Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Estherof IPA Group, bringing premiere online promotion to your business.
And Melanie of Stump Social Media training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And we'reback with another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today we're joined by Anne Gould, video and content specialist of Master the Digital M aes.Welcome, Anne.
Thank you very much for having me on your podcast.
You're very welcome to be here. So you are a video andcontent specialist. How can you specialise in content? What makes content sospecial?
Well, I think that all my life I've been creating content. Ihave I started off when I was 20 being a journalist, and basically I spent over30 years as a working journalist, writing features, writing sport, lifestyle,and travel, and news, and court, and council, all those things. I became aneditor on my evening newspaper when print was a thing. I've also editedmagazines as well. And latterly, I started a very high class, glossy magazinefor stuff work.
Over the period of time, you've actually learned whatlanguage engages your audience, which triggers them to actually look at yourcontent and move through any journey that you want to take them through.
Absolutely. It's quite funny. I've been thinking about thisrecently because I've been obviously, storytelling is a really big part ofmarketing. There are lots of people who talk about stories. When I go and lookat the way they tell stories, all their stories are very little stories,really. I think as a journalist, it requires a little bit of a change of theway that you think because my story is something that's really unusual andstands out because it's unusual. Storytelling in marketing terms isn't alwaysthe same thing.
The.
One thing I hear a lot when people hear, and I'm sure youhave the same thing as well, when they hear I've got a background in journalismas well, is they think, Oh, everything that's being said to me is no longersacrosanct, or maybe they'll think I'll sensationalise something. Has thisperspective changed in the time that you were doing journalism, or has italways been that way?
I don't know. Well, I mean, I worked in regional newspapersand there was always a very big sense of responsibility to your localcommunity. And so if you made something wrong, you might have somebody knockingon your door at some time a few weeks later, complaining, or you'd be sittingon a bus and somebody would say, I know who you are. You are the person who didso and so and so to my best friend. There was always a very big sense of beingvery accurate and presenting both sides of the picture. I think things havechanged recently. I think with social media, when the internet exploded andeverybody was alive, free reign, opinion became more important almost, or itwas more exposed.
Yeah, absolutely. Now, you said something there about yourstory is very different and very interesting and very out there. What about thepeople who feel that their story isn't very interesting? How can they go aboutstorytelling?
Well, I think this is very interesting because I rememberbeing a junior reporter and absolutely terrified of the chief sub who was like,it was a bit like a God, and he used to come in and scream at us when we werejuniors. We were absolutely terrified. I remember him saying, There's a splashstory in every single street in this town. My experience, because I specialisedin feature writing, was that you go and interview somebody, normally about onesubject, and you often came away with two or three other stories as well,because sometimes they're even better than the original story that you wentthere. So I think that people don't realise that the stories that are buriedwithin them. And that's what I've always found very joyous, actually findingthose stories and saying, Hey, did you know that this is really unusual aboutyou?
Storytelling, as you say on social media, is actuallyslightly different to the way that you would do maybe an advertorial or a pressrelease. Is this something that people would need to develop a skill in, orwould it be better to find an outside party that can do this for you? Or can weuse the likes of chat GP these days?
I think chat GP is not a storyteller. It doesn't use thosestorytelling things. And I think that with a business, I think that chat GPwill do a lot of stuff for you. It won't give you all that unique stuff, thestories, the testimonials, the case studies. It won't give you that. But itwill take quite a lot of the heavy lifting as far as writing those boring emailsequences and things. And none of us likes doing that. I mean, writing salespages, I'm a writer and it just drives me crazy. It's not interesting to me.And I can see Melanie's face is. So I think that if people want to find thoseunique stories about them, they probably need to find an outsider because we'retoo close to those stories. We can't see the wood from the trees and you needto talk to someone else about what it is that's different about you.
It's a good thing actually.
Yeah, very interesting because there is a lot of chat thesedays about chat GPT and other AIs that are available. Again, like every otherpodcast, we're not being paid to talk about these things. We are bringing youthe information. But AI can do an awful lot of things, but like you said, itdoesn't take over the personal aspect of it. It doesn't get into your head andput in the feeling. So, like, if somebody was to want to write a blog abouttheir travel or say, because you were saying that you were a travel journalistbefore we started recording. If somebody was to try to become a traveljournalist without actually traveling to the country and try to use AI likethat, how would people pick up on it?
I don't know. I don't think that you can use chat GBT inthat way. I think that you can ask it questions. I've been using it quite a lotin the last three or four weeks. You can ask it questions and it will come backwith suggestions for you. But you have to bear in mind that those aresuggestions. It's a starting point. I think for people who aren't trainedstorytellers, that helps them give a starting point for the content. Now, I'vebeen teaching people video for many years, and one of the things that's alwaysstruck me is that you get one batch of people who like, they latch on to thetech really fast and they're doing all these witty things editing, and thenthey say, Well, what are we going to make videos about? And then there areother people who get the storytelling and struggle with the tech. And so Ithink that you naturally either know what the content is or you don't. And so Ithink for the people who don't chat GBT, you can go and then say, Give me fivetips for traveling in Europe, and it will maybe come up with a list of things.
I haven't actually put any travel things in, but you couldput five tips, or 10 must see cities in Europe if I'm on a budget and I've onlygot the weekend to visit. And it'll come up with a list for you. The otherthing you actually have to remember about chat GBT, though, is it's not alwaystrue. And there's a thing in AI which is called hallucinate or hallucination,where it's actually where the AI is telling you a fib, a lie, because itdoesn't have access to that information. So today Google launched up an AIproduct called B ard yesterday, and they had a video and they had a particularquote from someone which was wrong, and it's actually affected their shareprice. And I think their share price has dropped by nine % because they didn'tgo to the trouble of checking this content. Now, Melanie will know as ajournalist that it's absolutely essential to check your sources and to doublecheck them. Google didn't do this, and it's made a significant dent in theirworth, which is quite interesting.
Nine % is not to be sniffed at either for Google.
Well, for anybody. Probably billions. I don't know.
I'm like yourself, Ann, or I'm probably speaking correctlyhere, I'm a bit of a purist. I will write all my own blogs. What I've actuallybeen using it for is ideas for a scavenger hunt, things to do for Valentine'sDay, meals to prepare. I've even got planting tips for amateur gardener andwhat to plant throughout the year. That's the thing I've been putting in there.
Nothing to do with your own business?
Basically no, nothing. I have to stand behind what I writeat the end of the day. When you don't write it, you don't truly believe in it.I guess I am my best source. I don't need to double check and see who else itis. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to blog writing, absolutely. But thereare some people out there that genuinely don't know how to get started with ablog, or how long it should be, or what takeaways people want from it. I thinkas a sampler, it's a great way to get started and then maybe you can customiseit and personalise it afterwards. I think some people really suffer with beingunable to know how to put themselves across properly or they don't feelcomfortable with their spelling or their grammar. I think as a framework, chatwith GPT is a great start, but I certainly wouldn't use it solely.
No, absolutely not. But I used it for a different purpose. Ihave somebody who's in my membership. She lives in Greece, but she speaks anumber of languages. I was aware that sometimes on TikTok, which I also teach,that you get questions in a different language that you don't know what it isnow. Of course, you can put it into Google translate, but I asked her to giveme a question in Farsie about TikTok. So she gave me this lovely thing thatappeared. It looked like some exotic inscription, but anyway, I put that intochat GBT. It translated it completely accurately. But what was really moreinteresting was that I then gave quite a long reply. I think it was probablyabout 400 word reply. Pressed the button, it translated it back into Farsy forme. And we had a conversation and it completely worked. And you think, Wow,that takes it one step further, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Definitely. Here at IPA group, we have bilingual, English,Spanish people who work with us and we work with customers around the world. Sothat would take a lot of my stress of translating because I'm one of those onesthat I don't trust Google translator because there's so many different feelingsbehind the words. I think that's one of the things here with AI, in whateverlanguage you're talking, the feeling behind the word, especially in English.I'm here in Northern Ireland, Melanie's in the Republic of Ireland, you're inEngland. There are so many different words for the same thing that if you sayit in mainland, it might mean something completely different even over here inthe island. And in America, it means something completely different. And in Australia,it means... So you really have to know the nuances of the words, and that'ssomething that AI can't do. But you could really put it through, like Melaniesays, an amateur blogger or somebody who doesn't know where to start orsomebody who maybe doesn't like it. They're not a journalist like you guys. Andthey just need a jumping off point, put it into it and then go in and edit it.
Don't just put it in and then send it out into thestratosphere.
I.
Remember when I was... I'm sorry. I've actually put sometest emails in. So I put some test emails for an event that I'm running and Isaid, rewrite them for me. Rewright them in a more salesy way. And it generatesit and it's the same, but it's like, Paul, that is not me. But it uses a lot ofthe phrase that you see with all the big digital entrepreneurs use thesephrases. It was an interesting way to look at it. But what's quite interestingabout it is that they say that it will adapt your style. If you put enough ofyour content into it, it will adapt your style. Now, I haven't seen it actuallybeing able to do that with me. I have been putting stuff in there, but Ihaven't seen that it's done that. We'll see. But I think also that with AI,we're just at the beginning, aren't we? It's as bad as it's ever going to be atthe moment.
In what sense? In the sense of how?
Well, it's clunky. It hallucinates. It can make things up aswell. So I think that 10 years down the line, it's going to be it's going to bea very different beast and it's not going to go away.
Yeah, I was going to say it's here to stay. We have to getused to it. And it's not something that we should be scared of. I'm youngenough to remember or old enough to remember when the internet started andpeople were like, oh no, what's this thing? And it's coming into our houses andit's coming into our phone line and we can't make phone calls because peopleare on the internet. And it's changed and modified and we wouldn't be withoutit these days. So I'm sure it'll get to that point as well.
I have this fantasy that what will happen is that reallygood writing journalism is going to have a little quality stamp on it, likethings like parma ham, have a champagne, and I'm trying to think of anyother... I love those examples. Parmaican cheese. It can be made next door, butbecause it's not in the right area, it's not parmisan cheese. It's somethingelse. I have this fantasy that proper creative content will have a stamp ofquality on it.
Brilliant. We'll come back to this in a few years' time andmake sure that you get the kudos for coming up with that idea, Melanie.
When it comes down to creating content for business ownerstoday, there's so many options. I think, sadly, especially as I'm helpingpeople do start your own business courses. I've been doing it for several yearsnow. The expectation on them weighs so heavily that they come armed with allthis knowledge, much more so than when we both started eight, ten, 15 yearsago. Because at the time, we're all learning to go live, we're all learning touse video tools. Do you think that we have basically reached the end of theroad as to what we should be expected to know, or are we all going to have tostart metaversing or things like it in the years to come?
Well, I think that certain things work for certainbusinesses, don't they? I think that the trick is to be able to find the thingthat works for you. So if you're really good at podcasting, you podcast. Ifyou're really good at video, you do video. And if you're really good atwriting, you do writing. But there's so much writing out there. There's so muchbad writing out there. I think that it's getting the good writing to rise tothe top and for it to be visible. I think that often a lot of the visible contentis not so good because they've either paid for it to rise to the top of Googleor it's just litter with keywords. It's hard to say, but I think that peoplejust have to do what works for them.
So you don't see the expectation has changed?
I think so. The thing is that you look at some of the bigcontent creators or the big creators like Gary Vee, people like him, they'vegot teams of people. He's gets on there and he does his chat or he gets onstage and gives his chat. He's got a team of people who are putting that into apodcast or they're putting it into an Instagram post and they're doing thiswith it and they stick it up on TikTok there. We don't all have to do that. Ithink that when people start out, they need to be on one place and justpopulate that one place just to start with until they get used to it, to whatthey're doing, so that they could then learn to repurpose it. But obviously, AIis going to allow repurposing a lot more quickly. I've been looking at a toolthat... I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but a tool thatyou can put in a... I put in a master class I did about TikTok, which was, Ithink, about 37 minutes long. I said, make X number of... And of course, thiswas a landscape type video as well.
I said, make five TikToks for me, press the button, andthree minutes later, output three short TikTok videos. I think that is veryhelpful for people.
Does everybody have to have an unlimited budget to affordall of this?
Well, yes, but I think you just have to choose, don't you? Ithink you just have to choose what you're going to do.
And go where your audience is.
Yeah, that's right. I don't really podcast, you know, justdon't do it. I make video. I know that podcasting is very popular and peoplesay, Oh, you should do it. I don't because I haven't got a thing about visuals.
Yeah. No, I mean, there's horses for horses and there'ssomething for everyone. But I think at the end of the day, as long as you arewhere your audience is, you don't need to worry about being everywhere. Youdon't need to have a big, massive teams. You don't need to have 40 hours in aday to be able to do it all. I think that's where AI is really going to startto help helping us, like you said, to repurpose and to do it for us, ratherthan us thinking that we have to do it all ourselves. When you have to do yourtax return, you don't do it all yourself. You have your accountant there tohelp you. You have your online platforms and you have all these different aids.It's not just looking at siphoning through all the receipts that you have overthe year. So things move on and things advance and I don't think we should bescared or worried about them because one of the main things when chat, GPT andAI, Jasper, etc. Came out, the first thing people said is, Oh, it's going totake our jobs. It's going to take the copywriter's jobs.
It's going to take the journalist's jobs. I don't think it'slike that. It's going to work hand in hand. I think that in the end, it's agood thing and it's something that we should look into and embrace. Ipersonally, at the time of recording, haven't been able to get onto it becausethere's a waiting list now because it's so popular and their system just can'tdeal with so many people. But I'll get onto it eventually. And there's not justAI for text, there's also AI for images, which has a long way to go. But Imean, things are getting there. We've got canva if you don't want to use agraphic designer either. And there's still graphic designers all around theworld with lots of work, even though canva exists now. There's something foreveryone and I just want to say thank you very much, Anne, for coming on todayand being on the podcast. How can people get in touch with you?
Right. Well, obviously I'm on TikTok, I'm Angle. Video. I'vegot a website which is Master the Digital Maze. Com i've also got a Master theDigital Maze. Co. U k. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, and I'm on Instagram.So that's where you can find me.
Brilliant. Great name, isn't it? Master the Digital Maze.That's just a fantastic name.
Yeah, and we put all those links down.
It's one of those things that came to me one day.
Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, thank you very much. And we'llbe back next week with more digital... No, Monday Morning Market. What's thename of the podcast again? We'll be back next week with more Monday MorningMarketing. Until then, bye.
What's the name of the outtake? Goodbye, everyone. Why do Ialways drink in wine?
You're.
Weird. I know. God, that was intense. There was so muchquestions. This is what happens when you get two journalists in the room.
I felt like the odd one. I was like, You guys just chat. Yougo ahead. I don't know. You still took over and then.