Ep.22 – The Secret to Successful Content with Gareth Alvarez

Introduction [00:00:02] Welcome to the All About Digital Marketing podcast. The show all about digital marketing, digital marketing, digital marketing, digital marketing brought to you by Social INK, the digital marketing agency specialising in social media and content marketing for brave brands and forward thinking SMEs. I’m your host, Chris Bruno, and as always, we’re here to bring you the most actionable tips, tricks, tools and insights to help you achieve more when it comes to your digital marketing. Subscribe to the show and be sure to share with a friend if you found something useful or interesting. You can find all the show notes and more information on www.AllAboutDigitalMarketing.co.uk

Chris Bruno [00:00:54] Gareth, thank you very much for joining me today.

Gareth Alvarez [00:00:56] Absolute pleasure. It’s been a while.

Chris Bruno [00:00:57] It has been. And to be fair, you know the all about digital marketing podcast that you were an integral part of starting. But today we’re going to focus on something a little bit different. So we’re gonna talk about content, obviously. And that’s -.

Gareth Alvarez [00:01:12] Where else would we start?

Chris Bruno [00:01:14] There’s no there’s nothing better to talk about. But that’s also because you are the Head of Content for Social INK.

Gareth Alvarez [00:01:19] That’s what it says under my name.

Chris Bruno [00:01:23] And you sound so happy and proud about it.

Gareth Alvarez [00:01:25] No, seriously. Yes, it is. It is my title, but I’m more than just a title. You know, I’m also a spellcheck.

Chris Bruno [00:01:35] And grammar police.

Gareth Alvarez [00:01:36] Yeah. To put it mildly.

Chris Bruno [00:01:38] Yeah, that’s the polite version. Okay. Right. Well, listen. So for everyone out there that hasn’t met you or that hasn’t really spoken to you before or hasn’t seen any of your stuff out there. Give a little bit of an insight or an intro to yourself and what you do as Head of Content.

Gareth Alvarez [00:01:52] Okay. So, yeah, I’m Gareth Alvarez, I’m currently Head of Content here at Social INK. Prior to that. I spent 13 years as a teacher of English and media. So it kind of dovetailed quite nicely into this role. On the side, I’ve been, I’ve always done some freelance copywriting and advertising. I worked with you, Chris, back in the days when Social INK was Just Consulting. So that’s that takes us back quite a few years now. When was that? It was 2010?

Chris Bruno [00:02:29] Was going to say so we rebranded in 2014. So we’re talking a a fair while back.

Gareth Alvarez [00:02:35] Yeah. I think it was 2010 when I moved over to Gibraltar for a couple of years and yeah we did some work there together then. Copy for various websites and magazine editing and news back in the days of YGTV as well. So yeah, bit of news reporting and blogging also. So. So yeah. So we go, we go back quite a while. We’ve been doing this for some time now. Back to what I currently do. My role as Head of Content is basically to be in charge of the words, mostly for Social INK and our clients and the strategy behind those words and the delivery of how we get content out there, what the content looks like, what it’s purpose is, where it’s, how it serves the brand and our goals. And you know, what we’re trying to achieve. And the same applies for clients as well. It’s all about looking at ways that we can best serve the brand and best target the audience and add value through to the use of a variety of forms of content. I think that is a that’s pretty much it’s in a nutshell.

Chris Bruno [00:03:59] Yeah, I think that sums it up quite nicely. I think this is where today I really wanted to focus on how content forms such an integral part of what people should be doing online. And it’s something that I think too many start-ups, too many SMEs kind of don’t look at or don’t focus on. So they all know that they should be blogging, but they might not be doing it and they all know they should be on social media. So they kind of do it for the sake of doing it. But what I really wanted to talk about today is, how does a small business, how does a start-up really get started? You know, on their content when it comes to blogging, when it comes to social media, what would be the best tips and advice that you would give?

Gareth Alvarez [00:04:39] Well,  it’s an interesting one, because content has become something of a dirty word, really, within marketing and advertising, because it’s sort of… It’s being used as a catch-all term to mean all sorts of things. What previously was known as maybe marketing collateral, you know, where you have, you have your direct mail, you have your advertising copy, you have your TV ad scripts you’ve got your radio scripts and so forth. These are all different types of marketing collateral. And now in that, we’ve taken those offline sort of marketing practices and put them online. And now instead of calling marketing collateral, we call it “content” because effectively that’s what it is. It’s all about generating content. And then underneath that umbrella, you get all sorts of different types of quote unquote “content”, which includes blogs. Your website is content, your FAQ page, anything that’s going to, you know, that the audience is going to connect with in some way or any way that you can give some sense of value or entertain, inform your audience. Whatever’s going to basically engage with them. That comes under content. It could be an infographic. It could be a video. It could be a podcast. It could be a blog. It could be a social media post. You know, it takes all forms. So, you know, I know that there’s a bit of a backlash to the word that some content. But if we get over ourselves for a little bit and just think about it as an umbrella term for a whole lot of different marketing practices for, within the digital sphere, then I think you can start to look at those individual pieces of quote unquote “content” and start looking at ways to make them work for you. But you asked me about sort of tips that SMEs could use to maybe get, kickstart that process of their own content marketing, right?

Chris Bruno [00:06:53] Absolutely.

Gareth Alvarez [00:06:54] So it depends. I mean, you know, some people like to write. Some people like to talk. Some people are comfortable in front of the camera. I think what’s important, if you’re looking to start content marketing is to, first of all, just be true to yourself. Be, you know, be who you are. Be personable, be authentic. Whatever mode that you’re using, whatever format you’re going to create your content. A lot of people are shy. You know, they don’t like being seen on videos and so on. And that’s OK. Some people don’t like the sound of their voice either. It sounds very different in your head to when you hear it back as a recording. So. So they don’t like the sound of their recorded voice. So maybe audio isn’t for them. And other people might just not have a way with words or they might not know how to get started with words.

Gareth Alvarez [00:07:54] So these are all little mini stumbling blocks that a lot of small businesses or small business owners or entrepreneurs or start-ups or sole traders or whatever might sort of come across, you know.

Gareth Alvarez [00:08:16] And it’s, the first thing is to get over that initial hurdle. So whatever it is you don’t like, I would say from the beginning, don’t do it, but everyone can write something, OK? Everyone can write something.

Chris Bruno [00:08:30] I think that that’s the really good point there. So it’s when people turn around to ask and we’ve had lots of conversations with companies and businesses and solopreneurs, like you say. But when we talk to them and they say, you know, I’m not a writer, I can’t write. And the thing that I’ve been talking about a lot recently on the podcast is nothing comes easily to anybody, really. You know, if we talk about a toddler who’s learning how to walk, we don’t give them one attempt and say, okay, right. That didn’t work out. This one’s not going to walk. It’s a process. You know, it’s trying. It’s failing. It’s getting back up again. It’s starting again. It’s trying another time, doing it differently. And I think that’s what’s really important about blogging. What people sort of tend to think or imagine in their heads is having to spend four days researching an article, then spend another four days typing up a 5000 word article and then getting it proofread and edited and whatever else afterwards. But the reality is very different. You know, when you’re looking up what your audience wants, who they are, what it is that you do, you’re in the best possible position to be able to talk about yourself, your proposition, who you are and how you can help your audience better than anybody else can. And it’s not something that needs… It’s not something that requires, you know, days and days and days of work. And I was wondering if you’d agree that that one of the tricks and techniques that we use with clients, especially in the early days as an agency, we basically ask people to give us bullet points for information about an event or information about a product launch or whatever it would be. And then we use those bullet points to kind of formulate and build out an actual blog post. Would you say something like that would help people that are kind of scared or a little bit not sure how to get started?

Gareth Alvarez [00:10:07] Absolutely. I mean, you know, just. Just getting thoughts down on paper first. You know, or digital paper, on to whatever sort of word processor you use. But yeah, absolutely. Get some ideas down and then start fleshing them out. I really like that analogy of the toddler because it’s one that I’ve used before, particularly when teaching students, you know, filmmaking or writing. It Is about that. You never sort of. You’re not born being able to run.

Gareth Alvarez [00:10:35] You have to go through a process, as you mentioned, of trial and error of failure and learning from those failings and then figuring out as you go along. And I think that’s highly applicable to content marketing. It’s just about getting it done, getting something done. Doesn’t matter what it is. I mean. You and I both know that we have almost a mantra of being publish ready, not perfect. And I think that is really important to know, to bear in mind as well. Is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be something. And then you can, you know, amend it as you go along and add to it. Flesh it out. Or you could, bin it. It doesn’t really matter. But the trick is to actually just start doing something. But that first step is the hardest, you know. And it’s as cliche as it might sound you just need to start with baby steps.

Gareth Alvarez [00:11:33] So, yeah, bullet points are a good way to get started. What do you want to talk about? You know, what do you know? What does your, what is your audience interested in? Or if that’s still not something that you’ve not quite sussed out yet. Then talk about yourself. Talk about your business. Talk about who you are, what you do, what your product is, what you service is. Talk about your industry. Just show some insights, some understanding of the industry. So that, you know, people will start to link you with, or see you as some sort of authority and therefore you start to build that trust. In that, “Yeah, OK. This guy knows what he’s talking about” or “Oh, that’s really useful. That’s really interesting. I can use that for myself.” or “Hmm. OK. I don’t quite agree with that, but still makes a good point.” You know, it doesn’t really matter. You know, whether people have a positive or negative reaction to what you write, so long as they have a reaction.

Gareth Alvarez [00:12:38] I think it might be Oscar Wilde who said that the only, the worst thing, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. And that’s absolutely true. It’s better for people to be talking about you, for positive or negative things than not being talked about at all. Because that means you’ve forgotten. So you need to be out there and in the public sphere. And getting people engaging with you. And the best way to do it is to just start talking.

Chris Bruno [00:13:09] I think I was on I was on Adam King’s podcast a couple of days ago and we were basically talking about it. He said it. I can’t remember who the quote is attributed to. But, you know, if your marketing hasn’t offended at least three people by lunchtime, then you’re doing it wrong. That’s brilliant. Now, I don’t want you to take that away and start doing crazy things.

Gareth Alvarez [00:13:29] Just after this recording I’m going to start writing a blog post full of expletives and see what happens.

Chris Bruno [00:13:35] So we’re not gonna go that far. But the idea being that I think that there is an element, you know, people say, I can’t write or I can’t blog or I can’t put a video out or I can’t create a podcast. And the reality is. Well, yeah, exactly. Excuses. But it’s also there’s a fear in there. There’s a fear. Oh yeah. How’s it going to be received. How are people going to see this? And I think it’s.

Gareth Alvarez [00:13:54] Fear of failure.

Chris Bruno [00:13:55] Well, exactly. But it’s it’s what they. What you’re framing as failure. And I think that’s the main thing. So having somebody say “I disagree with this post completely” is not failure. It’s basically weeding out. It’s not just opinion, but it’s also weeding out and creating who your audience actually is and who the ones are actually of value to you. You know, we talk a lot about the minimum viable audience when it comes to Seth Godin’s version of it. But how many clients do you really need to make a good business to make a business viable? And the reality is, if you’re in the service based industry, you probably don’t actually need tens of thousands of people. You need a really commute, a real community, sorry, that’s engaged with you, that really believes in who you are and agrees with your messaging and who you are, what you’re saying. And that can actually create a really good business. And I think that’s something that’s really important to kind of reaffirm to everybody. You know, you’re not expected to please everybody. And if you’re trying to by being so vanilla, then the reality is you probably actually not going to have any impact at all rather than getting at least some, whether it be good or negative, positive. Whichever way it goes.

Gareth Alvarez [00:15:00] Absolutely. And there are brands that pride themselves on polarizing opinions. You know, Marmite has built its entire marketing strategy on being either loved or hated.

Gareth Alvarez [00:15:12] And they love it, you know, and people talk about it because they love it. People talk about it because they hate it. But that has got everybody talking about it, you know? And that’s wonderful. People you know, there are brands that are unashamedly, you know, they’ve got an idea, they’ve got an ethos, they’ve got, you know, a personality. And they stick with it. And they don’t care if people are offended because the people who are offended were always going to be offended because they’re not the target audience. So who cares what they think? That target audience laps it up and loves it. There you go.

Chris Bruno [00:15:46] When you talk about that, actually, the first thing that came to my mind was innocent with the blue juice that they made.

Gareth Alvarez [00:15:53] That was so such, it was such a good marketing campaign. Just basically because it was like, just saying, no, blue, blue. It was just like.

Chris Bruno [00:16:02] That was it, wasn’t it? It was literally, it polarized even their target audience by creating a product. So for anyone who hasn’t seen this, we’ll drop it into the show notes as well. But the idea was it’s a juice that looks a bit more greenish than blue.

Gareth Alvarez [00:16:16] It’s blue.

Chris Bruno [00:16:17] But they won’t agree with you. But just like Gareth said, innocent are very adamant that it’s blue and they created a whole campaign around this. Engagement was actually brought out by people saying, no, that’s not blue. It’s more of a green. It’s more of a this, it’s more of that. And they just kept replying to everybody. No, no, it’s blue. No, no. Pretty sure it’s blue. No, it’s more like blue. And they just carry this on for so long that it divided even their own core audience. It just got that kind of conversation going and it allowed them to get this couple of tweets, posts in this campaign to go absolutely viral in the sense that everyone wanted to comment and say, you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And they would say, no, you’re wrong.

Gareth Alvarez [00:16:55] The beauty of that was, is that it got people to try and wind their social media guys up by finding all you know or making comments. Because people wanted to see if they could get one up on the social media guys at innocent. So it was this massive game of one upmanship. But even if you didn’t disagree with it, you just wanted to be part of it because you were looking for that reply, because it was it’s almost like a badge of honour. If innocent replied back to you in saying that. So that in itself was a genius answer. It’s like by getting people to come to the point where they desperately want to be part of your campaign and involved and engaged and to then, you know, to get back comments, get that retweet to get that like, whatever it was, you know that. But was I think personally anyway, what was really good about it is that is it. It made people want to reply or want to interact, whether they agree with you or not, because they felt that they wanted to be part of it.

Chris Bruno [00:18:06] And I think that’s so. A quick one for any start ups or SMEs listening to this. That doesn’t mean you should go out and put up something that is completely untrue. You know, this was a very well thought out campaign.

Gareth Alvarez [00:18:16] And yeah, just don’t go and piss people off for the sake of it.

Chris Bruno [00:18:20] Yeah. That’s what I think I’m trying to say in the nicest possible way. It was a thought out campaign and it was a very good campaign in that sense. So that’s something to bear in mind.

Chris Bruno [00:18:28] But what it does mean, though, is that it’s okay if a big brand is willing to divide and even divide their own audience, their core audience, then it’s okay for you to post something up with an opinion. And this is something where a lot of people kind of forget about it. Or they don’t really bring that across enough because they want to be all things to all men. And I think, again, when we talk about content we’ve mentioned and you’ve talked about it in depth there earlier on. We’re not just talking about a big, long blog article, but the reason why we talk about blogging and why blogging is so important for businesses is because there is an SEO element to it. So for anyone who’s not really aware, search engine optimization = being found on Google. But the reality is, as an agency, when we first started out, we didn’t care about the SEO impacts at the time. What we cared about was creating content that people would find valuable. So insights.

Gareth Alvarez [00:19:20] Need to stop you there, though, do care about the SEO concept. Because going back to every blog you write, to then optimise it and sort it out is a hell of a lot of work. So. So maybe just bear in mind. But carry on.

Chris Bruno [00:19:33] I think that’s an internal struggle there. We’ll put that one in the HR box for now. But the idea being that, you know, we didn’t used to focus on that and that didn’t mean that we weren’t getting traffic or that we didn’t build enough on Google. We actually had some pages rank naturally and organically through Google just because of the fact that they were valuable. And I think that’s the biggest thing. So rather than over complicating a system, especially in the early days, what you really want to do is focus on what can you create and what can you talk about that’s really going to show who you are. So there’s people out there and there’s marketing agencies out there that will say they don’t like social media or they don’t like X platform or you should be doing this on Y platform. Everyone’s got their opinion and there’s nothing wrong with that. People will relate to you based on their own version of that, whether they agree, whether they disagree. And those are the people that you want to start sorting, because ultimately there is nothing worse than wasting time having 20, 30 calls with prospects who actually don’t like what you’re doing and actually don’t really relate to what you’re doing because they don’t really know who you are. Because they have no insight into that, as opposed to having only three conversations with people who are really engaged, that really feel aligned with who you are and who and what you do as a business. And those three conversations are far more likely to become prospects, businesses, leads, sorry customers, than those other 30 when you’re doing things that are so vanilla.

Gareth Alvarez [00:20:51] Yeah. Yeah. I agree, but really, really importantly is that you need to know who you are first.

Gareth Alvarez [00:20:57] I don’t mean this in a sort of philosophical role. Who am I? Why do I exist on this planet, et cetera, et cetera? I mean it as a business, you need to know well, who you are, what you stand for, what kind of personality, your business, what persona you have and stick to it, be authentic, be real, you know. Don’t don’t chop and change and try and and and move things around, because then you just come across a schizophrenic. And nobody knows what persona they’re going to meet on which channel or how you’re writing. So you need to have it quite clearly defined as how you’re going to approach this thing. What kind of tone of voice are you going to have? How are you going to communicate with your target audience? And once you know that, then when you write an opinion, you can, when you share any content. Make sure that it’s in keeping with that personality and that tone of voice so people become familiar with it. And, you know, just as we are as people, I mean, everybody’s different. Everybody has different thoughts and opinions and ideas. We like some people, we dislike others. And that’s OK. But, you know, if some of those people that we meet are genuine and authentic, then there’s no sort of veneer or that they’re not hiding behind some sort of characterization.

Gareth Alvarez [00:22:25] They’re putting on for, you know, some imaginary cameras. You know, people who were always you know, I went to I did a master’s at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

Gareth Alvarez [00:22:38] And and that was full of people who were always “on” you know, there was so much drama. If you didn’t know who the real people were. They almost felt that they had to be these stereotypical drama people and flouncing about the place. And you just didn’t know when they were being genuine or not. And I think that’s really important for businesses. Is to figure out, you know, where you stand on things, what you sound like and and be genuine in everything that you you put out there. And if people disagree with you, then that’s OK, because, you know, you you stick to your values and just, you know, hold dearly to the people who do agree with you and keep pushing stuff that way that they like, that they enjoy, that they find valuable.

Chris Bruno [00:23:29] I think that’s probably a whole other podcast that we could do on brand guidelines, tone of voice and everything else. But one of the things that you mentioned there that I think is super important for anybody listening, especially in your early days. Being authentic makes life easier. So if you’re talking like yourself, if you’re being yourself, it’s just easier to do. So there is no veneer. There is no vagueness. There is no extra work or effort that goes into being who you are. And I think the biggest thing I got asked this question a couple of weeks ago doing a talk for We Work Labs and I refer to this a lot. But somebody who’s just created a start up asked me the question, which was exactly this. You know, how do I find my tone of voice? How do I find those brand guidelines? How do I create that? And I ask the question. I said, how many people in the team currently? And he said, well, it’s just me. We’re starting at the moment, one thing or another. Then I said, well, you are the brand guidelines. You only have to own a voice, be who you are, and basically bring that across. Because if you are genuine and if you do put that person forward, the chances are you’re going to relate better to future hires. So talent and people that want to work with you are going to see exactly who you are, what you’re about. They’re going to really buy into the company. And there’s nothing worse than buying into a company’s public profile and then finding out that internally, it’s nothing like that.

Gareth Alvarez [00:24:43] Indeed.

Chris Bruno [00:24:43] And then the second part is, you know, you take away all the stress. You’re not trying to write something in an uber corporate kind of way that actually doesn’t fit in at all with who you are when people actually meet you. If you are someone who talks in a really high level professional kind of way, then you’ll write that way. You’ll create posts in that way as well. And again, you’ll find your core audience, which will relate to that. And when they meet you, there’s a, it’s a synonymous kind of relationship. And the basis of it all flows. And it just feels great because it is who I met online. It is who I saw talking. Yeah, it is the person I heard on that podcast. It’s always going to be the same person.

Gareth Alvarez [00:25:20] Yeah, definitely. I mean that’s it’s that kind of to thine own self be true thing. You know, just be yourself. Just, just be who you are.

Chris Bruno [00:25:31] For someone who said all his classmates were far too dramatic. That was a very sort of Shakespearean moment there with your quotes.

Gareth Alvarez [00:25:39] Well, you know, what can I say? I taught English for 13 years. I think I’m entitled to quote every once in a while. Thank you very much.

Gareth Alvarez [00:25:49] Well, the idea there is that, you know. Just be genuine, be yourself. And that in itself will make the communications process, as you said, Chris, so much easier. So you know. Putting down your thoughts on paper and getting a blog written. Write it as the way you speak. You know, maybe throw in some punctuation every once in a while, but right as you’d speak.

Chris Bruno [00:26:19] It’s only you who thinks punctuation is that important.

Gareth Alvarez [00:26:22] It really, really is.

Chris Bruno [00:26:25] The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you’re shit. Yeah.

Gareth Alvarez [00:26:29] Or the difference between “let’s eat, grandma” and “let’s eat grandma”. So, yeah. So the idea is, is that, you know, it’s not as taxing as you may actually think to get stuff written down. It is genuinely easy. It’s always just that first steps, then you’ve got some bullet points down and then just, just let it flow. You know, it’s even easier. You know you can just dictate it to your computer and the words will come up on screen.

Gareth Alvarez [00:27:03] And there is you know, as you’d say it, we can then go back into the document and then tweak it and improve it if you need to. But just that kind of conversational approach just resonates with people more because people feel that they’re being talked to, people like being talked to for the most part. Unless it’s a cold call.

Chris Bruno [00:27:28] And unless it’s a recorded automated message telling me that I was in an accident recently.

Gareth Alvarez [00:27:32] I’ve been in several this week.

Chris Bruno [00:27:36] It’s a really interesting one, though, because, again, I think it always comes down to this fear of starting. And I think one of the things I wanted to point out when we started this podcast. We recorded the first ever episode. We didn’t have a name. We weren’t 100 percent sure of the exact direction and how we wanted to build this out and what we were going to do with it going forward. But we wanted to get started. And something that we’ve done internally is to have 30 day challenges. Now, some of these haven’t gone down quite so well with the team, and Gareth will get a chance to voice his discontent with me first for certain things. But one of the reasons why we started the challenges was to basically be able to show people that we were talking to, businesses that we were talking to, that if we can do it at such a high level and such extreme levels that there are no real excuses. And no barriers to entry for anybody. So in June, I believe it was that we did 100 blogs in the month.

Gareth Alvarez [00:28:28] We did.

Chris Bruno [00:28:28] As a team of only four people. You know, that’s a massive task and a massive undertaking. And it’s not something I recommend for everybody.

Chris Bruno [00:28:35] In fact, a strong no.

Gareth Alvarez [00:28:37] Don’t do it.

Chris Bruno [00:28:39] There you go. Gareth said it for me. I strongly, strongly tell you to really reconsider.

Chris Bruno [00:28:43] But the idea being that if we could do it to that kind of level and that kind of extreme, there is no excuse whether you’re a solopreneur just starting, you have your first couple of employees or anything else, that you can’t write a blog a week to give people an update, to give your audience an update and to share with all the stakeholders involved in your business. So that goes for employees, for suppliers, for customers, for everybody, even prospects to get a bit of insight into who you are and what you’re doing. And one of the easiest ways to start by doing that is literally just to talk about what you’re actually doing, what’s actually going to give people the little bit of the story, a little bit of the insight. And if you really don’t like writing, as Gareth said, you can do things like audio so you can create a podcast. There’s a ton of tools out there to transcribe it. I believe the one we use internally is Trint, that you can have a look so you can literally take a recording like this one, throw it into Trint and it will give you a transcription that you can then go through and you can then clean up. That now gives you a podcast version and a written version. And this is the really key thing.

Chris Bruno [00:29:46] People think you write a blog, you publish a blog that’s it, it’s game over, but it’s not. That blog. So that podcast piece that becomes a blog will then be able to be used to create quote graphics, will then be able to be used to create short videos with little quotes and clips from the actual podcast and from the recording. You will then be able to take little excerpts of that and use that on social media repeatedly to be able to bring people back to the blog and back to that article. One piece of content isn’t a one and done kind of thing. So even for this podcast, every episode becomes a couple of different short clips. There’s a video version on YouTube, there’s the audio version on all the platforms that people listen to podcasts. So we’re on Apple or on Spotify or on Google podcasts. But the idea being that it becomes so much more than that, it’s then on the website the full transcription is available, the short clips get used and shared and we bring other people into this conversation. And I think that’s what’s really important. Starting something and getting a piece of content doesn’t just require that little bit of effort to then put it out there. But it also then gives you a whole runway of other content ideas and other hings that you can do that are based around that initial piece of content.

Gareth Alvarez [00:30:55] Repurposed baby.

Chris Bruno [00:30:58] Repurpose all of the way.

Gareth Alvarez [00:30:59] We’ve written a blog about it.

Chris Bruno [00:31:02] I think we’ve probably repurposed that a couple of times now.

Gareth Alvarez [00:31:04] Yeah, I think we repurposed that from a video I did in a canoe. But there you go. But what Chris is saying is absolutely right. Is that, you know, a blog can be a starting point or the video can be a starting point for audio recordings, a starting point. And then it becomes a bit of a snowball effect. What you can use it for. You know, when we create content, we always look at, well, what else can we derive from this one idea? Because the amount of energy and effort that goes into creating a piece of content is significant. But so you don’t want it to just end there. You want to see, well, you know, is there more that can be taken from this? Can we provide audiences who prefer to receive their content in different media, a version that’s more accessible to them? So, for example, you know, people might not have the time to go and read a full blog. They you know, they might not want to go and check your blog on a daily basis or a weekly basis or ever. And that’s okay. But they might be more inclined to hear it in audio form their commute. So, you know, there’s your audio, your podcast, or they might be more inclined to watch a video or check out a webinar or, you know, look at social media posts or, you know, get the key information from a quote graphic or whatever. So the whole idea is that the audience has become increasingly fragmented. So gone are the days when the audience was at your beck and call when there were only like two or three TV channels and a couple of radio stations and the national newspapers, and that was it. Now, there are so many distractions. I know that Chris talks about it being like a war of attrition fought for your attention, previously. And that’s exactly it. Is that people, your audience is fragmented, you know. Yes. You might have a hundred people who are interested in your brand and your business. But, you know, two of them might love podcasts. Not big fans of reading, you know. 80 of them might really loved Twitter,  for instance. So you can’t just put stuff on Facebook. You know, some of them might prefer Instagram. Some of them might prefer to watch videos. Some of them might be really keen on YouTube, something they like watching videos. And instead of actually watching TV movies, they sit down and they just go through lots of YouTube videos, playlists. So you’ve got to start thinking, what can you do with your content in order to reach your audience in the medium that they prefer the most? And that’s why we repurpose it. So. So, yeah, that, you know, a blog or any piece of content that you create, a unique piece of content should therefore be looked at as a springboard for the creation of similar or other content across different channels to make sure that the greatest amount of people are accessing that.

Chris Bruno [00:34:21] I think in closing that one thing I would say to everybody is no matter who you look up to, who you listen to on podcasts, who you read in terms of blogs, all of these people started at the very beginning.

Chris Bruno [00:34:35] So all of the massive YouTube stars today started with videos that no one really were listened to or watched at the time. Podcasting, you know, if you go back to the very first episodes of Tim Ferriss, his show, and he references it every now and again, you know, his style, the way he does things, his comfort level in terms of talking to people, all of that grows through doing. No other way of actually cheating the system. There’s nothing that you can do to prepare yourself for actually getting on the field and doing it. And what I’d recommend to everybody is, you know, go back, look at those initial starting points, look at those first initial blogs on that blog that you always love reading and listening to a podcast that you love listening to and go all the way back to the very beginnings .and especially with YouTube, because you can see it and some of the people on YouTube that have done super well and I’m talking millions of followers of subscribers, those guys and gals, if you go back and occasionally they do and they talk about it, they cringe at their first pieces of content compared to where they are today.

Gareth Alvarez [00:35:33] And that’s OK.

[00:35:34] Absolutely. Of course, it’s okay, but it’s something that people want to kind of find a way of skipping. So they think that the overnight success happens overnight, but doesn’t get the overnight success happens after years and years. And if you’re a fan of Gary V or even if you don’t like him and Gareth and I have differing views on the guy.

Gareth Alvarez [00:35:54] No comment.

Chris Bruno [00:35:54] Well, to be fair, I mean, some of the things he say are terrible advice I think personally. But some of the things he says I think are fantastic pieces of advice. But if you go all the way back to see how Gary V started, you’ll find videos online from Wine Library TV, and you’ll see what he was like originally. Gary V isn’t wasn’t born the way he is today. He didn’t magically become that person. It’s happened after years and years of content creation and getting to that point. And I think the biggest the most important thing is it’s just getting started. If you want people to know about your business, then you have to tell them. If you’re not willing to promote your business, why should anybody else? And I think that’s the biggest key takeaway from today’s episode, is that you just get started. Just start doing. And again, just like the toddler learning to walk before he can then run. You will learn how to do things better. You will learn what works well for your audience, what gets people engaged. And the last bit that I would add, it’s not because you’ve written one blog and it didn’t go viral. That that means blogging doesn’t work for your business. Let me just make that really clear. And the same thing applies to social media, to videos, to lives, to anything else. You need to commit to doing this on a regular basis, consistently turn up, provide that value and then start to see what works and what doesn’t for you personally, but also more importantly for your audience.

Gareth Alvarez [00:37:14] Yeah, consistency is key. As you mentioned then and doing it regularly and not giving up because the work that you’re putting in today. You won’t start seeing results for that 3-6 months down the line. You know, so you’ve got to be prepared for that. Is that what you’re doing now will only start really yielding results several months down the line when you forgotten what you did three months ago. And you go, Oh, wow. Okay. So that’s starting to pick up. But that’s just the way it is.

Chris Bruno [00:37:40] Absolutely. Gareth, thank you very much for joining me today. Before you shoot off, where can people find you personally as opposed to Social INK? But where can people find you and have a chat and even ask you some questions about content?

[00:37:52] Best best place to find me. I’m most active on Twitter so you can find me @alvo_muses on Twitter. That’s the best place. Or you could take me up on LinkedIn. That’s also quite cool. I’m happy to chat on that, too.

Chris Bruno [00:38:05] Excellent. Well, listen, thank you very much, Gareth. And for everybody listening, thanks for listening. And we’ll see you all next time.

Outro [00:38:14] The All About Digital Marketing podcast is brought to you by Social INK. A distributed digital marketing agency specialised in delivering results through online campaigns, whether it’s content marketing, social media, marketing, online advertising or web design.

Outro [00:38:30] We’ve got you covered from strategy through to delivery. If you’re struggling with your digital marketing, get in touch today by simply visiting www.socialink.co