Have you ever felt at a loss for creating content to promote your business? If so, this podcast is a must-listen-to episode. Melanie Deziel is a two-time guest on The Brand Journalism Advantage podcast. She shares her powerful strategy for creating great content.
Melanie Deziel is a keynote speaker, award-winning branded content creator, and lifelong storyteller, on a mission to share the power of compelling and credible content with others. Melanie is the founder of StoryFuel, which teaches marketers, publishers, creators, and companies of all sizes how to tell better brand stories, and the author of The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas. In 2021, Melanie joined Foundation Marketing as Director of Content.
Five Tips To Creating Great Content
- Start with your why
- Consider your focus: people, history, data
- Which format will I use for this story: blog, video, podcast, map
- Add a multiplier: how can you tell this story in a slightly different way to have one story turn into many
- Repurpose your content: where else can you use it and how can you use the same content but in a different form?
Mentioned in this Episode
The Content Fuel Framework by Melanie Deziel “In this bestselling marketing and business communications book, you’ll learn to identify 10 different focuses of content that resonate, and how to tailor them across 10 different formats. You’ll also learn how to continually generate new ideas across all these mediums—and beyond—and how to use a powerful “multiplier” to generate a virtually endless stream of content ideas.”
Listen to Melanie’s previous episode on The Brand Journalism Advantage, Episode 178.
Note: Below you’ll find timecodes for specific sections of the podcast. To get the most value out of the podcast, I encourage you to listen to the complete episode. However, there are times when you want to skip ahead or repeat a particular section. By clicking on the timecode, you’ll be able to jump to that specific section of the podcast. Also, please excuse the typos and punctuation errors this transcript is completed by voice-generation software. Here’s to getting a Competitive Advantage!
Transcript
Melanie Deziel ([00:00]):
Hi, I’m Melanie diesel of story fuel, and we’re talking about five steps for generating more content ideas. And you’re listening to The Brand Journalism Advantage.
Phoebe Chongchua ([00:08]):
Episode 440. Please note, this episode was recorded in 2020.
Melanie Deziel ([00:12]):
One of the things that I think is so important, and if you get nothing else out of our conversation today, remember to ask every time, why should my audience specifically care about this story?
Announcer ([00:29]):
The Brand Journalism Advantage — The podcast that teaches the power of storytelling to increase business by attracting, engaging, and influencing consumers. Now it’s time to think like a journalist with your host brand journalist, Phoebe Chongchua.
Phoebe Chongchua ([00:45]):
Hello, Brand Journalism community. I’m Phoebe Chongchua. Thanks for tuning into the brand journalism advantage podcast. Here we go with the inside scoop on today’s show. Melanie Deziel. Melanie is a keynote speaker and award-winning branded content creator and lifelong storyteller who is on a mission to share the power of compelling and credible content with others. Melanie is the founder of story fuel, which teaches marketers, publishers, creators, and companies of all sizes, how to tell better brand stories. And she’s also the author of the content fuel framework, how to generate unlimited story ideas. Welcome to the show. How are you kid? Good. It’s good to be back. It is good to have you on the show. I was thinking it has been a while since we have chatted and you’ve been up to a lot in brand journalism community. If the name sounds familiar she’s been on the show before and I will drop that link into the show notes@thinklikeajournalist.com. So you can listen to our past episode, but tell me a little bit just to, you know, a nugget of what you’ve been up to.
Melanie Deziel ([01:48]):
Oh my goodness. I know it’s been a couple years now, but it’s been a, it’s been a busy few years. So I’ve been working on my company is called story fuel. I think when we spoke last, I was just leaving my full-time job to start that from. So that’s definitely been a, a big life change. I’ve been doing a lot of conference speaking, so I’ve gotten to travel to some amazing places and get to speak to audiences full of marketers and creators and share what I learned as a journalist to help them tell better stories. And in the last year it’s been a pretty exciting one. So I welcomed my daughter, our first child in August. That was a big life change too. And yeah, and then my, my book just went live. So it’s been a, it’s been a couple years of big changes since we caught a flat, oh,
Phoebe Chongchua ([02:32]):
Well, I am so thrilled to have you back on the show and I just looked it up. You were episode 1 78, or now upwards of almost 450 episodes going strong. Yeah. And what we talked about was every company can be a media company, how to be the media. I so resonated with Melanie brand journalism community because we share similar backgrounds of coming from the journalistic world. And I just love what you’re doing and this show is going to be all about, you probably guessed it, how to generate more content ideas. And this is really a big deal, right, Melanie, because sometimes we all stall. We, we get to that point where we’re like, all right, I’ve got a lot of branded content. What else can I talk about?
Melanie Deziel ([03:20]):
Right. Well, and especially if you are dedicated to one particular platform or, you know, one particular format, you know, say you’re doing just YouTube or you’re focused on your blog, it can sometimes feel limiting, right? Like you’re saying the same things over and over again, or you’re not really sure how to, how to keep things fresh and mix things up. Or like you said, just, you know, general sort of creators block writer’s block, whatever it is when you’re having an off day. And so I think that’s one of the big challenges we all run into when we’re trying to create consistently is how do you keep that going on days when maybe your inspiration isn’t striking quite as it always has.
Phoebe Chongchua ([03:56]):
All right. That can definitely be challenging, but we’re going to dive into that in our top tips section. But as always, we kick off the show with our icebreaker and this is really cool because, you know, a lot of people may not know how to do this, and they may not even realize that it actually is a language, but Melanie writes that she can speak American sign language. So very important.
Melanie Deziel ([04:18]):
Yeah. So this was, this was kind of an interesting journey for me. You know, I grew up, my stepmother is from Columbia and so we spoke quite a bit of Spanish in my home growing up. It’s sadly, not something I’ve continued using often in an adulthood, but when I needed to get language credit, I thought, well, you know, it won’t be very exciting for me to take Spanish classes. You know, it would be, you know, I wouldn’t be learning very much so why don’t I try something different? And so I took, decided to take as my language credit, I took courses in American sign language. And so, you know, again, not something I have occasion to use very often, but I find that generally when I get to pull out sign language and, and help someone it’s it’s often because someone is in public, you know, needing directions or trying to order dinner at a restaurant. And it feels really great to be able to say, Hey, I can help, you know, and, and to be able to do some on the spot translation when, when I’m able to,
Phoebe Chongchua ([05:09]):
Well, I think it’s really important. You know, my mom’s almost approaching 90 and she’s very hard of hearing and I wish she would have taken sign language years back because she actually started to lose her hearing about in her fifties. So it’s kind of hard now she’s struggling with it. She, she knows a little bit of the, you know I guess not, not so much signing the words, but the alphabet but it’s still, it doesn’t come very easily to her, but it’s certainly important. And we’re seeing more and more of it being used everywhere from, you know, church sermons to then Hollywood, the big screen, you know, we, we see movies coming out where they’re showcasing people with hearing issues and they’re using sign language.
Melanie Deziel ([05:53]):
Yeah. Well, it’s one of the things I remember, you know, part of my study involves studying deaf culture as well, right? Because in many ways it’s not just a language, but you know, the, the identity and the culture of an entire community. And so one of the things you think about is people may think, well, you know, we have closed captioning on television and isn’t that enough. But remember that, you know, spoken written English is like a second language for those who, who speak sign language as their first language. And so it is important to see that representation to have, you know, media and television motion and that, and the passion that’s that’s, you know, so intrinsic to so many of these interpreters is look up some of your favorite songs on YouTube and include ASL for American sign language at the end of your search query. And you’ll find people signing those with such, I mean, so talented, so passionate, really cool to watch, you know, a song that you may love, you know, rendered in a visual language like that. It can be a really cool experience if you’ve never had exposure to that before. Beautiful.
Phoebe Chongchua ([06:53]):
I’m going to check that out. I want to make sure we have time for your five tips, because I know they’re going to be juicy and good and so important to us, but let me kick it off with this by asking you to weigh in on this comment with regards to content, it goes like this, explore your own inner most thoughts to create content that will evoke deeply relatable emotions and passion in others. Your thoughts on that?
Melanie Deziel ([07:16]):
I, I mean, I think that’s important. One of the things that I find is oftentimes our content strategy can use it, lose its human element, right? We, we get caught up in the tactic of it, you know, another day, another blog post. And we forget that we are creating content for people, you know, human people who have emotions, who, you know, have things going on in their lives, who, you know, we, we need to appeal to those emotions and, and to their, to their humanness. And so one of the things I talk about a lot is how every story that you write, every piece of content you create, you should always be looking for new opportunities to bring in faces and voices, because when we can, when we can show those faces and include those voices in whatever ways we can, we give our audience more opportunities to relate to our content on a human level. And I think that is some of the most compelling content we can create.
Phoebe Chongchua ([08:07]):
Absolutely no writing for those robots. Exactly. Leave us with a success tip or a quote that you’d like our community to remember.
Melanie Deziel ([08:18]):
You know, one of the things that I think is so important, and if you get nothing else out of our conversation today remember to ask every time why should my audience specifically care about this story? This is a question that an editor of mine asked early on in my journalism career. And it’s stuck with me for a very long time. Every time I’m creating something to ask myself, why does my audience specifically care about this piece of content? Because if you can’t answer that question, there’s a good chance that they won’t care about it and your time is better spent creating something else.
Phoebe Chongchua ([08:52]):
Yeah, that’s right back to our journalism days. Right. I mean, that was so important. I remember being in a TV news studio at the age of like 19 and editors and producers saying, why do they care? What, what makes this story important to them? And why would they watch it? So yeah, just bring that on over to the branded content world. And you’ll be amazed, amazed at what it can do.
Melanie Deziel ([09:19]):
And, and sometimes it’s an upsetting question to ask because you may not always have an answer and that’s rough, you know, not being able to answer that question sometimes means you’ve got to go back to the drawing board, but rather than get frustrated, you know, be relieved that you may have saved yourself from creating a piece of content. That’s not going to get you the results you want, you know, at the end of the day, if no, one’s going to care about it, no one’s gonna read or watch or share, you know, your time’s better spent on something else. For sure.
Phoebe Chongchua ([09:45]):
We’ve kind of you know, we’ve been digging in a little bit into what you’ve been up to since we last spoke a couple of years ago, you know, baby, all that exciting stuff and your, your business off and running, but share with us a moment in time, you know, perhaps a different one from the one that you shared in episode 1 78, a career highlight something that maybe has evolved since then and tell us that story.
Melanie Deziel ([10:07]):
One of the things that this is maybe an atypical response, but the last year professionally has been a huge challenge for me. So as I mentioned, I’m a solo preneur. You know, I started my own firm about four years ago. So, you know, I run that business myself day in and day out, and we’ve got team members who help us, but, you know, the majority of the business is sort of on my back. And the idea of taking maternity leave when welcoming a baby it’s was really scary to me. You know, I was very afraid that my business would sort of, you know, slow down to a point where maybe I couldn’t revive it. You know, maybe, maybe that heart would stop beating of the business as I was, you know, stepping away you know, to, to prioritize my family.
Melanie Deziel ([10:51]):
And I went for some odd reason and decided to throw, writing a book and publishing a book, you know, in the middle of that same time period. And so when I think about some of the proudest moments for me and my business, I think it’s the fact that truthfully, that I’ve just gotten through the past year and that my business is still running and that the book has successfully launched and is out in the world. You know, it’s really easy to look back and think, oh yeah, well, there’s this award or this particular piece of content I really loved creating. But I think when I, when I really think about it having made it through the last year, having been able to take that necessary break for myself and my family and keep things chugging along in the background is probably one of the proudest things I’ve been able to accomplish. And, and hopefully you know, this time next year we’ll be, we’ll be running even stronger. Again,
Phoebe Chongchua ([11:41]):
It is true, you know, I’ve been going through my files and hard drives from all my TV days and, and the, all the, the footage, my daughter’s now almost 25, if you can believe that. And I’m looking at all that I accomplished over those years and running my own business, and I’ll tell you what, you can do it all. It just might take you a little while, but you get around to the things that are important, like writing a book, having that baby balancing all that together. You can make it come together. It just not might, might not happen all at once, but it sounds like you’re doing great wiith it.
Melanie Deziel ([12:15]):
I mean, I’m trying, you know, I I’ve had some people ask me for advice on this matter. And, and my take has always been, I don’t know that I’m in a position to offer it just yet. But I know there, you know, there are some things that I’ve learned that have been helpful. So if anyone listening is facing a similar, whether it’s a pause or, you know, you need to stop to take care of family, a parent, or for your own health, whatever it may be. I think it’s really important for you to, to schedule check-ins for yourself so that you can evaluate when is a good time for you to come back to business. Because I think when you’re taking a pause, sometimes a pause for an undetermined amount of time it’s really easy to completely lose sight of that and have a hard time coming back to it.
Melanie Deziel ([12:56]):
So, you know, if you’re facing that kind of thing, you don’t necessarily have to give yourself a deadline and say, you know, we’ll, I’ll stop taking care of my parent or stop taking care of my health at such and such date. But set some sort of regular check-in with yourself, like you would for a major client or an important project to at least come back and say, I’m going to think about this, or revisit this at another time so that you can make sure you’re not letting go of the things that are important to you while you’re prioritizing something that needs to take precedence.
Phoebe Chongchua ([13:22]):
Yeah. And before we continue on, I’ll add to that. I think that that is so critically true because, you know, I actually did that with this podcast. You know, I started it several years ago and then I got into a little bit of a burnout and I was like, okay. I, you know, I was doing so many episodes at one point, we were doing three a week. Then I cut it way back. I actually took a break completely, you know, and I thought, oh, I’m letting my audience down. But what was interesting is the archived episodes continued to grow and there still was this, you know awareness of the podcast. And actually I get more people asking to be on the show than I did when I had initially started. So sometimes you just need that break. And I, I, I felt like maybe I was getting that burnout and I didn’t want to sound burned out.
Phoebe Chongchua ([14:08]):
I wanted to be energized when I talked to my guests, I wanted them to know how important, and I started to transition a bit with what I was doing, so still doing the storytelling, but I added in recruiting and, you know, the, the workload got heavy. So I had to take a break and it also opened up some doors during that time for me to go, oh, okay. Maybe I’ll come out with a podcast on recruiting since I’m doing that. In addition to this whole small business storytelling podcast that I’m doing. So really good advice to just step back sometimes when you need it. No, it’ll be there and have faith in that. You’re doing what you need to do to honor yourself and the direction that you end up needing to go. So on that note, we’re going to take it to that path that you know, people just cringe. But when is that? When is that moment? Tell me about that when it didn’t work, share that story just briefly and what you did to turn things around.
Melanie Deziel ([15:04]):
Yeah, it’s been, again, like I said, it’s been a challenging year with all the, all the plates that I’m trying to keep spinning at this point. But there was a, there was a point around last summer. I was hugely pregnant trying to finish my book on time and I found myself creatively blocked. Like I would sit down to write and nothing would come out. I hated every sentence that I was writing. I felt frustrated. I thought this thing is never going to get written. Maybe I should give up. Maybe this is not, you know, maybe I’m taking on too much. I mean, I, I had come so far, but it really seemed like I was not going to be able to push it past the finish line. And you know, there was more than a few phone calls of trying to escape deadlines and how can I, how can I get out of this or reschedule it or push it.
Melanie Deziel ([15:53]):
And I mean, the only thing that helped me was having people in my corner who could remind me why I cared about this project in the first place. So if that, if, if there’s anything to be learned from that, you know, having your tribe, whether those are coworkers or fans or followers, or your partner in life, you know, your family, whatever it may be, have those people, you know, you can call on when you’re having that, you know, that flight response to whatever project you’re working on. You know, the, when I was writing the acknowledgements of my book I put my husband first and I explained why, and that, you know, of course I love him, but a big part of it was the fact that you know, had he not intervened and reminded me what was so important about the message and why I wanted to write it in the first place. There was more than one day toward the end there where I may never have gotten it done. The, the document may have been saved and abandoned for years to come, you know? So have, have those people who can get you back on track when you’re stalling out.
Phoebe Chongchua ([16:54]):
I hear ya. So good. All right. Let’s dive into these top tips. We are talking brand journalism community about the key to generating endless content ideas and no one better to do it than Melanie. So yeah, take it away, Melanie.
Melanie Deziel ([17:09]):
Excellent. So what I want to walk you through is sort of a five step process. If you will. You know, it could go with five separate, separate tips, but I want to keep it in a, in in order for you. So, you know, the first thing you need to do whenever you’re feeling like you need more content, you need more diverse content. You’re trying to come up with something new is you need to start with your why. Right? So, so many times we get into a situation where our reasoning is not tied to our business. We’re feeling like, again, it’s Wednesday. I always post blogs on Wednesday. If you’re not passionate about the content, your audience, isn’t going to be either, it shouldn’t be an obligation. So ask yourself why, if you’re feeling stuck, that’s the first thing to do. Why do I want to create this content?
Melanie Deziel ([17:49]):
Now the answer might be, I have a product coming out, or, you know, there’s a big event coming up or I’m working on a particular campaign around this thing. But find that reason, find something that inspires you, you, that you’re passionate about. That’s exciting so that you can go ahead and create content around that idea. And if, if some spark is missing often, it’s because you’ve lost track of your why. So the second one is to consider your focus. So if you already know why you’re creating content, now the question becomes, what do I say? Right? So what am I focusing on? And I think that there are a couple different ways you can approach this. I think many times we just hope that inspiration strikes us. And we say, I’m going to write a blog post about X, Y, Z. But what you want to do is you want to decide what’s the lens through which I’m going to approach this.
Melanie Deziel ([18:33]):
And, you know, Phoebe and I, and anyone who comes from a journalism background, you know, that there are a couple of things that you rely on often. So I’ll give you three that I think will work for most of you. The first one is people. So you could focus on people, tell the story of an individual or an organization that’s related to your why you could talk about history. So look back at the past of whatever it is that you may be, you know, is your, why, whatever you’re talking about there, or look at it through data. So using the lens of data and numbers and research, and try to find a way to base your story and focus your story on that data. Those are three different ways you could approach any story, any reasoning for content that you might have. So the third step after you know, your why, and you know, what you’re going to focus on is you have to figure out how do I bring this story to life, ask yourself what is the best format to bring that story to life.
Melanie Deziel ([19:24]):
So again, there are a lot of different options here, and sometimes it’s overwhelming to try to decide, you know, is this a white paper or a YouTube video, or now a tech talk. We’ve got to think about tick-tock and all these other platforms that come and go. So a good idea is to consider both formats that are familiar to you, and those that would stretch you creatively. So three to consider writing. This is the most approachable for many of you. It’s very easy to create. It’s cheap to create, so right. Should always be one of the things you consider. One that right, stretched you a little bit would be live video. Some of us may be less comfortable going on live video, but this is a really great way to create content that is engaging in the moment and can easily be repurposed after as well.
Melanie Deziel ([20:07]):
And then the third one to consider that might be a real stretch is to consider making a map. So is there a way for you to geographically bring your story to life, to plot that story, to create content in a way that is location-based right, like plot those things on a map and see how you might approach it from a geographic perspective, it might be a different way for you to approach a story that you have had to tell before. So number four, the first one we did was we found our why, then we found out our focus, what are we going to talk about? We know the format the best way to bring our story to life. Now we want to see if we can add a multiplier. So what I mean by a multiplier is something that lets us tell the same story in many different ways.
Melanie Deziel ([20:46]):
This is where we create a lot of content really quickly. So I’ll give you an example. One example would be time. So let’s say we’ve created a piece of content that was the five best gifts for an individual, right? So we’re, we’re making a gift list of gifts and presents that we’re going to give to, to different people. We might do that in the, in December for Christmas time, we might do it for mother’s day. We might do it for father’s day, right? So we’re going to look at different time periods when we could create that same piece of content in a slightly different way. You might do the same thing for demographics. So what’s the best list of gifts for your partner, for your boss, for your daughter. You could create all different lists for different people. So look for those ways where you could adapt a single piece of content to become many pieces of different content that are all around a central theme.
Melanie Deziel ([21:36]):
And the last thing you can do, if you’re looking to create more content and get more out of your brainstorm so that you’re getting more content with less work is to think about how you could repurpose pieces of content that you have. There were a lot of things we can do with our existing content that can look like new content and can provide the same value as new content to our audience. Many times we think about content repurposing is just sort of copy and pasting, right? So we post the blog on our website and now we’re also going to post it on medium and also post it as is on LinkedIn. But you can chop content up into smaller pieces and make use of it that way you can collect many pieces of content and put them together in sort of one ebook or one giant guide or resource.
Melanie Deziel ([22:20]):
And you can also adapt that content to be in another format. So remember, we were talking about the third tip to consider the best way to bring your content to life, to choose a format. If you chose live video, that would give you a lot of options. You’d have the live video itself. You could use the replay of that as a static video that you could upload to YouTube or Instagram TV. You could get the audio extracted from that video and share that as a podcast or just an audio piece of content on your website. And then you can use the transcript of that audio or of that video as a blog post, or, you know, another written article of some kind. So working with a single piece of content and then repurposing it into other formats, allows you to give your audience more ways to connect with you, and also gives you more places and ways to share the same piece of content without having to go out and create entirely new content every single day, which when your resources are limited, I know it can be a stress. So just to review those, we want to start with our reasoning, find the focus. What are we going to talk about? Consider which format is best to tell that story, see if we can apply multipliers to turn our one idea into many and then see how we can repurpose what we have to get the most out of our content brainstorms. I
Phoebe Chongchua ([23:31]):
Love number five, because I’m sure we’ve talked about this before either, you know, in our episode or offline, but repurposing is what we do in TV and in radio where you take a story that’s running on the five news and you repurpose it for the 11 o’clock news, but maybe you’re doing a shorter version of it. And you’re using a different, you know, interview clip or something like that. And one great thing that I’ve found is you take, for instance, a video, you do a blog post, and then you make an infographic to go with it. So now it makes a lot of sense, you know, infographics do very well. They’re very shareable and they’re great on Pinterest. So as long as you’re speaking to that, that right platform, you know where it’s going to fit, and then of course you send it out on Twitter. And I mean, it just becomes so fun to see how the content grows in different ways and you’re changing it up slightly. I think that makes all the difference when you’re, when you’re coming up with content and you don’t have time to do different versions for every different sites, start with one meaty piece of content and divide it up.
Melanie Deziel ([24:38]):
Yeah. And, and, you know, the, the amazing thing is that there are so many different ways you could repurpose your content. So, I mean, we named you named an infographic. You could make a timeline, you could make a course. I mean, you could do so many, a quiz, like there’s so many different ways. You can put that content out into the world and give your audience a way to engage with it. So when you really start to explore and think about all those ways, so many different ways, you can put that content out into the world and give your audience a way to engage with it. So when you really start to explore and think about all those ways, sometimes just having those different options and thinking in different formats than you’re used to can really spark the creativity. Especially if you’re, you’re feeling stuck or you’re feeling frustrated or bored with whatever it is that you’re doing, kind of mixing up the formats is a really good way to, to put some, some, you know, new excitement back into your process. Well,
Phoebe Chongchua ([25:25]):
We don’t often have guests on the show brand journalism community twice, but I can assure you, this is why we had Melanie, because she sure delivers. And our book is going to be great too. So tell us the name of the book. Again,
Melanie Deziel ([25:38]):
The book is called the Content Fuel Framework: how to generate unlimited story ideas.
Phoebe Chongchua ([25:43]):
All right. We will have a link in the show notes to that at thinklikeajournalist.com, but I’m curious to see how you’ll answer this question. You know, from a couple of years ago, what you had in mind, then see how it’s changed. You’ve been hired to help an ailing company it’s about to financially collapse its reputation shot. You have a month, a thousand dollars budget, a smartphone and a laptop. How do you begin to turn this company around?
Melanie Deziel ([26:06]):
I think the first thing I would do is figure out which social platform our audience was on. And then I would go absolutely all in, on trying to join the conversation, share our brand message and be a part of that platform. So, you know, if that content was on Twitter, I would spend all my time and effort engaging with our audience on Twitter, putting out relevant content, they’re engaging and replying, you know, through social, listening to people who are our ideal audience there. And I would work on growing our reputation in one specific vertical. And once we have that grown, I would extend that and send people over to the next channel so that we can sort of build our audience and our reputation alongside from platform to platform. What
Phoebe Chongchua ([26:45]):
Is one piece of technology, video, multimedia equipment or app that you just can’t live without?
Melanie Deziel ([26:50]):
I am obsessed with the Todist app. So that is Todist, it’s like to-do list, but with no “L,” It is the only way that I keep my life and my business organized. It’s a great task manager and it integrates with a lot of the other platforms and tools that you love.
Phoebe Chongchua ([27:04]):
One book, documentary blog, podcast, or internet channel you wan to recommend?
Melanie Deziel ([27:09]):
My favorite book for creators, who I assume a lot of your audiences is themselves aspiring or in this realm is Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. It’s a really good way to get yourself more comfortable with creating content in a written form at a really rapid pace.
Phoebe Chongchua ([27:23]):
Expert predictions. So we’re much closer now to this year, but looking ahead to 2025, what will the world look like? And what is your best advice for businesses to thrive and have a competitive advantage in the marketplace in the future?
Melanie Deziel ([27:37]):
I always struggle with projecting the future because I don’t think I ever could have predicted that I would end up where I ended up. So I always try to be candid that I, I’m not really sure. But what I do know is that the businesses that are succeeding now are the ones who have spent the last few years being open into change and adapting and pivoting when they saw new opportunities. So I think if you want to be future ready, if you want to be here five years from now, you need to continue to do those same things, to look for new opportunities, to be open, to change, to be open, to experimenting and trying new things, because that’s how we get ourselves ready for the future.
Phoebe Chongchua ([28:13]):
Let’s take a look at you know, when you’re not working or perhaps when you’re working, but also trying to play, where might you wine, dine or play?
Melanie Deziel ([28:22]):
So this is actually a faraway place, not a, not an everyday place home to me. But I had the chance to go to Amsterdam for a business trip recently. And I stayed at a hotel called Z O K U. And it is a really cool hybrid hotel and coworking space. And that concept to me was so exciting to be able to stay in a place that had a lot of shared co-working space, where people had energy and ambition and ideas. And so if you can find a place in your community that gives you that same feeling of like inspiring and ambitious people work here surrounding yourself with that kind of energy is always a good idea. Thank you so much,
Phoebe Chongchua ([28:59]):
You know, I knew you would deliver, but this is great stuff. So I encourage you Brand Journalism community to take a look at the show notes for Melanie at ThinkLikeAJournalist.com and we’ll have that we’ll have a link to get her book really important stuff. This isn’t going away, content marketing and branded content is ever so important. And the more you can stay ahead of it, I think you’ll have a better advantage in the marketplace in the future. So Melanie, thank you so much for being on the brand journalism advantage.
Melanie Deziel ([29:28]):
Thanks for letting me share my story.
Phoebe Chongchua ([29:30]):
Hey, Brand Journalism community. You know, that you can find all the valuable information in the show notes. All you have to do is head on over to ThinkLikeAJournalist.com and in the search box type in or 440. And this interview and the resources mentioned in this episode will pop right up.
Announcer ([29:50]):
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