Lulu Cheng (comms lead @ Substack, Activision Blizzard) believes the foundation for communicating as an up-and-coming company is to identify the cultural erogenous zones of your audience. This should be a phrase that’s resonating with a something the audience deeply cares about. In the case of Substack it was freedom of expression. For the phrase to work it should be:<ul><li>short</li><li>catchy</li><li>memorable</li></ul>Examples: Mark Andreesen’s “It’s time to build”, Trump’s “Make America Great Again”.

Cultural Erogenous Zones

Force is the total impact of one object on another, whereas pressure is the physical quantity of force spread over a certain area. As a small company you should prioritise force in communication, meaning a focus on very few things. One message with a point of view, few influencers. Going broad (general message that appeals to anyone) will not work if you are small.

Pressure vs Force

The institutional approach to communication is dead. Nobody wanna listen to a faceless company. People don’t trust institutions anymore. Messaging should come from other people that have an audience, that are trustworthy … that have a point of view.

People Only Care About Other Oeople

The company’s message can not be broadcasted. It needs to spread from in concentric circles:<ul><li>It starts with the founders and the employees. They have to be excited about it</li><li>The message should spread to the power users who are gonna share it with their base</li></ul>For Substack the power users were the early writers (like Lenny) who were passionate about the platform.

The Message Spreads in Concentric Circles

Lulu led the comms at Substack and she shares some of the ways she thinks about spreading the message for a small company. 

Brought to you by AssemblyAI—Production-ready AI models to transcribe and understand speech | Public—Invest in stocks, treasuries, crypto, and more | Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. — Lulu Cheng Meservey was formerly head of comms at Substack (where I host my newsletter and podcast) and is currently the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard. She also writes one of my favorite newsletters, “Flack,” where she shares tactical advice for company comms, PR, and messaging. In today’s episode, we dive deep into the world of PR and comms. We discuss why taking risks is crucial, how to gain attention as an underdog, and why it’s important to have a super-specific audience. Lulu outlines several frameworks I’d never heard of before, including a concentric circles framework for identifying your audience, the cultural erogenous zones, and even a physics-based framework for comms.  Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/navigating-comms-and-pr-lulu-cheng-meservey-substack-activision-blizzard/#transcript  Where to find Lulu Cheng Meservey: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lulumeservey • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lulu-cheng-meservey/ • Newsletter: https://www.getflack.com/  Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/  In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Lulu’s background (04:36) What helps an idea spread (06:17) Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” (07:19) Advice for coming up with contagious phrasing (08:36) Lulu’s esoteric reference that left her Twitter followers confused (11:08) The importance of taking risks, and Lulu’s thread on standing for free speech (12:53) An example of another sticky phrase (14:40) The cultural erogenous zones framework (16:08) How Kamala Harris made people care about education (17:29) How to get attention as the underdog (20:25) How Substack used the concentric circles framework to spread information (21:32) Understanding the layers in those concentric circles (25:44) How to get started figuring out your concentric circles (27:03) An example of aligning messaging with people’s values  (28:19) Lulu’s mathematical formula framework for comms for a purpose (28:54) A physics-based framework for comms (35:56) How Balaji Srinivasan used the concentric circles approach with his book The Network State (39:46) The importance of a super-specific audience (41:12) Reasons your comms are failing (42:40) Why you should focus on one direct communication channel at first (46:58) Why not every founder needs to be on Twitter (48:02) Who LinkedIn works better for (49:23) Examples of messaging with a human voice and hopping on trends quickly (51:11) Reasons for direct comms  (53:52) How to get started setting up a direct channel (56:09) Why consistent, good content is better than trying to go viral (59:28) Lightning round  Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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