Welcome back to another insightful episode of “Become Your Own PR Machine,” where we dive deep into strategies and ideas to help you build visibility, influence, trust and credibility for your business and personal brand.
In this episode I’m joined by a true thought leader in the content space (and I don’t use that term lightly!) – Andrés López-Varela.
Andrés brings nearly two decades of experience across various marketing disciplines. His diverse background includes public relations, influencer relations, paid search, email marketing, content production, social media management – basically every key facet of modern-day marketing! He’s a rare beast, Andrés – someone who can genuinely ‘connect the dots’ in a way that’s meaningful and insightful
Our conversation is free-flowing and expansive; specifically, we lift the lid on owned media, and explore the critical role it plays in PR, and marketing communications more broadly.
In this episode, we cover off:
The importance of owned media:
- Why it’s foundational for long-term brand success.
- How it allows you to create an audience on your own terms.
- Its cost-effectiveness compared to earned or paid outreach.
- Aligning interests between what’s important to you as a brand and what captivates your audience.
- Understanding various forms like websites/blogs/email lists/podcasts/Youtube channels/events/books/research reports.
- The value in creating consistent ‘appointment’ content (e.g., podcasts).
- Setting sustainable frequencies that won’t lead to burnout but maintain engagement.
- Developing a roadmap aligned with content mission and topics that excite both creator(s) and audience alike.
- Balancing quality over quantity – focus on better fewer platforms with higher frequency than spreading too thin without impact.
Andrés emphasises data-driven strategies tailored not just around SEO but with an editorial focus – all aimed at connecting audiences deeply with brands before any commercial ask comes into play.
We also discuss how, even if you have substantial budgets for promotion, investing wisely in owned media reduces costs over time while enhancing credibility.
*** PLUS *** Discover why starting small might be more beneficial when building up towards ‘destination’ shows like podcasts or live-streams, and how comprehensive research reports and whitepapers which can serve as cornerstone assets generating leads well beyond their initial release date.
Don’t miss out on these valuable insights! Tune in now and learn how owning your channels could become the anchor point for all things PR related within your business!
Connect with Andrés:
TRANSCRIPTION:
Trevor:
Good day. Welcome back to the become your own PR machine. Become a PR machine and get out and build more visibility and trust and influence for your business and personal brand. My name is Trevor Young, and got a great guest today in this virtual studio. His name is Andres Lopez Varela, and he is a marketing strategy consultant speaker and the former general manager of one of the biggest content marketing agencies in Australia.
TREVOR:
Andres, welcome to the show. How’s life treating you
Andrés:
at the moment? Hello, Trevor. How are you? I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for asking me on.
Andrés:
Life is treating me pretty well. The sun is shining where I am. It’s a Friday. Not that that matters to people that are listening, but I do have a beautiful day, and I’m I’m here having a chat with you. So things are pretty good.
TREVOR:
Excellent. Let’s kick off with a little bit of a thumbnail sketch. We’re gonna be talking today about owned media and why it’s so foundational to a a company or, you know, your businesses, digital communications, and PR. But, why don’t you give us a thumbnail sketch of you, panel? This is a little bit of a picture for a bit of a context.
TREVOR:
So we we know your breadth of skills, experience, expertise, knowledge, and wisdom.
Andrés:
Well, wisdom. Wow. Okay. No pressure at all there, but, I do I mean, there is some wisdom, I guess, gathered over the years, whether intentionally or otherwise. I’ve been working in, you know, marketing, different marketing disciplines for a long time now, almost 2 decades, and I have sort of, you know, been very fortunate to be able to touch different parts of the marketing spectrum or of your Markhams pyramid, as you as you as you showed, Trevor.
Andrés:
Everything from, you know, public relations to influencer relations to a paid search to email marketing to content marketing, content production, digital, like, social media, a little bit of everything, actually. And and, you know, initially, that started as an accident, in terms of the kind of work that I was doing mainly because I was easily bored. Right? So I like to try different things every every few years. Although, I I I did have the good fortune of working in places where I had the opportunity to reinvent myself a little bit every few years, trust being different, so that was very gratifying.
Andrés:
However, as I got through my career, I realized that, actually, that was a very beneficial way for me to, you know, quote, unquote, do marketing in the sense that it was more important to find the right approach to create the right outcome rather than be obsessed or kind of enslaved to a particular process or a particular discipline. And so Yeah. The combination of skills then became really interesting to me because it was like I could sort of, you know, reach into my medicine cabinet, so to speak, and then pull out the right kind of kind of, you know, solutions and, you know, potions potions and towels and and and, you know, things for whatever ailed, you know, the brands and the clients that I’ve been that I’ve been working for. So that’s really, you know, over time, led me to leading, you know, Storyation, one of Australia’s longest established content agencies, and also, you know, working there to kind of expand the sort of services and work that that we do with clients. And, you know, everything, you know, from, like, a lot of data driven content strategy, data driven measurement, data driven optimization, you know, through different kinds of content production for different different sort of channels, and everything from, you know, TikTok videos to magazines, but really with a focus on building people’s audiences.
Andrés:
That’s that’s that’s really kind of where I’ve sort of, you know, arrived. If you like, I’ve always said that, you know, at Storyation and myself, you know, we’re in the audience building business. We wanna create sort of engaged. I’m really passionate about creating those engaged, connected audiences between people and brands. So then when the brand needs to, obviously, at some point, ask them to do something, commercialize in some way down the track, you know, you have far more kind of willing participants in that process.
Andrés:
So audience building is is the name of the game for me at this point in my life.
TREVOR:
Well, I I think it is for most businesses as well, really. The businesses you work for were through the agency that you that you worked at, you know, they were quite big brands, but I know that you’ve done them for smaller brands and start ups and, you know, in various different industries and, you know, the the nuances of each industry change, but a lot of the basics don’t change, do they? We’ll we’ll get into those basics shortly. I just want also wanna highlight that, you know, your interesting x of skills. You know, you did start off in public relations and probably reasonably traditional public relations, but quickly moved into the content and digital communication side of PR.
TREVOR:
And and that’s allowed you to, you know, have that broad spread and see things from, you know, an editorial standpoint, organic, which a lot of PR people do. But you’ve been in it from kind of the content side from a really the early days of it, the nascent days of content marketing, I guess. And and so you’re now probably more marketing than traditional PR, but as we talk about here on the show, my version of PR is not traditional anyway. So, Correct. Yeah.
TREVOR:
Don’t forget whether we’re saying marketing or PR at the end of the day is we’re we’re going to be talking about owned media, owning those channels that you own and control, and they’re foundational to all your PR content and digital communications and why that’s important and how to go about looking at that and the things to think about. So that’s they’re kind of what we’re going to cover. We probably will go off on tangents, and I’ll try and bring ALV as he’s known in the traps, around the traps back. But, let’s let’s kick off then, I have a and I will wanna say too that you were walk us through. You worked for, tourism Australia, which is one of the biggest tourism brands in the world.
TREVOR:
Pump your ties up here, mate, because it was, you know, it it’s it’s it’s no mean feat to be the what was it? The global content boss or the global content editor?
Andrés:
Content editor, yeah, at Tourism Australia for 3 years. And, yeah, it was a wonderful exceptional, you know, brand to to work on, to contribute to. And I used to think I used to say to people, it’s the closest thing I think you can come to national, like, military service without actually being the military is to work for your for your country’s tourism organization. And the work that, that I did there was was very big and broad in scale and scope. You know, it was managing content across, like, 15 different markets around the world in many different languages for lots of different, you know, digital channels primarily, but, also, it was really about sort of, you know, creating a lot of value, I think, for the audience.
Andrés:
You know, it was sort of my first kind of my first dip into the sort of quote unquote content marketing or brand content space of really sort of, you know, owning your own audiences and your own channels very strong Yep. Content and putting that kind of at the center of your of your strategy. So Yep. Yeah. I was very, very fortunate.
Andrés:
Discovered an unexpected love of wombats. And, you know, there’s so many fun facts about wombats I could do. I’m still waiting for someone to to invite me onto a podcast about wombats so I can share all my useless fun facts about them.
TREVOR:
I was at National Geographic talking. That’s it. That’s it. Yeah. I
Andrés:
wish are you kidding? T y? Can I organize that? Let me let
TREVOR:
me see. And and I guess working for, you know, the peak tourism brand in the country and one of the, you know, the strongest tourism brands in the world. It’s a high interest category and probably the challenge. There’s no shortage of stories to tell. No shortage.
TREVOR:
I suppose then the the challenge is what to do. You’ve got an embarrassment of riches, and and and so strategy has to play a role there. You can’t. If you try to do everything, well, you could. There’s too much too much to do.
TREVOR:
There’s it’s probably, you know, one of the most strategic content gigs out there.
Andrés:
It was certainly you know, one of the one of the main areas of focus that I had in that role and those few years was bringing together a more kind of a broader set of data into the consideration for creating content. So data was always, of course, used, but, you know, not just focusing on SEO, for example, looking at what was being said and engaged with and talked about on on our social channels, looking at, you know, what we were getting in in earned media as well Yep. And a bunch of other different signals and putting that together with a more editorial focus rather than being, you know, more kind of functional or more sort of SEO driven, actually, you know, leveraging those editorial techniques to create content that, you know, really connected with an audience’s traveler’s need in their planning process before they can to Australia.
TREVOR:
An editorial is is really, I think, something where where you put a PR hat on and public relations has always been about more of an editorial story based type of communications. And so that’s where and I think we’d look at this content from a PR lens through a marketing lens shortly. But wanna kick off with talking about you know, we said it’s the foundational role that owned media plays in the in the PR mix for your business or personal brand or combination of both. I was working with a client yesterday, and we’ve it’s all been about his personal brand, but he runs a business with 25 staff, and we’re quickly morphing into the business brand as well. And those 2 have to work together, but I on on this podcast, I talk about I’ve had a previous episode.
TREVOR:
Don’t ask me which one. I’ll put it in the show notes if I remember. But what I call my marketing communications pyramid, and I do refer to it, and this is where we look at, you know, imagine a pyramid. And at the base, we have owned media and social media, start going up that pyramid, and we look at earned media and then partner media, which is really around sponsorships and partnerships, with with events and bodies and sports and community groups and and other influences. And then we get into paid media, and then it’s more direct communications with your target audience, you know, phone and email and that, you know, that face to face sort of stuff.
TREVOR:
And we’re starting at the base where where it’s a good place to start. And and I guess if you if I talk to why don’t you tell me what you think owned media is? Why do you like it? Why is it so important for, you know, someone’s running a business to really take ownership of of that?
Andrés:
I think it’s it’s central to the longevity of your brand efforts, your branding efforts, if you like. You know, I think that own media is central because it allows you to create an audience entirely on your own terms. And it, generally speaking, allows you to reach that audience for a comparatively lower amount of money than if you were to do earned outreach and paid outreach only. And so I think owned media is, you know, a really key differentiator for those people or those brands. You know, doing that well is a real differentiator for those brands and people who don’t, perhaps, you know, have kajillion dollar budgets.
Andrés:
But even if you do have kajillion dollar budgets, it’s still a very good investment because over time, you wanna reduce the amount of money that you’re spending rather than increasing it. You know? So it sort of makes sense from that point of view. And, also, it allows you to really build credible authority on topics that are in that kind of Venn diagram overlap space between what’s important to you and what you’re you’re an expert on and what the audience is interested in and what their subject matter of interest is. So that little Venn diagram overlap is where your own media can really, you know, take take charge if you like.
Andrés:
And it gives you the opportunity to also kinda do some things that maybe experiment with some things that maybe, you know, in other channels and other formats might seem, too risky or too, you know, unlikely to deliver a return because that owned media is a safer space, and, frankly, you know, you can be a little bit more, you know, directional with with how you do it rather than sort of being too too broad and too scattergun. So Yeah. Own media and really, you know, when I think of own media, I really think of your owned audience. To me, that’s really the crux of it. It’s building an audience that you can speak to on channels that you own in in mediums and formats you own, whether that’s digital or offline.
Andrés:
And using those channels as the central like, the number one cab off the rank rather than, you know, always paying for an ad first or always doing a media release first or always doing a sponsorship first. All those things are important. Right? They all exist in the mix. Oh, it’s but the owned media, the owned audience stuff is foundational if you want this to last for the long term as well.
TREVOR:
The anchor the anchor of your, your digital communications and, therefore, your marketing. The, the other part of it let’s get tactical, I guess, for a minute just so to bring it to life and illustrate. I mean, owned media again is those channels that you own and control. So we’re talking about your website, your blog, your email list as as, you know, an opt in subscriber email list, podcast. Look.
TREVOR:
I do say YouTube because it’s the videos that you put on your own and control, and you don’t necessarily control YouTube. But, you know, those videos you can put on your website using a different player even if you didn’t use Yeah. YouTube. So YouTube to me is just a shortcut to say your your video channel and and and events events, media. You you run and control and own those events.
TREVOR:
And then I like to talk about premium signature content, which could be a a, you know, an annual research report or a, you know, an a book a book.
Andrés:
Oh, yeah.
TREVOR:
Book is owned media as well. You know? So there is the longer running series of things, which would be a a podcast or a, you know, a livestream show or a a video channel, and then you get your one off pieces of owned media. Any any others I’ve missed? Any I’ve missed?
Andrés:
No. I think it sounds pretty good, mate. I think it’s important for people to realize that it’s not just email and website, you know, because I think it’s often what people what people think. Events are a really good example of of something that’s owned and, you know, all these things have a different level of effort. But I think the important thing is that that they all things that you can tap into as much as you want, as much as you need without, you know, having to depend too much on other parties for it.
TREVOR:
That’s it. You don’t wanna the old saying has been around for 10 years. You don’t wanna build your build your asset, which your content is is an asset on on rented land, which is rented digital land if you’re on if you build your audience on Facebook and then Facebook chat can and absolutely does change the rules. We’ve seen that a lot of businesses really struggled when Facebook did change the rules, and we’ve seen Twitter change the rules, and LinkedIn’s now, you know, screwed down organic reach, like, incredibly. So, you know, you don’t wanna risk having all your audience on a social media channel.
TREVOR:
You wanna use social to amplify your voice and get your content out there, but the goal is to bring them back to your owned channels. So I I often talk about with owned media, like, you know, we’ve just done a spread of them, but having a destination show, which could, I would call, you know, this podcast destination show where it’s an ongoing it’s almost like a sub brand and a backdoor into your into your business or your business and brand. You could do a video channel versus just putting videos up willy nilly or a live stream show or, an email newsletter, which we’re seeing that’s, email newsletters are the hot new thing. What goes around comes around again. What’s your thinking of it?
TREVOR:
You know, should businesses be looking at a destination show? And what are some things that you’ve worked on in the past where it has been a you know, it’s a magazine you’ve put out or a, you know, a mobile first magazine you can now put out as well, where you don’t even have to, you know, create a a proper magazine for to print it and send it out.
Andrés:
I think that it’s an important thing to work towards. I I I think for brands and for individuals, it might be difficult to pull it off if it’s the first thing you’re doing. And so I would say to people, it is important, super valuable, maybe build up to it, you know, like like, put it in, like, put it in your phase 2 or your phase 3, you know, rather than sort of going out you know, going over blocks too hard and sort of, you know, doing a podcast, you know, with a weekly episode or doing a monthly magazine or doing a weekly newsletter. I think it’s something that you need to ideally commit to and stick with in a very consistent, deliberate fashion. So, absolutely, be building towards it, but give it some thought and think about doing it in a way that’s sustainable, you know, because we’re we’re all excited about these things.
Andrés:
I’m sure if we all started a podcast, and, you know, a lot of us have probably certainly, you and I have started a few podcasts. If you go too hot too fast, you’re gonna flame out. Right? And so after a month of or 2 months of doing weekly episodes, you’re like, oh, god. This is too much.
Andrés:
And, actually, maybe a monthly episode, even though less frequent, is better for you. Right? So the important thing with these things is, as you say, ET wise, to make them, you know, appointment kind of viewing or listening or reading. Yep. And so in some ways, you wanna take your cues from publishers in that they’re not publishing, you know, every day or every week if they don’t need to.
Andrés:
They’re publishing at the very minimum to keep the audience engaged, but also at at the right level that that they might kind of flame out too quickly. So my opinion, like yours, is that these are really central and valuable pieces of your kind of content and own audio and your mix for your owned audience. Yep. Especially if if you do something like high value, like, if you do, like, an annual report, you might be like, oh, it’s not enough. It’s once a year.
Andrés:
Well, that report, you know, you can you can pull out a whole bunch of atomized content from that report for months months months. And Yep. So don’t think of it as just the one drop, you know, and then you can use it as a lead generating thing. You can recut it into sales and business development material, a whole bunch of different stuff. So definitely a 100% aim for that.
Andrés:
Look for a a a frequency and a cadence that is manageable for you and and and for your audience, and make sure that you’re prepared for the long haul because I think one of the saddest things is when someone starts up and that kind of thing, and then, you know, it it dies a it dies a sort of, you know, sudden and, like, seismic death a few months in.
TREVOR:
Yeah. And I but I think you do need to pick a cadence. I mean, if you’re going to do a podcast Yes.
Andrés:
Definitely pick a cadence.
TREVOR:
You know, you definitely look. And and and monthly, sure. The only problem with monthly is, you know and I talk to my clients, so it’ll get going. Maybe it’s once a month. But at the end of the day is people who listen to podcasts and get into them, listen to a lot of podcasts.
Andrés:
Yeah.
TREVOR:
And if they it’s hard enough to get them onto your radar and to even subscribe to you. And if they go back and check your you know, on their iPhone, on their podcast app, and they check and you haven’t put anything up for a while, you might fall off their off their radar, and that’s that’s your case problem.
Andrés:
Maybe the podcast isn’t the right isn’t the right format for you then. Right? Maybe, like, choose one that you can do, like, more often.
TREVOR:
Yeah. But then there are ways to and and this is getting into how to get things done. I mean, it’s the same with, you know, blogging. Well, if we go back a while, you know, the the bloggers who built the big audiences in the early days blogged, you know, a, they only had to blog once a week, and they’d get an audience because not many people were doing it. Then it started to tighten up.
TREVOR:
The people who are blogging once and twice a day were building massive audiences. Today, that doesn’t work. I remember there’s a guy called Michael Hyatt, who was one of the early very popular bloggers in the leadership space. And he was blogging, I thought, every pretty much every day, at least 5 days a week. And he put us I remember this.
TREVOR:
This is probably 5 or 6 years ago, if not longer. And he put a survey out to his audience and said, how much do you want me to blog? You know? He gave 3 options, and that and the the majority wanted 3 times a week. So I think he was rapped about that because that was too less that he had to do.
TREVOR:
You know? A conventional wisdom with podcasting was always, you know, do it once a week and don’t go over 20 minutes and all of that sort of stuff, and then John Lee Dumas came out with Entrepreneur on Fire and did a daily. Because he said, I listen to him every day, and I burn all, you know, everyone out who just does it on a week. And and he built a multimillion dollar business off the back of it. So there’s the the rules are there to be broken.
TREVOR:
I think the way I look at it is I think you’ve gotta find that cadence and make it it’s gotta be sustainable for you. Don’t get a rush of blood to the head. Just do it all and then walk away to that because that just doesn’t help anyone. But I still think you gotta push yourself a little bit. I’m working with a client, and he’s on fortnightly.
TREVOR:
And, you know, we we organize we brainstorm and schedule, not schedule, but work out 6 months in advance what the topic’s gonna be. And I think it’s the planning stages of it. Once you know who your audience is, what’s your your the content mission of what you’re trying to achieve, again, don’t worry about which which modality. And but then start planning out the topics, and that will fire you up a bit more to keep going.
Andrés:
Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s good advice.
TREVOR:
Yep. And so what are your preferences? What are you seeing people do? There’s a couple of schools of thought on what you should do. So if we look at the the when I say modalities, I’m talking about audio, video, written, you know, newsletters, blog, whatever.
TREVOR:
Mhmm. They’re used to there’s 2 ways to look at it. 1 is what you’re used to doing. You know, if you don’t like being on camera, don’t put yourself through that. You if you’re a writer, absolutely right.
Andrés:
Absolutely.
TREVOR:
And I I I’m a big believer in that because the passion has gotta come through. You gotta want to do it. You know? I’ve Yeah. I’ve had clients say, there’s no way I’m gonna sit down and run.
TREVOR:
They’re gonna sit down and write. But they’ll talk in front of a camera, and they’ll do live streams and all of that stuff. And then others who don’t wanna be in camera don’t wanna write, but happy to chat. And so podcast works. And I think that that that that makes sense.
TREVOR:
There are other people that say, oh, you know, go where your audience is. Well, when it comes to content, people listen in or listen or taking the information different ways. So I think your audience per se is a little bit tougher to not to crack because they read, they listen, and they watch. So that what what’s your take on that, your approach to what choosing what channels? Yeah.
Andrés:
I mean, it’s it’s it’s a good it’s a it’s a big question. To me, it’s like the central question. Right? Because I think that that you need to be really you need to be really, like, deliberate about where you do this stuff because, you know, it can suck a lot of time there for money to be on, you know, many channels and formats all at once. And so I think it’s always better to, you know, be on be in less places and increase your frequency.
Andrés:
Right? So, like, if you gotta make a choice. Right? You gotta make a choice between being on, say, like, 8 different platforms and posting something once a week or being on 4 different platforms and posting 3 times a week, I would 100% always go for less platforms, higher volume. That doesn’t mean that you can afford to let your quality slip.
Andrés:
Like, that still needs to be very of cloud. You need to be very attentive to that. But quality means different things depending on the platform. You know? And I think I know we’re talking mostly about own media, but, you know, the quality of your blog article, you know, which has, like, a a half life of 2 years compared with the quality of your, you know, TikTok videos is vastly different.
Andrés:
Vastly vastly different. You know? And so I think understanding what is fit for purpose on those in those places is really is really critical. And I think for those people who are sort of thinking about where should I, like, plant my flag, I would say to them, be be conscious of planting your flag in a place where you feel like, you know, you have a natural connection to to to the audience. So, you know, that point about going where the audience is is is correct, but also not every channel then is gonna be right for you to your point.
Andrés:
If you’re if you’re a talker talk, if you’re a writer, right, you know? Yep. If you’re a singer, sing. Right? And so I think I think, you know, that’s an important consideration.
Andrés:
And then also remember that there should be an off ramp to your own channels. And that, I think, in this day and age, it’s unreasonable for us to expect, or it’s not a good idea for us to always be pushing people to our own channels. Sometimes people just don’t want that. You know, they may be engaging with you casually. Give them the opportunity to get value wherever they are, but then give them an opportunity an option if you like, for an off ramp into your own channels and to become part of your own audience without making it into a funnel.
Andrés:
Because I think, you know, that really is a legacy way of thinking.
TREVOR:
Yep. I agree. And that’s that’s probably the marketing side of things, the funnel. Yep. And, you know, the whole idea Performance marketing.
TREVOR:
It’s the performance
Andrés:
marketing funnel.
TREVOR:
If I create this type of content and it moves people to the next stage and then into the funnel and down and email nurturing, and that’s not what we’re talking here. That’s that’s the market we’re we’re looking at before that.
Andrés:
Yeah.
TREVOR:
And this is where PR and comms comes into place that you build that, you know, get people to know you, like you respect your your your brand, getting talked about in a positive way, and and staying top of mind with people, which is, you know, the hardest thing to do, I think.
Andrés:
It’s the hardest is to be to be visible in the right in the at the right time and the right way. That is In
TREVOR:
a respectful way. Visible in a respectful way. Visible. Exactly. Any any nuts are gonna be visible.
Andrés:
That’s right. That’s right. But for me, I’m seeing, like, confidently visible in a way that’s that’s valuable. Like, honestly, like, I someone if someone can figure out that formula, then then they deserve, like, a special Nobel prize for that.
TREVOR:
And I I think that one thing that I sort of get people to start thinking about and I I work mainly with service based companies and people who have expertise. That’s it’s probably more skewed to that than product. But it’s it’s although if it’s software, a lot of times, there’s a lot of service Yeah. And education behind that. So taking that into into account.
TREVOR:
But I think that, you know, having a sometimes getting your thoughts and your I call them use use the flag in the ground. They are just before, I I call flag in the ground, you know, that intellectual territory you wanna own and be Yeah. Be part of and and and be known for. And, you know, what are those flags in the ground, and what do they look like, and what is the content you’re gonna create around those and your your perspective, your point of view, the way you, you know, you wanna show up in the world, that sort of things. Sometimes it’s better to do you don’t necessarily need a blog, but you can do, we’d call them, in our business, the cornerstone articles.
TREVOR:
Yeah. That that if if someone read that one piece, and it could be a really meaty piece of a few thousand words, they’ll really understand who you are, what you’re all about, and Yeah. That I I always find that that’s a really great place to start for owned media. And there might be a a few interlinking articles that accumulatively tell tell the story. So people are now under under no misapprehension of who you are and what you’re all about.
TREVOR:
And that helps you with your perspective, your voice. And, therefore, that can then travel into video. It can travel into audio. It can travel into all sorts of different ways. What what’s your thinking on something like that?
TREVOR:
Is this starting point that yeah.
Andrés:
Definitely. This is something that I really actually wanted to wanted to emphasize. I think that, absolutely, that is central to your ability to create an audience that’s really pumped and engaged. Yep. And I think that that, to me, it comes back to which, you know, people may have heard of the hero hub hygiene model that originated with YouTube, but is actually, you know, spread more broadly across other channels.
Andrés:
And so Yep. I’ll explain that just briefly in case
TREVOR:
Yeah.
Andrés:
Please do. No. Yeah. The idea is that there are 3 kinds of, you know, content, I guess. I think YouTube describes it as a pyramid, although I’m not sure that it is necessarily a pyramid.
Andrés:
Let’s go with that with that description nowhere. Plygene’s at the bottom and then hub is above that and hero’s above that. And hygiene content is the sort of always on content designed to, like, you know, pull your audience to you. So, you know, traditionally, the stuff that is found via search, regardless of wherever that search is happening, whether it’s in Google or on social media or elsewhere. Hub is the stuff that we’ve been talking about mainly so far today is the regularly scheduled content that you push out designed for your audience.
Andrés:
So hygiene pulls people in when they need certain topics and information, harvest stuff you push out and say, hey. I think you might need to know about this. And then hero is the larger scale, the the cornerstone pieces. Right? The big rocks, the tentpole moments, the the things that that kind of raise awareness and engage a broader audience.
Andrés:
And so I think very much that idea of, like, for example, the cornerstone articles, the annual reports, the, you know, big interviews or whatever. Those pieces can give you tremendous value because, yes, they absolutely are a good area to start for people when they’re getting to know you and getting to know your brand, but they can also then inform hub and hygiene content. They can trickle down the pyramid to give you exceptional value with your content for your brand, for your product, service, whatever it is, by being broken up into smaller pieces. And then there is one layer that I like to add to that hero hub hygiene model, and, you know, obviously, I don’t know better than Google does, but I do find that one of the areas that’s missing is what I call hello content. And that is what is that layer, which is almost under hygiene, which is like the first time people encounter your brand.
Andrés:
Mhmm. What is it that they should learn about you? What is it that they need to know? What are the areas, perspectives, intellectual territories, like you say, T y, that are sort of central to who you are and the work you do that will then signal to them if they should be become a part of your audience. And that hello layer in my opinion, at the bottom of the period, beneath hygiene, and then, you know, hub and hero build up from there.
Andrés:
That’s a lot of content to me. I have it because I feel like I’m stealing it from Google. I am kinda stealing it. I I I like to think of it as an add on or as a value add to what they do, but it it is certainly a really good model, particularly for smaller brands. Right?
Andrés:
Particularly for challenger brands, particularly for individuals that aren’t that don’t have that sort of name recognition perhaps yet. The hello layer of content, I think, is really critical for own media. It’s really critical to make sure that you can confidently introduce yourself to people in a way that feels genuine and credible and warm and inviting as well. I’m gonna
TREVOR:
pump my toes here because before the hero hub hygiene came out
Andrés:
Yeah.
TREVOR:
I was talking about in a similar way, I was talking about day to day presence content, which is that day to day stuff just to keep your presence up, your social media. It’s just your news hygiene. Your your destination show, which is your regular, as you call it, appointment viewing, whether it’s your podcast, whatever, which is hub, and then your premium signature content, which is your, you know, your hero. But, to be fair, when Google do it, they were doing it very much on video, and their Yes. Hero content was these big, expensive things.
TREVOR:
So I wasn’t looking anywhere near that. I was trying to always break down for my clients and my audience through the PR Warrior blog of Mhmm. What are these things? Because once you start putting them into, like, hero hub to be honest, hero hygiene hero so I can’t even say, hygiene hub and hero is way better than day to day presence content. Yes.
TREVOR:
Yes. Yes. Sub branded media properties, and and and and what was the third one? Premium signature content. Content.
TREVOR:
Yeah. Seriously. What was I thinking? 3 words? You were expecting for
Andrés:
a what? 3 word 3 word descriptions. 3 of them. You were shooting a
TREVOR:
I still remember the I still remember the the long phrases that I use, but,
Andrés:
yeah, but maybe you’re the only way. Lots of problems.
TREVOR:
The the the concept clearly didn’t fly, but it it’s a good way to look at it. It it really is, and I think sometimes, you know, maybe you do start off with a, you know, that article to to get your thinking right, or maybe it’s blogs that it’s it’s it’s I mean, the whole concept of blogging now is so different than what it was. So different. Yeah. 5, 10 years ago where your blog was your online magazine.
TREVOR:
And when we say a blog, it’s you know, you put an article up every week, and you you’re you’re a writer, and you’re you’re almost a columnist. A blog today is also I think everyone needs it anyway because it’s it’s your hub, your content hub. So you put your podcast there, your videos there, everything. But I guess when I’m talking blogging, I’m talking about writing an article. But maybe you use a thing like medium.com or, you know, LinkedIn newsletters or something to start.
TREVOR:
It’s a really good place to start with your articles, and you start writing articles not so much to build an audience. That’s a nice byproduct, but really, they sharpen your thinking.
Andrés:
Yeah. I agree. I I I think it’s a good valuable discipline, especially before you start engaging in any earned media opportunities. Yeah. That’s when, you know, you really that’s that’s when you really need to be pretty sharp on what you wanna deliver, on the messages you wanna deliver.
Andrés:
Correct. You don’t really have as much latitude there to kind of fash around. So definitely
TREVOR:
So we’re we’re both sort of in alignment in terms of let’s get a you know, let’s get into it. However you get into it, pick 1 channel and master it, I guess. 2 pick 2 channels, maybe? Oh, hang on. 1 owned media channel and a social media channel.
TREVOR:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TREVOR:
Yeah. Okay. I’ll look at social media separately but on an owned media, one owned media channel. As you get better and you master that, you’ll definitely, you know, if you say I wanna do a podcast, you can just do an audio only podcast, or you can do what I do here, and we do a video. So all of a sudden, you got video, and you can turn, you know, that episode into a newsletter Oh.
TREVOR:
Into a newsletter per episode. Yep. And, really, you’re you’re hitting all of it. And so that’s not as big a deal as it was 5 years ago. Yeah.
TREVOR:
Okay. Today, it’s easier. So when we say, you know, you wanna start building more strategic, what I call strategic omnipresence, which is broadening out into more channels, Yes. It’s gonna take more time because they’re more channels, but the content itself is probably the same across pretty much all the channels. Yes.
TREVOR:
And today, we have a we’ll get into AI and the tick in terms of how that that’s gonna help you. So I I let’s put that dotted line when we’re talking channels. You know, on the pyramid, like, my my pyramid versus your pyramid. My pyramid, I’ve got owned and social because they’re so locked together. There’s so much in alignment because social is gonna be stripping out stuff from your own media channels to put out there and promote and to talk to people and all of that sort of stuff.
TREVOR:
Do you think people should have just one other so one owned media channel and one social channel?
Andrés:
I think it’s it’s not as simple as that because I think the nature of these channels has changed so much that you kind of have channels within channels. Instagram is a great example. You know? It’s it’s the nature and the purpose of Instagram has changed so much even over the past 5 since the pandemic. Right?
Andrés:
You know? Like, it used to be all on Instagram TV, and it was about long form viewing there. That died a a ignominious and probably necessary death. But from that from that rose this format that was influenced by TikTok, you know, reels. Yep.
Andrés:
Yep. And then also the addition of broadcast channels, in particular in Instagram, is a great example of how you have these channels within channels. So there’s a there’s a guy I I I know and and who I think is, you know, one of the the you know, he’s a super credible, very knowledgeable guy. His name is Edwin Smith, and he is one of the best, I think, you know, organic social people in in Australia. He’s got a lot of very good and very accurate hot takes.
TREVOR:
Yep. What are you topics?
Andrés:
On on organic social media primarily. He he’s really sort of, like, honed in on how to make that work for your audience and your brand. And one of the things that Edwin says, which really provoked a big thought in me, was about, you know, thinking of those formats within channels or channels within channels. Right? And what do you do on Instagram on your feed?
Andrés:
What do you do on Instagram in your stories? What do you do for reels? What do you do for messages? What do you do for the broadcast channel? Right?
Andrés:
And so using those different features and go, maybe my audience is just about stories. So you maybe you dump a few things in the feed, but, actually, really, you’re focusing on the stories. Maybe the broadcast channel is perfect for for your for your audience and the kind of content you have because it’s a little bit deeper engagement, but it’s still one way. So it’s kind of brand safe as well. You know?
Andrés:
People aren’t sort of, you know, knocking you. Maybe they’ll give you a double tap with a thumbs down at the most. Right? So I I think that when it comes to choosing that, and, you know, I I will give full credit to Edwin on this point, it’s it’s maybe thinking about those different options within there. LinkedIn’s another great example.
Andrés:
Right? You got the LinkedIn. You got the feed. You got the newsletter articles less and less so, you know, but and, you know The audio audio. Audio events groups in LinkedIn, you know, so so there are those different areas.
Andrés:
So I think it’s important not just to think of social media as feeds. And so, therefore, some of those spaces, I think, and and this may certainly rattle the cage, t y, but some of those spaces, I think, become quasi owned spaces. For example, if you were to do a group on LinkedIn, if you were to do a broadcast channel on Instagram, for me, that is moving away from the earned nature of social media and the and and the paid nature, and it’s a little bit it’s kinda getting closer to an owned space. So I think thinking about those subchannels aside from your own channels, because some people might be freaked out by doing video on Instagram, for example. But could they do a broadcast channel?
Andrés:
100%. It seems much more feasible and accessible for them.
TREVOR:
I love that. I the channels within when they say it, it’s obvious. You know? Like, it’s it’s a really great way to look at it. Like, it’s just, you know, look.
TREVOR:
Usually, it’s well, we’ll pick Instagram as a channel and and maybe we’ll skew towards reels or whatever, but it’s it’s Instagram first, not reels first. So Yeah. Yeah. What a what a what a what a great way to look at that. And and the just while we’re talking, I mean, I I I like the live stream.
TREVOR:
I mean, most people won’t do live stream because of all the the scariness of it. You’re live, globally. You’re live. And and we can go into a minute why why that can be actually better for you than not. But I like I mean, I I’ve done it a bit with LinkedIn.
TREVOR:
I used to use StreamYard to go out to LinkedIn and Yes. And Facebook And everyone. Twitter simultaneous, like, amazing technology, and then I’d take that interview and put it onto the podcast or onto YouTube. Shol j Raymond, who’s LinkedIn pages expert, and she’s building a great following. She’s from Sydney, and she’s got a good podcast.
TREVOR:
The name of it’s just changed recently, I think. So I think it’s b2bgrowth. Don’t quote me on that. But she does a live interview, and then she takes that and puts it onto her podcast. Yeah.
TREVOR:
Not sure. I’m I’m pretty sure she probably puts it onto YouTube. But this is the way you can seamlessly go through that now where you have that show, whether it’s a livestream, whether it’s a podcast we’re doing like this, whether it’s a video podcast, which a lot of the big guys are doing now, albeit they don’t do it via you know, they do it in beautiful studios, Joe Rogan’s of this world. The the the the fact is you take that and and can split it into so many different ways is is just amazing, and I think that’s the way we’ve gotta think. We’ve gotta think multichannel.
TREVOR:
I use the BBC analogy. You have your BBC 1, which is your main show, and then you have your offshoots, your BBC Parliament, your BBC News, your BBC 1, 2, 3, and 4, you know, and and think of it as as little satellites going around the main channel. So I I think it’s really exciting to look at that. When you say when you’re talking about, you know, social, like, what you’re talking about there, the the channels within the channel, are you saying that maybe that’s a better place to start than than doing like like so now we’ve talked about doing your doing a a big article first and or a number of cornerstone articles that are meeting. Another alternative is to get your writing chops and to hone your voices to write articles that can then, you know, put up on medium or create a newsletter or just do micro stories on on in the feed in LinkedIn, for example.
TREVOR:
Are you saying that maybe as part of that sort of thinking to get your feet wet, you do stories or reels or, you know, you take it into social media. So I’m I’m thinking aloud here while
Andrés:
we’re going. Basically, your own media strategy might be social first. It might be. It might be. Yeah.
Andrés:
Because I I think the the the lines between those those kind of, you know, let’s call them legacy classifications of media are Yep. You know, less and less relevant. Like, there are certain places where it’s, like, obviously, you know, paid search is is advertising. Obviously, you know, buying that in the paper is advert like, there are some areas that are clear. When it comes to digital channels predominantly, I think, you know, that distinction is, you know, maybe it’s sort of, it’s varying utility, I guess, depending on the channel that you’re speaking about.
Andrés:
And so I think realistically, the most important thing is, like we said earlier, right, is visibility. That is the number one challenge. Relevant, confident, expert visibility, credible, respectful ways like you say in in all your in your all your content, Trevor. That’s the number one thing, I think. That that’s the most important thing.
Andrés:
And however you achieve that is is fine. It’s great. You know, especially when you’re starting out. I think if you feel like maintaining a blog every week is kind of a giant impost, but the maybe you can record, like, a little, you know, like, 32nd video on your phone every day and put that on stories. Maybe to you that feels more straightforward, then start there.
Andrés:
Start there. I think, importantly, don’t make that your be all and end all. But if you wanna get your feet wet, if you wanna kind of try things out, if you wanna understand what your voice is in particular, or if you wanna launch a new product or a new service, it might appeal to a different audience and have a different DNA to the rest of some of your other stuff, then absolutely. You know, think about doing that. Think about doing that in Instagram stories.
Andrés:
Think about doing a LinkedIn newsletter. Think about doing, you know, some TikTok videos. There are so many other formats there that you can that you can kind of play with without necessarily having to commit to a cornerstone right away. And then from there, you might find something that’s like, oh, this is what my audience likes. They really like this particular thread that also feels natural and and and comfortable for me, and so I’m gonna spin that into a weekly newsletter or something like
TREVOR:
that. Can I come up with a term? And you’ve heard it here first. Yeah, please.
Andrés:
You ready? Breaking. Breaking. I’m looking
TREVOR:
for my drumsticks. No drumsticks. No drumroll. Maybe you can put
Andrés:
in a sound effect afterwards.
TREVOR:
Mate, this is pre owned media.
Andrés:
Pre owned media. Clap clap
TREVOR:
clap clap. The things you do before you commit to your building your own media foundation.
Andrés:
Yes. Yes. A little trouble
TREVOR:
for you guys.
Andrés:
And so
TREVOR:
I’ll just I’ll just be on LinkedIn. It’s not that. It’s not I’ll just be on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. It’s not that. It’s getting micro about it.
TREVOR:
Absolutely being micro channel within the channel, really looking at things in a different way to build your bona fides, to get you Yes. Sharpening your message, your story more in bite sized chunks and starting to build an audience there knowing that that’s not owned media. Yeah. And, you know, the channel you’re on will change the rules, but it doesn’t matter because that’s not the key thing. It’s if you If you build an audience, that’s great.
TREVOR:
But then it’s, you know, like, if you’ve been doing stories and it’s really working and you say, hey. Well, I’m I’m now going to be doing a a podcast or whatever. I’m thinking about this for the podcast. It’s
Andrés:
already an audience built in.
TREVOR:
Yeah. That’s it.
Andrés:
Yeah. We we this is something that certainly, you know, we would want to do more with larger brands. If larger brands struggle with this, that they feel like they have to go all in. Yeah. And they they need to just be the best and the most polished and the most accurate, the most loved, just the most.
Andrés:
Right? Which is often exhausting, yes, for the audience and, and frankly, it’s exhausting for the for the people working on it in the agency as well. But if we could get more brands to be like, hey. Let’s do a Pinterest pilot for 6 months, and let’s just post video pins. We’re gonna do video pins that are, like, you know, 10 to 15 seconds.
Andrés:
They’re inspired by the articles that we know because Pinterest is a search engine. It’s not a social media channel. What stuff people are searching for, we turn those into video. But let’s say we just do 2 a week for 6 months, simple little animation or whatever video. That’s it.
Andrés:
Right? Unfortunately, big brands feel like they go, oh, well, that seems a little bit insignificant and, like, not not good enough. Like, let’s just do every let’s do all the pins. You know? Let’s do a pin every day for 6 months of all different types and styles and fashions.
Andrés:
And so, naturally, that’s not gonna work because you’re throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what sticks, and you’re not necessarily gonna get a very good strike rate. And so why wouldn’t you sort of focus your experiment into a few one, ideally, 1 or 2 formats that you think have a better chance of working. I think people with their own personal brands and smaller brands have a have a leg up on larger brands in those in those environments. You have to focus on individual small things. So go on to Instagram and just do stories, just do your broadcast channel.
Andrés:
Go on to LinkedIn. Just start a group. Just manage that group. Go on to TikTok and just do one video once a day, you know, into your phone. Just do that.
Andrés:
You will have a giant advantage over larger brands that are sort of like and unfortunately, also kind of like, you know, muddying the waters with so much content, but but you will have an opportunity to be so laser focused that there will be much less competition for you to discover your audience and use it and experiment with it.
TREVOR:
I love that. I love that. And and, again, laddering up to eventually maybe an own media channel, but you’re you’re doing it with confidence and you’re doing it in a sustainable way. And, look, I I’m a great believer that the small the small player has got a tremendous advantages over the big guys because you can just do stuff. I mean, I I work was working with one client.
TREVOR:
I said, look. You guys are so good. You you you there’s 3 of you. You know your stuff. Let’s just hit live on Facebook and Twitter, and just do, ask us anything.
TREVOR:
They had a reasonably good following, and that went for about 2 years. And we did it once a month, and we got someone in to shoot it properly off iPads and iPhones with different angles. And but it wasn’t a a hideous cost at all because of the the the lo fi nature of it.
Andrés:
Yes. Yes.
TREVOR:
But you try getting that into a big brand. There is no way. There is no way that’s gonna happen.
Andrés:
You you need You know, you just studio.
TREVOR:
It’s a good idea. Strategically, it makes sense. We’ve got the wherewithal to do it. Let’s pull the trigger if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t really matter because we’re still adding value and building our audience.
TREVOR:
So I I love that. And, yes, don’t don’t ever think that just, you know, you’re you’re a solopreneur or you’re running a, you know, a small but mighty business as I like to say, and you can take on the big boys and and potentially beat them bit through that nimbleness and that authenticity and that desire and willingness to take a little bit of a risk, which is not really a risk. I think not taking a risk is actually the risk. But I
Andrés:
do like That’s deep.
TREVOR:
I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna do this pre owned TM.
Andrés:
I I
TREVOR:
like the pre owned option, which, you know, the way that you’ve couched that, I think, makes a lot of sense. And, yes, I’ve previously thought more articles or, you know, different ways of doing it, but, yes, is it a group? Is it a is it just a, you know, whether it’s TikTok or whatever, you’re sharpening up your ideas.
Andrés:
You know, it it could be something that then you turn off at a certain point, or it could be something that continues and grows as well. Like, I think sort of being open to that as as, you know, without sort of putting all your eggs in that basket, I think, is is a really good approach.
TREVOR:
Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Look. I know we’ve been it’s been a very fruitful and far reaching topic that we’ve gone on to, but there’s one missing piece we haven’t touched on, and you are a guru at it, and I’m talking analytics.
Andrés:
Yeah.
TREVOR:
How important are analytics around all these things, and how do how’s the, you know, you can drown in data, and I’m one for looking at what matters, the metrics that matter, and not drowning and not being a slave to data, but there is always that danger that you do. What are the metrics that matter? How do you what’s your philosophy when it comes to analytics for owned media, but, obviously, by default now, pre owned media, which is social.
Andrés:
What a riveting question to to finish on. People are gonna fall asleep at this point, I think, t y. So if you if you put it in, we we should have hidden hidden there a
TREVOR:
little. Right? I mean, you know, what what’s the phrase? Bring sexy back or make sexy back or something. Yeah.
TREVOR:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, you make analytics, you know, the the hottest topic
Andrés:
on earth, mate. Very kind. I think the the there’s 2 ways, I think, to use data. Right? And I think, you know, without sort of running into another hour conversation, I’ll try and top and tail it.
Andrés:
The first way is discovery, and I think that is where you do wanna drown in data. And I think discovery is really critical for you to immerse yourself in all manner of data. And data can be not just what you see in page. That is what but one that is but a drop in the ocean. Right?
Andrés:
Because you’re only measuring and looking at what your existing audience likes, not what your potential audience likes there. It can be search engine data. It can be, look at your competitors’ social media profiles. What are people commenting on? What are they liking?
Andrés:
Oh, this one got 55 likes. That one got 255 likes. It could be, you know, interviewing your target audience, interviewing them and asking them a bunch of questions. It could be like you said, like, your your example of the guy who was blogging 5 times a week and then he asked the audience, what do you want? And they said, well, 3 is enough, mate.
Andrés:
You know? Data can take on many different forms. Right?
TREVOR:
And So what you’re saying is research before you get going to think about the topics and the approach and all of that?
Andrés:
It could be before you’re going or at some point in between when you need to clarify or answer a question. So for me, discovery is about drowning in data. And I think, you know, like, maybe with, like, a life preserver and some floaties on just to be safe. You know? But I think you should be embracing a lot of data if you if you’re trying to answer questions, develop strategies, troubleshoot problems.
Andrés:
Right? Where you wanna be selective with data is around analysis, is around performance in particular. That I think really is about going, what are the 4, 5, 6, 8 things that are really important to me as I’ve identified that they contribute to an overall commercial goal. Because the point of doing content well or being good at marketing is not to be good at marketing. The point of being good at marketing is to be good at business.
Andrés:
So at the end of the day, your marketing, your content, your comms, whatever it is, needs to be contributing to your business in some way. So you need to make sure that you have an idea of what that is. If, for example, you’re doing, let’s say, you’re doing a podcast, you got a website, and you got a newsletter. Right? And those are your own kind of channels.
Andrés:
The purpose of those channels is gonna be different. Right? So podcasts, you’re probably gonna be looking for things like reach and things like, you know, number of downloads, more kind of those broad blunt metrics because naturally, it’s harder to measure that the particular, that particular channel and platform in in a more, you know, deliberate way. But email, maybe what you’re looking for there is how many times what was the the send to open ratio? You know, if I sent it to a 100 people, it got opened 80 times.
Andrés:
That means people read it less than once. Or did it get opened a 160 times? Most people read it at least once, maybe twice. Is it 250? People reading almost 3 times.
Andrés:
So then those kind of things can then give you an idea as to how your efforts are contributing to your overall commercial outcomes, and that’s where you just wanna focus on specific metrics that matter, like you say. So I think that that that you can then take that because then the metrics that matter can kind of act as, like, clues. Right? Like, we we used to do at story ocean this activity that that that I started called a a content scorecard, which was a monthly I scored a monthly blood test. Right?
Andrés:
So it would not give you every single answer as to what was well or what was wrong with you, but it would give you a a set of maybe 12 metrics across multiple channels, and we would see month to month changes, and we would see performance within a range. And then if we saw it go above or below the range, then we were curious about what was happening, and we investigated further. Yeah. Yeah. But if those metrics those handful of metrics that matter were within normal ranges, and we were then we knew that what we were doing was working well.
Andrés:
And then when we had a question to answer, a problem to solve, a strategy to develop, we would go into discovery slash drowning mode in order to kind of immerse ourselves more in the type of data that might be able to answer those questions. So I know it might seem sort of daunting for people, but I would encourage you to immerse yourself in data in that discovery phase or in that discovery mindset.
TREVOR:
Which is good for you. Business anyway, right, to understand your audience.
Andrés:
So good.
TREVOR:
So that’s about understanding your audience.
Andrés:
Understanding your audience, understanding what’s connecting with them.
TREVOR:
Yep.
Andrés:
Understanding the missing the latent demand and understanding how you can sort of serve them better in your content. But then the performance stuff is really about focusing in and not spending too much time on it. Look at that. Set yourself a range. Set yourself not even a target.
Andrés:
Set yourself a range and be like, if things are in this range, I know that what I’m doing is working well enough. And, honestly, if you are a small business owner, if you are a business leader, and this is part of your role, it’s not all of your role, then I bet you don’t have time to dig into every single piece of content to understand how it works. So if you can see in a range that’s working well enough, then you’re ahead of the curve.
TREVOR:
It’s kinda like almost building a dashboard for it, really, isn’t it?
Andrés:
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Andrés:
I that’s what those contracts
TREVOR:
that matter. And and that might also be look. I’ve got Australian only clients, and I like seeing on their podcast that they’re not Bang. They’ve got no audience overseas. Yes.
Andrés:
Yes.
TREVOR:
You know? And so how do we do that? Well, we Australianize everything about it so to repel people we don’t need.
Andrés:
That’s interesting.
TREVOR:
And to while you’re doing that, you’re actually becoming more attractive to the people you do want. So
Andrés:
You just say you just say things like,
TREVOR:
g’day and mate. G’day, mate. The Aussie approach to whatever. You know? That’s it.
Andrés:
That’s it.
TREVOR:
And you and by then, you can. The great thing with that, by the way, is you can start talking, you know, you can start talking about local references and local TV stars and football and stuff, which when you’re when you’re running something a little bit more global, it’s you gotta keep backtracking if you’re you’re interviewing someone who’s local. So Yeah. It’s it’s it’s they’re they’re just little things to think about. But it’s really, I think, an overlay of just part of your content efforts is to keep an eye on things and to you might find, well, that’s interesting.
TREVOR:
I never saw that coming, and and it’s the analysis of it, again, without going into analysis paralysis. So maybe we can do a whole episode on on data and analytics. And Yep. And you you you will say, is that to help people fall asleep? And but it would be a A lot of interesting stuff in there.
TREVOR:
I I’m I’m less that way inclined, but I’ve become a lot more interested in it in the journey. And I do love the actually, I do love the discovery and joining dots and going down rabbit holes, but that’s just me
Andrés:
generally. Well, we can certainly do, like, an ASMR version episode of this podcast about data and analytics, and that would certainly put people to sleep. I’m sure of it.
TREVOR:
There might be something in that. There might be something in that. Well, I’m gonna be watching some
Andrés:
They’ll absorb it subconsciously while they’re sleeping.
TREVOR:
Well, you never know. You never know. But, you know, dull your dulcet tones, my friend, it’s, it’s, it’s a combination between wanting them to listen to you and not not lulling them to get to sleep.
Andrés:
But,
TREVOR:
I’m sure no one’s been sleeping over this past hour because there’s been some really interesting nuggets there. And and it’s a free we I had a I wanted to have a freewheeling conversation with you on purpose because when we chat, there’s so many different ways we can approach things. But I think just rounding up that, look, owned media is really important to own and control and, as you say, to build your own audience so you can communicate directly with them. So it negates the need, albeit further down the track. You might need to do some advertising, but, really, at the end of the day, you’re you’re building an audience, a tribe, a crew of people who are interested in you, your story, your message, what you do, what you stand for, all of that sort of stuff, and that that’s gold, and that’s gotta be, you know, you’ve gotta grind that out, and you do it through owned media.
TREVOR:
You do it through social media. You do it through earned media, and then you’ll have a paid element to build it up. There’s a lot of aspects to it, but at if you strip it back, you strip it right back. At the end of the day is how can you build your audience, how can you get them to subscribe to you, whether it’s, you know, podcast, newsletter, or or email or whatever? And what then how do you, you know, how do you build rapport or relationships, deepen the level of connection with those people, which is really what PR is?
TREVOR:
Who are the people matter the most to the success of your business, and how can you deepen the level of connection you have with them? That is public relations, and everything we’ve talked about does that. Key points that I’ve taken out just in final rounding up is pre owned media. The channels within the channels, which I love. But you you know, unless if you don’t wanna go launch straight into running a show, a destination show, how can you build up to it?
TREVOR:
And what are the ways and means of building up? And we discussed some of those. So, Andreas, thank you very much, my friend, on spending an hour with us. And I know you’re a busy man. And where can people best find you?
TREVOR:
Where do you wanna connect with people or people I’m one
Andrés:
of those people I’m one of those people who’s trying to make threads happen, so I would love to see you on threads. You can find me at I am hack jack. You can find it on LinkedIn, and also you can find me on website, which is www.lopezhyphenvarella.com. That’s l o p e z hyphenvarela.com. But, you know, let’s make threads happen, guys.
Andrés:
Let’s do it.
TREVOR:
Yeah. You’re on a hiding to nothing there, but okay. Alright. Thank you very, very much.
Andrés:
Thank you, Trevor.
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