December 2, 2024 • 24 mins
Discover how to revolutionize your digital communications for social impact with insights from Nicolas Bruneau, a seasoned digital communications consultant from the United Nations. In the latest episode host Peter Woolfolk engages Nicolas to share transformative strategies from his book, "Engage with Impact: Five Steps to Transform Your Digital Communications for Social Impact." You'll learn about the Agile Framework, developed from extensive pandemic-era research, and how it can empower your organization's communication strategies through adopting a startup mentality, embracing digital-first approaches, and inspiring with personal stories. Using examples like the European Commission's pandemic response, Nicolas illustrates how agility and innovation can foster creativity and swift, effective communication.
Explore the art of building engaged communities and amplifying your social media presence through content repurposing and community empowerment. Nicolas explains the importance of transforming event content into blogs, podcasts, and videos, maximizing its impact throughout the year. Additionally, discover how AI can enhance brand consistency and engage followers more deeply through interactive activities and newsletters. Featuring the Malala Fund as a prime case study, Nicolas demonstrates successful community building and impactful initiatives. For those seeking to dive deeper into these strategies, his book offers a wealth of additional insights and resources, readily accessible at engagewithimpact.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:03):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast, a
program to discuss the manyfacets of public relations with
seasoned professionals,educators, authors and others.
Now here is your host, peterWoolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:24):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, this podcast is ranked byApple as among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide, so let mesay thank you to all of our
guests and listeners for makingthis happen.
Now, if you enjoy the podcast,please leave us a review.
We certainly like to hear whatyou think about the show.
(00:46):
Now a question for my listenershow do you transform your
digital communications to havethe largest social media impact?
Well, my guest today has ananswer, and that answer is
provided in his new book Engagewith Impact Five Steps to
Transform your DigitalCommunications for Social Impact
.
His book details a process thatshows communications leaders
(01:10):
how to accomplish thistransition in five important
steps.
So joining me today from Lisbon, Portugal, is Nicolas Bruneau,
a digital communicationsconsultant working at the United
Nations.
So, Nicholas, welcome to thepodcast.
Nicholas Bruneau (01:35):
Thank you, Peter.
Plet's te start re at eP theWhat caused you to want to write
this book?
Nicholas-Well Well, I rememberduring the pandemic.
Everything was changing right,we're all working from home and
there seemed to be a lot ofthings as far as the way that
organizations were communicating.
So I did a survey of marketingand communications professionals
.
I used LinkedIn to survey allof my connections and more, and
(01:56):
I asked them has the pandemichelped your communications to be
more agile and responsive tofuture changes?
And actually 83% said or agreedthat the pandemic had actually
helped them to be more agile andhelped them try new things, to
be more innovative.
Thankfully, in the survey Ialso had a lot of space for
(02:18):
people to give their comments,to give their suggestions, what
went well, what didn't go sowell.
It really gave me a treasuretrove of information, and then
from that, I decided then to doa series of interviews of
communications directors to hearhow they were changing the way
that they were communicating, toget some success stories, to
(02:40):
get really some input and toreally then bring all that
together so that it was going tobe a book that was not just
about theory but also about howpeople are really changing on
the ground, and really somethingthat was going to be inspiring
for communications managersworldwide.
Peter Woolfolk (03:01):
Now, once you had gone through that process,
you said that you were able todistill all those tactics, if
you will, into basically fivesteps, so that they could
accomplish this transition, ifyou will.
So let's start with what thosefive steps are and just how does
one go about implementing eachone of those steps.
Nicholas Bruneau (03:23):
I tried to learn.
Yeah, I mean, I I tried to sortof bring everything together to
really learn from what everyoneeverybody was telling me.
First of all, almost everyonewas saying that engagement big
challenge.
So online engagement was a bigchallenge.
Building community was a bigchallenge as well.
So how can you then take thatinto a framework that can then
(03:47):
help people?
So I took all of the commentsand the suggestions and
developed something that I callthe Agile Framework.
So the Agile Framework is fivesteps, which starts internally.
So internally, it's adopting astartup mentality, so developing
that mentality where you'rereally thinking like a startup,
(04:09):
developing systems and bettercollaborations internally, and
then go digital first, which isreally adopting new tools and
tactics so that you can reallyinnovate online and get
people's's attention on socialmedia and inspire with personal
stories, and that's about reallyhaving authentic stories and
(04:31):
tension with some storytellingstrategies.
And then leverage your contentis repurposing and that's I
think we all know that we havelimited time and resources, so
it's important to then have arepurposing, and that's I think.
We all know that we havelimited time and resources, so
it's important to then have arepurposing strategy.
So that's all about making themost out of the content and the
(04:53):
resources that you have andfinally, it's bringing it
together so that you empoweryour community, so having that
digital funnel where you'regetting your social media
subscriber, your social mediafollowers, subscribers, to then
become participants and thenfinally to become advocates.
So it's really trying to sortof take people through a process
where they're changing the waythat they're communicating and
(05:16):
first, you know, learning to run, learning to walk before they
can run, for my apologies sothat they can internally develop
the systems for them, and thenexternally, then building up
that community online and thenin person.
Peter Woolfolk (05:33):
Well, let's go back to the first one and let's
build that up a little bit more,that is, to adopt the startup
mentality, because when I thinkof startups, it's like for me
starting up a business what do Ineed to do, contracts I need to
make?
I need a whole lot of things todecide.
If I'm going to go into thebusiness, what am I going to
bring with me?
What are some of the obstaclesgoing to be?
All those kinds of things.
(05:54):
But in terms of making thisshift, if you will, from just
the outreach but into shiftingyour communications over to the
digital side, what are thosestartup issues that they need to
address and conquer and solve,if you will?
Nicholas Bruneau (06:09):
First it's having that collaborative
outlook where you'recollaborating internally and
you're really havingcommunications internally, where
people see the value ofapproaching you with a brief
before doing stuff, and so thatyou're all working together in a
(06:30):
collaborative way.
So I think an example wasduring the pandemic.
The European Commission neededto fight disinformation and they
needed to do so by reaching outto the scientific community.
They needed to do by gettinginternal and external experts to
really work together veryquickly so they set up those
(06:51):
systems.
And then the second part isalso innovating, being creative
and having an attitude where youcan accept failure.
I think that a lot oforganizations, big companies,
nobody wants to fail and whathappens is then it becomes
paralysis, where you're notevolving, you're not learning,
(07:12):
you're not trying new things.
So the importance of failure isalso a key factor for a startup
, where they can learn, they cansee the analytics and they can
see what's happening and theycan then adapt right.
So on a concrete level, oneexample in the book is an NGO
called Candid that decided thatthey wanted to experiment with
(07:35):
short form videos.
They decided that they wouldhave a three month period
specifically where they wouldtest 20 short form videos and
they would look at the analytics.
They would look at what works,what content works, what
platforms are doing better, andthen use that intel afterwards
to then build a strategy longerterm.
(07:55):
So it allows them to have anexperimental approach that is
not going to be, let's say,something that is going to use
up a lot of resources, that isnot also going to make a lot of
waves, because it's only 20videos.
So it allowed them to thenprogress into that and see how
they can move forward.
So it's really adopting thatstartup mentality.
(08:17):
We're trying new things andyou're really collaborating
internally.
Peter Woolfolk (08:22):
You know, let me just.
I want to go back to thestartup mentality because that
simply reminds me of someexperiences that I had when I
decided whether I was going todo this podcast or not.
I didn't know anything aboutpodcasts and a lot too many
times when people think thatthey might fail or do fail at
something, they stop becausethey don't want that again, I
(08:42):
looked at it differently because, you know, because I didn't do
it right meant that I did notknow what I was doing, and then
I went back to.
I have two things that keep megoing.
On this one, when people talkabout Henry Ford, obviously you
know he built these trucks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then he said he was goingto shift the cars.
And Henry, you don't knowanything about cars.
He says, well, that's true, butI'm going to hire some people
(09:05):
who do know about cars, andthose happen to be the Dodge
brothers.
So he had cars.
And then I looked not too longago when he had to get into the
rockets that took people up tothe space station.
Elon Musk, he had five rockets,five and he invested his own
money.
The first four all exploded andwent to hell.
(09:28):
The fifth one made it, andthat's the one that got him on
to now this billion dollarcontract that he has.
So it's a question of you know.
If you don't know, bring insome people that do.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I told some people I was goingto produce a CD.
I don't read music nor do Iplay any music, but I produced a
jazz CD.
(09:49):
I found out I had to havelicenses from people, got their
permission, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, and I got it done.
So what I'm basically saying isthat, yes, you might not know
how to do this the firstgo-round, but ask somebody,
bring people in that do, anddon't just see failure as well.
Wait a minute, I didn't get itright this time.
I need to add tweak, tweak itor do whatever, and let's try it
a different way.
(10:09):
But success, failure should notbe the game, be the beginning
of you're not doing something.
It should be your launching padfor saying what do I need to
correct them the correct way?
Nicholas Bruneau (10:21):
exactly.
If you look at, you know, thefirst videos of youtubers.
They're're probably awful videos, but they progressively
improved they progressivelylearned how to change their
message, how to have a hook, howto allow you to then grow and
learn from it.
So you have to have thatmentality where you're trying to
(10:50):
learn but, as I said, trying tohave it in an experimental and
a controlled manner so that itobviously doesn't take too much
of your time and also doesn'thave too much of a negative
impact.
We can also have an attitudewhere we're going to be open to
new ideas.
So in my book as well, I talkedabout the campaign that went
(11:12):
really badly for the EuropeanCommission, where they had a
video that was not well receivedto encourage people, encourage
women, to go into STEM education, going to science fields, and
they had a video that reallydidn't respond to the reality.
(11:32):
People then complained about thevideo.
So what they did is theydecided, well, let's encourage
people from the scientificcommunity to then create videos,
let's crowdsource the campaignand let's really get people
involved, and so they learn fromthat.
So by having a failure, theyreally learned how to then
(11:55):
developed crowdsourced campaignsand now, more and more, you're
seeing the European Commissiondevelop campaigns that are that
are first of asking people youknow what their opinion is and
asking them to contribute withvideos or solutions, so to
really have that bottom-upapproach as opposed to that
(12:15):
top-down approach.
Peter Woolfolk (12:17):
Yeah, I agree with that because it's also like
.
I look at the other item youhave here inspire with personal
stories, and you know, obviouslywe've just related a couple of
those because a lot of timesthat can be the inspiration for
people doing some of thosethings.
You know, one of the thingsthat I do I mean I say this
publicly now but it took me awhile to get around to it.
(12:38):
But I, being young, foolish andimmature, I was kicked out of
college twice.
But when I finally went to themilitary I changed my attitude
and approached a lot ofdifferent things.
So when I speak to collegestudents now, my opening comment
is this how does a guy like me,who got kicked out of college
twice, wind up working for thePresident of the United States?
Nicholas Bruneau (13:00):
Well, there's a whole lot of determination in
that.
Peter Woolfolk (13:03):
in that I decided what I was doing wrong,
or I was doing things the wrongway.
I decided there's got to besome way to fix it, and I was
not afraid to ask people forhelp when I needed it or some
guidance.
So how do I do this?
How is this done?
Personal stories can certainlybe a motivator in having people
(13:24):
accomplish what it is you'resaying that they do in terms of,
you know, shifting theircommunications over to the
social media platforms.
Personal stories will certainlybe a driving force in helping
that happen.
Nicholas Bruneau (13:36):
Absolutely.
And for that storytelling it'strying to bring in that
challenge that you're facing andtrying to show how you're
trying to deal with thatchallenge.
And trying to show how you'retrying to deal with that
challenge and that's really whatis going to get people to be
interested about your story isnot just, basically, you talking
about how great you are or howgreat your organization is, but
what are the challenges thatyou're facing and how are you
(13:57):
dealing with it?
And sometimes it doesn't go theway that you'd like it to, but
people are interested in thatand that's what really gets
eyeballs on.
Content is when you have astory that is really authentic,
genuine and really shows, like,the difficulties that you're
facing and you're dealing withit to try to find some solutions
(14:17):
.
Peter Woolfolk (14:18):
So how has the book been going thus far?
First of all, how long has itbeen out and how is it doing
thus far?
Nicholas Bruneau (14:24):
It's been going well as far as having an
impact with some people.
So one of my readers got back tome and said the book inspired
her to organize an event aboutfailure.
So she lives and works in theEuropean institutions in
(14:46):
Brussels and she agreed with methat failure isn't, you know,
very well seen in thesepolitically charged institutions
.
So she organized an eventinspired by the book and she
asked me to speak.
So that was really nice to seethat it is having an impact and
(15:08):
as well, you know, I think thatit's.
I was also asked to speak inBrussels for the European
Commission where they asked mehow can the Agile framework help
us to build a community, tothen, you know, not only to have
a great social media presencebut then also build community
(15:30):
and then have, you know, newpartnerships.
So I went there as well tospeak and give them a workshop
about that.
So I think it's great when youhave this feedback, that is
great, that is constructive, andI've also tried to make it, as
I guess the book, to make it asuseful as possible.
So there's like a list of tipsand a workbook and all this
(15:53):
stuff to help people on the wayto when they read it.
Peter Woolfolk (15:58):
And I think that sort of leads into my next
question or comment, and that istalk a little bit about
leveraging content that you canbegin to feed into your social
media platforms a bit more.
Amplify that a bit more.
Nicholas Bruneau (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think repurposing is
really underused.
So before the pandemic, Iremember I went to, I organized
a big event.
It was a big summit, a bigEuropean summit, and once the
event was over you know that wasit you know we were like
relieved to go home and we hadfinally finished this event.
But we hadn't thought about,you know, all the great content
(16:33):
and all the great discussionsthat we could be working from
that event so that, instead ofthe event being the last, you
know the finish line, it shouldbe the midpoint, so that if
you've organized the event well,then you have all this content
that you can then use throughoutthe year about.
You know, different topics,using it for either a blog,
(16:56):
podcast, video, different waysin which you can use the content
, maybe even make a report outof it, get some recommendations,
so that you're really creatingsomething that is going to have
some legs after the event andhelp you continue to build your
content.
So it's having that mentalitywhere we're creating something
(17:20):
like a video, for example,you're already thinking ahead.
How am I going to then takethis 30-minute video, for
example, of someone speakinginto short-form videos for
social media, into a podcast,into a blog and sometimes, of
course, you can use AI torepurpose that.
(17:41):
For me, ai is a greatrepurposing tool.
It allows you to keep yourbrand but, at the same time,
different pieces of informationin different formats.
So if you're able to do that aswell, it strengthens your brand
.
Peter Woolfolk (17:57):
So it strengthens your brand on the
key issues, your brandvisibility on yeah, I think
those are all great tips and Ithink obviously repurposing
certainly does and redirectingcertainly does have extra
benefits and that gives itadditional mileage and so forth
and so on.
And I think the final one tooyou mentioned something about, I
think you said, sort ofengaging your, empowering, your
(18:20):
community.
Add a little bit to that too aswell, so that folks can get
some additional ideas.
Nicholas Bruneau (18:27):
We all we often we look at the way that we
communicate as a communicatecommunicating to people, whereas
social media should really bemore, much more social, where,
first of all, you're trying tohave people more engaged with
community building exercises,games, different polls,
different ways in which you canengage people, different
(18:48):
contests, for example, where youcan engage people online and
also trying to then take thatengagement and those people from
social media to then join youremail newsletter, for example,
so that you're able to capturetheir details and you're not
dependent on them being onsocial media, for example, and
(19:09):
you're able to have that directrelationship and then from that,
so using a kind of a digitalfunnel approach, where then
you're able to, thanks to thembeing on the newsletter, have
them attend virtual events, forexample, or real live events,
and then gradually they start toknow you, you better, they
(19:31):
start to be more engaged and itbecomes more of a relationship
as opposed to just someoneliking a post.
So it's really building thatcommunity, and a good example
why in in the book as well isthe malala fund, where they
developed a newsletterspecifically for girls, talk
about the challenges thatthey're facing, getting the
education that they need orfacing certain issues around the
(19:56):
world and first they thoughtyou know, let's just do a
newsletter where we interviewdifferent girls and different
people from our community.
But then they had so muchinterest for people to
contribute and send theirinformation, send their stories
and contribute directly to thenewsletter that they became a
(20:17):
whole microsite on its own.
It became a whole communitywhere the girls are each other.
It's really a win-win where theMalala Fund.
Now they not only have a greatnewsletter that helps to support
their message that every girlshould have access to a negate,
and but they they're also ableto engage with this community
and also organize even smallevents where whenever Malala you
(20:41):
service I is in certaincountries, she'll meet some of
the these young advocates andreally it really builds that
sense of community and I don'tthink there's anything stronger,
you know, for a brand, for anorganization, to really do that,
to really have that high touchuh communication approach well,
nicholas, you really provided uswith a lot of insight about
(21:03):
this book of yours and thebenefits that it brings.
Peter Woolfolk (21:06):
I think we need to do now is tell people where
it's available, so if they havean interest in going after it,
they can do that.
Nicholas Bruneau (21:13):
That's right.
It's really simple.
It's available atengagewithimpactcom and there
there's more information on thebook and also there's the
Reader's Guide, which has a viewof the Agile framework and the
key topics of the book.
Peter Woolfolk (21:28):
Well, let me say thank you.
I really appreciated you comingon the show today, and again
for my guests, you've beenlistening to Nicholas Bruno talk
about the benefits of his bookEngage with Impact Five Steps to
Train your DigitalCommunications for Social Impact
, and he's let you know exactlywhere you can get and the
benefits of reading it that comewith that book.
(21:51):
So, nicholas, once again, thankyou so very much for being a
guest on the podcast today.
Nicholas Bruneau (21:56):
Thank you very much, peter, it's a pleasure.
Peter Woolfolk (21:58):
And to all my guests, thank you.
Certainly we'd like to get areview from you.
We'd like to hear what youthink about it and if you've got
some ideas of other programideas, please leave a review.
Once again, you've beenlistening to the Public
Relations Review Podcast andthank you.
Announcer (22:14):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us you.
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast, a
program to discuss the manyfacets of public relations with
seasoned professionals,educators, authors and others.
Now here is your host, peterWoolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:24):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, this podcast is ranked byApple as among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide, so let mesay thank you to all of our
guests and listeners for makingthis happen.
Now, if you enjoy the podcast,please leave us a review.
We certainly like to hear whatyou think about the show.
(00:46):
Now a question for my listenershow do you transform your
digital communications to havethe largest social media impact?
Well, my guest today has ananswer, and that answer is
provided in his new book Engagewith Impact Five Steps to
Transform your DigitalCommunications for Social Impact
.
His book details a process thatshows communications leaders
(01:10):
how to accomplish thistransition in five important
steps.
So joining me today from Lisbon, Portugal, is Nicolas Bruneau,
a digital communicationsconsultant working at the United
Nations.
So, Nicholas, welcome to thepodcast.
Nicholas Bruneau (01:35):
Thank you, Peter.
Plet's te start re at eP theWhat caused you to want to write
this book?
Nicholas-Well Well, I rememberduring the pandemic.
Everything was changing right,we're all working from home and
there seemed to be a lot ofthings as far as the way that
organizations were communicating.
So I did a survey of marketingand communications professionals
.
I used LinkedIn to survey allof my connections and more, and
(01:56):
I asked them has the pandemichelped your communications to be
more agile and responsive tofuture changes?
And actually 83% said or agreedthat the pandemic had actually
helped them to be more agile andhelped them try new things, to
be more innovative.
Thankfully, in the survey Ialso had a lot of space for
(02:18):
people to give their comments,to give their suggestions, what
went well, what didn't go sowell.
It really gave me a treasuretrove of information, and then
from that, I decided then to doa series of interviews of
communications directors to hearhow they were changing the way
that they were communicating, toget some success stories, to
(02:40):
get really some input and toreally then bring all that
together so that it was going tobe a book that was not just
about theory but also about howpeople are really changing on
the ground, and really somethingthat was going to be inspiring
for communications managersworldwide.
Peter Woolfolk (03:01):
Now, once you had gone through that process,
you said that you were able todistill all those tactics, if
you will, into basically fivesteps, so that they could
accomplish this transition, ifyou will.
So let's start with what thosefive steps are and just how does
one go about implementing eachone of those steps.
Nicholas Bruneau (03:23):
I tried to learn.
Yeah, I mean, I I tried to sortof bring everything together to
really learn from what everyoneeverybody was telling me.
First of all, almost everyonewas saying that engagement big
challenge.
So online engagement was a bigchallenge.
Building community was a bigchallenge as well.
So how can you then take thatinto a framework that can then
(03:47):
help people?
So I took all of the commentsand the suggestions and
developed something that I callthe Agile Framework.
So the Agile Framework is fivesteps, which starts internally.
So internally, it's adopting astartup mentality, so developing
that mentality where you'rereally thinking like a startup,
(04:09):
developing systems and bettercollaborations internally, and
then go digital first, which isreally adopting new tools and
tactics so that you can reallyinnovate online and get
people's's attention on socialmedia and inspire with personal
stories, and that's about reallyhaving authentic stories and
(04:31):
tension with some storytellingstrategies.
And then leverage your contentis repurposing and that's I
think we all know that we havelimited time and resources, so
it's important to then have arepurposing, and that's I think.
We all know that we havelimited time and resources, so
it's important to then have arepurposing strategy.
So that's all about making themost out of the content and the
(04:53):
resources that you have andfinally, it's bringing it
together so that you empoweryour community, so having that
digital funnel where you'regetting your social media
subscriber, your social mediafollowers, subscribers, to then
become participants and thenfinally to become advocates.
So it's really trying to sortof take people through a process
where they're changing the waythat they're communicating and
(05:16):
first, you know, learning to run, learning to walk before they
can run, for my apologies sothat they can internally develop
the systems for them, and thenexternally, then building up
that community online and thenin person.
Peter Woolfolk (05:33):
Well, let's go back to the first one and let's
build that up a little bit more,that is, to adopt the startup
mentality, because when I thinkof startups, it's like for me
starting up a business what do Ineed to do, contracts I need to
make?
I need a whole lot of things todecide.
If I'm going to go into thebusiness, what am I going to
bring with me?
What are some of the obstaclesgoing to be?
All those kinds of things.
(05:54):
But in terms of making thisshift, if you will, from just
the outreach but into shiftingyour communications over to the
digital side, what are thosestartup issues that they need to
address and conquer and solve,if you will?
Nicholas Bruneau (06:09):
First it's having that collaborative
outlook where you'recollaborating internally and
you're really havingcommunications internally, where
people see the value ofapproaching you with a brief
before doing stuff, and so thatyou're all working together in a
(06:30):
collaborative way.
So I think an example wasduring the pandemic.
The European Commission neededto fight disinformation and they
needed to do so by reaching outto the scientific community.
They needed to do by gettinginternal and external experts to
really work together veryquickly so they set up those
(06:51):
systems.
And then the second part isalso innovating, being creative
and having an attitude where youcan accept failure.
I think that a lot oforganizations, big companies,
nobody wants to fail and whathappens is then it becomes
paralysis, where you're notevolving, you're not learning,
(07:12):
you're not trying new things.
So the importance of failure isalso a key factor for a startup
, where they can learn, they cansee the analytics and they can
see what's happening and theycan then adapt right.
So on a concrete level, oneexample in the book is an NGO
called Candid that decided thatthey wanted to experiment with
(07:35):
short form videos.
They decided that they wouldhave a three month period
specifically where they wouldtest 20 short form videos and
they would look at the analytics.
They would look at what works,what content works, what
platforms are doing better, andthen use that intel afterwards
to then build a strategy longerterm.
(07:55):
So it allows them to have anexperimental approach that is
not going to be, let's say,something that is going to use
up a lot of resources, that isnot also going to make a lot of
waves, because it's only 20videos.
So it allowed them to thenprogress into that and see how
they can move forward.
So it's really adopting thatstartup mentality.
(08:17):
We're trying new things andyou're really collaborating
internally.
Peter Woolfolk (08:22):
You know, let me just.
I want to go back to thestartup mentality because that
simply reminds me of someexperiences that I had when I
decided whether I was going todo this podcast or not.
I didn't know anything aboutpodcasts and a lot too many
times when people think thatthey might fail or do fail at
something, they stop becausethey don't want that again, I
(08:42):
looked at it differently because, you know, because I didn't do
it right meant that I did notknow what I was doing, and then
I went back to.
I have two things that keep megoing.
On this one, when people talkabout Henry Ford, obviously you
know he built these trucks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then he said he was goingto shift the cars.
And Henry, you don't knowanything about cars.
He says, well, that's true, butI'm going to hire some people
(09:05):
who do know about cars, andthose happen to be the Dodge
brothers.
So he had cars.
And then I looked not too longago when he had to get into the
rockets that took people up tothe space station.
Elon Musk, he had five rockets,five and he invested his own
money.
The first four all exploded andwent to hell.
(09:28):
The fifth one made it, andthat's the one that got him on
to now this billion dollarcontract that he has.
So it's a question of you know.
If you don't know, bring insome people that do.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I told some people I was goingto produce a CD.
I don't read music nor do Iplay any music, but I produced a
jazz CD.
(09:49):
I found out I had to havelicenses from people, got their
permission, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, and I got it done.
So what I'm basically saying isthat, yes, you might not know
how to do this the firstgo-round, but ask somebody,
bring people in that do, anddon't just see failure as well.
Wait a minute, I didn't get itright this time.
I need to add tweak, tweak itor do whatever, and let's try it
a different way.
(10:09):
But success, failure should notbe the game, be the beginning
of you're not doing something.
It should be your launching padfor saying what do I need to
correct them the correct way?
Nicholas Bruneau (10:21):
exactly.
If you look at, you know, thefirst videos of youtubers.
They're're probably awful videos, but they progressively
improved they progressivelylearned how to change their
message, how to have a hook, howto allow you to then grow and
learn from it.
So you have to have thatmentality where you're trying to
(10:50):
learn but, as I said, trying tohave it in an experimental and
a controlled manner so that itobviously doesn't take too much
of your time and also doesn'thave too much of a negative
impact.
We can also have an attitudewhere we're going to be open to
new ideas.
So in my book as well, I talkedabout the campaign that went
(11:12):
really badly for the EuropeanCommission, where they had a
video that was not well receivedto encourage people, encourage
women, to go into STEM education, going to science fields, and
they had a video that reallydidn't respond to the reality.
(11:32):
People then complained about thevideo.
So what they did is theydecided, well, let's encourage
people from the scientificcommunity to then create videos,
let's crowdsource the campaignand let's really get people
involved, and so they learn fromthat.
So by having a failure, theyreally learned how to then
(11:55):
developed crowdsourced campaignsand now, more and more, you're
seeing the European Commissiondevelop campaigns that are that
are first of asking people youknow what their opinion is and
asking them to contribute withvideos or solutions, so to
really have that bottom-upapproach as opposed to that
(12:15):
top-down approach.
Peter Woolfolk (12:17):
Yeah, I agree with that because it's also like
.
I look at the other item youhave here inspire with personal
stories, and you know, obviouslywe've just related a couple of
those because a lot of timesthat can be the inspiration for
people doing some of thosethings.
You know, one of the thingsthat I do I mean I say this
publicly now but it took me awhile to get around to it.
(12:38):
But I, being young, foolish andimmature, I was kicked out of
college twice.
But when I finally went to themilitary I changed my attitude
and approached a lot ofdifferent things.
So when I speak to collegestudents now, my opening comment
is this how does a guy like me,who got kicked out of college
twice, wind up working for thePresident of the United States?
Nicholas Bruneau (13:00):
Well, there's a whole lot of determination in
that.
Peter Woolfolk (13:03):
in that I decided what I was doing wrong,
or I was doing things the wrongway.
I decided there's got to besome way to fix it, and I was
not afraid to ask people forhelp when I needed it or some
guidance.
So how do I do this?
How is this done?
Personal stories can certainlybe a motivator in having people
(13:24):
accomplish what it is you'resaying that they do in terms of,
you know, shifting theircommunications over to the
social media platforms.
Personal stories will certainlybe a driving force in helping
that happen.
Nicholas Bruneau (13:36):
Absolutely.
And for that storytelling it'strying to bring in that
challenge that you're facing andtrying to show how you're
trying to deal with thatchallenge.
And trying to show how you'retrying to deal with that
challenge and that's really whatis going to get people to be
interested about your story isnot just, basically, you talking
about how great you are or howgreat your organization is, but
what are the challenges thatyou're facing and how are you
(13:57):
dealing with it?
And sometimes it doesn't go theway that you'd like it to, but
people are interested in thatand that's what really gets
eyeballs on.
Content is when you have astory that is really authentic,
genuine and really shows, like,the difficulties that you're
facing and you're dealing withit to try to find some solutions
(14:17):
.
Peter Woolfolk (14:18):
So how has the book been going thus far?
First of all, how long has itbeen out and how is it doing
thus far?
Nicholas Bruneau (14:24):
It's been going well as far as having an
impact with some people.
So one of my readers got back tome and said the book inspired
her to organize an event aboutfailure.
So she lives and works in theEuropean institutions in
(14:46):
Brussels and she agreed with methat failure isn't, you know,
very well seen in thesepolitically charged institutions
.
So she organized an eventinspired by the book and she
asked me to speak.
So that was really nice to seethat it is having an impact and
(15:08):
as well, you know, I think thatit's.
I was also asked to speak inBrussels for the European
Commission where they asked mehow can the Agile framework help
us to build a community, tothen, you know, not only to have
a great social media presencebut then also build community
(15:30):
and then have, you know, newpartnerships.
So I went there as well tospeak and give them a workshop
about that.
So I think it's great when youhave this feedback, that is
great, that is constructive, andI've also tried to make it, as
I guess the book, to make it asuseful as possible.
So there's like a list of tipsand a workbook and all this
(15:53):
stuff to help people on the wayto when they read it.
Peter Woolfolk (15:58):
And I think that sort of leads into my next
question or comment, and that istalk a little bit about
leveraging content that you canbegin to feed into your social
media platforms a bit more.
Amplify that a bit more.
Nicholas Bruneau (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think repurposing is
really underused.
So before the pandemic, Iremember I went to, I organized
a big event.
It was a big summit, a bigEuropean summit, and once the
event was over you know that wasit you know we were like
relieved to go home and we hadfinally finished this event.
But we hadn't thought about,you know, all the great content
(16:33):
and all the great discussionsthat we could be working from
that event so that, instead ofthe event being the last, you
know the finish line, it shouldbe the midpoint, so that if
you've organized the event well,then you have all this content
that you can then use throughoutthe year about.
You know, different topics,using it for either a blog,
(16:56):
podcast, video, different waysin which you can use the content
, maybe even make a report outof it, get some recommendations,
so that you're really creatingsomething that is going to have
some legs after the event andhelp you continue to build your
content.
So it's having that mentalitywhere we're creating something
(17:20):
like a video, for example,you're already thinking ahead.
How am I going to then takethis 30-minute video, for
example, of someone speakinginto short-form videos for
social media, into a podcast,into a blog and sometimes, of
course, you can use AI torepurpose that.
(17:41):
For me, ai is a greatrepurposing tool.
It allows you to keep yourbrand but, at the same time,
different pieces of informationin different formats.
So if you're able to do that aswell, it strengthens your brand
.
Peter Woolfolk (17:57):
So it strengthens your brand on the
key issues, your brandvisibility on yeah, I think
those are all great tips and Ithink obviously repurposing
certainly does and redirectingcertainly does have extra
benefits and that gives itadditional mileage and so forth
and so on.
And I think the final one tooyou mentioned something about, I
think you said, sort ofengaging your, empowering, your
(18:20):
community.
Add a little bit to that too aswell, so that folks can get
some additional ideas.
Nicholas Bruneau (18:27):
We all we often we look at the way that we
communicate as a communicatecommunicating to people, whereas
social media should really bemore, much more social, where,
first of all, you're trying tohave people more engaged with
community building exercises,games, different polls,
different ways in which you canengage people, different
(18:48):
contests, for example, where youcan engage people online and
also trying to then take thatengagement and those people from
social media to then join youremail newsletter, for example,
so that you're able to capturetheir details and you're not
dependent on them being onsocial media, for example, and
(19:09):
you're able to have that directrelationship and then from that,
so using a kind of a digitalfunnel approach, where then
you're able to, thanks to thembeing on the newsletter, have
them attend virtual events, forexample, or real live events,
and then gradually they start toknow you, you better, they
(19:31):
start to be more engaged and itbecomes more of a relationship
as opposed to just someoneliking a post.
So it's really building thatcommunity, and a good example
why in in the book as well isthe malala fund, where they
developed a newsletterspecifically for girls, talk
about the challenges thatthey're facing, getting the
education that they need orfacing certain issues around the
(19:56):
world and first they thoughtyou know, let's just do a
newsletter where we interviewdifferent girls and different
people from our community.
But then they had so muchinterest for people to
contribute and send theirinformation, send their stories
and contribute directly to thenewsletter that they became a
(20:17):
whole microsite on its own.
It became a whole communitywhere the girls are each other.
It's really a win-win where theMalala Fund.
Now they not only have a greatnewsletter that helps to support
their message that every girlshould have access to a negate,
and but they they're also ableto engage with this community
and also organize even smallevents where whenever Malala you
(20:41):
service I is in certaincountries, she'll meet some of
the these young advocates andreally it really builds that
sense of community and I don'tthink there's anything stronger,
you know, for a brand, for anorganization, to really do that,
to really have that high touchuh communication approach well,
nicholas, you really provided uswith a lot of insight about
(21:03):
this book of yours and thebenefits that it brings.
Peter Woolfolk (21:06):
I think we need to do now is tell people where
it's available, so if they havean interest in going after it,
they can do that.
Nicholas Bruneau (21:13):
That's right.
It's really simple.
It's available atengagewithimpactcom and there
there's more information on thebook and also there's the
Reader's Guide, which has a viewof the Agile framework and the
key topics of the book.
Peter Woolfolk (21:28):
Well, let me say thank you.
I really appreciated you comingon the show today, and again
for my guests, you've beenlistening to Nicholas Bruno talk
about the benefits of his bookEngage with Impact Five Steps to
Train your DigitalCommunications for Social Impact
, and he's let you know exactlywhere you can get and the
benefits of reading it that comewith that book.
(21:51):
So, nicholas, once again, thankyou so very much for being a
guest on the podcast today.
Nicholas Bruneau (21:56):
Thank you very much, peter, it's a pleasure.
Peter Woolfolk (21:58):
And to all my guests, thank you.
Certainly we'd like to get areview from you.
We'd like to hear what youthink about it and if you've got
some ideas of other programideas, please leave a review.
Once again, you've beenlistening to the Public
Relations Review Podcast andthank you.
Announcer (22:14):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us you.
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