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The Scene Room
The Scene Room Podcast spotlights the movers and makers redefining the performing arts—focusing on innovative marketing, leadership, and the importance of collaboration. Hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman, with a keen eye on audience trends and cultural shifts, the goal is to explore how artists and organizations are connecting with communities, shaping the future, and redefining what it means to engage and inspire.
The Scene Room
Michael Morreale — The Power of Consistency in Digital Strategy for Artists and Organizations
The digital landscape has transformed how artists connect with audiences, but what strategies actually work in today's crowded online space? Michael Morreale, digital content producer and arts consultant with experience spanning brands like CBC, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and beyond, offers a refreshingly practical approach to arts marketing.
"Our job isn't to pitch stories to media outlets anymore. Our job is to tell our own story," Michael explains, cutting through the noise to what really matters. Drawing from his experience creating content that reached 16 million Canadians during Canada's sesquicentennial celebration, he shares actionable advice that works for organizations of any size.
The conversation explores how to build an effective digital strategy by first understanding your audience deeply. Michael reveals insights about audience research: "Look at your Google Analytics to see what people are searching to land on your website. Sometimes it's things like 'where do I find parking nearby?' This isn't what you may think of first when creating content, but if you're answering the questions your audience has, you'll develop that relationship."
Rather than chasing every social platform, Michael advocates for strategic focus, particularly highlighting LinkedIn's untapped potential for arts organizations. "LinkedIn has evolved beyond what we knew a few years ago," he notes, explaining how individual voices often outperform organizational accounts on the platform.
For artists struggling with content creation, the episode offers practical frameworks to simplify the process, including creating content categories and consistent posting schedules. Perhaps most valuable is Michael's closing advice: "There's no hack to solving these problems, but consistency is the best way to start." If you're looking to elevate your digital presence without getting overwhelmed, this conversation provides the roadmap you need.
All episodes are also available in video form on our YouTube Channel. All episodes are hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman.
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Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to the Scene Room. Today I have Michael Morreale here. He is a digital content producer and consultant in Toronto. He specializes in video production, online learning and digital project management. He has worked with brands like the CBC, toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Conservatory Banff Centre and AGI. His work has been featured in Maclean's Magazine, the Globe and Mail, PBS and the Guardian. Michael has a lot of practical advice in this episode. I'm really excited to share it with you. We had a great conversation about branding and digital content creation. If you are enjoying the podcast, please like it, subscribe to it, share it. All of these small actions really do result in keeping this podcast going, so let's get to it. Michael, welcome to the scene room. Thanks so much for being here.
Michael Morreale:Thank you. It's great to be here. I've been enjoying watching and listening along. Thank you?
Elizabeth Bowman:Where are we talking to you from?
Michael Morreale:Yeah, I'm at my house now in the east side of Toronto, so I spend most of my time here.
Elizabeth Bowman:Great, and do you have a studio in your house? I don't know.
Michael Morreale:If you put a microphone in a room, does that make it a studio?
Elizabeth Bowman:That's a good question.
Michael Morreale:All say it. When I get on a Zoom call and I use this same setup, the line that I always use is you know, if I don't have anything smart to say, I might as well look and sound good saying it.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, I used to say that when I was singing for a living I used to say 75% of my job is to look the part, 25% is the rest. But I mean, obviously you got to work towards performing well. I'm just saying that from a psychological point of view it really does help to look the part and feel the part. Then you are that part.
Michael Morreale:We'll take what we can get right.
Elizabeth Bowman:Let's talk about how you got to where you are, your journey into communications, marketing and all of this arts business.
Michael Morreale:I've been really lucky. I've been able to have a number of different perspectives in my career is maybe one way you could say it. So, straight out of school, my first job was at CBC, producing a radio show with the wonderful Julie Nasrella, and there was all about let's think about how we can talk about music in a way that is accessible to people, that is interesting, that is human, and I was lucky to have that as my starting point. Where to people, that is interesting, that is human, and I was lucky to have that as my starting point. Where there was a big audience with high expectations all the time.
Michael Morreale:I moved on from there to actually work within the arts world directly the Toronto Symphony. I was there director for a number of years where we did a number of digital initiatives and marketing initiatives, where I sort of started to get my marketing chops. And then I kind of challenged myself to do something entirely different and I said you know, the arts have been wonderful, let's see what the rest of the world is like. So I did a total left turn. I worked in the agriculture industry at a big equipment manufacturer, learned all sorts of things about how the world works, about how marketing works about how audiences and companies or organizations interact. And now I'm at the point where I'm putting it all together, running my own show as both a consultant and a sort of video production work with clients. All this to say, it's a lot of different perspectives that I'm bringing to this work. That is from the beginning, but just all about marketing and storytelling and thinking about how that looks like.
Elizabeth Bowman:I love that because obviously your story is helping you tell other people's story and all of those different perspectives definitely paint a really comprehensive picture In your experience. How has the marketing and communications industry evolved and particularly because of the audience listening to this particularly in the performing arts and creative sector?
Michael Morreale:Well, I mean and this goes back to how you and I first met many years ago Of course the media landscape has changed so much within the arts.
Michael Morreale:It wasn't that long ago where you would expect to get a feature in a big newspaper or a review in the newspaper or coverage when you're doing something important.
Michael Morreale:Of course that's all changed and I think we're all by now beyond the part of point of complaining about it and now at the point of okay, we have to tell our own story. Our job isn't to pitch the stories to audiences or to newspapers or media outlets. Our job is to do that ourselves. So that, of course, was a huge shift and it's been really interesting to see how different organizations have done it in a number of different ways. And you know you are the one who has helped so many people do that too. So I know that you have a lot to say on that topic, but I think what it's meant is that organizations have really gotten to know their audience in a different kind of way and that conversation is a little bit more back and forth in the process through social media and getting that feedback instantly. I think it's overall been a good thing, even if it's a job that didn't really need to be done before, when landscape was differently.
Elizabeth Bowman:I mean, obviously we have so many tools now and so many different ways to tell stories and that can overwhelm artists and creators. But I do love the empowerment of having those tools to tell the story and I remember when they first were coming out, you know, when Twitter just came out of almost nowhere and Facebook and the idea of just putting a video up and saying who you are was a really wonderful thing. And I remember talking to my clients about it at the time and saying, well, who's to say you don't do that? Let's just say you do that. You know, because they were worried about oh, I don't know if casting directors are thinking of me in this role. Tell everyone that you're working on it.
Michael Morreale:It's empowering If you say it out loud, if you put it out on the internet, then it's true, but it's a whole new skill set that people needed to develop and are still developing as the landscape is changing currently as well.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, I would like to see more emphasis on interview strategy and execution in performing arts programs. I'd like to see them really practicing and honing in those interview skills because you often hear people rambling on, not getting to the point or not understanding that, for instance, if you're on a radio broadcast, you should really only have one or two points that you want to get out of that interview and you need to reiterate those points because obviously someone's got to remember from that interview, you know.
Michael Morreale:Yeah, well, on that, like it's two specific skills. It's one being on this side of camera and how you're supposed to act and what is useful to act in that way, and then the technical and strategic side of you know operating a camera, of you know putting yourself out there, even if it's a quick video. We don't learn that in music school. We don't learn that even as you're starting out as a marketer. You just got to pick it up on your own.
Elizabeth Bowman:Can you share an example of a branding or marketing campaign that you've worked on or admired, that has really stood out and what, in your opinion, made it so effective?
Michael Morreale:A lot of what stands out in my mind is times in my career where things have gone, you know, not well, or I've had great learning experiences from things. But I had one particular marketing, you know challenge put to me which was sort of a once in a lifetime sort of moment, and that was at the Toronto Symphony 2017,. Toronto Symphony was lucky to get a really significant amount of funding from the federal government to celebrate Canada's sesquicentennial. It was a big project of all sorts of Canadian music for a year, but the marketing side of it was the government saying we need this to be very impactful. We need this to touch as many Canadians as possible. What if we gave you enough funding? What can you do as a marketer to make sure that enough people in Canada see this?
Michael Morreale:So, with that big annoying thing of not having enough money off the table, my goal was to record all the concerts, which was 40 concerts in a year and then use that content, promote it, get it online to get it seen by as many people across Canada as possible. This was a situation of being able to think outside the box because, you know, suddenly we had proper budgets to do things and in the end, we did hit our target, which was 16 million Canadians. So it is possible. It is possible and even if it's not something that going forward will happen on this scale, learned a lot about dissemination of content that still informs when I'm creating something with even the smallest of arts organization. How do we actually get people to hear this? How do we create content for audience that is worth their time and they enjoy creating it?
Elizabeth Bowman:That brings me to my next question, which is for the arts organizations that don't have big budgets. Do you have maybe three practical tips that they can use to increase their visibility and build their brand?
Michael Morreale:The first thing I would say is build your squad, and this doesn't mean going out hiring a big, expensive ad agency that, of course, is out of reach, you know.
Michael Morreale:It might be training on the personal level of taking some courses online or LinkedIn learning, which I love for short courses, and it might be pulling in freelance support on certain projects that are really important. Because when it comes to reaching an audience, the number one thing that you have to do is create things with consistency. So I see a lot of organizations they have an initiative where they can create some content around that initiative, but that initiative ends, or the quiet part, months before the performance happens and there's not the content happening. I mean, the only way that you're going to grow an audience is consistent content that is actually speaking to and informed by your audience. So that's number two, and the number three on what to do would be just to keep a really good library of content that you see from other organizations that does well, and really analyze it, be strategic about what are they doing that's working. That I can apply with my own organization within the limitations that I have at my own. So that would be my starting point.
Elizabeth Bowman:Also, I imagine that if you're keeping a library of effective marketing strategies that are being done in North America or around the world, you could also share those in your stories not necessarily in your posts, because obviously your posts are for your branded content, but you could applaud those organizations for doing what they're doing, and that would increase targeted engagement too, right?
Michael Morreale:That's right, yeah, and social media is a two-way street anyway, so engaging, interacting with these other posts too, is another way of growing your audience without spending a lot of money or even time.
Elizabeth Bowman:So a lot of individual artists listen to this podcast, so I know that they would be interested in learning strategies that they can use to stand out and connect with audiences in the digital space. What would you suggest to them?
Michael Morreale:them. A couple of things. First would be to really understand who your audience is. Look at your existing followers, look at the people who are in the audience at your performance. Everything you can figure out about who these people are beyond, I guess, as a starting point, beyond how old they are and what they do for a living, what else they enjoy outside of attending your performances, because the more you can understand about your audience, the more you can create things that your audience will like. So that's the first thing, and the second is directly related to that, which is speak to your audience directly.
Michael Morreale:I mean, I think a lot of people think of it as from yourself, as this is what I want to say, but think of it as this is what I want to hear as the audience member, because if you're answering their most common questions, if you're talking about the topics that they're most interested in, that's how you're going to capture their attendance. And a great example of this is, say, you're an organization creating social media content. You're looking at posts that do well. You survey your audience to find out what their most frequently asked question might be. You look at your Google Analytics to see what people are searching to land on your website. Sometimes it's things like where do I find parking nearby? This isn't the thing that you may think of first when it comes to creating content, but if you're answering the questions that your audience have, then you'll start to develop that relationship with them that you can go back and forth on through content that you're creating.
Elizabeth Bowman:That's great. The where do I find parking nearby? Because there should be a video nearby. Because there should be a video. There isn't one existing, even a short video, of someone driving a car and driving up whatever that main street is and then seeing that parking sign giving people a visual of the arrival, of the experience of getting to the theater or the opera house or wherever they're going.
Michael Morreale:This is Toronto. Like this may be the number one thing that someone is hesitating about before purchasing a ticket to your downtown Toronto performance if they're coming from somewhere a little further out from the core.
Elizabeth Bowman:I get anxious and I live just outside of New York City. I'm lucky because I have a parking spot in Lincoln Center because of my husband's job, but if I didn't have that, I must say it would give me anxiety, because then it's suddenly this huge thing. Do I book it in advance? They have all these apps and things like that. It's insane. So that's great Checking out what people are Googling for your organization and answering those questions. I love that.
Michael Morreale:Yeah, and actually can I get like really specific on that, just in case that helps. So if you set up the Google search console, which is how your site interacts with Google, what information you're giving it to it directly that it's not pulling from what it finds? There's a little tab in there that you can see exactly what have people searched to be landing on my site. Some other website analytics will tell you this as well. I found some surprising things that you can create content about, of like how people are coming to find you. It's not always what you'd think.
Elizabeth Bowman:Okay, let's get even more specific. What about the digital tools or platforms that you think are must haves for artists and or organizations to enhance their online presence?
Michael Morreale:Yeah, sure, that's a big question. I think the first biggest, most obvious one is your strategy, is your digital strategy. You know, for a lot of people, look, we have a lot of things to do. It's easy just to start doing something and running with it, but to take some time to really document what you're trying to do online with your digital strategy. Can I answer that question Again who is your audience? What are their needs? How can I serve them online and how can I unfold my?
Michael Morreale:If you're a season throughout a year, how can that unfold online? What will that look like? What are the big moments that I really want to create a lot of content around or build a digital experience around as much as possible. So you start with that digital strategy. That does make it easier, as you're busy performing or selling tickets throughout the year, to actually stick to it and create something. The other part of that strategy will be your channel strategy. So where are you going to be most active online?
Michael Morreale:It is not the best strategy to just have an account on every single platform. You can imagine and create the same piece of content and drop it everywhere. Of course, that's not going to work. So I'd recommend taking some time to really think carefully about where do I want to live online? And that's based on where your audience lives, where you know they are now, where you've spent time and energy building up and where, strategically, might make sense to keep building. Where strategically might make sense to not. Is there, for example, a certain social media platform that is just getting kind of sketchy lately and you don't want to associate yourself with. Maybe don't spend the time there anymore.
Elizabeth Bowman:I wonder where that is.
Michael Morreale:Could be, anything Could be anything.
Elizabeth Bowman:That's great advice. I starting this podcast. You know I've been through this exercise many times with my clients, looking at the various social media platforms and which ones are most organic to them. And it might be surprising to know that it is different based on the person, because they interact with the different platforms differently, as we are all human and we are all different.
Elizabeth Bowman:And with the Scene Room podcast, I did the same exercise and I'm actually I get a really high, high impression rate on LinkedIn which I've never had before so high LinkedIn and I'm enjoying it. And I'm now on LinkedIn a lot more than I was before because my impression rate is much higher there. The likes might not necessarily translate into that high impression rate yet and I'm hoping that people will start showing themselves and liking the post and reacting to the posts, so it's interesting. And then also I decided at the beginning that I would drop the video content on to both YouTube and Facebook to see how it would perform, and I have a huge amount of listeners on YouTube, whereas Facebook I've just made a decision that I'm not going to continue to drop the full, whereas Facebook I've just made a decision that I'm not going to continue to drop the full episodes on Facebook because it's just not performing as well. So, to your point, I'm reacting to the data that is presented to me and I will then go forward with the podcast with that strategy.
Michael Morreale:Yeah, and I guess you wouldn't know that unless you started out being on a certain number of platforms to see what sort of bubbles to the surface. For you, linkedin is a really interesting one. I mean, you know this, I love LinkedIn. It's been sort of a newer interest of mine because in the past it was seen as this B2B corporate thought leader, weird sort of space. But that has shifted, especially as some of these other platforms have scared people away to our point a few moments ago. Linkedin has been a really good place to actually connect with audiences and there's a few reasons for it. One is that LinkedIn has a big sort of lurker culture and not so much a poster culture, so there's not as many people creating content on LinkedIn, and I think this creates a real big opportunity for arts organizations, for artists, because the audiences are there and it's evolved beyond the LinkedIn that we knew a few years ago. So I think there's something there. It's interesting that you say that.
Elizabeth Bowman:Also, there are highly educated people on LinkedIn and in terms of opera and symphony audiences, that aligns with a lot of the target audiences to fill up their halls. So I think that LinkedIn is definitely worth investing in if you're an arts organization, for sure.
Michael Morreale:But one quick thing on it that I should have mentioned on LinkedIn is that, yes, there are company pages that are on behalf of an organization, but they don't do really well. What LinkedIn wants to see is content coming from individuals, so organizations are having to work with their CEOs or leadership to create content for their pages, which really changes how you think of it, and so putting time into creating a company page doesn't always pay off. Investing in your people for them to create content, whatever that looks like, is where it starts to pay off a little bit more, I think, for organizations of any size.
Elizabeth Bowman:That makes sense Because, yeah, most of the stuff I interact with as well is individual content, which obviously these people are working for big organizations. But the motivation is that someone is telling me something and I'm reacting to that personal message rather than like an organization being like oh, we have a new season.
Michael Morreale:Yeah, it changes your messaging and what that looks like and the level of trust when it's coming from an individual, not an organization arts organization or not is so much higher.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah. And also, if they are talking about their new season, they're not talking about it in a way that's like here's our new season. They're talking about something very specific, either a problem that they needed to solve, or you know something about their marketing strategy. They're talking as if it's well, it is behind the scenes, but that's the most effective messaging on LinkedIn, as far as I can see. I haven't done the research that you likely have on LinkedIn.
Michael Morreale:As far as I can see, I haven't done the research that you likely have. Yeah, and so if I were working within an organization and a season launch was coming up or some big piece of news was coming up, part of the work that would need to be done is working with your leadership to equip them with. Maybe it's letting them go off and create their own videos. Maybe it's you doing it for them as like a ghost writer or something to support them. It's you doing it for them as like a ghost writer or something to support them. This has changed how PR and publicity used to be, but it's an important opportunity in terms of telling your story and shaping your story for how it rolls out online.
Elizabeth Bowman:Can I ask about your process in terms of your work, like when you're invited to do your consulting work along with your videography work? Can you tell me a bit about what happens like step one through three or something?
Michael Morreale:Yeah, good question, and on the two sides would be a little bit different maybe. But I think what I bring to my video work and my consulting work always comes back to the experience that I have, from being a marketer in the corporate world to working in broadcasting and media, to working within a nonprofit organization, and it's always starting with those big strategic questions. To start off Again who is your audience? What is the message? What action do you want them to take? What channels do you have available to you to tell that story so that when you're actually creating something and rolling it out, you know that it's something that is working against your business objectives or whatever objectives that you have with that particular project.
Elizabeth Bowman:That it is.
Michael Morreale:When I do my consulting work with the arts firm, we have a standard practice and process where we're always starting with interviews of audience members of an organization and stakeholders which might be other people in the community, funders, government, to really be able to tell that story. And I'm always really surprised that people working within an organization they have a pretty good idea of what their audience says, but there's always little surprises in there that they learn about their audience through these surveys, through these conversations that we have early on. And then I always like to hope that we're sort of creating a culture of really doing that research on an annual and regular basis so that you can say that you want to understand your audience but to actually step up and do it has led to so much success on future initiatives as well.
Elizabeth Bowman:Conversation is key to excellent communication. On the Cate Pisaroni episode, we talked about how it would be great if marketers could do a speed dating style, set up with the artists individually and spend five minutes with each of the artists that will be performing on the stage and I mean we were thinking of an opera production, because obviously there are a lot of artists that are on the stage during those performances but the idea of what would come as a result of those conversations and the individuals having those conversations because everyone writing down their thoughts individually and then coming back to the marketing table and coming up with a strategy based on creative it's all about collaboration conversation based on creative. It's all about collaboration conversation.
Michael Morreale:I mean it's not rocket science, but it is, for some reason, harder than it should be to get all these people together. Yeah, and I think we do a pretty good job at having conversations with individual audience members or people we know who are sort of close to us. We can have those conversations. What gets a little bit harder is to be, you know, it's not rocket science, but it is a little bit of science of developing a survey that hits a larger segment of your audience. That doesn't leave out the people who you're not going to go up to them and talk to them, but you see that are coming to your performance, because these are just the broader insights that you can have over your audience to stop those assumptions that you have in these backstage conversations of oh I think our audience wants this. Well, don't think like we can ask and we can get those answers from a very data, informed and certain sense.
Elizabeth Bowman:What do you think with AI entering the equation now in full force? It sort of almost came in overnight, where now everyone is seems to be using AI to help them make their emails more polite, or or whatever the case may be.
Michael Morreale:You know I thought it was again. It hasn't been that long. There was an interview with Barack Obama like a year and a half ago where he said like the only human invention with the same amount of impact as AI has been the invention of electricity or the discovery of electricity, and at the time it sounded like you know, just sort of a big statement. But yes, it can change everything, and I know there's all sorts of conversation around it, so I'll sort of bring it down to the level that I see it. You know, if you think of it like a co-pilot, where you know, in the cockpit of a plane, you can tell that pilot what to do, it's all things that you can do yourself. But the second set of hands is helpful. Ai will be successful when you can use it to do the things that give you more time to do the things that are important Flying the plane landing right on the runway, for instance, to run with that a little too far. So there are certainly AI tools that can be used.
Michael Morreale:I think we all have developed now a pretty good sense of what are the things that we don't want to replace. What are the things that I would have spent a couple hours learning how to do that. I can just have AI do to make more time in the rest of my day. So there's those sort of questions. I've also made room in my own schedule to be experimenting because of how quickly new tools are appearing, and I'm just starting a year-long process, thanks to Canada Council, on some funding to explore AI tools and document that process a little bit, because if you're watching the news and seeing new tools come available, it can be very overwhelming. So, taking a step back, asking yourself the question what is the problem that you want to solve? Well, there may be an AI component to solving it.
Elizabeth Bowman:That's great that you're doing that work, because right now I'm imagining that arts organizations will really benefit from looking over their statistics all of the numbers that need to be analyzed, that they don't necessarily have a data analytics professional to deal with given budgets 100%.
Michael Morreale:That's like one of the first things I would do. I mean, there's, of course, been a large amount of data collected over the years, hopefully about who is purchasing tickets, how people are engaging with you across social media platforms by email, so that data analytics part of it is a great example, because I know we have these conversations of big, scary AI things that we never want to have AI do for us. I think we're pretty okay with having them tally up results of certain things or find trends that you know we're maybe not able to do ourselves.
Elizabeth Bowman:What are some mistakes you think organizations or individuals make when creating a promotional video?
Michael Morreale:I would say with anything, before you start hitting the record button on the video, to really think strategically about how this is going to roll out. There are a lot of video projects where people have come to me and we start talking about it and we discover this isn't going to be a three minute video like you're asking for. It's going to be three one minute videos that can tell three different portions of this, because we know that these shorter style videos are more effective on social media. For this reason, that's saved a lot of time and a lot of creative editing when those decisions are made early on. So what makes a good video One? It speaks to the needs of your audience. It does it in a really concise way and it does it in an interesting way, because usually the easy way is not especially interesting, having just some guy in front of a camera talking. The more you can show things rather than tell, the more effective that particular video will be. But of course, like anything else, it depends.
Elizabeth Bowman:And how important do you think is the branding element to anything video, print, advertising, all that stuff when it comes to an organization, what is the most important thing for visual branding?
Michael Morreale:I think the brand is very important and the branding reflects that. So the brand is who you are and what story, what message it is that you're trying to craft and share. The branding of the colors and the fonts you use is nice, but not as important as the big picture. The big picture is being consistent with telling the story from the same perspective all the time, and what I mean by that is you know, you're building this image of you or your organization and if you're always, you know, painting a different picture, doing it in a different way, then your brand is going to suffer. You're going to confuse people.
Michael Morreale:When I'm working with people on creating social media content and we're trying to come up with ideas, oftentimes it's coming up with ways to say the same thing over and over in slightly different ways, and that sort of consistency is how you build that brand, how you're building that trust with your audience. So the brand very important. The branding yes, you want to look professional and polished, but it's not as important to me at least, as the big picture hey, now write down the type of content you want to share and then put that into categories.
Elizabeth Bowman:So, and ideally by the end they have maybe four or five categories of, like, big picture categories of the types of things Like maybe it's just to simplify this Behind the scenes, on stage, personal. So we'll just there are three in this version, but oftentimes we'll have more than three things and oftentimes you'll have things that are more prone to have video content. Other times you'll have maybe press quotes or something that you want to share, and then I ask them to find a template on Canva and assign it to one of the categories, and then it's just a matter of them filling in. They're like oh, I've got this picture, what category is that going into? Then they don't have to think so hard, you know, because all of the category management has been done before. They did all that work in putting together the brand strategy. I guess you would call it.
Michael Morreale:Yeah, and that's the work. And it's funny. Sometimes people talk about going to AI to generate ideas of what to come up with to talk about, and anyone who I know, who is an interesting enough person, never has trouble coming up with interesting things to say. This is not, to me, the application of AI that I think is going to be useful. It's easy to come up with things to say. What's hard is coming up with consistent things to say.
Michael Morreale:So that exercise that you describe is really similar to what I do with my own clients and what I do for my personal content that I'm creating is I kind of create this matrix, where on the top of the matrix, I say what are the topics that we want to talk about, and on the y-axis, I guess it's how are we going to talk about them? So, topics I talk about marketing, I talk about digital marketing, I talk about videos. On the other side it's I talk about a news item, I talk about a tip, I talk about a case study. You can mix and match those things and come up with almost unlimited things to talk about. That's never the hard part, but having a structure certainly makes it a lot easier.
Elizabeth Bowman:And especially if someone's a performing artist and they're backstage and oftentimes they feel uncomfortable taking photos backstage. I'm not sure what it is, because they sound amazing on the stage, but then they get off stage and they lose all that confidence and they feel, oh, I don't want to take a picture now, oh, it's just too much. But if they have a set list of things that they can photograph, they're like, okay, well, I'll check that off and I'll check this off and it just makes life easier. I mean, when we have directives and lists makes life easier.
Michael Morreale:I agree. And to our earlier point, too, of building your team, building your squad. You know, if this is something that you're uncomfortable with, that is not your area of expertise, just get help. Get someone like you to come in and give them that list and don't feel bad about it, because the total number of skills that an artist needs to have to be successful it's such a long list that it would be impossible for everyone to have them all. So it's just part of the process.
Elizabeth Bowman:To wrap things up, I just want to ask if there's one piece of advice you'd give to performers looking to grow their brand or business. What would that one piece of advice be?
Michael Morreale:I'll pull it full circle here, which is consistency. If you're strategic about saying the same thing over and over, if you're consistent about sticking to your posting schedule, about creating content on a really regular basis that is informed by your audience, that is speaking directly to your audience with their needs in mind. There's no hack to solving these problems, but that's the best way to start.
Elizabeth Bowman:Great advice Consistency is helped by collaboration, and so for artists who are nervous about posting or brainstorming about things to post, always think of your colleagues and think of the happenings around you, think of those cafes you go to, the restaurants you eat dinner at, think about all these other things, so that you're not necessarily feeling uncomfortable sharing only yourself on social media, because people are interested in those collaborative stories.
Michael Morreale:If you're an artist, you have a huge number of people who are paying money to come and see you perform. You have something to say and people want to hear it.
Elizabeth Bowman:Thanks for doing this.
Michael Morreale:You're welcome. Thank you, this has been fun.
