The digital landscape has transformed how artists connect with audiences, but what strategies actually work in today's crowded online space? Michael Morreale, digital content producer and arts consultant with experience spanning brands like CBC, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and beyond, offers a refreshingly practical approach to arts marketing.
"Our job isn't to pitch stories to media outlets anymore. Our job is to tell our own story," Michael explains, cutting through the noise to what really matters. Drawing from his experience creating content that reached 16 million Canadians during Canada's sesquicentennial celebration, he shares actionable advice that works for organizations of any size.
The conversation explores how to build an effective digital strategy by first understanding your audience deeply. Michael reveals insights about audience research: "Look at your Google Analytics to see what people are searching to land on your website. Sometimes it's things like 'where do I find parking nearby?' This isn't what you may think of first when creating content, but if you're answering the questions your audience has, you'll develop that relationship."
Rather than chasing every social platform, Michael advocates for strategic focus, particularly highlighting LinkedIn's untapped potential for arts organizations. "LinkedIn has evolved beyond what we knew a few years ago," he notes, explaining how individual voices often outperform organizational accounts on the platform.
For artists struggling with content creation, the episode offers practical frameworks to simplify the process, including creating content categories and consistent posting schedules. Perhaps most valuable is Michael's closing advice: "There's no hack to solving these problems, but consistency is the best way to start." If you're looking to elevate your digital presence without getting overwhelmed, this conversation provides the roadmap you need.
All episodes are also available in video form on our YouTube Channel. All episodes are hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Elizabeth Bowman (00:00):
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to
the Scene Room.
Today I have Michael Morrealehere.
He is a digital contentproducer and consultant in
Toronto.
He specializes in videoproduction, online learning and
digital project management.
He has worked with brands likethe CBC, toronto Symphony
(00:21):
Orchestra, the RoyalConservatory Banff Centre and
AGI.
His work has been featured inMaclean's Magazine, the Globe
and Mail, PBS and the Guardian.
Michael has a lot of practicaladvice in this episode.
I'm really excited to share itwith you.
We had a great conversationabout branding and digital
(00:42):
content creation.
If you are enjoying the podcast, please like it, subscribe to
it, share it.
All of these small actionsreally do result in keeping this
podcast going, so let's get toit.
Michael, welcome to the sceneroom.
Thanks so much for being here.
Michael Morreale (01:01):
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
I've been enjoying watching andlistening along.
Thank you?
Elizabeth Bowman (01:06):
Where are we talking to you from?
Michael Morreale (01:08):
Yeah, I'm at my house now in the east side of
Toronto, so I spend most of mytime here.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:12):
Great, and do you have a studio in your house?
I don't know.
Michael Morreale (01:15):
If you put a microphone in a room, does that
make it a studio?
Elizabeth Bowman (01:18):
That's a good question.
Michael Morreale (01:20):
All say it.
When I get on a Zoom call and Iuse this same setup, the line
that I always use is you know,if I don't have anything smart
to say, I might as well look andsound good saying it.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:28):
Yeah, I used to say that when I was singing
for a living I used to say 75%of my job is to look the part,
25% is the rest.
But I mean, obviously you gotto work towards performing well.
I'm just saying that from apsychological point of view it
really does help to look thepart and feel the part.
(01:49):
Then you are that part.
Michael Morreale (01:51):
We'll take what we can get right.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:52):
Let's talk about how you got to where you
are, your journey intocommunications, marketing and
all of this arts business.
Michael Morreale (02:02):
I've been really lucky.
I've been able to have a numberof different perspectives in my
career is maybe one way youcould say it.
So, straight out of school, myfirst job was at CBC, producing
a radio show with the wonderfulJulie Nasrella, and there was
all about let's think about howwe can talk about music in a way
that is accessible to people,that is interesting, that is
human, and I was lucky to havethat as my starting point.
(02:24):
Where to people, that isinteresting, that is human, and
I was lucky to have that as mystarting point.
Where there was a big audiencewith high expectations all the
time.
I moved on from there toactually work within the arts
world directly the TorontoSymphony.
I was there director for anumber of years where we did a
number of digital initiativesand marketing initiatives, where
I sort of started to get mymarketing chops.
And then I kind of challengedmyself to do something entirely
different and I said you know,the arts have been wonderful,
(02:45):
let's see what the rest of theworld is like.
So I did a total left turn.
I worked in the agricultureindustry at a big equipment
manufacturer, learned all sortsof things about how the world
works, about how marketing worksabout how audiences and
companies or organizationsinteract.
And now I'm at the point whereI'm putting it all together,
running my own show as both aconsultant and a sort of video
(03:05):
production work with clients.
All this to say, it's a lot ofdifferent perspectives that I'm
bringing to this work.
That is from the beginning, butjust all about marketing and
storytelling and thinking abouthow that looks like.
Elizabeth Bowman (03:15):
I love that because obviously your story is
helping you tell other people'sstory and all of those different
perspectives definitely paint areally comprehensive picture In
your experience.
How has the marketing andcommunications industry evolved
and particularly because of theaudience listening to this
particularly in the performingarts and creative sector?
Michael Morreale (03:38):
Well, I mean and this goes back to how you
and I first met many years agoOf course the media landscape
has changed so much within thearts.
It wasn't that long ago whereyou would expect to get a
feature in a big newspaper or areview in the newspaper or
coverage when you're doingsomething important.
Of course that's all changed andI think we're all by now beyond
the part of point ofcomplaining about it and now at
(04:00):
the point of okay, we have totell our own story.
Our job isn't to pitch thestories to audiences or to
newspapers or media outlets.
Our job is to do that ourselves.
So that, of course, was a hugeshift and it's been really
interesting to see how differentorganizations have done it in a
number of different ways.
And you know you are the onewho has helped so many people do
that too.
So I know that you have a lotto say on that topic, but I
(04:21):
think what it's meant is thatorganizations have really gotten
to know their audience in adifferent kind of way and that
conversation is a little bitmore back and forth in the
process through social media andgetting that feedback instantly
.
I think it's overall been agood thing, even if it's a job
that didn't really need to bedone before, when landscape was
differently.
Elizabeth Bowman (04:39):
I mean, obviously we have so many tools
now and so many different waysto tell stories and that can
overwhelm artists and creators.
But I do love the empowermentof having those tools to tell
the story and I remember whenthey first were coming out, you
know, when Twitter just came outof almost nowhere and Facebook
(05:00):
and the idea of just putting avideo up and saying who you are
was a really wonderful thing.
And I remember talking to myclients about it at the time and
saying, well, who's to say youdon't do that?
Let's just say you do that.
You know, because they wereworried about oh, I don't know
if casting directors arethinking of me in this role.
Tell everyone that you'reworking on it.
Michael Morreale (05:21):
It's empowering If you say it out
loud, if you put it out on theinternet, then it's true, but
it's a whole new skill set thatpeople needed to develop and are
still developing as thelandscape is changing currently
as well.
Elizabeth Bowman (05:32):
Yeah, I would like to see more emphasis on
interview strategy and executionin performing arts programs.
I'd like to see them reallypracticing and honing in those
interview skills because youoften hear people rambling on,
not getting to the point or notunderstanding that, for instance
(05:53):
, if you're on a radio broadcast, you should really only have
one or two points that you wantto get out of that interview and
you need to reiterate thosepoints because obviously
someone's got to remember fromthat interview, you know.
Michael Morreale (06:06):
Yeah, well, on that, like it's two specific
skills.
It's one being on this side ofcamera and how you're supposed
to act and what is useful to actin that way, and then the
technical and strategic side ofyou know operating a camera, of
you know putting yourself outthere, even if it's a quick
video.
We don't learn that in musicschool.
We don't learn that even asyou're starting out as a
marketer.
You just got to pick it up onyour own.
Elizabeth Bowman (06:27):
Can you share an example of a branding or
marketing campaign that you'veworked on or admired, that has
really stood out and what, inyour opinion, made it so
effective?
Michael Morreale (06:38):
A lot of what stands out in my mind is times
in my career where things havegone, you know, not well, or
I've had great learningexperiences from things.
But I had one particularmarketing, you know challenge
put to me which was sort of aonce in a lifetime sort of
moment, and that was at theToronto Symphony 2017,.
Toronto Symphony was lucky toget a really significant amount
of funding from the federalgovernment to celebrate Canada's
(06:59):
sesquicentennial.
It was a big project of allsorts of Canadian music for a
year, but the marketing side ofit was the government saying we
need this to be very impactful.
We need this to touch as manyCanadians as possible.
What if we gave you enoughfunding?
What can you do as a marketerto make sure that enough people
in Canada see this?
So, with that big annoying thingof not having enough money off
(07:19):
the table, my goal was to recordall the concerts, which was 40
concerts in a year and then usethat content, promote it, get it
online to get it seen by asmany people across Canada as
possible.
This was a situation of beingable to think outside the box
because, you know, suddenly wehad proper budgets to do things
and in the end, we did hit ourtarget, which was 16 million
Canadians.
(07:39):
So it is possible.
It is possible and even if it'snot something that going
forward will happen on thisscale, learned a lot about
dissemination of content thatstill informs when I'm creating
something with even the smallestof arts organization.
How do we actually get peopleto hear this?
How do we create content foraudience that is worth their
time and they enjoy creating it?
Elizabeth Bowman (07:58):
That brings me to my next question, which is
for the arts organizations thatdon't have big budgets.
Do you have maybe threepractical tips that they can use
to increase their visibilityand build their brand?
Michael Morreale (08:10):
The first thing I would say is build your
squad, and this doesn't meangoing out hiring a big,
expensive ad agency that, ofcourse, is out of reach, you
know.
It might be training on thepersonal level of taking some
courses online or LinkedInlearning, which I love for short
courses, and it might bepulling in freelance support on
certain projects that are reallyimportant.
Because when it comes toreaching an audience, the number
(08:33):
one thing that you have to dois create things with
consistency.
So I see a lot of organizationsthey have an initiative where
they can create some contentaround that initiative, but that
initiative ends, or the quietpart, months before the
performance happens and there'snot the content happening.
I mean, the only way thatyou're going to grow an audience
is consistent content that isactually speaking to and
(08:54):
informed by your audience.
So that's number two, and thenumber three on what to do would
be just to keep a really goodlibrary of content that you see
from other organizations thatdoes well, and really analyze it
, be strategic about what arethey doing that's working.
That I can apply with my ownorganization within the
limitations that I have at myown.
So that would be my startingpoint.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:15):
Also, I imagine that if you're keeping a
library of effective marketingstrategies that are being done
in North America or around theworld, you could also share
those in your stories notnecessarily in your posts,
because obviously your posts arefor your branded content, but
you could applaud thoseorganizations for doing what
they're doing, and that wouldincrease targeted engagement too
(09:39):
, right?
Michael Morreale (09:39):
That's right, yeah, and social media is a
two-way street anyway, soengaging, interacting with these
other posts too, is another wayof growing your audience
without spending a lot of moneyor even time.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:50):
So a lot of individual artists listen to
this podcast, so I know thatthey would be interested in
learning strategies that theycan use to stand out and connect
with audiences in the digitalspace.
What would you suggest to them?
Michael Morreale (10:03):
them.
A couple of things.
First would be to reallyunderstand who your audience is.
Look at your existing followers, look at the people who are in
the audience at your performance.
Everything you can figure outabout who these people are
beyond, I guess, as a startingpoint, beyond how old they are
and what they do for a living,what else they enjoy outside of
(10:23):
attending your performances,because the more you can
understand about your audience,the more you can create things
that your audience will like.
So that's the first thing, andthe second is directly related
to that, which is speak to youraudience directly.
I mean, I think a lot of peoplethink of it as from yourself, as
this is what I want to say, butthink of it as this is what I
want to hear as the audiencemember, because if you're
(10:44):
answering their most commonquestions, if you're talking
about the topics that they'remost interested in, that's how
you're going to capture theirattendance.
And a great example of this is,say, you're an organization
creating social media content.
You're looking at posts that dowell.
You survey your audience tofind out what their most
frequently asked question mightbe.
You look at your GoogleAnalytics to see what people are
searching to land on yourwebsite.
Sometimes it's things likewhere do I find parking nearby?
(11:06):
This isn't the thing that youmay think of first when it comes
to creating content, but ifyou're answering the questions
that your audience have, thenyou'll start to develop that
relationship with them that youcan go back and forth on through
content that you're creating.
Elizabeth Bowman (11:17):
That's great.
The where do I find parkingnearby?
Because there should be a videonearby.
Because there should be a video.
There isn't one existing, evena short video, of someone
driving a car and driving upwhatever that main street is and
then seeing that parking signgiving people a visual of the
arrival, of the experience ofgetting to the theater or the
(11:40):
opera house or wherever they'regoing.
Michael Morreale (11:42):
This is Toronto.
Like this may be the number onething that someone is
hesitating about beforepurchasing a ticket to your
downtown Toronto performance ifthey're coming from somewhere a
little further out from the core.
Elizabeth Bowman (11:53):
I get anxious and I live just outside of New
York City.
I'm lucky because I have aparking spot in Lincoln Center
because of my husband's job, butif I didn't have that, I must
say it would give me anxiety,because then it's suddenly this
huge thing.
Do I book it in advance?
They have all these apps andthings like that.
(12:13):
It's insane.
So that's great Checking outwhat people are Googling for
your organization and answeringthose questions.
I love that.
Michael Morreale (12:22):
Yeah, and actually can I get like really
specific on that, just in casethat helps.
So if you set up the Googlesearch console, which is how
your site interacts with Google,what information you're giving
it to it directly that it's notpulling from what it finds?
There's a little tab in therethat you can see exactly what
have people searched to belanding on my site.
Some other website analyticswill tell you this as well.
I found some surprising thingsthat you can create content
(12:45):
about, of like how people arecoming to find you.
It's not always what you'dthink.
Elizabeth Bowman (12:49):
Okay, let's get even more specific.
What about the digital tools orplatforms that you think are
must haves for artists and ororganizations to enhance their
online presence?
Michael Morreale (13:01):
Yeah, sure, that's a big question.
I think the first biggest, mostobvious one is your strategy,
is your digital strategy.
You know, for a lot of people,look, we have a lot of things to
do.
It's easy just to start doingsomething and running with it,
but to take some time to reallydocument what you're trying to
do online with your digitalstrategy.
Can I answer that questionAgain who is your audience?
(13:22):
What are their needs?
How can I serve them online andhow can I unfold my?
If you're a season throughout ayear, how can that unfold online
?
What will that look like?
What are the big moments that Ireally want to create a lot of
content around or build adigital experience around as
much as possible.
So you start with that digitalstrategy.
That does make it easier, asyou're busy performing or
(13:43):
selling tickets throughout theyear, to actually stick to it
and create something.
The other part of that strategywill be your channel strategy.
So where are you going to bemost active online?
It is not the best strategy tojust have an account on every
single platform.
You can imagine and create thesame piece of content and drop
it everywhere.
Of course, that's not going towork.
So I'd recommend taking sometime to really think carefully
(14:05):
about where do I want to liveonline?
And that's based on where youraudience lives, where you know
they are now, where you've spenttime and energy building up and
where, strategically, mightmake sense to keep building.
Where strategically might makesense to not.
Is there, for example, acertain social media platform
that is just getting kind ofsketchy lately and you don't
want to associate yourself with.
(14:26):
Maybe don't spend the timethere anymore.
Elizabeth Bowman (14:28):
I wonder where that is.
Michael Morreale (14:29):
Could be, anything Could be anything.
Elizabeth Bowman (14:31):
That's great advice.
I starting this podcast.
You know I've been through thisexercise many times with my
clients, looking at the varioussocial media platforms and which
ones are most organic to them.
And it might be surprising toknow that it is different based
on the person, because theyinteract with the different
(14:52):
platforms differently, as we areall human and we are all
different.
And with the Scene Room podcast,I did the same exercise and I'm
actually I get a really high,high impression rate on LinkedIn
which I've never had before sohigh LinkedIn and I'm enjoying
it.
And I'm now on LinkedIn a lotmore than I was before because
(15:14):
my impression rate is muchhigher there.
The likes might not necessarilytranslate into that high
impression rate yet and I'mhoping that people will start
showing themselves and likingthe post and reacting to the
posts, so it's interesting.
And then also I decided at thebeginning that I would drop the
video content on to both YouTubeand Facebook to see how it
(15:36):
would perform, and I have a hugeamount of listeners on YouTube,
whereas Facebook I've just madea decision that I'm not going
to continue to drop the full,whereas Facebook I've just made
a decision that I'm not going tocontinue to drop the full
episodes on Facebook becauseit's just not performing as well
.
So, to your point, I'm reactingto the data that is presented
to me and I will then go forwardwith the podcast with that
(15:58):
strategy.
Michael Morreale (15:59):
Yeah, and I guess you wouldn't know that
unless you started out being ona certain number of platforms to
see what sort of bubbles to thesurface.
For you, linkedin is a reallyinteresting one.
I mean, you know this, I loveLinkedIn.
It's been sort of a newerinterest of mine because in the
past it was seen as this B2Bcorporate thought leader, weird
sort of space.
But that has shifted,especially as some of these
(16:21):
other platforms have scaredpeople away to our point a few
moments ago.
Linkedin has been a really goodplace to actually connect with
audiences and there's a fewreasons for it.
One is that LinkedIn has a bigsort of lurker culture and not
so much a poster culture, sothere's not as many people
creating content on LinkedIn,and I think this creates a real
big opportunity for artsorganizations, for artists,
(16:43):
because the audiences are thereand it's evolved beyond the
LinkedIn that we knew a fewyears ago.
So I think there's somethingthere.
It's interesting that you saythat.
Elizabeth Bowman (16:51):
Also, there are highly educated people on
LinkedIn and in terms of operaand symphony audiences, that
aligns with a lot of the targetaudiences to fill up their halls
.
So I think that LinkedIn isdefinitely worth investing in if
you're an arts organization,for sure.
Michael Morreale (17:11):
But one quick thing on it that I should have
mentioned on LinkedIn is that,yes, there are company pages
that are on behalf of anorganization, but they don't do
really well.
What LinkedIn wants to see iscontent coming from individuals,
so organizations are having towork with their CEOs or
leadership to create content fortheir pages, which really
changes how you think of it, andso putting time into creating a
(17:32):
company page doesn't always payoff.
Investing in your people forthem to create content, whatever
that looks like, is where itstarts to pay off a little bit
more, I think, for organizationsof any size.
Elizabeth Bowman (17:43):
That makes sense Because, yeah, most of the
stuff I interact with as wellis individual content, which
obviously these people areworking for big organizations.
But the motivation is thatsomeone is telling me something
and I'm reacting to thatpersonal message rather than
like an organization being likeoh, we have a new season.
Michael Morreale (18:03):
Yeah, it changes your messaging and what
that looks like and the level oftrust when it's coming from an
individual, not an organizationarts organization or not is so
much higher.
Elizabeth Bowman (18:12):
Yeah.
And also, if they are talkingabout their new season, they're
not talking about it in a waythat's like here's our new
season.
They're talking about somethingvery specific, either a problem
that they needed to solve, oryou know something about their
marketing strategy.
They're talking as if it's well, it is behind the scenes, but
(18:33):
that's the most effectivemessaging on LinkedIn, as far as
I can see.
I haven't done the researchthat you likely have on LinkedIn
.
Michael Morreale (18:40):
As far as I can see, I haven't done the
research that you likely have.
Yeah, and so if I were workingwithin an organization and a
season launch was coming up orsome big piece of news was
coming up, part of the work thatwould need to be done is
working with your leadership toequip them with.
Maybe it's letting them go offand create their own videos.
Maybe it's you doing it forthem as like a ghost writer or
something to support them.
It's you doing it for them aslike a ghost writer or something
(19:03):
to support them.
This has changed how PR andpublicity used to be, but it's
an important opportunity interms of telling your story and
shaping your story for how itrolls out online.
Elizabeth Bowman (19:10):
Can I ask about your process in terms of
your work, like when you'reinvited to do your consulting
work along with your videographywork?
Can you tell me a bit aboutwhat happens like step one
through three or something?
Michael Morreale (19:26):
Yeah, good question, and on the two sides
would be a little bit differentmaybe.
But I think what I bring to myvideo work and my consulting
work always comes back to theexperience that I have, from
being a marketer in thecorporate world to working in
broadcasting and media, toworking within a nonprofit
organization, and it's alwaysstarting with those big
strategic questions.
(19:46):
To start off Again who is youraudience?
What is the message?
What action do you want them totake?
What channels do you haveavailable to you to tell that
story so that when you'reactually creating something and
rolling it out, you know thatit's something that is working
against your business objectivesor whatever objectives that you
have with that particularproject.
Elizabeth Bowman (20:05):
That it is.
Michael Morreale (20:06):
When I do my consulting work with the arts
firm, we have a standardpractice and process where we're
always starting with interviewsof audience members of an
organization and stakeholderswhich might be other people in
the community, funders,government, to really be able to
tell that story.
And I'm always really surprisedthat people working within an
organization they have a prettygood idea of what their audience
(20:29):
says, but there's always littlesurprises in there that they
learn about their audiencethrough these surveys, through
these conversations that we haveearly on.
And then I always like to hopethat we're sort of creating a
culture of really doing thatresearch on an annual and
regular basis so that you cansay that you want to understand
your audience but to actuallystep up and do it has led to so
(20:49):
much success on futureinitiatives as well.
Elizabeth Bowman (20:51):
Conversation is key to excellent
communication.
On the Cate Pisaroni episode,we talked about how it would be
great if marketers could do aspeed dating style, set up with
the artists individually andspend five minutes with each of
the artists that will beperforming on the stage and I
(21:13):
mean we were thinking of anopera production, because
obviously there are a lot ofartists that are on the stage
during those performances butthe idea of what would come as a
result of those conversationsand the individuals having those
conversations because everyonewriting down their thoughts
individually and then comingback to the marketing table and
(21:34):
coming up with a strategy basedon creative it's all about
collaboration conversation basedon creative.
It's all about collaborationconversation.
Michael Morreale (21:42):
I mean it's not rocket science, but it is,
for some reason, harder than itshould be to get all these
people together.
Yeah, and I think we do apretty good job at having
conversations with individualaudience members or people we
know who are sort of close to us.
We can have those conversations.
What gets a little bit harderis to be, you know, it's not
rocket science, but it is alittle bit of science of
(22:02):
developing a survey that hits alarger segment of your audience.
That doesn't leave out thepeople who you're not going to
go up to them and talk to them,but you see that are coming to
your performance, because theseare just the broader insights
that you can have over youraudience to stop those
assumptions that you have inthese backstage conversations of
oh I think our audience wantsthis.
Well, don't think like we canask and we can get those answers
(22:23):
from a very data, informed andcertain sense.
Elizabeth Bowman (22:26):
What do you think with AI entering the
equation now in full force?
It sort of almost came inovernight, where now everyone is
seems to be using AI to helpthem make their emails more
polite, or or whatever the casemay be.
Michael Morreale (22:42):
You know I thought it was again.
It hasn't been that long.
There was an interview withBarack Obama like a year and a
half ago where he said like theonly human invention with the
same amount of impact as AI hasbeen the invention of
electricity or the discovery ofelectricity, and at the time it
sounded like you know, just sortof a big statement.
But yes, it can changeeverything, and I know there's
(23:03):
all sorts of conversation aroundit, so I'll sort of bring it
down to the level that I see it.
You know, if you think of itlike a co-pilot, where you know,
in the cockpit of a plane, youcan tell that pilot what to do,
it's all things that you can doyourself.
But the second set of hands ishelpful.
Ai will be successful when youcan use it to do the things that
give you more time to do thethings that are important Flying
(23:24):
the plane landing right on therunway, for instance, to run
with that a little too far.
So there are certainly AI toolsthat can be used.
I think we all have developednow a pretty good sense of what
are the things that we don'twant to replace.
What are the things that Iwould have spent a couple hours
learning how to do that.
I can just have AI do to makemore time in the rest of my day.
So there's those sort ofquestions.
(23:44):
I've also made room in my ownschedule to be experimenting
because of how quickly new toolsare appearing, and I'm just
starting a year-long process,thanks to Canada Council, on
some funding to explore AI toolsand document that process a
little bit, because if you'rewatching the news and seeing new
tools come available, it can bevery overwhelming.
(24:05):
So, taking a step back, askingyourself the question what is
the problem that you want tosolve?
Well, there may be an AIcomponent to solving it.
Elizabeth Bowman (24:11):
That's great that you're doing that work,
because right now I'm imaginingthat arts organizations will
really benefit from looking overtheir statistics all of the
numbers that need to be analyzed, that they don't necessarily
have a data analyticsprofessional to deal with given
budgets 100%.
Michael Morreale (24:30):
That's like one of the first things I would
do.
I mean, there's, of course,been a large amount of data
collected over the years,hopefully about who is
purchasing tickets, how peopleare engaging with you across
social media platforms by email,so that data analytics part of
it is a great example, because Iknow we have these
conversations of big, scary AIthings that we never want to
(24:51):
have AI do for us.
I think we're pretty okay withhaving them tally up results of
certain things or find trendsthat you know we're maybe not
able to do ourselves.
Elizabeth Bowman (24:59):
What are some mistakes you think organizations
or individuals make whencreating a promotional video?
Michael Morreale (25:06):
I would say with anything, before you start
hitting the record button on thevideo, to really think
strategically about how this isgoing to roll out.
There are a lot of videoprojects where people have come
to me and we start talking aboutit and we discover this isn't
going to be a three minute videolike you're asking for.
It's going to be three oneminute videos that can tell
three different portions of this, because we know that these
(25:27):
shorter style videos are moreeffective on social media.
For this reason, that's saved alot of time and a lot of
creative editing when thosedecisions are made early on.
So what makes a good video One?
It speaks to the needs of youraudience.
It does it in a really conciseway and it does it in an
interesting way, because usuallythe easy way is not especially
interesting, having just someguy in front of a camera talking
(25:48):
.
The more you can show thingsrather than tell, the more
effective that particular videowill be.
But of course, like anythingelse, it depends.
Elizabeth Bowman (25:55):
And how important do you think is the
branding element to anythingvideo, print, advertising, all
that stuff when it comes to anorganization, what is the most
important thing for visualbranding?
Michael Morreale (26:09):
I think the brand is very important and the
branding reflects that.
So the brand is who you are andwhat story, what message it is
that you're trying to craft andshare.
The branding of the colors andthe fonts you use is nice, but
not as important as the bigpicture.
The big picture is beingconsistent with telling the
story from the same perspectiveall the time, and what I mean by
(26:30):
that is you know, you'rebuilding this image of you or
your organization and if you'realways, you know, painting a
different picture, doing it in adifferent way, then your brand
is going to suffer.
You're going to confuse people.
When I'm working with people oncreating social media content
and we're trying to come up withideas, oftentimes it's coming
up with ways to say the samething over and over in slightly
different ways, and that sort ofconsistency is how you build
(26:52):
that brand, how you're buildingthat trust with your audience.
So the brand very important.
The branding yes, you want tolook professional and polished,
but it's not as important to meat least, as the big picture hey
, now write down the type ofcontent you want to share and
then put that into categories.
Elizabeth Bowman (27:09):
So, and ideally by the end they have
maybe four or five categories of, like, big picture categories
(27:30):
of the types of things Likemaybe it's just to simplify this
Behind the scenes, on stage,personal.
So we'll just there are threein this version, but oftentimes
we'll have more than threethings and oftentimes you'll
have things that are more proneto have video content.
Other times you'll have maybepress quotes or something that
you want to share, and then Iask them to find a template on
(27:53):
Canva and assign it to one ofthe categories, and then it's
just a matter of them filling in.
They're like oh, I've got thispicture, what category is that
going into?
Then they don't have to thinkso hard, you know, because all
of the category management hasbeen done before.
They did all that work inputting together the brand
(28:15):
strategy.
I guess you would call it.
Michael Morreale (28:17):
Yeah, and that's the work.
And it's funny.
Sometimes people talk aboutgoing to AI to generate ideas of
what to come up with to talkabout, and anyone who I know,
who is an interesting enoughperson, never has trouble coming
up with interesting things tosay.
This is not, to me, theapplication of AI that I think
is going to be useful.
It's easy to come up withthings to say.
What's hard is coming up withconsistent things to say.
(28:39):
So that exercise that youdescribe is really similar to
what I do with my own clientsand what I do for my personal
content that I'm creating is Ikind of create this matrix,
where on the top of the matrix,I say what are the topics that
we want to talk about, and onthe y-axis, I guess it's how are
we going to talk about them?
So, topics I talk aboutmarketing, I talk about digital
marketing, I talk about videos.
(29:00):
On the other side it's I talkabout a news item, I talk about
a tip, I talk about a case study.
You can mix and match thosethings and come up with almost
unlimited things to talk about.
That's never the hard part, buthaving a structure certainly
makes it a lot easier.
Elizabeth Bowman (29:13):
And especially if someone's a performing
artist and they're backstage andoftentimes they feel
uncomfortable taking photosbackstage.
I'm not sure what it is,because they sound amazing on
the stage, but then they get offstage and they lose all that
confidence and they feel, oh, Idon't want to take a picture now
(29:35):
, oh, it's just too much.
But if they have a set list ofthings that they can photograph,
they're like, okay, well, I'llcheck that off and I'll check
this off and it just makes lifeeasier.
I mean, when we have directivesand lists makes life easier.
Michael Morreale (29:49):
I agree.
And to our earlier point, too,of building your team, building
your squad.
You know, if this is somethingthat you're uncomfortable with,
that is not your area ofexpertise, just get help.
Get someone like you to come inand give them that list and
don't feel bad about it, becausethe total number of skills that
an artist needs to have to besuccessful it's such a long list
that it would be impossible foreveryone to have them all.
(30:11):
So it's just part of theprocess.
Elizabeth Bowman (30:13):
To wrap things up, I just want to ask if
there's one piece of adviceyou'd give to performers looking
to grow their brand or business.
What would that one piece ofadvice be?
Michael Morreale (30:25):
I'll pull it full circle here, which is
consistency.
If you're strategic aboutsaying the same thing over and
over, if you're consistent aboutsticking to your posting
schedule, about creating contenton a really regular basis that
is informed by your audience,that is speaking directly to
your audience with their needsin mind.
There's no hack to solvingthese problems, but that's the
(30:46):
best way to start.
Elizabeth Bowman (30:47):
Great advice Consistency is helped by
collaboration, and so forartists who are nervous about
posting or brainstorming aboutthings to post, always think of
your colleagues and think of thehappenings around you, think of
those cafes you go to, therestaurants you eat dinner at,
(31:07):
think about all these otherthings, so that you're not
necessarily feelinguncomfortable sharing only
yourself on social media,because people are interested in
those collaborative stories.
Michael Morreale (31:20):
If you're an artist, you have a huge number
of people who are paying moneyto come and see you perform.
You have something to say andpeople want to hear it.
Elizabeth Bowman (31:27):
Thanks for doing this.
Michael Morreale (31:28):
You're welcome .
Thank you, this has been fun.
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to
the Scene Room.
Today I have Michael Morrealehere.
He is a digital contentproducer and consultant in
Toronto.
He specializes in videoproduction, online learning and
digital project management.
He has worked with brands likethe CBC, toronto Symphony
(00:21):
Orchestra, the RoyalConservatory Banff Centre and
AGI.
His work has been featured inMaclean's Magazine, the Globe
and Mail, PBS and the Guardian.
Michael has a lot of practicaladvice in this episode.
I'm really excited to share itwith you.
We had a great conversationabout branding and digital
(00:42):
content creation.
If you are enjoying the podcast, please like it, subscribe to
it, share it.
All of these small actionsreally do result in keeping this
podcast going, so let's get toit.
Michael, welcome to the sceneroom.
Thanks so much for being here.
Michael Morreale (01:01):
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
I've been enjoying watching andlistening along.
Thank you?
Elizabeth Bowman (01:06):
Where are we talking to you from?
Michael Morreale (01:08):
Yeah, I'm at my house now in the east side of
Toronto, so I spend most of mytime here.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:12):
Great, and do you have a studio in your house?
I don't know.
Michael Morreale (01:15):
If you put a microphone in a room, does that
make it a studio?
Elizabeth Bowman (01:18):
That's a good question.
Michael Morreale (01:20):
All say it.
When I get on a Zoom call and Iuse this same setup, the line
that I always use is you know,if I don't have anything smart
to say, I might as well look andsound good saying it.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:28):
Yeah, I used to say that when I was singing
for a living I used to say 75%of my job is to look the part,
25% is the rest.
But I mean, obviously you gotto work towards performing well.
I'm just saying that from apsychological point of view it
really does help to look thepart and feel the part.
(01:49):
Then you are that part.
Michael Morreale (01:51):
We'll take what we can get right.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:52):
Let's talk about how you got to where you
are, your journey intocommunications, marketing and
all of this arts business.
Michael Morreale (02:02):
I've been really lucky.
I've been able to have a numberof different perspectives in my
career is maybe one way youcould say it.
So, straight out of school, myfirst job was at CBC, producing
a radio show with the wonderfulJulie Nasrella, and there was
all about let's think about howwe can talk about music in a way
that is accessible to people,that is interesting, that is
human, and I was lucky to havethat as my starting point.
(02:24):
Where to people, that isinteresting, that is human, and
I was lucky to have that as mystarting point.
Where there was a big audiencewith high expectations all the
time.
I moved on from there toactually work within the arts
world directly the TorontoSymphony.
I was there director for anumber of years where we did a
number of digital initiativesand marketing initiatives, where
I sort of started to get mymarketing chops.
And then I kind of challengedmyself to do something entirely
different and I said you know,the arts have been wonderful,
(02:45):
let's see what the rest of theworld is like.
So I did a total left turn.
I worked in the agricultureindustry at a big equipment
manufacturer, learned all sortsof things about how the world
works, about how marketing worksabout how audiences and
companies or organizationsinteract.
And now I'm at the point whereI'm putting it all together,
running my own show as both aconsultant and a sort of video
(03:05):
production work with clients.
All this to say, it's a lot ofdifferent perspectives that I'm
bringing to this work.
That is from the beginning, butjust all about marketing and
storytelling and thinking abouthow that looks like.
Elizabeth Bowman (03:15):
I love that because obviously your story is
helping you tell other people'sstory and all of those different
perspectives definitely paint areally comprehensive picture In
your experience.
How has the marketing andcommunications industry evolved
and particularly because of theaudience listening to this
particularly in the performingarts and creative sector?
Michael Morreale (03:38):
Well, I mean and this goes back to how you
and I first met many years agoOf course the media landscape
has changed so much within thearts.
It wasn't that long ago whereyou would expect to get a
feature in a big newspaper or areview in the newspaper or
coverage when you're doingsomething important.
Of course that's all changed andI think we're all by now beyond
the part of point ofcomplaining about it and now at
(04:00):
the point of okay, we have totell our own story.
Our job isn't to pitch thestories to audiences or to
newspapers or media outlets.
Our job is to do that ourselves.
So that, of course, was a hugeshift and it's been really
interesting to see how differentorganizations have done it in a
number of different ways.
And you know you are the onewho has helped so many people do
that too.
So I know that you have a lotto say on that topic, but I
(04:21):
think what it's meant is thatorganizations have really gotten
to know their audience in adifferent kind of way and that
conversation is a little bitmore back and forth in the
process through social media andgetting that feedback instantly
.
I think it's overall been agood thing, even if it's a job
that didn't really need to bedone before, when landscape was
differently.
Elizabeth Bowman (04:39):
I mean, obviously we have so many tools
now and so many different waysto tell stories and that can
overwhelm artists and creators.
But I do love the empowermentof having those tools to tell
the story and I remember whenthey first were coming out, you
know, when Twitter just came outof almost nowhere and Facebook
(05:00):
and the idea of just putting avideo up and saying who you are
was a really wonderful thing.
And I remember talking to myclients about it at the time and
saying, well, who's to say youdon't do that?
Let's just say you do that.
You know, because they wereworried about oh, I don't know
if casting directors arethinking of me in this role.
Tell everyone that you'reworking on it.
Michael Morreale (05:21):
It's empowering If you say it out
loud, if you put it out on theinternet, then it's true, but
it's a whole new skill set thatpeople needed to develop and are
still developing as thelandscape is changing currently
as well.
Elizabeth Bowman (05:32):
Yeah, I would like to see more emphasis on
interview strategy and executionin performing arts programs.
I'd like to see them reallypracticing and honing in those
interview skills because youoften hear people rambling on,
not getting to the point or notunderstanding that, for instance
(05:53):
, if you're on a radio broadcast, you should really only have
one or two points that you wantto get out of that interview and
you need to reiterate thosepoints because obviously
someone's got to remember fromthat interview, you know.
Michael Morreale (06:06):
Yeah, well, on that, like it's two specific
skills.
It's one being on this side ofcamera and how you're supposed
to act and what is useful to actin that way, and then the
technical and strategic side ofyou know operating a camera, of
you know putting yourself outthere, even if it's a quick
video.
We don't learn that in musicschool.
We don't learn that even asyou're starting out as a
marketer.
You just got to pick it up onyour own.
Elizabeth Bowman (06:27):
Can you share an example of a branding or
marketing campaign that you'veworked on or admired, that has
really stood out and what, inyour opinion, made it so
effective?
Michael Morreale (06:38):
A lot of what stands out in my mind is times
in my career where things havegone, you know, not well, or
I've had great learningexperiences from things.
But I had one particularmarketing, you know challenge
put to me which was sort of aonce in a lifetime sort of
moment, and that was at theToronto Symphony 2017,.
Toronto Symphony was lucky toget a really significant amount
of funding from the federalgovernment to celebrate Canada's
(06:59):
sesquicentennial.
It was a big project of allsorts of Canadian music for a
year, but the marketing side ofit was the government saying we
need this to be very impactful.
We need this to touch as manyCanadians as possible.
What if we gave you enoughfunding?
What can you do as a marketerto make sure that enough people
in Canada see this?
So, with that big annoying thingof not having enough money off
(07:19):
the table, my goal was to recordall the concerts, which was 40
concerts in a year and then usethat content, promote it, get it
online to get it seen by asmany people across Canada as
possible.
This was a situation of beingable to think outside the box
because, you know, suddenly wehad proper budgets to do things
and in the end, we did hit ourtarget, which was 16 million
Canadians.
(07:39):
So it is possible.
It is possible and even if it'snot something that going
forward will happen on thisscale, learned a lot about
dissemination of content thatstill informs when I'm creating
something with even the smallestof arts organization.
How do we actually get peopleto hear this?
How do we create content foraudience that is worth their
time and they enjoy creating it?
Elizabeth Bowman (07:58):
That brings me to my next question, which is
for the arts organizations thatdon't have big budgets.
Do you have maybe threepractical tips that they can use
to increase their visibilityand build their brand?
Michael Morreale (08:10):
The first thing I would say is build your
squad, and this doesn't meangoing out hiring a big,
expensive ad agency that, ofcourse, is out of reach, you
know.
It might be training on thepersonal level of taking some
courses online or LinkedInlearning, which I love for short
courses, and it might bepulling in freelance support on
certain projects that are reallyimportant.
Because when it comes toreaching an audience, the number
(08:33):
one thing that you have to dois create things with
consistency.
So I see a lot of organizationsthey have an initiative where
they can create some contentaround that initiative, but that
initiative ends, or the quietpart, months before the
performance happens and there'snot the content happening.
I mean, the only way thatyou're going to grow an audience
is consistent content that isactually speaking to and
(08:54):
informed by your audience.
So that's number two, and thenumber three on what to do would
be just to keep a really goodlibrary of content that you see
from other organizations thatdoes well, and really analyze it
, be strategic about what arethey doing that's working.
That I can apply with my ownorganization within the
limitations that I have at myown.
So that would be my startingpoint.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:15):
Also, I imagine that if you're keeping a
library of effective marketingstrategies that are being done
in North America or around theworld, you could also share
those in your stories notnecessarily in your posts,
because obviously your posts arefor your branded content, but
you could applaud thoseorganizations for doing what
they're doing, and that wouldincrease targeted engagement too
(09:39):
, right?
Michael Morreale (09:39):
That's right, yeah, and social media is a
two-way street anyway, soengaging, interacting with these
other posts too, is another wayof growing your audience
without spending a lot of moneyor even time.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:50):
So a lot of individual artists listen to
this podcast, so I know thatthey would be interested in
learning strategies that theycan use to stand out and connect
with audiences in the digitalspace.
What would you suggest to them?
Michael Morreale (10:03):
them.
A couple of things.
First would be to reallyunderstand who your audience is.
Look at your existing followers, look at the people who are in
the audience at your performance.
Everything you can figure outabout who these people are
beyond, I guess, as a startingpoint, beyond how old they are
and what they do for a living,what else they enjoy outside of
(10:23):
attending your performances,because the more you can
understand about your audience,the more you can create things
that your audience will like.
So that's the first thing, andthe second is directly related
to that, which is speak to youraudience directly.
I mean, I think a lot of peoplethink of it as from yourself, as
this is what I want to say, butthink of it as this is what I
want to hear as the audiencemember, because if you're
(10:44):
answering their most commonquestions, if you're talking
about the topics that they'remost interested in, that's how
you're going to capture theirattendance.
And a great example of this is,say, you're an organization
creating social media content.
You're looking at posts that dowell.
You survey your audience tofind out what their most
frequently asked question mightbe.
You look at your GoogleAnalytics to see what people are
searching to land on yourwebsite.
Sometimes it's things likewhere do I find parking nearby?
(11:06):
This isn't the thing that youmay think of first when it comes
to creating content, but ifyou're answering the questions
that your audience have, thenyou'll start to develop that
relationship with them that youcan go back and forth on through
content that you're creating.
Elizabeth Bowman (11:17):
That's great.
The where do I find parkingnearby?
Because there should be a videonearby.
Because there should be a video.
There isn't one existing, evena short video, of someone
driving a car and driving upwhatever that main street is and
then seeing that parking signgiving people a visual of the
arrival, of the experience ofgetting to the theater or the
(11:40):
opera house or wherever they'regoing.
Michael Morreale (11:42):
This is Toronto.
Like this may be the number onething that someone is
hesitating about beforepurchasing a ticket to your
downtown Toronto performance ifthey're coming from somewhere a
little further out from the core.
Elizabeth Bowman (11:53):
I get anxious and I live just outside of New
York City.
I'm lucky because I have aparking spot in Lincoln Center
because of my husband's job, butif I didn't have that, I must
say it would give me anxiety,because then it's suddenly this
huge thing.
Do I book it in advance?
They have all these apps andthings like that.
(12:13):
It's insane.
So that's great Checking outwhat people are Googling for
your organization and answeringthose questions.
I love that.
Michael Morreale (12:22):
Yeah, and actually can I get like really
specific on that, just in casethat helps.
So if you set up the Googlesearch console, which is how
your site interacts with Google,what information you're giving
it to it directly that it's notpulling from what it finds?
There's a little tab in therethat you can see exactly what
have people searched to belanding on my site.
Some other website analyticswill tell you this as well.
I found some surprising thingsthat you can create content
(12:45):
about, of like how people arecoming to find you.
It's not always what you'dthink.
Elizabeth Bowman (12:49):
Okay, let's get even more specific.
What about the digital tools orplatforms that you think are
must haves for artists and ororganizations to enhance their
online presence?
Michael Morreale (13:01):
Yeah, sure, that's a big question.
I think the first biggest, mostobvious one is your strategy,
is your digital strategy.
You know, for a lot of people,look, we have a lot of things to
do.
It's easy just to start doingsomething and running with it,
but to take some time to reallydocument what you're trying to
do online with your digitalstrategy.
Can I answer that questionAgain who is your audience?
(13:22):
What are their needs?
How can I serve them online andhow can I unfold my?
If you're a season throughout ayear, how can that unfold online
?
What will that look like?
What are the big moments that Ireally want to create a lot of
content around or build adigital experience around as
much as possible.
So you start with that digitalstrategy.
That does make it easier, asyou're busy performing or
(13:43):
selling tickets throughout theyear, to actually stick to it
and create something.
The other part of that strategywill be your channel strategy.
So where are you going to bemost active online?
It is not the best strategy tojust have an account on every
single platform.
You can imagine and create thesame piece of content and drop
it everywhere.
Of course, that's not going towork.
So I'd recommend taking sometime to really think carefully
(14:05):
about where do I want to liveonline?
And that's based on where youraudience lives, where you know
they are now, where you've spenttime and energy building up and
where, strategically, mightmake sense to keep building.
Where strategically might makesense to not.
Is there, for example, acertain social media platform
that is just getting kind ofsketchy lately and you don't
want to associate yourself with.
(14:26):
Maybe don't spend the timethere anymore.
Elizabeth Bowman (14:28):
I wonder where that is.
Michael Morreale (14:29):
Could be, anything Could be anything.
Elizabeth Bowman (14:31):
That's great advice.
I starting this podcast.
You know I've been through thisexercise many times with my
clients, looking at the varioussocial media platforms and which
ones are most organic to them.
And it might be surprising toknow that it is different based
on the person, because theyinteract with the different
(14:52):
platforms differently, as we areall human and we are all
different.
And with the Scene Room podcast,I did the same exercise and I'm
actually I get a really high,high impression rate on LinkedIn
which I've never had before sohigh LinkedIn and I'm enjoying
it.
And I'm now on LinkedIn a lotmore than I was before because
(15:14):
my impression rate is muchhigher there.
The likes might not necessarilytranslate into that high
impression rate yet and I'mhoping that people will start
showing themselves and likingthe post and reacting to the
posts, so it's interesting.
And then also I decided at thebeginning that I would drop the
video content on to both YouTubeand Facebook to see how it
(15:36):
would perform, and I have a hugeamount of listeners on YouTube,
whereas Facebook I've just madea decision that I'm not going
to continue to drop the full,whereas Facebook I've just made
a decision that I'm not going tocontinue to drop the full
episodes on Facebook becauseit's just not performing as well
.
So, to your point, I'm reactingto the data that is presented
to me and I will then go forwardwith the podcast with that
(15:58):
strategy.
Michael Morreale (15:59):
Yeah, and I guess you wouldn't know that
unless you started out being ona certain number of platforms to
see what sort of bubbles to thesurface.
For you, linkedin is a reallyinteresting one.
I mean, you know this, I loveLinkedIn.
It's been sort of a newerinterest of mine because in the
past it was seen as this B2Bcorporate thought leader, weird
sort of space.
But that has shifted,especially as some of these
(16:21):
other platforms have scaredpeople away to our point a few
moments ago.
Linkedin has been a really goodplace to actually connect with
audiences and there's a fewreasons for it.
One is that LinkedIn has a bigsort of lurker culture and not
so much a poster culture, sothere's not as many people
creating content on LinkedIn,and I think this creates a real
big opportunity for artsorganizations, for artists,
(16:43):
because the audiences are thereand it's evolved beyond the
LinkedIn that we knew a fewyears ago.
So I think there's somethingthere.
It's interesting that you saythat.
Elizabeth Bowman (16:51):
Also, there are highly educated people on
LinkedIn and in terms of operaand symphony audiences, that
aligns with a lot of the targetaudiences to fill up their halls
.
So I think that LinkedIn isdefinitely worth investing in if
you're an arts organization,for sure.
Michael Morreale (17:11):
But one quick thing on it that I should have
mentioned on LinkedIn is that,yes, there are company pages
that are on behalf of anorganization, but they don't do
really well.
What LinkedIn wants to see iscontent coming from individuals,
so organizations are having towork with their CEOs or
leadership to create content fortheir pages, which really
changes how you think of it, andso putting time into creating a
(17:32):
company page doesn't always payoff.
Investing in your people forthem to create content, whatever
that looks like, is where itstarts to pay off a little bit
more, I think, for organizationsof any size.
Elizabeth Bowman (17:43):
That makes sense Because, yeah, most of the
stuff I interact with as wellis individual content, which
obviously these people areworking for big organizations.
But the motivation is thatsomeone is telling me something
and I'm reacting to thatpersonal message rather than
like an organization being likeoh, we have a new season.
Michael Morreale (18:03):
Yeah, it changes your messaging and what
that looks like and the level oftrust when it's coming from an
individual, not an organizationarts organization or not is so
much higher.
Elizabeth Bowman (18:12):
Yeah.
And also, if they are talkingabout their new season, they're
not talking about it in a waythat's like here's our new
season.
They're talking about somethingvery specific, either a problem
that they needed to solve, oryou know something about their
marketing strategy.
They're talking as if it's well, it is behind the scenes, but
(18:33):
that's the most effectivemessaging on LinkedIn, as far as
I can see.
I haven't done the researchthat you likely have on LinkedIn
.
Michael Morreale (18:40):
As far as I can see, I haven't done the
research that you likely have.
Yeah, and so if I were workingwithin an organization and a
season launch was coming up orsome big piece of news was
coming up, part of the work thatwould need to be done is
working with your leadership toequip them with.
Maybe it's letting them go offand create their own videos.
Maybe it's you doing it forthem as like a ghost writer or
something to support them.
It's you doing it for them aslike a ghost writer or something
(19:03):
to support them.
This has changed how PR andpublicity used to be, but it's
an important opportunity interms of telling your story and
shaping your story for how itrolls out online.
Elizabeth Bowman (19:10):
Can I ask about your process in terms of
your work, like when you'reinvited to do your consulting
work along with your videographywork?
Can you tell me a bit aboutwhat happens like step one
through three or something?
Michael Morreale (19:26):
Yeah, good question, and on the two sides
would be a little bit differentmaybe.
But I think what I bring to myvideo work and my consulting
work always comes back to theexperience that I have, from
being a marketer in thecorporate world to working in
broadcasting and media, toworking within a nonprofit
organization, and it's alwaysstarting with those big
strategic questions.
(19:46):
To start off Again who is youraudience?
What is the message?
What action do you want them totake?
What channels do you haveavailable to you to tell that
story so that when you'reactually creating something and
rolling it out, you know thatit's something that is working
against your business objectivesor whatever objectives that you
have with that particularproject.
Elizabeth Bowman (20:05):
That it is.
Michael Morreale (20:06):
When I do my consulting work with the arts
firm, we have a standardpractice and process where we're
always starting with interviewsof audience members of an
organization and stakeholderswhich might be other people in
the community, funders,government, to really be able to
tell that story.
And I'm always really surprisedthat people working within an
organization they have a prettygood idea of what their audience
(20:29):
says, but there's always littlesurprises in there that they
learn about their audiencethrough these surveys, through
these conversations that we haveearly on.
And then I always like to hopethat we're sort of creating a
culture of really doing thatresearch on an annual and
regular basis so that you cansay that you want to understand
your audience but to actuallystep up and do it has led to so
(20:49):
much success on futureinitiatives as well.
Elizabeth Bowman (20:51):
Conversation is key to excellent
communication.
On the Cate Pisaroni episode,we talked about how it would be
great if marketers could do aspeed dating style, set up with
the artists individually andspend five minutes with each of
the artists that will beperforming on the stage and I
(21:13):
mean we were thinking of anopera production, because
obviously there are a lot ofartists that are on the stage
during those performances butthe idea of what would come as a
result of those conversationsand the individuals having those
conversations because everyonewriting down their thoughts
individually and then comingback to the marketing table and
(21:34):
coming up with a strategy basedon creative it's all about
collaboration conversation basedon creative.
It's all about collaborationconversation.
Michael Morreale (21:42):
I mean it's not rocket science, but it is,
for some reason, harder than itshould be to get all these
people together.
Yeah, and I think we do apretty good job at having
conversations with individualaudience members or people we
know who are sort of close to us.
We can have those conversations.
What gets a little bit harderis to be, you know, it's not
rocket science, but it is alittle bit of science of
(22:02):
developing a survey that hits alarger segment of your audience.
That doesn't leave out thepeople who you're not going to
go up to them and talk to them,but you see that are coming to
your performance, because theseare just the broader insights
that you can have over youraudience to stop those
assumptions that you have inthese backstage conversations of
oh I think our audience wantsthis.
Well, don't think like we canask and we can get those answers
(22:23):
from a very data, informed andcertain sense.
Elizabeth Bowman (22:26):
What do you think with AI entering the
equation now in full force?
It sort of almost came inovernight, where now everyone is
seems to be using AI to helpthem make their emails more
polite, or or whatever the casemay be.
Michael Morreale (22:42):
You know I thought it was again.
It hasn't been that long.
There was an interview withBarack Obama like a year and a
half ago where he said like theonly human invention with the
same amount of impact as AI hasbeen the invention of
electricity or the discovery ofelectricity, and at the time it
sounded like you know, just sortof a big statement.
But yes, it can changeeverything, and I know there's
(23:03):
all sorts of conversation aroundit, so I'll sort of bring it
down to the level that I see it.
You know, if you think of itlike a co-pilot, where you know,
in the cockpit of a plane, youcan tell that pilot what to do,
it's all things that you can doyourself.
But the second set of hands ishelpful.
Ai will be successful when youcan use it to do the things that
give you more time to do thethings that are important Flying
(23:24):
the plane landing right on therunway, for instance, to run
with that a little too far.
So there are certainly AI toolsthat can be used.
I think we all have developednow a pretty good sense of what
are the things that we don'twant to replace.
What are the things that Iwould have spent a couple hours
learning how to do that.
I can just have AI do to makemore time in the rest of my day.
So there's those sort ofquestions.
(23:44):
I've also made room in my ownschedule to be experimenting
because of how quickly new toolsare appearing, and I'm just
starting a year-long process,thanks to Canada Council, on
some funding to explore AI toolsand document that process a
little bit, because if you'rewatching the news and seeing new
tools come available, it can bevery overwhelming.
(24:05):
So, taking a step back, askingyourself the question what is
the problem that you want tosolve?
Well, there may be an AIcomponent to solving it.
Elizabeth Bowman (24:11):
That's great that you're doing that work,
because right now I'm imaginingthat arts organizations will
really benefit from looking overtheir statistics all of the
numbers that need to be analyzed, that they don't necessarily
have a data analyticsprofessional to deal with given
budgets 100%.
Michael Morreale (24:30):
That's like one of the first things I would
do.
I mean, there's, of course,been a large amount of data
collected over the years,hopefully about who is
purchasing tickets, how peopleare engaging with you across
social media platforms by email,so that data analytics part of
it is a great example, because Iknow we have these
conversations of big, scary AIthings that we never want to
(24:51):
have AI do for us.
I think we're pretty okay withhaving them tally up results of
certain things or find trendsthat you know we're maybe not
able to do ourselves.
Elizabeth Bowman (24:59):
What are some mistakes you think organizations
or individuals make whencreating a promotional video?
Michael Morreale (25:06):
I would say with anything, before you start
hitting the record button on thevideo, to really think
strategically about how this isgoing to roll out.
There are a lot of videoprojects where people have come
to me and we start talking aboutit and we discover this isn't
going to be a three minute videolike you're asking for.
It's going to be three oneminute videos that can tell
three different portions of this, because we know that these
(25:27):
shorter style videos are moreeffective on social media.
For this reason, that's saved alot of time and a lot of
creative editing when thosedecisions are made early on.
So what makes a good video One?
It speaks to the needs of youraudience.
It does it in a really conciseway and it does it in an
interesting way, because usuallythe easy way is not especially
interesting, having just someguy in front of a camera talking
(25:48):
.
The more you can show thingsrather than tell, the more
effective that particular videowill be.
But of course, like anythingelse, it depends.
Elizabeth Bowman (25:55):
And how important do you think is the
branding element to anythingvideo, print, advertising, all
that stuff when it comes to anorganization, what is the most
important thing for visualbranding?
Michael Morreale (26:09):
I think the brand is very important and the
branding reflects that.
So the brand is who you are andwhat story, what message it is
that you're trying to craft andshare.
The branding of the colors andthe fonts you use is nice, but
not as important as the bigpicture.
The big picture is beingconsistent with telling the
story from the same perspectiveall the time, and what I mean by
(26:30):
that is you know, you'rebuilding this image of you or
your organization and if you'realways, you know, painting a
different picture, doing it in adifferent way, then your brand
is going to suffer.
You're going to confuse people.
When I'm working with people oncreating social media content
and we're trying to come up withideas, oftentimes it's coming
up with ways to say the samething over and over in slightly
different ways, and that sort ofconsistency is how you build
(26:52):
that brand, how you're buildingthat trust with your audience.
So the brand very important.
The branding yes, you want tolook professional and polished,
but it's not as important to meat least, as the big picture hey
, now write down the type ofcontent you want to share and
then put that into categories.
Elizabeth Bowman (27:09):
So, and ideally by the end they have
maybe four or five categories of, like, big picture categories
(27:30):
of the types of things Likemaybe it's just to simplify this
Behind the scenes, on stage,personal.
So we'll just there are threein this version, but oftentimes
we'll have more than threethings and oftentimes you'll
have things that are more proneto have video content.
Other times you'll have maybepress quotes or something that
you want to share, and then Iask them to find a template on
(27:53):
Canva and assign it to one ofthe categories, and then it's
just a matter of them filling in.
They're like oh, I've got thispicture, what category is that
going into?
Then they don't have to thinkso hard, you know, because all
of the category management hasbeen done before.
They did all that work inputting together the brand
(28:15):
strategy.
I guess you would call it.
Michael Morreale (28:17):
Yeah, and that's the work.
And it's funny.
Sometimes people talk aboutgoing to AI to generate ideas of
what to come up with to talkabout, and anyone who I know,
who is an interesting enoughperson, never has trouble coming
up with interesting things tosay.
This is not, to me, theapplication of AI that I think
is going to be useful.
It's easy to come up withthings to say.
What's hard is coming up withconsistent things to say.
(28:39):
So that exercise that youdescribe is really similar to
what I do with my own clientsand what I do for my personal
content that I'm creating is Ikind of create this matrix,
where on the top of the matrix,I say what are the topics that
we want to talk about, and onthe y-axis, I guess it's how are
we going to talk about them?
So, topics I talk aboutmarketing, I talk about digital
marketing, I talk about videos.
(29:00):
On the other side it's I talkabout a news item, I talk about
a tip, I talk about a case study.
You can mix and match thosethings and come up with almost
unlimited things to talk about.
That's never the hard part, buthaving a structure certainly
makes it a lot easier.
Elizabeth Bowman (29:13):
And especially if someone's a performing
artist and they're backstage andoftentimes they feel
uncomfortable taking photosbackstage.
I'm not sure what it is,because they sound amazing on
the stage, but then they get offstage and they lose all that
confidence and they feel, oh, Idon't want to take a picture now
(29:35):
, oh, it's just too much.
But if they have a set list ofthings that they can photograph,
they're like, okay, well, I'llcheck that off and I'll check
this off and it just makes lifeeasier.
I mean, when we have directivesand lists makes life easier.
Michael Morreale (29:49):
I agree.
And to our earlier point, too,of building your team, building
your squad.
You know, if this is somethingthat you're uncomfortable with,
that is not your area ofexpertise, just get help.
Get someone like you to come inand give them that list and
don't feel bad about it, becausethe total number of skills that
an artist needs to have to besuccessful it's such a long list
that it would be impossible foreveryone to have them all.
(30:11):
So it's just part of theprocess.
Elizabeth Bowman (30:13):
To wrap things up, I just want to ask if
there's one piece of adviceyou'd give to performers looking
to grow their brand or business.
What would that one piece ofadvice be?
Michael Morreale (30:25):
I'll pull it full circle here, which is
consistency.
If you're strategic aboutsaying the same thing over and
over, if you're consistent aboutsticking to your posting
schedule, about creating contenton a really regular basis that
is informed by your audience,that is speaking directly to
your audience with their needsin mind.
There's no hack to solvingthese problems, but that's the
(30:46):
best way to start.
Elizabeth Bowman (30:47):
Great advice Consistency is helped by
collaboration, and so forartists who are nervous about
posting or brainstorming aboutthings to post, always think of
your colleagues and think of thehappenings around you, think of
those cafes you go to, therestaurants you eat dinner at,
(31:07):
think about all these otherthings, so that you're not
necessarily feelinguncomfortable sharing only
yourself on social media,because people are interested in
those collaborative stories.
Michael Morreale (31:20):
If you're an artist, you have a huge number
of people who are paying moneyto come and see you perform.
You have something to say andpeople want to hear it.
Elizabeth Bowman (31:27):
Thanks for doing this.
Michael Morreale (31:28):
You're welcome .
Thank you, this has been fun.
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