Why it's time for PR pros and marketers to explore voice tech

Even though the podcasting landscape is getting increasingly more crowded, the amount of people listening continues to grow too, which means that podcasts are still one of the most effective ways to get your message out there.  If you’re looking to create and launch an independent podcast of your own, or even if you’re just an animal lover, today’s episode is a must-listen! Tuning in, you’ll hear from the creator and host of The Animal Guide for Curious Humans Podcast, Maureen Armstrong, as she shares invaluable insights into what it’s like to plan, create, and launch an independent podcast show.  Maureen is very  busy, but she still managed to fit in creation of a podcast show. A lawyer, Maureen is also York University Ombudsperson, Toronto, and Chair of the Board of Directors of world Animal Protection Canada.  We discuss what motivated her to begin podcasting, how she approaches episode planning, and her passion for connecting with guests, as well as the value of finding technical support, tips for growing an audience, and so much more! We hope you’ll join us for this fascinating conversation with animal advocate and podcast host, Maureen Armstrong. Key Points From This Episode: Insight into her inherent passion for animals and her decision to become a lawyer. Learn more about World Animal Protection Canada and Maureen’s role there. Maureen comments on animal welfare during the crisis in Ukraine. Why she chose podcasting as a platform to share practical information about animal welfare. Finding your niche; the value of researching other podcasts in the space you’re interested in. What you can expect from The Animal Guide for Curious Humans Podcast. The story behind the name of Maureen’s podcast and tips for deciding on a unique name. Maureen’s advice for artwork selection and deciding on the look and feel of your brand. More on the goals and objectives of her podcast and her vision for the future. The importance of viewing audience feedback as a learning experience. Insight into episode planning, which Maureen believes is the most difficult part of podcasting. Why she says that connecting with guests is the most rewarding part of podcasting. Advice for budding independent podcasters: find technical support and pivot as necessary. Some of the podcasts that Maureen loves to listen to herself. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Maureen Armstrong on LinkedIn Maureen Armstrong on Twitter Maureen Armstrong on Instagram The Animal Guide for Curious Humans Podcast World Animal Protection Canada ‘Animal welfare during the Ukraine crisis’ Freakonomics Podcasts Animal Law Podcast Ten Percent Happier Podcast Communicate Influence

It's still early days in the world of voice tech, but already PR and marketing professionals are exploring what it can do for brands and audiences. Carl Robinson, a podcast consultant and voice tech pro based in France. He owns a podcast consulting agency called Tizz Tech. Carl explains that lots of brands are experimenting with voice technologies in different ways to determine what works, and to discover, define best practices, and share that information.  Rumble Studio Carl explains that there are various movements, such as the Open Voice Network, which is sharing and defining standards for voice tech across many industries.  Content discovery In the comms and marketing world, one of the most obvious examples is content and content discovery through voice search. "More and more content is being found through voice search as users ask their smart speakers or phones for whatever they are looking for," explains Carl. "Companies are optimizing their web content for Google Assistant and the other smart speakers so that it's surfaced as a voice search."Content can include pages created and optimized for voice which are then synthesized by the text-to-speech engine, and then read out through a smart speaker. It can also be actual audio content that a brand creates, such as a podcast or micro-cast, which is then returned by Google.  There are now interactive voice response systems (IDR) with natural language understanding, and also call analysis. New technology is even able to transform heavy accents so that they are more easily understandable to customers. Smart speakers are also being used by marketers for branding campaigns. Carl cites the example of Skilled Creative in the US, which is working with Meredith Corporation to produce custom voice tech apps for branding campaigns.  Proceed with caution Carl says that agencies wanting to get into voice tech should do a lot of research first, because developing voice tech is not like building a website. Consider working with an agency. You can also use free tools like Voice Flow but don't underestimate the amount of work voice tech creation can take because it's complex and time-consuming. Carl says that, at a minimum, comms and marketing pros should educate themselves about voice tech, and that means reading, listening to podcasts, and asking questions. Use the hashtag #voicefirst on Twitter for questions and conversations. Voice tech isn't a flash in the pan and it isn't going away. It's going to change the way we interact with all the devices around us. It behooves you to know what's coming up. You can find Carl on Twitter and LinkedIn, and be sure to listen to his Voice Tech podcast!

Eli Schwartz is an SEO expert and the author of the new book, Product-Led SEO. Eli has more than a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for leading B2B and B2C companies. He helps clients like WordPress, Shutterstock, BlueNile, Quora, Getaround, Mixpanel, and Zendesk build and execute Global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their organic visibility at scale.In this interview with Communicate Influence, we discuss SEO from a content writer&apos;s perspective, as well as some of the important questions around SEO.Eli wrote his book to create a conversation around SEO for for executives and leaders on how to understand SEO, how to fund SEO, how to plan for SEO and how to strategize SEO. It&apos;s also for the SEO managers and the content managers in terms of how to think about SEO from a strategic and holistic standpoint, rather than just from a tactical standpoint.Eli addresses of issue of high expectations with SEO and also it&apos;s lack of business visibility.&quot;The problem—and something I&apos;ve been hoping to address with my — book, is that SEO doesn&apos;t have enough business visibility. &quot;They&apos;re focused sometimes on these myopic metrics around here&apos;s my ranking or here&apos;s the traffic I&apos;ve gotten, instead of this perspective of I&apos;m here operating a channel to grow more business or to grow more revenue in total for this business.&quot;The question businesses need to answer when it comes to SEO is: What can I do to help grow business, rather than what can I do immediately to create just traffic on this page. &quot;It&apos;s important to have that perspective and do your best within that environment,&quot; explains Eli, encouraging SEO professionals to be a part of the holistic view in the holistic strategy of the entire business, rather than just this is what I&apos;m going to do that&apos;s good for SEO, and that&apos;s it.What is product-led SEO? To understand product-led SEO, you really need to understand what product-led SEO is not, says Eli.&quot;Product-led SEO is not content-led SEO,&quot; says Eli. &quot;The way most people are going to do SEO is they&apos;re going to look at their core business product, and core business, and go to a keyword search tool to discover what the keyword is that they should put around for their core product offering. The next step most businesses take is to write some content that will be their SEO.&quot;However, for Eli, product-led SEO is much more holistic than content-based SEO. With product-led SEO, a business creates a product—or an asset—for the search users. And when you&apos;re creating that asset for the search user, it&apos;s not just a blog post that you intend to rank on one keyword.Eli explains that product-led SEO involves the creation of an online product or asset that a business uses to rank according to the needs of prospective clients or audience. &quot;I&apos;m now thinking of who is the user, because when you create products, you want to think about who the user is, and the roadmap to launch that product.&quot;Examples of products include directories with content, or proprietary content. For some organizations such as consultancies, key issues that require questions and answers can serve as the product around which to build SEO. The next questions to ask are what resources are required to launch the product. &quot;It&apos;s no longer just needing content because that is SEO. It&apos;s: &apos;Will I need a designer? An engineer to help launch that product? A content writer to write the right amount of content for that. Maybe I need some digital and visual assets&apos;.&quot;Full show notes at Communicateinfluence.com https://communicateinfluence.com/<a re

Imagine giving an important presentation and suddenly hearing a strange noise coming from the back of the room. It takes only moments to discover that the sound is loud snoring from a man who&apos;s dozed off. Yes, someone has fallen asleep during your presentation.Any presenter would feel badly. But only a handful would feel so affected y the experience that they&apos;d eventually go on to write a book about storytelling, and the importance of storytelling in business.Why storytelling in business mattersColleen Stewart, author of The Story Compass: Navigating Through Uncertainty In Your Business, says that when we&apos;re at work we don&apos;t understand the power of story. &quot;On a conscious level we don&apos;t talk about it that way. And so we don&apos;t always go to it automatically.&quot;Colleen says that in almost any setting just presenting a list of features in bullet-point form isn&apos;t going to persuade, convince, or be memorable. &quot;It&apos;s not captivating, it&apos;s not easily remembered, and it doesn&apos;t immediately communicate meaning.&quot;To use the power of story we need to first of all &quot;Talk about it, pull it out, open it up, and look at it for what it is and really understand how stories work. And then we can do it with more intention in business.&quot;Businesses have moved away from storytelling but are recognizing that they need to get back to storytelling, and Colleen thinks it&apos;s almost become a bit of a buzzword. &quot;There is a gap in our knowledge now of what a story actually is. So it&apos;s fine to say, as a business, okay, we have to tell a story, we have to make an emotional connection, we&apos;re going to communicate in a way that is relatable, we&apos;re going to communicate in a way that creates mental pictures. &quot;Wonderful, but how do you do that? And that&apos;s the answer that I think is often missing, with a lot of services and, and consulting programs and efforts by marketing teams is that they don&apos;t actually know how to do it. And that&apos;s not a criticism. It&apos;s just, I think it&apos;s the reality.Interpret what you know to give value to clientsThe mistake many consultants make in a first meeting or presentation is simply sharing all the knowledge they have. Your audience doesn&apos;t want to know everything you know. They don&apos;t have the time or the attention span for that. What they want to hear is how you interpret what you know into something meaningful for their world. How are you going to solve the problem with them and for them with what you know?Colleen StewartFour types of stories: Vision, Knowledge, Value, and JourneyWhen Colleen began working with clients on storytelling for their businesses, they&apos;d say this is great, but that they didn&apos;t have any stories to tell. That was the seed that planted the idea for the book.She has identified four story types that every business can share: Vision stories, knowledge stories, value stories, and journey stories. &quot;We come back out of there and to a point where we&apos;re transformed, we know something new, maybe we have a new offering as a business that we can then share with the world. &quot;Find Colleen on Linkedin. Her business is Perfect Pitch, based near Toronto, Canada. Be sure to read The Story Compass: Navigating Through Uncertainty In Your Business.<a rel="payment" href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/communicatein

Alain Hunkins is a leadership expert who sits at the intersection of the science and the art of leadership.He has a deep understanding of the psychology of leadership, and his new book, Cracking The Leadership Code, reveals the in valuable principles and practices that Alain has developed and refined during the 20+ years he&apos;s worked with leaders. In this episode, you will discover Alain&apos;s gift for translating complex concepts from psychology, neuroscience, and organizational behavior into simple, practical tools that can be applied on the job. Alain&apos;s definition of leadership is anytime any of us are trying to influence anyone to get something done. &quot;That is leadership. And if you think about it, we&apos;re all leading ourselves every day. If the cornerstone of good leadership is connection, the first person that I need to connect with is myself.&quot;Leadership today is in pretty poor shape. In fact, says Alain, only 23 percent of leaders are effective. Problems Inherent In Hierarchy and PowerSays Alain: &quot;If you look at the nature of hierarchical organizations, which most of us work in . . . it is a hierarchy for most of us. There&apos;s someone you report to. One of the challenges of hierarchy is that when people get into positions of power, power is an intoxicant. &quot;So, when people are in these positions of power, they&apos;re not likely to say: &apos;I&apos;m in this leadership role. What my job is to do is to unlock the potential in others. And the best way to do that is to ask the people I lead - and this is a servant leadership mindset they would be having - is to ask them, What can I be doing better to serve you?&apos;.The key, says Alain, is that we learn to take feedback, and then we apply it. &quot;But to take feedback, we have to be willing to be much more malleable with our egos. And for many of us, that&apos;s just that&apos;s too scary.&quot;Seek feedbackAlain sees the solution in managers learning to stop taking feedback so personally, or as an afront to their value as a human being. Alain says the keys are in leaders seeking feedback, coaching, and developing self-awareness.  One of my colleagues, Tasha Eurich, has this wonderful book called Insight. And she says only about 12 to 14% of the population has any real degree of self-awareness. So do things that will bump up your level of awareness so that you can be much more effective!&quot;Alain has worked with tens of thousands of leaders in over 25 countries, and served clients in all industries, including 42 Fortune 100 companies. He delivers dynamic keynotes, seminars, and workshops covering a variety of leadership topics including communication, teambuilding, conflict management, peak performance, motivation, and change. Author of more than 400 articles, and been published in Fast Company, Forbes, Business Insider, Chief Executive, Chief Learning Officer, The Association for Talent Development, CEO Refresher, and the American Management Association. With his Master’s in Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Professional Theater Training Program, and a BA from Amherst College, Alain also serves on the faculty of Duke Corporate Education, ranked #2 worldwide in 2019 by Financial Times on its list of customized Executive Education programs. Alain has  lectured at UNC Kenan-Flagler’s business school and Columbia University. Discover Alain on LinkedIn or at AlainHunkins, where you can also read about his 30-day Leadership Challenge.Support the show

This episode is sponsored by Podthreads - a new online clothing store for podcast fans!When regular host Sheelagh Caygill was in England last year, Karen Unland and Mack Male - both seasoned podcasters - kindly produced an episode for Communicate Influence listeners. Karen and Mack are the the co-founders of Taproot Publishing, an Edmonton-based media company whose mission is to help communities understand themselves better. Karen was a newspaper journalist; Mack was a software developer and blogger; they combined their talents and experience in 2016 to try to solve the problem of shrinking local media.In this episode, you’ll hear them outline the challenges facing local journalism, why a strong local media ecosystem is important, and what they’re trying to do about it. Here are some resources to add context to their conversation:What Killed The Newspaper? Google Or Facebook? Or…?Mind the Gaps: Quantifying the Decline of News Coverage in CanadaHere’s how some for-profit local news outlets are building subscriptionsThe media consumer’s dilemmaBusiness idea earns Taproot a LION Award nominationMack launched a podcast hosting service in 2006!Karen started the Alberta Podcast Network in 2017Taproot’s current podcasts: Speaking Municipally and Taproot Edmonton Presents: Igniting InnovationHow to support your local media startup and the ecosystem that nurtures it:Share your stuff: Put the indies on your news release list and keep them in mind for story pitches.Spread the word: Share what they publish and recommend them to others.Join or subscribe: If the outlet sells memberships or subscriptions, invest a little.Buy their services: If the outlet sells ads, sponsorships or other services, invest a little more.Wherever you are in the world, if you are interested in Spotlight or Taproot Publishing’s other B2B information services, contact [email protected]. If you are in Edmonton, see what Taproot Edmonton has to offer. You may be particularly interested in the Media Roundup.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/communicateinfluence)

In last week&apos;s episode, Kim Scaravelli discussed managing Twitter in 30 minutes a day. This week, Kim, founder of Trust Communications, looks at how to select the right social media platform for your business. That&apos;s right, you don&apos;t have to have a presence on every platform, only the ones that will perform for your organization.Kim says the first thing that you should do is consider social media as another part of your marketing, which is part of your business plan, which is part of your strategy for growth. So before you jump into all of these different platforms, ensure you really should have a solid strategy in place. And your strategy should include things like really knowing who your ideal audience is, because that&apos;s going to tell you where those folks are on social media. An example would be if you are a B2B brand, and you are selling specifically to people who are managers, HR people, or C-suite executives, then LinkedIn is a really important place for you to have a presence.If on the other hand, you are selling, say, beauty products, primarily to millennials, and you&apos;re selling them directly online. Why are you on LinkedIn? Instead, you need to be on Instagram.In this episode, Kim discusses: Thinking strategically about your social media planUnderstanding your audienceAssessing the skillset in your organization to see if you need outside resources to help manage social mediaDetermining what kind of content you&apos;ll produceBuilding authority in your nicheAssessing your results.Kim discusses a lot more in this episode, and provides examples of use on social media platforms, and why social media should be fun!Find Kim at TrustCommuncations.caSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/communicateinfluence)

In this week&apos;s episode, we have an incredibly valuable conversation with Kim Scaravelli, about how to manage your Twitter account in just 30 minutes a day.Kim, a communications pro and owner of trust communications in Halifax, Canada, is an expert when it comes to social media. She shares tremendous value in this episode. In fact, it&apos;s almost like a free Twitter management class!If you&apos;re new to social media, or feeling overwhelmed, and spending too much time on Twitter, you&apos;ll definitely get a lot out of this episode.Key points from Kim:If your ideal audience isn&apos;t on Twitter, you don&apos;t need to be thereTwitter has a voracious appetite. So there&apos;s really no point in taking your brand onto Twitter, if you are going to tweet once or twice a weekUnderstand your brand voice before tweetingUse a content calendar, such as BufferTweet at least eight times a dayOffer your followers value, don&apos;t keep tweeting ads for your product or serviceAt least four times a day, retweet something by someone else, and don&apos;t just retweet, comment on it so your followers understand why your retweeting the contentTimeless tweets often give more value.Kim also covers other points about doing impactful shoutouts, and be sure to interact with those who have interacted with you. Says Kim: &quot;At the end of the day, it&apos;s social media, it&apos;s not torture media. If this is the most stressful part of your day, you spend, you know, two hours a day doing social media and six hours a day complaining about it, stop!&quot;Once you actually get that hang of it, and you&apos;re actually talking to people, you&apos;re having conversations with people, then it&apos;s fun,&quot; she explains. &quot;It&apos;s just like a coffee date. Or it&apos;s just like saying &apos;Hi&apos; to somebody in the bank lineup. Relaxing is one of the keys to success on any kind of social media.&quot;You can find Kim on Twitter at twitter.com/KimScaravelli, and at Trust Communications.This episode is sponsored by the Published Author Podcast. If you&apos;re an entrepreneur who wants to publish a nonfiction book to grow your business, then this is the podcast you&apos;ve been waiting for. The Published Author Podcast will help you become an author and show you how to build a thought leadership system around your book. With this, you can grow your business land speaking gigs, grow your tribe, and lots more. Go to Published Author for more details!Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/communicateinfluence)

Despite the pandemic, the podcasting industry had a good year in 2021, with lots of new content, and a record in advertising spend.Podcasting and radio industry expert James Cridland is today&apos;s guest on this episode of The Communicate Influence Podcast. He takes a look at some of the emerging trends already visible in the first few weeks of this new year, and looks at what may lie ahead. He foresees a robust year, with more exciting and diverse content on the horizon.  Key areas of focus in this episode:The impact of Amazon&apos;s purchase of Wondery Amazon will make more acquisitions in 2021Spotify&apos;s growth, and competitor attempts to keep paceWhy privacy will be a growing issue in the coming yearPodcast advertising revenue&apos;s continued growthGrowth of other revenue streams, such as pod merchThe types of shows people will probably want to listen to in coming monthsQR codes have had a resurgence in that they are a simple way of letting people subscribe to a podcast showWhy podcasts that are no longer updated aren&apos;t a concern. Known as &apos;podfade&apos;, this can be due to the fact that it&apos;s a limited series.Be sure to check out James&apos; newsletter/podcast Podnews, and his new podcast show Podland.news , hosted by James and Sam Sethi.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/communicateinfluence)

It&apos;s hard to believe that not every leader is a good communicator.Our guest Nick Meir explains that this is because we think of communication as mostly spoken. But in Nick&apos;s view, communication is essentially the &quot;movement of information&quot; and so body language and micro-expressions are part of that movement of information.With this definition, it&apos;s easy to see how a leader&apos;s body language can impact a workplace culture and even subjugate people.Leaders have to be aware of their blind spots and micro-expressions. Employees will notice everything about a leader, because they are always looking for information. And if there is an absence of information or a vacuum, employees will fill in the gaps.&quot;Leadership is about great communication, that movement of information, and that always has to be positive,&quot; explains Nick. &quot;That doesn&apos;t mean it always has to be good news, but it should be a positive exchange, regardless of the message.&quot;Nick explains that this is partly due to the way the brain is wired. Humans are wired to detect subtle clues, especially from first impressions.The second important takeaway from this episode is that leaders must be aware of their audience. Everyone who has achieved success in the world has understood their audience, what makes them tick, and how to engage them. That&apos;s what successful businesses and leaders do as well. They then talk about what their audience cares about.Nick believes leaders should always ask themselves &quot;Why should they care?&quot; before they speak, and if they can answer that question, they will be successful. As well, be who you are, be yourself, and be pragmatic, be honest and be open.Leaders who are autocratic tend to create a culture of fear. So becoming self-aware is a process that leaders have to want to be. If leaders put on a persona when they arrive in the office, or behave differently in different situations, then employees will detect this.Blame culture is one of the worst manifestations of a dysfunctional workplace culture. &quot;When you see hundreds of people being copied in on an email, you know that there is a real problem of fear and blame in that work environment.&quot;Being a leader is a very lonely job, Nick adds. There are only a few people who a leader will trust, and that&apos;s just part of the job. So in that sense there is a distance between the leader and their team.Communication is all about sitting back and relaxing, and delivering information in your way, in your words, and in your style. Good leaders also have to be great listeners, because again, listening is communication as it is moving information from one place to another. Bill Clinton is a memorable example of great listening, because people always remember how attentive he was when he listened.If comms people try to map a leadership style onto a leader, it often doesn&apos;t work. Leaders have to establish their own voice.About Nick Meir:Nick moved from being a journalist at the BBC into communications. He held various roles before launching his own agency, A House Called Alice, based in London, UK. Nick delivers executive coaching, training, and corporate journalism for several high-profile global clients.You can find Nick on LinkedIn.This episode is sponsored by the Digital Assistant Academy - Setting the Standard in Voice Technology LearningSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/communicateinfluence)