And, and I think it was at that time in my life personally, I was like, right, okay, something is gonna have to change and it took a long time to recover from that.
And so the start of this year started to go, right, okay, well, maybe maybe this is the year that that things change for me.
And so, yeah, decided to take take the plunge, with the blessing of of Clark and launch Brass Neck.
And we are, as of earlier this week, eight weeks old. I know.
Can you believe it? Eight weeks old.
Sooz Young
Actually, I met Kirsten about was it six weeks ago? Yes.
Kirsten Paul
You met I think you met us on day twelve. Day twelve. Yeah.
Sooz Young
And I met Kirsten at the Digit Conference, digit west conference,
at the SEC. For those of you that understand Scotland, this is on the west of Scotland. It’s the big conference centre, and there’s a huge tech conference, which they normally have through in Edinburgh that they brought to the west of Scotland.
And it for me, it was perfect. I walked along the road, and I bumped into Kirsten because she had the most amazing banners in place and I think,
being in tech it can be a little bit samey samey for me from a visual.
Kirsten Paul
We had a pink banner. You can tell by my branding that’s something that I really like.
Sooz Young
So we were standing there smiling happy and I just went, come and tell talk to me about Brass Neck HQ.
And then you did and I was I wanted to talk to you even more. So let’s come on in a Digital Dominator session and that’s what’s brought you here today.
So tell me a little bit more about then Brass Neck HQ. What what do you do at Brass Neck Brass, Neck HQ. Do you call it Brass Neck HQ? No.
Kirsten Paul
We just call it we just call it Brass Neck.
Sooz Young
And so Brass Neck is different than what you’ve done at your previous jobs. Yeah.
Kirsten Paul
So I guess, so in previous roles, I’ve really worked in in pub the public relations side of things and we do, but I’ve led integrated communications programs for a whole bunch of organisations from start up all the way through to the corporate end of the scale.
And so when as you do, when you start your own thing, you look at, right? Okay. What do I really love? What do I enjoy doing?
And it’s, it, it, it really was telling the story of organisations and helping organisations to tell their story in a way that feels right for them because I think so you could you could look at you could cherry pick five to ten organisations in the tech sector, not just Scottish organisations.
But if you picked five to ten fintech organisations, took away their brand name, took away their visual identity and looked just at the copy, I don’t think you would be able to pick between NatWest and Lloyds Bank between them or, FNZ and, another fintech organisation, because a lot of the words that they use are the same.
A lot of the, the phrasing that they use is the same. And I think it’s important when we’re telling a story similar to our conversation just now, you need to use terms, phrases, anecdotes, stories that really bring a brand to life. So it’s it’s I think and that finding finding that with an organisation is really, really exciting.
So yeah, we’ve been we’ve been doing since we’ve launched, we’ve already got a couple of clients and working with a few organisations, in finance, in fintech, in enterprise resource planning, in cybersecurity, and really working with those organisations to extract what is the story they want to tell because they’ve got services and products they need to promote and sell at the end of the day.
But how do we take that from what’s their commercial interest versus what is the audience actually wanting?
And it’s about how we link that up together that I find really exciting. That is very exciting and I think I’ve never heard it explained in that way before of where if you can take all of the kind of visual aspects, the branding, the name, the titles.
And and just look at the copy and the comparison between the different companies. That’s a really good approach to kind of look at it because when we go to just that that beginning stage for a lot of people that may be listening in as well just now is when they’re thinking about even
starting up their business or even in that stage of growth for their business, Maybe they they, are thinking about, well, how do I communicate Yeah. What it is that I do and maybe an individual and people are connected with me.
How does that connect with a business now that I am growing in growth in that way as well?
Do you find those strategies have to be different for the different types of businesses that you’re working with?
You’re also looking at the types of personalities within the business as well.
And I think leaders have a lot to kinda talk to particularly and it’s a type of we’re all very different as individuals and that’s what’s beautiful about life.
But you’ve got to find the what’s authentic to them.
You’ve got to find the right line that that is right for them. So I had a conversation with, kind of a very senior person in an organisation a few weeks ago who doesn’t isn’t very she’s not they’re not out there publicly and that that’s fine because they’re not comfortable because I think they’ve not found what their personal line is that they would take to to take forward.
The that that they could rely on other people in the organisation and delegate that kind of messaging responsibility. So the the subject matter experts and I think there’s a lot in in, there’s good and bad things about subject matter experts because they can go off on their own little tangents. But they’ve got so much valuable information and insight and experience and knowledge that that can be really useful to a brand to bring them to life.
Sooz Young
There’s two things about SMEs. So first thing, in the tech industry, an SME is a subject matter expert. So when I started to get my own business and people were talking talking about SMEs, I didn’t know it was a small to medium enterprise.
So I’m thinking it’s a subject matter expert. And the problem with technology coaching and technology trainers is that they tend to think that it’s a subject matter expert, and it’s not. It’s a completely different role. Subject matter expert in all the jargon that In the world. Says not only business, but but tech sector.
That’s just And I find it’s very different as well depending on the company too as well as part of it.
But you you raised a really interesting point there just around making sure that you have that personality piece and how do you do that if you’re delegating that task and that can come come into even as a business owner you’re delegating your social media content, you’re delegating your email marketing, how do you effectively communicate what that content should be to those different departments as a leader?
There’s a lot in that as well. Can you share any insights?
Kirsten Paul
Absolutely. So I mean it all starts with your messaging and I think, if as an organisation you are clear on what your message is and what your core message is, you’ve got your kind of, I like to think of messaging as a bit of a house, you’ve got your one message that is what the brand is and what
it does and what it stands for similar to like your vision or mission.
But then you may have supporting messages. So this is why we are able to achieve that as part of kind of the the thing that your core messages hold up your house, if you like.
They’re the foundation to keep you strong. But what I do tend to see is that whilst if I went into an organisation and I’ve done many messaging sessions where you go and go, right, tell me what your brand does.
Tell me what your company does.
Tell me what your key message is. You can ask three or four people around that, that table. They will all tell you what is correct, because that is exactly what the company does, but they’re all saying a slightly different thing in a slightly different way. Yeah. When it comes to your content, you need to have agreed what that message is.
And everybody needs to kind of be clear on what that is. It’s your party line essentially, but you have to say it in the same way.
It might not always be the same words, but it’s the same thing that you’re saying. And always coming back to your your key message.
Because I think there’s, there’s a theory about the power of seven, and it takes seven seven interactions for somebody
to interact with that message for them to take it on board. It’s just like when I’m telling the kids it’s time to put your shoes on.
They typically need those seven occasions for that that to click in, and it can take me throwing the shoes at them for them to actually realise that they need to put their shoes on.
So it’s it’s about that reinforcement. And there’s so much data out there that that talks to how how much that messaging reinforcement can help the bottom line as well.
I want to say it’s something like around about a third of
of marketers have done research.
A third of marketers have said that consistent having consistency with their messaging has increased the bottom line by something like ten to twenty percent.
And I mean, I think we’re all aware particularly in the tech sector just now, not just in Scotland, but it’s a global thing, about how difficult it is to get those budgets and get things over the line.
And if you can do and take something like messaging, which is free to do, apart from if you want me to pay for my time to help you with the workshop, we’ll come on to that later.
Sooz Young
Yeah, it’s all part of the visibility piece as well, making sure that you’re visibly representing your company to the right people in the way that represents the true authenticity of that brand and that business.
And I think it’s difficult for, again, those businesses that are kind of early stage or in that kind of growth to change out of that focus of me personal, this is the business, how do I effectively transition from those two stages as well.
So if we go back to just what this session is about, so how companies can be content with their content. Talk to me about what that means to you.
Kirsten Paul
Yeah, I think a lot of it comes back to making sure that it’s working, and making sure that it feels like it’s your voice.
When you’re doing that messaging session, you’re going to come up with your tone of voice for your organisation as well.
And when, for example, on the website, on your social platforms, that will be the he language and the style that you take. I am not a fan, as you might have guessed, from using a huge amount of jargon. I think it’s… it can be quite… it can be quite clicky.
Because, as you said, if you don’t know… if you don’t know the jargon, you can feel really left out. And the tech sector has got a lot to answer for just now, not only, as I say, in kind of the challenges that it’s facing in terms of sales.
It’s gone through a hell of a lot of redundancies off of the back of the pandemic. But equally, we’re trying to fill a lot of gaps in the market as well. There’s a whole bunch of roles and jobs that are kind of sitting, waiting for skilled people to come along. That, as well, we want to champion the next gen.
And if we’re using far too much jargon that feels like restricting and not accessible, we’re really going to put people off. We’ve spoken in the past about that visibility piece of women in tech as well, and making sure that you’ve got that gender parity. And that also is really important when it comes to organising.
So, being content with your content, for me it opens a whole Pandora’s box because it’s all about making sure that you’re happy with and you’re clear in your messaging.
It’s about making sure that you’re using the right terms and phrases. It’s about questioning your subject matter experts. So, for me as a kind of content communications lead, I will be, I’m the expert in my field, but the subject matter expert is the expert in their field as well.
But the way in which they communicate to me, they need to think that I’m not a buyer, I’m not going to buy their content, buy their product.
But they need to think about who’s the little invisible person that’s over the side of my shoulder, that that is the person they’re going to sell to.
And what do they need to know and how do they want to know?
They don’t want that story to be told, because they don’t want the widget x.2.3 is actually the better than competitor’s widget 4.3.2. It’s that benefit and it’s about telling that story. I used to have to do so many press releases about conversion when somebody, when the organisation released a…
Sooz Young
I’m laughing because I know exactly what you’re talking about. What’s that like speaking with them?
I know you get that from an email we’ve released version 4.3.2 and you’re like that doesn’t mean anything like good news that’s great what does that mean to me as an individual that’s using that piece of software and that doesn’t even need to be within the tech industry if somebody’s got a new product or a service out maybe they create cakes and they brought a new cake out we’ve brought out the cake version 2.0 how does that benefit me?
Kirsten Paul
Yep. So where’s the value? And I think we’ve forgotten about, I think it’s one point, I don’t know what point in our lives this came about, but we forgot about sharing the value.
And sharing the value in a way that is, as I say, is going to appeal to your audience, and the changing needs of their audience as well, and keeping up with that, I think is really, really important.
So yeah, so being content with your content is about thinking about what the audience needs.
It’s also about changing things up when something’s not working, continually doing measurement. And it’s not going to be the subject matter experts doing the measurement, but it’s going to be your marketing, your content team, sometimes even the IT team is looking at hits to the website, etc.
And if you’ve got a piece of LinkedIn content or a blog or an article that you might have placed in the media that hasn’t necessarily given you the results that you expected, take a look at it and kind of really consider why. Have you got a critical friend, somebody that’s independent to the process?
Because you know how it is when any of us develop anything, particularly as business owners, we’re nurturing our babies and anything that we produce is very close to what, very close to our hearts.
So having somebody that you trust to be constructive in feedback is really really important so that you they can go right, well I thought this point was really good, this point wasn’t really clear, but maybe that format wasn’t the best best way forward for you.
Maybe you could take that message and rather than it being a blog why don’t you make it a video? And changing up the format of a piece of content, the message remains the same, but switching things up, making a slight tweak, a wee pivot and approach really can be the world of difference because if you’ve especially taken the time to create something you either yourself have had to go away and do research to consider it or you’ve maybe interviewed somebody and they’ve taken the time to go away and do research.
So maximise that time investment to extract, as I say, it’s the value, create, make the most of the value of that insight to share it in a different way.
I am not a fan of one and done, just because that thing has been ticked off my to-do list doesn’t mean that…
Sooz Young
It’s interesting because I think that refers back to that kind of seven touch points that you were talking about as well and that’s something that I learned at Apple and at that time it would take seven visits for somebody to make a buying decision.
I think now with online I mean I don’t have the exact number of it but it must be higher than 20 times that people see the same thing before they can even take some sort of interaction and that interaction happens.
Kirsten Paul
Yeah. If you think about it, so I’m going to Malta next week, and so I went on to TikTok yesterday – I can’t wait for the sun – went on TikTok yesterday, and was like, right, okay, because I don’t go to the library to pick up tour guides anymore, I rely on the world of social media. So I had to type, put in Malta into the search. Make a difference to me, and those touch points, those repeated touch points, will make me behave in a certain way.
Sooz Young
And I think people forget that that when it comes to content we communicate verbally, we watch things visually, we hear things maybe different than we can even read subtitles and hear them differently if that makes sense. So we’ve got different ways of communicating now with social media and with any business we’ve got different means of communicating.
Social media marketing, blogs, making sure we have video content. I mean the list is endless as part of it. So when we think of that one and done you’re not keen on using just get content out, tick that box, get it out there. So then it’s going right let’s look at the metrics, let’s look to see what’s working and then how do you.
Kirsten Paul
So I mean there’s loads of different ways that you can do it and the world of digital has made that a hell of a lot easier.
I think once upon a time from my PR background, when we were selling things in, I think the people wanted to see their name in print. You wanted to physically hold that thing in your hand. And that’s great, it’s nice to be able to show your mum, your auntie, your grandma.
And I have done that, so I will put my hand up. It’s also made, because of licensing issues, it’s harder to share those things as well. But it’s harder to know what’s the impact.
But digital really has opened that up, so we can see the likes, the shares etc. on LinkedIn and on X and on Facebook or whatever your chosen means of social media is.
When we have digital articles that are being placed with titles, including tracked links that take you back to that call to action page, whether that’s a microsite or it’s your core website or it’s a contacts page, all of those are really, really useful much wider campaign, you’re going to have a baseline of what you would like to achieve.
So you’re going to have wanted to have so many referrals back to the website or for social media managers and digital managers, they will know what’s considered good in the way of LinkedIn engagement as well. So you really want to kind of meet those KPIs and ideally exceed those, obviously.
But a lot of the content that we can develop is how about we can take things forward and people can use it in their everyday life as well. So I think, yeah, those data points are really useful and also can form the basis of future campaigns, because then we’ve got that baseline for working towards the next campaign.
But I think it’s, I worked on a campaign, what was it, earlier this year, end of last year, end of last year I think it was, we’d done some research with an organisation and we’d made it dual function, so it was something that the sales team could use as much as the marketing and comms team could use, because I think that’s also really important at the moment as well, is at a time where it’s difficult to understand your customers doing market research.
It feels like a lot of money, but if you can get multiple value assets out of it, and again that goes to the making sure that it’s not a one and done. The second that I knew that that campaign was going to be successful was when the salesman, head of sales, sales manager was feeding the insights from that research through into their sales calls, and again it’s about the content.
That I always think about typically is your marketing and PR communications focused content, but actually research and data can really help to drive conversations for sales teams as well, and give them insight and content that they can share on their, and sorry reshare and repost on their own platforms, and have conversations over the phone with customers and prospects.
Kirsten Paul
I think that you explained that really clearly there, Kirsten, so thank you for that. I think as well that people don’t realise how important the messaging has to be across departments and that you’re all singing from the same hymn sheet, really, you’re all speaking the same words and it goes back into that, I can’t remember who said this, but you…
Sooz Young
when they were putting the spaceship up, when they were going to send the spaceship up to the moon, they went to NASA and they asked, what do you do here? And the cleaner said, we’re going to the moon, right? So that everybody’s on the same sheet, right? Everybody’s speaking. Yeah, I’m hoping to go to the moon, right? Yeah, that’s what I do.
Kirsten Paul
Yep. Yeah. Yeah, he said something like, I’m helping me be the first man to the moon. What do you do? I’m a cleaner. Yep. Absolutely.
Sooz Young
I’m part of this process to be able to do it, and that’s really that culture that has to be built within the messaging that gets put out.
And if we put on those kind of two hats of like the consumer and the marketer, we are consumers, so we have expectations of how we want to receive product, services, information our way from the people that we buy from.
But as marketers and business owners, we’ve also got to make sure that we’re meeting those requirements of what our customers and their expectations are and translating between those two.
But the cross department stuff is really, really important for having the same voice going ahead. And that really has to come from the leadership.
And it has to come from those really clear guidelines that are set in place around the branding, the tone of voice, and how you actually communicate.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? So let’s go into how do you start that process? Is it working with an individual like yourself? Is it going through chatGPT? We haven’t started any of the language learning models yet!
Kirsten Paul
Yeah. I think you need to, I think it’s about having someone with the awareness and the experience, so whether you’ve got an internal comms expert, marketing expert internally, whether you feel the need to bring in a third party, independent person, but I think it doesn’t matter.
If they are in-house or external, you have to kind of put that out the window and think of yourself, think of the organisation not as something that you know about. So whilst you might have been in a solopreneurs, entrepreneurs have, as we’ve said earlier, they’ve built this and they’ve created this baby and that felt right for them, you need to really take that critical look.
And kind of be independent and take that step back and go, right, okay, what do we have? What’s working? What’s not working? Where do we think we can go from here? So, and putting it all on the table, it’s like when you’ve got your wardrobe and you know it needs a good sort out, it’s best just to rip it all out and figure out what still fits and what doesn’t fit anymore.
So, and that’s the same with an organisation. Let’s look at the good, let’s look at the what might need a little bit of work, because it’s not bad, it just might need a little bit of work and a little bit of refinement and how we can bring that together to make it really tie together. So, yeah, coming in, having conversations with people, having conversations with a cross-section of people I think is really important as well. So, initially having that chat with the leaders.
But then talking with different heads of department, other kind of individuals that might not be chatting with who might be on reception, because they’re your first port of call to an organisation. And if they’re not explaining the company in the best way, they need to be kind of trained and upskilled in that sense. But taking that broad landscape view.
Okay, what are we working with? And what do we want to achieve? So creating objectives and goals that you want to work towards. And it’s like creating that story, you start from point A, and you want to get to point B, you just need to work out the dots that lie in between. And creating a really robust messaging house that a content strategy can fall out of, that a communication strategy can fall out of.
That a marketing strategy can fall out of. That’s what will come from your marketing piece, your messaging piece. And that’s why that’s so important. But it’s then also remembering that your content, your communications and your marketing really need to be integrated as well, so that they can take that repetition piece and really extract all the value that there is from that messaging.
And take the organisation down different paths. So, starting with your messaging, running a messaging workshop, creating that messaging house, going away and working out what the marketing and the communications and the content plans are, and executing those. But again, when you’re doing that execution, it’s ensuring you’ve got that continual measurement piece inside it as well.
So, yeah, it’s about making, and potentially even doing market research with your customer base or your prospect base as well, to even understand if that’s resonating. You don’t just need to look at your internal data. You can, on occasion, go out and do customer satisfaction surveys that can include data points that you can capture.
Sooz Young
Yeah, I think that was a really, really good, great explanation of talking about a strategy of really how you can work with creating effective comms. What I found as a business owner, we’re now seven years in business, and of course, your business pivots and changes, we’ve obviously had to adapt with COVID and everything and everything that’s happened since then. We talked a little bit about that before we started recording.
And Kirsten as well, the impact of COVID and that’s had on the industries that we work in as well. Yeah, I forgot what I was talking about there. So I’m going to lead on to another question. That was really not smooth at all. That’s the benefit of doing these sessions live is that you’re going to get that impact of us just having a conversation.
We’re human as part of it. And I think that relates really to what your copy and your content can be as well. Oh yeah, remember now, I knew I just had to waffle a little bit before it came back to me. So as your business has changed and pivoted, you really have to change your messaging that goes with that. And it’s only through the experience that I’ve been able to work through that. But I’ve had to go and speak with professionals.
I’ve had to go and, like what you do Kirsten, speak to somebody and go, is this really working? Is this speaking to the right people? Am I communicating in the same voice or in a voice that is going to work for the ideal customer that I want to communicate to? So I think it’s a constant ongoing process. It’s not a one and done, as you talked about as well.
You’ve got to consistently look at it, adapt and change what’s going to communicate, whether that be type of content, how it’s laid out, looking at the analytics. I also like to think of analytics as your kind of starting point for anything that you’re doing.
You want to think about things in kind of 12 weeks as well. I like to think of it in that way. You’ve got the different points of the year, depending on what your customers’ behaviours are, how they interact, when are they online, when are they interacting with their devices, when are you going to reach that. There’s a lot to it, but if we look at the starting point of analytics, you can see what’s worked, what’s not worked, repeat what’s working, adapt what’s not working, repurpose in a…
Kirsten Paul
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You’ve spent a lot of time creating your content at the end of the day, and that shouldn’t be wasted. So take, as you say, take the good stuff, change the bad stuff.
And then move forward. And I think, as you kind of alluded to there, the world in which we live in has changed so much over the last four or five years. When it comes to marketing and media, I think we’ve all had to, digital has taken over, but that has also increased the pace in which people expect things. It’s also changed our patience levels.
If a website does not load for me in three seconds, I’m clicking away and not engaging with that website again. If Disney TV takes a second and I’m like, well, it’s not a problem with my Wi-Fi, it’s a problem with you, that you kind of, I think we are very dismissive. We can be very dismissive now. So that’s why.
Sooz Young
Yeah, it’s super, super important to start with what’s working. What is it if you can’t track, you can’t measure what you don’t track, right? So keep an eye, start with the analytics. And you know one of the cool things about Facebook, just now that they’ve done, when you’re using Meta Business Suite to schedule your posts, post scheduling to both Instagram and Facebook, it will tell you when your audience is online. And that’s a tool that you would have to use a third-party piece of software to do.
It’s almost like five years later, Facebook are doing what these other third-party softwares were doing. So now they’ve banned all third-party softwares accessing the meta platforms. So if you’re using them, I would get them parked immediately and start using them.
Kirsten Paul
It took them a hot second, but they get there in the end.
Sooz Young
Using the inbuilt systems, you’re a good user for Facebook in the back end, if you’re using the built-in platforms. But that’s the important thing. So when it tells you that your audience is online between 6 and 8pm and you’re scheduling your content, I would be listening to what Facebook platform is telling me to do during that time, because their main goal for providing a free service…
for you to be able to market your business, is to keep people on the platform. That is the one goal that Meta has, is to keep people engaged on that platform. And you can do that via your video, the content and that engagement. How do you build that engagement, communication, interaction piece on the platforms? So if you’re creating content that meets those needs, those platforms are going to say they’re a great user.
And the exact same way as Google likes to have your website updated with updated content, including effective keywords that are going to resonate with that audience, it’s got things like your alt text set up for your SEO, and that’s the same for socials as well. All this is part of like a content strategy, right? To tell the platforms that you’re using for free to market.
Kirsten Paul
Absolutely. I saw something recently, but similar with LinkedIn, that they are prioritising day-in-the-life videos on their algorithm, because again, it’s length of time on the platform, which is bringing them more customers, and actually, that type of content is just performing really, really well. I’ve done it for Brassneck a couple of times.
I think people like to see people. People like to see dogs, and they like to see people, and they like to see us in our personal lives. I shared a picture last night of me with a Mars bar ice cream, because they are tiny now. Tiny. Tiny.
They might as well be a fun-size one, but it was there. I was like, do you know what? This is actually performing quite well. I did. I got some decent interaction off of it. I think it’s so interesting. Changing up that style of content. As you say, these platforms are not stupid.
They want you on there as much as possible, so we’ll do everything in their power. It probably leads us quite nicely onto AI, because I think that’s when we can rely on AI.
I am a believer that AI is the assistant. It’s not it’s not my grand leader. There is somebody that I follow on LinkedIn, a chap called Bernard Marr. He writes a lot about AI. He likes to think of AI and generative AI tools as it’s a parrot. It repeats information back to you. That’s kind of the line in which I’m taking. I will take it to go, right, okay, it’s better than Google, because I don’t need to sift through all of the Google results.
So I will say what is the best time to post, and it will tell me because it will sift through all of the wealth of information that it’s got access to. Or I will get it to proofread an article, or I will get it to scan a website and pull out the key messages for me. Using it to increase our productivity, I think, is really, really valuable.
Sooz Young
Have you used any AI chatbots? Have you interacted with any AI chatbots that companies have all set up recently?
Kirsten Paul
I mean, in my personal life, but I’ve never been involved in kind of setting one up for an organisation, but it’s, you know, they’re not perfect. There’s still a way for AI to go, I think, generally.
Sooz Young
So I wanted to touch on the differences that I’ve experienced with the chatbots, and that’s due to the content that they’ve been fed, right?
So we’ve talked about data, we’ve talked about making sure that your voice is consistent, and making sure that, like, what is that language piece for your for your business?
How do you communicate effectively to to your prospective and current clients and customers?
So when you want to build a bot, whether that be somebody comes onto your website and they interact with a chatbot to be able to get some information about your business, or if you need some help and support and you’re going to, and especially for tech companies, this is the main thing that they have, yeah, like it may be an intercom app that they’ve got built into their website.
All they’re feeding that data usually comes from their help and their support pages on their website. Those help and support pages are usually created by an SME or some day a developer in the IT department. Now if you’ve got this
chatbot fed that help and support data created by an SME, how is that effectively communicating your business ethos?
As it’s generating the content that has been fed that is just basically stale technology guides really that are being fed into it. And the best one that I’ve seen that I’ve interacted with so far is Canva. Now it’s not always correct but its way of communication is lovely because it speaks to me like a human because it puts empathy first.
And any of its response. Now these were strategies that I was taught whilst working in the tech sector. So at Apple we were taught techniques, strategies, tools to effectively communicate to people. And we would have weeks and weeks of practice of it so that we’re having that interaction. And now we can set up chatbots that can do that for us. But how do you get it to speak like your business?
Just the generic, either speak humorously, fun, witty, it has to be what that business is like. And for me, Canva is the one that’s done it. So you’re a Canva user, Kirsten. Go in and have a check of the chatbot. And again, anybody that’s listening to this or watching later on, go and have a chat and interact with it. And have a chat with other chatbots that you can have and see.
Kirsten Paul
I am using Canva, yes.
I had an absolute fail of a chatbot a few months ago, so I had an issue with my car. The only way for me to communicate with the insurance company was through chatbot, and said, look, I’m travelling, I don’t have access to
my account, I need to find out what my policy details were, because I needed to get a higher car. So, chatbot went away.
Got the information, gave me the policy number. I was then, I then bought a new car, and was calling in to the insurance company again, saying, I need to just, I’ve changed my car, want to swap my insurance, upgrade it, that type of thing. Here’s my policy number, or when you phone up, you have to put your policy number in. It was then going, we’ll send you an email. I wasn’t getting emails, so eventually was like, right, I’ll have to speak to a human. Spoke to a human, said, right, this is my policy number. He was like…
What’s your name? And so I told him, and he was like, yeah, that’s not your policy number. And so this chatbot had taken, I don’t know how they, they’d given me somebody else’s policy number. So some poor person was getting all these emails going, you’ve been in touch with insurance company X. And that for me was the absolute fail. But again, it’s all about when you’re using generative AI, and it’s the same for chatbots.
Sooz Young
And that, I think, all stems from having that strategy set right from the beginning, right? Before you do any sort of campaign, any product launch, anything that you’re going to put out, any strategy for anything that you’re going to do in your business, no matter what stage, being really clear on how you’re communicating it means that the support is always going to have that same communication back for it as well.
Kirsten Paul
So there’s various ways and routes forward. But as I say, once we’ve got that core message, we’ve been maybe through a messaging workshop, or the organisation is really firm and clear in what their message is, it’s looking at how we can reinforce that.
So we’ll take an organisation and we’ll go, right, okay, what are the different ways we can bring this to life? What are your business goals as well? So we need to look at where you want to go.
It’s, as I said earlier, it’s about taking that where you are at planning and getting them to number B. And making sure that we’re hitting that they might want to target the finance sector, they might want to target even banking in finance is very different from the finance sector. Or they might want to talk to logistics and engineers or the supply chain titles.
And then creating the stories that are going to work there. So there’s a law in the way of brainstorming, there’s a law of looking at what the media want, if you’re if you’re creating a media title and looking at what their point A and point B is, so that we can we can reach what their needs are going to be. And making sure that you’ve just got the right people trained as well.
So whether we need to go away and do media training. I would say nine times out of ten, we’re not spokespeople within an organisation, we’re never going to have a microphone shoved in their face.
We’re going to be creating written content for them, which suits so many people, because I think we want to put out the best version of ourselves.
And so sometimes people get a little bit wary about having that. That microphone put in front of your face or sitting down with a journalist because you’re trusting that they take your words and they use them in the way that you intended.
Whereas there’s a little bit of a safety net with written content because that can be approved before it is placed with a title. And that is also another way to reinforce the messages and make sure you’re messaging is clear within there as well because of that written format piece and the approvals that go around with that.
But really in the coaching workshops, and we can create bespoke workshops that can handle whatever an organisation is going to need. So it can be anything from, as I say, kind of the content creation, going away and working together to create a six month, twelve month communication strategy.
That they can go away and implement or I can help them with. Or we can go away and do some crisis communications, exercising and testing and making sure that their communications and crisis comms plans that they have in place are fit for purpose and that everybody that is going to be involved in that kind of scenario knows what their role and responsibility is.
still comfortable with that because in the eye of a storm there are some people that thrive in that type of situation and there’s some people that are just not comfortable and it can be a that can be a good place to kind of test if you’ve got the right the right boots on the ground and those other people that are aware you you kind of put them into different roles that can support um those types of situations that come up so yeah.
Really the coaching offering that that we have within Brassneck can be tailored depending on the need and the stage of the organisation as well because I think as we’ve said earlier solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, those at the kind of the starting point of their journey their needs from communication are very different from corporates.
Sooz Young
Yeah, and even the space in between as well, it’s the communication has to adapt, it has to evolve, and you have to kind of work with somebody that doesn’t have that same connection with your business, and that’s really why coming to an expert like yourself is super, super important, Kirsten, to kind of make sure that those comms, and that was part of the reason also that I connected with you.
Because my best friend does the exact same thing over in Amsterdam, she’s got her own business, and she does comms for large corps as well, and the importance of the messaging has really been kind of communicated to me via that as being a company that works with corporates as well, it’s got to meet those needs, but then also I was like, I want to build the fun and engagement into it, so how do I be funny?
Kirsten Paul
I have put together a social tile last night so as I say I’m going on holiday and I’m trying to do trying to make sure that we’ve got a consistent social stream and there was a there’s a social post that I’ve put together that it made me laugh and I’m like well if it’s made me laugh I have to do it but then equally I’m going to definitely get a critical frame to take a look at it because it’s linking the tech sector with Westlife and I’m just not sure that um I don’t I don’t I, don’t know if my channel is ready for that yet um but yeah I think that’s that’s the power you’ve got absolutely I mean that’s a good it’s a good way yeah definitely put it out see if see if it gets the interactions that I expect it will I mean anybody that’s listening to this and you included obviously have to interact with that post.
Sooz Young
Where is it going? LinkedIn? Is it going on LinkedIn? Right, okay, so that’s it.
Kirsten Paul
now when it goes out whilst I’m on holiday you’ve got no choice yeah LinkedIn yeah I might I’ve found I found pretty quickly that the platform that I’m using is oh don’t say that Jackie and the platform that I’m using is LinkedIn I’m getting zero engagement on X and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram isn’t right
Sooz Young
I mean, LinkedIn is the real B2B platform, and I think we’re moving our strategy over to LinkedIn as a business, rather than we completely have been feeding the beast of meta for seven years, and again, without spending hundreds of thousands of American dollars on it, because our ad account’s in dollars, to run ads.
Then you’re not going to get the same engagement that I find that you’re going to get on LinkedIn. But I think it’s not just about B2B on LinkedIn as well now, it’s more about B2C and everybody. And there’s a lot of stalking on LinkedIn, rather than engagement and interaction that you do have on the other platforms. So I think it’s just been super clear about where your audience is, where they spend their time, how do you communicate to them on those platforms
And both online and offline, through the email marketing as well. So yeah, got to be super clear on what your content is, and then work with somebody like yourself who can support you, having those extra eyes on it to make sure that your content is speaking specifically to that right people. Okay so before we finish up today, if you’ve got 3 tips for our audience about their content.
Kirsten Paul
Yeah for sure.
Firstly I would be questioning everything. So question everything when it comes to your messaging and what your organisation has been putting out. Look at, as I say, as we say, look at that the good stuff, the stuff that isn’t working so well, see how you can either move away from that completely or reshape that to make it work. Bin your jargon. I’m a big fan of what
I don’t know if you know, kissing your content. So it’s keep it simple, stupid. That works really well. Let’s not overcomplicate for the sake of overcomplicating. If that’s not what our audience wants, let’s not give them that. Absolutely. Yeah. Or like if you can’t explain it to your gran.
Sooz Young
Yeah, I call it, keep it silly, silly, keep it silly, stupid.
Kirsten Paul
Like it’s too difficult to explain to your gran or you trip up over yourself, then you’re not saying it correctly. And then the last point is keeping your audience in mind. And if you are making sure as part of that, that you’re measuring the effectiveness. And if it’s not, something’s not resonating, pick up, move on and change it up.
Sooz Young
Yeah, those are really good tips. So, making sure that you are consistent as well, have a strategy.
Yeah, okay, great. So, I’m going to pop into the chat here, just the link to… Oh, that’s not the right link. Let’s try that again. My keyboard turns itself off after five minutes of inactivity, so I’ll always paste the previous thing that I pasted, if I’m a bit copy, which is what’s happened there. So, in the chat you’ll see…
the website for Kirsten, it’s brassneckhq.com. For those of you that are watching this later, you’ll see that link around the video somewhere. And on there, if you click the Contact Us button, it will open up an email for you. And if you put in the subject title, Digital Dominators, that will give you a connection directly with Kirsten. Tell the audience a little bit more about what that will do for them.
Kirsten Paul
Yep, so if they do that, what I’d love to offer anybody that’s attending or listens back to this is a 45 minute call with me.
Bring a couple of bits of content that maybe haven’t been working for you. And we can take a look about, we can take a look and I can be that critical friend for you around how we can make it work and how you can take it.
Sooz Young
That’s fantastic. 45 minutes. That’s a huge amount of time, Kirsten, to be able to spend with people. That’s so generous. It’s so, so kind. And I think having that person in your pocket, even if you’re just thinking about what that
communication is going to be, maybe you just need somebody to have a look at it for you, then Kirsten is your person to speak to. So thank you so much for giving me your time today.
Kirsten Paul
Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely.
Sooz Young
Absolutely lovely chatting to you. And let’s continue this journey. And again, everybody that wants to speak to Kirsten, as we say, just connect with her on our website, send that email, write digital dominators in the subject title and get that support that you need to make sure that people are or you feel content with the content that you’re putting out there. All right, well, thanks so much, everyone.
