Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Course NotesSession Seven – Promoting your stories – Engaging with

an audience

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Introduction

In this session we explore aspects of building an online audience.

Using Social Media to build your audience

Regardless of whether you are publishing on a website, blog or social media platform you can use other platforms to publicise your primary publishing method. Consider the following:

Facebook – Would a Facebook page be a good way of promoting your site? Most blogging software allows you to post a teasers from your new posts onto a Facebook page:

Twitter – Twitter is often used by bloggers to tweet about new posts, and as a complimentary medium to provide additional information that doesn’t justify a longer post.

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

As you can see above; Gavin from The Greening of Gavin, uses his Twitter account to; publicise his blog as well as to spread the sustainability message his broader online identity is set up to champion.

Pinterest – Do you have photos attached to you posts or tweets? If you want people to share your material via Pinterest then you need them. Attaching a Pin it icon to each image is a great reminder for readers. People are more likely to act on something in front of them. Pin it buttons operate like calls to action and they give people an easy way to share your image – as do Facebook and Twitter symbols.

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Engaging Your Audience

During the last session we explored methods for beginning to build an audience and engage with them. This session builds of those ideas, as well as some that we explored during the story telling sessions, to fully explore the concept of engaging with an audience.

Authenticity is contagious

We have talked about authenticity a lot during this course. Authenticity is a concept that encompasses both ethics and authors voice. Authenticity is about representing yourself online in a way that you are comfortable with and fulfils your story telling vision. It is about being; ‘real’, open & honest. It is about telling your story; in an obviously autobiographical sense (http://thebloggess.com/) or via the prism of some other subject matter (http://www.101cookbooks.com/).

People are drawn to authenticity. It is contagious. It will help you connect with an audience, and keep them coming back.

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Establishing Credibility

The About Us page/profile

A well written About Us page or profile (with Twitter you only get a few words worth of description), will help your audience understand your site/online presence. It will allow you to establish your credentials, give your audience a context for your words and provide a jump of point for your storytelling. Your profile advertises you, or your site, it is a part of your branding so spend some time perfecting it.

Reading widely

It may seem obvious but credibility is generally linked to your expertise in your particular subject matter. Ensuring you are well read and that your information is current will be a key part of your enduring credibility. (Perhaps) less obviously, reading widely is not just about understanding the subject matter within your area of expertise, it also includes keeping up to date with the social media you are using to engage your audience. Keeping abreast with developments in the blogging world or in the ‘twitter sphere’ etc, is a part of remaining credible. If you are publishing material then there is an expectation that you should have at least a basic understanding of the vehicle you are using to publish it.

Seeking to understand

Consider the experts you see as ‘credible’ within their field. Are they the individuals telling you how things are? Or are they the ones who are seeking to understand how things work? Think about the approach of experts like: Gerard Whateley (Aussie Rules), or David Attenborough (nature). They seek to understand. They are clearly well read and inquisitive and they have worked on developing their expertise. http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2010/01/28/being-an-expert-takes-time-not-talent/.

The Power of Questions

Allowing your audience to demonstrate their knowledge will often help you build your credibility or at the very least engage your audience in a discussion. Asking your audience for feedback, asking what they think, indicates that you want to build your knowledge, as well as opening communication channels. As mentioned above, often the most credible are those that question the most.

Fact vs Opinion

Fact and opinion are different and yet it can be hard sometimes to discern from someone’s writing which they are presenting. The ability to differentiate is important though. For an exercise on the basics of Fact and Opinion see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/fact-or-opinion Level 3 is probably appropriate for most participants.

Sharing facts about a concept is different to repeating opinions. Presenting opinions, whether they be yours or other peoples, as facts can impact on your credibility and has the potential to disengage your audience. Sharing your opinion is great but the reader should be aware that what they are reading/consuming is exactly that – your opinion.

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Ethical considerations

Trying to appear impartial while actually representing a particular vested interest has the potential to damage your credibility, impact on your authenticity and turn off your audience. Declare your interests if you have them.

Staying on topic

Gerard Whateley is rarely seen commentating on anything other than sport, ditto David Attenborough and the natural world. Expertise takes a significant amount of time and effort and if you spread your self too thinly people may begin to see you as a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’.

Contributing to discussion forums

Share your expertise. Contributing to discussion forums, commenting on other people’s blogs, face book pages, retweeting the work of others and so on all helps raise your profile. It allows access to a wider audience as well as enhancing your credibility within your field.

Expert Organisations

Being a member of an expert organisation can add to your credibility. Consider joining organisations that operate in the field you wish to communicate about.

The power of endorsements

Endorsements can enhance your credibility. They could be endorsements from organisations of which you are a member, or from specific individuals with power or influence in your field.

Tasks: Research relevant expert organisations for your health message

Remaining relevant

As mentioned above remaining relevant plays a big part in establishing credibility. It will also help you attract readers. As identified in earlier sessions people are drawn to things they find either interesting or important. New developments within your field will often fulfill the ‘important’ test.

Evergreen content

Evergreen content is content that is evergreen – it is always interesting. Evergreen content is the sort of content that people search on, the information that doesn’t vary much over time. For example http://www.tie-a-tie.net/ is almost entirely evergreen content. How to tie a Windsor knot doesn’t change and people will (presumably) always want to know how it’s done. Even if your site is more topical in nature having some evergreen content can be a good idea. For example a site which focuses on the latest in nutrition and fitness could include recipes as evergreen content. (Even if people stop being interested in Paleo diets for example they will probably still want cauliflower recipes http://everydaypaleo.com/.)

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Sarah Wilson – a case study

Sarah Wilson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Wilson_(journalist)) has a strong social media and blogging presence. Via this presence she has built a reputation as a health campaigner – giving people the tools to ‘Quit sugar’ as well as raising awareness about auto-immune disease.

Explore her blog: http://www.sarahwilson.com/, the ‘I quit sugar’ website: http://iquitsugar.com/, her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-Wilson/109005959162818, and Twitter account: https://twitter.com/_sarahwilson_. Consider how they all play a different part in engaging her audience.

Questions to consider:1. Is she authentic? Why?2. Is she credible? If so, what contributes to her credibility? 3. Does she use all the platforms in the same way? If not how does it differ?4. Does she engage an audience?5. How successful do you think she is in spreading her health message?

Communicating with your audience

Many of you will be using social media specifically for its ability to open up a dialogue with an audience. Reading other people’s posts, responding to their comments, exploring their blogs, retweeting their messages may well occupy as much time as actually writing and publishing your own material. Even if the majority of your communication is to an audience, listening and responding to that audience will often form and important part of your relationship with them.

The vast majority of this communication will probably be positive, encouraging, interesting or enlightening. On occasion though you may get the occasional negative comment or inappropriate feedback. Readers that leave these comments are called: flamers.

Dealing with Flamers

To quote WIKIPEDIA: “Flaming is a hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users, often involving the use of profanity.” Many internet publishers never experience flaming, particularly those writing on topics which are not inherently controversial. If, however, you are writing on an issue which lends itself to strong opinions the likelihood of flaming increases as your sites visibility increases.

If you find you have flamers, or even the occasional negative commenter visiting your site here are some ways to deal with them:

Techniques

Don’t respond with anger

Healthy Voices is an initiative of Bayside Medicare Local

Some flamers flame to incite a reaction, responding with anger fulfils their needs rather than yours. Consider carefully how you respond, you are still representing your online brand/persona when you answer their comments.

Be tolerant of criticism – you may learn something

Consider the possibility that their point may be valid. As we have noted throughout this course people have differing views and enjoy different things. The negative reaction may actually represent a much wider proportion of your potential audience than you think. Think about what has been said and learn from it.

Take responsibility – assess whether you provoked their reaction

Some topics and subjects are far more likely to provoke a reaction than others, and it may not necessarily be the things you think. Assess what you have written and walk in your audience’s shoes for a moment. How could what you have been written been perceived by someone else?

Censor with care

You initial reaction when reading a negative comment may be to delete it. But before you do carefully consider the implications. Do you want to become known as a site that censors? Will writing a response to the comment actually assist you in communicating your message? If you do chose to delete where do you draw the line?

Respond with pride, change the topic, and maintain your integrity

If someone openly disagrees with you countering their point whilst changing the topic can be an effective method for dealing with them.

Ignore them

By not engaging with someone wanting to pick a fight the likelihood is they will eventually get bored and move on.