(Brooke Ihnat)
This week’s interviews were conducted with a Communications Manager and a Social Media Communication Manager in Chanele McFarland and Brooke Ihnat. The guests featured this week had me intrigued by their professions, while still in the realm of communications, their jobs were not as analytical as some of the guests featured prior. While watching interviews with communications experts Chanele McFarland and Brooke Ihnat, I was enamored and intrigued by their insights into the evolving landscape of content strategy and audience engagement. Compared to our other guests prior, Chanele and Brook were a lot more focused on content strategy and audience engagement and using this to grow an audience, whereas the others focused on watching your Analytics and data and using this to grow your audience. While both concepts are important and need to be used in balance to grow a career, a fresh perspective from a professional in the industry is always refreshing. Chanele’s career shift from law to communications highlights the unexpected paths that can unfold when we follow our desires. Although I’ve never wanted to be a lawyer in my life, my family growing up always claimed that “I love to argue” and said that I should be a lawyer because of this, but as we see by the writing of this article I choose otherwise. However, to hear from someone who went down that alternative life path for me was very interesting.
As stated before, I enjoyed her emphasis on the importance of content consistency, leveraging AI tools to aid in the creative process, and engaging with your audiences directly to refine target segments and build loyalty. Meanwhile, Brooke who is now a Social Media Manager at American Express, focuses on platform-specific content strategies rather than generalization across platforms, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.
One of the most impactful takeaways from these discussions that is consistent amongst all of them is the value they place on understanding and connecting with audiences. The interviews prior gave the approach of analyzing the data to see what connects with the audience the most and make more of that content, while Chanele and Brooke suggest the strategic use of AI tools and the use of user-generated content to build trust as well as community engagement demonstrates how these tactics can strengthen brand loyalty. Both professionals strongly advocate for continuous learning and staying informed about industry trends—like the resurgence of long-form content—which will keep content creators ahead of the curve.