Ep 24 - Social Media Strategies, PR and Testing Your Messaging w/ Bill Zimmerman, Advertising and PR Lecturer at Penn State University
Interested in creating compelling student success stories?
Every month you’ll get a new student or alumni success story plus a whole package of additional videos
Educate your audience about your various programs, scholarships, DEI efforts, etc.
Build a massive b-roll and content library to use however you want
Free up time to do other things - we'll do all the backend dirty work that you hate, like scheduling & coordinating shoots
SHOW NOTES
My guest today is Bill Zimmerman.
Bill is a lecturer at Penn State University’ Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. teaching Digital PR, Social Media Strategies and PR Media & Methods courses. We’ve never had a lecturer on this podcast, and we haven’t had much of a PR influence either so I thought Bill would be a great voice for that stuff. In this episode we talk about a variety of topics including Social media strategy, testing your messaging before launching your campaign, how Penn State manages the crossover between PR, Marketing and Communications at a bunch more stuff.
LINKS:
Connect with Bill on Linkedin
Mentioned in this episode:
-Pricing for Video Storytelling Subscription: pricing.unveild.tv
-Download the 3-part storytelling framework for student/alumni testimonials - "3 Absolutely Crucial Components Every Compelling College Student/Alumni Testimonial Needs"
Transcript (done with AI so only about 80% accurate):
Bill (00:00.691)
this one before I was using Zencaster for a while but wasn't using video.
John Azoni (00:06.25)
Yeah, I like it. When I started doing the video podcast, because I started wanting to chop up the podcast into like LinkedIn, like in social posts and stuff. So I started focusing on doing the video instead of just audio and it helps a lot because I was like in my instructions, like my sort of plain English instructions to the guest, I was trying to get them to record on their end. And then I would record on my end. So and then we'd have
Bill (00:20.663)
Okay.
John Azoni (00:36.15)
like the zoom recording as its own as like a backup and it was just hard it was like hit or miss whether someone understood how to do that but Riverside just does that like it it natively records on your end and on my end and then it's also got like the the stream so if there's like an if there's like an you know if the stream kind of like cuts out or something it's still recording on your fans.
Bill (00:39.444)
Yeah, okay.
Bill (01:01.415)
Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that was something with ZenCaster. They had launched the video chat in like a beta. So you could have the video there, but not record it, just be recording the audio, or you could record both. And I found that it was just too much lag for my machine, so I was only ever just doing audio. So you'll put out a video version of this too? Okay, yeah, that's fine.
John Azoni (01:20.716)
Yeah.
John Azoni (01:23.807)
Yeah, if that's okay with you.
Bill (01:26.307)
I'm trying to optimize my look here so that I'm not looking, so you are the only one showing up. Is that pretty easy to do? I made you, you are definitely now taking up about three fourths of the screen, but I'm trying to see if I can, you know, kind of like Zoom allows you to have just a, I think the speaker on there. It's not a big deal, I'm just thinking about.
John Azoni (01:34.222)
See you.
John Azoni (01:48.266)
oh there's a people, well let's see, there's a bottom right corner on my screen there's a button that says people and then it's
Bill (01:56.294)
Okay
Bill (02:01.239)
It doesn't matter. I'll just try to keep looking at the light on my laptop so I'm not looking cross-eyed on here.
John Azoni (02:06.622)
Okay. Yeah, it looks fine. You know, it looks just like everyone else does. Cool. Well, any questions before we jump in?
Bill (02:11.142)
Okay, cool.
Bill (02:17.775)
Um, no. I'm just excited to do this. It's been a while since I've gotten to do a podcast, so I'm pumped.
John Azoni (02:23.274)
Yeah, cool. So our audiences, like I mentioned, higher ed marketers, director level marketers at colleges, and then marketers at sort of like third party companies that work with in higher education. So I know that you're more on like the PR side, like teaching in higher ed. So we'll talk kind of from that perspective, but we might sort of like throw some lobs over to like, how can we apply this to
Bill (02:45.094)
Yeah.
John Azoni (02:53.206)
Um, someone that's listening, that's like running the marketing team, you know, at a college.
Bill (02:57.067)
Alright, yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I listened to a few recent episodes. The My Big Family one was cool, and the, I think it was the Harvard video one was the viral video, I checked that out recently. Yeah, good conversations.
John Azoni (03:06.186)
Yeah, Raffy. Yeah, that was cool. Cool. All right, well, let's jump in. All right, Bill, thanks for being here.
Bill (03:17.711)
Yeah, thanks John, excited to talk.
John Azoni (03:20.179)
So tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Bill (03:22.947)
Yeah, I teach in, I was just promoted recently, so I'm excited to say my new title. I'm an assistant teaching professor in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. I teach in the ad PR department and I'm on the public relations side.
John Azoni (03:39.31)
Cool, so tell us a little bit about the landscape at Penn State, what's going on there.
Bill (03:44.343)
Yeah, I mean, ADPR is the biggest major in our college. It's very popular at the moment. We also have a minor called Digital Media Trends and Analytics that's very popular. I'm excited to be in a department that I feel is very focused on practical application of what we and the students are learning. The faculty make a lot of efforts to stay tapped into what's happening in industry.
Bill (04:13.263)
That includes connecting regularly with alumni to kind of see what they're dealing with, to bring them in as guest speakers. You know, the college maintains an advisory board of professionals who the faculty are regularly able to connect with. So I would say, you know, from a communication standpoint, Penn State is doing a lot to make sure that we are delivering up to date, you know, current best practices for the students. And there's a lot of opportunities for them to immediately apply some of the things they learn.
Bill (04:42.255)
whether that's in through organizations like the Public Relations Student Society of America, I oversee the social media team on a group called ComAgency, which is a student-run creative agency our college created several years ago. And we now have like 50 plus students doing video production work, photography, live streaming, social media, and graphic design, getting paid to do real work for clients on campus.
Bill (05:07.147)
And then we also have, you know, production facilities for broadcast journalism students to produce regular news programs. So there's just a lot of exciting things happening at the college that are giving students the chance to leave with current best practices, connections to people in the industry, and lots of stuff to show off in their portfolio.
John Azoni (05:28.034)
So where are you guys getting, so you said that they're working with real clients?
Bill (05:32.527)
Yeah, most of them are on campus. So we've worked with research centers, we've worked for different student affairs units, we've worked with different academic colleges. Right now we're working with an anthropology museum on campus, we've worked with our all sports museum. So we've done a pretty good job of making lots of different connections with campus clients who just need a little extra help in their communications. These may be units that don't have a dedicated communications professional.
Bill (05:59.671)
or they have somebody who's tasked with doing a lot of different things from blogging to managing social media to doing media relations, and they often really welcome the chance to have some additional assistance in a particular area.
John Azoni (06:13.642)
Yeah, I find that there's a lot of those. There's a lot of, you know, in my world, in the video world, there's, I talk to internal video teams and they're like the one guy being pulled in a million different directions. And, you know, it's hard to like do, to do everything. So, and I, but I like that. Um, I like that, that notion of just like letting them work on actual real projects that's, that's like so much more beneficial, I think that in conjunction with, you know, what they learn in the classroom, it's
John Azoni (06:43.21)
so helpful to get them to like fail. You know, I feel like you just learn by failing and trying again and learning what you did wrong and stuff like that. So that's awesome.
Bill (06:51.319)
Yeah, for sure. You know, every client's a little different. There are some are better at communicating their ideas to the students than others. Some are difficult to connect with. Some the students may feel give them contradictory directions on what to do. So they're learning a lot about the client agency dynamic as well. So that's that's really major. And something else I really like about it is, you know, we've we've been able to give chances to international students and maybe students who couldn't afford to go do an unpaid internship in the city.
Bill (07:21.007)
during the summer. And now thanks to Comm Agency, they have a chance to not only, they don't have to leave Penn State to get these opportunities, but they're also getting paid to build their portfolios. I'm excited that it's created more opportunities for students to have concrete work experience to show off.
John Azoni (07:36.778)
Yeah, that's awesome. So I always feel like everybody has a soapbox kind of that they stand on within their field of expertise. What's like the main message that you try to drill into your students about effective PR and effective communications?
Bill (07:53.155)
I would say one of the really big things is strategy, is the planning involved in this, and then also the experimentation, the measurement side of things. And in PR we use RPIE, is the acronym that I use in my classes, Research Planning Implementation and Evaluation. And that's been the main four-step PR process that is promoted by the Public Relations Society of America, which is one of the biggest professional organizations for PR.
Bill (08:23.247)
So I stress that a lot and something that's really helpful is the Public Relations Society of America provides case studies for their annual silver Anvil Awards. And so I'm able to print those out, show the students like here is a campaign, start to finish. And I encouraged them to think about like that this format or these four steps are like beautifully simple. Now, the things you do for each step is where it gets more complicated.
Bill (08:50.671)
but that you can always come back to these four steps, the research planning, implementation, and evaluation, and you're gonna do a pretty solid campaign. So I'd really try to encourage them to just always remember that that structure is there to help them in the future.
John Azoni (09:06.914)
So tell me about some of these case studies. Like is there one that's, one or two that's noteworthy?
Bill (09:12.759)
Yeah, I would say one we find one that hits very close to home. Penn State's Office of Strategic Communications, where I used to work before I started teaching full time. I wasn't there during this campaign. But during the pandemic, Penn State launched a university wide campaign called Mask Up or Pack Up that was later recognized by the Public Relations Society of America with a Silver Anvil Award. So I was able to show them an award winning, industry recognized case study right from their campus.
Bill (09:43.079)
And it's really solid because that campaign was really strong on the research side. They did a lot of surveys in advance to see during, it was surveys of students before the fall semester where we were going to come back under social distancing and masking up in class. And they were basically taking the temperature of how willing students were to wear masks and to keep their distance from each other. And some of what they found was pretty discouraging.
Bill (10:12.447)
But by the end of this campaign, they were able to see those numbers improve drastically when a semester or two later they asked questions about compliance with these sorts of things. Something else I really like about this case study is they tested various messages then with the students after they got this initial information. They used focus groups to basically determine the best approach. And they were seeing, you know, would students...
Bill (10:39.783)
What would have the best impact? Would it be something that's a little, that's focused on the, I guess the disincentive for this, that you could be sent home if you have multiple violations of our, the practices that we're encouraging to keep students safe. And so, Mask Up or Pack Up was one. And then there was also messaging that was focused on community. Penn State, we have, We Are is our big chant that has been in existence for decades.
Bill (11:09.347)
So we used that to kind of appeal that like, hey, at Penn State, you are part of something bigger and embrace that sense of community and do the right thing to keep everyone safe. And they found enough to support both of those messages, but Mask Up Pack Up won out. So this campaign started with very solid data to support that they, to help them understand the challenge that they faced. And they had data to support the right message. And then they did.
Bill (11:38.691)
various things, you know, both digitally and in print, even using, you know, digital signage that you would typically see in a construction zone was on some of the main streets along campus, encouraging people to mask up or pack up. And those numbers later on showed just a drastic improvement as far as people's, students' receptiveness to wearing a mask and socially distancing from their classmates. So that's a case study I really like to show off.
Bill (12:08.427)
And a lot of the students, well, some of them have graduated, but the majority of my students in the past few semesters lived through that campaign. They remember being on campus during the pandemic. They remember seeing those materials. And they may have had very strong opinions about that campaign and the university's tactics. But I really like giving them the chance to see a really excellent campaign unfold.
John Azoni (12:32.426)
Yeah, that's awesome. How did you, when you guys did the research and the surveys, like how did that play out? Did you like have people like going around with clipboards or did you send out emails or what?
Bill (12:45.051)
I want to be clear, I wasn't working in the department at that time. I was just a faculty. But based on the case study, they probably used, yeah, I apologize, I don't know exactly. I assume it was sent through email. University has lots of ways to reach faculty, staff, and students. So I assume they initiated those through that. But I don't know the particulars on how they gathered.
Bill (13:12.383)
survey subjects and people for the case studies. But a university of this size, you know, we have about a little more than 40,000 students at our University Park campus and about 100,000 students spread across different campuses in the state. And the university has had some tried and true methods to reach a lot of them with these sorts of things.
John Azoni (13:16.215)
Yeah.
John Azoni (13:34.134)
Yeah, with testing the messaging, I worked on a pro vaccine campaign here in Michigan during the height of the pandemic. And you know, seeing behind the scenes, we worked with a PR agency in Lansing called Martin Waymire. And they had a research firm that came in and tested some different messages. And for me, it was like great learning experience because like I would have thought that the sort of hard hitting like.
John Azoni (14:02.594)
come on, get vaccinated. Like that kind of message would do it. But that was actually like the least popular message. Like people didn't like to be told what to do. So it was more like the sort of positive kind, I forget what the winning.
John Azoni (14:21.138)
approach was, but it was more like feel good kind of, you know, we're all, let's all do this kind of thing. So yeah, super important, you know, to test messaging because you can head off in the wrong direction and that's very expensive.
Bill (14:36.355)
Yeah, in the university, you know, they had enough support for that more communal message and used that as kind of like a secondary tagline, which I thought was very clever. And yeah, and the reason I like something like this for the students is I think, you know, you could maybe assume that it's only one creative genius on the team who says, mask up or pack up, that's it, you know, and everybody's like, cool, I like that, you know, and they go around the table and like it, yeah, thumbs up. And I think it's kind of, it's illuminating for the students to realize that.
Bill (15:04.847)
Yeah, lots of ideas are being floated around by those creative folks, but it would be a little careless to just go full bore, full speed ahead with that message without testing how people respond to it.
John Azoni (15:16.002)
Sure, absolutely. So when it comes to higher education institutions having a online presence with social media, like tell me about like how important is that to have a strong positive online presence? What strategies can institutions employ to kind of manage their reputation and that kind of thing?
Bill (15:38.159)
I think about it from the standpoint of prospective students. I've talked to students who sign up for Penn State, didn't even take a campus tour. And they're getting enough information. Now often a lot of time that's a family member that maybe has encouraged them. But I think a lot of that is just because they're able to get so many good little details about what life is like there on campus. And that includes from the university, but also something that's a
Bill (16:06.823)
plays a major role that I've heard from talking to students is what's being made by independent creators. Students at Penn State who are putting, you know, get ready with me videos on TikTok and doing daily vlogs on YouTube. Students are also looking at those kind of unofficial university representatives to see what life is like. So I think that's one of the probably biggest things is just that a prospective student can, by checking out on social media and the website.
Bill (16:33.403)
get a sense of what it would be like for them to be there, to be walking that campus, to be walking among the students, to be looking at the trees, to sitting by themselves on a bench reading, being able to think about all those things. So I think social media can really do a good, give a good look at campus life. I think there's the very exhausting side of this, the thing that I found, I worked in Penn State's strategic office, a strategic communications office for a little bit as a social media manager becoming.
Bill (17:02.439)
for becoming a faculty member. And that interactive portion of this can be very exhausting, but also very important. So I think that's another big thing. People are giving universities and colleges just real-time feedback on how they feel about what's happening and decisions made and that sort of thing. And not saying that always means that the university needs to change course, but you need social media people there.
Bill (17:28.735)
on both sides of the coin, making really cool content, and then also just in the trenches, responding to questions and comments and criticism, and I think those, it's what you talked about there, you know, the reputational management part of this. So yeah, all that super important, it makes having that digital presence critical.
John Azoni (17:48.126)
Yeah. Tell me, tell me like the connection for people listening that might not understand the connection between, you know, thinking about at a higher institution, the connection between PR communications and marketing. What, how, how, how would those, those functions work together?
Bill (18:07.599)
Yeah, at Penn State, we had the larger Office of Strategic Communications, which housed the PR team, Public Information, Advertising, and Marketing. And only in recent years have they pulled all those people into the actually same physical location on campus. So I think that was something that the department recognized was needed for a long time, but just its logistics aren't easy on a campus of this size and finding the right spot for everybody.
Bill (18:36.331)
Is it okay to have them in town rather than in the center of campus? And you know, all those things. So I think this, I think proximity really, really helps so that everybody can kind of get on the same page, make sure that they're, they're all following the right branding guidelines and messaging guidelines. And then also that they're, you know, aware of all the, the assets that are created. I think that's sometimes the biggest challenge is, you know, making sure that everyone on that, that communication staff is aware of all the
Bill (19:03.011)
the stock photos of campus that's available, the B-roll that's out there, the little interview clips that may be available with professors. You know, I think a unit that understands all that's out there can be really responsive and make content really quickly when they know what's all available for them.
John Azoni (19:20.834)
Does Penn State have like a content, like a, or like an asset management kind of system?
Bill (19:25.443)
I don't know because I hadn't been in that apartment since 2017, but I know that was something that was, when I was working there, was discussed a lot. And I think they've made some, I've talked to some people in that unit and I think they've made progress toward that, but I'm not sure exactly how efficient it is right now. But yeah, that's something that I think was always on the mind of the university. And then also a place like Penn State that has multiple campuses across the state. There are communicators at those campuses. There's also communication staff working.
Bill (19:54.447)
within colleges and units. And so there's a vast communications infrastructure at Penn State. And always part of the challenge is getting everyone on the same page. But I think through technology and things, like you said, the asset management system, they're getting closer and closer to getting people in lockstep.
John Azoni (20:13.354)
Yeah, it's so hard, you know, as as you grow as you grow like an asset library like that, somehow keeping it not only organized, but accessible to everyone that needs to access it. And then with people creating more like ground level like phone iPhone stuff, you know, that might there might be so much good stuff sitting on, you know, 30.
John Azoni (20:36.938)
people's phones, you know, that just never makes it into the general pool.
Bill (20:42.927)
Yeah, what an undertaking, huh? And even once you upload things, making sure that it has the proper tags and everything, to make sure that it's easily discoverable. You know, when I was working in that unit for a long time, Flickr was one of the best things we could do, is just kind of having all of our still images available for us to use in the future and other communications staff to access, and for media to access. So that was, yeah, it's always a challenge. And only gonna get more challenging, huh?
John Azoni (21:10.314)
Yeah, well, hopefully, you know, hopefully just the AI robots will solve everything. So we don't even have to think anymore.
Bill (21:14.536)
Yeah.
Bill (21:18.859)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's lots of exciting things and scary things on that forefront.
John Azoni (21:24.902)
Yeah, I will say on that note, how I got connected with you was I put in chat GBT, like, tell me, give me a list of like, influencers in the higher ed marketing space, and your name came up.
Bill (21:36.399)
Wow.
Bill (21:39.387)
That's amazing. I'm really surprised by that because I asked ChatGPT to write a bio for me and it was, they, it had no idea who the heck I was. So that is very surprising. Cool.
John Azoni (21:49.846)
Yeah, chat GBT doesn't know who I am either. Yeah, yeah. Need a couple more podcast subscribers. Cool. So in your, in your, so, you know, you're, you're a professor in your classrooms. How do you help students, you know, how do you talk about navigating the balance between?
Bill (21:54.848)
Well, we'll give it a year or two, right? Put some more content out there, it'll find us.
John Azoni (22:14.286)
promoting an organization's achievements and balancing that with the negative publicity that you have to deal with in PR.
Bill (22:23.875)
Yeah, that's a tough one, you know, and it's, I think it comes down to sometimes like kind of knowing when to shut up a little bit in this, you know, and a good PR team is always has there an idea of the kind of the temperature, you know, to be able to understand, you know, what, what is the public sentiment towards us at this moment? And, you know, we can make adjustments here that maybe this, this post should be delayed for it for a day or two. So I think it's just, I just really kind of enforced that idea that just PR people really,
Bill (22:54.511)
I call it the challenge and it's the good and the bad side of the job is that things are always changing, it's always interesting, but it also requires then you to just be incredibly intentional about kind of tracking it all and seeing what's happening. So that's a big one to just, you know, we, I get the students certified in using Hootsuite social media management tool that I think is really strong at, you know, tracking keywords and hashtags and
Bill (23:22.735)
can be a good tool to kind of get an idea of what people are saying out there. So I think that's a big part of it. And I also talk to students about with the content that you create, doing a good job of balancing stuff that is a little bit more on the promotional side or maybe has a call to action of some sort, and then just giving a lot of value, stuff that offers entertainment value or education value, or something that just makes the person seeing that feel a part of that community, to feel a part of something.
Bill (23:51.739)
bigger. So that's a big thing. You know, we talk in class about the, you know, an 80 20 role for social media that that that 80% of that stuff is is focused on on value talking about the we putting the reader, the viewer at at the forefront. And then 20% of that time can be, you know, very, very promotional, or, you know, have a strong call to action.
John Azoni (24:15.05)
Yeah, I like that. The 80-20 rule is good and I see it on both sides. I see organizations, not just in higher ed, but people that show up in my different social feeds. Some having like, it's this constant call to action, and it's like, who is this for here? You know? Who is this serving? It seems like it's more serving you. And then some that are just like,
Bill (24:30.52)
Yeah, yeah.
Bill (24:38.019)
Yeah, no one to turn it off, huh?
John Azoni (24:44.958)
all value and know like what am I supposed to do, you know, with that.
Bill (24:49.315)
Yeah, yeah. And I like to also talk about, you know, the best I can do at kind of explaining the differences between PR and marketing and advertising sometimes, which isn't easy and the lines are blurring, but I keep continuously trying to tell the students about.
Bill (25:02.959)
you know, that the PR is really about trying to sell an idea or a way of thinking and instead of a product. So I do, even though this is a, I teach a 300 level PR course, I do try to talk a lot about what, what PR is specifically, uh, you know, and talk about, you know, trying to reach the right people with the right message at the right time and those, those sorts of elements. So that's also a big part of it is just explaining what, what is PR and what makes it a little different than trying to, trying to sell somebody on a product. And,
Bill (25:33.073)
to express and it's and again yeah the the different the divisions between the different roles continue to be blurred
John Azoni (25:43.082)
Yeah, and honestly, it's always confused me too. You know, in the video world, I've worked with marketing teams and I've worked with PR teams and a lot of times it seems like we're doing very similar things and it's very similar in the video world. I mean, you have entire websites dedicated to teaching people what's the difference between like a line producer and an executive producer, you know, and like, what's the difference?
Bill (25:46.083)
Yeah.
Bill (26:09.184)
Okay.
John Azoni (26:12.738)
the different roles between director and the cinematographer and how, you know, and that there's so much like there's so much crossover that can get, that can get real confusing.
Bill (26:22.819)
Yeah, and it's difficult for our students too to sometimes kind of make sense of the job opportunities that are out there. And I always tell them, you know, make sure you look beyond the job title because, you know, you may have taken nothing but PR classes, but you could very well be qualified for this marketing position and vice versa. So it becomes, you know, because it's, yeah, the different titles that can be used in this space are all over the place. That's very important to read, read the details of a job opening.
John Azoni (26:49.834)
Yeah, sure. Cool, so how can higher education marketers effectively collaborate with PR professionals to align marketing and PR strategies, achieve common goals, things like that?
Bill (27:02.967)
Yeah, I think it goes back to really recognizing what PR is about and that's building relationships and trying to create mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and its publics. And I think that's where the PR marketing folks as they get together need to recognize that that's where PR people can kind of be the biggest help. To help the marketers.
Bill (27:28.315)
in explaining to the public what the benefit is of these products and then making sure that the people who already purchased these products are engaged with digitally in ways that are hopefully leading to them being ambassadors. I like to introduce the students, even though they're PR students, I introduce them to a sales funnel, seeing how awareness and engagement and...
Bill (27:54.147)
conversion and advocacy and then and getting them to think about how PR people can can assist at at each level. So I think that's really, you know, just both sides kind of recognizing the the strengths of the other and then making a making like a concerted effort about how they could work on those levels of the funnel.
John Azoni (28:13.014)
Yeah, the sales funnel is so good to know, like so foundational. And I feel like it really defines almost every piece of communication that you put out there when you have to think like, where is this person in the funnel, you know, and what do they need to hear at this time? And it can be confusing when you have one message, but probably to different people in different parts of the funnel and stuff like that. Tell me more about just like how you advise.
Bill (28:16.932)
Yeah.
John Azoni (28:42.646)
you know, your students around like, you know, creating content or creating communications for the right people in the spots in the funnel.
Bill (28:50.755)
Yeah, we'll talk a lot about the importance of data and how there's just so much out there available to, and I try to get them acclimated to where to look for this sort of stuff, look for your research center, look for what a lot of the tech tools themselves are reporting on how content performs on Hootsuite or Buffer or Sprout Social. So I try to really get the students to appreciate that there's really no excuse to not.
Bill (29:19.683)
not consider some audience insights before you create that content, before you shape that message. So I think that's the big one, really emphasizing the importance of strategy. I talk about vision statements, mission statements, brand pillars, and how all those offer direction and the way you should structure your message and the type of content you create. I talk about that a lot as well. If you're creating something that's...
Bill (29:45.675)
runs counter or doesn't do anything to promote that vision of the larger organization, maybe not bother with it. So I think that's a big thing, really getting them to kind of understand the why behind the content that they're going to make and to just put some thought into how data can help them make the strongest message possible.
Bill (30:05.495)
And then we talk a lot too about writing and being conversational and sounding human in your writing. I'm always pulling examples that I see out there that I just really like. Just recently, I got my update on the Amazon Echo and it was about to track your most recent order. And the prompt was just to ask, where's my stuff?
Bill (30:30.439)
And I just thought, that's great. I just made a note of that to bring it into my class. That is so much more conversational and people actually talk. And there's a very savvy move on Amazon's part to make that the prompt. So I try to introduce a lot of wording that makes that messaging better, makes those calls to action more effective because they don't sound robotic.
John Azoni (30:55.806)
Yeah. And I imagine for, for higher ed marketers, like most of our listeners that might, their institutions might struggle with that because they're, this is academia and you know, we don't say, we don't say, where's my stuff, or some, some form of that, but, um,
Bill (31:07.227)
Hahaha
Bill (31:10.623)
Yeah, some of the people who impress me most at a university in communications are research writers who can take something really complex and are tasked with writing about that in a way that's accessible to a general audience. I think that's a that's a real skill and art right there to be able to do that.
John Azoni (31:25.558)
Yeah. Awesome. So are there any, you know, what's, what's coming, what's coming in your, in your opinion in the PR field in terms of, you know, new trends, technologies, um, that, that are going to impact the field.
Bill (31:39.011)
Yeah, I mean, I'll give the very lame, obvious answer of AI playing a role. I think there's already been interesting ways that like machine learning has helped with PR, I think from a social media standpoint where almost every social media management tool now can offer you insights on the best time to make a post. It's actively tracking that data of how your posts performed in the past. And it can tell you this is the best day, this is the best time. So I think stuff like that's exciting.
Bill (32:06.031)
the chance to use AI to maybe make a first draft of a media pitch or a news release. I don't think, I think it'd be dangerous to make that the end all be all, but it can certainly be a good start and then you can start to really hone that message. The social media management tool we use for the Comm Agency team is called Planable. Just launched an AI feature on there as well with just a click of a button. You know, you can activate a prompt like make this more conversational.
Bill (32:36.019)
or shorten this or something like that. So I think that's, I'm excited that that can help the students on my team kind of understand how to make this work for them. And then probably along the way, they're starting to learn better practices that maybe they don't have to ask the AI tool again, and they just know how to shorten something and make it more conversational. And I think the thing that's really, maybe the trend that I think is gonna be a major challenge for people in PR is just that,
Bill (33:04.659)
just the proliferation of misinformation, conspiracy theories, deep fakes. It's going to be really tough to do work where you're trying to build public trust when the public is deeply mistrustful of institutions. And, you know, and I don't know how the solution there to these challenges, you know, we, you talked about working on the vaccination campaign, you know, we saw very recently how difficult it was for
Bill (33:33.447)
from a public health and safety standpoint to combat some of the fears and misinformation out there. So I think it's gonna be just really tough times for PR people to do what they do as the sentiment is just, things are just very choppy waters out there and trying to connect with people and influence them. So I think from the public health standpoint is where it may be kind of the most fearful public health and safety of how you get the right messaging to people.
Bill (34:04.019)
A close cousin of mine works in safety science. He's a safety professional on construction sites, on roofing projects. And he's talked in recent years about how tough it is to get people to be safe and to deliver a message. And it's just, you know, and it's that same kind of mistrust is rampant there that we're seeing in public communications is rampant on these construction sites, you know, where people are just very resistant to take the proper safety measures to keep themselves and others safe.
Bill (34:31.787)
I mean, and so I think there's just a climate out there that's gonna make it tougher and tougher to communicate with the public.
John Azoni (34:39.466)
Yeah, I love the like on TikTok. There's like funny like OSHA violation videos.
Bill (34:46.159)
Yeah, my cousin, he showed me PowerPoints that he's created and he's made them just infinitely more interesting by just raiding the internet for stuff like that.
John Azoni (34:55.282)
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, cool, this has been a great conversation. Anything that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you.
Bill (35:01.327)
John, this was a lot of fun. I think, you know, I'm excited for the chance to talk about these sorts of things. And I think, you know, there are times some, you know, Penn State has been around since 1855. And while I was doing the work, sometimes I would wonder, does a place like this even need to do digital communications? This just seems like such a machine that has so much goodwill out there and families who have sent generations of students to this university. So I think it
John Azoni (35:20.472)
Mm-hmm.
Bill (35:31.043)
major higher ed powerhouses just to like press pause on all this stuff. But I think with time, I've definitely seen that this is just very critical in the way colleges and universities operate. And so many different audiences deserve keep prospective students in the loop to make alumni still feel part of the place and continue to to play on their good feelings about their universities and give them, you know, nostalgic glimpses of the place.
Bill (35:58.347)
And one of the things I think Penn State does really well is they are so tapped into the traditions and the history of this place. They know, they have mined the library for, you know, old photographs and figured out neat ways to package them. They just put out a TikTok for graduation. There was a mix of, you know, graduation pics throughout the years and it was just beautifully done. You know, so I think, you know, the best universities are figuring out how to.
Bill (36:26.035)
had to maintain those traditions on digital communications, mine their histories for all sorts of content that can now be digitized and reshared with a new generation, and they're figuring out how to include all, people from a lot of different backgrounds, or life experiences, whether that's alumni, current students, prospective students, parents, it's complex work, but also, higher ed communicators can benefit from just.
Bill (36:55.011)
all the people that have already come through there and all the traditions that had been created and all the good vibes and good feelings about the place.
John Azoni (37:04.334)
That's awesome. Awesome. Well, this has been great. I appreciate you coming on the show.
Bill (37:10.079)
Alright John, this has been a pleasure. Thanks a lot.
John Azoni (37:14.134)
We'll end the recording there. But yeah, so this will probably come out next week. Yeah, so I'm pretty caught up on guests. So it's kind of like this is as close to live as we get. You know?
Bill (37:16.215)
All right, cool.
Bill (37:20.482)
Oh great.
Bill (37:26.631)
Cool.
Bill (37:31.54)
Awesome. Yeah, and I'll do whatever I can to share it. You know, if you have any, do any kind of like waveform clips or anything like that, I can share those things. And I wanted to make a recommendation if you're looking for a future guest. Her name is Jenna Spinelli. She's a communicator here at Penn State, and I can send you her information. But that would be really good for a podcasting episode. She has launched podcasts for a research institute here.
Bill (38:00.523)
focused on democracy called democracy works, so she's she's would be able to talk about how an institution could build a podcast from the ground up and And use it to you know to have intelligent conversations about difficult topics and to also you know Burnish the reputation of that that unit by leading these conversations in a podcast So that's what she would be a cool one to talk to
John Azoni (38:24.33)
Yeah, I'd love to get her on here. Actually, that's been on my list is getting some guests on, talk about university starting a podcast. So would love an introduction.
Bill (38:32.464)
Yep, cool.
Bill (38:35.171)
Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I'll do it on LinkedIn. Yeah, and so neat to hear that Chad GPT recommended for a podcast interview, I love that.
John Azoni (38:38.931)
Okay, awesome.
John Azoni (38:46.651)
Yeah, I had a previous guess. Andrew. Oh, I'm blanking on his last name. Castle. Oh yeah, I found him on chat GPD too and he was equally impressed.
Bill (38:53.163)
Oh, Castle, right? Yeah, I've seen him at conferences before, yeah.
Bill (39:01.931)
Yeah, me and him both, we were among the speakers at an event, Hi Ed Web, last fall. So I wonder if ChatGPT was maybe tapped into that schedule for some of the people it recommended.
John Azoni (39:11.618)
Wow.
John Azoni (39:16.122)
All right, well, we'll see. Okay, cool, awesome. Yeah, love a introduction to Jenna and yeah, I appreciate your time.
Bill (39:19.339)
Alright, thanks man, this was fun.
Bill (39:25.187)
Alright, I'll get right on that. Take care, John. Bye.
John Azoni (39:27.894)
Alright, take care, see ya.
