[Amber Samdahl] 12:01:18 Hi, everybody. My name is Amber Samdahl and I am the Director of Design and Innovation at PBS Wisconsin and also part of the Public Media Innovators Group alongside my colleague Chad Davis. [Amber Samdahl] 12:01:31 And we're really excited to welcome our special guests today and to be sharing this webinar in collaboration with the Marketing & Communications PLC as well. A big thanks to NETA for all their support of our groups and our webinars. [Amber Samdahl] 12:01:47 And without further ado, I am just going to hand it over to Erik Ernst, who will continue the introduction of the webinar. [Erik Ernst] 12:01:54 Thank you, Amber. Hi, everybody. I am Erik Ernst. I'm a public relations director at Wisconsin Public Media. So I work closely with Amber and her colleagues. And I'm also chair of the NETA Marketing and Communications Peer Learning Community. [Erik Ernst] 12:02:10 Uh, all of us in the marketing and communications PLC are just so grateful to be collaborating with our innovators colleagues on this webinar. Any of you who have attended an innovator's webinar before know that they set the bar for what these events should be like, and so anytime that we have the chance to. [Erik Ernst] 12:02:29 cooperate and collaborate. We are really grateful for that, so thank you, Amber, and all of the… all of the innovators for allowing us to do so. This webinar is going to offer some real-life examples of how colleagues across the system are working with what have become known as influencers, or have created their own influencers through their digital work. [Erik Ernst] 12:02:50 We invite you to watch for more webinars from both of our PLCs on this and other topics that affect all of our work. So reach out to either of us with ideas on how those opportunities can best serve your work, because that's the main goal of. [Erik Ernst] 12:03:03 NETA and especially the PLC groups. Today, we expect there to be many questions on this topic, and these experiences and opportunities, and we welcome those in the chat. We will be collecting them and getting to as many of them as possible at the conclusion of the presentations. [Erik Ernst] 12:03:21 We were hoping and planning to have three presenters today, but unfortunately, one of our presenters is ill and was not able to make it today. So if anybody, as you go along and you hear from our two presenters. [Erik Ernst] 12:03:36 And you're inspired to raise your hand and say that you have an example that you would love to share. Amber is willing to give it the old college try on a new, new to us Zoom, um. [Erik Ernst] 12:03:51 tool that would allow us to bring someone out from the, uh, from the participation pool at the end of the, uh, end of the presentations to, um, share yours as well. So please signify that in the chat if you would be interested in sharing an example from your work as well. [Erik Ernst] 12:04:06 And so without any and and thank you, Amber. Yes, Amber also shared the link to WYPR's work that they were going to present on today. There's a really nice current article about that as well. So without any further ado, I am going to introduce first Mike Shea, who is also a member of the marketing and communications PLC, and is a. [Erik Ernst] 12:04:32 specialist in Dayton, Ohio, with our friends at ThinkTV and CET, is that correct, Mike? [Mike Shea] 12:04:41 That's correct. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Hi, my name is Mike Shea. Like Erik said, I am here in Dayton, Ohio with Think TV, as well as with CET in Cincinnati. I handle our social media as well as podcast production and other digital content things as well. One of the main things I wanted to talk about today is… is. [Erik Ernst] 12:04:42 Awesome. Thank you. Take it away. [Mike Shea] 12:05:04 The, you know, I know the whole thing is called Myths and truths of social media influencers and working with influencers, but I really wanted to get into the myths and truths part specifically, because that's been a big thing for us here at our station, you know, when the questions have come up of, you know. [Mike Shea] 12:05:21 of social media lingo, uh, you know, every once in a while you hear somebody call it Tic Tac, and you try really hard not to roll your eyes, but, you know, um, but when we hear the term influencer, you know, immediately it makes us… it makes us feel icky. [Mike Shea] 12:05:37 You know, it conjures images of TikTok videos that are just poorly disguised ads, and people selling products they don't use, you know, the knee-jerk reaction of, oh my god, get a real job. We've all had that thought at some point. They literally at least once. [Mike Shea] 12:05:53 Um, but I think the thing we need to remember is that, you know, the term influencer is, in and of itself, I mean, like, all words are made up, but it is truly a made-up word. It is… it is something… it is a label that we slapped on something. [Mike Shea] 12:06:07 Uh, and because it was the best we had at the time, and unfortunately, it just stuck. The entire thing kind of showed up overnight, and so we've been trying to kind of define it ever since. Um… Here at Thing TV, we've come to look at influencers specifically as, like, modern-day guerrilla marketing. Um, you know, when you… [Mike Shea] 12:06:25 Kind of boil them down to their bare parts. They're people who are having to learn constantly evolving platforms and algorithms. You know, your average social media app, the user interface changes once every few months, and you're having to learn to adapt to new features and new things. They're having to learn about creating and editing content on the fly, understanding branding and tone. [Mike Shea] 12:06:46 reading audience behavior in real time, and, you know, adjusting strategy on the fly. And a lot of the times, we think, well, these kids may be… these kids, these people in general, they might not have… Had a job in marketing, or gone to school for marketing, but they have those innate… those skills in them almost naturally, instinctively, in a way, that maybe they don't even have… they don't realize what the kind of skill they have, because maybe they didn't get that opportunity, or maybe they did! [Mike Shea] 12:07:12 You know, everyone's different, but most of them are completely doing all of that on their own. And that's the thing, like, we're doing all those things in our stations with whole teams, you know, at our station here, we've got me handling social media, one person handling web, one person handling graphic design, one person handling video. [Mike Shea] 12:07:29 a lot of times, these are one-person armies with no budget, no safety net. Um… they're kind of building the plane while they're flying it, as it were. But also, influencers themselves aren't just marketing tools, they are… they are the people. They are the people embedded in our communities. They are seeing things from a ground level. They're communicating things in a way that feels natural to their audience. [Mike Shea] 12:07:54 But they're also… they build trust because they're a part of the audience that they're marketing to. In return, they give us something incredibly valuable, which is a direct line to what people are thinking, feeling, responding to. It's not a… it's not like a focus group. It's real time, like, this is what people are thinking, feeling in this moment. [Mike Shea] 12:08:13 So how this applies to us, um, is especially here in Dayton and Cincinnati, has been a couple different ways. So, one of the things we've done in the last couple of years are these events called Gin and Baking. We have a local program here called Stephanie's Baking Journal, or Stephanie's Recipe Journal, which was originally called the Baking Journal. It was a web-based show, became a broadcast show. [Mike Shea] 12:08:33 Um, and then there is a local social media influencer group called Gintellectuals. [Mike Shea] 12:08:41 That it's all about gin and cocktails and spirits and things in the area, um, and what the host of… one of the hosts of that, AJ, uh, is a member of our board, and he came… we… the idea was brought together by our old event planning, uh, our old events manager to. [Mike Shea] 12:09:01 Get people together for, uh, for baking, and a day of a cooking demo, and cocktail demos, and… By partnering with him, being a member of our board, you know, it avoided the discussion of, you know, like, you know, do we get a ticket? Do we give a cut of the tickets, or things? Like, it made that conversation a lot less messy, um, and it also. [Mike Shea] 12:09:24 Really just kind of strengthen that community relationship that it gave authenticity to the experience. Another example, and that was also… it also just made it kind of more of a strategic partnership in a way. [Mike Shea] 12:09:35 Another example was when we had the America's Test Kitchen crew coming through for the 25th anniversary, we invited local food and culture influencers, bloggers. At the time, one of our local bakeries had a massive blow-up on social media, so we invited some of their baking staff. [Mike Shea] 12:09:51 Uh, to come check it out, and they came to the cooking demos during the day, they came to the big event at the university later in the evening, and that was simply just a… all that really cost us was a couple of tickets each, and in return, we got. [Mike Shea] 12:10:05 publicity, we got visibility on social algorithms, and again, we increased community connections, we increased relationships within the area, very low-cost investment. And now, where it works internally. [Mike Shea] 12:10:17 For us is kind of when you're on your social media marketing team, we are… influencers from sort of a corporate maybe perspective. But whether we like label or not, like if you look like jobs explained, like at its core, that is a grant funded initiative. [Mike Shea] 12:10:36 to literally take people and train them to be jobs market-focused social media influencers on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, like, but just addressing real-world workforce issues. [Mike Shea] 12:10:51 While also following the trends of where the audience is. That's influencer Strategy 101, and it works. We can… we've proven it here with our own Jobs Explained program here in Southwest Ohio. Josie Massett, who is our… who is the person that we have on our team for that. [Mike Shea] 12:11:07 She recently led a virtual healthcare career fair that reached over 6000 students live online and then on the rewatch afterwards that featured major public figures, including the governor of the state of Ohio, as well as industry professionals taking questions and answering questions, like. [Mike Shea] 12:11:23 That's impact, that's reach, and that's influence. But then even beyond the big initiatives, when you look just even more internally, what we're doing every day just to promote ourselves internally. [Mike Shea] 12:11:37 Like we show up on social platforms, we are there to capture attention and keep audiences engaged and build trust and. [Mike Shea] 12:11:45 you know, encourage continued support. That's influencer work. We just don't always call it that because, you know, we call it promotions, we call it marketing, we call it what we call it. [Mike Shea] 12:11:57 where the myth in all of this is, is the myth is that, you know, influencers are shallow, unserious, somehow less legitimate, but the truth in all of that is. [Mike Shea] 12:12:08 they're honestly adapting faster than most industries are. Um, they are, they understand audience behavior in a way that traditional systems are still catching up to, and they're reaching audiences that, you know, we at PBS stations are still trying to figure out how to reach on a bigger scale. [Mike Shea] 12:12:26 You know, public media has always kind of had to fight to prove its relevance in a way since its beginning. You know, we go all the way back to the Mr. Rogers testimony video that we've all seen. There was always, there was a time when publicly available television itself was kind of dismissed and criticized in the same way, and it still is. [Mike Shea] 12:12:44 So this kind of… this is something that we ourselves are used to, so… How do we stay relevant in the changing landscape the same way? Well, this is kind of that opportunity. If we want, you know, younger, more modern audiences, we're gonna have to meet them where they are, and right now, they're on platforms that are shaped by influencers. [Mike Shea] 12:13:04 So, instead of writing them off just because the label feels uncomfortable, we need to be looking at what they actually do. [Mike Shea] 12:13:11 Because when you do, you realize they're solving a lot of the same problems that we're trying to solve. They're answering a lot of the same questions we are, filling a lot of the same voids. They're just… doing it differently, you know, and I think instead of… [Mike Shea] 12:13:26 you know, dismissing it as you know sometimes is easy to do. I think there's an opportunity to learn from it, to… collaborate with it and evolve alongside it. [Mike Shea] 12:13:39 Um, you know, at the end of the day, I think the question really anymore isn't whether or not influencers are valid, I think it's just, are we willing to adapt in the same ways that they already are? [Mike Shea] 12:13:51 That's my spiel. [Erik Ernst] 12:13:53 Well, thank you so much, Mike. We've got people as you have questions, please enter them into the chat and we will come back around after our next presenter and go through some of those questions that we've received. But before that, it's a good segue because our next presenter is Matthew Baltzell from Idaho. [Erik Ernst] 12:14:13 PBS, who is, uh, who works directly in the Jobs Explained place, and, um, for those of those of us who have either heard Matthew's colleagues talk about his work, or those in Idaho, they know that he is an influencer. And so, Matthew, without any further ado, thank you for joining us today for this presentation. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:14:34 Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, my name's Matthew. It's very funny getting called an influencer. I remember when I first got hired to my, you know, Idaho Public Television, there was a point where someone came around and. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:14:52 It was like, okay, so we have business cards, every new employee gets business cards. What's your title? And I just sort of sat there as like, what is my job? I am technically an influencer. I feel cringey putting that on a business card. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:15:08 I'm not really a digital media manager. I honestly don't really remember even what it said. I think I just made up a complex series of words and nouns, and I just handed it to people. But it is speaking to the fact that it is a very… Interesting position to be in. So, uh, as actually great that you sort of led me in by talking about the jobs explain program through American Graduates. That is how I initially got hired. I am someone with a… [Matthew Baltzell] 12:15:40 Um, actually a performing arts background, uh, theater. I've, um… been to, uh, um, did comedy, did acting, did a lot of writing, um, and then sort of did a lot of… it's very funny, I think I actually came here, uh, because… and got hired onto the Jobs Explained project from my local station, because I had a. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:16:02 I guess, uh… I don't know. I love hearing my own voice. I loved, uh… I was narcissistic enough, I guess, to say, yeah, let's film me. Um, so what I did was, with the program, as many of you know, is that it is a collective of different PBS stations across the country. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:16:20 That would essentially have someone who was an influencer for different industries. And the goal was to put these videos that they would make about either the aerospace industry or the healthcare industry, or mine was the construction industry out in Idaho, and that we would film these videos for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:16:44 although I will say there's for Idaho, and I know there's a couple other stations out there. TikTok got very quickly banned by all government employees. So we did have to pivot a little bit. I'm very curious… If that'll change, but I doubt it. But, um, anyway, the purpose was to reach younger audiences, because there had been great versions of this program that had gone out on broadcast television that was really well done. Um, it just simply was the fact that. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:17:17 There wasn't a lot of, you know… 16-year-olds tuning into Antiques Roadshow, uh, and I don't say that in any bad way. I think as a 16-year-old, I watched Antiques Roadshow, but, um, we were really successful, I think, before at getting the parents and the grandparents. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:17:35 of our intended audience, which I still will say is incredibly important, because those people still have conversations with their kids and their grandkids. But, as far as reaching. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:17:48 The actual intended audience of young adults that this program was aimed for in getting them aware of different job opportunities, we were just missing the mark. So the focus on this, this time around was incorporating this new media, which is always a term. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:18:06 I find very funny, because I install… my family had the internet in 1995. This is 30 years, and it's now still considered new media, like… Um, but it also speaks to the fact that, um… I do… one of the myths I also just sort of wanted to bring up front is that this… the idea of using the internet, using YouTube, using these platforms. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:18:34 is only good for reaching young adults. Um, it's funny now that the internet has been around for such a long time that we now have social media platforms that we kind of mentally block in our head as, like, that's the old person's. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:18:49 like, social media. That's the young per… like, in our mind, we're kind of like, oh, Facebook, that's for boomers, and Instagram's for millennials, and TikToks for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and… And we'll just forget Gen X like we always do. But I think that would be the one thing, is that we actually have a lot of engaged people and a lot of different platforms, and you can actually reach a lot of different. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:19:15 sorts of people, um, not just young adults. And also, um, the other sort of myth that, uh, Mike was great at pointing out was. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:19:24 We also sometimes like to shy away from creating content for the short form video platforms because we think of it as shallow. We think of it as, um, yeah, the reason why I think we all cringe at the idea of the word influencer is it? [Matthew Baltzell] 12:19:39 by its own name sounds very… deceptive, I think? It sounds… the name sounds manipulative, because you think, like, oh, I'm just here to manipulate you, I'm not a journalist, I'm not an artist, I'm just here to influence you to do something against your will. Uh, I think that's what we… we have, is sort of in the back of our head, why we kind of have this fear of thinking like that. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:20:04 But we don't necessarily have to create content that is, you know, malicious. Like, I really love the work of the jobs explain program. I love the work that I see in a lot of different places because it really does. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:20:20 reach people with the sort of programming content and art that really does matter to people in a space that does matter. There are people who… I think one of the things that really struck me is that I think more and more, like, you talk to younger folk, is that if they go to a different city, instead of going onto Google to search, like, what restaurant should I go to? What cool things should I do when I'm in. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:20:48 Chicago. When I'm in LA, they… they go on TikTok, and they search the restaurants because they want to see that sort of visual content. They want to actually see and experience and hear from other people who experience it. And I really love the idea that you can. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:21:06 bring that sort of thing to any sort of educational content, to, uh, career development, to art, to other things out there, and… That… okay, so that's one of my sort of big myths with that. One of the other things that I have with my experience. So I have… [Matthew Baltzell] 12:21:30 Since I've moved from doing construction jobs explained, and, uh, which was kind of seen by WNET and Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and then my, uh, my time with that was up, and so my local stations decided to switch into. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:21:47 doing Idaho Jobs Explained, so now I focus on creating content for YouTube, uh, for, um… Yeah, for, uh, for all of Idaho's industries, I guess I could share some videos. I said, yeah, let me see if I can do this without awkwardly screwing this up here. Hold on one second. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:11 Thumbs up if you can actually see this and this is, you can see my page. Okay, cool. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:15 All right, I'm not showing anything weird. Good. Um, I'll just show a little bit of the stuff that we sort of make here. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:21 Idaho is just full of opportunities, just waiting to be explored. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:26 That's why we created Idaho Jobs Explained. From healthcare to agriculture to building the world around us. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:34 Discover what it takes. Meet the people who do it, and find out how you can get started. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:40 Explore the careers shaping our state. Your future is a lot closer than you think. Join us. Find your path right here in Idaho. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:51 So yeah, that's obviously our little trailer that we have. I'll show a little bit of… I won't show the whole thing, uh, but I'll show a little bit of this sort of stuff. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:22:57 Yeah, uh, this is Rubber Duck to Night Owl. We got four-wheelers clogging up the chicken coop. Requesting clearance to hammer down. Over? Yeah, breaker breaker. Uh, this is Foxhound coming at you live from the gravel pit. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:10 We got Smokey Bears, Wiggle wagons, and a full tank of optimism. I'll copy. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:17 I'm gonna be completely honest. I have no idea what I'm saying right now. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:22 This isn't even a CB radio, this is just a pack of post-it notes. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:27 But fortunately, there are people out there who do know what they're doing. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:32 I'm Matthew from Idaho Jobs Explained, and this is transportation. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:44 When we talk about transportation, we usually think about semi-trucks on the highway. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:23:49 But, behind every truck is a driver, and behind every driver is training. Today, we're in Emmett, Idaho, at Heritage Driving School, where students are learning how to earn their commercial driver's license, or CDL for short, and unlock careers that keep Idaho moving. Pretty much a license to drive, operate these. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:24:09 you know, big trucks. It opens up a… huge array of jobs, you know, you got tankers, side dumps, and you can do. Possibilities are endless. The one-on-one, a lot of other truck driver schools have a whole bunch of people in the back just waiting to drive. Here, it's just you and the trainer, and I think that's amazing. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:24:29 It's. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:24:30 Anyway, I'll stop that right there. I won't show you the whole thing. But just a little example of the sort of content that we make, which actually brings me to, uh, one of the things that I think that we have sort of discovered with integrating this sort of work that I've been doing in my station. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:24:49 One thing my station has really focused on at Idaho Public Television is really looking forward to the future, to what public media is going to be five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And Mike spoke great to that. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:25:04 Where it is one of those things where I think that the use of the internet, the use of social media, the use of these video platforms is going to be a very crucial part. And… having someone like me on board into the department has, I think, been a great experiment. It is a great way to get their feet wet with trying to discover what works, what doesn't, what's what's… [Matthew Baltzell] 12:25:33 what is… how do… how do we work with an algorithm? How do we work, uh, in these spaces? What sort of content can we create? And it is one of those things where, like, yeah, some things work, some things don't. I've definitely put out stuff that, like. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:25:48 In my heart of hearts, I thought I was gonna just knock it out of the park, and then seen by nobody. And some things that are just like, okay, here's a quick little thing we did, and then just, oh, great, that's what goes viral. But it is… it is a great way to start that conversation with. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:26:02 your audience, because your audience is no longer just in one space, they're no longer just on television, they're no longer just on the radio. They are at all sorts of platforms. And this is the best way, I think, to begin that conversation. So I will shut up for now. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:26:19 Uh, that'll be my spiel, but I'm happy to answer some questions. [Erik Ernst] 12:26:23 Excellent. Thank you, Matthew, and we did have, before we get into some questions, because some of these questions are related to to some topics that so we had a comment in the chat with someone reaching out with another example that they would like to share. So, Amber, would you like to see if we would be able to. [Erik Ernst] 12:26:45 Use that tool to bring Heather Reason to talk about her experience working with an external, um. [Erik Ernst] 12:26:54 Influencer? [Amber Samdahl] 12:26:56 There we go. Welcome, Heather. Thanks for joining us. [Erik Ernst] 12:26:59 And just so that the world doesn't think that everybody that's watching doesn't think that this is an exclusively Wisconsin takeover, full disclosure, Heather does work with us at PBS Wisconsin, but she has a really great example to talk through of working with an external, um. [Erik Ernst] 12:27:16 an external influencer here in Wisconsin who has a well-known following both in Wisconsin and across the Midwest and beyond. So I'd love to have you talk a little bit about that, Heather, before we get to some of these questions that people have around working with external influencers. [Erik Ernst] 12:27:33 So welcome. Thank you. [Heather Reese] 12:27:34 Yeah, yeah, thank you, Erik and Amber. Really excited to see this panel today and hear from everyone. It's very exciting. So I will talk very quickly about what we did last year at PBS Wisconsin. So we received a grant from ITVS for the documentary We Want the Funk. [Heather Reese] 12:27:49 Most people probably aired it on their PBS stations. So with this grant, we had to promote it, and we really wanted to figure out how to reach new and younger audiences. Like, that is something as a station, I know a lot of people are working on, and we thought, what a better way than something with funk music. [Heather Reese] 12:28:04 do something fun. So, we connected with our community engagement manager, Dulce publicities. She was the one who really had this idea of connecting with an influencer, so we found someone here in Madison named Marshall. He works for the university, but he's also an author. [Heather Reese] 12:28:21 He has a lot of passionate around hip hop music, poetry, arts, music, culture. So it was really just a great fit around this. So she was able to connect with him. We did pay a small fee for their work, but what was exciting is Nate was also. [Heather Reese] 12:28:36 Thrilled to be part of this. He has a huge Instagram, Facebook following, so that was another way to get it out. He also partners with the university. So I know when she was thinking about who to do, not only a rad person who fits it, but somebody who has that social media following that would bring kind of those connections. [Heather Reese] 12:28:51 So we scheduled with him around town, different shoots, and we shot at local businesses and another way to bring more folks in from the community. So like a local record store, since we were talking about funk music. We also brought in a local DJ, which was another great way to connect our work with them and then their influencers and work. [Heather Reese] 12:29:10 So we have Nate do some on camera lines that we scripted to kind of set up what we were doing, but then we also did interview style to give him an opportunity to kind of talk about why this work was important to him and what it means to the greater broad of the community. [Heather Reese] 12:29:24 What also was really fun is we did an event as kind of the culmination of everything. So we had a bunch of promos on Instagram, Facebook, and then we had this event that was a screening of a section of the movie, and then a dance party after. So the reason we did a dance party, it's like, whoa, PBS dance party? [Heather Reese] 12:29:43 Cool, yeah, so we were trying to figure out a way, again, to kind of get a different audience, kind of bring folks in that might not realize, like, hey, PBS makes these really cool documentaries on history and things I might be interested in. So it was a huge success. We had a full house and a bar we partnered with here in town. [Heather Reese] 12:30:00 Which, they've been super great. We've actually worked with them since, so continuing to build on those connections. [Heather Reese] 12:30:05 And, you know, in the end, what was really cool was, you know, reaching those younger audiences, like the folks that were at the dance party was not like our usual core audience that we know at PBS Wisconsin, right? So a good way to meet new people. We got some new members out of it. We were able to work on our distribution. [Heather Reese] 12:30:22 So more content specifically for Instagram, specifically for YouTube, specifically for Facebook, something that I know can be challenging sometimes because you're creating broadcast spots and then everything in between. [Heather Reese] 12:30:33 We also were able to kind of strengthen a lot of those community connections with the different folks we, you know, places we shot and all of that. And we really tried to drive action for people. So, you know, hey, if you liked this, you would like that. So we had people on the floor at the event walking around, like, hey, are you enjoying this? [Heather Reese] 12:30:49 you know, scan this QR code, take the survey, you know, sign up for the PBS emails, no one else we're doing. So overall, it was a really good, successful project. We hit a lot of our goals. We found it really helpful to work with an influencer. Like, it was cool to learn from, you know, other people as well, so… Really great. Hopefully, we can do it again sometime. I see that Amber popped a link in the chat. Thank you so much. And I'll also pop a link in the chat for some of the promos we made. What was really cool about the promo producers on the team, they had such a blast working on this, too, because it was different than other work that we've done. [Heather Reese] 12:31:26 So it really gave us the chance to kind of experiment creativity wise as well. We had an open call out for dancers in the town to come into our PBS Wisconsin studios, welcome them in, do some, you know, dance routines for us, talk about why they love funk music. [Heather Reese] 12:31:42 That really hit that, you know, Gen Z's generation, so, like, that was folks that, you know, were in the studios telling their friends, posting on their social medias, so just trying to find as many facets as we could to get the word out. [Erik Ernst] 12:31:55 Awesome. Thank you so much, Heather. for joining in, and if you are willing to stick around, maybe some of these questions will be relevant to you as well. We did have a question from Nicole, and I don't know if anyone has any experience on this, but also if anyone in the chat does feel free to. [Erik Ernst] 12:32:15 to note or to chime in. She says, say you bring an influencer on board and they become a liability to remain connected to the public media brand. What are some next steps or items to consider? [Mike Shea] 12:32:32 Um, I mean, obviously you can't plan for everything, you know, things will happen. [Mike Shea] 12:32:38 I will say when we did bring in outside influencers, you know, we were pretty diligent on, like. [Mike Shea] 12:32:44 you know, doing what we could to, like, you know, is the… Granted, we were looking for cooking and baking influencers, so the risks were smaller, you're not gonna find too many problematic bakers. But, uh, it… you know, that is… but that doesn't mean you kind of would, I guess, you know, consider going into it, you know, like, does this person seem like. [Mike Shea] 12:33:03 the kind of online personality that would bring in any, you know, untoward eyes. And, you know, kind of a case-by-case thing. We thankfully haven't run into that kind of situation yet, but… You know, I'm not… I can't speak for what management would do, but, you know, if it were up to me, I would say it would just, you know, like you would with any contractor or even employee, it's just you. [Mike Shea] 12:33:30 deal with it as… based on what the situation is, and… you know. [Erik Ernst] 12:33:35 I, I, I think that, you know, that I. [Erik Ernst] 12:33:40 I think that there are, you know, it really is that that due diligence, and I think that that's one of the benefits that public media has in working in a space like this is that we rarely make, um. [Erik Ernst] 12:33:55 knee-jerk decisions, um, and so, you know, it's very rare for, you know, we're not just going to chase popularity for the sake of popularity without doing that due diligence to, um, to say, you know, does this. [Erik Ernst] 12:34:11 Person, and their public persona, and what they have done, and the things that they have said, does that align with the, you know, values and mission and goals of public media? And quite often, you know, we can broaden. [Erik Ernst] 12:34:25 the scope of what public media feels like to do that. But it's going to be, hopefully, you know, a rare instance that we would… that we would do that where there would be, you know, problems on the back end. I think that there is additional due diligence, though, that is required. [Erik Ernst] 12:34:41 Um, anytime that you're working with… and we're all familiar with this, right? And not just in digital media work, but, you know, public media shows have had hosts for a number of years, documentaries have had hosts. There's been instances I know. [Erik Ernst] 12:34:59 Where, um… you know, where, say, somebody that you, uh, tap to host or present a documentary. Now, all of a sudden is running for office, and that might not be something that is that is, you know, controversial. But you need to be careful then about what it means if you're going to represent that documentary in the midst of an election or something like that. And so, you know, those are those are things that we. [Erik Ernst] 12:35:25 Um, we have examples of that in Wisconsin where, you know, probably 20 some years ago, we had Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Presenting a documentary on. [Erik Ernst] 12:35:40 Um, on Earth Day, um, with a lot of the, um, conservation work that he was doing at the time, and there was no issue at all with that, and there's not potentially an issue at this point with that, but when he was running for president, we had to be really thoughtful, um, about, you know, is that something that we program on Earth Day? Is that something that we that we share out with our audiences? [Erik Ernst] 12:36:03 Um, because of that connection there. So I think that's that due diligence is a place that really sets public media up, um, and that thoughtfulness sets us up for success in this space. But like Mike said, you're never going to avoid all of those situations, and so, you know, just using, you know. [Erik Ernst] 12:36:20 quality public relations and and being aware of what's happening around the world and in your communities is important as well. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:36:27 Yeah, I, I, you go. [Mike Shea] 12:36:27 And Ana. I was gonna say, on a, on a personal side of that, too, like, you know, and this is something that, you know, I've talked about before in other, you know, so outside of. [Mike Shea] 12:36:40 Before I came into working here, I mean, and I still do, I do stand-up comedy. And so there was a conversation of when I started doing the social media and getting into the video and side of things and, you know, essentially being our initial face for our social media. You know, there was a conversation that had to be had of. [Mike Shea] 12:36:57 Making sure that, like, there were clear lines drawn, because, you know, it wouldn't take too much for someone to, you know, and my role in our social media has since changed a lot, you know, since our… now that we have our footprint is settled, but you know. [Mike Shea] 12:37:12 There are those conversations that have to be had. And again, it just falls back to… You know, trusting your people, trusting your team, and just making sure to do the homework and, and, you know, but you can only, you can only plan ahead for so much. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:37:27 Yeah, I think this is one of those things where nothing has really changed, sort of what Erik and Mike are talking about is these are the sort of conversations that have kind of always existed. Um, yes, due diligence, obviously. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:37:43 You… you can get it pretty quick idea. If someone is getting… If you're working with an influencer who got famous for just having just totally off the wall content, then usually that's pretty… Pretty obvious. Um, and again, you can't plan if, uh, you know, if all of a sudden this person goes hard into making, like, flat earth, you know, material, you're like, well, I couldn't see that coming, but, um, it's also one of those things where I… [Matthew Baltzell] 12:38:08 Working in the jobs explained. Uh, you know, it's one of those things we're talking about these issues. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:38:16 are you're talking about people have very strong political opinions and other opinions. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:38:21 Because say something like, my wheelhouse, jobs. Yeah, that's important to everyone. That's very important. That's very important to the political spectrum, that's very important to people's philosophies, regardless of where you're coming from. So I think a lot of the work that I tried to. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:38:37 do is… it's not that I can't be… apolitical, because Jobs is one of the most political things you could talk about, but I think that it is also about finding the very, like… the nuggets that we all agree on is that people should have opportunities. People should have, you know, livelihoods. People should have certain things, and I think that is finding that those type of issues to speak to. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:39:05 When you are creating whatever content that you're creating, and speaking to that, and having them speak to that. [Erik Ernst] 12:39:14 I think another thing that is just important to do is to have. [Erik Ernst] 12:39:19 be willing to have those types of conversations. Um, I know that there's been, um, you know, instances at our station where it's not even shows that we produce, but say local shows that we obtain, that, um, you know, where a host will, um, on their personal. [Erik Ernst] 12:39:36 Platforms will, you know, make a statement that someone in our staff, you know, a staff member would not make, or a overt political statement that is something that we might not, we likely would not make in the course of our work. And I know that there have been conversations with some of those staffs, uh, with some of those. [Erik Ernst] 12:39:56 Um, hosts along the way, where, you know, we're not going to tell them what to say. It's an independent production that it is what it is, but they… the conversations that we've had is, hey, you know. [Erik Ernst] 12:40:09 Please, you know, if you're willing to, be aware of what that might say about public media and your connection to public media when you're making those statements, when you're being yourself in those social media spaces. And I've observed that those conversations have been really welcomed, and quite often are. [Erik Ernst] 12:40:25 you know, responded to with a, oh yeah, wow, I'm really glad that you made me think of it in that scope because, you know, I'm just a TV host in my mind and not realizing that there's a specialness to being a public TV host. And so those conversations have always gone really well, at least the ones that I've. [Erik Ernst] 12:40:44 um, been privy to, and, um, and often the person having that, uh, being part of that conversation is usually really grateful for that reminder. And we have to remind ourselves that, you know. [Erik Ernst] 12:40:54 We have these conversations all the time within our station around what it means to be, you know, a public media staff member. And you know, maybe having those conversations proactively as you're bringing people on is valuable. And we can't just make the assumption that people will always connect those dots. [Erik Ernst] 12:41:11 Mike. [Mike Shea] 12:41:14 Yeah, it kind of piggybacking off of what you said, I think one example we… that I think is… actually, I'm kind of mad, I didn't think of this earlier, uh, is Rick Steves. [Mike Shea] 12:41:25 you know, Rick Steves… If he were, like, if he were new today, he'd be an influencer. He'd be a travel… a travel influencer. He'd be one of those guys on Instagram. He is one of those guys on Instagram. [Mike Shea] 12:41:38 traveling the world, posting about it. Showing you where to get good deals, where to go see things, all things like that. Rick Steves endorsed Kamala Harris for president. [Mike Shea] 12:41:49 You know, that was something that that PBS had to navigate in general. [Mike Shea] 12:41:57 That's a very large example, you know, Rick Steves is Rick Steves, obviously. Um… But I think… I think that kind of lends itself to that… to that bigger conversation that we've been having in general of. [Mike Shea] 12:42:12 Who are what influencers are, what role they can and do play in public media, and, you know… what to do if… They choose to go that route of, yeah, I'm public media, but, you know, I am also a person, and I'm gonna… this is my platform, I'm gonna… so, you know? [Mike Shea] 12:42:33 I don't really have an end for that, it's just… there's an example, and so it's not like we've never had to navigate that before, just on a [Matthew Baltzell] 12:42:34 Yeah. Yeah. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:42:42 Yeah, and and also to speak to that as well is not it's… It is one of those things where, yes, it is absolutely something that we've… that we've dealt with before, but also, to be very honest, not to scare or fearmonger, it is important to note that, like, we do certainly live in an age where there are. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:43:05 people looking at your organization… maliciously, or they… or that are coming to you to, um… uh show be like, oh, look at what they just said. There are people online who are doing that and it is easier nowadays to clip something that you have put out or that you have produced or said and and have that itself. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:43:31 potentially go viral. Again, it's not something that I want to necessarily say is something you should be up all night, all the time, worried about, but yeah, that is absolutely something in this day and age, you do need to consider. [Erik Ernst] 12:43:45 I think in line with that, and I'll tea Heather up a little bit on this. I know that there have been organizations that will, and PBS has even done this right where they, like, say, we'll send out the their PBS holiday sweaters to, you know, people in hopes that they'll make, you know, videos that they'll post on their social media, etc, talking about it. And that's great. And obviously that's not hosted on. [Erik Ernst] 12:44:07 Um, PBS's platforms, but there is risk there. But we have an example even recently where there's a fellow that you may or may not know it, depending on how close your epicenter is to Wisconsin, uh, named Charlie Barons, who's a very well-known local influencer and comedian and etc. [Erik Ernst] 12:44:27 And he got tapped by our station to voice a traditional TV documentary around Bucky Badger. And Heather and her team worked with Charlie then to create some really, really fun interstitials. [Erik Ernst] 12:44:44 Um, that we knew would have a lot of really great engagement. [Erik Ernst] 12:44:49 I really like that angle where you're working with an influencer, but you're still maintaining. [Erik Ernst] 12:44:55 Some, you know, production connection and production control, especially of the stuff that is appearing on your channels. Um, and I think that that's a really great example with that Heather and her team were able to pull together of how that can work while still being of the organization. [Mike Shea] 12:45:12 Let's not forget that, you know, George Carlin did a voice on Thomas the Tank Engine. [Amber Samdahl] 12:45:21 If I could jump in with another question here. I feel like this is a fantastic conversation. Carrie has a really great question that I'd be curious to hear all of your perspectives on. It's are PBS stations hiring slash partnering with influencers outside of their own staff? [Amber Samdahl] 12:45:40 Yes, that's happening, and if so, how does that fee structure work? What's a typical fee? What is a typical work? [Amber Samdahl] 12:45:48 look like, um, and that scope of work. How do you all think about that? [Mike Shea] 12:45:53 I ask HR. Honestly. That's above me. [Erik Ernst] 12:46:00 Yeah, I don't know. The example that I just shared, Heather, with Charlie, I don't know the the details behind that, was the participation in your videos built into his contract for? [Erik Ernst] 12:46:14 The other work that we did, or did we have to do a separate arrangement? [Heather Reese] 12:46:18 Well, a little bit of both, actually. So we did build in the original contract that we wanted him to do something promotionally, and then, um, this was a good example, and we learned a lot from this, of why we need the right people in the room, because it should have been built in better, and it wasn't for the social media aspect. [Heather Reese] 12:46:35 Because then it was, hey, we're partnering with the person that has millions and followers, and mostly everyone in Wisconsin would know who he is, right? So yeah, we did. And then we so we did have some of it built in and we did go back and ask then for more participation to do some extra videos and it all worked out wonderfully in the end. [Heather Reese] 12:46:55 We also had a couple issues with, like, he has, like, an agency that is in LA, and they were quite not responsive to us, as, you know, maybe some folks that we were working with around here is it did come up, though, with the political comments, and it's come up with a couple of the other talent we've worked with. [Heather Reese] 12:47:13 We haven't pulled anything yet, but if it was something, like, completely egregious, we did talk about, like, okay, then we'd have to pull it. But at the time, everything was posted, luckily, none of that was going on. [Mike Shea] 12:47:25 In the past, we've, for us, it's usually just been like, we've given tickets. Like, like I said, we've had events. It's what we'll give you and your folks free tickets to the event, and usually that, in and of itself, because a lot of the, like, the America's Test Kitchen, like, those weren't, those weren't cheap. Like, a lot of the times. [Mike Shea] 12:47:40 that in and of itself, you know, like, you know, because for them, they got to go to the event, then they got to go do the photo op as well, so, like, a lot of times that in and of itself perks a lot of times for these folks are enough. [Mike Shea] 12:47:52 To get them on board. If the dollar sign is throwing up. [Mike Shea] 12:47:58 caution flags for you, see if there's a way that you can maybe just, you know, use perks to motivate them into, you know, whatever relationship you're trying to [Matthew Baltzell] 12:48:09 I have a question that actually I like and would like to answer if that's cool. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:48:14 Uh, Josephine asks, question for everyone, how do you think in terms of style and content? Do stations need to be willing to adapt on social media platforms? How do we do more than regurgitate broadcast clips onto social? [Matthew Baltzell] 12:48:30 This is a really good question that actually our station has been wrestling with as well. Um, okay, so a couple of things that I will say is, um… Every time you create a piece of short-form video content, it needs to provide its own value completely by itself. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:48:53 If they never see the other documentary that it's in reference to, if they never go to the event, the piece that you put out needs to provide some sort of value, be that entertainment value, educational value, inspirational value. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:49:10 Just as… if they just see it by itself and nothing else, that needs to be… that needs to be something it can do by itself. Because people really… people know what an ad is. People see something, and they. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:49:25 They they have been trained their entire life to sniff out something that's just an ad for something else. And it is… It is… it's not necessarily bad, it's just that you are missing a great opportunity to create something new that provides its own value. So, in the sense that, um, yes, if you have a clip that you are taking, piecing out. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:49:50 Uh, from another production you're doing. Look as if it's like, okay, is this a movie trailer or is this a little snippet of something that if they just only ever see this in their entire life? [Matthew Baltzell] 12:50:04 put something out in value into someone's life. And also, there are a couple things to consider as well, working in different stations, is that… When you create new content. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:50:19 There's a line of, like, I don't want to say, you don't have to make it well. That's not at all what I'm saying. But… It doesn't necessarily have to be the complete… Emmy-winning, like, drone shots into soft focus. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:50:38 Because people actually like authenticity, and there's a little bit of having that rawness, having that… Um, more just spirit and energy over, like, the most tightly produced little piece of video. We'll go further. You'll notice that a lot of… a lot of great people and content you see is literally just someone in their bedroom. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:51:01 Uh, because they've managed to create something engaging. Just there, just that. And it's not that I'm telling you to not put effort into it, but just let it free yourself to focus more on the energy of the type of content that you're creating. [Mike Shea] 12:51:17 I think, I think the term you're looking for is less polished. That's the one. I like to tell I like those it's not that it doesn't have to look good. It's that it doesn't have to look perfect. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:51:21 Yes. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:51:27 Yes. [Mike Shea] 12:51:28 There's a… this is… this is a little bit off topic. There's a… there's a film that I'm a fan of called The Reduced Shakespeare Company, where a group… a group of actors do the complete works of William Shakespeare in one, like, one one-hour thing. [Mike Shea] 12:51:43 And they say, well, I don't know if we can do Hamlet justice. He says, we don't have to do Hamlet justice, we just have to do Hamlet. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:51:51 Yes, I love that show. Yes, yes, yes, yes. [Mike Shea] 12:51:51 Doesn't it? So… so that's… that's the way I like to look at, like, when it comes to short-form social media video, it doesn't always have to be your A plus material. It just has to be… [Mike Shea] 12:52:05 for lack of a better term, good enough. You can do high… I'm gonna give you two examples of what I mean here, is you can do… you can find a way to use the content you're already producing to produce extra content in the meantime, but also, they'll find there's a weird fun and authenticity, like you're talking about, that comes with. [Heather Reese] 12:52:09 Mm-hmm. [Mike Shea] 12:52:25 The less produced stuff. The first I'm going to show you is we have a show in Cincinnati called Showcase, which is our host sits down with community leaders and figureheads and has very personal conversations with them. [Mike Shea] 12:52:40 But our production team does a series called This or That with them, uh, prior to recording, where they literally asked them to just rapid fire this or that questions on really. [Mike Shea] 12:52:50 innocuous, just unimportant things, so I'm gonna show… show you that one first. [Mike Shea] 12:52:59 Um, you guys… I don't know, please tell me, I think you guys. All right, here we go. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:53:00 Yep. [Mike Shea] 12:53:04 Creative brainstorming or careful planning. Creative brainstorming, no question. Tradition or innovation. I like a tradition. Inspiring creativity or ensuring stability. I'm in an inspiring creativity sort of mode right now, as we create things for 2026. Local restaurant or a home cooked meal. [Mike Shea] 12:53:22 Uh, local restaurant. My wife Becky is a tremendous cook, but a night at Via Vitae is always wonderful. Historic architecture or modern design? Definitely historic architecture. Book or podcast? Definitely book. Try to read about 60 books a year. Coffee or tea? [Mike Shea] 12:53:36 Coffee all day long. So those are those are something we do. Just we every time there's a show, they, they cut those together for me. Kaelin, who is our… one of our great editors, cuts those together, or Mike, and they send… we have three mics here. They send them to me, and those go up, so those are great social content. Now, these other one, I'm going to show you something that I make with our programming director, Joan. [Mike Shea] 12:54:03 And every month, we try to find some program or theme of program we're having, and just put some focus on it that we want people to watch, and sometimes we pull folks from around the office, and in this case, uh, we pulled… we pulled someone from our membership team. [Mike Shea] 12:54:17 To talk about it. [Mike Shea] 12:54:23 Polyn all pet lovers! Join us for a new behind-the-scenes special, All Creatures Great and Small, cheers to the years. Explore each of the characters, human and animal, and revisit their loves, losses, triumphs, and their joys. [Mike Shea] 12:54:39 Speaking of pets, Christine has information about our pet club. Help support programs like All Creatures Great and Small. For sustaining membership of $15 a month, up to four of your pets can become official members of the station and receive a welcome packet and a bandana. [Mike Shea] 12:54:56 Be sure to scan the QR code for more information about Pet Club. Cnt, your home for all creatures great. [Mike Shea] 12:55:04 My internet sucks. Okay. Um, so… But it's been a… and those… every time we've done one of those, like, the numbers on those increase every time, and those have been a great way for us to, going back to what I brought up, like, the idea of. [Mike Shea] 12:55:17 you yourself being the influencer for your own station and creating those, just, here's just us, it's just our programming person, and a membership person in a conference room, no bells and whistles, just talking about. [Mike Shea] 12:55:31 Cool programming we have, and, you know, cool stuff we're doing with the Pet Club community stuff, and it… That took an hour, you know? Like, that took an hour to shoot, edit, and get, you know, signed off on, so… little things. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:55:46 Yeah. I… [Erik Ernst] 12:55:48 and I think that that that thinking behind it is, you know, that just that little bit of thinking and and the doing. I know that Heather's done some really great examples of that recently, where, you know, she's got her whole crew there for the video promo crew. Why not, you know, grab the person that they're talking to to make a little social media video there in the moment while it's set up and he got the lights and. [Erik Ernst] 12:56:09 And, you know, and in a way for our social media audiences, Heather has now become an influencer because of that. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:56:15 Yeah, I'm sorry. [Heather Reese] 12:56:15 Yeah, along with that. We just say, have fun. No, no, I was gonna say that like when people talk about fun, we just say, have fun. And then I tell our folks, I'm like what and done for social, and they're like, whoa, really? So it's kind of a nice, a fresh change of pace when you go through, like, either reading scripts or interviewing folks. It's just like, let's do one and done have some fun, and there's no scripts and casual, and people really like it too. So it's a good way to like also build those connections. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:56:40 Yeah, we also had a good success with the We Want the Funk, and creating promos for that, and uh… working with local sort of arts organizations and people. Because, again, it's one of those very flowery terms that you sort of hear, but social media is a conversation. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:56:56 And that's how you should be thinking of it. Um, and what I mean by that sort of flowery phrase is your goal is to connect directly with people who talk back to you. There are comment sections for a reason. They don't have comments. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:57:12 sections in books or in movies. Uh, these people can talk back to you, and they can… you can talk back to them. And, uh, you also can talk back with other organizations. One of the greatest things about working in social media is we very… we can work very quickly. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:57:26 We can very speedily, and I personally have made connections with so many different organizations and other groups and arts organizations, businesses that now can say, hey, I know Idaho Public Television because I've worked with that one guy for that one silly, stupid video. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:57:43 And now I have a I have a connection with them. And it's just a great way to actually do one of the great things of public media, which is engage with the public. [Amber Samdahl] 12:57:57 This is great. I think I'm going to try to. [Amber Samdahl] 12:58:01 Sticking one last question before we wrap hairs, we're reaching the top of the hour. I love the conversation and the energy behind this is really exciting. Just to get to one question about metrics and numbers, I'm going to try to kind of merge these questions together. [Amber Samdahl] 12:58:20 Uh, related to how you determine who to work with, that could be, you know, outside influencers, other partner organizations, like you were talking about, Matthew. Are there metrics you're looking for in this space around followers, engagement rates? And then, you know, are there any conversion ratios as well, as far as, you know, engaging people and then turning them into members or future partners? [Amber Samdahl] 12:58:42 What are you all thinking around those spaces? [Mike Shea] 12:58:45 I mean, when we were first looking for ours, again, we haven't done it enough. We're still kind of figuring out what that kind of standard operating procedure is going to look like. You know. [Mike Shea] 12:58:56 It's kind of a play-it-by-ear situation, I feel like right now, with… since a lot of us are still dipping our toe into it, as it were, um, you know. [Mike Shea] 12:59:08 Social media is so fluid, it's hard to put, like, an actual hard number on it when you're dealing with things on a local level, you know, because on the one hand, a thousand followers is a lot for one person, but is, you know, not a lot for another, so… I guess it would really just depend on what it is. [Mike Shea] 12:59:24 your overall goal is with, like, like, why are you looking to get the influencer involved, or the blogger involved? Like, like, what, what is… yeah, I guess it would just depend on what it is you're looking to do. [Mike Shea] 12:59:36 It's not a great answer, but… [Matthew Baltzell] 12:59:38 No, I I I… yeah. Oh, I was about to say, I, um… You know, it's sort of… I think that is as good as answer as I have as well, is it's really more about, yeah, I kind of like what you said, is like, who are you trying to talk to? Um, are you bringing… if you are bringing in someone, um… [Erik Ernst] 12:59:38 And I know… Yeah, go ahead, Matthew. [Matthew Baltzell] 12:59:58 Are they connected to that baking community, that arts community, that industry community? Do they have a voice that you want to bring in? And so you can also talk with their people, and they can talk with yours. Um, as far as hard numbers, uh, yeah, it's, you know, it is a new world. I wish I wish I could tell you is like, oh yeah, you need this many followers and this many views and this many. [Matthew Baltzell] 13:00:22 I truly wish I could, I could say that, but I can't. [Erik Ernst] 13:00:27 Well, and we're in an industry that has long had set. [Erik Ernst] 13:00:32 set metrics, and these are still all new, especially as we are, as Mike said, dipping our toe in. So I think a real key here is less about the what are you accomplishing, and more about, um, building those, um, those base points so that you have an understanding to see. [Erik Ernst] 13:00:52 What, you know, you need to build that base point now, because we just don't even know what that is. And then you can start to see comparatively, like, oh, this one did better than that one, this one did. And so, you know, we're… not only are you building a new way of a new form of media for our audiences, you're also needing to build the new… the new way to report on that and to analyze that impact. I think that's the key is just don't. [Erik Ernst] 13:01:17 Don't miss that opportunity to set that baseline and to understand that baseline, but also don't get discouraged if that baseline isn't as high as you think it should be in this moment. [Mike Shea] 13:01:26 When we were… we were hiring for our… our jobs explain person, you know, I was in on those interviews. One of the things that I brought up with each interview was that, you know, social media is a. [Mike Shea] 13:01:37 It's kind of like having a football game where the goal posts are moving every single day. The goalpost never stays in one place. You can have… and this is gonna sound cliche, but social media really is less about the destination and more about the journey because. [Mike Shea] 13:01:53 you're never actually going to reach a… final, like, like, you're gonna, like, you're gonna promote this one thing. Okay, cool. [Mike Shea] 13:02:03 Then what? Like, there's… there's not, like, a final, like, like, end level, oh, we beat the game, so that, that, that, that… it's about being able to adjust, like I said, adjust expectations, manage expectations, and. [Mike Shea] 13:02:18 Adjust and manage your goals as you go along, because you might think you're setting lofty, and then you might completely overtake it. [Mike Shea] 13:02:26 Or you might set high and come up short, but… kind of with the way social media is. [Mike Shea] 13:02:34 everyone's gonna forget about it the next day. You just move on to the next thing. You know, I have given workshops to comedians in town for marketing, and one thing I've told them is that the internet has kind of leveled the playing field. It used to be that marketing and promotion was all about right place, right time. [Mike Shea] 13:02:51 Well, the right place is the internet and on social media, and the right time's kinda all the time now. [Mike Shea] 13:02:57 So… yeah. you know. [Matthew Baltzell] 13:02:58 Yeah, and it goes back to the whole thing of a conversation of, like, like having a conversation is never… One, it's never done, like, it's never, like, ah, yes, I've… I've now… I've had such a good marriage that I've now succeeded, and now I never have to talk to my wife ever again. No, it, like, it… it is… it is just a… it's a… it's constantly moving, and it's just your voice that you have to say. [Amber Samdahl] 13:03:27 Oh, that's a great. It's a great note to end on. We're never done. We'll we'll always keep continuing the conversation. And with that note, I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone for joining. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you, Heather, for jumping in. [Amber Samdahl] 13:03:45 And of course, a big thank you to Erik and the marketing communications PLC. Before I'll pass it to you, Erik, in a sec, I'll just put in a little plug from Public Media Innovators. We will be hosting our April webinar on April 23rd. [Amber Samdahl] 13:04:03 And the topic will be looking at leveraging newsletters as a strategic audience growth, engagement, potentially revenue growth engagement tool. So we're going to be looking at some of the creative work that's happening around the system around newsletters. [Amber Samdahl] 13:04:18 But thank you all for joining. I'll hand it over to Erik to wrap us up. [Erik Ernst] 13:04:22 Absolutely, and thank you again to all of our presenters and all of our participants. What great questions, and I hope this was valuable. Please connect with the marketing and communications PLC. We hold meetups on various topics every other month, and we welcome people. [Erik Ernst] 13:04:39 Both within the marketing and communication space and any other space who can find value in the topics that we're discussing there. So please do that. And an extra plug to just, you know, take time to explore the NETA website. There's so much great stuff there and so many great resources for all of us who are trying to make it work at local stations. So thank you, everybody, and have a great rest of your week.