“It's not about creating lots of new content but making sure what you have works harder for you.”
Interview with Trina Everall, Co-Founder at Stori
The “What education marketers are saying” series shares insight from marketers working in the education sector, whether that’s for universities, agencies or student communities.
Interview
Kyle (Education Marketer): What’s the worst cliche when it comes to content?
Trina: Not sure if it's the worst, but “Good content will always find an audience” springs to mind.
This gets said an awful lot, but I think it gives content creators cover for not doing the hard work of distribution. It's a bit trite but the example we always use with clients is Van Gogh, his content was clearly amazing, but didn’t find an audience until after he was dead.
I’m pretty sure none of us working in HE marketing can wait that long for our content to work.
Kyle: Given your experience at The Guardian and Wonkhe, what can Universities learn from media companies?
Trina: Universities are often surprisingly like media organisations, and not just in the way the relationship between academics and marketing teams can mirror the way editorial and commercial teams work in news orgs (and not always in a positive way!)
But primarily universities are increasingly under pressure to produce content like a media org, but most aren’t set up like it. I think one of the most important lessons we learnt at the Guardian was that often it's not about creating lots of new content but making sure what you have works harder for you.
Making sure that your content teams don’t publish and forget but take the time and effort to push that content out to the world, and crucially engage with the response.
(Former Guardian Editor) Alan Rusbridger called it Open Journalism. When it comes to universities’ content we like to call it Open Storytelling and think it's part of the secret to great content that works for audiences and for our organisations.
Kyle: Which uni is doing good by its content right now?
Trina: I love long form and visual/audio storytelling, when the story is right it can be the most powerful way of communicating complicated issues and creating engaging stories.
We love the COVID-19: six months on the front line created by Imperial College London, University of Glasgow scrolling through campus, Loughborough’s Volume magazine and Goldsmith’s alumni content Goldlink.
Across the sector there are some amazing stories being told but they are often getting lost amongst the general noise and not getting the chance to shine.
Kyle: What advice would you give to a marketer planning to pivot into a more content-focused role?
Trina: Like any aspect of marketing good content requires understanding your audience(s) as much as possible and being clear on what the objectives are for your content and matching the format/style to that.
We like to use the old BBC trust values to measure content - for every piece of content you create ask: Will this Inform, Educate or Entertain my audience? One of the three is fine, more than one is great, none and you’ve gone badly wrong.
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