I’m often asked about my job as a content strategy evangelist. What do I do? What’s the job about?
Very little has been published about the role of evangelism within enterprises and there’s no standard way that evangelism is practiced. Evangelism can easily be confused with other roles, and not everyone who calls themselves an evangelist necessarily embodies of the principles of evangelism.
In my experience at Kontent.ai as their content strategy evangelist over the past several years, I’ve been aware there’s no template for how to do this. Which is very fitting, because evangelism’s focus is on blazing new paths, not in following a checklist of tasks. To be effective at evangelism requires you to define what it is you need to communicate and why it’s important to others.
Evangelism can bring a unique perspective that other roles don’t address in a sustained way. What makes evangelism special?
Evangelism is about change
My job title of content strategy evangelist is an amalgam of two distinct roles that are rarely combined. To my knowledge, I am the first person in the content management software industry to have this role.
My role combines different ends of the communications spectrum.
As a content strategist, I am focused on the enterprise-wide coordination of digital communications — delivering content at scale.
As an evangelist, I am focused on personal-scale communications, addressing a small cadre of professionals who are responsible for their organization’s content strategy. I communicate to a select group of content leaders, through conference presentations, panel discussions at meet-ups, podcast interviews, and a range of writings.
Evangelism aims to change the status quo by changing people’s ideas about established practices. The evangelist introduces new ideas to people who might benefit from them.
I often must distill wide ranging and sometimes nuanced ideas. I see my mission as having two related aspects:
- To articulate the promise offered by a new way of managing enterprise content
- To do everything in my power to ensure every stakeholder involved can deliver on that promise
The evangelist’s goals are both lofty and broad. It’s challenging for any single person to direct such change. But I don’t believe you can be successful if your motivation is transactional, such as getting a certain number of people to take a certain action.
My goal is not to get everyone to agree with me but to help motivated individuals change how they work successfully. Unlike traditional marketing, evangelism can’t be boiled down to a few success metrics, because evangelism aims to influence long-term processes rather than short-term events.
Evangelism differs from traditional corporate roles in numerous ways. For one thing, it involves discussing issues rather than a specific product. The issues typically involve the situational context in which a product might be used. My focus is on rethinking how people do things before getting into the details of what they do. I notice a growing number of people calling themselves “product evangelists” but in most cases these are traditional product marketing and promotion roles dressed up in trendier job title.
Secondly, the evangelist introduces new concepts for addressing an issue. The concept must be new and not simply a small improvement over standard practices (otherwise, it’s not evangelism but ordinary content marketing). It will be unfamiliar to most people and will require explaining. And the concept must be practical, providing tangible benefits. Evangelists are not asking people to sponsor a moonshot venture. They are offering a plausible future that the adopter can use and adapt to suit their needs.
Business evangelism isn’t new — but it’s growing
For several decades firms have hired staff evangelists, especially in technical areas. But more recently, the evangelist job title has become more common and diverse. As businesses rethink how they operate and deliver services — a epoch broadly referred to as “digital transformation” — they are looking at and evaluating new options.
Numerous companies are introducing innovations to enable the transformation of enterprise practices. They need staff who can explain how customers to make use of these innovations. Before you can realize product-market fit, the market needs to understand what you are offering.
Before the current era of digital transformation was the era of computers in every home. Apple is credited with introducing evangelism to the software industry. The first highly visible corporate evangelist was Guy Kawasaki, then an employee at Apple in the 1980s, who donned the title of evangelist for a few years. He subsequently wrote a book, Selling the Dream, marketing his brand of evangelism, which he claimed to have been based upon the preaching style of the Reverend Billy Graham. Kawasaki drew attention to the term “evangelism” — and its contested meaning — outside the religious context. But he was (and is) a bad example of what evangelism should be about. Contrary to Kawasaki, evangelists aren’t selling a nebulous “dream.” They are raising awareness of innovative solutions to current problems.
Evangelism is about building interest, not building buzz
Seemingly everyone wants to “make noise” these days, which is a problem. It’s a noisy world out there. Noise-making doesn’t accomplish much.
In contrast to vanity driven approaches that emphasize form over substance, evangelism avoids empty public relations or branding tactics. It aims for more enduring changes in how people think about issues.
Apple’s novice evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, acted more like a brand ambassador promoting Apple products than a true evangelist promoting a distinct point of view. His role was channel existing enthusiasm for Apple that was generated by the company’s founder, Steve Jobs. If fans couldn’t meet with Steve, they got Guy as a consolation. Kawasaki was a figurehead: a cheerleader ginning up a reverential customer base. For those who remember those days, Apple was far from its behemoth status of today. It was a small company that managed to have a cult-like following. People routinely compared Apple at the time to a cult, with all the baggage that term implies — its fans could be obnoxious zealots prone to demean non-believers with harsh words. The closest current example I can think of are the Tesla fanboys who hero-worship and defend Elon Musk no matter what his shenanigans. It’s a bad template for winning hearts and changing minds.
Evangelism thus needs to be contrasted with evangelicalism or building an army of followers. The goal of evangelism isn’t to promote a rigid set of beliefs or allegiance to a person or brand. Rather, evangelism expresses a conviction about possibilities. It should promote reflection and agency, not doctrinal conformity.
In lieu of doctrine, the essence of evangelism is passion and insight.
To be heard and believed, you need to care deeply about what you talk about. When the legendary chef Julia Child died, her New York Times obituary described her as an evangelist for French food. That passion for the subject, without the self-promoting and personal branding, puts her in stark contrast to today’s “celebrity chefs”, who sell themselves as licensing ventures for spin off products. Julia Child communicated not just her love of French cooking, but let her audience understand why she cared so much about it and why they should as well. Beyond being a talented cook and explainer, she was a brilliant evangelist.
Evangelists must also be contrasted with “influencers” who position themselves as role models or identity-based personalities. Influencers trade on their personal popularity and name recognition, which means that maintaining and growing their popularity is their currency and their goal.
Unless the influencer has staked their popularity on some position they’ve taken (as contrarian or campaigner), the ideas of the influencer are not the focus of attention. In many cases, the influencer has a tenuous connection to any idea, much like the celebrities who endorse any product that matches the demographic target of their followers. Many brands worry that the influencers they hire could voice problematic opinions that might embarrass the brand.
Evangelism builds on reputation
Everything that an evangelist says and does reflects back on their personal reputation and that of their employer.
Success in evangelism depends on the affinity between the person and the message.
Evangelism not about a doctrine that can be debated independently of any person, because the ideas are too fresh and evolving to be codified as canonical texts or widely accepted truths. Evangelists discuss the future; they don’t debate the past.
At the same time, evangelism is about more than personal branding, or playing a role (the Marcus Welby phenomenon). An evangelist is more than simply a spokesperson.
The evangelist should be primarily known for the ideas they promote. The famous newscaster Walter Cronkite was widely trusted because he didn’t promote an overt agenda. An evangelist, by contrast, is trusted because of their convictions about an explicit agenda.
Credibility is an essential quality of an evangelist. The evangelist will be recognized as a thought leader. Perhaps the most eminent evangelist is Vint Cerf, considered one of the fathers of the internet in the 1970s who later joined Google as internet evangelist and Vice President. The internet may be over 40 years old, but its dynamism means that much about it is still evolving and undecided. It’s valuable to understand the background that has shaped the junctures we face today, which includes digital governance and the next generation of internet protocols. Evangelism is needed.
Evangelists introduce innovative ideas and highlight why they are appealing
Other roles may promote points of view. But they differ from the evangelist.
Unlike an advocate, who asks others to support a well established position, an evangelist promotes something less well known and asks the listener not only to support the concept, but to adopt it, practice it, and embrace its consequences.
Promoting change is hard to do and potentially risky. If overly assertive, the would-be evangelist comes across as pushy or rigid.
Evangelism must also be distinguished from activism, where winning can be more important than principles, and opponents can be attacked as villains. There’s little benefit in building a small army of followers if a far larger group thinks you’re a jerk. Evangelists must show they’re on the side of most people.
Evangelists are inclusive
The evangelist champions ideas they expect will have broad appeal for the group they are trying to reach.
They must avoid setting up a “Marmite taste challenge” for their views, where people react to the ideas as they would to the taste of yeast spread: they either love it or hate it. An evangelist will be inclusive, not polarizing.
While evangelists don’t court controversy — being provocative for the sake of it —they can’t avoid engaging with detractors. Ideas, by their nature, can be contested. And sometimes, old ideas that have outlasted their usefulness turn out to be the detracting competition.
Evangelists aim to disrupt the status quo because they believe the status quo isn’t working well. Those who defend legacy thinking may want to engage in ideological or theological debates, arguing that the established way anticipated everything that is needed and is therefore better. For them, the stakes might be high: employee skillsets and entire businesses can feel threatened by alternative ways of working championed by the evangelist.
It’s important to not engage in winner-versus-loser thinking that’s common in much social discourse today. Those who are invested in the status quo will often take the position of “originalists,” contending that the decisions of the past were perfectly informed and have served everyone just fine, thank you. Moreover, the detractors will assert, these practices have been codified as “best practices” or are enshrined in some standard drafted by a committee two or three decades ago. There’s no need to change anything. It’s been written down as doctrine.
Originalists dismiss new alternatives in one of several ways. As:
1. Fads that will be quickly forgotten because they offer no real value
2. Deceptive marketing ploys that are potentially dangerous (and will be remembered in infamy)
3. Phantom novelty that doesn’t deserve attention because it’s a case of putting worthy old wine in modish new bottles
The careful observer will note that these criticisms are mutually inconsistent.
With the third interpretation — concerning phantom novelty — the original practices supposedly already do everything the new one offers, but people don’t see this because the terminology differs. This stylistics defense can prompt a stylistics update. Defenders of original practices may update their terminology in an effort to make it more appealing and contemporary sounding. When they do this, they manage to do what they complain about: putting old wine in new bottles.
New ideas invariably invite skepticism, as they should. Not all new ideas are good, much less better. But…
What’s new about a concept can sometimes be hard for industry veterans to recognize. Thery’re invested and habituated in thinking about things a certain way. It’s important to keep highlighting what’s different about new practices, because there can be resistance to accepting that newer ideas are viable options. Few truly novel ideas are instantly recognized as superior. It takes repeated elaboration for the value of an idea to become clear to different people. If you are genuinely convinced of the value of what you propose, there’s nothing disrespectful about evangelizing your position, even if not everyone is ready to accept it.
A familiar challenge is finding a common ground between old and new practices. It may be tempting to gloss over differences and emphasize similarities, but this approach can hide critical conceptual distinctions that have a big impact.
Focus instead on how organizations can adapt to changing practices. Sometimes implementing sudden wholesale change is not the best option for an organization.
Evangelists are generous, not competitive, with their knowledge
Evangelism is not about promoting a cult of expertise. Evangelists shouldn’t be viewed as a know-it-all authority who has solved all issues and has the final answer to everything. Nor should they act like a mansplaining pundit who states the obvious.
An evangelist is an explorer. Topics they address are on the edge of emerging practices. They advocate a new direction, not a cookie cutter solution.
An evangelist doesn’t work from talking points. They are an reflective thinkers, able to consider each unique situation in light of how they look at issues more generally. They don’t impose an approved way of dealing with these issues. Rather, they seek new avenues to consider them.
As an evangelist I offer advice freely, without obligation, in contrast my previous work as a consultant. It won’t of course be as specific to a client’s situation as it would be when provided in a consulting engagement — I’m certainly not trying to put consultants out of work. But I do aim to provide the same level of trust in the advice I offer. In so doing, I help our clients become successful.
Evangelists help people navigate uncertainties associated with transitions
Evangelist aren’t prophets or play the role of “seer.” They won’t forecast the inevitability of certain trends because they understand they don’t control them. A credible evangelist will avoid making bold predictions, which can devolve into “wishcasting” — statements of hopes rather than informed assessments of likelihoods. But they will be aware of current and past trends in their field and can draw on that knowledge to construct plausible scenarios.
An evangelist knows trends because he or she is directly participating in them. They see how early adopters are exploring new possibilities and are aware of the challenges that face the “early majority” who may have less knowledge or passion about new approaches. They also see the potential unlocked by wider adoption, where more infrastructure, learning, and synergies can unlock possibilities difficult to realize at the moment.
This hand-on perspective stands in contrast to the outsider viewpoint of industry analysts. Anyone pronouncing the next wave is probably not directly in the trenches building that wave. Too many industry analysts operate at a level of abstraction that is detached from the practical issues business folks are trying to solve. Hype cycles aren’t helpful.
Evangelists are authentic
No organization is going to change how they do their daily work based on a short fluffy pitch. Evangelists need more than a 30-second elevator pitch or a 20-slide PechaKucha deck to change long entrenched ways of doing things. But given the transactional orientation of most business communications, many people confuse gaining attention with gaining agreement and commitment. Evangelism is a long game. Success comes from getting commitment.
Evangelists must go beyond the TED Talk formula — telling a scripted story about the one event that made the speaker realize something fundamental that would change their life. The first time you hear it, it sounds compelling. The third time you hear it, it sounds contrived — spun-up for the speaking circuit, and repeated because it gets a reaction from the live audience. But those who become interested in the topic start to wonder: what else is there beyond this one shopworn story? If it sounds too easy or too good, it likely is. Elizabeth Holmes, the recently convicted startup fraudster, mastered the life story pitch. If your message sounds contrived, it will hurt you sooner or later.
Evangelists acknowledge the messiness of change, and the challenges of unlearning legacy habits and practices.
They can’t gain credibility if they are too rehearsed and tell too tidy a story and gloss over the realities people will confront. Their authenticity is grounded in realism and based on their first-hand experiences.
Evangelists are trusted
Trust is based on many factors. As mentioned earlier, you need credibility. People must respect your expertise about an issue. You must have things to say that seem worth listening to.
You gain trust when you are earnest and helpful. And you won’t be truly helpful if your primary focus is on promoting oneself or your firm’s products. Plenty of sales and marketing roles promote products and can provide useful information for product buyers. The evangelist’s focus is different, and shouldn’t try to duplicate that work.
Evangelists don’t only speak and share information, they listen. I learn important insights through the trust I’ve earned with people. An evangelist belongs to a community who share a common cause in improving how to solve challenging issues by applying emerging practices.
Evangelists gain trust by acknowledging what they don’t know. That’s easy for me because the issues I talk about are bigger than me individually. I’m often gratified to hear insights I haven’t previously considered during my discussions with peers.
It’s equally important to avoid mystification, such as suggesting that outcomes depend on so many variables that the listener couldn’t possibly understand how they all interact. The evangelist has failed if they ever suggest people won’t be able to understand what they are proposing.
Making changes involves moving into the unknown. Evangelists should inspire confidence that clients can incrementally master the granular issues and details they don’t yet grasp. But they should never make them feel they must buy into an idea that seems too magical to be ever comprehended fully.
Evangelists offer original thinking
I believe that the quality of ideas has a huge influence on the outcomes that organizations achieve. Yet it’s hard to see much difference in the quality of ideas that various firms voice.
Firms work hard to make their products seem different, but few demonstrate leadership in their approach to the core issues their customers face. They lack a distinct point of view about how to solve issues.
As a content strategist, I’m keenly aware that we live in a content-saturated world that’s burdened by the sameness of group think. The internet is cluttered with copycat content optimized for clicks on social media and search results. Many organizations put much of their energies into continually shifting their tactics to game better results. All this content promises answers but too often disappoints once viewed.
We now face a existential reckoning regarding the tangible value of content. In recent months, we’ve watched the spread of generative AI such as GPT-3+ chatbots into the mainstream. Generative AI can instantly refashion legacy content into new content that superficially appears original but in reality is derivative.
How can firms expect to be market leaders if their content is derivative copycat content? What’s the value of content if content is now “free”? Why should we care about it?
The burning issue no longer is the value of content in terms of its cost to make — it can be generated by robots on demand at little cost. Now the urgent question is how to develop truly original content that will stand out amidst the sea of synthetic content.
As a content strategist, I think intensively about the distinctive qualities of content and what makes content stand out in the herd of sameness. Good writing, while important, is not the decisive factor in how impactful content will be. Rather, it’s the quality of the ideas and information.
Few organizations realize the illusive goal of “thought leadership.” Yet the longing to be recognized as a thought leader highlights the premium that firms place on original thinking.
Readers want to learn things they don’t already know. They want perspectives that will challenge their assumptions so that they can be sure they are making the best choices.
Some companies commission external research agencies to develop original content because they lack that capacity in-house. And some companies will hope that AI will fill their thought leadership deficit. They would do better to hire a proper evangelist.
One sign that my work as an evangelist has been successful is when it gets emulated by competitors. Once, my firm’s largest direct competitor copied a complex diagram I had created to explain a concept and, after changing the colors to match their branding, published it in their website (it was subsequently taken down). While outright plagiarism is rare, the copycat phenomenon is ever present.
Evangelists show relevance through meaning
An evangelist helps people clarify the complexity that they face.
When learning about new options, people want to know what does this new practice mean for them, personally? How will they apply it?
Employees need to understand how concepts work in order to be able to apply them. Business history is littered with waves of changes that were driven by outsiders (investors, advisors, outsource consultants, etc) who imposed change on organizations without the rank and file ever fully understanding their details. The leadership in charge never “owned” the change and was never able to direct and control its evolution.
Until someone actually tries a new practice, they must rely on their imagination to envision how it works. They need examples or analogies that will engage their imagination.
Everyone faces different situations and has had distinct experiences, so no single example will fit every person’s unique use case. People will need to translate ideas to apply them to their own situations. Only once people feel they grasp a new concept because they’ve applied their own thoughts and perspectives to it will they be prepared to implement it.
An evangelist must know their audience and identify with their needs. They must be able engage people by sparking their curiosity. They’ll consider how to make the topic personally interesting in some way to the listener. That requires them to apply their own imagination and to develop deep empathy for those they are speaking to.
— Michael Andrews