 Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for today's program building an engaged audience. My name is David Shelby I'm with the US State Department, and I will be the moderator for today's program This program is brought to you by the US Embassy in South Africa, and it is part of the embassy's energy 21 initiative energy 21 is a partnership between the embassy and private sector organizations and NGOs in South Africa working in the renewable energy sector together looking for ways to raise awareness among the South African public and about renewable energy about the benefits that South Africa has already gained from renewable energy and to hopefully build support for increased investment in this area And I think there's no one who can better help us explore ways of raising awareness and motivating audiences than today's guest Today we'll be joined by Michael Bella via who is an Emmy award-winning producer and a marketing executive in Los Angeles, California Michael is also the founder and CEO of helps good Helps good is a marketing firm and focuses specifically on working with NGOs with government agencies and with corporate social responsibility Teams to raise awareness of social good issues So I think Michael will have a lot to share with this It will be applicable to some of the things that we're looking at in the energy sector But also I think it will be applicable to a much broader array of Interest that some of our audience members may be focused on and just raising awareness about social good issues So just a few words about the order of the program today I'm going to turn it over in just a moment to Michael who will be giving us a presentation some of his original Thoughts off the top about how he would go about approaching a campaign on social good issues And then we'll turn it over to a question and answer session And let me point out to you that you can at any time during the program enter your questions into the chat box Which you see on the screen in front of you and we'll try to get to as many of those questions as we can during the question and answer session So without any further ado, please let me introduce Michael Bella via So I want to start with an adventure. I took yesterday actually It was with my son out here in California. I'm originally from New York and I have never seen something like this In my life. We went about an hour's out drive outside of Los Angeles to poppy fields It's the California State Poppy Reserve and we were surrounded by these orange and yellow flowers all over the place What I didn't expect was going to happen was that there's going to be also a solar field, you know nearby But part of this journey was I got to take my son out on an adventure that I hadn't seen Before a site I hadn't seen before I also have in my car with me a smoky bear doll Which is one of the campaigns that I work on I don't know if you're familiar with it in South Africa, but it's a wildfire prevention campaign It's a partnership with the ad council the US Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters And it's all about preventing wildfires using this bear is the longest running public service campaign in American history That's his first poster behind me So I also carry this doll with me usually everywhere I go on these adventures And so take a photo this photo is going to wind up on his social channels in the next couple days Social channels meaning Facebook Twitter all part of the marketing just talking about wildfire prevention But with a doll Image of him what I did see along this journey was right nearby this poppy field where thousands of people were walking by Was the solar panel field filled with them it must have gone on for a couple of miles there well, what I found strange though was it's surrounded by a chain-link fence and chicken wire which is totally understandable, but There was no sign explaining what this field was and I actually intentionally drove around the whole thing Just to see what it was There was one small sign explaining what the field was and there was no no welcoming or greeting sign to it Meanwhile, there are thousands of cars streaming by this thousands of people and this is an event that happens every year So I know this may be an odd a bit to point out since my background is focused mostly on Digital and looking at ways to leverage digital first to communicate about your brand and your story and and to reach an audience But this was an offline Interaction here where it's just already there's a wall put up. So as a consumer I'm like the solar thing seems immediately outside of my world and not something for me So why am I bringing this up? Basically wanted to show even from this little story that I gave you that you got a few pieces of information about me Rather than me just spilling out like the preamble about who I am and what I do Tried to give a little bit of a sense of who I am and what I do and my lens on things by the story that I just gave So you see What is the story and what did I try to communicate? You know that I have a son You know that well, I'm originally from New York, but I now live in California Know that I went and saw these poppies. You know that I work on the smoky bear campaign that I work on Digital first I run a digital first agency and that I sold saw this solar panel set up There's also things in that story that I just told that you don't know because I didn't tell them to you You don't know that even though while I was taking that photograph with My son the place was crawling with bugs. I remove that from the story You don't know that all we were covered in pollen as well And you don't know that it was teeming with cars just jammed with cars everywhere So just again another example of when you're telling a story You're realizing that you're trying to engage an audience in a different way You try to be personal about it. You try to give information that's relevant You also try to hold back on information that may not be pertinent in that given moment so The kind of standard way that most people would usually tell their story about who they are and what they do May look like something like this where you're just saying I run a social good agency that inspires action and that we Focus on branding and marketing and communication that we have offices in los angeles in new york And these are some of the clients that we work with everything from usa id to nonprofits to EtnT when they're trying to do social good So there are a variety of ways that you can even tell your own story be a short one an elevator pitch or your straight and direct one So to focus on how to engage an audience Try to start from the point of how do you actually tell your story Right from the start for your organization or for even yourself as I told a little bit of my own story So it starts with knowing your yourself very well So knowing your purpose and that's really your vision mission and objectives That vision is that dream of who you are so I took made an example in this case that I'll step through a couple times that Basically, let's say my vision is I want every home powered by solar A mission would be more of the what and the why really it's concise and it's outcome oriented that might be To build an affordable energy to build energy efficient homes That create energy independent neighborhoods And then an objectives might be very specific Like how i'm going to accomplish that and when i'm going to do that So that could be i'm going to increase the percent of homes that have solar installed on them in the next X number of months where i'm going to increase it in this neighborhood in particular by 30 And then you start thinking through okay What are the strengths that my organization has that we can do this like what are the things that we have Or what are some of the weaknesses that are that we might come up against So we have a big we have a strong pedigree in building homes and building homes in particular that integrate solar in them throughout An alternative resources throughout We also have but the only problem is we have a limited buyer database of those people specifically interested in integrating solar into their homes So then you want to see dual strengths and weaknesses aligned with what your purpose is what we just had outlined there Then we want to start thinking about our audience and really who they are where they are what they how they interact What they engage in what are they interested in? In this case my audience would be high-end home buyers folks that are cost insensitive They might be interested in the environmental benefits of going towards alternative energy sources They probably are going to live in higher income regions if they're going to be spending money on this And so we're going to also target them in ways that we know that they're concerned about the aesthetics of this Of their home they're concerned they want to be seen as a trendsetter Like they want to be on the on the leading edge And they may have a little bit of a cost, but most likely they're cost insensitive largely So then we're going to start thinking about how do we reach these people? so Again part of that story and these may seem like well you started off with like a very flowery story and all all these things Basically, I just want to get to the guts of the story first in my head I want to bullet out each of these things So each of these I might would say for you to think about your own Organization and what you're trying to accomplish. I just put the high level bullets on So then you're thinking about the strategies of how we'd want to reach out to these Folks that are in these high-end homes that want solar installed that are cost insensitive And we're going to try to provide them with information That and ways that we can enhance their lives for them We're going to try to see how do we enhance Even the home building process for them in ways that they may not have thought about and make it as easy as possible How do I lower those barriers to them opting into getting solar installed and wanted to work with us versus Not getting solar installed in their new home And then we're going to try to change Basically try to make this whole process easier for them along the way So in this example, I looked at well, let's try to modify some certain things that they're dealing with maybe we're going to actually go out there and Lobby that local government that local neighborhood that local community organization and make presentations to them We're going to do some home tours of one house that we have and really invite people in and do a high touch situation Uh, we have lots of in-person meetings really focus on pr specifically to this one neighborhood Blanket them in particular And that would form some partnerships with some high-end retailers High-end re realtors like the folks selling these homes and really kind of uh, so that we are selling almost our services together I might use some online efforts. I might produce some video content and distributed to them directly might try to see if I could leverage that realtors email and Push my messaging out through that realtors email since before I even push out my own messaging through my own channels And I might use some recommendation sites as well So the other thing I would say is realize that as you're telling your story and crafting it Uh, that your story isn't going to exist in a vacuum So I have my bullets out about my own vision mission my objectives the audience and how like how I might start to get there But then realize that there's a broader landscape here. There might be Uh, a neighborhood council that is somebody that I need to work around and be up against There might be some government local government policies that are in place that may not be in my favor There might be some competitors out there What are their strengths try to I need to bullet those out as well and see what is it that they do? How do they attack this market in ways that I might not be thinking of are there things that they focus on that? I don't have the ability to maybe they're not partnering with some of these other Potential partners. Maybe I want to focus on that Then and again, I want to look at what are some of the constraints I have Maybe I don't have enormous budgets for paid media purposes. Uh, maybe there's some language or cultural barriers that I need to think about Just also remember you aren't the only one that's out there to tell your own story for you Try to recruit others. That was the example of trying to look at how do I pull in these realtors that might be on my side And who could tell that story for me How do I see well making sure that all of my employees know these same bullet points that I've just outlined and This story that we do want to tell making sure all of them are on that same page too So that in any interaction that they go on anywhere that they go They're able to tell that story even in a very quick way for us So even when I'm not with my intentional marketing hat on that I'm trying to use every opportunity that I have along the way Maybe there's some influencers that I could tap and those could be ones that I have current relationships with Or that I'm going to try to cultivate relationships with over time Knowing that I want to particular target a particular audience segment So as I'm crafting this story now now, you have all these bullets about who you are and what you're doing And who you're trying to get to I'm now trying to add some flowery language to it and craft that story In my head really kind of giving you a little bit of a journey But I'm also not just thinking about that journey here I'm in a presentation now and I'm talking to you about what my Story was yesterday as well as what is the story that we go through as an agency to help clients Tell their own stories So the thing I'm doing it via a webinar though So in the vast universe of ways that you and platforms that you can tell stories a webinar is one of them There's everything from pr press Social media your website your email newsletter video content static imagery photographs There's a vast array Of platforms that you can tell your your story and usually you're producing content Then to and then marketing that content in order to make sure that story gets communicated And to broaden your reach and deepen engagement with folks and usually in Most segments you're going to see this hub and spoke model It doesn't always have to be exactly like this what you're seeing on screen But there is usually some main platform that you're trying to drive everybody to So usually it will be your website And then you will have all of the elements that I just was mentioning that push back people To your website so it could be everything from like that solar panel installation I saw yesterday imagine if they had signage out there There were thousands of people driving by there What a missed opportunity to even educate people about solar Talk about what it's doing and even if that is just a solar field That is supplying power to some region that is miles and miles away Somebody else knowing that once a year to set up some signage for that one time Advertising solar and everybody had to park their cars along there So they had to walk by there and you could have engaged with everybody right then and there So there might be some odd marketing opportunities that you may not even be thinking about So we want to look at offline and online opportunities to engage that audience Another way to think about it is that there might be Touchpoints that you can reach a broad swath of humanity as well as other touchpoints Where you can only get to a few people at a time So like the the internet and paid or earned media you're able to reach a wide berth of people But really you may be reaching people that you have no interest in Attracting at a given time whereas if you're able to organize some of those in person in home events that I talked about Well, you know if I could invite some people over to look at one model home that has That's a fancy home that has solar installed in it that where the solar panels aren't aesthetically Displeasing to the eye that if I can convince that small group of people Then that's probably a really great target to get but I got to get them there also So there are a vast array of tools that you can use to kind of pull And platforms they could use to tell your story This is a laundry list and after this presentation I think it's going to be made available and this shows everything from if you want to use video to tell your story If you're trying to do it on your site if you're trying to measure the impact of your site If you're using google analytics and google adwords How you what tools that you could use to better tell your story? I just made a survey also of some sites out there that in some of them u.s Based some of them african based that tell story about solar and what their lens on it is This is a an organization that is talking about solar for luxury homes and how they would install it Just look at even you can't read this But just visually this is supposed to be an organization that's targeting Luxury home buyers that want to integrate solar right now This doesn't look like a very luxury driven experience So your story is also being told not just in the direct ways and the text that you're giving out there It's being given in the imagery and the density of information and the quality of your website So take a look at the quality of the materials that you're also using to deliver your story because that also Tells a lot about who you are and what where your story is coming from Regardless of how you and the words you're speaking at any given time This is an organization in africa that is telling a very emotional Story where they are Using solar energy to supply people power to people in Regions who where they can't get access ready access to power and where they don't have it on a regular basis So in their description about who they are, which is they're like kind of they're about us message It really is a very emotional tug to it Even though they're supplying power to what sounded like tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people And giving people energy independence They try to take tell that story of who they are and what they do in a very personal way Everything is with the people's faces that they're being that they are readily impacting not solar panels not the Not any of that tech equipment, but the actual people in their lives that are being impacted This is a very different approach. This is somebody that wants you to personally bank on him This is in kentucky in the united states He's saying i have a personal experience of having installed solar panels in many homes. We've gotten great experience here I am helping reinvigorate america making america in energy independent and here i am He's putting himself first and foremost because he's got his own personal connections in his local region So he wants you to affiliate with him directly So his story is all very me focused Again, just a different approach on how to tell a story and this is something in west hollywood here where I live Again, they're trying to take not a people approach. Just a very elegant direct response approach to the way they tell their story We want you to know that you can do these things about about getting solar installed And it's very simple for you to sign up making the process which may seem Very convoluted and how do I get started with solar? They boil it down to just give me your email address and that's it So just as a some Realize everything that you're doing kind of shapes your story And when you're saying telling your story You want to be conscious of trying to be as emotional as possible about it using descriptive language Try to get as personal as you can about it And some of these maybe you get more personal like that last man We did where your face is very much a part of your story and your organization and who you are Show what matters most to you put that front and center like I started with my own son He's front and center with me even if I am doing business. I try to see how I can integrate them into it And I try to look for ways to educate and entertain along the way make it a little more Interesting as I'm telling my story about the work that I do And you want to try to start your story in the middle of it and then see how you can bring people into it Instead of just taking them right from the start of that journey So in some the best way you can say to build an engaged audience really is Starting right from the scratch level Crafting your story in a way that it really gets at what are my best strengths? Who am I? What am I really trying to do? Leveraging who I what I have the assets that I have at hand Looking at who's out there in that marketplace that I might be having to come up against to compete against And how are they attacking it and how I might be able to be a little noisier than them? Given that there may be a lot of noise around us And you want to look at what platforms that I can own Yes, I mentioned the website and then email and video and all these other things But for a small business person that could be a lot I know for us as a small business when we try to market ourselves I we don't get involved in everything every platform We focus on some strong ones that we know we can own Particularly make sure our website is Clear about what we do and then we look at trying to rope people into our email list So that we then can market to them on a regular basis And we have everything pushed back to our website so that they can get up to date information And they could always find out how to contact us and engage with us and always see What are the new case studies we're working on And then we also want to try to inspire others to tell our story In this case, I'm getting an opportunity to tell my story and our organization story to lots of people Maybe look for ways that you could partner with associations to tell your story and leverage it yourself and your own voice And help get others to tell your story along the way without having to pay for it all the time because that can get very expensive so that was just a broad overview of how to Cultivate that audience by making sure your story itself is really honed down and crafted So thanks want to open it up at this point for our questions And after this I also want to highlight I have some additional resources that will be part of this presentation that i'm Turning over to you folks and that has everything from some books that you may want to reference that go deeper into your brand storytelling As well as kind of platforms that you can use and leverage that will help you on digital and social media Tell your story in very cheap and affordable ways really Right. Thank you, michael. Thank you for those remarks And thank you for giving us a lot to to think about there So we'll move into question and answer and let me just remind you If you're joining us out there from South Africa, please feel free to drop your questions into the chat box And we'll pass them along to michael and hopefully we'll be able to get as many of those as possible Let me first just start off. So i'm asking a little bit more about How you ended up where you are michael, so you come from a background of working in And marketing as well as other areas of communication No doubt there's plenty of opportunity out there to Take your skills and apply them to selling cars selling laundry detergent And yet you've chosen to focus specifically on social good issues So i'm curious to know in part, how did you end up there? And also i'm curious to know if you feel like there is Some sort of specific opportunities or challenges that you face in in working in this area of social good issues That are maybe different from standard marketing sure for the longest time i was working in the entertainment space And had just seen what was going on in the broader market This goes back to like 2005 through 2010 where youtube was coming on board where social was taking That was growing by leaps and bounds and it was just showing how even though I used to be working for all these entertainment studios Brands were having to become almost many entertainment studios to communicate themselves like coca-cola was always putting out just 30 second ads But now they were trying to also get you entertained on their website give you an emotional appeal Into their social media channels in all these other platforms across digital across apps And it just seemed like wow this is a huge opportunity and Everybody is trying to entertain and engage and educate an audience now So along the way we had done one project for the ad council Which is a large nonprofit here in the states that works with other ngo's government Other nonprofits in order to help communicate their messages And it was a small project to build a website and that grew into other opportunities with them And it grew into that smoky bear campaign that we still work on for the past six years with them now The the constraints though that we have in helping those nonprofits Tell their stories is usually budget oriented where they don't have the ability to pay a lot They have a lot of people's heartstrings wrapped up In there in those causes like in heart health or prostate cancer And so we try to unlock and tap into all of those people that are Like have very personal stories about those causes and we try to leverage those personal stories that people have and use digital channels Like sharing the those personal stories across social media about What about the impact about cancer is had on their life or about recycling and how it's helped improve neighborhoods or build New playgrounds out of recycled materials for kids So we really have gotten an opportunity to see Using entertainment means like video and audio via podcasts or any other kind of tools in the mini arsenal to entertain and educate people in different ways, but just about Just different ways that they can help improve the planet through some of these social good efforts And you can see even that one brand that I pointed out in the presentation They were very focused on the impact that they are making on these people's daily lives who had no access to electricity And now solar is the only way that they're really getting access to electricity Thanks. Um, so you touched on a point that I think is probably relevant to many of our um our listeners, which is A limited budget I suspect many of the folks who are listening to us today are In companies or in organizations that don't have marketing Departments and they don't have a tremendous resources to put behind marketing and communications But one of the things that um struck me with the the example that you opened up with there With your trip out to to the poppy field was that This was an event that on the surface of it had nothing to do with your job of being a marketing executive But yet you've found an opportunity to put your smoky bear Out there and take a picture with the poppies and you mentioned that we would be seeing that on smoky bears Social feeds in the coming days. So it's about sort of looking for those opportunities that are out there even in your daily life and not necessarily Having to spend your your your job just being a marketing executive I don't know if you could maybe expand on that a little bit about Sort of some of the opportunities that people might have even though they're not necessarily marketing people Even though they're not necessarily their job is not to um to be out there marketing Um opportunities that they might be overlooking in their daily lives to uh to market their their cause Sure lunch conversation most likely you're going to eat at some point during that the day So really make sure that that story that you have that you made when you have your marketing on hat on for your organization And you're trying to think about how do I go out there and spread this to a wide number of people You may want to also think about how do I Spread my message on in one-on-one situations if i'm having lunch with somebody Making sure my elevator pitch about my organization is really tight so that I can say hey, this is what I do I'm looking for x can you help me or are you interested in this and if not you Then do you know somebody who might be interested in doing that? So there are like again for our own organization We don't have a marketing budget That we really kind of put towards it We and it's always difficult because we do marketing for all our clients, but it's not always easy doing Saving the time to do marketing for yourselves So we look for ways to kind of automate the process a little bit as much as possible So that's where we do have some email newsletters where we sometimes will curate news From that's out there and then send that out on a regular basis That's where we make sure that our website always has all of our information That's that we want to communicate up to date the latest case studies that we're working on But we do attend events that are relevant to our industry to also communicate to Other people in our industry because it helps cut out a lot of the noise for us And help us find clients that are also trafficking in those same events So some of it is just a matter of always being prepared And I know you're not supposed to sweat the small stuff But frankly a lot of times the small interactions that you can have you never know where those can lead to Some of the biggest opportunities that we had were from Like serendipity Really from hearing something that was talked about on the radio And then just being having the the wherewithal to call and track down that organization that was being advertised on the radio And saying hey, you sound like folks that we should work with we want to work with you This these are the reasons why we want to work with you. This is what we have to offer And let's go and do something. Thanks. Um, so I'd like to to move to one of the questions from our viewers here And you sort of touched on that they're getting into talking about the importance of maintaining your digital marketing Platforms, but we have a question from Beverly who asks it's a small new business trying to get the digital marketing up and running Is it best to keep all the digital marketing uniform or to change it up from Different social media platforms. Obviously different social media platforms have different capabilities And perhaps different audiences So is it best to try and keep this unity of message or is it best to try and focus on specifically Different platforms what they can do differently So there's a few questions in there actually so some of the there are a variety of different social platforms Some of them seem skew more towards different audiences and age ranges and demographics So if you've heard of snapchat that is going to definitely be for a younger set So if that is your target, I would focus on that It may also be just based on your resources There are so many different social channels now and so many different digital platforms That it can be maddening try to keep up with all of them So I would also say stick with and focus on the one two three That you really can master and that you yourself use on a regular basis So if you don't snapchat, don't use it just but If you if you can use facebook and your audience is on facebook focus on that But yes, there are certain types of content that do better on these social channels So if I have the ability to be live and in the moment like if I'm A construction person installing solar on somebody's home snap might snapchat might be interesting if i'm going after Millennial home buyers and they want to see what's the process of integrating solar into that hole And I might have my phone with me and carry it around and like And tell those stories and that could be very live of the moment Maybe it's instagram where I want to take photographs and I could really take these very lush photos Or they have access. Maybe I'm more on the Kind of science side of this whole spectrum of solar and maybe I'm looking at new developments in solar solar And so twitter might be a better place to share some links or long form blogs where I can really dive into the information Or facebook where I'm curating news from other sources. So you may want to look at the target audience Your own skill set that's there the kind of content that you have to share As well all of those things might factor into the decision of Kind of platform and a number of platforms that you focus on. Thanks. Um, so we have another question that's come in It's a similar related but slightly different. Um on The question of you know, whether you keep sort of a unified message across audiences or you use different messages And that's that's where you're dealing with cultural diversity So, um, is there a special approach that we can take in targeting a broader audience or should we develop? um unique stories for Audience segments, so we've worked with an organization here in the states called united way That uh is one of the largest nonprofits in the united states And so one of the things that we looked at with them is that they were sharing content Basically day and day across all over their social channels Which was it's fine to do by the way to make everything look across the uniform across It does help to vary it up basically to use stronger imagery on a channel like instagram, which is very visually driven But you the other thing is when you want to go after different kind of demographic segments Some of these platforms give you the ability to target in very different ways So and that targeting could be in a paid manner So you can boost post some facebook and target them to different regions Uh across the country and change that messaging. We just did that was smoky where we had Messaging that was the exact same messaging But the photograph changed that we targeted men with one image and women with another image based on which one we thought would perform better You can do the same thing with people with different language With different regions of where they live With different backgrounds in general And you can even do that if without targeting like within a facebook post you can do that with hashtags Like kind of almost glomming on to other subgroups that may be chatting about something You can insert yourself into their conversation as well by using a hashtag that they may be using So there are different ways that you can enter into this conversation in Digital in ways that you never used to be able to do if you were just making a television spot and you had to just Litz it out there really great, um So, uh I'd like to see the examples that you gave in there of of a couple of different websites that you showed one That wasn't really telling a very compelling story about luxury solar and another one that was telling a very simple story about Rendable energy being used in africa And it seems to me that sort of one of the key differences there was the the use of compelling images um Do you feel like uh that as somebody who's who's dabbling in marketing this who has Part of their job is to try and figure out how to communicate what they're doing That they should be giving special attention to the use of compelling images as opposed to texts dense uh heavy messages I think it really depends again on who you are targeting and and The audience is that you're trying to engage so if i'm trying to market My my business and i'm like really interacting with the the engineers behind solar Well, then maybe I might use medium or some other place that has Text and it's very text focus and very dense in a way But if i'm really going after a consumer audience Most of the time i'm going to want to make sure that I have strong imagery And so either i'm going to want to be able to get up to speed in terms of taking strong imagery If i'm a small marketing team like I again like I was out and about and I took that photograph of smoky I'm not a professional photographer. I took the photograph with my iphone Uh, but you may want to get up to speed yourself But there are also in that list of tools that I have uh that we could just page through later on or they could look at After this presentation. There are some resources that you can turn to that have Stock imagery royalty free imagery. There's even outplaces and I included in that list imagery that is more instagram friendly Where it looks very much of the moment and of real people versus stock photographs you a lot of times you could see That just has a Feeling a phoniness about it. So there are lots of other resources now that have cropped up that are very much focused on Like easy low cost solutions to give you access to imagery Uh that you could use on some of these social channels But yes, I would say Make sure those photographs are relevant and that they are compelling and that they tell your story the best The reason why I gave that first example of that one website is Luxuries in their name. So it's communicating who they are But it wasn't very much so communicating a luxurious experience In the in the visuals of that website and the way the information was presented So I would also make sure that make sure those images that you are leveraging Really kind of talk to who you are as an organization and what you're all about and what the message you're trying to communicate Thanks So we have another question that's come in from our viewers for folks who Have a pr background. What skills can they develop or how could they get involved in developing social good campaigns and programming? So, um, how could uh, folks who are Interested in the type of work that you're doing how how would you suggest that they go about pursuing that? So I would look at uh, first I would think about again your own story What are some of the causes that and concerns that you're interested in And then look at since you're saying you're an example that you are have a pr background If you have clients look and see what some of their interests are and not as an organization but also with the personal interests of the owners are And see maybe there are ways that you can partner with them in terms of doing some of the good that They do and helping to further it So in that example that I gave about a radio story that I heard that was a true story Where it wasn't even it was the business owner talking about His business but as an aside he mentioned about a small charity that he runs that works with animals an animal husbandry and Jumped on that that wasn't the focus of this news story but I wound up tracking down that person and talking about some of the other work that we had done around animal husbandry And looked at seeing ways that we could work with them in a small way. We did a lot of good like Uh trading efforts as far as them their business supplying us with some goods And then we provided them with some marketing services about this charity that it was involved in And then it grew from there into a client relationship So yes, there may be some ways that you're having to like do some exchanges of some Some work like where I will do some uh trade work with you if you do something for me Uh, but there are lots of organizations now. They're seeing the benefits and corporations seeing the benefits of using a social good angle to sell something versus purely the The product attributes like tastes great less filling. Uh, instead of just focusing on that they may be focused on Uh, the ways that their product helps Shape the world itself by making people happier or some other means Thanks. It's maybe a nice segue into another question. We've had that came in from our viewing audience And one that's very relevant to me someone who works in the government work If you're working in private sector, if you're working in consumer goods, uh, you know when your campaign has been effective because people buy more of your product But when you're working in social good, sometimes it's a little bit more difficult to measure effectiveness So the question that's come in here is that there are a number of tools available to use analytics And measure effectiveness How do you incorporate analytics into a campaign to determine if what you're doing is working or if you should change your approach So in in the case of even me giving this presentation Like I should be thinking about Like my key performance indicators some of these metrics that I want to measure at the end of this thing So that could be everything from having a survey at the end of this getting feedback from you Like when we talk about this presentation, maybe a day later Or it could be me asking the audience and then giving comments about what they feel about it all along the way So yes, when you are going out there to tell your story and leveraging different platforms You should have as part of those that vision mission and objectives You need to see that you have a path of measuring How you're doing towards those objectives because you then want to be iterating on your strategies and tactics all along the way And having a defined period of time So let's say a six month period and revisiting that or even on a quarterly basis or a weekly basis So for some of the social and digital campaigns that we work on We're looking at those metrics on a weekly basis and those could be everything from The number of viewers who looked at our tweets the number the average reach the degree of engagement The number of people that clicked through and went to a website website visits time on site The number of bounces off of a website the number of new visitors how they came to that site. Were they on mobile? Were they on uh, were they on a tablet or were they on uh desktop? We look at each of those different measures and then we figure out Well, which are the key measures for us? Like do I do I care if? I have people that are coming to me on mobile versus a desktop Well, in some cases I might be really care about that because I may want to put more of my advertising dollars On mobile experiences and forget advertising on desktop because I want my marketing dollars to go The furthest that they can so yes, we are always looking at well What are the the metrics that are most relevant to us in any given time? And in particular for social good, we use proxy measures So for the smoky bear campaign that could be the measure of how many wildfires are Are happening across the united states of america that is the ultimate goal We want to decrease that but I may be using proxy measures along the way I may look at the reach of our tweets the reach of our facebook posts So seeing how many people have been able to get involved with his message at any given point And then we also do tracking studies to see What is the awareness level of smoky on a regular basis? And see how that changes over time great. Um Yeah, so I can say that I'm very aware of smoky bear and he was part of my formative years So tremendous success in that campaign over a very long period of time Let's talk a little bit more about social media if we could We have a question that's coming about the types of interactions that we should be looking at on social media As real measures of impact and bringing in The people that we want to so when you're looking at various social media platforms Are there specific types of interactions that that you look for? You're looking at ways to Expand your reach and deep in engagement with people So ideally you're not just spewing out. This is me. This is us. This is my story. This is my story So in this context, I was invited in I was introduced and then I was people were told that you're going to be Listening to a webinar provided by michael ballavia If I had just come in here and I was just like, hey, here's my story This is what I'm all about. You don't go into a room in a restaurant and start screaming. This is my story This is who I am No, you get invited into a conversation So you have to know the environment where you're at You have to make sure that you've earned the right to do that So even and that goes the same case with social if you're always just spewing out your own story That's not very social To a large extent So you want to see ways that you can weave your story in to other stories Levers the stories that are maybe being told by some of your customers and clients Highlight their stories and show how your what you do helped them do their own jobs better Deep in the engagement ask questions along the way See if you can pull out information from the people that are following your social channels And if they do respond to you jump on that don't just let those responses just kind of fly out there Really use it as an opportunity to Start a conversation with folks because that is what you're really trying to do because if I'm Right now I'm just talking to you and I'm telling you my perspective on things And I will likely never see or hear from any of you ever again But if I'm able to have A conversation with you and we start up a relationship I definitely want to make sure that I maintain that relationship as much as possible Some relationships I'm going to go deep on like the one with my my son And then other relationships I may see you once a year or twice a year or maybe once every five years or so Or once every six weeks But I want to make sure that then my marketing message that I'm conveying is appropriate to The number of times I've wanted to see you and the amount of interactions that I have and the ways that I can interact with you Thanks, and maybe just to pick up on that So we've talked quite a bit about engaging in conversations on social media Can you talk a little bit about your experience and then taking people Taking that conversation and and encouraging them to to move offline with it and actually do something driving people to an offline action Through your social media engagement So through social more often than not we make sure that our about section is very fleshed out there because that always will Is a persistent way to tell your story. We make sure that the site is linked out there as well We always put into rotation not just posts When we're talking about ourselves, we do put in posts about Our site and ways to get to it because we do try to drive people there We try to make sure that people know that we have an email list to opt into because we want to be able to Deepen that engagement that way We look for other ways to kind of talk to them about events that we might be running in And provide them with content that they may not be expecting So that could be us providing them with a white paper or here's a free white paper Or here's a free webinar or we're going to be at this other event and we're going to be giving something away for free So looking for ways and hooks that you can pull people in That then they are going to provide you with an email or there are going to want to go to your website to sign up for that webinar So that you have a you get their email in a way that they weren't even thinking that oh, I just gave them my email It's because they think that they were going to get something Something out of of value from you that then okay, sure I'm willing to exchange something of value Of mine, which is my email and give that to you So there might be other means of just saying hey give us your email Maybe you're providing a value to them in order to get access to something that they value as well Thanks. Um So we have another question here about uh, the process of putting together a messaging campaign and Someone is asking how much time should someone how much time should they actually be focused on putting together this campaign and thinking through the details and putting together a strategy and And um, you know, is there a process of we need to create a written strategy Are there other sort of steps along the way that people need to be thinking about? So It really depends on how much time you have to put towards it To a large extent if you're in a corporation, they have teams of people that are Preciousing over their marketing plan if you're at nabisco or coca-cola. There are teams of people and wads of data that they're analyzing and looking at and Focusing on to see how do they communicate their message? But for a small business person like you or me Usually it may be I'm going to put my marketing plan on a cocktail napkin and that's all I got the time to do So again, I look back at this presentation that I gave You could just have one bullet point much like I did there and that could be your marketing plan That's in your head know that these are the things that I want to target This is the way I'm going to communicate that story and this is who I'm going to focus on and then hold yourself to it Keep that cocktail napkin Just pin to your your bulletin board and that you turn to it every day for the next six months And say did I do these things that I said I was going to do? Did I focus on the ways that I was going to try to focus on reaching that audience? so I would say that yes, it's always best to invest as much time as possible in doing this but And resources as possible But if you don't have the financial resources to do it Then don't give yourself the hurdle that I need some 30 page deck to to kind of coalesce my thoughts about our marketing plan Start small keep it as simple as possible Focus on one marketing channel, but kill the one marketing channel that you're going to go at If you're if it's your site, which I would say is probably the one that you should really focus your most efforts on I would definitely make sure that your site really Communicates who you are and don't worry about snapchat or or twitch chat or whatever else comes down the pipeline Focus on the ones that you can own first and be best at Thanks, um, we've talked here quite a bit about digital marketing And digital marketing is uh, certainly I think a very effective way to reach, uh, certain generation certain sort of demographic cohorts But we have a question coming in about, uh, trying to reach an inspired action across multi-generally multi-generational audiences Um, which might take it somewhat out of the digital sphere or maybe not. What are your thoughts? Uh, so like I I was even going back to this experience from yesterday Uh That was an event that wasn't that was all based around going and seeing these flowers And that was multi-generational event, but they all had to go by this one solar field and so there there was an opportunity to Teach kids about solar as well as teaching like seniors about the solar as well as teaching a variety of different people about it And you could have had like a whole Like event like a fair almost where it was just all based around education So sometimes it's a matter of making sure you're going to the right place for that that, uh, those different demographics that you're trying to reach So if you're trying to go multi-generational, I don't think snapchat may be the place to go to because that is usually Traffic by younger people. So it may not be the best place if I'm like AARP here in the states. It's just focused on reaching senior citizens I may not go there But I may look for ways to take my message and what are the key salient components of my message In my brand and see how does that best relate to a young person? An older person a person that lives in a rural place a person that lives in an urban center And what are the means that might be best to communicate that message and the platforms that I might want to use to do that And that may find me saying, you know, what I have a multi-generational generational Message and my brand is multi-generational But it's too expensive for me to go after young people They are so fickle and they are on one platform today and then another platform tomorrow And I can't keep up to speed with them. So maybe you know what they may be buying my product But I don't focus my marketing on them. They might just become something that is That is just like a bonus almost and I look at it that way And I really blow out my efforts to older people because I know if I do direct mail It's going to get to them and it doesn't have to be digital and I could just focus on that So I would say focus your efforts on the places that you really are seeing the biggest ROI along the way to Great. Um, so I have a question now specifically about video. Um, so video is um It can be time consuming and resource intensive effort So the the viewer is asking whether you feel that it is a sufficiently persuasive and effective medium that people should Make the commitment and try and and make videos. Uh, and if so any thoughts on how Newcomers can create simple videos or is it best just to focus on um being very engaged and involved in social media So I would lower some of your own expectations around video As far as what you need to do and just do it frankly The one thing with video is to focus on though Is not even necessarily the video, but it's the audio That people are willing to sit through video. That's not the best quality That might be a little shaky along the way But if the audio isn't good, they're not going to sit through it So I would say make sure that the audio for whatever video you're taking and that can be off of your smartphone device if you're doing it that way Uh, that works really well One of the highest performing videos for smoky bear last year was not one of his public service announcement tv commercials That got that that you usually spend like hundreds of thousand dollars to produce It was a video that I produced on my iphone and it was based off of a meme Which was something that is Transient in social culture part of the zeitgeist It was this thing called the mannequin challenge where it was a goofy challenge where people would pose and stand still And you take a video of that and move it along we took we made that video and That had over a couple million impressions of and reach on it versus some of these other PSAs that they spent lots of money to produce and that iphone video cost maybe A hundred bucks because I paid somebody else to make to compose some music to go along with it So I would say don't worry about necessarily having to produce these lush commercials But think about ways that you could produce low-fi video Low-fi video is definitely something you can use on a channel like an instagram or facebook or definitely on snapchat So you may not want to put it on your website You may want your website video to look really nice and pristine because you're funneling people back there all the time But for on some of these other social channels, you can get away with using low-fi video and still communicate your message Thanks, um, so unfortunately, we are running up against the end of our time I wish we had more time to chat with you, but um, let me just throw one more question out there From our audience Maybe sort of a big picture. Let's step back for a moment Uh, you're asked what is the greatest lesson that you've learned from your career? That you think could be most meaningful and and most uh impactful for the audience that we have with us today Oh, okay. That's a life lesson thing. Uh uh I would say To be and I said it already in this thing, but I would say be brutally honest about yourself Who you are what you do Don't get caught up in The trap of seeing what your friends do and the successes they may have in their own field of expertise And then think well, why is that not happening with me? Uh, or why is why is something like that not happening or why is this not activating for me? Go back to what is my real story? What are the what are the things that I've done and accomplished? What are the things that I have that are natively me that I bring to the table and that nobody else has and Maybe that's not going to result in the same degree of fame or fortune or uh, business but What is it that I can bring that nobody else can bring and focus on that because nobody else is going to be able to do that except for you So, uh, nobody else is going to be my son's dad. Let's get all baby. That's for sure And nobody's going to have this kind of oddball experience that I've had of having worked with entertainment studios and now with Uh, nonprofits and governmental agencies So think of ways that your own personal story can be infused into the work that you're doing To further your efforts and your clients efforts and I do that all the time I try to bring my own personal story into it to show how working with that client Like that they will be impacted because of the my past experience But also how working with them will impact me and that Working with them means a lot like this isn't just another job that I'm going to make some money on No, I want to work with you because you are going to fundamentally shape me For myself and in the future. So I look for ways that you really can make it personal. Uh, that's what I always try to do Great, thank you. Um, so unfortunately that is all the time we have today So I want to thank you very much Michael for sharing your thoughts and your insights with us. Um, and hopefully everyone Has come out with some tidbits of very useful information that they can Put to use in their own life in their own efforts to communicate I want to give a great big thanks to um our viewers from the energy 21 Initiative as well as viewing out against this that we had in Pretoria and Cape Town We have a quick photo from our of viewing audience in Cape Town. So hello to all of you folks out there Um, if you have not already, I I encourage you please to Consider following energy 21 s a on twitter and facebook. You can also go to our website It's america.gov slash energy 21 And sign up for our email listserv Where we will be sending you additional information Some follow-up information about this webinar some of the materials that Michael shared In his slide deck will make sure to make those available to you some of the tips and tricks as well as Some of the tools that he mentioned there in passing And we'll give you more information about our upcoming webinars Including one on how to develop a public narrative, which will take place on april 6 at 3 o'clock south africa time We look forward to your participation in that as well and uh, I hope everyone has a wonderful afternoon. Thanks much