frankly… Episode 80: Content is at the Center of it All

In this episode of frankly…

The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation! 

Transcript

Dan

Hello, welcome to frankly.

Rachel

Welcome.

Dan

So today we have JT Ramsey on with us, who is a digital marketing executive. And he has worked in a lot of roles with large corporations, from Ford to Comcast to Lockheed, and now is kind of out on his own doing some consulting work with the Fortune 50. And his company is called Ramsayings. But we had a good conversation with him. We talked a lot about a wide range of digital marketing things, but a little bit more than that too.

Rachel

Kind of broader strategy of digital marketing and communications. And, you know, he talks about how he kind of stumbled into communications and really how that should be combined with marketing and how marketing and comms need to work together, which is a common topic that, I feel like gets brought up here, but his kind of perspective from a really purely digital side is interesting and how we’re measuring impact of the two of them working together on a larger level.

Dan

Yeah, I think starting with business goals, you know, bringing in your sales team, talking about all these different ways that you can kind of keep your communications on track and on purpose. There’s a lot that we cover in that area. So with that, we’ll turn it over to JT. Hi, JT. Welcome to frankly. Thanks for coming on.

JT

I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

Dan

Of course. So we always start out kind of in the same direction here, but tell us a little bit about your background, your career path and kind of what brought you to where you are today.

JT

You know, I think like most folks who work in communications in Fortune 50 companies, I started out as a music critic. I mean, that’s, I think, a pretty typical place to start. So I was a music critic for 10 years. By the end, my beat was essentially metal and extreme noise, which I think really corresponds to, you know, where we are in communications, certainly today as the pace becomes all the more frenzied and chaotic.

Dan

Extreme noise, that does feel like a good descriptor.

JT

Yeah. it does. It does. be the name of our new podcast that we’re going to launch.

Dan

Yeah, love it!

JT

And so, yeah, I kind of fell backward into it a little bit simply because I got into digital and social relatively early. I’m in that sort of first gen digital generation. So I started in 2010 at Comcast running the corporate blog when those were really a big thing. And I think they’re about to experience a comeback more on that later. But I got to build something from scratch at Comcast, and as my career progressed, I realized how valuable and rare that is, especially as digital social becomes so much more… specialized. You’ve got so many more people working on all the minutia that it entails. And I was fortunate because I got to be across all of it. So I knew the ins and outs. So as I progressed to Ford and Commonwealth and Lockheed, I had a degree of credibility that I could bring to the table because I’d actually I’d push the buttons, I’d set up the monitors, I’d done those things. So part of what I’m proud of is having been able to bring all that experience to bear, not only in doing the job, but also in mentoring teams that are new to the journey and being able to share my experiences with them and have a certain degree of credibility that some folks in the space might not.

Dan

Talk about, you mentioned kind of kicking off the digital blog space at Comcast. What does that story mining process look like in a company of that size? So you’re trying to kind of capture kind of all aspects of…

JT

You know, it’s something where, again, like the editorial side of my mind, like, ought to have embraced that chaos, but, you know, I learned subsequently that like it helps if you actually have somebody like leading from the front, right? I think that, I think many people believe in this kind of goes in with like brand newsrooms and in all of those buzzwords that really popped up at the time. And hey, some of those are popping up all over again. But you really need somebody steering the ship, and I would do a little bit of story mining because I had worked within the business before I landed in the communications team, so I had some existing relationships within the interactive media unit, and so I could work those relationships and find out cool things that… people were working on that were maybe unexpected of a company like Comcast. On the flip side of it, right, we have and we still have like those growing pains around. what is a story versus what’s news. And I even think sometimes we’re a little too precious about what we believe is news.

Rachel

Yeah, or just promotional in general, right? What is a good story versus just self-promotion?

JT

Well, right. I mean, right. It’s like, and I think that that’s something where I still find myself trying to translate that back into the communications team to say nothing of the broader business, right? It’s like, oh, we need a video for this. And here’s the release. Okay, great, but we want that story to come to life in this video. We don’t want it to just be just a streaming version of the press release. Like we need to really get into it and make it relatable to whichever audience we want to influence. So, you know, going back to that time, Again, I wish it were the past, right? Anytime I get into a new organization, part of what I do in that 30, 60, 90 is try to ascertain what year are we in, terms of our digital and social media maturity. And typically it’s anywhere between 5 to 10 years ago. And that’s not because they haven’t had talented people in those seats. It’s because when those people come and go, the organization tends to retrench. And so that’s the growing pains where, I figured by this point in my career, there wouldn’t be people running digital and social, and I’ve never found it to be more important because that merging of skills that I expected would happen really hasn’t. And I think that this is a message of hope to anybody who’s working in the digital and social salt mines, but it’s one where, no, you actually know what you’re doing. You know the problem that needs to be solved. You’re adding value, but that can feel painful. And so when I think back on that time at Comcast, it was like, what story should we be telling? Yes, we could tell all of them, But what, again, getting to where we are today around attention, it’s like, yeah, we can put a lot of noise out there, but what’s going to get attention for us that’s not around regulatory, that’s not around crisis, that’s around an affirmative message we’re trying to get across to convey the company we want to become. And I think that that’s something that’s difficult no matter where you’re sitting. It’s not just, you know, a company like Comcast, it’s any number of organizations that have that say, do gap between their vision and their execution.

Rachel

Well, and that brings up a good point, I think of understanding your goal before you even get started. And I mean, that goes for so many things, but especially content because it does take, I mean, not as much now, manpower to write the content, right? You have, but you need the manpower to come up with the ideas, put the strategy together and understand why you’re putting a piece out there. Then the content itself, if you’ve got the buckets, can kind of be written pretty easily nowadays. So it’s even more important to figure out what your goal of every, like overarching why are you creating content than each individual piece? How is that moving the needle toward that goal?

JT

What you just said is the thing that absolutely fries me, you know, this deep into my career. You know, I believe that communications and marketing are a team sport.

Rachel

Yeah, oh yeah.

JT

And you know, there is nothing that makes me crazier. It feels like the Simpsons meme where everybody turns around to look at Bart. And it’s like, No, like that’s, I’m Bart. Like, I’m not, I should not be the load-bearing single point of failure for the entire company. I mean, but I feel like a lot of organizations, you know, have vast talented teams, but there is an inordinate amount of pressure put on the content and channel strategy that leads me to wonder like, okay, well, what’s everybody else doing?

Rachel

Yeah.

JT

And I think that to your point, like, I love what you just said, but I want my stuff to ladder up into somebody else’s stuff.

Rachel

Absolutely.

JT

I think that that’s one of like the cardinal sins of the words like social first or digital first. Too often it kind of became digital or social only, and it was just expected to be viral. Right.

Dan

It just lives in a vacuum of its own kind of plan outside of the future.

JT

Correct. Like, I mean, plenty of great creative goes out all the time. I mean, granted, most creative isn’t great. And that’s like just the reality of it, right? I mean, I think that that’s something when… People start talking about, it’s reminding me of like an episode of Big Mouth where it’s like, we’re talking about the work and respecting the craft. Like a lot of it is like stuff and it’s supporting and it’s, and it has a job to do, but like that in itself isn’t going to be transformative if it’s not part of an integrated push.

Rachel

Yeah.

JT

And again, like, It’s something where I find myself asking like, okay, like coming back to leading from the front, what are our actual priorities? Like what are the things we need to communicate? And that’s where, you know, I sitting where I do, like I lean really hard on measuring what’s working, what’s not. And then bringing that to leadership and saying, is do you like how you look in this picture? Right? And there’s plenty of times where low value things are very high performing. and the really important stuff is tanking. And I’m like, I’m concerned. I like to raise my hand and bring that to leadership before somebody figures it out for me. So I like to bring that and say, are you aware that this is what’s happening? But then I go one further because I like to ask, if this is happening here, where else is this true and can you even measure it? I think that this is a thing, and we know working in this space, companies too often talk to themselves and kind of convince themselves of it. And it’s like, no, we’re trying to convince a variety of different stakeholder audiences that we’re X, Y, and Z. But looking at this, you know, we’re great at stuff that’s not like moving the needle for the organization and nobody’s paying attention to the stuff that keeps the lights on. So like those are all of the things that when I’m assessing an organization, whether I’m working inside or I’m on as a consultant or advisor or what have you, that’s something that’s top of mind for me because too many organizations really don’t know how all that content they’re producing is performing for them and what the impact it’s having is or isn’t.

Rachel

It just brings up an interesting, like whenever we start strategy or working with a client, the first thing I start with, and sometimes people are like, well, why do you care? I ask, what are your business goals? And I always like preface with, I’m not going to solve all your business goals, but if I don’t understand where you’re trying to take this company at a larger, higher point, then my strategy is not going to make sense and fit into that, right? Like you have to start from that question. What are your business goals? What are you trying to do? And then I can craft a strategy that helps you achieve those, that it includes what do we measure to make sure we’re making an impact on those goals. But yeah, it’s like, I feel like as communicators, we can’t be afraid to ask that question of like, where are you trying to go in general, right?

JT

I mean, I love that. I mean, and I think that, you know, again, like, You know, as I have gotten deeper into my career, like something I’ve started to realize, like, and I mentioned it a moment ago, is the execution of it all. It’s like, you can be an organization that’s great at making a splash and having a great announcement, a great event, something that gets a lot of attention, and that’s a moment in time. But, you know, one thing time and again across organizations, you know, I think about a competitive set And I think about somebody within that competitive set starting a stopwatch the moment you make that announcement. And then keeping tabs to see, are they ever going to deliver the thing they promised? And that’s like where the limits of communications and marketing really are, right? Like, we can only be as good and the reputation of a company, right? It’s staked on their ability to not just announce cool stuff, but to actually do it.

Rachel

Follow through.

JT

And that’s, and I’m not saying that’s easy, but I think that in terms of accountability, when I look at C-suites and where the turnover is, right? I see more folks in communications and certainly in marketing turning over than in other parts of the business where, you know, those are the people who are like, you know, yes, we make things, fantastic and we make everybody look good and that’s really important, but we need to have real partners on the business side who can handle some tough feedback to say, Hey, we made this announcement two quarters ago. Where are we on this? Do we have other updates? What can we say that demonstrates we have momentum? And that just wasn’t… vaporware. Like that I think is one of the great dangers, as companies really try to harness all the new technology that’s, so frothy right now. Like I think that’s one of the real dangers is okay, well you’ve added. something to what it is you’re doing, how is it improving it? Like, tangibly, like those are the things that, for me as a communicator, those are the questions I want to have. That’s the kind of tough dialogue I want to have with the quote unquote business side of the operation.

Dan

Yeah, I think that’s an important point, just in favor of marketing communications, having a seat at that kind of like leadership table also, because I think in a lot of cases, companies will kind of, be our marketing organizations within a company can almost be put in this kind of like build to print area where it’s like, okay, we’re announcing this today without the opportunity to come back and say, is that ready to go live? Is that ready for the big time at this point? Or is this more just us trying to be first without being able to actually back it up when customers come and ask, because ultimately, marketing, whether it’s marketing or sales, somebody’s gonna come in and say, Oh, I’d love to have this. Like, when can you deliver it?

JT

And just, I mean, that’s especially true, you know, that’s especially true, as we all know, in the automotive sector, where you’re announcing something that may not be reality for five years. It’s really difficult to sustain any degree of engagement, like, Oh, yeah, I guess that vehicle’s coming out, and 2032, which sounds like a year that can’t really exist because that’s a future we can’t possibly live in. But, those kinds of cycles. And, also, I think, we’ve experienced this, that when communications and marketing are nominally aligned, but then are misaligned as you get further down into the working levels. Like that’s where examples that you just shared become really difficult to manage and I think contribute to when people are talking about burnout. It’s because like, well, I’m trying to square this circle with my partner in marketing, or I’m trying to mitigate this thing that communications wants to announce, but we don’t have anything ready on the website and it’s going to make waves. So those are the areas where, again, when I really start to think about, coming back to that question at the top about like story mining, it’s also about that integration and people like really getting more comfortable with the fact that like marketing and communications need to hold hands on things and share resources and share learnings and techniques because increasingly again like the lines have never been blurrier when it comes to those two disciplines.

Rachel

I would even add sales to that mix. I want sales to also have maybe a little hand in there. Like just, we gotta be.

JT

I do too. I do too. Why do you want that? I have my reasons, but why do you want that?

Rachel

The reasons I’ve seen it a lot more, and I specifically will talk kind of the B2B side of things, because that’s where I have the experience. But if marketing, is not talking to sales and sales isn’t talking to marketing about what each needs, they’re the ones actually going and talking to the customer one-on-one. When you’re in marketing, you’re putting something out to a larger audience that you hope you capture the attention of that potential sale. But if you’re putting out content on something that they’re like, well, that’s not even what they’re concerned about, like then we’re wasting time and energy and not getting up to those goals. And sales is just spinning their wheels because we are making them content.

JT

Rachel, I’m afraid you’ve been listening to my conversations for at least years. I can’t agree strongly enough. There’s so many things that come out of that. And something I think we’re very bad at in communications, I moderated a panel at Darden School of Business at UVA a few years ago. It was about innovation in communications. And in my own experience, something I find, and I’ll get to the dynamic you just described in a second, it’s like, oh, what’s the most innovative way for us to tell this story? And so we create this Rube Goldberg contraption to try to reach the audience. And then the reality is, no, our people are literally talking, especially in B2B, our people are talking to the audience every day. They’re in rooms with them. They’re working alongside of them embedded. And it always brings me back to like… channel strategy, right? It’s like when you see the difference between a very sophisticated approach to communications and marketing engagement versus something that’s clearly, we just mashed all the buttons, right? And I always come back, I know she’s a real housewife now, but Bozeman St. John once took Kara Swisher to task at a recode interview around channel strategy when Bozeman was at Uber. And Kara was like, so, are you gonna launch this massive safety campaign? And Bozeman was like, Well, no, that’s not how channel strategy works, and really walked her through like the room we’re in right now is a channel, and so to me, like… really embracing that and simplifying things in the ways we’re interacting with these audiences we hope to influence. It’s why I think we’re seeing like the return of like the public affairs officer, right? Like there are all these things where it’s like, oh yeah, maybe that social post should have been a salon dinner.

Rachel

Yeah.

JT

Right? Like, it’s like that wasn’t for everybody. When you see like a company like Duolingo find itself upside down because they just said they’re going to let go of all their contractors and replace them with AI, that wasn’t a message intended for, you know, the consumer, but it reached them. And so it’s like, okay, well, where are the places we can try to talk to, say, Wall Street that don’t go into the clear maybe in quite that way. And I think that again, like having a more sophisticated sense and pulling our sales partners in, pulling customer care in where it makes sense, having all those people that are touching those audiences aligned around this stuff is so crucial.

Dan

Yeah, and just like building the story, I mean, it goes the other way also of, not just the potential customers that you want to reach, but we’ve talked before about the customers that you have and what they see the greatest benefit in and how they can build that social proof and kind of like sales can be the connection there or a customer marketing team, like some form of that connection can have so much. I guess, just gives you so much more to work with when you’re looking at trying to build out your messaging, your strategy, what’s important.

JT

What you just said, I think, too, is something where in this like era of like growth, right? Like, especially, you know, Rachel talking about B2B, you know, like the different strategies where you’ve got, say, the communications team, we want to reach new audiences. And meanwhile, marketing’s like, no, we’re doing ABM. Like we’re trying to like mine the existing audiences.

Rachel

We’re getting smaller in who we’re gonna talk to, actually, correct.

JT

And so, and I think that that’s a hard circle to square, because I think the inclination for a lot of communicators is going wide, going big, especially if you’re someone who’s like me, moved into B2B after being in B2C. You’re like, Oh, well, how do we reach these new audiences? And it’s like, Well, no, actually, we’re trying to refine this, and candidly, our problem is that we have such tight targeting that reaching them is very expensive, so we’ve got to get creative around… hey, maybe we do move to more of an event strategy because digital is suddenly so expensive, we could be using that budget against events. Those are the kinds, those are the kinds of strategic challenges that I find so much more fun, especially coming from digital and social where everybody thought that again was like the answer to so much the magic. And I’ve always said, if you can replace digital with magical and the sentence still works, then you’ve got a problem. And so like, this is where, again, this isn’t something when you fall backward into communications, you know, coming from music criticism, like I would have never been able to reach these conclusions, but you know, all these years on, when you’re in these conversations, you can say, yeah, hey, have we thought about our media mix? Like things like that, where like, give me a smart media team and we’ll take over the world. But that’s interdisciplinary. And I think that that’s something that is lacking in a number of organizations.

Rachel

Yeah, you mentioned coming up in your career and you spent time in a lot of large organizations, but your current path right now really is consulting, right? And being… in a couple of different places at once. Talk a little bit about like what led you to go out on your own? How is it working? What do you like about that versus being in-house, just kind of your career from that aspect?

JT

I think part of what I’ve really enjoyed about it is, you know, you have more control over who you want to work with, who you get to work with. Like that’s something that’s really rewarding. And then also, you know, I think for too many folks who are in large organizations where everybody’s got a really circumscribed role. You know, this is an opportunity to really like prove to yourself, like cure your imposter syndrome, like, oh, hey, like, I’m not a complete idiot. Like, this is actually like good advice. And, you know, part of what I enjoyed most, especially like working with my friend Lisa at Adaptive, was being able to come to her, not just as like a digital social person, but able to dig into the numbers with her and say, hey, this team is really lean. How can we make the most of what we have here? And let’s look across all of this and then really create the kind of documents that she’d need to make that case across the broader organization. And that’s something, again, where if you’re lower in the org chart and a lot of what you’re doing is more on the tactical side. You’re really being able to level up and flex those strategic muscles and experiment with things, like really game things out, understand that you’re in that conversation as an equal, as an advisor, and not simply somebody who is people pleasing. And I think that that’s, again, it explains why throughout our careers, why it’s like, I mean, obviously you’re an agency. It’s why the agency can come in and sell through something that I’ve been working on for years in three months.

Dan

Yeah, you need that outside perspective sometimes just so you’re not hearing the same voice.

JT

And that’s right. And honestly, like for me, especially in the way I like to work, it’s not a black box situation. Like I want a partner with those internal teams to help them develop a better methodology so that I’m not like the moment I leave, nobody knows what the recipe for ice cubes is. You know, like I want to work closely with those people and then give that feedback loop into leadership to say, no, like the team is good, the processes are probably bad.

Rachel

Yeah.

JT

So that’s really like work on the process piece. And if we can improve that, maybe we can even like get some time back in our schedules. But those are typically like the things client to client that are true universally. And you know, that’s, I think at once like really rewarding, it makes it much easier for me to scale up. On the other hand, it’s like, wow, how is this possible across so many different organizations in so many different industries with so many different audiences? And communications is essentially the same in most of them, right? So to me, like that’s at once, like, oh, okay, I can problem solve in this environment, but it’s also like, I’m stunned that this is a template that is essentially effective wherever I take it. Good problem for me to have. But again, like I’m always looking for… new and exciting challenges that, again, if you’ve worked within some of these larger companies, you can get into a cycle where it’s like, okay, I know what the events are for this year. I know what our tentpole moments are going to be and you can do creative things around that. But coming in as a consultant, parachuting into a problem, and being able to be a thought partner, as gross as that is to say out loud, thought partner, You know, that to me, I think is so rewarding. And you really see when you’re partnered closely with somebody within an organization, you can see that vulnerability too. And that like is psychologically rewarding on top of it all. So, you know, that’s, you know, that’s what I’ve enjoyed most about, you know, tackling these kinds of things as an entrepreneur.

Rachel

Right. It reminds me of our, one of our values at Franco’s courageous truth, because we always say that in new business pitches of this idea of, if you’re looking for a partner that’s going to come in and do things the way you’ve always done them and just build the print, like, you know, we were talking about earlier, we can, but it’s not where we do our best work. We want to come in, kind of pull back everything you’ve been doing, take a look inside as a third party, say like, that’s not working. Or have you considered that? Or why are we still doing that is good partnership and what you want to pay someone for if you’re going to bring in an outside voice.

JT

Correct. I mean, you know, it’s right. I mean, otherwise, right. It’s like, it’s like you’re just putting things to a vote and you wanted to add somebody to the, right? Like that’s, that isn’t something I want to take on. So no, I completely agree with that. And again, it’s, It’s fun, even if a lot of the macro level challenges are the same within every organization, it’s a little bit different. So it’s also getting to work with those people and having those difficult conversations and taking them on that journey. Because frequently, a friend of mine says this all the time, lots of organizations want to transform, but they don’t want to change. And that’s something that really struck me when I look backward, the number of organizations that really do want to move in and own a piece of the future, but need to make even more dramatic change to get there. That’s where things are uncomfortable. And you’re right, it’s absolutely incumbent upon those leaders to have those difficult conversations if you’re going to have a chance to get there.

Dan

So I want to come back to something that you talked about early on. You’d mentioned, you started out in kind of this digital and corporate newsroom and blog, and you maybe see that as a kind of resurging area going forward. So what did you mean by that? I just want to kind of pick your brain there. What do you see coming down the pipe in that world?

JT

Well, the worst version of it is that people, I think, believe that the trick is to just get more news out there. I think there are certain actors in society today who can take that approach and dominate the news cycle. But I can assure you that a small B2B somewhere in Metro Detroit can’t take that same strategy and have success. I think a few things, right? Like one is as people are trying to sort out okay, how do we approach SEO, GEO? What are the methods we can use to generate content that is very well considered and reputable and can be linked or gets linked? There’s a number of things around that I find distressing. Like some of the conversations I’ve had that aren’t quite in that brand newsroom space, but are more in that black hat SEO. Like how do we spam our press releases more effectively that are alarming and they may work in the short term. And I understand so much of what we do is in the short term. but everything costs money and time. So I would hate to make an investment in something that then gets flagged by any number of players in this space as a bad practice and all that investment just goes out the window.

Dan

Yeah.

JT

So I can see, and I personally believe, like I think organizations for years have said like, oh, we’re done with the press release. Meanwhile, here it is having a bit of a heyday. And But nobody really moved away from it in the 1st place. They said they did. They genuflected in that direction, but didn’t really change anything else they were doing. So like, I, so I think like, if I’m looking at organizations I’m talking to. I’m like, honestly, I find myself looking for the link to their blog again. And I’m like, actually, I think that that could be valuable. So, you know, that’s really what’s in back of it. But I think every organization has their own point of view on what it is they intend to do with those things because so many organizations like want to tap into culture. And I think for some of them, it’s like, Oh, sweetie, like that’s not gonna happen for you. You know, and that, but that’s again, that’s in that difficult conversation bucket. we need to move at the speed of culture. No, we make styrofoam peanuts. Like, no, we don’t. Like, that’s not it. You know, those are the things I think that are really coming, you know, back into the foreground as… people contend with the role of AI in shaping narratives.

Dan

Yeah, and I think that, I mean, that just goes back to really everything we’ve talked about from starting with business goals to knowing your customer to knowing your spot and with these different kind of communications channels. And it’s like, I think… There is room for all of the above of what you just kind of talked about, of the press release having its moment, yes, the blog being that kind of more conversational spot maybe with your customers directly or finding people where they are online. But I think to me, what it always comes back to is you have to kind of please the search machine, whether it’s AI, whether it’s SEO, whether it’s, you have to be able to be found. Like that’s something, but no matter what you’re writing, you have to write it for the human first and the machine second. making sure that it’s still relevant, that it plugs into the people that actually care what you have to say. Like you said, you’re not tapping into the culture necessarily with every piece. You have to write it for the person reading it. And then secondary.

JT

This is what I find so maddening. Like anytime, like literally any social media platform collapses, there was an AWS collapse today. Like everybody’s like, this is why it’s important to invest in owned channels. And then I am outraged because I’m like, who is actually doing this? Like everybody that works in the space I’ve worked in says this every time, you know, X crashed, like any number of these platforms. And they’re like, this is why it’s important to invest in your owned properties. And I’m like, who? Yes.

Rachel

I could think of 10 different reasons to invest in your own platforms before that reason, I guess.

JT

Sure, but then you also got it, like the trick, right, again, coming back to like make it viral. Like it’s, no, like this is our steady state traffic. Like this is what that looks like. Do you know what our website does on a day-to-day basis? I mean, one of the conversations I find myself in all the time is, Do you know how bad social is at referring traffic to your website?

Rachel

Awful.

JT

I desperately want you to live within whatever analytics platform you use on your website and seriously take a sober assessment of where that traffic’s coming from. And I can assure you it’s not coming from social. Like digital teams owe it to their leadership to bring that forward right now. in a way that they haven’t in a decade or more, because I don’t think they’re getting enough credit for how much they contribute. But again, it’s, yeah, this is why you need to invest in these own platforms. And that doesn’t mean we don’t need to have a bunch of different SEO tools and other vendors and so forth. But like that’s part of investing in this. And then having a realistic sense of what our growth trajectory is, particularly as all these social platforms mature and plateau.

Dan

Yeah, I mean, they’re, I think, sorry, go ahead.

Rachel

I was just going to say your point of them not referring traffic, social still has a place. It just, you have to rethink. think the strategy of what you want to achieve on social, and it should be much more of awareness and staying relevant. Again, like you said, like it’s churning constantly. It’s like your website. It’s constantly there. It’s not the viral moment. It’s those little touch points along the way with people that you have that keep you top of mind, you know?

JT

But to that point, like part of what I think we as particularly, I mean, I’m speaking for myself, you know, having sat predominantly on the communication side. There’s like the Heisenberg Principle problem we have where we’re really bad, like we’re good at measuring a moment or we’re good at measuring movement. We’re not good at both. And I think what you just said, where it’s like, Hey, can I get a snapshot at 4 p.m. of how that social post performed? And it’s like, we’re not, there aren’t units of awareness that I’m gonna bring back to you. Like, I need to look at a quarter. I need to look at two quarters. I need to look at a year. And then I have to see like what those peaks are and if they correspond to things we did or not, right? And I think that that’s something that’s a trap we get in where, you know, again, we’re being asked to deliver on these like minute-to-minute timelines, but right, like that sort of awareness takes time to build, and that’s not something you’re going to see. after an eight-week campaign, yeah, you can look at it, but then you’re going to have to do that however many more times until you genuinely start to break through and people are aware of what it is you’re trying to get across.

Rachel

Because then it’s a nurture too. It’s awareness and you got to nurture them and that you social in that way too, your message just changes. It’s very delicate.

JT

Yes. Yeah.

Dan

So we could talk about this, I feel like, for another hour, but I don’t want to take up too much of your time here. So we always like to close on one thing, is just, put yourself back in your shoes coming out of, your last day as a music critic, first day in communications. What’s one thing that you would tell yourself as you’re kind of jumping into this new career to a piece of advice, something to watch for, something that you would tell yourself?

JT

Well, I mean, it was true even when I jumped in, it’s that everything’s digital, right? I think that those kinds of… I mean, they’re not even dichotomies, but just the way all these different channels are siloed, like it’s all digital. And I think that if I could do it again, if I could be who I am today, starting out again, it would be to really gather people and create forums where people felt safe to have these kinds of conversations. Because, you know, I feel like the organization in many places places is upside down. I think that, and again, it’s not just because I sit in digital and social, but I just think there’s a primacy there today that was always present as we moved away from print, as broadcast changes, as the overall earned media landscape shrinks. The role of owned and shared content only became more powerful, the role of influencers being layered in, all of the employee and executive comms going online. I think I would tell myself, I’d tell people in that circumstance, like, no, you’re really sitting at the center of it all, right? Content and distribution is the whole shooting match as far as I’m concerned, and that includes paid amplification. That to me is, I think, the note I’d have for myself. It’s really trust yourself. You’re right on where this sits in the ecosystem. But again, I think it would be one where a disproportionate part of the job, and this is still true and I still do this, is really bringing your peers and leaders up to speed On the state of things, because I don’t know about either of you, but I’ve never been whisked into a conference room for an update on the state of out-of-home advertising. Yeah, I’m dying for that to happen, but that’s something for digital social that I think sits uniquely with us is… It’s a piece that’s evolving so dramatically all the time. AI is just one other facet of that. It’s, make sure you’re having those candid conversations and bringing everybody on the team along on the journey so they can see that perspective and they can find different ways to support you.

Dan

Yeah, I love it. Well, JT, thank you so much for coming on today. Welcome back anytime. I’d love to have you back as things continue to change.

JT

Love it. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate the time.

Rachel

Another big thank you to JT for joining us. You know, one thing I love how everything with him is kind of like, He talks about things in a way I don’t hear people talk about. There’s always some kind of comparison or like it’s interesting to listen to and talk. Yeah, an analogy, like how his brain works is so funny. Really enjoyed the conversation. I feel like there’s a whole breadth of topics we could talk to him about. And like Dan said, he’s welcome back to talk about those anytime. So thank you for tuning in and we will see you next time. See you.

Dan

Yep.