The Friday Thing #724

An OG Friday Thing last week seemed well received. I'll try to mix in a few more before the end of the year.

The Friday Thing #724 is concerned with audience. In my line of work (communications) I think about audience a lot and it's something I have been encouraging my new team and colleagues to think about more too. I believe all communicators can benefit from pausing to reassess the role audience plays in communications.

That may sound blindingly obvious to non-communicators out there but when you have been in the business of communications for a while, it's easy to turn to known tactics. I am as guilty as anyone of this. As an example, my general reaction for a while was that for deep tech stories we should look to WIRED - showing my own bias for being a fan of their work. Similarly, I've tended to use too many words in an owned story or blog post - because I love words and language. Over the last few years, I've tried to be more economical with words and also use language that is less jargon filled and just a bit simpler. We have a tendency to complicate things here in tech-land.

The communications landscape has become more complex and more nuanced over the last ten years, and I have found the best way to navigate this world is to pause and consider the audience. I talked with my pal, Hugh MacLeod about this phenomenon and asked him to help me visualize it and he came up with this image that I have been using a bit recently.

It captures things really well I think:

1. What is the essence of the idea we're trying to communicate? This seems extraordinarily obvious, but sometimes this can be very blurry - especially if you're trying to communicate more than one thing. Forcing yourself to write this in one sentence and then sharing it with someone who has no connection to the topic is a good practice. It helps you determine if you have strong signal - or a lot of noise.
2. Who are we trying to communicate to? The key here is not to fall into the trap of saying "we're trying to communicate to The New York Times" as that is rarely if ever the case. The New York Times command a huge audience through their properties and most often we're eager to communicate to with their audiences via The New York Times. It's a subtle but important distinction that is sometimes lost. It's also a good reminder to keep a handle on who the audiences are that different outlets reach - WIRED reaches a different audience to The New York Times which is different again from the audience following the Microsoft Instagram handle. Horses for courses as they say.
3. It's also good to consider who is interested in hearing about the topic. We can't assume that just because we find something interesting that either the intermediary or the end audience will. Careful examination of this is key - as is building relationships over time with media and influencers, so you at least have a chance to capture their interest vs. fall into the pile of PR pitches that these folks are invited to consider on a daily basis. It's also a good moment to explore assumptions about going direct to an audience vs. via an intermediary and the role 'owned media', new influencers on social or newsletters can play. The Internet has created so much opportunity for precision in reaching an audience - but we should also not mistake that for interest by the target audience. I am reminded here of the old adage from Dale Carnegie - “To be interesting, be interested.”
4. Once you have determined what the idea is, who the audience is, and whether there is interest that is the moment to consider what tools are available. Too often we leap from idea to audience. Again, I am guilty of this - seeing a story and saying "ooh, reporter x at outlet y would love that story". Sometimes that is true, but it's also been true that when I have made those declarations, I have also had to admit that reporter x or outlet y doesn't actually reach the intended audience. And of course, there are way more tools than media outlets - there is email, social, newsletters, events, podcasts, cartoons, photography....the list goes on and on. And many times, the answer is more than one tool - the key here though is to resist the temptation to select the tool before doing a thorough examination of audience. Without doing so, you're doing something akin to saying, "ah yes, the best vehicle to travel across America is a canoe".

I'll leave you with another cartoon Hugh drew on the basis of this conversation.

That's all I have this week. From the office of the remarkably obvious, I bid you a happy Friday and a great weekend. Thanks, as always to Hugh for the inspiration.

-Steve