Kate Campbell

In any type of communication, you need to understand your audience and communicate effectively. Strategic communications means understanding your goal, the audience you're speaking to and how to communicate concisely. You can't just wing it. Take the time and sit down with your thoughts and keep the audience in mind.

Listen. Read. Listen even more and learn. Part of gaining credibility is understanding what you don't know and learning that area to actually grow. Follow and then pair up with influencers to really engage with them to understand the area. From there, start sharing what you're learning and engaging both online and in real life. Being authentic is key, and sharing how you're adding to your knowledge is how you can start to gain credibility.

Putting yourself out there is hard. My biggest advice? • Stay true to yourself. • Keep at it. You never know who you're helping. • The haters always have something to say but never cheer when you succeed. • It's okay to have a flop of a post. • Just post. Today's a new day. What do you have to lose? • It's how people know what you do, who you do it for and how you reach your audience.

It's essential to show up online with who you are. There is a desire for people to be authentic and real. We can all find advice, tips, dry thought leadership, content,etc. online today, but we all trust when it comes from an authentic place from a person or leader. Showing up as who you are (personality, accent, quirks and all!) is the most important part of putting yourself out there.

Media training is essential as it's a way to practice talking about the brand and messaging. The goal is about practicing and nailing down the message you want and how you say it and being prepared to answer questions. It's clear when SMEs aren't media trained, but it's the same type of professional development that is needed for any executive. If you're speaking externally on behalf of the brand, you should be media trained and know the messaging from front to back. Consistency is key.

For someone new, I would explain content marketing as a way to talk to your audience. You create stories, examples, and written content to help to message about the company, educate them on your product/service and then drive/market for them to purchase. It's taking how we think of marketing and translating it into content for future customers/buyers.