Hello again and welcome back to the Marketing Buzzword Podcast!
This is the podcast which helps you to understand what all of these business and marketing buzzwords actually mean, and how they can helpful going forward, and today’s buzzword is “Great Content”
I’m your host Ben M Roberts and in this show I am the marketing bee in charge making sure I can get the right guests and ask the right questions to make these words and phrases make sense.
In addition, The Marketing Buzzword podcast is now powered by Talkative. Talkative is a company that brings live chat, voice calls, video calls and co-browsing together, in one package. This allows you and your business to truly engage with your customers, offer quick and effective resolutions to questions and improve the customer experience. You can find out more at Talkative.uk
So, how does this show work?
Simply, you, the marketing bees let me know what buzzwords you’ve been hearing, and bring them into the marketing beehive. I then bring on an expert buzzword bee from the field, who helps us identify what these buzzwords actually mean, and whether they are useful or not. Essentially, I want to de-bunk or de-mystify these words and phrases to make the marketing jargon a little easier to understand.
I’m always keen to hear about the buzzwords you are loving or hating right now so please drop me a tweet to @roberts_ben_m or simply use #marketingbuzzword on Tiwtter & Instagram or if you’d rather you can go on the marketingbuzzword.com website and let me know through there, and take a look at the show notes from previous guests.
Then one final thing before we get onto this weeks guest . . . if you are loving the show, please feel free to leave me a review on iTunes! It really does help boost the shows profile and make it easier to keep getting on these expert guests.
Right that’s more than enough about me. It’s time to introduce this weeks guest! This episode’s expert buzzword bee is an incredible women, who I have a load of respect for and that’s Mark Masters . . .
Mark Masters is owner of The ID Group, a content marketing consultancy based in Poole. He is a believer that the ultimate goal for businesses is to build loyalty.
Mark is the author of The Content Revolution, he has the weekly You Are The Media email (every Thursday) and You Are The Media podcast (every Friday). On 24th May 2018, the You Are The Media Conference comes to Shelley Theatre in Bournemouth and will include international speakers such as Mark Schaefer (author of Known) and Jason Miller (LinkedIn).
Enough small talk . . . let’s talk “Great Content”
Great Content Interview with Mark Masters and Ben M Roberts
Ben: Hi Mark, and welcome to the show.
Mark: Good to see you Ben. Or hear you I should say.
Ben: If only this was a video podcast, I’d be happy to look at your face all the way through.
Mark: What a lovely. That’s almost like a CV moment that is. Ben says, it’d be lovely to see your face.
Ben: Hey, if anyone else has met you before. I said I can’t think of anyone who would disagree with me.
Mark: Great podcasts, this is mate.
Ben: You like it a lot more ready, aren’t you? Right. So for the guys listening at home, I bet we, I think we should better stop sort of flirting with each other and get down to it. What are you going to talk to me about today?
Mark: Today is. You’ve thrust it upon me. With your buzzword is great content. Am I right?
Ben: You are a hundred percent right. And Mark, I know you absolutely love talking about great content and I know it’s your number one favorite thing in the world, so please give me a little spiel about how good or probably more likely bad great content is.
Mark: And I guess this started. It might be conference that I saw you on a few years ago and it was, it probably did stuff from walking around the halls or pop it in and listening to, um, talk. So I haven’t been in, in wherever it was in London. And I would see when you use content marketing as, as a popular topic for marketing conferences and whatever the phrase we’ve, we’ve kind of, we seem to have moved on from the content is king thing that was there a couple years ago. But you still see it. You still saying this phrase being there is great content. So it fits in well with your, with your podcast of those buzzwords that are use. And one of those for me that, that gets my goat when it doesn’t work, is how we flippantly use great content because anybody can create great concert with example. What on earth does it, does it mean when we ask people to stand in front of us and say right, you need to create great content, what is it? What does it mean? Basically it’s just if you could create, if the content that you create isn’t aligned to what you stand for, what you believe in your cause, it’s meaningless. So just been told that we just need to create because that’s the problem that we’re in now. We’re living in this unfiltered world where we can put stuff out there and it is biting us. the difference between spam, not spam, spam and stuff that we like and we want to engage with. Uh, sorry, not spam and stuff that we want to get involved with and spam and stuff is like getaway. You’re just noise.
Ben: This is exactly what we were talking about, Yeah. It must have been a couple of years ago that we first met and it was actually one of those conversations where I have vivid memories as soon as stuff that we were talking about as we walked around the show. This is the first time that we met and it was like when one of those things we’d look around and everyone is going, content is king, content is great. what Do you do? I do content marketing I do content I write content. Isn’t that just marketing like is what is content for like I understand where the the phrase has come from and then just create great content, but then are you saying to me, hang on, but Ben, what is great content? And I started there and I went through. I don’t know, how am I supposed to know what great content is.
Mark: If we get to the purity of where we know that we’re striking a cord. With what we’re creating and we’re putting out there into the big wide world for people to enjoy and be entertained by. And want to come back to it because it does. Why I even feel uncomfortable saying it, but even saying this thing where it comes from a. Great content does come from this place of, if you have a point of view or something that you completely believe in. Where you can add value to somebody else and you can deliver it and you can put it in all these spaces now that are in front of us. I liked were even what Facebook just announced recently about what they’re doing, about changing the newsfeed now. Even stuff like that. So we can put, which is great, but people are just bombarding and throwing all their money in, in that basket. But that’s a different conversation. But the other thing is, that if you have this thing. That you totally believe in. That you are enthused about it. That you believe in it. And then you can distribute this via the means of the written word or audio or video. You do it again and again and again and again. And it helps build people that want to come back for more. And I understand. So to me, the ultimate goal for all of us today is to create loyalty. And that’s when great content works. So we shouldn’t be thinking that it is. What we read on a blog or on the screen in front of it, is what we listened to this podcast. It’s the stuff that we see on the youtube channels is stuff that that makes a much more emotional connection with somebody else. So they say, I don’t want to go anywhere else. I’m sticking here. That comes back to old-school kind of marketing principles. We create products that people like, that people trust us, that they want to come back again. That they’re going to share with other people. It just so happens now in this unfiltered world that we are part of. That we can do this within all these spaces and a lot of these spaces that we can call our own. If we nurture them, that is what great content is, but great content on its own. When people will stand in front of an audience and say, “Hey everybody, well you gotta do with it”. You got to get this WordPress, then we can start to kind of shape here and the writing can be 300 words. And there’s always you put it out there, when you do it again and it may and. This is the other, you’re get me going on. You get these people on, Ben and you’re throwing little word grenades in there, we’ll see where it goes. And this is the biggest issue that we have. So when we’re telling everybody, say how do we create great content. But this stuff out there. But their share. This is that the problems are, when it doesn’t align with what you do. Or what you say and all your business. Because the biggest problem today, that we are facing at the moment. We’re all sounding the same. Good example, we start January. That first week of January on Linkedin is like the royal rumble. The first couple of weeks on linkedin. I don’t want to go there, it is like the royal rumble. When there’s 50-30 men in a ring and then who’s going to be the survival of the fittest and who’s gonna win. Then when February comes, we’re going to move away from it, in the inspirational quotes. And just bombard and stuff with the small micro content, that we’re creating and putting in the in the fields at the moment. So where we are just throwing stuff out. And many people are sounding the same. Whereas the antidote to it is to understand what people like and want and how you can find ways that you can connect with someone on a far deeper level.
Ben: Yeah. I think this is so many points and my hand is. I’m really old school so I’m actually writing this down on a pen and paper as you speak. Because that’s of the way my mind works. Like a sort of joined up some dots together. And obviously listen to the Facebook announcement, that always happened recently on sort of talk to you a little bit about that later in the show. But when you are, the things that sort of really got me going as you were getting more excited. Almost let’s scrap off this word, great content, just get it. Throw it away because it’s a throwaway statement that actually means nothing. In order to replace it with something maybe slightly more long winded, but potentially much more useful. And it’s almost you’re saying create relevant and interesting content. So essentially it’s doesn’t have to be great is it’s so subjective. But actually relevant and interesting is actually a lot more specific. I.e. because relevant, interesting may not be relevant and interesting for everyone. But as a business, if you’ve got a target market or if you’re even as an individual. But you have people that you will want to write for, it seems as write great content to them. OK, well what does that mean? But If I were to say to Mark write relevant and interesting content. That is going to be for marketers now actually there, that almost gives you a much better base to come from. Or is it still too generic? What are your thoughts on that sort of side of things?
Mark: I guess when it comes to using something that’s great. The only reason the only reason you were great is if you’re seen as great in the eyes of somebody else. And so the crux of it is, yeah, but as you mentioned. They’re really important is that, if we can find stuff that’s interesting and useful than as a narrative to it and has a as a sentence to entertain people. But it’s the important stuff, but then the little add on to that is to understand a space that isn’t currently served. Yeah. For instance, on my side I could say my where I am based on the down at the seaside on the south coast is. Let me say that from my side. When I first started writing, I started writing and being committed to it in 2012 and I still leave the articles that I put on the on the website, but they were all older stuff I create a few years ago it was rubbish. It was rubbish because it was the same. It was the same as everybody else. I’m very honest man and I will take any, let’s call it to constructive criticism. But it’s that this, for instance, maybe somebody else has experienced in this at the moment. You write about things that have already been set. For instance, articles on what is, what does the brand mean or how to talk at a networking event and all these things that are done. All these things that are done to death. Yeah, but you may be told that this is what seen is great content. But the reason that becomes interesting, worthy and worthy and insightful is when we put our own spin towards. Or when we put our own angle on our own and the things that we learn and the way that we look at the world. And the things that are broken, the way that we can put our own learnings and mistakes and things that we don’t really want to say, but this is a way to express ourselves. That is where we make this change from just creating stuff for the sake of it to creating stuff that is intended to resonate with somebody else.
Ben: There’s rarely, rarely anything. That’s a complete new, unique independent idea. Anything else that’s ever been thought of before. But within that one fourth, there are so many caveats that can almost come from and it’s actually finding that caveat, the only you, only you and your thoughts, your experiences and your learning. So being able to put into. And that is something that people can not replicate. As I talked with Dan Gingiss on episode 1 of the podcast where it’s actually, it’s something that’s completely unique to you. That no one else can copy. And that makes that content unique and it may make it great from someone’s perspective. Someone may think that is great content. I mean, I don’t think actually anyone ever goes, that was a great, great content. I think that itself is another term I want to sort of come to talk with you about in a bit. But someone will read it and that is great and that’s a greatness in the eye of the beholder as you mentioned it. Yeah, but because it’s relevant and interesting and it’s got a unique slant on it. Between those three things, you create what you call could, could define as great content. As I’m doing my inverted commas, which never works quite as well on audio podcast.
Mark: It bloody well doesn’t does it. And also love the fact that your now referencing in previous shows. And look at you, you podcasts pro. So everyone is now thinking we’re not listened to this random nonsense on the go back to show number one.
Ben: To promote the backpile.
Mark: As you say, it’s really important because when you talk about stuff that nobody else has said. What this comes down to is, it’s differentiation. It’s how we sound completely, what we say is different from everybody else. So what we’re bringing into these old school principles, of marketing but how we’re applying it in a real world sense. It just happens that the with the no gatekeepers that are in front of us. And how we can utilise of medium and linkedin or whatever to express ourselves. If we can do it with their sense of gusto. And more importantly belief because it’s the thing that we’re starting, right. So this is a show that goes out in January please don’t tell me this show is scheduled for March.
Ben: We’ll get you to sign. You’ve sort of already tightened up there. Then sort of hung out to dry that this one will now go out in January
Mark: Where you have so where are we? The thing is is as we start the year and we want to find a rhythm and momentum. We’ve created stuff is how we keep that continuum with it. And how we can still remain fresh. And how we can still remain useful to other people and people wanting to spend time with within the spaces that we have again. But it should all come back from the experiences and the world that we are part of the role that we play within the industries that we represent. Yeah. So if I am within marketing or content marketing, my space is not to say how to buy the best recording microphones or seven topics. You need to be thinking about if you’ll run out of steam on a Friday because there are much better places to find that. Yeah. If you want to use the content marketing institute as a really good resource to pick up when it comes to the actual discipline itself. From my side, the stuff that I will write about is very much about the decide before that that helps us build an audience. And to create loyalty and where does all this come from in term. And that’s why I will express this stuff that I read, the stuff that I see and how that relates to all of us by bringing all these big real world examples of what’s happening. And how that all relates to all of us today with a whole intention to how we could build a loyal audience.
Ben: I think it’s really interesting and where that takes me next. Actually you’ve unknowingly that you’ve lead me to another point that I wrote down earlier. and it’s actually where do we draw that line between. Because people go, _oh, you need to create content that sort of goes out regularly”. You need to sort of create it so it’s not sporadic, you know what I’m trying to say. But it is how much do you would you know if you’re doing too much or too little. I know it’s quite a subjective thing, so I’m not asking you for the pinpoint. You must post weekly and that is it but actually how do you know as your own business whether you’re posting too much or too little. Because someone will say, OK, you need to be doing it so you can be regularly. And if I’m like, OK, I’m a business, I’m a busy business owner. I haven’t got a huge amount of time, so I could only post monthly. Now is the actually pointless. Is there any point you spending time once a month to create a little bit of context? Is that worthwhile for anyone?
Mark: Yeah, that’s a good question. I would say it’s better to, if you’re about the start is better to put your flag in the sand. And say you are prepared to write once a month rather than thinking you’ve just gone crazy and you’ve just sent out. Then you’ve just published five articles in the space of 10 days and then after those 10 days it becomes one a month. The thing is that you do your maybe once a week, maybe once a month. But as long as you can do that and come back to it every single month. For instance, I have an email that I send to every Thursday morning and I’ve been doing it since October 2013. And so I make sure that I effectively book a time in somebody else’s week. That between half past six to 7:00 AM, every Thursday morning. They will receive, will receive an email, called “You are the media” and so it doesn’t matter how frequent that we are.
Ben: Just what matters is, is, is the persistence of the message. Even if it’s once a month, that’s OK as long as, as long as there is an audience, there are people in front of us that are willing that want to receive that and enjoy receiving it. So I know that sometimes you know, I’m also a big believer of this thing of less is more as well. So rather than thinking we have to create loads and loads. So that one article, for instance, that one article that you will send out, but maybe 2000 words that you make maybe 2000 words. You send out one email a month but it’s how that is then used. So that that content that is created can become other different sub themes. Or they will come together to create an ebook or they all this stuff comes to create other things and topics for podcasts, visuals, infographics, tweetables is how we break all this up. And that comes back to the beginning if that’s what great content comes down to is the point of view that we have and how we break it down. So it’s still relevant. No matter medium or channel that we use. Mate, it’s like we rehearsed.
Ben: I know this is brilliant this is exactly what I wanted and this sort of thing that I wanted to sort of show to me. And it was sort of nice here because I also did receive your email every single week. Granted I probably open only about 90% of them, but I think. I think I’m mixed mean your top a couple of percentile.
Mark: That’s cool. But that’s good because that’s the intention, right? You send something a week and it’s like a newsletter. It’s like something you’ve received in the post or whatever and then you put it away. You got on with the day. Then that’s the thing. I do it regularly enough so I’m not intended people to you. When you look at the stats on mailchimp that everything needs to be open to this kind of throwaway thing. It’s there. If it’s in your inbox, read if you want. If not, I’ll be back again next Thursday. It’s that. It’s finding that repetition with a particular time of day or whatever it is during the week or the month that we start to say, I will start to own this day.
Ben: Exactly, and it’s to me it’s great because I know that every Thursday morning I’m going to receive this email. And sometimes I will not have time to look at it but other times I’m like, you know, every time I open it though, there is always something that’s relevant. Even you yourself is interesting. For the reader, which is me and I’m like, look at that, and I could say it to find that as, “Ooh, that’s great content for me”. So actually they’ve, when we talked about earlier taking about scrapping the word “Great content”, actually no, maybe we don’t need to scrap the word great content. But it’s actually doing it’s great content for me or for you now actually that makes it really specific on that. Then saying, look, great content for your customer. Great content itself is meaningless, but I think are the words on the end or creating relevant and interesting instead of great. Suddenly the whole context of what great content is become so defined and much more narrow. It actually means something. It’s not a throwaway comment anymore.
Mark: That’s right. See this becoming like a Cathartic exercise for you. It’s exactly that. As long as something has context to somebody else. That is how it becomes meaningful. Otherwise, we’re just putting stuff out there for the sake of it because what happens is. And I’ve seen it myself, companies that say we’re going to take this on board. And we’re going to start creating and publishing and communicating our message in whatever format. And then you start to see it’s not taken seriously enough. And then when it’s not taken seriously enough, it starts to become a bit of a chore. That we start to cram in on a Friday afternoon and that’s when it does. That’s when it becomes absolutely meaningless. And it’s just understand great content does exist when it has that connection and relevance and is something that somebody else enjoys. Sometimes they go down a bit of a road in a b2b space. Where we’d take ourselves a bit too seriously. When we think that the podcast that we’re doing now has to be a BBC quality or whatever we write has to be seen as they will be seen in the Times. Sometimes we get ourselves a bit too hung up in a little bit holier than thou, when what matters is what we are saying and does it make somebody else smile. Doesn’t make somebody else wants to get in touch on the email and it’s we have all the opportunities that are in front of us today. Sometimes you don’t need to be so hung up on thinking that we have to be the font of all knowledge. No one needs to be Yoda and telling everybody how we should be behaving and acting and performing because the world today is full of. I believe the world is full of people saying, I believe this and this. As long as it’s as long as that. As long as we can back it up. That is what that is. What elevate something that we say. There’s just. It’s just been said before. We’ve done all the list of calls and everything else. As long as somebody can see something that has a bit of thought into it and also with intuition is a big thing as well.
Ben: But then how would people then as a content creator, again. The inverted commas are coming at me. I’m not doing this to, on a content creator. Essentially you’re a marketer, you’re an article writer, you’re a journalist, you’re pressing I mean content. There is never anyone who’s outside the marketing space who’s ever gone or read an article and stuff’s great content and that is, oh, that’s fantastic content. I go, really good news article. It’s a really good piece. I love the blog, whatever it is. But I don’t hear anyone outside of marketing your business go, Oh, you know what? That is a bit of content and email Mark. Thank you so much for that. That was really interesting that article, that new thing. So it’s like an article creative for me almost makes more sense. Yes. It sounds less glamorous, but actually it means exactly the same thing and to be honest actually it means what it means more to other people who are outside of the marketing and business bubble.
Mark: Yeah, because the word content is is that words, art, video or audio that fits the space. That’s what content is and how we utilize that. So it has meaning to someone else is like if we go to a gallery. If me and you went along to a gallery this afternoon, we wouldn’t be in a gallery and say look at that lovely better content in the wall. So you have a frame on the wall and the content is the thing that’s inside it. I think. Yeah, sometimes we do get a little bit. Dragging ourselves down thinking that everything has to be seen as we’re creating content. And I understand it and we create all this stuff so we can be seen as important. You know what I mean, if we have to do this, have to be seen as important in the eyes of somebody else. And it justifies our positions and to be relevant like in anywhere else.
Ben: We pick up on these things and these and these words to deflect attention away from the struggles and accountability that we have. So it’s kind of putting the brakes on, realising the role that we play for somebody else and wearing the shoes of our customers or prospects and whoever. And understanding the things we’ve been told about. The pain points, the things that do their head it. And we are that filter,t puts that spotlight on the industry that we’re part of. Whether we are bakers or whether we’re accountants or in our case marketeers. It’s just putting our perspective on it. So people want to come around to our little campfire. And on that campfire, you will have a lovely, lovely hotdog ready to give out as well as a lovely bottle of prosecco..
Ben: yes, you’re selling the dream to me Mark, selling the dream. B. But seriously though, speaking of, when you mentioned, the sort of spaces. And getting noticed and sort of engaging with your people who want to hear from you. A.And those people that you’re creating these articles, listicles, infographics, whatever it is for..W With that change with FacebookF have announced recently. And now they’re definitely putting this podcast out in January that we are really relevant. Thanks Mark.
Mark: Listen. This is it now, this is topical. When do you put this out on twitter or you’re going to be jumping on that. You’re going to be jumping on some hashtag that’s going on.
Ben: Oh no, I’m going to be creating exactly the same content as everyone else now, Mark. Y. You’ve ruined everything for me. Oh, I even hit the mic then in frustration..
Mark: But yeah. Go on then as you were saying, Facebook..
Ben: Are we going to be seeing, then. Bebecausewe’ve sort of started moving away from this, almost the “Great content” and the “Content is king” sort of thing. Are we going to see any of this comeback now that Facebook is suddenly going to be narrowing their sort of news feed? So business pages are going to be posting, the organic reach is going to diminish further. Always suddenly going to start seeing people go again, go wildly. You just need to create better content. It’s “Great content” again. And how do we actually manage that and what does that actually mean? We’re not creating more content? How do people deal with things? Li? Like the way, you’re building your home on borrowed land. I think it was Seth Godin years ago that said, “ Don’t build your house on borrowed land”. Is it? Am I right in saying that?
Mark: Whoever it was. It was a lovely analogy. I love it.
Ben: Exactly. And now it’s more relevant than ever because people are built all these big communities on Facebook. And now Facebook has gone “Hahaha, you have to pay you for it” and they having a little laugh and a joke. Everyone’s going, what do I do? How? How do I create content now that still going to get read on these sort of sites? Or is it you actually, you know what? You have find another to the platform. What your thoughts on that? I know we’re sort of still have thrown something out there, that you probably weren’t expecting a little bit more. I’m intrigued to hear what you have to say.
Mark: This is great because I find this fascinating. So what Facebook have said is that they’re, they’re almost changing the news feed and we knew, we knew all along that organic reach was dwindling. They even said in 2012 organic reach and if you look for organic reach, your business is going to be like 12% and that was 2012. So basically that is going to be fewer posts from brands pages. A media companies are more from people, more from friends and family. More from those people within our immediate circle. So there is gonna be. I love it. They are saying that there is going to be fewer stuff in front of us that is just, how on earth am I getting targeted with this? Which to me is wonderful. What we’re seeing here is Facebook though, is now changing is understanding. What’s been happening in the past year or so, with fake news and everything else? And they’re looking to address it but it comes this now. When people will be moaning and everything else and it’s Facebook’s ball. In your case, your hockey player aren’t you.
Ben: I am. Yes.
Mark: What we call a ball in that.
Ben: A ball it is simply a ball.
Mark: So it’s Facebook ball. They can do what they like to. What we will probably be seeing is. That’s how they’re going to make money is via space and an ads. Whether it becomes more expensive or whether it becomes harder to be seen. Again, it was easy to just kind of throw money at Facebook campaign and just put something out there and we’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. Just something that puts something together. It’s very ill thought, but at least we can target all these people with our message. That comes to, coming back to what we said at the very beginning, just saying, just create create, create content. That’s great content. Great content is making my company look really, really good because I’m saying all the things that we’re not. Whereas where we come into now is that Facebook and now if now they are putting kaibosh on changing the newsfeed. So it is very much about our friends and family and listen, everyone else can sit on the back burner. What it teaches us, as businesses is, that right now’s the time to have some responsibility and to have to create something to create stuff that is more meaningful to someone else so we can curate and build our own audience. We have these things called emails that we can then direct our message to. Rather than thinking we have to spend money to put it into Facebook where organic has just been cutting back year on year, on year. And now they have and now Facebook has said on Friday the 12th January that we’re gonna make the biggest shift in our newsfeed ever. Ben, I think it’s great. I think it’s great because now it’s teaching us to say, well, we’ve just leaned on this far too easily. I’m sure we did a generation ago where the yellow pages. I don’t know, but you know what I mean. Are we just to spend money in the local press or whatever it is. And we can throw money at it and throw stuff out there but people have been getting into trouble. Last year we saw with extremist content that was on youtube. Again, just take your money so you can put your adverts on youtube feed. So now the brands are waking up to take more responsibility. Google have employed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people to take on board to look at the content that is being created to monitor the extremist content. But now it’s your responsibility as businesses, and as people, to create stuff that is good and people want to be a part of. Because then we got GDPR coming in May and people thinking “oh now I can’t just spam this before 3pm on a Friday”, “You can get this 20% off”. We just have to be more aware of what we are creating and the time of others. isn’t it lovely when someone looks at our stuff and says that’s real good. I hadn’t thought of that and that’s where we need to go. We need to go deeper not wider
Ben: I think it’s really interesting. So I want to sort of clarify in the GDPR stuff very, very quickly. Just for the guys who are listening outside the European Union. So essentially the European Union is bringing a new legislation in the mid part of this year, May times.
Mark: 25th May. Friday 25th May, which is the day after you’re gonna give me a better bit of air time for a certain conference.
Ben: Well, I’ll tell you what. Give me two seconds to talk about GDPR and then.
Mark: I’m going to talk about GDPR and you want to shoe horn some conference in. I’ll shut up
Ben: But I’ll say GDP off the news for those outside the European Union. This is essentially legislation that just makes it much more specific and target. The people have to read the opt in for your marketing messages and with certain words, it’s making everything a lot clearer. And trying to really reduce the amount of spam and “Bad content” is another buzzword that we’ve missed out here. That is bad continent potentially out there or bad practices in terms of generating email it. So if you are interested in that, if you just search for GDPR and you’ll be able to find all sorts of interesting things about that. But then without ignoring something else that’s happening a day before GDP, which is actually probably else that’s happening. There is a little little conference starting on the on the south coast of England. There’s Mark, seems to be a organizing I heard a little rumor.
Mark: Look at that. This is what it’s all about. Cutting to the chase 30 minutes in. Yes, I’m not going to harp on. Youarethemedia.co.uk, so it’s a a day, at the seaside again, about how we create loyalty via the audiences that we’ve built. And we’ve got Mark Schaefer heading over from the US, author of “known” and “content code”. Jason Miller from LInkedin. Sonya Jefferson from Bristol, from valuable content. Great mix of brands and people that doing it, building their audience within the spaces that are there. So there is that segway from Facebook and what they’re doing to the importance of curating and building our own owned audience.
Ben: And that was pretty. I think that’s one of the things that when we’ve talked over the last couple of years, is you have this lunch club as well that you have down in port. And so, can you talk quickly about this lunch club that you did? Because I think this is something I’ve not seen elsewhere before that I think other people would actually find really valuable. I know that obviously podcast goes worldwide in the air and I’m trying to get that down to one or two extra people down there. I’d always be keen to sort of help you grow your little community down next. You’re doing some great stuff down there.
Mark: Thanks Ben. Yeah, so I just very quickly. So I started this email that we talked about earlier in October 2013, called Youarethemedia.com. So that goes out every Thursday morning as I’ve said. And then in 2016, there’s a lot of people from a local audience that are subscribing. Why don’t we all get together and it’s effectively a live blog, that I write about. What we do is that we bring a guest in every month, that is either, somebody that is doing something that relates to building their own space in their own audience. Or more or less, how to nurture a voice, how to do a podcast is coming in February, how to make SEO Organic SEO work. And so what we do, there’d be about 50 to 70 people that get together each month, in Bournemouth. And is that it’s a live blog. I thought OK, so this is built in, hence to do, to step up a level. And 2018, to do a conference on May 25th in this historic theater on the cliff tops of Bournemouth, called Shelley theater. The once home of Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein. And let’s do it. Let’s bring everybody down and then realise that if we can bring good marketers. It doesn’t have to mean that we will have to go to London, we can do it in places that we may not have seen before. But where the sun shines and we can all enjoy cornetto together. Ben
Ben: A cornette together, in my mind that that Muller Corner. Don’t make me start singing it because I’ve got an atrocious singing voice. My girlfriend will absolutely hate it, if I start singing on the podcasts. I know she tuned into one of the first episodes and she said, please, whatever you do, do not start singing. Because I know, I know.
Mark: No.
Ben: I know on your old podcast you used to sing at the start of intro and it made me happy. But you know, I cannot make my on my audience suffer yet. I’ve got to wait until I tell build a more loyal audience before I start turning them off with my singing voice.
Mark: I was waiting for this thing to come out. A valley choir sort of “summer time”. That kind of thing a male voice quietly with that Welsh lilt that I hear.
Ben: Oh, you’d be nothing but disappointed, Mark. I don’t think. I don’t think, I could ruin our friendship. By you expecting this big thing for me and me not being able to deliver? I couldn’t do that to you. But before we let you shoot off, I want to know some other buzzwords and I want to know from what you’re hearing at your lunch clubs. In your speaking because I know you’ve spoken a couple of years at content marketing world. I want to hear some buzzwords that you hear out there that you absolutely love and you think a great. I also want to hear about some buzzwords that you think are not so great and I think overused or just don’t really mean anything. Give me some of your thoughts on some of those buzzwords out there.
Mark: OK, well listen to the things I’ve mentioned. They popped up a lot through today’s show. Those words that I love is loyalty, to me is loyalty. It just so happens that we can use words like inbound, outbound, influencer marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, account based marketing, whatever. The thing that in my eyes joins everything together is loyalty, is loyal customers. That’s what we all want at the end of the day. So that to me is a particular buzzword that I’m extremely enthused about because when it works is a beautiful thing. And then also again, my thing that I’ve been trying to build over these past few years is audience. I think audiences vital when we hear, when we talk about Facebook and putting the brakes on businesses being seen in the feeds. It just highlights the importance of nurturing and building our own audience. Yeah. So, those two words for me, a very pertinent at the moment. Those words don’t like and I know you’ll be covering them. This is how we use the phrase, “the hustle” and how we use the Americanisms within, particularly within the UK. And listen to overseas audience foreign based, how we use these Americanisms that don’t necessarily fit. That words. Yeah. The hustle that we see in , where it was the few years ago was seen as graft is hard work. But how are we using this thing hustle, I don’t know. They’re those things that word particularly sits uncomfortably with me.
Ben: Well that’s one of those things that isn’t actually. Sometimes it’s trying to understand that actually that these words aren’t necessarily always just plain black and white. As good and bad as we’ve seen from the latest Star Wars. Then there’s no such thing as pure good or pure evil anymore. Actually a lot of it’s down to perspective actually.
Mark: What did you think of it?
Ben: I actually quite liked it, you know. Not necessarily for the purists but there are moments in that wasn’t overly like, “oh my God, that’s incredible”. I mean there was, I’m not going to chuck any spoilers because there will always be that one person out there who hasn’t seen it yet. Yeah. You know who you are
Mark: Or imagine if this podcast turns into an hour and a half, talking about the latest Star Wars. And why wasn’t right when Luke skywalker chucked his lightsaber.
Ben: Yeah. Or when the Leia just sort of floated and you just sort of pointed at something, went there anyway. We’d go into that but I enjoyed it. But again, it can use those perspectives of things actually, and it’s actually some of these words are great for certain audience in America. Or even in the UK or elsewhere in Europe, Africa, wherever it is. But actually they do not translate or move across very well because someone is saying in a certain thing and it makes a lot of sense for the type of audience, type of people, the type of businesses. That are in such area in the center of London or center of New York’s nice big metropolitan cosmopolitan cities. Actually hostile may make sense of it, which we’ll soon find out in a couple of shows time hopefully. But actually does it make sense when it’s like Pool or Cardiff or.
Mark: It doesn’t sounds right going, “Hey danny boy” but I could use hustle in that. Not In that context. That’s right. But as we are talking now a man that lives on the south coast of England, a middle-aged man on the south coast of England. A man’s hustle is another man’s graft.
Ben: Exactly. And people will have to stay tuned to when I get, someone will talk about hustle. And then they went into all the other stuff will kick off that and then the mic will get dropped and all sorts of things may explode. But in a non-literal sense. Right. Thank you so much Mark. Today, it’s been an absolute pleasure, been a blast. And I’ve learned so much and hopefully other people on was much about content. Actually sort bring it back to its core a little bit more, is what is the point in content. And actually what does great content mean? I think it’s been absolutely incredibly insightful and I’m really excited to put this a episode in January. Don’t worry, Mark, you’ve tied my hands truly on that one. But no, seriously, I really excited to share this. So thank you so much for coming on. Mark it’s has been an absolute pleasure,
Mark: Ben. I’ve been absolutely lovely to be part of this show. Thank you for your time, my friend and appreciate it. And I’ll see you soon.
Ben: Take care mate.
