Chris Norton: 1:57

You pour your heart into a new conference, lean into a superhero theme with capes, masks, and merch, and the room loves it. Then you get home, open Twitter, and a small group tears into you for wasting money on childish swag, to almost letting a handful of critics scare him off a hashtag that would later unite thousands of cons people. Today's guest is Atif Choudry, chartered marketeer and founder of ComTero, who has spent more than a decade running events for cons and marketing professionals while leading integrated agency resource. Local to me, by the way. In this episode, you'll learn how to treat a community as a long-term commitment rather than a short-term campaign. So let's get into it. Here's the show. Enjoy. Right, well, welcome to the show, Asif Choudry. Thank you very much.

Asif Choudry: 2:50

You have Asif Chowdh. Perfect, perfect pronunciation. You might have gone on to LinkedIn and clicked that little speaker button that's. Oh no, I don't do that. Tells you about pronunciation of people's names. Yes, there you go.

Chris Norton: 2:59

Just before you um our producer walked in, um Asif and I were talking about the fact that you actually know my wife, don't you? Professionally. So weird, professionally, yeah, yeah. Um you met her years and years ago, and she's when she was into um sales and new business, and now she's into now she does biophilic garden design, which is well, biophilic design in schools and and and sort of NHS and stuff, which is a very heartwarming thing. And talking of heartwarming things, right, the reason why I had to get you on the show is we we've we tried to get connected about I say connected, it's like we live in the same bloody, well, in the same region, and we've tried to get together um a number of times and it hasn't worked out. So I wanted to get you in to talk about Com's Hero and what it's all about and how you've built I mean, you've built a massive community online, like 15,000 people. You've you're holding these big conferences. Um you had one a couple of weeks ago, I said you think mid-October, yeah.

Asif Chowdhury: 3:55

So 250 people there in Manchester.

Chris Norton: 3:57

Yeah, so how did it come about? Because I I seem to remember Comms Hero. I've been on Twitter since the beginning of time when the dinosaurs were around. Me and Elon were the only ones on there. And um yeah, Comms Hero was a hashtag, right? So how how did it break into something else?

Asif Choudry: 4:13

I'd I've been going to as a marketer, but also serving comms people, the the company that I represent resource. We we work with marketing and comms professionals. And um a sales point of view, I go to conferences where these comms professionals go to learn stuff and to connect. Um and knowing comms people as I do, they're very creative individuals, but they're quite introverted. So putting them in networking spaces is you need to con cajole them along. So after a number of years going to events, I was just at one and I said, Look, these events are just they we've got like 300 people who've come from all over the country. All these events are always in London, and they're usually four or five hundred quid a pop. Um so you're either if you're up north like most of the comms people that I know, um, because not everybody who works in comms and marketing is based in London. Hello, London. Yes, absolutely.

Chris Norton: 5:08

Because quite a lot of our listeners were in uh Alter Mongolia last week, but um with 45th in Outer Mongolia, thanks. Shout out to the Auter Mongolia massive. But also um in London, we've uh yeah, we we've had quite a lot of listeners in London. So don't ostracize them.

Asif Choudry: 5:21

No, not at all. Not at all. But I wanted to actually say, okay, what can we do events have to be done like this for the audience of comms and marketing professionals who are creative by nature but introverted in most instances? So how can we help them to network? How can we help them have content that is just a bit more real? Because I'd gone to events where you had speakers where they might have had a marketing team of a hundred people and a multi-million pound budget, but we were in events that were catering for people like the whole house social housing sector. They don't have hundreds of people in their team, they don't have multi-million pound budgets, they have reducing budgets and reducing headcount. So the actual content they would want to walk away if I was in their shoes was how can I do something in my job tomorrow with what I've learned today. Um just the whole vibe, the energy of the events, it was um uh speakers butting up against each other timing-wise, the first one overruns, second one overruns, and then they either have to cut sessions short. So the whole delegate experience for me just wasn't as good as it should be. And having done events somewhat have you as well, um, we thought, well, look, can we just show and prove there can be a marketing event done outside of London? And does it have to be 500 quid? So we did the first one uh in Manchester on the 13th of May 2014. Um, and the kind of real moment, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. We said, look, it started off just at a one-off event, not a community. Back then, 11 years ago, uh tribe was probably the word that was used rather than community, and um that was the go-to word. So we didn't set out to to build a community, it was just genuinely let's try and do something, an event for comms people that's different, helps them to become more creative, and let's just not do it in London. That's all. Um, and let's see if we can get speakers who are actually doing the job for a living. And I remember speaking to um, I thought uh I need to try and get a really big keynote speaker that hasn't really done the circuit of comms and marketing people, but maybe is a really good marketing speaker. So Grant Lieboff was our keynote speaker, and at the time, sticky marketing, stickier marketing was Amazon bestsellers, and I remember speaking to Grant, uh, he phoned me on the way back from a site visit to Bridgewater Hall, which is where we host hosted the first the first event, uh, and he was really up for it, and I thought, wow, we might have something. But then I realized that when I put the Save the Date out, we had eight weeks to come up with a brand, to actually come up with the speakers. All I had was a date and a venue.

Chris Norton: 8:08

I mean, I mean, six to eight weeks to produce an entire conference. You are mental.

Asif Choudry: 8:16

I I I kind of found that out as it went on.

Chris Norton: 8:20

Welcome to marketing mistakes embracing marketing mistakes there. And what how was that? How was the pressure?

Asif Choudry: 8:26

It it was it was enjoyable to be honest with you, because you know, as a you'll know yourself when you're working with clients on their brands, you very rarely get the chance to work on something of your own, your own company's brand. So we had to come up with a name. And I remember our head of creative at the time, we were on a on the train down south somewhere on a client meeting, so we had three hours. By the time we'd got there, we'd come up with a name. By the time we got back, we'd register the domain, the Twitter handle, and we said, right, it it started now, so we put the save the day out, then I put it on. So if it was on Twitter at the time, it was real. So we'd committed and we were accountable, and then I thought, right, how on earth do we do this? But we've just always had that spirit where we've we've achieved some ridiculous projects for people all the time. So we said, Well, let's let's do it. The worst that will happen is that we will just invite a number of people and it will just wipe out. Was it free? No, no, no, it wasn't. So we would we would have yeah, we would it was 150 pounds per person. So we had eighty-five people attend the first one. Um whilst we were coming up with the speakers, the agenda, and the first event, so we were about four or five weeks in. I had a contact, uh, a call from uh somebody who was running the CIPR network for North Wales, and they were hosting, or Wales in total, actually. It just so happened they were hosting their get together of their network in June that year. And they said, Oh, will you we've heard this thing about Coms here, will you bring it to Wales? I said, Yeah, bearing in mind I did and I but I was transparent. I said, Look, I I don't genuinely know what it is yet, but it's a conference and we'll get speakers, and so I'd already committed to a second event. So in the end in the first year, we'd done four. Uh 13th of May to 17th of June.

Chris Norton: 10:24

The four weeks.

Asif Chowdhury: 10:25

And then we committed to two in October, which was Bristol and London. Right. And ironically, London was the hardest one to fill. Because they have so many conferences, right? Yeah, absolutely. But we tried to do different stuff. In Bristol and London, we had um uh event spaces that were uh social enterprises, so the money was going back into the local community, which was a really nice thing to do because we didn't have the pressure of we've got to make money, we've got to put X amount of bums on seats. We just needed to break even, hopefully. Worst case scenario, then resource, our own marketing budget would have funded it because we were really committed to doing it, and I think that was the key thing for us. And that's genuinely where it all started. And and in between, without Twitter, we wouldn't have been able to do anything because we didn't do any SEO, PPC, nothing, no paid advertising. This was just real word of mouth, speaking to people, promoting it on social.

Chris Norton: 11:24

Tweet ups.

Asif Choudry: 11:25

That's pretty much what we were doing. So that's where the hashtag came from, and and and it just the first event was phenomenal in terms of we had 85 people, the energy and vibe that we created, and we had people, you know, it was a very superhero theme, actual capes and masks, and people were putting these on, and I was stood there thinking, wow, people were just literally letting themselves go.

Chris Norton: 11:50

Do you think do you feel you're the superhero of marketing then? Not at all. Not at all. Because that was that was the mistake you put down. You said you you said that with the brand, you like like many marketing people listening to this, like sometimes you go all in on a brand, and you felt that this is one of the mistakes that you had is that you embraced the um superhero just a little bit too much. So what happened there then?

Asif Choudry: 12:12

So it was the the one of the designers at the time, he was very much into Marvel and pop art, that you know, power whack, smash type thing. And we literally took that lock, stock, and barrel as the whole theme, so the creative content, and I just went with it to be honest with you. I'm not even a I'm I'm not a Marvel fan. I don't go to Comic Con or whatever it is, you know. I don't uh it's not my thing. Um but it it worked.

Chris Norton: 12:41

Um took a free ticket there, right?

Asif Choudry: 12:43

Absolutely.

Chris Norton: 12:44

Yeah.

Asif Choudry: 12:45

So it was it it was brilliant, and we just let that go, and it it uh and when I look back, it may have been seen it it captured everything that was heroic and superhero, but it's probably too superhero theme rather than celebrating the heroics that comms people perform every day, which is the mantra for the community and why we set it up. And it just kind of went too far that way, but you you don't realise until um afterwards and you reflect and you want to refresh the brand and you look at it now 11 years on, and it's like a a proper brand and it's more grown up. Yeah, and so it did what it did, and it and it it kind of made people strangely, and I was very surprised. You know, you had directors through to junior marketers, um, heads of comms putting on capes and masks and twirling round and stuff, and and I was like, wow. But they just the vibe we wanted to create, we just created it. So it was a first thing in the first year we'd done four events and lots of engagement on social and we sent people um printed tickets where I, you know, I hand wrote a note to everybody who bought a ticket.

Chris Norton: 13:56

That's all right when you've got 85 people going, but when you've got 15,000 people. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Asif Choudry: 14:01

I wouldn't recommend it. But what you what I found out was that, you know, maybe when you were at school you would get writers cramp after a couple of pages. Now you get it after a couple of lines now because we don't handwrite anymore. But it was really nice because what happened? People received this printed ticket uh in the world of digital where Eventbrite was sending automatic tickets. We used Eventbrite as the ticket platform, but we wanted to send a printed ticket working for a company that has print at its heart. Um it was just to give that connection what I found that people received the ticket, and they actually took a picture of it and posted it on Twitter. And I went, Wow, I'd not experienced that before. Um so it brought things into a digital medium from something physical. I mean, when was the last time you saw anyone send or take a picture of an email they've received or an internet bulletin? It just doesn't happen. So we've we kind of had something here. Um the stuff that we know about print, it just started coming to life because we've done that for clients all the time, but never for something for ourselves. So it changed the way we marketed as well at the same time.

Chris Norton: 15:10

So do you have sponsors for the events?

Asif Choudry: 15:12

No, we have had um uh we have had on occasion, but we wanted to do it without sponsors because what what we didn't want to do with an event, and this is no disrespect to anyone doing events, it's just you get a sponsor, you've got to give them a you've got to give them something. I I totally understand and I get that. But that was going to compromise potentially the quality. The quality and the integrity of the event. Because we wanted to not ask people to uh please go and see the sponsors because they've got stands and they've got leads to generate and so on and so forth. Because we said no, there is the only thing you'll be buying from the ComZero community is knowledge and relationships. That's it. You uh won't need to be uh buying any software, you're doing this anyway. So we stayed true to that all the way through. And anytime we've had sponsors, it's helped just keep the ticket prices down as event costs increased over the years because we did 150 quid including VAT for probably uh nine of the years to eight of the years, and the last three years have been 195 quid because post-COVID um all the costs for venues increased dramatically. So we don't need to make money from it, it's not about putting bums on seats, it is literally just putting an event on that is purely for the event. So the sponsors we've we've not done, we've had them on occasion, and it just helps to absorb some of the costs. But anyone who's asked to sponsor, I'm quite clear with them to say, look, you can bring a stand, but uh please don't I'm not gonna force people to if they you know during the breaks and stuff. And if that's not your thing, then that's fine. Uh and and it's kind of worse. So we've had more without sponsors than we have with.

Chris Norton: 17:01

So what how much of your time do you spend doing that now?

Asif Choudry: 17:05

It would seem because it's a a labour of love. It's not actual distraction, it's now part of the day job, but it has been for eleven years, to be honest with you. Building the community, we've had some of our biggest clients have come from the ComZero Network where because we're doing we genuinely did do it as a force for good. So it became a marketing campaign that we've just run with the same hashtag for 11 years. So I'm glad we didn't do ComZero 14, 15, 16. Because we've we've retained the same hashtag.

Chris Norton: 17:36

There's so many people out there that will be going, yeah, we've done that. Like I I go to events every year or speak at some stuff, and the the hashtag changes every year. And you're right, if it doesn't, if you don't change the date, then you would be much more powerful, I would imagine.

Asif Choudry: 17:49

So we've kept that all the way through, and um being that force for good was really that was a genuine, genuine desire as a force for good, but it's become a marketing campaign, so I'm talking to customers, talking to people who we'd like to do business with, but also we've created an huge ambassador network for people who've never spent a penny with resource. And they will never spend a penny, but they've become real good influencers and um evangelists for our brand.

Chris Norton: 18:17

So it's but but you're a you're a sales, this is what you you're for you've got a sales background, right? Yeah, yeah. So you so are you so I can understand that. What is it because you you're local to me as well. So like you're only done what we're we're probably you're probably like five miles from here. Yeah, yeah. And I've never ever come across I've never come across you before Com's Hero and stuff like that. So what is it that resource do? What do resource do? And explain that.

Asif Choudry: 18:42

So we we're a kind of communications agency, I'd say. Okay. And so we do full service creative strategy, creative design artwork for for digital and print. The difference is that we've got production, we have print and mailing um in-house. So we do stuff we could, you know, and we send over six million transactional letter mailings for for clients through the year. Right. But at the same time, we could be doing um a whole behaviour change campaign uh to get encourage people to um use more sustainable modes of transport. So it's quite unique in that respect because we can do strategic creative, but then we can do a transactional mailing that doesn't touch design. Okay. Um to the extent. So it's a very unique model, but we've always had print.

Chris Norton: 19:32

But do people hire you as like so so obviously we're a PR agent. So we get hired to raise awareness of something or make some sort of impact on something. But do people come to you as if like they're in-house and they just go, I need a load of stuff print for print? They just come to you and get in you guys delivering the like a like a DM type thing.

Asif Choudry: 19:53

Absolutely. So we'll do direct mail. So we've got customers who are print-only, we've got some that are creative only, and some that enjoy the unique blend of what we do, which is both, because they're understanding I think our unique position.

Chris Norton: 20:07

Do you work with agencies as well then?

Asif Choudry: 20:09

Uh not many agencies, because we're kind of pretty much end user, and that's been an intentional strategy that when we're doing creative for a print project, we're always thinking about the production bit. Because we live in that world, we come up with creative that is actually gonna be feasible to deliver. Um and it the a a great case in point is things like um when you're doing a direct mail piece, as a creative, you won't necessarily be thinking about keeping this under 100 gram because Royal Mail increased postage costs year on year. And we've had specs that we've had come into us from agencies that because they're not party to the production bit, that might be 105 grams. And reducing the paperweight wouldn't have affected the actual aesthetics or the impact of the direct mail itself, but it would have saved about 25% on postage costs for the sake of five grams. Now, as a creative, you wouldn't think about that, and I wouldn't expect a creative to think about that, but it's something that absolutely needs to be thought about. So that's where our unique position comes in on subjects like that, really.

Chris Norton: 21:21

It's just interesting though, because like Coms Hero makes me think of PR people.

Asif Choudry: 21:25

Yeah.

Chris Norton: 21:25

Like I thought you were a PR person until I properly research, you know, because I've you've been in it for that long. But you but you've done a CIM and everything.

Asif Choudry: 21:35

So marketing is my thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because um I wanted to uh I started off as a undergraduate scheme that was sales and I was selling print, uh, basic design at the time, so that was 30 years ago now. But the um uh I knew a lot of my people were um customers. Were marketing people and comms people. So I I took a CIM qualification, became a chart and marketer years later, and then a fellow of the CIM. And because I do genuinely love marketing and it's what we actually do for our customers. So it's kind of important. I understand the world they live in. But I've also enjoyed marketing. And it's not really sales nowadays, it's kind of it's never really been like that because we've got organic relationships and the Comms Hero brand itself. What it's helped us to do is to be seen because people can associate with that brand and what it stands for rather than the resource has got a fantastic reputation in various sectors. Um but just like any company name, you don't well not Apple. You don't gravitate towards a company name, you gravitate toward what the brand stands for, what the logo stands for, and that's the fundamental principles of marketing. So with ComZero, it became a tangible thing. So I've integrated that into my day job, um, and uh it's just part of what resource does. So it's like an 11-year marketing campaign that we keep running because it delivers business, just like any marketing campaign. If it doesn't deliver, then we can't viably keep doing it. Because some somebody has to pay for the time that we send out swag. We've never we've had so many requests over the years to can I buy some personalised notepads for my team? Can I buy some of your hoodies? And we said no, nothing is for sale because you cannot buy any of the ComTero merch. Right. Um and it it'll continue to be that way because we're not interested in making thousands of pounds selling hoodies. Um and they've remained highly coveted, and that that FOMO is quite interesting to watch, to be honest with you. Interesting, interesting, interesting. Um, just to take you back to the the the superhero mistake there, you you but you so you you have you've had the positive side of of Twitter, and then you've had the the Elon Musk side of Twitter as well. So what so what happened with the with the superhero theme that went wrong then? Yeah, it was it was interesting because I'd I'd just like many people in the day in those early days of Twitter, so this is 2014 we're talking about, and um everybody was really nice, and it was like I classed it as like the Facebook for business, and um I wasn't on Facebook and I'm not on Facebook, but this was I was having conversations with CEOs that about running and running shoes and things that I would never in a million years have been able to talk to them about. So it was a a really friendly place talking to customers and prospects about X Factor on a Saturday night, and then having some deeper connection with them, which from a sales point of view it takes years to build that kind of level of knowledge because people were just now um freely and with their own permissions just being human. So I found I really enjoyed that part of doing business with people uh and being on Twitter for that reason. And after that first event we had the superhero theme and some of the stuff that we had in there, you know. I went uh I can't remember, it might have been home bargains or something. I I bought like superhero pencils and 'cause we had to give a pencil or a pen and what have you. And they were these little like I think they were designed for children to be honest with you. And I put them in the swag bag and they were all bang on theme, they were bang on the creative. Uh and then somebody uh commented afterwards saying, Oh, it was just you know, we went to this event and there were capes and masks and the stuff that most of the 80-odd people enjoyed. And then saying, Oh, there was loads of this tat and stuff like that, and uh what do we pay for? All that tat didn't actually make up the budget because resource took the hit of that. And um my first it was the first time I'd had any negative feedback on social media. Uh so that stopped me in my tracks to be honest with and I did genuinely that that turned into somebody else jumping on that bandwagon and someone else. I mean it didn't it didn't go viral or anything, ultimately it was six people. Pylon? Yeah, but it felt like sixty thousand people, and I thought, oh god, I um this is not nice. I'm gonna leave Twitter and and I spoke to a couple of CEOs that I knew who are in um who were in the social housing space and on Twitter actively, and I thought, well, I've spoken to them before about them being accessible and they get trolled every day. So I thought, well, let's let me actually speak to them. And they gave me some really sound advice, which was look, um, just the best thing is to ignore it and don't get involved and try and justify yourself, but also if you're getting trolled, then you're visible and you can't be visible just to the best people, you have to be visible to everyone. And I went, actually, I'll take that as a compliment. And that I'm glad I took that advice, but it was definitely everything felt like a mistake, and that could have stopped this community ever 11 years on, stopped it dead in its tracks.

Chris Norton: 28:25

I mean, I've been trolled. We get trolled like with the this podcast, is uh I'm gonna plug it out here. We're on the on our YouTube channel, Embracing Marketing Mistakes on YouTube, and um I we did a video, I can't remember what I did a video. I mean, obviously, with loads of video bits, right? And um I was talking to camera about something, and someone put in the comments my marketing manager flagged it to me because I hadn't seen it, and she was like, I don't know, I think I saw it and I said, Oh, have you seen did you see this comment? How come he didn't tell me it was a couple of weeks late? And she was like, Oh, I I didn't think it was very nice. And it said, Uh, if he's got such a successful agency, why does he why is that why is he wearing that shrapnel? And then people just saying like horrible things, you're like, and and and and she was like, Does that upset you? Are you upset? And I was like, No, I don't care. Like, I just I really don't care. Like, there's people out there that you've got to you've got to think to yourself, the people out there like you've got your own people, right? The people you know. I care about the people that I know and that I value their opinion. The people that you don't know who are out there to because people out there who are not getting the the the um the love, they don't feel the love, right? And the only way they can get some sort of credible engagement sometimes is by saying something really either really funny, which actually I actually laughed at the shirt comments, so fair play to you on YouTube, whoever said that. Um, but the um I didn't I don't know if I wore the shirt again, I'll have to let you know. Um I I do think that yeah, you you can't take this stuff too seriously, they're all keyboard warriors. But I do know that when I've seen some people get cancelled or whatever, where you see people just get jumped on pile. Yeah, having I could see if it can't if it was something that was really embarrassing or whatever, that that could be that could be quite horrible. And there's been quite a few that but then often on Twitter back in the day, yeah, I'd see I'd see I used to work with a guy called Jed Hallan, and back to the London reference, he wrote a blog post, right? I worked with him, I I'd worked with him, I actually hired Jed Hallam, he's like uh one of the he works he works for quite some of the big agencies in London, he worked for MindShare and stuff. Anyway, uh um he wrote something on his um he wrote a blog post, it was a really articulate blog post about how London-centric the UK is, right? London takes all the glory, and just like what you were saying about marketing events, and he was he wrote this post, and I knew what he was trying to say, which is basically there's also some talent up in the north as well. Absolutely. Don't don't turn down Manchester, Newcastle, and all these other places Leeds from where we are. Um, but he'd written it in quite a cocky, provocative and oh my god, Twitter, it must have been 2016 or something like that. They the whole they just piled on him, like, and I I felt sorry for him, so I stuck up for him a little bit. But you saw like you saw the pylon, and then a couple of days passed, he didn't tweet for a couple of weeks, which was only that was when you used to tweet all day when people would be doing like so. I've seen it from every angle, and it the truth is value the people I think value the people.

Asif Choudry: 31:22

I think that's what it taught me, and I and and we had we have had a couple of further instances. We had somebody who took the hashtag and I had a a bit of a vendetta against one particular comms professional in our community, and um excuse me, so he'd he'd actually created a hashtag com0 Z.

Chris Norton: 31:45

Okay.

Asif Choudry: 31:45

Uh saying the community doesn't um provide any value, and and I'm thinking, I don't even know who you are, it's you know, by association, um and but it was one person, it was literally just one person. So we've had uh stuff like that before, and then uh more latterly there was there's one um person, and that's kind of happening at the moment over the last year or so that because that there's a uh a very senior comms professional who is being targeted by a troll. And um he'd actually he's tagging in comms hero into his posts, which I see and I'm thinking it's it's two separate things. Please leave us alone. And you just have to ignore it, and you do realize that it it is sometimes to somebody who's not necessarily uh confident in themselves, it would it would it would make you it would crush you and it would make you stop in tracks and it would it made me stop posting for it probably was two or three days, but it felt like two or three years, you know, because like you say, you could you could post uh ten, fifteen times a day if you wanted. It was there wasn't any um limits to what you should do, and there wasn't any uh guide book or any best practice or good practice saying you you should only do one tweet a week, like like it happens on LinkedIn now, you know, three or five posts a week and that kind of stuff. So people were just having conversations and engaging with people. So it was a big deal, and I can't I I you you do feel for a lot of people who who get who are just doing their job representing an organization and they get trolled. So there was a huge learning uh piece out of that. And I did a couple of speaking sessions where uh especially in social housing, a lot of the comms people because they uh they're not they're putting the messages out for the organization, but they're the ones that are getting trolled, so they were on Twitter and people can it's easy to find out who's doing what job and and I thought that bit was a bit it's unfair, but if you're uh if you're in this world now, you you're you're kind of publicly accessible, so you've got to take it on the chin sometimes, you know, you can't hide away.

Chris Norton: 34:04

Yeah, I mean it's yeah yeah, I mean it's the the one thing that I had hoped I'd hoped Elon would have sorted out with Twitter before he turned it into whatever it is now, X, um, is he would have like the the fact that Twitter because apparently if you've heard his take on it, because it's quite interesting as a PR person, you I speak to like marketing people about Twitter and they I get asked quite a lot, are you still on Twitter? Do you what do you do with it? Do you should you should we use it for the brand? And if you listen to how it's been positioned, um the left took Twitter and as as the government in America went left, that Twitter moved to the left. And um uh there was a few things that Elon's talked about, supposedly, allegedly went to the left. And Elon says that he noticed a few things that were happening in the elections to do with it it was sort of being screened on how Twitter was being used. And Twitter was the national that of US narrative, and it created the narrative here as well. And uh, but apparently the um uh allegedly Secret Services were as Elon's been talking about it, but has um were had some control over it, over what was going on Twitter. And they they the whole of social media, so Facebook, you know, Meta basically, um, allegedly uh were put were pulled over to the left. And um that's why Elon says he bought Twitter to pull it not to the right but to the middle. Now, personally, I'm not sure I agree with that because I think it went far, far too he got rid of all the um all the sort of safeguarding and it stopped exactly the terrible stuff that you're talking about. Like the trolling is awful. Yeah, the trolling's awful, the under 16 content, the stuff that's like about suicide, all that sort of stuff. That is the stuff, the awful side of social media that we none of us Which I didn't used to see in the back in the day, to be honest with you.

Asif Choudry: 35:53

Back in the early days from 2013 when I first went went on it. Um I never used to see that. No. So it was a good place where you were just having just the conversations you would be talking about professional, personal stuff, um and just engaging with people, which was which was really good. Opinions weren't so forthright at that particular point. So it has changed. I mean, I've still got my uh my account, I still call it Twitter. Yeah. But I don't I don't post uh I haven't posted for a while on for a long time now, to be honest with you. And that was the promotional channel for Comms Hero. But as soon as you you've got to go where your audience is, right? You know, you have to. Yeah, yeah. And our audience started to navigate away from that space. So it made a natural uh it was a natural kind of transition to move away from it. But then, you know, we had oh, we must get on um uh blue sky and threads and it was the um I can't remember the other one. Master DOM. MasterDot was it. I created a couple of it sounds like a big uh dinosaur, doesn't it? So here comes the MasterDon. You know, we all created accounts for every single one of them and not used them at all. And I remember I had uh on the Commsero podcast, funnily enough, I had when Threads came out, I had Matt Navarro on to say, oh, Twitter versus Threads, come on tell us because you're the guy who knows. Well he's stepped away, hasn't he, from Twitter, yeah. Absolutely. Um for some big personal reasons and what have you. And I think that that that magpie effect, that shiny new toy, that's what I've seen with social over the years. But um what's behind that as an individual? Well, we've seen so many, I don't even know what people use anymore. Uh and every one of them's been the demise of Twitter. But now I I don't even know what goes on on there now, to be honest with you.

Chris Norton: 37:41

Well, it's it's well, I was a client asked me about it the other day, and then supposedly in America it's so he so like I say, he says he's pulled it into the mid back into the middle. This is what Elon's saying. Yeah. I mean, you can debate this because I've I've talked with clients about it, but he says he's pulled it back into the middle. But I think there's not enough safeguard, there's not enough guardrails on it at the moment. And he he's all about freedom of speech, but but then you give the power to the troll. Power to the troll, there's your soundbite. Um we don't want power to the troll. I d I don't like trolls. If we can get rid of trolls, but the the thing is, what the genuine question here at Asif is can you have proper debate online if you don't have both sides of the argument? Which is what he's on about. So I don't I don't believe you can. Because he says blue sky, that's what that is. It's one-sided, and that's why there's there's hardly any debate.

Asif Choudry: 38:31

So I think that the the there is that there's definitely the echo chamber um effect that started to build. Just because I I think that was a natural consequence of the because different tribes and communities were being formed through just just organically on Twitter, because you uh starting to have groups and threads that would come up, people would tag others in, like-minded people. But it's a dangerous place to be if you're in a room where everybody's nodding in agreement, because how do you get balance and how do you get any kind of uh constructive feedback on what you're doing? I think that's that's critical in any part of any walk of life, to be honest with you, because you can be walking around oblivious to oh, we're doing everything perfectly until you find out you're not. Um and that's what makes you check yourself, and that there's nothing wrong with that. I think that humility is humility is a good thing. Um and you can social media does it is one of those areas which you can get wrapped up in your own PR, definitely. Uh, and it can have a tendency to have an element of you know, maybe take a bring that narcissist out in most people because you're in this uh environment that everybody's agreeing to everything you're saying, so you think no, I must be right, I must be right. So I think the balance of debate is important. You do need people that will oppose or make you rationalise your own thought process and your own discussions and thoughts because balance is it is important because there are two sides, and uh certainly from a comms and marketing perspective, when you're running marketing campaigns, you've got to think about the audience, and you might not agree with the message, but it's for the audience, you know. So you you're only gonna get that by with data and insight, and you have to have opposing opinions to get that.

Chris Norton: 40:28

So you've said before community isn't a campaign, yeah, it's a commitment. What do you what so what do what do you mean by that?

Asif Choudry: 40:36

Well, I can speak from personal experience because the community is important. You've got to you've got to be committed to it. We didn't have to do comms here. I could have just carried on going to events and paying 500 quid and just met people and done what I do for a living, which is sales. Um but genuinely at the time within social housing, there was it was a I mean it hasn't really become easier for social housing comms professionals, and it's probably become harder now, 11 years later, for for comms and marketing, because that you know, when there's times of austerity, which we're seeing now, um we're seeing people on LinkedIn. There's lots of comms and marketing people who are open to work. Because that's the first place. Uh training and comms and marketing. That's the first place. No, mate.

Chris Norton: 41:24

I had an email this morning and the amount of redundancies I'm seeing around. I mean, i I'm seeing people begging a bit on not begging, but like, you know, desperate I would say, on LinkedIn for work, which is awful to see.

Asif Choudry: 41:37

It is, and I think that that genuine nature of these are these are people who resources a business, we've built a successful business off the back of that, but not off the back of um something on toward. We've delivered a what I was certainly saying based on the feedback we get and the longevity of customers, we've got people who actively come back all the time. So, like I say now, community is very different now because community is oh, I've got 200,000, 500,000 followers on LinkedIn and join us for $14.99 a month less than the cost of Spotify and stuff like that. We've never asked anybody for any money apart from the events. Um we've sent swag out throughout that time. We've got people in the team at Resource who behind the scenes, you know, we've got to we've got to print the swag. We've got to, you know. Um I'm I'm thinking of I might have seen something on LinkedIn or Twitter back in the day um where somebody's just they've just had a crap day or they've had a crap time and it might have been a personal loss or it could be anything, but just sending somebody a handwritten card, which takes time um and it takes a bit of effort because well, think about the last time you actually hand wrote and posted a card to a family member. It doesn't happen that often now. We just go to Moonpig and just order it online. So for 11 years, myself and the team, we've done that. We're sending people swag, we're sending cards to say thank. Whatever it might be, it might be a business success or a personal success they've qualified as a chartered marketer or something. So we don't it's not just a customer, a lot of the people we've uh connected with uh will never do business with the resource. And that that real demonstration of how committed are we to this community is on the amount of effort we've put into it, not just to sell out an event, but 11 years later, we've run it, and I mean three, six, five days a year. When we were on Twitter, I can guarantee for about eight years straight, there wasn't a single day that a post didn't go out or an engagement. And I know that because I was doing it. So that commitment isn't because we're getting $14.99 a month. We're never gonna try and monetize this because we've naturally I think that that um intent and that uh commitment. I did a podcast interview with one of my guests, and the um uh Rag and Bone man rings the bell in their local village. And she said, Oh, you need to edit that out. I said, No, keep it in.

Chris Norton: 44:14

Not the Rag and Bone Man. No. Okay.

Asif Choudry: 44:19

So it might have been, you never know. Yeah. But but that that community is that that real intent is demonstrated by how much effort and commitment you put into it, not because you've got an event to sell out, but because you genuinely want to be a force for good.

Chris Norton: 44:35

Um something you haven't told us, but I've found out from my extensive wider research, is that you um you did make an error years ago, and now it's part of your training programme, is that correct?

Asif Choudry: 44:49

I'm trying to think about it.

Chris Norton: 44:50

A spelling mistake.

Asif Choudry: 44:52

Oh yeah, we did. We did. And that was um Desk Body, and it was um uh well, we've made we definitely made a marketing mistake, which was the actual date of Pancake Day. And that's not the one you're referring to, but that's just reminded me of another one.

Chris Norton: 45:08

Right.

Asif Choudry: 45:08

Which we uh it was uh I think it was a customer who told us.

Chris Norton: 45:14

Yeah. You got the day wrong.

Asif Choudry: 45:16

Yeah, we we the artwork actually had last year's day.

Chris Norton: 45:21

Oh no.

Asif Choudry: 45:22

And the date was obviously right, but the day wasn't. Yeah. So we actually excuse me, we we how can the d how can the date be right?

Chris Norton: 45:29

Because it just we took it from last year.

Asif Choudry: 45:37

Um and we actually made quite a because Des Buddy as a character was quite quite fun and what have you, and it's a really nice campaign, and we could it was very tongue-in-cheek and we could have some fun with that. So we kind of lent into the mistake, which to be honest with you, you see on social now where you you know you get these kind of carefully crafted statements that um basically just get a hell of a lot of backlash anyway.

Chris Norton: 46:02

Shout out to the crisis teams.

Asif Choudry: 46:04

Absolutely, crisis comms in 2017 we did um our theme for the we did three events that year. Our theme was Dare to Fail. And we were trying to get like you're doing on the podcast because for years running up to that, we had uh comms people, you know, I was inviting people to speak, I showed people who were doing the job for a living rather than consultants who had done it and now just talked about it. And um it was very easy to get people who would talk about all those silver bullet case study moments that they've got. But then when I said, look, will you come up and you can talk about that, but we want to hear about when it got messed up basically.

Chris Norton: 46:44

Yeah.

Asif Choudry: 46:45

And that was such a struggle to get people to own up. But we did eventually. So we had three events which were the theme that year was Dare to Fail. So we were celebrating failure. I think it was 2017, and wow. That was like a huge thing at the time.

Chris Norton: 47:01

Yeah.

Asif Choudry: 47:01

Um and uh it was quite refreshing because nobody it it kind of made people realise, oh I've made some mistakes, but I wouldn't have owned up to 'em. And you've got people on stage now who are telling a hundred or so people of mistakes that they'd made, but the success that came at the end of it. And then if I um then fast forward to 2024 when we were doing our ComZero conference on awards in Leeds, we had uh Grace Miller, who is the head of failure and experimentation for Stephen Bartlett and diary of a CEO. So she was one of our speakers. Right. So there's somebody here who actually is employed Head of failure. Yeah. Head of failure and experimentation. So a brand new job it was, and that was Grace's first speaking slot, and she talked to us about the way that failure is embraced, and her job is to just keep failing.

Chris Norton: 48:00

Which was quite cathartic, really, in terms of I'm only a third into Bartlett's book, so um I haven't got to that section.

Asif Choudry: 48:07

Oh, it's in it it is in there, and it's uh it's a really interesting part where you know creating those failure labs that you're just continuing to um just fail because you know you've got you know, nobody's kind of been a huge success from the the get-go. So you've got to go through those things. So that's what that's what she does, and it was brilliant to hear from her and somebody whose job it is to actually just get it wrong.

Chris Norton: 48:34

Well, I told I don't know if I've told this on the podcast before. Stephen Bartlett once uh um emailed me and Will. This has been obviously before um the podcast, and it was when we did we had our own um w webinar, uh not webinars, there were seminars. We do like training free like yours like yours, but not a conference, not as on a grander scale. We do like free events, marketing events. We used to travel around the country. We now do a lot of them on web. We do webinars like you know, most people we took turned it digital during COVID. And um, yeah, we used to do quite a lot. We used to do four or five a year in each area, and one of them was in Manchester every five five years in Manchester, and uh he he emailed us like four weeks before saying, um hi guys, uh love to come. I'd love to come and speak at your sh your event. And bearing in mind, he was I think he was the CEO of Social Chain. So they're kind of a competitor of ours, which was a little bit strange. And we were like, Who is this? Like, they'd have the breast tacks to do that, uh, to email and ask to be on your you know on your speaker list. Um and then yeah, literally did he. Did you get him on? No, we didn't. And uh Stephen, if you can hear me, uh I'm sorry, can can I come on directly? That's my call out to Steve. I'll watch out for that one. I'd love to get I mean Stephen's a fascinating bloke to be as young as he is and to have done as much as he has. I mean, you've got he must he must have had a lot of failure along the way and learnt from a lot of stuff.

Asif Choudry: 50:00

But he talks about it openly and uh as openly as he can in the in the book, so it is quite refreshing to hear that. And I think that that's quite a nice thing, and I think that hearing from people when they have got things wrong, everybody gets stuff wrong. Of course they do. From a marketing and PR point of view, you don't tend to broadcast it. Um but I think that that whole business culture has changed dramatically where that you know everyone talks about authenticity, but perfection isn't authenticity because you know, even nobody is perfect.

Chris Norton: 50:32

So I s I I think that that's because right, so that's because people follow successful people. Yeah, yeah. Right? It's probably the reason why I'm still stuck on however many followers it is on LinkedIn. People follow really, really successful people. And so when you look at successful people, you they're going, How have they done that? Everything that they do, oh look, they're they're rebranding a plane, you know. Yeah, and it's not real in real life, is it? So I do I I like the the authentic. We had somebody on the show called Authentic Alex, uh uh Alexandra Gallic. I'll get her name right, hang on. Alexandra Galvez, and she came on the show, and it was her thing was all about being authentic, and she said talks about removing the mask from um what you're doing in business, which is which is interesting, like being fully authentic at work. Like, how could you you try to be as authentic as possible? Like, I try to be exactly who I am on and off the podcast, is exactly who I am. I tell the people which gets me in trouble sometimes. I have to say a spade is a spade, you know. I'm very much your Yorkshire P Yorkshire PRM marketing person. Um, so um you've obviously been on this show uh now. If you were us, who is the who is the guest that you think we should have on this show and why next, basically?

Asif Choudry: 51:50

Um I'd have uh Sarah Waddington.

Chris Norton: 51:55

Do you know what? She messaged me two weeks ago to say she'd love to come on the show.

Asif Choudry: 52:00

Do you know why? Seriously, because Sarah, we've talked about authenticity, and just um I couldn't think of a more perfect CEO for the PRCA now because you can see there's I'm not um my world is comms and marketing, and PR kind of comes into that sometimes, but not all the time. So known Sarah and Stephen Waddington for quite a while. Fantastic people, socially mobile, but that real There's a true northern grit about Sarah, and I think that's why an organisation like PRCA She's making a lot of fundamental changes. The whole the I think the whole uh impression uh and perception of the PRCA because that was very London-centric, and that's not uh no disrespect to anyone. It just it that's kind of what I'm talking about in terms of You know what's hilarious about this?

Chris Norton: 52:55

This is exactly why we were talking, because she put on something on online. Uh oh no, somebody else had put something on LinkedIn, and I commented uh saying it's great, we've just went to a PRCA event three, I think it's about four months ago now. Um it was a brilliant event. It's the second event I've been to as a member of the PRCA in the north for for eight years. Now I didn't go to all the conferences and obviously because she's the PRCA champ, she said, Thank you, Chris, and I thank you for flagging that you know we've we've turned things around and we're making it, um, but we we do do more events, and it was and um and I said, Whoa, just to say, I think what you're doing, what she is doing with the PRCA is amazing because she you're you're right. She's she's moving away, she's made it more um nations and regions like the BBC, I'd say, which is what it needed. It's what all these membership bodies need, don't they?

Asif Choudry: 53:47

And I think because of the type of person. So but I've had Sarah on the podcast, the Comsero podcast as well. She'll tell you how it is, and she hasn't changed because she's CEO of PRCA. If anything, she's brought her whole self to that role. And I think the uh you can just see literally from the organic LinkedIn posts, you've got a CEO, a brand ambassador. If your CEO can't be a brand ambassador, then who do you look to for that leadership? So I think she's totally changed that organisation. Like I say, I'm not a PRCA member. I only see what I see through connections on LinkedIn that are connected with that. But she'd be brilliant. I know she'd be brilliant because she'll um tell you a lot of interesting stories. So make for a great listener.

Chris Norton: 54:36

Well, I mean, I met her, yeah, like I say, and I know I've known her husband for years. Yeah. We're both bloggers in the PR world. So we were back in before Twitter, so back in the day when creating content was written content. Thank God we don't have to do that anymore as much. With my typos. Um, yeah, great, great shout. I'm definitely gonna get Sarah on actually. She's a she's a force of nature, and she's got isn't she she's either an MBA or a MBE or a C M E MBE, I think. An MBE in PR. I'm like, that doesn't happen very often. Shout out to the king if you want to give me one. I'm right here. Um yeah, I don't know how you get a member of the British Empire.

Asif Choudry: 55:14

Um it could be C B E but whichever one, she's been uh very well recognised and very deservedly recognised.

Chris Norton: 55:21

I mean, thanks so much for coming on, mate. That's really, really great. Um if people want to get hold of you, and if people are interested in Com's Hero, I think that a lot of people will be interested to find how can they find you and gain touch?

Asif Choudry: 55:33

Well, LinkedIn's the best place to find me, so Asif Chowdry, and hopefully you'll share the LinkedIn handle on um uh on the details. And uh Comms Hero is simple comzero.com, resources weare resource.co.uk. So Coms Hero is a brand and a community in its own right, but it's powered by resource, genuinely it is, and um just look through the recent conference and awards we had on the 21st of October and just the LinkedIn content, it that'll tell you. So don't take my word for it, look at what other people are saying. So I'm not gonna give you a curated, perfectly polished testimony. Not on Twitter.

Chris Norton: 56:12

Don't look at don't look at what we're saying about the about the masks on Twitter. Don't go ahead.

Asif Choudry: 56:16

I don't know what anybody's saying about Comzero on Twitter, so uh I might I might check just out of curiosity now. But yeah, just go to Comzero.com. We'll have we're already planning for 2026's conference and awards. Um so watch out for the dates and you know it's free to enter the awards, and we encourage anyone and everyone to get to get involved, basically. Yeah. Great, thanks for coming on the show, mate.

Chris Norton: 56:39

I appreciate it.

Asif Choudry: 56:40

It's been a pleasure, I really appreciate it.