The Umbrella of Credibility
This podcast audio served as the source for the blog post “How Content Marketing Gives You an Umbrella of Credibility.”
The transcript was rewritten to produce the blog post, which is the cornerstone of the Shortcut Content system.
Transcript:
Shayla: Thanks for joining us today for the Shortcut Content Podcast. I’m talking today with founder and CEO Dave Young. And, Dave, I’m just going to throw it out there for you, you brought up the “umbrella of credibility” so I’m really interested to know what you think that is.
Dave: Doesn’t that sound cool? I’m pretty sure that’s a phrase I made up: the umbrella of credibility.
Shayla: It sounds important though.
Dave: Doesn’t it? The way I picture it as a metaphor is that everybody has areas of expertise that they want to be known for and it’s pretty easy if you’re Neil deGrasse Tyson, you’re umbrella of credibility is, hey, you’re an astrophysicist and you’ve got a TV show. And you inherited the spot vacated by Carl Sagan years ago, when he passed away, because he had the same TV show, and he wrote books, and so he had all this content and he had this umbrella of credibility. He wasn’t just some scientist, he was that guy. I mean, he was the famous scientist. So that umbrella of credibility starts with creating content. If you want to become known for something, then you write. In academia, most of the professors that become famous in their own little sphere of influence, it’s because of the papers that they’ve written and the research that they’ve done and the thinking that they do.
The proof of all of those thing is in their writing. I maintain that there is a place for a rockstar in any academic field. And the proof of that are people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, and it’s because he creates content that he’s become the astrophysicist that we all think of. If somebody said, “Name an astronomer or an astrophysicist,” he’s the guy you’d think of, because he’s the one that everybody talks about the most. And the reason everyone talks about him the most is because he’s in front of us all the time with the content that he creates.
But if I asked you, “Who is the rockstar in the world of geology?” can you name a geologist?
Shayla: I personally can’t, but I knew you were going to put me on the spot!
Dave: Well, I’d put anybody on the spot and the reason we can’t name a geologist is because there’s not one that’s out there creating things that are accessible to the average person that want to understand a little bit more about the world around them. And they’re just not creating things and talking about things in a way that gets anyone’s attention.
My daughter’s a geology major and she told me there’s a university in China that has 5,000 students all studying geology. Yeah, an entire university doing high-level work, all doing geology. But you can’t name a geologist rockstar, and neither can I, because there isn’t one of these people that’s out creating content and doing it in a way that’s entertaining and interesting to the average person.
Here’s one that’s easy. Can you name a famous doctor? And I’ll tell you why, if one comes to mind, it’s because he’s on TV. Right? Dr. Oz. There’s a handful. I’m talking about a medical doctor, but anything like that. Can you name the top fill in the blank? It doesn’t matter what it is. The only ones that the average person can name are the ones that are creating content. And if they’re creating content, whether it’s writing a popular book, or being interviewed all the time on the radio, or even creating a blog or website that has good advice on it, they’re building their umbrella of credibility.
If you’re in a crowd and you’re the only one carrying an umbrella, who do you see? We’re looking at you, because you’ve got that big umbrella of credibility, and nobody else has it.
Shayla: Especially if it’s a bright, sunny day.
Dave: Exactly. But it’s a way to pick you out of a crowd, so there’s my thinking behind the term umbrella of credibility.
Shayla: So if someone wants to get a little bit deeper into that thinking and really figure how to start kind of carrying their own and making a mark for themselves in their field, what do they do?
Dave: We can help. ShortcutContent.com will help you get started creating your content. And we do it in a super easy way- we just pull the words right out of your mouth in a conversation, an audio conversation, and we then take those words and rewrite them for written content, we can edit them for podcast content, but what we want to do is get the ideas out of your head and massaged into a format that makes them accessible for people, makes it easy to understand and gives you a little bit more visibility than you have without creating any content.
Shayla: If you have any questions, Dave is there for you. Thanks, Dave.
Dave: Thank you.