Honest Marketing

Anika Jackson: Tips to Develop Your Brand's Story and Messaging

• Honest Podcasts • Episode 38

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Your brand's story isn't just about the products or services you offer.

It's the narrative that differentiates you, resonates with your audience, and fosters customer loyalty.

But crafting this narrative isn't always straightforward.

What are the secrets to a compelling brand story that not only captures attention but also endures?

Let's dive in and explore some essential tips to help you shape your brand's narrative with Anika Jackson of Full Capacity Marketing and Your Brand Amplified.

We talk about the importance of authenticity, knowing your audience, and consistency in your brand messaging. Annika shares insights into her journey, working with brands and companies, and the strategies she uses to help them develop a strong brand identity.

We also touch on how podcasting can be a valuable tool in refining and delivering your brand message to a wider audience.

For a deeper dive and a treasure trove of insights, don't miss the full episode. It's a must-listen for anyone aiming to elevate their brand's narrative and messaging.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • Authenticity in brand messaging
  • Key tips for developing your brand's narrative and messaging
  • How podcasting can enhance your brand's message

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Want to give your podcast the boost it needs to stay ahead of the competition? Check out honestpodcasts.com and take the first step toward achieving your podcasting goals!

And if you have a guest in mind who you think would be a great fit for this show, drop me a line at hello@honestpodcasts.com. 

Anika Jackson [00:00:00]:
Your brand may change over time depending on how well you know yourself, how willing you are to do the work and be authentic, whether that's all the goods and the bads of who we are. 


Travis Albritton [00:00:16]:

Welcome back to the Honest Marketing Podcast, where you learn proven strategies to grow your business without selling your soul. I'm your host, Travis Sawbriton, and today you are in for a special treat because my friend Anika Jackson from Full Capacity Marketing and the Your Brand Amplified Podcast came on the show to talk all about branding, positioning, brand storytelling, and how to position your company to reach people with the right message online. So we talk all about her background with starting her podcast, her own agency, and the work that she's doing now with brands and companies, and also some fun little side tangents, like her work as a professor at USC over in Southern California and what that is like and that experience. But I think the big takeaway for me is just really seeing someone in the trenches, working with brands on positioning, messaging, storytelling, and the things that she really focuses on. I took a lot of personal notes for myself that I'm going to be implementing. Okay, so make sure you listen to the whole interview. Stick around to the end where I'll give you my number one takeaway, as per usual, but here it is. Let's dive in. So, Annika, happy to have you on. We had a great exchange on your podcast, your Brain Amplified, which was a lot of fun.

Anika Jackson [00:01:19]:

So fun.

Travis Albritton [00:01:20]:

Yeah. So I'm really glad we were able to do that here. And I really just want to start off by asking you about your podcast, your Brand Amplified, which you started about three years ago, and I would just love to hear the story of how you started it, why you started it, and kind of the strategy behind why you wanted to get into podcasting.

Anika Jackson [00:01:39]:

Thank you, Travis. I am really excited to be here. I love your podcast. And for anybody who goes back and listens to the episode of my podcast that you're on, I loved that I was able to dive into all the questions I have about podcasting that I'm still trying to uncover using your expertise. So your brand amplified was originally the tagline for my PR company. It was annika. PR started right before the pandemic and right when the pandemic was starting to become a thing. But my story really goes back before that. When I lived in Houston, Texas, I had a radio show that also was a Facebook streaming show called Real Beauty, Real Women. We didn't only have women as guests, but that was the brand that it was under. And I co hosted a show where we would bring in different community leaders or people who were doing really good work in the community or had an event and a cause and a purpose behind what they were doing, and we would highlight them. And it was really fun. And that's always kind of been my driver. I was a club promoter when I was young. That's how I got into marketing and PR. But it was about the music and the experience, but it was really about the collaboration, bringing people together for something collective. And on one hand, I loved that experience, on the other hand, I also wanted to always have a social good component. And so that's where I see the progression of my marketing and PR career and getting into podcasting. So during the pandemic, that show went away. Plus I'd moved back to Los Angeles from Houston and we were just trying to record and it was getting a little crazy to try to record because when we were in Houston we had different sets and we had commercials and we put all these fun things into it to make it a really fun live experience. Then I had a couple clients ask me to start podcasts for them because they knew I had this other experience. And I'd also EP'd a show, virtually a web show for a client in Houston. So I said, okay, sure, that sounds fun. So I started these podcasts and then quickly realized that the amount of money that they had to pour into promoting it properly, recording enough episodes, doing the work, making sure we're finding guests, wasn't a lot compared to what else they were doing to run their businesses. And I was doing all the work and really not paying myself, just paying my team to make the promotional materials, make sure it gets up on the website, edit the show, all those things. And I also realized that there wasn't a consistency right for me. I like to have at least one episode a week released because that's what's helped me grow my audience. So if you're only releasing an episode every month, that's not going to really help you drive the needle in your efforts. So then that led to your brand Amplified becoming a podcast. And at first I was really niche down to I'm going to ask five questions, it's going to be under 27 minutes because that was the average drive time in the US. And it's going to all be publicists. And then I quickly realized that really wasn't serving the way that I approach things very well to have to stick to this little script and only ask these questions. And it wasn't necessarily natural progressions from one answer to the next. And it wasn't just about PR, it really was about entrepreneurship, marketing, branding, all of the other things that go into building your business. So that's when I made the shift, and once I made that shift and started taking my own podcast more seriously is when I really saw it make a difference for me and for my business and for my listeners.

Travis Albritton [00:05:16]:

So what was the initial target audience for the show and how did that change or evolve or grow over time? Because now you have a really established podcast, a really established audience, but in the beginning you're always starting kind of from you and your mom and your best friend and all leaving reviews on different devices. So talk to me about that progression because the podcasts that are really successful are the ones that are creating great content for a particular kind of person. So how do you think about that listener persona and how does that align with the professional work that you do?

Anika Jackson [00:05:49]:

It aligns really well with the professional work that I do, which is why my personas are varied. So at first it was very much I was going to only do PR in my business. That's why it was annika PR. And then I quickly realized and this kind of was the evolution of my business and of the podcast that a lot of my clients who were coming in for PR didn't have their brand established. They had a logo, so they brand identity. But did their brand identity match who they really wanted to be and how they wanted to show up in the market? Did they understand their customer personas? Did they know how to message to them properly? So I quickly shifted to, okay, we really have to talk about everything in the ecosystem of Markom. And let's add in some other stuff on the business side, finance, mindset, everything that I struggle with as an entrepreneur. What's funny is now I feel like I get the right guests at the right time because they're saying exactly what I'm struggling with that week or what I've been thinking about that month is my goals and helping me reframe things that I'm thinking about. So if they're doing that for me, they're doing that for my audience too. So the personas evolve from somebody who's been in their career perhaps a couple of decades. They're looking to shift from a corporate job into being an entrepreneur, and they're trying to figure out how to make that shift. They might not be a marketer or understand that part of the business or how to be an entrepreneur, right? Not everybody is a born entrepreneur, but a lot of people aspire to have that flexibility. They just need to know the nuts and the bolts and the ins and the outs and the good and the bad of being an entrepreneur to think through. So I have those people who are kind of mid career professionals. I have people who've had businesses for 1020 years who might be a really great digital marketer, but they realize that they're not reaching the right audience. And so they need to kind of refresh their own branding and go back and kind of course correct and listen to some inspirational messages from people who are doing the work right now. And then I have the younger set. So people who are just building their careers and whether they're going to be in house PR work for an agency in communications or social media or strategy or experiential marketing, or they want to be an entrepreneur because I also teach grad school and so my students listen. And I also found there is a segment who are either in their undergrad graduate or just postgrad who are still trying to understand because not all programs are created equally. You might have been gotten your Master's in Communications 510 years ago, but things have shifted. So it's pretty interesting because it is a very diverse group that we have to speak to. And I know not every episode is going to be for everyone, but I feel like people will find the episodes that they need to listen to at the right time.

Travis Albritton [00:08:43]:

Okay, so two things I want to follow up on the first one. Yeah, you're a professor. Not everyone in the business world can say that. I'm curious because I think business school over the last ten years has gotten a really bad rep where it's like, well, you can learn anything on YouTube. You got like the Alex Ramosis of the world doing Master classes. Why would you ever go to business school? The stereotype being the college professor is the person that couldn't make it in the marketplace. So they got tenure somewhere and they're just kind of repeating things from the what does that look like for you in a collegiate setting, working with young graduate students in marketing, communications, thinking about not just mediums, but strategies and things like that. How do you think about your approach, your unique approach to developing curriculum or working with people in that setting?

Anika Jackson [00:09:31]:

It's so funny that you said what you said, because I was also thinking that the old idiom those who can't do, teach, right? And yes, there is a certain level of tenured professor who is a PhD and is more about the theory. And those are the full time professors, for the most part, the adjunct or the part time, like myself, or even full time, but associate level or assistant level professors, we're more of the people who are still working in the field. Typically, to be an adjunct means you can only teach one class per year. I'm part time, so I have more flexibility in that and can teach a little bit more. And I teach on the digital media Master's program and the PR and advertising program. And I think that's an important distinction because we have to know how to do a lot of different things, not just if you're a publicist, you have to understand working with influencers or how to position things on social media. How do you work with the SEO team and the brand marketers who are doing email newsletters? It has to be a very integrated strategy. If you just are looking at one piece of it, you're not going to be successful and drive results for your clients or your own business. So we approach it very differently, and we're able to bring in a lot of our real life examples. Now, I teach this semester PR and Branding, and there are two other sections of it. One is taught by somebody who works at YouTube and the other one is taught by somebody who was president of Ogilvy in Asia and a lot of different things, North America. So we all have slightly different approaches, but we've tried to align the curriculum so that we're making sure we're using some of the same books. We all have slightly different approaches and mine is more about personal brand right now because that is a differentiator in today's workforce, even if somebody wants to work in house or at an agency, what distinguishes them from everybody else? Their personal branding and how they're going to approach branding and working with their clients communication strategies. So that's the approach I take to pretty much everything, whether it's I'm working with clients in the field, we're going to go back to basics, we're going to talk about brand sentiment, we're going to do analyses over things that you might not be paying us to work on just so that you have that information. You can understand how it better serves you as a client and how it helps our work for you, whether it's digital advertising or we're doing landing pages or we're doing PR or whatever aspect we're doing for your work. And so I guess that's what I think is one of the big advantages. The other thing is because of podcasting that is giving me a different level of leverage. Podcasting is, as you know, becoming more and more important, particularly for publicists getting people on podcast, getting companies to start podcasts is such a great way to get thought leadership out. It creates so much content that you can repurpose on your own channel, so in your newsletter, on your website, creating blog posts, creating articles, using little snippets for pitches, social media content all over the place, it's so fantastic. So because of that, now I'm also working with the Digital Media Management Mediascape series which we interview digital change makers. So it's a speaker series, I'm co producing and co hosting that. And then we're also turning it into a podcast because not everybody has the time to speak to our students at 06:00 P.m. On a Monday, especially if they're in Europe or they're on the East Coast. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of value to add and they want that association, perhaps with USC, because we have a really great program for communication and journalism. We're known as having a great program. So what I see, that's another thing that I think I can add to the university experience and something place where I've been able to use my podcast to differentiate myself from other professors who are also vying for some of the same jobs, teaching the same classes that I am.

Travis Albritton [00:13:32]:

Yeah, I love all that. The next thing I want to dig into is branding because that's something that I know for a long time I didn't understand and even now I still feel like I'm basically a novice. Like, I understand the basics of it. I understand, yeah, it's important for reasons, but beyond like, a logo or a media kit or choosing colors based on the emotion wheel, outside of that, branding can be this really elusive, abstract, fuzzy idea. So I'd just love to hear your approach. When you either bring on a new client that's like a company that's trying to figure out how do we effectively communicate who we are and what we do, or it's a person that's wanting to figure out, what do I want to be known for? What do I want my reputation to be? And how do I present that in a way that communicates those aspects and those values that I have? I would love to just hear your approach. When you think about branding for companies and then also for individuals, what's interesting.

Anika Jackson [00:14:34]:

Is it's a lot of the same approach because most companies, obviously, when you're a bigger company, I tend to work with startups, small entrepreneurs, businesses, the small business sector, where the brand really is the founder, the owner, the CEO. There's a reason why you started your company and you need to be willing to share that story. People want, especially nowadays, the younger generations, they really want to see authenticity. They're buying the person behind the product. Because you could have a product that's the same as ten or 15 or 50,000 products out there. What makes a difference is you. And that's a really uncomfortable place for a lot of people. I'm even seeing it like with my students, having them go through these exercises. A lot of them don't want to self reflect and they're also not sure who they are. So I always tell people, just take a step back. There's no right or wrong answer. This is a living, breathing document. Your brand may change over time depending on how well you know yourself, how willing you are to do the work and be authentic, whether that's all the goods and the bads of who we are. So we always approach it from that and the brand blueprint. So starting with your purpose, mission, vision, values and positioning, going into messaging, what's your personality, tone of voice, what words do people use to describe you? All of these things should be cohesive, and if they're not, then that's not a strong brand message that you're going to be able to send. And then it flows into what you're talking about, the brand identity. So your logo, your typography, what tone of voice do you use when you're serving customers on your website, versus answering emails, versus responding to social media queries? Or if you have a customer service line and are picking up the phone, you need to have the same tone of voice and whoever is acting on your behalf should be trained to that. So knowing what words to use, what words not to use, do you want to come across. Whimsical are you more serious? Brand? So these are all things that you really have to dive into. And for ourselves, I think it is really hard to hone in sometimes and get comfortable. And that's why, again, I love podcasts because it's a great way to get people started on sharing their message. And maybe you have your talking points written down, right? And then you might know the answers to the questions that they're going to ask ahead of time. You might not, but hopefully you've done some homework. You've listened to some episodes of a podcast that you're going to be on before you go on it. So you know kind of how the host is going to approach everything. Then you keep getting more comfortable and you can throw away your talking points or put them aside and just have a more organic and natural conversation. So it's a great way for people to help hone in on their message and how they're delivering it to everybody, which is then going to help them figure out their personal brand or how they're branding their companies. Now, obviously there are bigger companies that are really good at this. I think of Wendy's on social media. So funny, biting, snarky commentary that just makes you laugh compared to other fast food, I guess, social media platforms. Wendy's does a really great job and I love it when the brands are playful with each other and tag onto each other's. I guess. X.

Travis Albritton [00:18:01]:

Yeah. Not Twitter anymore.

Anika Jackson [00:18:02]:

Yeah, I don't know. And so you see great examples of that and brand cohesiveness, but then you also see brands that, especially when you're starting out, you might want to throw everything in the kitchen sink into everything you're doing. And the approach should really be less is more. So when you're thinking about your brand, what are the least amount of words that you can use to describe your purpose, mission, vision, values, positioning statements, your tagline? And do the same thing? What can you take away from your website that won't make it overwhelming for people but will give them all of the information, the calls to action, and have them easily understand why they're there and how your company is going to serve them?

Travis Albritton [00:18:46]:

So one observation that I've noticed, and I'm curious if this is something that you've observed as well, is that as kind of solopreneurship has grown and people are starting online businesses and ecommerce and direct to consumer, it seems like. And going back to that buzword authenticity, which my favorite, I always love when someone's like, how do I be more authentic? It's like you're looking for the magic word formula to convince people that you're worthy of their money instead of what it actually is. Right, right. But I've noticed this shift towards more personable branding where it's less about, okay, we need to just 100% dial in. We're the Nike of our industry or we're the Apple of our industry where everything is clean and buttoned up and run through, like five PR and law people on your team. And it feels much more like you're engaging with an actual person or a human being instead of like a company. And I think that meshes really well with just how people interact with the internet nowadays, where meme culture is a thing and Wendy's twitter, like, snapping back at people and dunking on McDonald's. It's like that now becomes powerful. Brand is that a shift that you've seen as well?

Anika Jackson [00:20:04]:

100%. I think it's a shift that's been happening for a long time and as many things during the pandemic, it's a shift that we opened our eyes to. We also know that the shift to digital, not just for schools and for those of us who are parents and had kids who are trying to figure out how to do everything online and teachers who are trying to learn how to teach online. But businesses, especially small businesses, were onboarded to digital and having to figure out digital about seven years before they were estimated to have to come fully online and really understand the digital ecosystem. And that meant that sometimes people didn't do a great job, but people responded well to that, right? Because people want to know that the whole thing about overnight success. There's no such thing as an overnight success. And we hear that, and we know that, but that's what we usually see, and that's how people like to portray themselves. So if you're willing to don't think about being authentic, just be authentic, right? Be willing to share the warts and all. Like, what did you do wrong in your business? Or how could you change your approach or what did you go through that lends yourself to be somebody that people in your audience can resonate with when you were struggling with your own brand identity? So to that point, there are things you can do. Thought leadership, that's the thing that people throw around. But share things on LinkedIn that aren't just statistics about your industry, share about why you started the business and how it had a positive impact on you or your family or your friends. And out of that grew this whole ecosystem and business and naha moment. Talk about going through bankruptcy and having to restart and not being proud of it, but also knowing that it's okay. This is something I had to learn. Talk about all of those things, because that's what makes us human. And that, I think, is the differentiator between this whole world of AI. And as we figure out how to appropriately use AI. As a tool and not turn it into a weapon or a placement for that human experience. The personal interactions or the personalization of brand, even if it's not one on one, is what's going to make the difference in this digital world and this AI. World.

Travis Albritton [00:22:25]:

Yeah, I think AI. Is definitely here to stay like the cat's out of the bag. The box has been opened. Pandora's running loose. My take on it is it's very similar to the shift from command line driven computing to user interface or Internet of things and cloud computing. And anytime there's this big technological breakthrough, there's an acceleration in the speed or the velocity of change and innovation, but you still have to have someone pressing the buttons. You still have to know what you're looking for. My favorite post that I've seen about it was somebody who runs a graphic design agency, and they said somebody wondered, is this going to replace graphic designers or web developers? He's like, no, because the only way it could is if the client knew what they wanted. That's the whole reason you hire a design agency, is because you don't know what you want. They know what you need. Right. You're going to them and their expertise. But I want to circle back to the warts element of personal branding that you mentioned, like sharing not just the highs, but also the struggles, because there's definitely, especially on LinkedIn, this appearing to play bigger than you are or putting on a certain persona to make people perceive that you're more influential or run a bigger business or make more money. Because then the idea is that's going to open doors to people taking you seriously. But if you share, like, oh, this is something that I did that totally blew up in my face, or Everything was great, and that I lost two clients and now I have to lay people off. Those kinds of stories aren't as sexy or appealing as a business owner. I even think about that myself. Like, how much do I share of the inside baseball of my company? Because I want prospects coming in to have confidence that I can serve them at a high level. But my company doesn't just grow as a linear chart where every single month makes more money than the month before, right? That'd be great. It just doesn't happen that way. So I'd love for you to speak to that. Like being willing to share vulnerably about things that are going poorly or didn't go the way you expected it to, or just kind of sharing, hey, this is the real life of an entrepreneur or a business that's trying. To figure things out. Doing that to be authentic while not giving reasons for doubt, for prospects coming in that maybe they don't have everything together. Maybe they aren't a trustworthy company or business to partner with, because that's what I'm looking for. I don't want to make this decision more than once. If I'm choosing to work with a company to accomplish something I don't want, six months later, I had to find another one because you couldn't do it. I love to hear your thoughts on that kind of tug of war and the tension between those two ideas.

Anika Jackson [00:25:09]:

That is a good point. I think what's interesting is that when people do post about those warts on LinkedIn, it often leads to a lot of sharing, a lot of discussion, and depending on how they shared it and how they framed it, because you should always frame it as a lesson and talk about the growth, right. Not just, this bad thing happened and I'm a failure. So I do a lot more of those conversations, probably when I'm talking to women entrepreneurs or other people, other PR or comms professionals, or to my students or I was just in a book called Business on Purpose that was an anthology book, and it became an Amazon bestseller in three categories.

Travis Albritton [00:25:50]:

Let's go.

Anika Jackson [00:25:51]:

Yeah. Which is funny, because now that I've gone through it, I'm like, well, it wasn't like we just became an Amazon. We did have to put in work. It wasn't just something where we could push a button. So now going through that process, I'm like, okay, I understand. And it made me a little more emotional. But in that I shared a lot of my story and my journey of going from a career to taking a break to be a stay at home mom and having other businesses that I just did for myself or for fun or for my family. And then getting divorced and having to go back into the workforce and figure what that was going to be like, and then moving back to La. And having a hard time finding a job because I have experience doing so many things. You couldn't just fit me into one little box and going on food stamps and having to just face that reality. Until then, I built up an agency that bloomed during the Pandemic, and I ended up having over ten full time employees with benefits and all of that stuff. Right. So you have to share some of your personal journey. Now, me having gone through that experience doesn't affect the work I'm going to do for you. But it shows who I am as a person and what I'm going to bring to the table in terms of transparency, integrity. Being willing to really try to pull things out of you that are personal, that we can then share, that will make an impact on your business. So that's one way I'd frame it. And then I have honest conversations about being a single mom and how do I manage that with teaching and full time work and all of these other things. So I think you find those connection points with different points with different people in your audience, and then you can build it on it from there.

Travis Albritton [00:27:39]:

Yeah. And these are all things that you are offering up of your own free will. Like, no one's putting a gun to your head and saying, you must talk about this. So just also, if you're listening to this and you're like, man, I need to start talking about my interpersonal relationships. And all my personal struggles. And that's the only way to stand out as a brand. No. Have some good emotional intelligence and good boundaries and speak about those things when you're ready. And I think, for me, that the lesson is sharing more than you might otherwise want to and couching it and framing it as a part of your journey is a great way for people to connect with you. That share similar experiences that are looking for people they can look to, that may be one or two steps ahead of them, or that they had a similar experience and they're past it. And now they can partner and help you with your own growth. And I think the more human we can be and the less robotic and the less polished, I think that creates just so many spontaneous open doors that you otherwise wouldn't have seen open before. Especially if you are in a networking or b two B setting, where who you're connected to and who you know really is the name of the game.

Anika Jackson [00:28:54]:

Yeah, that's true.

Travis Albritton [00:28:55]:

Before we wrap up, I want to hear more about the work that you're doing at full capacity, which is a role that you just started recently as your VP of Operations. I'd love to hear the kind of businesses that you work with and specifically around helping them with their storytelling, because we talk about branding, talk about talking about yourself and what you bring to the table. But what are the elements of a good brand story and how do you work with clients to develop that cohesiveness with their mission and their values and what they want to be known for?

Anika Jackson [00:29:23]:

Apple capacity. I'm VP of operations and also Public Relations. We'd added that to my title.

Travis Albritton [00:29:29]:

Nice. Very nice.

Anika Jackson [00:29:30]:

That's what I was I was bringing. I do that part of the work for all of our clients. And I was like, yeah, journalists are not necessarily going to respond to VP of operations in an email, but PR. Yes, because then they understand, why is this person reaching out to me? Our focus for 21 years as a virtual company has been workforce development and education, and that education. We work with some K through twelve, but we work with a lot of adult basic education, career, technical education, community college systems. So a lot of people who are in that skilled workforce range but might not have everything they need to be successful, whether it's a certification or they need their general education equivalency, their high school equivalency, or English as a second language. So we help our clients figure out how to best reach the audiences that really need their services or their classes. And most of these are free or low cost classes and services for the end user, so they just don't almost know that they exist. Right. So we walk through brand sentiment analysis. We do a lot of psychographic and demographic work for that region. Depending on are we looking at a local organization, a regional consortium, statewide, national, and think about who are the ideal customers, what do we want them to do at the end of this? And then we create customer personas, just like you would for any brand, and we look at what are the through lines for those different personas. So then we can create a tagline for the different campaigns. If we're doing a digital campaign, for instance, for a lot of our clients, we'll create a digital campaign with a specific call to action, whether it's better life or something, with the summertime catching up on your credentials, whatever that might be. And then we launch the campaign and we retarget. For instance, right now we're working with the Chef Anne Foundation. Our lane is that we're helping get people into their pre apprenticeship program for school lunch programs, for scratch cooking. So there's healthier food in schools, in California public schools. We have other people, other teams that are working on other aspects. So maybe they're working on the PR side. They're doing research. They're thinking about the advocacy aspect. But we all have to work together in this ecosystem. So sometimes we do all of that work for a client, and sometimes we just do one piece. And then I've been bringing in the PR side and the brand amplifier program, which is what originally was PR Incubator. And then realized with the shift in my business and the shift in the podcast at the same time, this is really about brand. If you know who you are as a brand, whether it's a personal brand or a business, all of your marketing messages, all of your communication strategies are so much clearer because then you're seeing how they all work together. And that's just something that's more and more important. Because if you're trying to get press, a journalist is going to look at your social media. They're going to look at your website. They're not just going to take my word for it that I'm telling them who they should think that you are. They want to see, does this match up? They want to look and see if you're a product, how many reviews do you have? Are they positive? Are they negative? What are people saying about you on social media before they're necessarily willing to write about you? That's for a product or service, for a person, it's very similar. They want to know that you are who you say you are. So what are your credentials? How are you showing up on different platforms? And that's why the power of doing podcasts, doing even small press outlets, online publications, that helps build up your brand reputation, your SEO. So that's a lot of how we start from the PR side of things. A lot of times I'll take the approach like, you just had a child. They're going to learn to crawl before they learn to walk, before they learn to run. Typically, that's usually how we need to approach PR so that we get somebody comfortable speaking, we get them comfortable with their messaging, and then we can approach bigger and bigger publications and media outlets as they've been sharing their message. And we can show, yes, they did a TEDx Talk or they were on QVC, or they have a petition on change for their issue, which is why they started their company. That's a product. But they're going to talk about this other aspect of being a mom on a mission for school safety or what have. Yeah. So we approach it very similarly, figure out what they really need, and then that's how we create the stories. What are the most compelling stories if you are a school? What are the differentiators like in California, the CSU system has a tuition increase. Maybe a community college is a better option for you. How can I sell that story? What successes do you have? What are the program things that what could we pull out that's qualitative and quantitative? So pulling the heartstrings, getting the emotional stories from previous students and success stories, but then also getting the hard data. See, I kind of have to have a little bit of both to be the most successful. I hope that answered your question. That wasn't too much of a tangent.

Travis Albritton [00:34:51]:

No, that was a lot. So I think the moral of the story is there's a lot more to branding than just a slogan and some colors. So if somebody's listening and they want to learn more about the Brand Amplifier program that you guys offer, and then also shameless plug for your podcast, where's the best place for people to go and listen to that?

Anika Jackson [00:35:08]:

You can go to Fullcapacitymarketing.com and find everything right there. You'll find my podcast. You can click through, you can listen to it. It'll direct you to whatever streaming platform you want to listen to. It's also on Traverse TV Now, which is a streaming platform. Or you can watch it on YouTube if you prefer to watch it there. You can also click through to Brand Amplifier, the program, and learn all about that. We have one that's for entrepreneurs and small businesses, another one that's for workforce and education, which has slightly different needs. And you can also there's a Contact US page, so everything is right there. And then on my Socials, I'm amplify with Annika Anika and I post about the podcast and all the other stuff that I'm doing.

Travis Albritton [00:35:51]:

Fantastic. And we'll link all that in the show notes for easy clicking and navigation. Annika, thank you so much for your time and your expertise. I had a lot of fun chatting with you today.

Anika Jackson [00:36:00]:

Likewise. Thank you for having me.

Travis Albritton [00:36:02]:

So my number one takeaway from my conversation with Annika was to not be afraid to share lessons that you've learned, even if they aren't in the most flattering light. I think there's always this temptation as businesses to want to put our best foot forward, always be showing the best version of the best side of ourselves, to inspire that confidence that we are a worthy brand, a worthy company to work with, that you as a prospect, don't have to worry about anything. But there is value in sharing the things that maybe didn't go according to plan or the things that went sideways on you that you weren't expecting to in the framing of the things that you learned and how it's helping you to grow. Because people definitely do appreciate honesty, authenticity, quote unquote. That buzword when it comes to branding, and they resonate and are attracted to the brands and companies that are willing to talk about the reality of what it's like to do business in the 21st century. And so as long as the moral of the story is not, man, I don't know what to do, I'm at a loss, we're going under, everything's falling apart. As long as that's not the moral of the story. And the moral of the story is, these are the things that I've learned or that we have learned as a brand, as a company that are going to help us move forward to be even better in the future. Those are the kinds of stories that resonate, that can really attract people to your brand, over your competitors. Now, definitely make sure to check out Annika's podcast, your Brand amplified. You can find it on every platform that you listen to this podcast on. Definitely go and check out the episode that I did with her, talked all about branding and podcasting and the things that are working right now. So I think you'll really enjoy that episode. But I hope you found this one helpful and inspiring and practical. Until next time, be honest.