Many organizations continue to struggle with sharing their knowledge and authentic stories publicly. There are barriers, sure. But many of them can be overcome when we change our mindsets about the value of sharing knowledge (some call it content) digitally.
In this podcast, I chat with Jo Miller who teaches women’s ledership at conferences, in webinars, on Twitter and on her blog.
Listen below to find out why it’s OK to share knowledge online!
Audio not playing or can’t listen right now? Try the transcript below.
Hi there. Christoph Trappe here with The Authentic Storytelling Project, and today we have a guest on our podcast Jo Miller. She’s the CEO of the Women’s Leadership, Coaching, Incorporated here in Cedar Rapids in Eastern Iowa. Thanks for joining me Jo.
Jo
Thanks for having me on the show Christoph.
Christoph
We have noticed a trend that organizations continued to have struggles sharing their stories and their knowledge. So, we have some ideas on how we can get past that.
So, why are our organizations not sharing publicly, not, you know, not just behind closed doors, but publicly on their website, on a blog. You may call it content marketing if you like, but, how can we get beyond that? How can we think about that differently? And Jo had some good ideas on, on how to think about sharing knowledge publicly differently?
[Tweet “It’s OK for organizations to share their stories publicly.”]
Jo
Thanks. Indeed, in fact, you know, a while ago, I was listening to Andrea Lee speak and if you haven’t heard of Andrea Lee, she’s kind of a guru in the whole world of marketing for people like myself coaches, trainers, speakers.
People that have some expertise or knowledge that they want to get out into the world to a much broader audience and she was talking about the great resistance and I think Christoph, here, you alluded to this.
The great resistance that a lot of people have to re-purposing their content and making it widely available and, and so what Andrea said was, you know, think about your favorite band.
You know, you have a favorite rock band and of course, you’re going to download a few songs, maybe even an entire album, but it doesn’t stop at that. You know, if the band comes to town, you’ll probably buy tickets to go and see them in concert. You might even buy a T-shirt and other merchandising along the way, maybe even get a dvd box set.
So, the idea is that they deliver an incredible experience, but not through only one format and their audience is excited to participate in a variety of different formats. So, think about your audience in that way.
[Tweet “Content marketing is like your favorite band. They share on many channels – @jo_miller”]
You know, if you have a favorite channel that you like to use in terms of disseminating your knowledge, perhaps it’s that you left a blog or maybe like myself, you have a workshop. Start thinking about the different ways in which you could re-purpose that, that might be a huge value to your audience.
Christoph
I think of Seth Golden for example. I read his blog post just about every day. I went to a conference before when he was speaking there and I think just because he was there, that was a big reason why I actually signed up and paid money to go to the conference and bought a plane ticket to fly to the conference. So, it’s not just Seth Golden who actually benefitted. It was the airline and the hotel.
We do spend money when we follow those people and same with the rock band. We listen to Pandora. Sometimes, we download a song. Sometimes, we don’t and then sometimes we go to a concert.
I personally have not been to a concert in a while, but I do all those other things so maybe another example of how not everybody picks every channel necessarily.
Jo
Yeah, and, and you know it’s funny after I heard Andrea use that great analogy, it really got me thinking about, okay, so, you know, I have this one-day workshop that I deliver again, again, and again and I, you know, it gets rave reviews from my audience and I get invited back to deliver it year after year.
So, it really got me thinking about, okay, so I have this one piece of core content that I get paid to deliver, but maybe there are ways to pull out little chunks and pieces of it. So, initially what I started doing was I envisioned a book and Christoph had asked me earlier, why don’t you have a book yet Jo? And, the answer is, it’s in the works, but each chapter in the book is going to be a topic from the, you know the contents of my workshop and so for a while I was writing articles about those contents, but I was able to kind of micro chunk it even further.
So, now it’s delivered as a six-week virtual coaching program where every week individuals who sign up will get a five or ten minute video of me just delivering a tiny piece of it. I even recorded an audio CD that’s also downloadable as well on some of the topics.
So, you know, if people are having trouble of really thinking about how they might re-purpose content, I would say, you know, my top recommendation would be, think about the channels that you’re most passionate about. You know, so you, when you jump out of bed in the morning, you must move to record a podcast like what we’re doing today or maybe get on the phone and speak with an expert and record that conversation or is it to write a long blog post or you know, just a, you know, a 500 word or, or even less or just a, just a mini blog post but, but the point is to think about what you’re most passionate about in terms of the channels that you’ll like to deliver your materials through and stick with those.
Stick with channels that give you energy, that you feel moved to do. So, for myself of course, blogging, writing, speaking definitely, but delivering webinars, as well was a real passion of mine. So, I love to find experts who are as passionate or even more so about these topics and just interview them for an hour and then put that podcast out for all to see.
Christoph
I always learn something too when I talk to people for a podcast or anything. So, that’s always good too. It’s not just you sharing your own knowledge, but you’re learning something yourself. The other thing I wanted to mention quickly on podcasts recorded on, on the phone.
One great tool that you might choose to use is Google Voice. You can actually have somebody call you, and then you can push four and you can record the call on it as you upload it, whatever, it is mp4 or whatever the audio format is. So, you can listen to it. Transcribe it so we’re gonna do that with this podcast as we do with all the podcast. So, people can read it.
So, we’re doing the same thing for everybody that can’t listen necessarily, but they can still read it. I think the bottom line really is Jo, right, we shouldn’t just hold our content back because we think holding it tight to the vest will make it more valuable.
Jo
Yeah. Absolutely, and, so don’t hold on to it. Don’t hold it too close. You don’t need to give away the farm, but you can always give away tiny little chunks of content that believe me people will find incredibly valuable. I always like to speak about the value of engaging with partners to someone who perhaps is a terrific writer or editor or transcriptionist or is awesome at taking your ideas and putting it into a great looking PowerPoint or SlideShare, slideshow that you can put up. So, you don’t necessarily have to do it all yourself. Find some great partners who, who really shine and excel in their area of expertise and you know help, help them, help you get your content out into the world as well.
Christoph
While we’re talking about PowerPoint, I think that’s what you mentioned, right, PowerPoint.
Jo
Yes. Yeah.
Christoph
So, if you, we’re talking about PowerPoint that’s another channel, I think that I personally forget about all the time, SlideShare, you know, have a PowerPoint. You present it. Upload it. I recently and I’m totally not bragging. I uploaded my PowerPoints and had like 10,000 views on Slideshare, and I’m like, what do I even do on Slideshare and I literally just upload. I almost said dump. Dump my PowerPoints on there, but people look at them.
People click through them. So, one of my goals actually, personally, is to make a better, have a better effort going than using Slideshare because people use it obviously. It’s not just Facebook. It’s not just Twitter. LinkedIn is another channel. You know, upload your blogs directly to LinkedIn, maybe not the same day as you as you’re putting them on your blogs so Google doesn’t get confused necessarily where it belongs, but people look at it there. Look at your post on there too. So, it’s another way to connect with people. The final thing from my end that I like is every time I publish something, sometimes, not every time, but when I publish things, sometimes people disagree or sometimes people have another opinion and they will share their opinion and you can really learn from each other just by having a discussion, just by listening to each other now. I don’t allow, I don’t allow any trolls on my site at all, but, you know, if somebody has an opinion, I’m glad to talk about it and see why we have different opinions. Jo, any final thoughts from your end.
Jo
Sure. I just want to say I’m kinda jealous. I was about to brag on my very first SlideShare effort. I kind of skeptically put a PowerPoint up on SlideShare and got 2,000 views. I want to know how to get 10,000 like you. I just put another one up today. We’ll see, how well it does.
I would say to listen to the comments and the questions that you get in response to the content that you put out there too. This will, this will be my closing point because in how you answer and respond to those comments and questions, you’re also creating content again. So, maybe, you’re having your new blog posts that’s, you know, ask the expert where you just go ahead and answer those questions or even just provide little quotes from people who took your content, used it well and have a story to tell about the difference it made for them as well.
Christoph
Good. Well, thank you for joining us Jo.
Jo
Thanks for having me. It was fun talking with you.
Christoph
Thank you.
