December 8, 2025 • 59 mins
We explore how digital PR, entity SEO, and shifting social algorithms shape reputation, discovery, and trust. Paige Donald explains why coherent signals across platforms now drive both reporter interest and AI overviews, and how to play the long game without chasing vanity metrics.
• personal speech risk and employer brand alignment
• entity identity across profiles and the knowledge graph
• echo chambers, LinkedIn’s niche pivot, and Reddit research
• newsjacking with intent vs vanity metrics
• LLM visibility, AI overviews, and third‑party authority
• long‑game PR, reporter relationships, and useful measurement
• analytics gaps and mapping content to real demand
• trust recession and multi‑channel credibility
• media training for executives and scalable video content
• agile startups outpacing legacy brands online
Guest Contact Information:
Website: paigepr.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/paigepr
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Each week, Matthew dives into the tactics, frameworks, and insights that matter most in a world where search engines, large language models, and answer engines are reshaping how people find, trust, and choose businesses. From SEO and AI-driven marketing to executive-level growth strategy, you’ll hear expert interviews, deep-dive discussions, and actionable strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
This is the unknown secrets of internet marketing.
Your insider guide to thestrategies top marketers use to
crush the competition.
Ready to unlock your businessfull potential.
Let's get started.
SPEAKER_03 (00:13):
Howdy, welcome back to another episode of the
Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I am your host, Matthew Bertram,uh or Matt Bertram.
We've been talking a lot aboutentity SEO.
We'll talk about that more astime goes on.
Uh, I wanted to bring on afantastic guest that I've had
the pleasure of getting to knowin the oil and gas space that
(00:34):
really is a leader uh in digitalPR.
Um, Paige uh Donald, how areyou?
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
Good.
How's it going?
SPEAKER_03 (00:45):
Good.
And uh Paige of Paige PR, right?
And that's how you're how howyou're known in the kind of uh
Texas, Houston, oil and gasarena.
Uh Page PR is uh very well knownuh from the standpoint of
getting your brand out there.
So Paige, um we were kind oftalking previously, there's a
(01:06):
lot going on in the news.
Um, you know, how you weretalking about how people are
getting fired for comments onsocial media.
I would love to kind of hear youdid a post on LinkedIn about
that recently.
So I'd love to uh hear moreabout kind of your feelings
towards that.
SPEAKER_01 (01:23):
Yeah, and um also just recognizing I have no
intention of going down like apolitical rabbit hole or
minefield, for instance.
Um but I mean, obviously, Imean, in public relations, more
so than marketing, we're dealingwith perceptions, right?
How you are perceived, how youwant to be perceived, um, how
(01:44):
others look at your brand.
And so, kind of the topic Iwrote about on LinkedIn
yesterday is yes, we all havethe right to free speech, and
you can say whatever you want tosay, as vulgar or as vile as it
might be.
That's protective.
Having said that, your socialmedia presence, what you post on
(02:08):
any of the platforms, um, whenyou do that, even if it's your
personal account, you are stillrepresenting your company.
Um, you might be looked at as abrand ambassador, maybe you're
head of sales, maybe you're anHR.
I mean, no matter what your roleis, it you know, in your social
circles, meaning social mediacircles, you're connected with
(02:31):
people that you do work with.
And so it really doesn't matterif it's in relation to Charlie
Kirk or just a regular Tuesdayat work, you're responsible and
you own what you post.
And even if you take it downlater, you know, it's out there
for the world to see.
And so, you know, it's it's justa great reminder to all of us.
(02:53):
You know, I work with brands ontheir social and we always have
defined strategies for eachsocial outlet.
But my kids are teenagers, youknow, I'm an adult.
What does my personal brandreflect?
What do I want to post?
What am I willing to post about?
Um, what are topics that Iavoid?
And so, you know, I just thinkeverything is online with your
(03:15):
with your personal brands, it'sthe same way.
You know, if if there'ssomething foul you want to say,
maybe just don't put it onlinebecause it's going to be there,
it's going to live there.
Someone will see it, someonewill take a screenshot.
Um, and it is an employer'sright.
It's a private company's right,uh, public company's right to
let go of people that don'tproperly reflect their brand and
(03:38):
their corporate values.
SPEAKER_03 (03:39):
And so um well, you know, the world we live in
today, like with the internetgrowing up, is is so much
different.
I think I've talked to a numberof people about how they're like
so glad that social media wasn'taround when they were growing
up.
And then when social media wasearly, uh, I I even have a
(04:01):
Instagram account that's publicand then a private Instagram
account.
Yeah, and you know, I postedmore on my private account.
I haven't posted as much on mymy public one, but that goes for
Facebook and LinkedIn, likeentity, like you as a person,
there's no uh who you are inprivate and who you are in
(04:22):
public, it's who you are as anentity online.
I'm actually dealing withMatthew, Matt, Bertram, as you
can see in my my title here.
I've been doing this a longtime, and in the knowledge
graph, as kind of we move intokind of some Google topics.
Um, I am represented as twodifferent entities.
It's not sure who I am becausewell, we've changed the name of
(04:45):
our company, I've had differentroles, I've done different
things.
Um, and and so it just comesback to who are you?
What are your values?
What are the signals that you'regiving off?
And all these social media andAI all talk to each other,
right?
So you are a person of who youare, and you're representative
(05:09):
online of that, and um you needto think about what you said,
whatever you're posting is gonnaget indexed and forever.
So you know, you need to thinkthrough the things that you do
and understand the impact ofwhat you can have, and what what
(05:31):
you're talking about and whatyou're saying is all a record of
who you are as an entity, whatyou're associated with, um, what
you're knowledgeable about, whatyou talk about, and and even you
know, going in a little bitfurther, there is a
personalization that starts tohappen when you post to give you
(05:52):
things that are more like you tolike there's there's this
homogeny that is is happeningwhere you're gonna be seeing
more posts like you post about,and you're kind of in an echo
chamber, which which is which isproblematic.
Um, but when people aresearching online, you got to be
aware of people are gonna beable to find that if they're
(06:13):
looking for that, and you mightbe around.
I think people are so much intheir echo chamber, just to talk
about what you said, is thatthey think that this is yeah, I
think this, and all the thingsI've seen on social media are
this, so of course, everybodythinks this, and um, that's what
(06:33):
your feed is showing you, andyou're not aware that that might
be a very small microcosm, uh,or or even like a silo of what
the broader public thinks.
And I think a lot of thesepeople are uh like really taken
back by that the backlashbecause they thought everybody
thought the way they did becauseof how these algorithms work.
SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
So this is actually a really interesting topic, and
I I promise I'm gonna tie itback to work.
But my job in PR, like I said,is managing perceptions, telling
people stories.
It's also watching the news andand following the reporters or
the journalists that arecovering the topics that my
(07:18):
clients are most interested in.
So when I tell you I devour thenews, I mean the news is on all
day.
All the different channels, nomatter how you think they're
covering things, I'm watching itall, I'm reading it all, I look
at all of it online, right?
Because to exactly your point,and particularly if I'm
(07:40):
representing others, I cannot bein an echo chamber.
None of us should be.
We should be evaluating andhearing everyone's opinions,
everyone's different expertiseand credibility.
Um, but it's fascinating whenyou watch different outlets
cover different things, which iswhy it makes it so important to
not just live in your bubble.
Um, sticking with what you weretalking about uh with echo
(08:04):
chambers, and I think you and Idiscussed this a while ago.
So LinkedIn's algorithm haschanged um really over the
course of this year.
I started digging into it.
I kind of think what happened,let me give a little bit of
background.
I think what happened is whenCOVID hit and we were all
working from home or we werekind of siloed wherever we were,
(08:27):
everything was virtual, right?
So all the messages that maybeyou would have had or wanted to
have over a lunch or anetworking hour were put on
LinkedIn.
And all of our LinkedIn feedsjust blew up with stuff that
maybe we didn't necessarily careabout, right?
It just came in in order of liketiming and we all moved on.
(08:49):
Then Reddit, which has beengrowing and growing, you know, I
love Reddit.
Um, a lot of their statisticsshow that people go there before
they make purchasing decisionsbecause you can ask very
specific questions and there'sall these little subcultures
within.
I mean, it's mind-blowing.
I have looked up miningquestions, um, remote crypto
(09:12):
mining work, mobile generation.
Like it's crazy the topics thatyou're like, that would never be
on Reddit.
Yes, it is.
And these are very much like B2Bquestions, and they have very
serious, genuine answers.
It's incredible, it's thisincredible community.
I think that LinkedIn started asthat, right?
(09:32):
It's our business networkingcommunity.
I think during COVID, it justblew up in everyone's face
because we connected witheveryone.
And the truth is, it's notFacebook, it was never meant to
be.
So their algorithm has beenchanging this year, to your
point, to where um the thingsthat you're starting to see in
the top of your news feed noware very niche, very specific to
(09:56):
your industry or your topicbased on your profile.
And the um posts that rank thehighest usually have a very like
personal or anecdotal typestory.
It's not how it used to be,where we would say, Hey, we
launched a new website, youknow, here's your call to
action, click to learn more.
Those days are gone.
What LinkedIn favors andprioritizes are things that are
(10:19):
applicable to you and ones thathave like a more customized
post.
You can't just put whatever youwant out there.
And obviously, videos areprioritized.
So it just seems like all of theplatforms these days just kind
of keep you boxed into what youknow.
SPEAKER_03 (10:37):
Yeah, I mean, they're trying to keep keep you
on the platform and engaging, sothey're gonna feed you more of
what what you like or you knowwhat you share, like so.
There's uh a point systemassociated with it.
Um, and I think that really thethe news and whatever your
target persona that you're goingafter is, you can build a
(10:59):
structure where you can kind ofnews jack, I think it's kind of
a term that that's usedsometimes and and ride the wave.
And certainly in the podcastingworld, that is what certain
podcasters do.
Uh, if if there's a lot ofsearch volumes or something,
they jump on it, they bring onguests, um, and they ride that
(11:20):
wave.
And I think that if you're akind of web 2.0 or social first
company, um you can getproficient in this, and it's
very valuable to post about thenews.
I think you and I are talkingabout people that are not
intentional about what they'reposting, and they just become
the news story, but but there isways to do that, uh, and and
(11:44):
follow the trends.
Like Google Trends is free as away to see what's going on.
You can see uh, you know, wherewhere the uplift is happening
from a PR standpoint, set uplike a Google Alerts is another
free way to see what's going onwith your brand or your
industry, and and becomerelevant into what's going on,
(12:05):
but you have to be firmly mappedin who you're trying to talk to
and what you're trying tocommunicate, and it and it needs
to be intentional.
And I've seen people on Facebookand LinkedIn do it fantastic,
and um, they are on top ofeverything, uh, and and they
know how to post.
And I would encourage people, ifthey want to get into that, look
(12:28):
at what's being done, uh, lookat the engagement rate and look
at how specific it is.
There, they usually tie it backto maybe a personal story or
something about what they sell.
Um, you know, they're they'reusually tapping into the
emotions and and they're reallyjust hijacking interest uh of
what's going on.
(12:48):
And I I have mixed opinions uhabout it because I I'm seeing a
lot of posts, and I feel likesome people are are are doing it
for for likes, but uh orengagement, and and that is a
vanity metric.
I I think that it to each to ownon whatever you you want to do
and whatever you're looking for,but I can tell you that just
(13:13):
because you're grabbingattention and you get a lot of
engagement or likes, that willhelp your next post um and and
kind of your overall average getpulled up.
But I've seen in the B2B worldthe smallest post targeted to
the right community with almostno engagement, and also we know
(13:33):
that most people don't evenengage, right?
Like only a small fractionactually engage, and you can get
more leads and connect with moreof the right people by by being
laser focused on that.
And when you talk about thenews, okay, and you talk about
things that are outside, if youthink of like a plot graph, a
(13:55):
lot of these things, if if youdon't do it a lot, are outliers
and the algorithm doesn't reallyknow how to handle it, and then
it kind of mixes up what you'redoing.
I'll give you a perfect example.
Um, the people that aresuccessful on Facebook stick to
only posting about a topic, it'slike they don't blend their
(14:16):
their personal post as much withtheir business, and they're
laser focused on whateverthey're talking about in
particular.
And the algorithm knows okay, Ineed to show this to more people
that like this and and engagewith that.
And you know, for everybodylistening, this is a SEO
podcast, and well, 50% or moreof all the traffic has now left
(14:38):
Google.
Okay, it's all over the place,it's on Reddit, it's on social
media.
That's where people are startingto find out about brands, and so
the the optimization game, I'mcalling it LM visibility, right?
And it maybe AI visibility andAI discovery, like I have an AI
(14:59):
discovery framework, is muchbroader.
But guess what?
All these social media sites arethey're LLMs, like Google's just
a big LLM.
Um, it it just has you know kindof different put uh inputs, and
it you know, there it'sweighting things a little bit
differently, but you're speakingto AI that is trying to speak to
(15:21):
humans.
Um, there's a little bit of abifurcation that's happening of
of how you need to do things,but the search game, the
discovery game, the visibilitygame, uh the positioning like
depends on your your bent hascompletely changed.
And now you gotta optimizeeverywhere.
(15:43):
There's all these differentwords for for everything.
I I feel like LLM visibility isis really like the laser focus
of of where I see the marketgoing.
Um, but there's a lot of otherthings being talked about, and
PR and other votes for you andother people saying things about
(16:04):
you impacts the LLMs, impactshow people view your brand, and
is critically important.
I actually saw a study recently,or actually it was a survey, and
marketers thought that digitalPR was the number one most
important thing today.
SPEAKER_01 (16:23):
Yeah, it I mean, it has to be.
So there's I meet a lot ofinteresting people in my
specific career and also withinthe industries and the sectors I
work, right?
Because I I think we cancollectively say oil and gas,
you know, traditional energy,the industry in general just
(16:43):
moves a little slower than someothers.
So you have a lot of people thatdon't know what PR is and don't
see the value.
That's just kind of thosehistoric, historical mindset or
or stereotype of a lot of peoplethat I have interacted with.
And let's just assume someoneI'm talking to today, that's
(17:04):
been their mindset this wholetime until 2025.
You can't afford to do thatanymore with um AI overview and
AI mode.
It is tanking websites.
Um, so if you're not, this isthe other part that we can kind
of tie into.
People spend tons of moneylaunching a beautiful new
(17:25):
website, which is incredible,and then they're like, okay, I'm
done, we did it.
And it's like, no, that is justkind of like the central hub,
but it's like again, if you arenot actively posting on social,
if you're not um writing yourown content and having that live
on your website somewhere, andthen if you're also not getting
(17:47):
that third-party coverage andsome type of interviews written
online, otherwise, your websiteis just sinking.
And I think the stats are maybesince the start of this year,
website traffic is down.
Oh my gosh, you might know thisbetter than me.
I think it's 37%.
SPEAKER_03 (18:08):
So it depends what you look at.
Um, I have seen studies thatit's down uh across the board on
publishers 58.5 percent.
Yeah, so if your website is notdown that much, it's kind of
like how you're doing above theaverage, you're actually doing
good if you've been able tomaintain uh that traffic and
(18:29):
that positioning.
SPEAKER_01 (18:30):
Yeah, so Google is punishing websites that don't
stay current or up to date orfresh, totally cool.
But if you are a company thatyou know was kind of standoffish
or reluctant to do any sort ofum PR efforts, marketing
efforts, what have you, well,you're gonna be punished before.
(18:53):
Now you're really gonna bepunished.
And it's such an opportunity tokind of move up or even get your
your coverage or your text intothat AI overview.
Like it's a it's gonna it'sgonna kill companies or it's
gonna kill business because, andwe see this especially in oil
and gas, right?
We have this great crew changewhere where the older
(19:15):
generations are retiring.
Well, every I like to think I'msuper young, by the way,
everyone that's our generationthat's kind of like moving up in
managerial roles, the firstthing we do when when we need to
buy something or we need to looka company up, we go search it.
We search it up, we see whateveryone else says about it, we
look at all their stuff.
So, you know, if you're stillkind of operating like it's
(19:37):
1990, this is just gonna be thething that that really kills
your motivation.
SPEAKER_03 (19:43):
Well, if you're looking, yeah, if you're looking
to be found, right?
And that that's how you uh atpeople people found you through
through paid ads or seo orsocial media, um, the game is
changing.
If you're you haven't and you'veoperated the old good old boy
way, old school way, and I Iwill say, even people that don't
(20:04):
publish anything or companiesthat don't publish a lot are
saying something by notpublishing as well.
But I won't go go down thatrabbit hole.
But people discover you or getreferred to you, and these
buying committees are um, youknow, a lot of different people
that search a lot of differentways, but they do a lot of that
(20:26):
research on their own.
So even if they were handed thename of your company, you're
gonna go get found, and theywant to see what you're saying,
they want to see what people aresaying about you, they want to
see who is saying what about youas well.
And you know, okay, we'retalking SEO, we're talking okay,
we got some guest posts, we gotthat.
What you do is real PR, okay, islike you know, you're getting in
(20:51):
the top publishers that have alot more value that help you
that tell the story that peoplewhen it's on their platform,
people stand up and listen andtake those words with a lot more
credibility, and that's what theAI searches, that's what the
LOMs are doing, is they'rewaiting who is saying what.
(21:14):
Because if you're just on somerandom website or uh that
doesn't have a lot of prestige,it's gonna carry about that much
weight, like there's parity inthat.
And um, so the higher, the thebetter, more recognized, I mean
not better, but like morerecognized, more prestigious
publishers are gonna carry Xamount more weight, like
(21:37):
multiples more weight.
And um, that's also gonnainfluence decision making.
And so if someone's looking foryour brand, one, you're not
gonna get discovered in the AIoverviews and in the LMs, you're
not gonna get surfaced or getany visibility.
So you're not gonna be getfound, you're gonna miss out on
that.
Uh, I can tell you too, ifsomeone's been given your name,
they go search you or they ask,you know, chat GBT or or um, you
(22:02):
know, co-pilot or whatever, andyour name comes up or doesn't
come up, that moves you furtherdown the buying funnel.
I can tell you when our name hascome up, when people have been
given our name or they'vesearched Google, like I've had
people call me, Matt, like, youknow, I was searching for this
(22:23):
thing, I wasn't their firstcall.
You came up, they recognized mybrand, and they're like, Oh my
gosh, you're crushing it for youknow, X-related services.
Um, let me tell you about myproject, and it's almost like a
done deal, right?
And so even in these smallercircles that you operate, how
people view your brand online orhow online views your brand
(22:47):
reflects how people respond.
It's it's the LLMs are are justlike with Google, people would
skip, or 80% of people wouldskip the ads.
Um, and if you showed up at thetop of Google, there's like some
kind of value associated withtheir ranking organically,
there's some signals here that Ishould listen to.
(23:07):
And I feel like with the LLMs,as people use them more and
more, like that is your trustedco-pilot, that is your trusted
partner in your ideation.
And so if you're not gettingsurface in there, and the thing
about what's happening now,Paige, is the spine is hardening
of where you're gonna sit in therankings, and it's like wet
(23:30):
cement.
Okay.
I actually stayed up super latelast night, and I, you know,
drank a bunch of energy drinks,um, and I was working and I
wrote like a little manifesto uhon on Matthewbertram.com, and I
just think people don't get it,they think that AI is some kind
(23:53):
of bolt on, and I think it's asea change, okay?
And everything is opening up andlike get ready, everyone.
Get ready.
SPEAKER_01 (24:05):
Yeah, well, and and just to kind of add to that, you
know, I feel like I see that onthe PR side when I'm when I'm
pitching.
So, you know, we always havepeople that come in that, you
know, I think I've told you myfavorite is when people are
like, we want to be in the WallStreet Journal.
And it's like, well, you andevery you and everybody else,
(24:25):
but if you read the Wall StreetJournal, you would know they
don't exactly do features.
So, you know, like what is aindustry trend or what's some
kind of trend that's happeningright now that that's applicable
to your business or your productor whatever we're whatever we're
talking about, but to yourpoint, you know, I work with a
lot of reporters, I have a lotof contacts.
(24:48):
They get thousands of pitches aday, they don't want their time
wasted, number one.
And number two, I'm not justthrowing spaghetti at a wall to
see what sticks, right?
So to your point, if you're notbeing strategic in terms of all
of this, so whether it's a it'sa PR pitch for a news story or a
(25:08):
really pressing topic or whatyou're doing with social and SEO
and everything else, they'rethey're not going to be
interested when I'm sending thema pitch or it's like, hey, I've
got this really cool story orarticle idea for you.
It is, and I think people losesight of this, it is such a long
game to, you know, what we'redoing is shifting perceptions.
(25:30):
We're also buildingrelationships with reporters,
right?
So that whether or not I'mpitching something, if a if a
topic or something comes up,they know to call me or they
know to call my client becausethey know it's it's an expert or
a source.
They're not going to take you,you know, always on the first or
second email that you send them.
It might take six months beforea door opens.
(25:51):
And it's like you have to keepplaying this long game.
And you're exactly right.
The people that have been doingthis well are going to continue
to do it well, and the peoplethat buckle down and commit to
it are going to see results.
But it's the people that arekind of like on the fence, you
know, they've never really triedit.
Maybe they try it once or twiceand they don't get the results
(26:13):
they want, and then they throwin the towel.
It's like that is the worstpossible thing you could do.
Like you have to stay committedto this.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03 (26:23):
So, so a hundred percent, a hundred and fifty
percent.
I find so many people that umwant to test the waters, right?
And we used to offer thesesmaller SEO engagement packages
because we didn't want to havepeople have to commit to a year
(26:43):
or 18 months because we'rebuilding a relationship, but the
way that online's been saturatedsince COVID, everybody's online,
like pay per click is is reallynot um the economics don't even
work anymore for a lot of thesecampaigns because it's a a pay
(27:03):
per click bid system, it's beenbid up so much.
I remember when it was a couplecents a click and you could you
could really do a lot.
Now you have to be verystrategic to break through the
noise.
And so if people want to run adsor people want to do SEO,
everybody's doing it.
So, what are you doingdifferent?
What are you doing standing out?
What is newsworthy?
What is something that'svaluable that that people or the
(27:27):
algorithms will will latch onto?
And and you need to really thinkabout how you're you're you're
seeding that online and you needa strategist to help you do
that.
But the commitment that I'mseeing is either you get it or
you don't.
And that that's kind of like I Iactually we backed away from um
(27:49):
like this podcast, of course, isum like I mean, I've seen
hundreds, if not thousands, ofcampaigns where digital
marketing 10x is plus abusiness.
Okay.
Yeah, but it doesn't happenimmediately.
It's almost like the first sixmonths you're building up,
you're starting to get somesuccess.
Maybe you get a quick win, andthen it's it's on the back end
(28:11):
where where you start to getthat that compounding, where you
get this um escape trajectory onwhat you're doing.
But but so many people eitherdon't have the right strategy,
right, going into it, so or theygive up too soon.
Or what I've found is a lot oftimes if we've done these
(28:31):
shorter engagements, uh, evenGoogle says that they don't
sandbox, but they do.
Um, they they they they wait torelease stuff and and publish
stuff and give it visibilityunless you're really hitting it
with the PR signals more like alot a lot quicker.
And what will happen is the workthat we did now, like by the end
(28:52):
of the year, will will start tohave an impact.
And they've moved on tosomething else, and then they're
like, Oh, this is the thingthat's working because
everybody's used to like AmazonPrime, and you know, they want
it immediately.
Um, I mean, even paid ads, Ihaven't seen real results where
you can even measure anythingfor about two weeks.
So there's there's this lagtime, there's this startup piece
(29:16):
that that really impacts um thesuccess.
And and then the other thingthat I would love for you to
speak to is I'm seeing more andmore kind of a RevOps model
where you got to speak in termsof you know, what are the
dollars and cents?
Like, how does this tie to thebottom line?
(29:37):
How is this gonna grow mybusiness?
And and we've started to puttogether more case studies where
we articulate what that growthlooks like, but again, it's
gotta be an investment and it'snot a quick turnaround, like
it's like we got to get goingand get the wheels cranking, and
then we got to prove to Googleconsistently uh in the LLMs that
(29:59):
we're doing.
This and then that successstarts to happen, but it it
doesn't happen quickly, and sothere's a lot of like belief
that it has to happen along withthe right strategy, along with
the right partner.
And I just think people havebeen burned so much that um you
know the trust building to knowthat you're the right partner
(30:22):
and that you've you you have theproven methodology that's gonna
work and and you know what'sgonna happen, like you know the
reporters, you have arelationship with them, you've
pitched it, like you know thisstory will not land, or I can
get this story here withconfidence.
And that's a piece, and we'retalking about a lot here, we're
(30:44):
trying to unpack a lot in youknow a few a few minutes, but
but once you even get thatplacement, there's there's
that's the beginning that likeit's the repurposing of that
placement to make sure it'sbeing shown and seen, just like
the analogy of the website, it'sthe starting point.
(31:05):
And so I think that there's alot of factors that people deal
with that like when I talk tothem, uh, if they don't know who
I am, they haven't like listenedto the podcast, read my books,
like it heard me talk, whatever,they're they got like a wall-up
and they got some baggage aboutwhat happened.
(31:26):
And and a lot of times there's alittle bit of counseling that's
going on of like, okay, what didyou do before?
You know, let's look at it.
I can look at the data, I cankind of see what's happening.
And and there has to be a realcommitment and buy-in for it to
work now more than ever, becausewell, it's so much harder than
(31:47):
it used to be.
SPEAKER_01 (31:49):
So I feel like you touched on um a lot.
SPEAKER_03 (31:53):
I know.
A lot.
SPEAKER_01 (31:55):
So sorry, I'm just jutting down a couple notes that
I want to touch on.
So let me start with maybe onepiece and then I want to move to
another.
Um, I think we talked on adifferent podcast recently about
how uh PR is measured, right?
So way back in the day, 20 yearsago, before online was even a
(32:15):
thing really, um, say you gotsomething in the Houston
Chronicle on the cover page ofthe Sunday Business edition,
which is the most read, just soeveryone is.
So you would cut out the cut outthe news story and you would
measure it with a ruler, andthen you would match it up with
um your advertising rates.
Um, the truth is it's a veryterrible way of measuring the
(32:40):
value of something because it'snot an ad, right?
It's this big feature story onthe cover, there's a ton of eyes
on it.
So I think the ad equivalencymethod was like the best we
could do at the time.
And today we have similarthings, a lot for online.
You touched earlier about howthings rank, like when you get
(33:03):
published on a third-party sitewith an interview and article,
how they rank on Google.
Um, you're exactly right.
Different outlets and websiteshave domain authorities, and the
higher your domain authority,the more credible you are, the
more visitors you have.
So, for instance, USA Today isgoing to rank a lot higher than
like, I don't know,sittinginachair.com or whatever
(33:26):
random website you throw outthere.
So all of these are ways tomeasure PR, right?
But it's also a little bitabstract because PR is not
necessarily used for sales, it'snot tied in with sales the way
you may say, um, you know, wehave 10 people click on this
(33:48):
keyword, drove them to thewebsite, and then we and then we
got a call.
What typically happens with PR,right, is it's about opening
doors.
So if it's a case study that'srelevant to someone, maybe you
get your front, your foot in thedoor with a major because they
saw that you were proving,right?
Or maybe you're you're speakingor you're getting published and
you're thought of as an expert.
(34:10):
It's very rare, it has happened,just like you were saying, that
like I myself have publishedsomething in the business
journal, or I've had a clientthat did an interview and they
immediately got a phone call.
And when that happens, it feelsamazing, by the way, um, because
usually there's an email or avoicemail that's like, hey, I
read your I read your piece.
Do you do this kind of work orthat kind of work?
(34:31):
But what typically happens in myspace is you're working on
building this credibility overtime.
So maybe a potential client seesyou speak at a conference, and
then they see you publish in atrade magazine, and then they
see you interviewed on apodcast, and it's like all these
different touch points in thesales cycle.
So by the time they call, inmost scenarios, they're not
(34:53):
saying, I'm hiring you because Iread your awesome case study.
I wish they would say that more.
But it's typically a whole hostof things, right?
So in addition to all of themarketing um touch points.
So when we go in and people say,you know, how are we measuring
success or how many leads isthis going to kind of deliver?
(35:15):
It's a little bit of a red flag.
We want to deliver them, but itwould almost be um, it would
certainly, I mean, I don't knowif I call it line, but it
wouldn't be authentic and andtransparent if I weren't like,
that's not how we measurethings, right?
Like we want to get X member ofplacements, you know, we want to
(35:36):
be talking on certain topics, wewant to see web traffic go up.
Maybe we're kind of steeringthat social strategy, but it's
not, it's it's very difficult tosay, like, oh, we're gonna get
you an interview in thechronicle, which is probably
going to be an industry typestory, and then someone's going
to hire you.
It doesn't necessarily work likethat.
(35:57):
So people can be reallymisinformed on that, which is
fine if they're open to numberone, being committed, right?
Just like you were saying, wehave to give this a while.
It's not going to be one or twoquick wins and you're off
sailing.
Um, but we also want people thatare comfortable working with an
agency or that kind of arewilling to be a little bit
(36:18):
educated in this space if theyaren't already.
Um, and then the other thingthat I was just going to talk
about, and it kind of leads intothis.
We work with companies of allsizes.
So we work with energy or energytech startups that are$50
million,$150 million, all theway up to, you know,$10 billion
(36:42):
companies.
It really just depends.
Obviously, the larger companiesare going to have a larger
internal team that's managingall of these components of
marketing of PR together.
You would be shocked at howmany, I'm going to say two to
three hundred million dollarcompanies that don't have
analytics set up on theirwebsite.
They aren't monitoring thesethings, they aren't measuring
(37:05):
these things.
And so, you know, when we'rehired and we're kind of mapping
out like, well, what's happeningthis year, or what are the
trends, or what do we want totalk about?
There's this whole other sideof, well, what has the most
engagement on social, right?
What are people searching whenthey're going to Google and
typing in search terms?
And what is the traffic doing onyour site?
(37:27):
What products or services arethey most interested in?
And so, I mean, just last week Ihad a client that thought they
had analytics set up on theirsite and they didn't.
And so we got them set up.
And no, I don't have a ton ofinsights to go after a week of
just seeing what's happening,but I can see the product pages
(37:48):
that are most frequented.
And so, okay, if that's whatyour customers are most
interested in, what what can wewrite about?
What can we talk about?
What can we pitch?
What should we be pushing out onsocial?
Because there's clearly a levelof interest that like y'all
don't even realize, you know,you may be over here talking
about red shoes, and the fact issomebody wants a basketball and
(38:09):
you sell both, but like you'renot even tied in with like what
your client, you know, what yourcustomers or clients are telling
you behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_03 (38:19):
So the data is so powerful when I'm on teams of
like traditional PR, uh, like uhI not no traditional
advertising, not PR, but likeuh, you know, newspapers, um,
terrestrial radio, TV.
I I usually uh represent the thedigital piece of it, and and I'm
(38:40):
working with some traditionalplayers that have you know that
like I don't want to move intoterrestrial ad buys or anything
like that, but they asked me forthe data, they ask me what's
going on with the data.
Those insights are realvaluable, and that helps you
guide the decision making maybefor the next quarter or whatever
(39:00):
campaign's gonna run next thatyou might not see or know.
And going back to what you weresaying previously, you know,
only like four percent of peopleare ready to buy.
I saw uh some data that saidthere's 30 touch points now uh
for the B2B buying sales sale,30, not 11, not seven, 30.
And and we we operate under thisframework that I've mentioned
(39:22):
before 7114, seven hours ofcontent consumption, seeing your
brand or logo 11 times on fourdifferent channels.
Like you spoke to that, you knowthat because you've been in the
industry and the how the buyerbehaviors change, they don't
just see something and buyanymore.
And and I think pre-COVID, wewere getting a lot of those like
(39:43):
one-off wins because we wouldjust catch somebody or we would
kind of target a little nicheand we know we could get them a
lead, and we were like, Hey,let's show them some success,
and then they'll engage us forlonger.
And you know, really, there's somuch ramp up that has to happen,
and the stars have to likealmost align to make that
happen.
And now people are pulling back,uh, the economy is a little bit
(40:07):
slower, budgets um are aretaking a little bit longer to
spend, and so um Euro thinkingthat if you're thinking about
purchasing these kind ofservices, but your customer
sales cycle is lengthening tothey might not be in the market,
and so um to to to have thatquick win to make that happen,
it it's more about like you weresaying, what's the conversations
(40:31):
we want to be associated withand be involved in to get that
brand uplift to be there whensomeone's ready to make a
purchase and stay visible ondifferent channels and different
places because there's trust,okay.
Um, there was a study um that Ihad a guy on a long time ago
(40:52):
where we had a lot of thesepsychological conversations
about buying behavior, and hesold billboards, okay.
And he said there was nothingmore than when someone saw your
uh brand on a billboard of ofcementing in this company has
made it because they have themoney to buy a billboard, built
(41:16):
like a massive amount of trust,and also there's so much noise
online.
Like, I I believe that peopleare glued to their phone, but
man, when they look up fromtheir phone that they've seen
you on and they see you in thenewspaper, uh, you know, on the
front page of an article, uh,they see you on uh you know a
news channel, right?
(41:36):
Like Fox and Friends seems to belike a good placement point, and
and like or a billboard, it addsa whole different layer of
trust.
That that's what we have.
We have a uh a uh recession, atrust recession, uh right now,
and and you have to build thatconfidence up if you don't have
(41:59):
the logo that people arebacking.
I've seen this with salespeopleso many times, they chase a comp
plan, go to a smaller company,and all their relationships and
all the doors that used to open,they thought it was them, and
some of them was them, but a lotof times it was because of the
logo and what was being carried.
And now they're in a position tosay, okay, how how do I get in
(42:21):
the door?
Well, guess what?
PR, online marketing, socialmedia that's what gets your
brand noticed.
And I'm seeing this erosion ofbig brands that have not stepped
into the web 2.0 game and we'realready moving to web 3.0 or
whatever.
Yeah.
Um, and uh their brand wascarrying them, but smaller
(42:43):
companies that can navigate andmove and understand um you know
the new environment are arewinning and are getting in the
door and are are are competingagainst the bids.
And now the this kind of safeharbor of everybody always hires
IBM or whatever the the ad is,um, is there there's high trust
(43:05):
in some of these unknown brandsthat have dominated online, on
social media, uh in PR, uhacross these different
platforms.
And I'm telling you, surfacingin the LLMs, you know, LLM
visibility is not big today, butit's growing massively.
Yeah, and as people trust theirtheir personalized trained AI,
(43:31):
if you're not surface there, youare not even one of the
potential selection choices.
SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
Yeah.
Well, and I know, like justusing some of the, you know, I
just told you I work with somestartups, uh, and then I work
with some of these massivecompanies.
You're exactly right.
Startups are some of these, Ihate to say smaller companies
because the$50 million companyis still really big.
Um, but they can move so muchfaster.
(43:59):
And the fact is they are gettingin there and doing the exact
same pitches and competing withall of the big guys.
You know, sometimes it may comedown to just like capabilities,
you know, can you do everythingthat the client asks?
But I don't think, you know, inso many things that I've heard,
I don't think it's um, I don'tthink they're losing out because
(44:22):
of expertise per se or anythinglike that.
Because, like you said, I mean,if you're a smaller company and
you don't have that namerecognition built up already,
you have to be doing all of themarketing things.
Otherwise, you're just going to,I mean, you don't have that big
name at that point to kind ofcarry you through.
So you've got to do all you canto hustle and grind and stay
(44:46):
relevant while the others canjust kind of skate by on their
coattails.
SPEAKER_03 (44:50):
And and I think that one of the biggest things that
I've been approaching with mylike L invisibility framework
that that I've built out and webuilt some use cases for it is
you got to find like a whitepaper or something of high
value, right?
That that press will pick up.
We're not talking a blog, we'retalking, you know, a very uh,
(45:14):
you know, uh a multimedia piece,like something that has
significant value um to seed theLOMs as a as a foundational
point to build your brand on.
And the more kind of um seeds orkind of uh like points that you
(45:36):
can lodge in and and map aroundyour brand, uh those those
weighted points are are really,really critical because there's
a lot of noise, there's a lot ofAI generated nonsense that
that's happening.
Um, I can tell you, even goingback to my story, I've been
(45:57):
publishing stuff and the thelabeling of what I did, it
doesn't even know that I'm thesame person, right?
And it's like the names changelike how you build your brand
today is is so critical, andthere's all these things to
consider because there's thisdigital world that's trying to
(46:19):
mirror and map the real world,and so if you're doing things in
person and you're not publiclydoing a press release and
highlighting those things andtaking pictures and sharing
those on social media andtagging it where the LLMs
understand, it's like it didn'teven happen.
SPEAKER_01 (46:39):
Yeah, so there's two issues I see pretty regularly.
And again, it this part doesn'tmatter what size your company
is, a lot of people don't knowwhat is newsworthy.
Um, and I mean that in two ways.
They don't understand what thepress will pick up.
(47:00):
So for instance, I'll say, Doyou have any case studies, any
white papers, you know, awards,you know, awards, yeah.
Women in the C-suite that wecould really spotlight.
And no one ever, no one everknows anything, and they're
like, no, we don't haveanything, we don't have anything
to talk about.
I can sit through one staffmeeting and I'll come out with
like 10 or 15 things.
(47:21):
And it's like half these peopleare sitting on gold mines of
things, you know, newsworthythings they should be sharing
that they just don't evenrealize.
So that's one massive problem.
Um, and and it's more so again,with whether it's myself or
their internal team, like notallowing marketing or PR to like
be a part of that C-suite or apart of those bigger
(47:44):
conversations.
Um, the other part of this iswith podcasts and with so much
digital, it is so easy to hop ona podcast or commit for an hour,
and then you're and then you'redone, right?
And so many people arereluctant, and yet we know that
videos are prioritized and rankthe highest on social outlets.
(48:07):
Um, most people engage with thevideos over anything written
because no one really readsanymore.
And so, and they give you thatinstant credibility, even if no
one picks up the coverage, it'ssomething you can put in your
newsletters or emails or yourwebsite to send out to your
clients.
And people still look atpodcasting and almost feel like
it's too risky, or or maybe theyjust don't want to take the hour
(48:31):
out of their day.
I'm not sure why, but likethat's such an easy, massive
win.
And then the clips can be brokenup and you've got content and
marketing material for days, um,and people will still blow it
off.
It's crazy to me.
SPEAKER_03 (48:44):
Well, I think some of the bigger companies, right?
On and with the other podcastswe have, there's like a legal
element that it has to get runthrough legal.
Um, also, I think executivesneed some PR training, right?
They need to understand um thatas an executive, one, your brand
needs a spokesperson.
(49:05):
And if you're the CEO, you'reyou're the spokesperson, or if
you're on in the C suite and youwant to build your personal
brand and be, you know, uh, youknow, uh, what is it called?
Like just like in, I can't eventhink of the word, but you like
where you are uh invaluable,that's the word, invaluable and
and and grow grow your careeroptions, you need to be online.
(49:28):
So we're seeing a lot more um uhinbound interest from a brand
consultancy standpoint ofexecutives uh building their
voice online, how to managesocial media, how to post, um,
you know, putting together uhbooks where you can take even
interviews and turn into a book,but that is so critical in
(49:51):
YouTube, okay, and podcasts andYouTube.
YouTube is is picked up as brandlift, one of the top um kind of
kind of components of of share avoice when when you're trying to
get out there and YouTube, theaccess to people that brands
back in the day would die foryou have for free, and no one's
(50:15):
taking advantage of it.
And to your point, I think thata lot of these brands need to
have a strategist or bring in anoutside consultant so things are
not stale, and to work withtheir marketing or sales team or
executive team to understandwhat they should be doing
because corporate training andand maybe they have the team
(50:36):
internally to do it if they're abigger company, but the
execution of what I've seen ofsome major brands they need to
be training, things continue toevolve, and so having the right
partner or advisory person thatyou can go to to look at things,
they don't have to be doing allthe execution, but they can that
(50:57):
I mean that's what I've beenengaged for twice in the last
month is coming in, they have abig team, helping them train it,
organize it, build theworkflows, get them uh up to
date with the uh the besttechnologies.
I mean, there's technology nowthat you can take an ad before
you run the ad and run itthrough a synthetic audience or
(51:20):
you know, AI, and figure outbased on that target persona how
this ad will land withoutspending any money.
Like you can start, I mean, youcan start doing like there's a
lot of things of marketresearch, like go to market
research that can be executedquickly.
There's McKenzie style reports,and like there's a there's an
(51:43):
article I read, I should havereshared it, but it was like uh
existential crisis by the bigchange management companies
because what you can do with uhLLM like we wonder Cracker
Barrel should have used itbefore they went on their whole
rebrand.
SPEAKER_01 (52:00):
I wonder what the results would have shown.
SPEAKER_03 (52:03):
Well, that's the thing.
If you want to do this, one testit out in a small market set,
right?
In in in a uh uh like there'ssome homogene to maybe the
bigger market, like a microcosm,but you can test it
synthetically now before you doit.
I'm not saying that everything'sperfect, but it will give you an
idea of like, hey, maybe youshould reconsider this because
(52:25):
this doesn't align with yourtarget audience.
So I mean, same thing withBudweiser, like um, you know,
like there are things that youcan do and you can move quickly.
Like, I know a lot of people arelike, oh, we got to get to
market, like within a month orsix weeks, you can get
strategy-level engagements whereit's not gonna be a ton of
interviews and and a bunch ofstuff.
(52:46):
You want to certainly confirmsome of that data, but yeah, but
I can tell you that um a lot ofinternal companies when when
they engage us or we start tohave conversations after
conferences or speaking talks,like they're open to it, um, and
they know it's moving quickly.
(53:07):
And you know, I I I also hearfrom a lot of executives, right?
When I'm speaking, oh, we got awe got an internal team, we got
it, we're we're good, we'regood.
And then like, you know, if yougo look at who they have, they
maybe have a uh, you know, ageneralist and a couple VAs or
something.
And and so I think that there'sthis mindset shift between, you
(53:30):
know, uh having a a consultantor or working with a like a
brand building consultancy uh ora PR company in where it's it's
so critical today.
It is so critical to to beinvolved with everything because
(53:50):
it's changing so fast.
And the people that are winningare taking advantage early.
The early adopters are the onethat's winning, and I'm just
starting to see this big shiftof like the big brands that like
have just like horrible websitesthat that don't think it's
important that this is a salestool, this is a PR tool, this is
(54:15):
an internal training tool.
Um, this is your brand online asrepresentative and should mirror
who you are and who you want tobe.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (54:27):
So just quickly, I don't know, I don't know how
much time we have left.
Um, so a couple of things.
I think you know we do media andpresentation trainings, which
there's a lot to impact there,but on the on both sides, right?
I mean, you're getting peopleready or getting executives
ready to speak on whatever typeof medium is being asked for.
(54:50):
Most people need it, even themost confident speakers need it.
Um, what's interesting is somany are averse to it, they're
risk averse, and yet I thinkstudies show that uh like you
can't move up in your careerunless you're doing some sort of
public speaking.
So, like your youngerprofessionals today that you're
(55:12):
kind of looking at, or perhapsyou're grooming to be upper
management later, they should bedoing all the speaking,
podcasting, and webinars thatthey can do, right?
It negatively the studies showit like negatively impacts your
salary if you're not doingpublic speaking.
Again, because of the networkingand the credibility that you can
lend back to the brand.
Um, I'm actually doing a big,I'm doing a presentation
(55:34):
training for um a group.
They're doing their biginvestors day coming up, and I
think I think there's 10 ofthem.
They're all used to speaking,very comfortable speaking on
different mediums, but they wantsomeone to come in and kind of
critique or coach up thoselittle nuances that maybe each
of them have, which frankly issomething all of us need.
(55:57):
But it does go back to, and Iwas I was talking to someone the
other day, when you have adecision maker or an executive,
and let's just say they hatepublic speaking because like 75%
of people hate public speakingand and all these things.
What you're asking people to do,even on something like this
(56:17):
that's like off the cuff andfun, not everyone views it as
that.
And you're asking people in away to be vulnerable, even if
they're experts in something.
And then, you know, when we comein and we're we're helping coach
them up, what we're really doingis critiquing them, right?
And these are people mostly inpositions that don't like to be
(56:38):
critiqued, and they've you knowbuilt this big career.
So the the media training andthe presentation training is a
lot of fun, but it always comeswith that like 5% bit of stress
on my side.
But again, it's like if you'renot doing it, you should be
doing it.
If you're not comfortable doingit, get coached up for it
(56:59):
because you're missing thesemassive opportunities.
And especially for these likeyounger professionals, it's
going to negatively impact yourcareer.
So it's like, you know, get theball rolling now, or or maybe
you're identified on the team aslike the up-and-coming engineer
that wants to be thespokesperson because no one is
volunteering, like nobody wantsto go out and do these things.
(57:21):
I feel like a lot of times I'mlike dragging people's feet to
the fire, like, come on, this iseasy, let's do it.
SPEAKER_03 (57:26):
So yeah, Paige, we we are almost at time or we're
wrapping up.
Is there anything else that wehaven't covered that you want to
make sure to highlight?
And also, what is the best wayto follow you, get in touch with
you, find out more about yourservices and what you're talking
about online?
SPEAKER_01 (57:43):
Sure.
Um, nothing else.
This was a fun conversation.
You know, I always love kind ofdiving into the details.
The best way to reach me isemail page at page PR spelled
P-A-I-G-E.
Um, I mean, calls are great.
I don't know about you.
I'm overwhelmed with spam thesedays.
So calls are probably reachingout on LinkedIn.
(58:05):
Um, I'm sorry, emails arereaching out on LinkedIn.
Anything written, a text isgreat.
Um, just the phone calls.
If you call, leave a voicemail.
SPEAKER_03 (58:14):
Real people, real people.
SPEAKER_01 (58:17):
Real people.
Um, by the way, on that note, Ithink there's some technology
coming out that's gonna filterall the spam out for us for
those of us that have our cellphones out there on the
internet.
SPEAKER_02 (58:30):
In Texas, there's some state laws that are are
coming down the pike that Ithink are dreaming of the day.
SPEAKER_03 (58:36):
Well needed.
Um, well, Paige with Page PR,thank you so much uh for coming
on.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, please leave us a
review.
I would really appreciate somereviews uh or share it.
Shaiko us, share like, follow.
Um, and um, you know, we uh thisis podcast is sponsored by EWR
(58:59):
Digital.
I don't say that a lot.
EWR Digital, um, a great brandconsultancy.
We do execution as well, beingaround 25 plus years.
So check it out, check out PagePR for PR, check out EWR Digital
for strategy, uh, SEO, paid ads,etc.
Um, until the next time, my nameis Matt Bertram.
(59:21):
Bye bye for now.
This is the unknown secrets of internet marketing.
Your insider guide to thestrategies top marketers use to
crush the competition.
Ready to unlock your businessfull potential.
Let's get started.
SPEAKER_03 (00:13):
Howdy, welcome back to another episode of the
Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I am your host, Matthew Bertram,uh or Matt Bertram.
We've been talking a lot aboutentity SEO.
We'll talk about that more astime goes on.
Uh, I wanted to bring on afantastic guest that I've had
the pleasure of getting to knowin the oil and gas space that
(00:34):
really is a leader uh in digitalPR.
Um, Paige uh Donald, how areyou?
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
Good.
How's it going?
SPEAKER_03 (00:45):
Good.
And uh Paige of Paige PR, right?
And that's how you're how howyou're known in the kind of uh
Texas, Houston, oil and gasarena.
Uh Page PR is uh very well knownuh from the standpoint of
getting your brand out there.
So Paige, um we were kind oftalking previously, there's a
(01:06):
lot going on in the news.
Um, you know, how you weretalking about how people are
getting fired for comments onsocial media.
I would love to kind of hear youdid a post on LinkedIn about
that recently.
So I'd love to uh hear moreabout kind of your feelings
towards that.
SPEAKER_01 (01:23):
Yeah, and um also just recognizing I have no
intention of going down like apolitical rabbit hole or
minefield, for instance.
Um but I mean, obviously, Imean, in public relations, more
so than marketing, we're dealingwith perceptions, right?
How you are perceived, how youwant to be perceived, um, how
(01:44):
others look at your brand.
And so, kind of the topic Iwrote about on LinkedIn
yesterday is yes, we all havethe right to free speech, and
you can say whatever you want tosay, as vulgar or as vile as it
might be.
That's protective.
Having said that, your socialmedia presence, what you post on
(02:08):
any of the platforms, um, whenyou do that, even if it's your
personal account, you are stillrepresenting your company.
Um, you might be looked at as abrand ambassador, maybe you're
head of sales, maybe you're anHR.
I mean, no matter what your roleis, it you know, in your social
circles, meaning social mediacircles, you're connected with
(02:31):
people that you do work with.
And so it really doesn't matterif it's in relation to Charlie
Kirk or just a regular Tuesdayat work, you're responsible and
you own what you post.
And even if you take it downlater, you know, it's out there
for the world to see.
And so, you know, it's it's justa great reminder to all of us.
(02:53):
You know, I work with brands ontheir social and we always have
defined strategies for eachsocial outlet.
But my kids are teenagers, youknow, I'm an adult.
What does my personal brandreflect?
What do I want to post?
What am I willing to post about?
Um, what are topics that Iavoid?
And so, you know, I just thinkeverything is online with your
(03:15):
with your personal brands, it'sthe same way.
You know, if if there'ssomething foul you want to say,
maybe just don't put it onlinebecause it's going to be there,
it's going to live there.
Someone will see it, someonewill take a screenshot.
Um, and it is an employer'sright.
It's a private company's right,uh, public company's right to
let go of people that don'tproperly reflect their brand and
(03:38):
their corporate values.
SPEAKER_03 (03:39):
And so um well, you know, the world we live in
today, like with the internetgrowing up, is is so much
different.
I think I've talked to a numberof people about how they're like
so glad that social media wasn'taround when they were growing
up.
And then when social media wasearly, uh, I I even have a
(04:01):
Instagram account that's publicand then a private Instagram
account.
Yeah, and you know, I postedmore on my private account.
I haven't posted as much on mymy public one, but that goes for
Facebook and LinkedIn, likeentity, like you as a person,
there's no uh who you are inprivate and who you are in
(04:22):
public, it's who you are as anentity online.
I'm actually dealing withMatthew, Matt, Bertram, as you
can see in my my title here.
I've been doing this a longtime, and in the knowledge
graph, as kind of we move intokind of some Google topics.
Um, I am represented as twodifferent entities.
It's not sure who I am becausewell, we've changed the name of
(04:45):
our company, I've had differentroles, I've done different
things.
Um, and and so it just comesback to who are you?
What are your values?
What are the signals that you'regiving off?
And all these social media andAI all talk to each other,
right?
So you are a person of who youare, and you're representative
(05:09):
online of that, and um you needto think about what you said,
whatever you're posting is gonnaget indexed and forever.
So you know, you need to thinkthrough the things that you do
and understand the impact ofwhat you can have, and what what
(05:31):
you're talking about and whatyou're saying is all a record of
who you are as an entity, whatyou're associated with, um, what
you're knowledgeable about, whatyou talk about, and and even you
know, going in a little bitfurther, there is a
personalization that starts tohappen when you post to give you
(05:52):
things that are more like you tolike there's there's this
homogeny that is is happeningwhere you're gonna be seeing
more posts like you post about,and you're kind of in an echo
chamber, which which is which isproblematic.
Um, but when people aresearching online, you got to be
aware of people are gonna beable to find that if they're
(06:13):
looking for that, and you mightbe around.
I think people are so much intheir echo chamber, just to talk
about what you said, is thatthey think that this is yeah, I
think this, and all the thingsI've seen on social media are
this, so of course, everybodythinks this, and um, that's what
(06:33):
your feed is showing you, andyou're not aware that that might
be a very small microcosm, uh,or or even like a silo of what
the broader public thinks.
And I think a lot of thesepeople are uh like really taken
back by that the backlashbecause they thought everybody
thought the way they did becauseof how these algorithms work.
SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
So this is actually a really interesting topic, and
I I promise I'm gonna tie itback to work.
But my job in PR, like I said,is managing perceptions, telling
people stories.
It's also watching the news andand following the reporters or
the journalists that arecovering the topics that my
(07:18):
clients are most interested in.
So when I tell you I devour thenews, I mean the news is on all
day.
All the different channels, nomatter how you think they're
covering things, I'm watching itall, I'm reading it all, I look
at all of it online, right?
Because to exactly your point,and particularly if I'm
(07:40):
representing others, I cannot bein an echo chamber.
None of us should be.
We should be evaluating andhearing everyone's opinions,
everyone's different expertiseand credibility.
Um, but it's fascinating whenyou watch different outlets
cover different things, which iswhy it makes it so important to
not just live in your bubble.
Um, sticking with what you weretalking about uh with echo
(08:04):
chambers, and I think you and Idiscussed this a while ago.
So LinkedIn's algorithm haschanged um really over the
course of this year.
I started digging into it.
I kind of think what happened,let me give a little bit of
background.
I think what happened is whenCOVID hit and we were all
working from home or we werekind of siloed wherever we were,
(08:27):
everything was virtual, right?
So all the messages that maybeyou would have had or wanted to
have over a lunch or anetworking hour were put on
LinkedIn.
And all of our LinkedIn feedsjust blew up with stuff that
maybe we didn't necessarily careabout, right?
It just came in in order of liketiming and we all moved on.
(08:49):
Then Reddit, which has beengrowing and growing, you know, I
love Reddit.
Um, a lot of their statisticsshow that people go there before
they make purchasing decisionsbecause you can ask very
specific questions and there'sall these little subcultures
within.
I mean, it's mind-blowing.
I have looked up miningquestions, um, remote crypto
(09:12):
mining work, mobile generation.
Like it's crazy the topics thatyou're like, that would never be
on Reddit.
Yes, it is.
And these are very much like B2Bquestions, and they have very
serious, genuine answers.
It's incredible, it's thisincredible community.
I think that LinkedIn started asthat, right?
(09:32):
It's our business networkingcommunity.
I think during COVID, it justblew up in everyone's face
because we connected witheveryone.
And the truth is, it's notFacebook, it was never meant to
be.
So their algorithm has beenchanging this year, to your
point, to where um the thingsthat you're starting to see in
the top of your news feed noware very niche, very specific to
(09:56):
your industry or your topicbased on your profile.
And the um posts that rank thehighest usually have a very like
personal or anecdotal typestory.
It's not how it used to be,where we would say, Hey, we
launched a new website, youknow, here's your call to
action, click to learn more.
Those days are gone.
What LinkedIn favors andprioritizes are things that are
(10:19):
applicable to you and ones thathave like a more customized
post.
You can't just put whatever youwant out there.
And obviously, videos areprioritized.
So it just seems like all of theplatforms these days just kind
of keep you boxed into what youknow.
SPEAKER_03 (10:37):
Yeah, I mean, they're trying to keep keep you
on the platform and engaging, sothey're gonna feed you more of
what what you like or you knowwhat you share, like so.
There's uh a point systemassociated with it.
Um, and I think that really thethe news and whatever your
target persona that you're goingafter is, you can build a
(10:59):
structure where you can kind ofnews jack, I think it's kind of
a term that that's usedsometimes and and ride the wave.
And certainly in the podcastingworld, that is what certain
podcasters do.
Uh, if if there's a lot ofsearch volumes or something,
they jump on it, they bring onguests, um, and they ride that
(11:20):
wave.
And I think that if you're akind of web 2.0 or social first
company, um you can getproficient in this, and it's
very valuable to post about thenews.
I think you and I are talkingabout people that are not
intentional about what they'reposting, and they just become
the news story, but but there isways to do that, uh, and and
(11:44):
follow the trends.
Like Google Trends is free as away to see what's going on.
You can see uh, you know, wherewhere the uplift is happening
from a PR standpoint, set uplike a Google Alerts is another
free way to see what's going onwith your brand or your
industry, and and becomerelevant into what's going on,
(12:05):
but you have to be firmly mappedin who you're trying to talk to
and what you're trying tocommunicate, and it and it needs
to be intentional.
And I've seen people on Facebookand LinkedIn do it fantastic,
and um, they are on top ofeverything, uh, and and they
know how to post.
And I would encourage people, ifthey want to get into that, look
(12:28):
at what's being done, uh, lookat the engagement rate and look
at how specific it is.
There, they usually tie it backto maybe a personal story or
something about what they sell.
Um, you know, they're they'reusually tapping into the
emotions and and they're reallyjust hijacking interest uh of
what's going on.
(12:48):
And I I have mixed opinions uhabout it because I I'm seeing a
lot of posts, and I feel likesome people are are are doing it
for for likes, but uh orengagement, and and that is a
vanity metric.
I I think that it to each to ownon whatever you you want to do
and whatever you're looking for,but I can tell you that just
(13:13):
because you're grabbingattention and you get a lot of
engagement or likes, that willhelp your next post um and and
kind of your overall average getpulled up.
But I've seen in the B2B worldthe smallest post targeted to
the right community with almostno engagement, and also we know
(13:33):
that most people don't evenengage, right?
Like only a small fractionactually engage, and you can get
more leads and connect with moreof the right people by by being
laser focused on that.
And when you talk about thenews, okay, and you talk about
things that are outside, if youthink of like a plot graph, a
(13:55):
lot of these things, if if youdon't do it a lot, are outliers
and the algorithm doesn't reallyknow how to handle it, and then
it kind of mixes up what you'redoing.
I'll give you a perfect example.
Um, the people that aresuccessful on Facebook stick to
only posting about a topic, it'slike they don't blend their
(14:16):
their personal post as much withtheir business, and they're
laser focused on whateverthey're talking about in
particular.
And the algorithm knows okay, Ineed to show this to more people
that like this and and engagewith that.
And you know, for everybodylistening, this is a SEO
podcast, and well, 50% or moreof all the traffic has now left
(14:38):
Google.
Okay, it's all over the place,it's on Reddit, it's on social
media.
That's where people are startingto find out about brands, and so
the the optimization game, I'mcalling it LM visibility, right?
And it maybe AI visibility andAI discovery, like I have an AI
(14:59):
discovery framework, is muchbroader.
But guess what?
All these social media sites arethey're LLMs, like Google's just
a big LLM.
Um, it it just has you know kindof different put uh inputs, and
it you know, there it'sweighting things a little bit
differently, but you're speakingto AI that is trying to speak to
(15:21):
humans.
Um, there's a little bit of abifurcation that's happening of
of how you need to do things,but the search game, the
discovery game, the visibilitygame, uh the positioning like
depends on your your bent hascompletely changed.
And now you gotta optimizeeverywhere.
(15:43):
There's all these differentwords for for everything.
I I feel like LLM visibility isis really like the laser focus
of of where I see the marketgoing.
Um, but there's a lot of otherthings being talked about, and
PR and other votes for you andother people saying things about
(16:04):
you impacts the LLMs, impactshow people view your brand, and
is critically important.
I actually saw a study recently,or actually it was a survey, and
marketers thought that digitalPR was the number one most
important thing today.
SPEAKER_01 (16:23):
Yeah, it I mean, it has to be.
So there's I meet a lot ofinteresting people in my
specific career and also withinthe industries and the sectors I
work, right?
Because I I think we cancollectively say oil and gas,
you know, traditional energy,the industry in general just
(16:43):
moves a little slower than someothers.
So you have a lot of people thatdon't know what PR is and don't
see the value.
That's just kind of thosehistoric, historical mindset or
or stereotype of a lot of peoplethat I have interacted with.
And let's just assume someoneI'm talking to today, that's
(17:04):
been their mindset this wholetime until 2025.
You can't afford to do thatanymore with um AI overview and
AI mode.
It is tanking websites.
Um, so if you're not, this isthe other part that we can kind
of tie into.
People spend tons of moneylaunching a beautiful new
(17:25):
website, which is incredible,and then they're like, okay, I'm
done, we did it.
And it's like, no, that is justkind of like the central hub,
but it's like again, if you arenot actively posting on social,
if you're not um writing yourown content and having that live
on your website somewhere, andthen if you're also not getting
(17:47):
that third-party coverage andsome type of interviews written
online, otherwise, your websiteis just sinking.
And I think the stats are maybesince the start of this year,
website traffic is down.
Oh my gosh, you might know thisbetter than me.
I think it's 37%.
SPEAKER_03 (18:08):
So it depends what you look at.
Um, I have seen studies thatit's down uh across the board on
publishers 58.5 percent.
Yeah, so if your website is notdown that much, it's kind of
like how you're doing above theaverage, you're actually doing
good if you've been able tomaintain uh that traffic and
(18:29):
that positioning.
SPEAKER_01 (18:30):
Yeah, so Google is punishing websites that don't
stay current or up to date orfresh, totally cool.
But if you are a company thatyou know was kind of standoffish
or reluctant to do any sort ofum PR efforts, marketing
efforts, what have you, well,you're gonna be punished before.
(18:53):
Now you're really gonna bepunished.
And it's such an opportunity tokind of move up or even get your
your coverage or your text intothat AI overview.
Like it's a it's gonna it'sgonna kill companies or it's
gonna kill business because, andwe see this especially in oil
and gas, right?
We have this great crew changewhere where the older
(19:15):
generations are retiring.
Well, every I like to think I'msuper young, by the way,
everyone that's our generationthat's kind of like moving up in
managerial roles, the firstthing we do when when we need to
buy something or we need to looka company up, we go search it.
We search it up, we see whateveryone else says about it, we
look at all their stuff.
So, you know, if you're stillkind of operating like it's
(19:37):
1990, this is just gonna be thething that that really kills
your motivation.
SPEAKER_03 (19:43):
Well, if you're looking, yeah, if you're looking
to be found, right?
And that that's how you uh atpeople people found you through
through paid ads or seo orsocial media, um, the game is
changing.
If you're you haven't and you'veoperated the old good old boy
way, old school way, and I Iwill say, even people that don't
(20:04):
publish anything or companiesthat don't publish a lot are
saying something by notpublishing as well.
But I won't go go down thatrabbit hole.
But people discover you or getreferred to you, and these
buying committees are um, youknow, a lot of different people
that search a lot of differentways, but they do a lot of that
(20:26):
research on their own.
So even if they were handed thename of your company, you're
gonna go get found, and theywant to see what you're saying,
they want to see what people aresaying about you, they want to
see who is saying what about youas well.
And you know, okay, we'retalking SEO, we're talking okay,
we got some guest posts, we gotthat.
What you do is real PR, okay, islike you know, you're getting in
(20:51):
the top publishers that have alot more value that help you
that tell the story that peoplewhen it's on their platform,
people stand up and listen andtake those words with a lot more
credibility, and that's what theAI searches, that's what the
LOMs are doing, is they'rewaiting who is saying what.
(21:14):
Because if you're just on somerandom website or uh that
doesn't have a lot of prestige,it's gonna carry about that much
weight, like there's parity inthat.
And um, so the higher, the thebetter, more recognized, I mean
not better, but like morerecognized, more prestigious
publishers are gonna carry Xamount more weight, like
(21:37):
multiples more weight.
And um, that's also gonnainfluence decision making.
And so if someone's looking foryour brand, one, you're not
gonna get discovered in the AIoverviews and in the LMs, you're
not gonna get surfaced or getany visibility.
So you're not gonna be getfound, you're gonna miss out on
that.
Uh, I can tell you too, ifsomeone's been given your name,
they go search you or they ask,you know, chat GBT or or um, you
(22:02):
know, co-pilot or whatever, andyour name comes up or doesn't
come up, that moves you furtherdown the buying funnel.
I can tell you when our name hascome up, when people have been
given our name or they'vesearched Google, like I've had
people call me, Matt, like, youknow, I was searching for this
(22:23):
thing, I wasn't their firstcall.
You came up, they recognized mybrand, and they're like, Oh my
gosh, you're crushing it for youknow, X-related services.
Um, let me tell you about myproject, and it's almost like a
done deal, right?
And so even in these smallercircles that you operate, how
people view your brand online orhow online views your brand
(22:47):
reflects how people respond.
It's it's the LLMs are are justlike with Google, people would
skip, or 80% of people wouldskip the ads.
Um, and if you showed up at thetop of Google, there's like some
kind of value associated withtheir ranking organically,
there's some signals here that Ishould listen to.
(23:07):
And I feel like with the LLMs,as people use them more and
more, like that is your trustedco-pilot, that is your trusted
partner in your ideation.
And so if you're not gettingsurface in there, and the thing
about what's happening now,Paige, is the spine is hardening
of where you're gonna sit in therankings, and it's like wet
(23:30):
cement.
Okay.
I actually stayed up super latelast night, and I, you know,
drank a bunch of energy drinks,um, and I was working and I
wrote like a little manifesto uhon on Matthewbertram.com, and I
just think people don't get it,they think that AI is some kind
(23:53):
of bolt on, and I think it's asea change, okay?
And everything is opening up andlike get ready, everyone.
Get ready.
SPEAKER_01 (24:05):
Yeah, well, and and just to kind of add to that, you
know, I feel like I see that onthe PR side when I'm when I'm
pitching.
So, you know, we always havepeople that come in that, you
know, I think I've told you myfavorite is when people are
like, we want to be in the WallStreet Journal.
And it's like, well, you andevery you and everybody else,
(24:25):
but if you read the Wall StreetJournal, you would know they
don't exactly do features.
So, you know, like what is aindustry trend or what's some
kind of trend that's happeningright now that that's applicable
to your business or your productor whatever we're whatever we're
talking about, but to yourpoint, you know, I work with a
lot of reporters, I have a lotof contacts.
(24:48):
They get thousands of pitches aday, they don't want their time
wasted, number one.
And number two, I'm not justthrowing spaghetti at a wall to
see what sticks, right?
So to your point, if you're notbeing strategic in terms of all
of this, so whether it's a it'sa PR pitch for a news story or a
(25:08):
really pressing topic or whatyou're doing with social and SEO
and everything else, they'rethey're not going to be
interested when I'm sending thema pitch or it's like, hey, I've
got this really cool story orarticle idea for you.
It is, and I think people losesight of this, it is such a long
game to, you know, what we'redoing is shifting perceptions.
(25:30):
We're also buildingrelationships with reporters,
right?
So that whether or not I'mpitching something, if a if a
topic or something comes up,they know to call me or they
know to call my client becausethey know it's it's an expert or
a source.
They're not going to take you,you know, always on the first or
second email that you send them.
It might take six months beforea door opens.
(25:51):
And it's like you have to keepplaying this long game.
And you're exactly right.
The people that have been doingthis well are going to continue
to do it well, and the peoplethat buckle down and commit to
it are going to see results.
But it's the people that arekind of like on the fence, you
know, they've never really triedit.
Maybe they try it once or twiceand they don't get the results
(26:13):
they want, and then they throwin the towel.
It's like that is the worstpossible thing you could do.
Like you have to stay committedto this.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03 (26:23):
So, so a hundred percent, a hundred and fifty
percent.
I find so many people that umwant to test the waters, right?
And we used to offer thesesmaller SEO engagement packages
because we didn't want to havepeople have to commit to a year
(26:43):
or 18 months because we'rebuilding a relationship, but the
way that online's been saturatedsince COVID, everybody's online,
like pay per click is is reallynot um the economics don't even
work anymore for a lot of thesecampaigns because it's a a pay
(27:03):
per click bid system, it's beenbid up so much.
I remember when it was a couplecents a click and you could you
could really do a lot.
Now you have to be verystrategic to break through the
noise.
And so if people want to run adsor people want to do SEO,
everybody's doing it.
So, what are you doingdifferent?
What are you doing standing out?
What is newsworthy?
What is something that'svaluable that that people or the
(27:27):
algorithms will will latch onto?
And and you need to really thinkabout how you're you're you're
seeding that online and you needa strategist to help you do
that.
But the commitment that I'mseeing is either you get it or
you don't.
And that that's kind of like I Iactually we backed away from um
(27:49):
like this podcast, of course, isum like I mean, I've seen
hundreds, if not thousands, ofcampaigns where digital
marketing 10x is plus abusiness.
Okay.
Yeah, but it doesn't happenimmediately.
It's almost like the first sixmonths you're building up,
you're starting to get somesuccess.
Maybe you get a quick win, andthen it's it's on the back end
(28:11):
where where you start to getthat that compounding, where you
get this um escape trajectory onwhat you're doing.
But but so many people eitherdon't have the right strategy,
right, going into it, so or theygive up too soon.
Or what I've found is a lot oftimes if we've done these
(28:31):
shorter engagements, uh, evenGoogle says that they don't
sandbox, but they do.
Um, they they they they wait torelease stuff and and publish
stuff and give it visibilityunless you're really hitting it
with the PR signals more like alot a lot quicker.
And what will happen is the workthat we did now, like by the end
(28:52):
of the year, will will start tohave an impact.
And they've moved on tosomething else, and then they're
like, Oh, this is the thingthat's working because
everybody's used to like AmazonPrime, and you know, they want
it immediately.
Um, I mean, even paid ads, Ihaven't seen real results where
you can even measure anythingfor about two weeks.
So there's there's this lagtime, there's this startup piece
(29:16):
that that really impacts um thesuccess.
And and then the other thingthat I would love for you to
speak to is I'm seeing more andmore kind of a RevOps model
where you got to speak in termsof you know, what are the
dollars and cents?
Like, how does this tie to thebottom line?
(29:37):
How is this gonna grow mybusiness?
And and we've started to puttogether more case studies where
we articulate what that growthlooks like, but again, it's
gotta be an investment and it'snot a quick turnaround, like
it's like we got to get goingand get the wheels cranking, and
then we got to prove to Googleconsistently uh in the LLMs that
(29:59):
we're doing.
This and then that successstarts to happen, but it it
doesn't happen quickly, and sothere's a lot of like belief
that it has to happen along withthe right strategy, along with
the right partner.
And I just think people havebeen burned so much that um you
know the trust building to knowthat you're the right partner
(30:22):
and that you've you you have theproven methodology that's gonna
work and and you know what'sgonna happen, like you know the
reporters, you have arelationship with them, you've
pitched it, like you know thisstory will not land, or I can
get this story here withconfidence.
And that's a piece, and we'retalking about a lot here, we're
(30:44):
trying to unpack a lot in youknow a few a few minutes, but
but once you even get thatplacement, there's there's
that's the beginning that likeit's the repurposing of that
placement to make sure it'sbeing shown and seen, just like
the analogy of the website, it'sthe starting point.
(31:05):
And so I think that there's alot of factors that people deal
with that like when I talk tothem, uh, if they don't know who
I am, they haven't like listenedto the podcast, read my books,
like it heard me talk, whatever,they're they got like a wall-up
and they got some baggage aboutwhat happened.
(31:26):
And and a lot of times there's alittle bit of counseling that's
going on of like, okay, what didyou do before?
You know, let's look at it.
I can look at the data, I cankind of see what's happening.
And and there has to be a realcommitment and buy-in for it to
work now more than ever, becausewell, it's so much harder than
(31:47):
it used to be.
SPEAKER_01 (31:49):
So I feel like you touched on um a lot.
SPEAKER_03 (31:53):
I know.
A lot.
SPEAKER_01 (31:55):
So sorry, I'm just jutting down a couple notes that
I want to touch on.
So let me start with maybe onepiece and then I want to move to
another.
Um, I think we talked on adifferent podcast recently about
how uh PR is measured, right?
So way back in the day, 20 yearsago, before online was even a
(32:15):
thing really, um, say you gotsomething in the Houston
Chronicle on the cover page ofthe Sunday Business edition,
which is the most read, just soeveryone is.
So you would cut out the cut outthe news story and you would
measure it with a ruler, andthen you would match it up with
um your advertising rates.
Um, the truth is it's a veryterrible way of measuring the
(32:40):
value of something because it'snot an ad, right?
It's this big feature story onthe cover, there's a ton of eyes
on it.
So I think the ad equivalencymethod was like the best we
could do at the time.
And today we have similarthings, a lot for online.
You touched earlier about howthings rank, like when you get
(33:03):
published on a third-party sitewith an interview and article,
how they rank on Google.
Um, you're exactly right.
Different outlets and websiteshave domain authorities, and the
higher your domain authority,the more credible you are, the
more visitors you have.
So, for instance, USA Today isgoing to rank a lot higher than
like, I don't know,sittinginachair.com or whatever
(33:26):
random website you throw outthere.
So all of these are ways tomeasure PR, right?
But it's also a little bitabstract because PR is not
necessarily used for sales, it'snot tied in with sales the way
you may say, um, you know, wehave 10 people click on this
(33:48):
keyword, drove them to thewebsite, and then we and then we
got a call.
What typically happens with PR,right, is it's about opening
doors.
So if it's a case study that'srelevant to someone, maybe you
get your front, your foot in thedoor with a major because they
saw that you were proving,right?
Or maybe you're you're speakingor you're getting published and
you're thought of as an expert.
(34:10):
It's very rare, it has happened,just like you were saying, that
like I myself have publishedsomething in the business
journal, or I've had a clientthat did an interview and they
immediately got a phone call.
And when that happens, it feelsamazing, by the way, um, because
usually there's an email or avoicemail that's like, hey, I
read your I read your piece.
Do you do this kind of work orthat kind of work?
(34:31):
But what typically happens in myspace is you're working on
building this credibility overtime.
So maybe a potential client seesyou speak at a conference, and
then they see you publish in atrade magazine, and then they
see you interviewed on apodcast, and it's like all these
different touch points in thesales cycle.
So by the time they call, inmost scenarios, they're not
(34:53):
saying, I'm hiring you because Iread your awesome case study.
I wish they would say that more.
But it's typically a whole hostof things, right?
So in addition to all of themarketing um touch points.
So when we go in and people say,you know, how are we measuring
success or how many leads isthis going to kind of deliver?
(35:15):
It's a little bit of a red flag.
We want to deliver them, but itwould almost be um, it would
certainly, I mean, I don't knowif I call it line, but it
wouldn't be authentic and andtransparent if I weren't like,
that's not how we measurethings, right?
Like we want to get X member ofplacements, you know, we want to
(35:36):
be talking on certain topics, wewant to see web traffic go up.
Maybe we're kind of steeringthat social strategy, but it's
not, it's it's very difficult tosay, like, oh, we're gonna get
you an interview in thechronicle, which is probably
going to be an industry typestory, and then someone's going
to hire you.
It doesn't necessarily work likethat.
(35:57):
So people can be reallymisinformed on that, which is
fine if they're open to numberone, being committed, right?
Just like you were saying, wehave to give this a while.
It's not going to be one or twoquick wins and you're off
sailing.
Um, but we also want people thatare comfortable working with an
agency or that kind of arewilling to be a little bit
(36:18):
educated in this space if theyaren't already.
Um, and then the other thingthat I was just going to talk
about, and it kind of leads intothis.
We work with companies of allsizes.
So we work with energy or energytech startups that are$50
million,$150 million, all theway up to, you know,$10 billion
(36:42):
companies.
It really just depends.
Obviously, the larger companiesare going to have a larger
internal team that's managingall of these components of
marketing of PR together.
You would be shocked at howmany, I'm going to say two to
three hundred million dollarcompanies that don't have
analytics set up on theirwebsite.
They aren't monitoring thesethings, they aren't measuring
(37:05):
these things.
And so, you know, when we'rehired and we're kind of mapping
out like, well, what's happeningthis year, or what are the
trends, or what do we want totalk about?
There's this whole other sideof, well, what has the most
engagement on social, right?
What are people searching whenthey're going to Google and
typing in search terms?
And what is the traffic doing onyour site?
(37:27):
What products or services arethey most interested in?
And so, I mean, just last week Ihad a client that thought they
had analytics set up on theirsite and they didn't.
And so we got them set up.
And no, I don't have a ton ofinsights to go after a week of
just seeing what's happening,but I can see the product pages
(37:48):
that are most frequented.
And so, okay, if that's whatyour customers are most
interested in, what what can wewrite about?
What can we talk about?
What can we pitch?
What should we be pushing out onsocial?
Because there's clearly a levelof interest that like y'all
don't even realize, you know,you may be over here talking
about red shoes, and the fact issomebody wants a basketball and
(38:09):
you sell both, but like you'renot even tied in with like what
your client, you know, what yourcustomers or clients are telling
you behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_03 (38:19):
So the data is so powerful when I'm on teams of
like traditional PR, uh, like uhI not no traditional
advertising, not PR, but likeuh, you know, newspapers, um,
terrestrial radio, TV.
I I usually uh represent the thedigital piece of it, and and I'm
(38:40):
working with some traditionalplayers that have you know that
like I don't want to move intoterrestrial ad buys or anything
like that, but they asked me forthe data, they ask me what's
going on with the data.
Those insights are realvaluable, and that helps you
guide the decision making maybefor the next quarter or whatever
(39:00):
campaign's gonna run next thatyou might not see or know.
And going back to what you weresaying previously, you know,
only like four percent of peopleare ready to buy.
I saw uh some data that saidthere's 30 touch points now uh
for the B2B buying sales sale,30, not 11, not seven, 30.
And and we we operate under thisframework that I've mentioned
(39:22):
before 7114, seven hours ofcontent consumption, seeing your
brand or logo 11 times on fourdifferent channels.
Like you spoke to that, you knowthat because you've been in the
industry and the how the buyerbehaviors change, they don't
just see something and buyanymore.
And and I think pre-COVID, wewere getting a lot of those like
(39:43):
one-off wins because we wouldjust catch somebody or we would
kind of target a little nicheand we know we could get them a
lead, and we were like, Hey,let's show them some success,
and then they'll engage us forlonger.
And you know, really, there's somuch ramp up that has to happen,
and the stars have to likealmost align to make that
happen.
And now people are pulling back,uh, the economy is a little bit
(40:07):
slower, budgets um are aretaking a little bit longer to
spend, and so um Euro thinkingthat if you're thinking about
purchasing these kind ofservices, but your customer
sales cycle is lengthening tothey might not be in the market,
and so um to to to have thatquick win to make that happen,
it it's more about like you weresaying, what's the conversations
(40:31):
we want to be associated withand be involved in to get that
brand uplift to be there whensomeone's ready to make a
purchase and stay visible ondifferent channels and different
places because there's trust,okay.
Um, there was a study um that Ihad a guy on a long time ago
(40:52):
where we had a lot of thesepsychological conversations
about buying behavior, and hesold billboards, okay.
And he said there was nothingmore than when someone saw your
uh brand on a billboard of ofcementing in this company has
made it because they have themoney to buy a billboard, built
(41:16):
like a massive amount of trust,and also there's so much noise
online.
Like, I I believe that peopleare glued to their phone, but
man, when they look up fromtheir phone that they've seen
you on and they see you in thenewspaper, uh, you know, on the
front page of an article, uh,they see you on uh you know a
news channel, right?
(41:36):
Like Fox and Friends seems to belike a good placement point, and
and like or a billboard, it addsa whole different layer of
trust.
That that's what we have.
We have a uh a uh recession, atrust recession, uh right now,
and and you have to build thatconfidence up if you don't have
(41:59):
the logo that people arebacking.
I've seen this with salespeopleso many times, they chase a comp
plan, go to a smaller company,and all their relationships and
all the doors that used to open,they thought it was them, and
some of them was them, but a lotof times it was because of the
logo and what was being carried.
And now they're in a position tosay, okay, how how do I get in
(42:21):
the door?
Well, guess what?
PR, online marketing, socialmedia that's what gets your
brand noticed.
And I'm seeing this erosion ofbig brands that have not stepped
into the web 2.0 game and we'realready moving to web 3.0 or
whatever.
Yeah.
Um, and uh their brand wascarrying them, but smaller
(42:43):
companies that can navigate andmove and understand um you know
the new environment are arewinning and are getting in the
door and are are are competingagainst the bids.
And now the this kind of safeharbor of everybody always hires
IBM or whatever the the ad is,um, is there there's high trust
(43:05):
in some of these unknown brandsthat have dominated online, on
social media, uh in PR, uhacross these different
platforms.
And I'm telling you, surfacingin the LLMs, you know, LLM
visibility is not big today, butit's growing massively.
Yeah, and as people trust theirtheir personalized trained AI,
(43:31):
if you're not surface there, youare not even one of the
potential selection choices.
SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
Yeah.
Well, and I know, like justusing some of the, you know, I
just told you I work with somestartups, uh, and then I work
with some of these massivecompanies.
You're exactly right.
Startups are some of these, Ihate to say smaller companies
because the$50 million companyis still really big.
Um, but they can move so muchfaster.
(43:59):
And the fact is they are gettingin there and doing the exact
same pitches and competing withall of the big guys.
You know, sometimes it may comedown to just like capabilities,
you know, can you do everythingthat the client asks?
But I don't think, you know, inso many things that I've heard,
I don't think it's um, I don'tthink they're losing out because
(44:22):
of expertise per se or anythinglike that.
Because, like you said, I mean,if you're a smaller company and
you don't have that namerecognition built up already,
you have to be doing all of themarketing things.
Otherwise, you're just going to,I mean, you don't have that big
name at that point to kind ofcarry you through.
So you've got to do all you canto hustle and grind and stay
(44:46):
relevant while the others canjust kind of skate by on their
coattails.
SPEAKER_03 (44:50):
And and I think that one of the biggest things that
I've been approaching with mylike L invisibility framework
that that I've built out and webuilt some use cases for it is
you got to find like a whitepaper or something of high
value, right?
That that press will pick up.
We're not talking a blog, we'retalking, you know, a very uh,
(45:14):
you know, uh a multimedia piece,like something that has
significant value um to seed theLOMs as a as a foundational
point to build your brand on.
And the more kind of um seeds orkind of uh like points that you
(45:36):
can lodge in and and map aroundyour brand, uh those those
weighted points are are really,really critical because there's
a lot of noise, there's a lot ofAI generated nonsense that
that's happening.
Um, I can tell you, even goingback to my story, I've been
(45:57):
publishing stuff and the thelabeling of what I did, it
doesn't even know that I'm thesame person, right?
And it's like the names changelike how you build your brand
today is is so critical, andthere's all these things to
consider because there's thisdigital world that's trying to
(46:19):
mirror and map the real world,and so if you're doing things in
person and you're not publiclydoing a press release and
highlighting those things andtaking pictures and sharing
those on social media andtagging it where the LLMs
understand, it's like it didn'teven happen.
SPEAKER_01 (46:39):
Yeah, so there's two issues I see pretty regularly.
And again, it this part doesn'tmatter what size your company
is, a lot of people don't knowwhat is newsworthy.
Um, and I mean that in two ways.
They don't understand what thepress will pick up.
(47:00):
So for instance, I'll say, Doyou have any case studies, any
white papers, you know, awards,you know, awards, yeah.
Women in the C-suite that wecould really spotlight.
And no one ever, no one everknows anything, and they're
like, no, we don't haveanything, we don't have anything
to talk about.
I can sit through one staffmeeting and I'll come out with
like 10 or 15 things.
(47:21):
And it's like half these peopleare sitting on gold mines of
things, you know, newsworthythings they should be sharing
that they just don't evenrealize.
So that's one massive problem.
Um, and and it's more so again,with whether it's myself or
their internal team, like notallowing marketing or PR to like
be a part of that C-suite or apart of those bigger
(47:44):
conversations.
Um, the other part of this iswith podcasts and with so much
digital, it is so easy to hop ona podcast or commit for an hour,
and then you're and then you'redone, right?
And so many people arereluctant, and yet we know that
videos are prioritized and rankthe highest on social outlets.
(48:07):
Um, most people engage with thevideos over anything written
because no one really readsanymore.
And so, and they give you thatinstant credibility, even if no
one picks up the coverage, it'ssomething you can put in your
newsletters or emails or yourwebsite to send out to your
clients.
And people still look atpodcasting and almost feel like
it's too risky, or or maybe theyjust don't want to take the hour
(48:31):
out of their day.
I'm not sure why, but likethat's such an easy, massive
win.
And then the clips can be brokenup and you've got content and
marketing material for days, um,and people will still blow it
off.
It's crazy to me.
SPEAKER_03 (48:44):
Well, I think some of the bigger companies, right?
On and with the other podcastswe have, there's like a legal
element that it has to get runthrough legal.
Um, also, I think executivesneed some PR training, right?
They need to understand um thatas an executive, one, your brand
needs a spokesperson.
(49:05):
And if you're the CEO, you'reyou're the spokesperson, or if
you're on in the C suite and youwant to build your personal
brand and be, you know, uh, youknow, uh, what is it called?
Like just like in, I can't eventhink of the word, but you like
where you are uh invaluable,that's the word, invaluable and
and and grow grow your careeroptions, you need to be online.
(49:28):
So we're seeing a lot more um uhinbound interest from a brand
consultancy standpoint ofexecutives uh building their
voice online, how to managesocial media, how to post, um,
you know, putting together uhbooks where you can take even
interviews and turn into a book,but that is so critical in
(49:51):
YouTube, okay, and podcasts andYouTube.
YouTube is is picked up as brandlift, one of the top um kind of
kind of components of of share avoice when when you're trying to
get out there and YouTube, theaccess to people that brands
back in the day would die foryou have for free, and no one's
(50:15):
taking advantage of it.
And to your point, I think thata lot of these brands need to
have a strategist or bring in anoutside consultant so things are
not stale, and to work withtheir marketing or sales team or
executive team to understandwhat they should be doing
because corporate training andand maybe they have the team
(50:36):
internally to do it if they're abigger company, but the
execution of what I've seen ofsome major brands they need to
be training, things continue toevolve, and so having the right
partner or advisory person thatyou can go to to look at things,
they don't have to be doing allthe execution, but they can that
(50:57):
I mean that's what I've beenengaged for twice in the last
month is coming in, they have abig team, helping them train it,
organize it, build theworkflows, get them uh up to
date with the uh the besttechnologies.
I mean, there's technology nowthat you can take an ad before
you run the ad and run itthrough a synthetic audience or
(51:20):
you know, AI, and figure outbased on that target persona how
this ad will land withoutspending any money.
Like you can start, I mean, youcan start doing like there's a
lot of things of marketresearch, like go to market
research that can be executedquickly.
There's McKenzie style reports,and like there's a there's an
(51:43):
article I read, I should havereshared it, but it was like uh
existential crisis by the bigchange management companies
because what you can do with uhLLM like we wonder Cracker
Barrel should have used itbefore they went on their whole
rebrand.
SPEAKER_01 (52:00):
I wonder what the results would have shown.
SPEAKER_03 (52:03):
Well, that's the thing.
If you want to do this, one testit out in a small market set,
right?
In in in a uh uh like there'ssome homogene to maybe the
bigger market, like a microcosm,but you can test it
synthetically now before you doit.
I'm not saying that everything'sperfect, but it will give you an
idea of like, hey, maybe youshould reconsider this because
(52:25):
this doesn't align with yourtarget audience.
So I mean, same thing withBudweiser, like um, you know,
like there are things that youcan do and you can move quickly.
Like, I know a lot of people arelike, oh, we got to get to
market, like within a month orsix weeks, you can get
strategy-level engagements whereit's not gonna be a ton of
interviews and and a bunch ofstuff.
(52:46):
You want to certainly confirmsome of that data, but yeah, but
I can tell you that um a lot ofinternal companies when when
they engage us or we start tohave conversations after
conferences or speaking talks,like they're open to it, um, and
they know it's moving quickly.
(53:07):
And you know, I I I also hearfrom a lot of executives, right?
When I'm speaking, oh, we got awe got an internal team, we got
it, we're we're good, we'regood.
And then like, you know, if yougo look at who they have, they
maybe have a uh, you know, ageneralist and a couple VAs or
something.
And and so I think that there'sthis mindset shift between, you
(53:30):
know, uh having a a consultantor or working with a like a
brand building consultancy uh ora PR company in where it's it's
so critical today.
It is so critical to to beinvolved with everything because
(53:50):
it's changing so fast.
And the people that are winningare taking advantage early.
The early adopters are the onethat's winning, and I'm just
starting to see this big shiftof like the big brands that like
have just like horrible websitesthat that don't think it's
important that this is a salestool, this is a PR tool, this is
(54:15):
an internal training tool.
Um, this is your brand online asrepresentative and should mirror
who you are and who you want tobe.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (54:27):
So just quickly, I don't know, I don't know how
much time we have left.
Um, so a couple of things.
I think you know we do media andpresentation trainings, which
there's a lot to impact there,but on the on both sides, right?
I mean, you're getting peopleready or getting executives
ready to speak on whatever typeof medium is being asked for.
(54:50):
Most people need it, even themost confident speakers need it.
Um, what's interesting is somany are averse to it, they're
risk averse, and yet I thinkstudies show that uh like you
can't move up in your careerunless you're doing some sort of
public speaking.
So, like your youngerprofessionals today that you're
(55:12):
kind of looking at, or perhapsyou're grooming to be upper
management later, they should bedoing all the speaking,
podcasting, and webinars thatthey can do, right?
It negatively the studies showit like negatively impacts your
salary if you're not doingpublic speaking.
Again, because of the networkingand the credibility that you can
lend back to the brand.
Um, I'm actually doing a big,I'm doing a presentation
(55:34):
training for um a group.
They're doing their biginvestors day coming up, and I
think I think there's 10 ofthem.
They're all used to speaking,very comfortable speaking on
different mediums, but they wantsomeone to come in and kind of
critique or coach up thoselittle nuances that maybe each
of them have, which frankly issomething all of us need.
(55:57):
But it does go back to, and Iwas I was talking to someone the
other day, when you have adecision maker or an executive,
and let's just say they hatepublic speaking because like 75%
of people hate public speakingand and all these things.
What you're asking people to do,even on something like this
(56:17):
that's like off the cuff andfun, not everyone views it as
that.
And you're asking people in away to be vulnerable, even if
they're experts in something.
And then, you know, when we comein and we're we're helping coach
them up, what we're really doingis critiquing them, right?
And these are people mostly inpositions that don't like to be
(56:38):
critiqued, and they've you knowbuilt this big career.
So the the media training andthe presentation training is a
lot of fun, but it always comeswith that like 5% bit of stress
on my side.
But again, it's like if you'renot doing it, you should be
doing it.
If you're not comfortable doingit, get coached up for it
(56:59):
because you're missing thesemassive opportunities.
And especially for these likeyounger professionals, it's
going to negatively impact yourcareer.
So it's like, you know, get theball rolling now, or or maybe
you're identified on the team aslike the up-and-coming engineer
that wants to be thespokesperson because no one is
volunteering, like nobody wantsto go out and do these things.
(57:21):
I feel like a lot of times I'mlike dragging people's feet to
the fire, like, come on, this iseasy, let's do it.
SPEAKER_03 (57:26):
So yeah, Paige, we we are almost at time or we're
wrapping up.
Is there anything else that wehaven't covered that you want to
make sure to highlight?
And also, what is the best wayto follow you, get in touch with
you, find out more about yourservices and what you're talking
about online?
SPEAKER_01 (57:43):
Sure.
Um, nothing else.
This was a fun conversation.
You know, I always love kind ofdiving into the details.
The best way to reach me isemail page at page PR spelled
P-A-I-G-E.
Um, I mean, calls are great.
I don't know about you.
I'm overwhelmed with spam thesedays.
So calls are probably reachingout on LinkedIn.
(58:05):
Um, I'm sorry, emails arereaching out on LinkedIn.
Anything written, a text isgreat.
Um, just the phone calls.
If you call, leave a voicemail.
SPEAKER_03 (58:14):
Real people, real people.
SPEAKER_01 (58:17):
Real people.
Um, by the way, on that note, Ithink there's some technology
coming out that's gonna filterall the spam out for us for
those of us that have our cellphones out there on the
internet.
SPEAKER_02 (58:30):
In Texas, there's some state laws that are are
coming down the pike that Ithink are dreaming of the day.
SPEAKER_03 (58:36):
Well needed.
Um, well, Paige with Page PR,thank you so much uh for coming
on.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, please leave us a
review.
I would really appreciate somereviews uh or share it.
Shaiko us, share like, follow.
Um, and um, you know, we uh thisis podcast is sponsored by EWR
(58:59):
Digital.
I don't say that a lot.
EWR Digital, um, a great brandconsultancy.
We do execution as well, beingaround 25 plus years.
So check it out, check out PagePR for PR, check out EWR Digital
for strategy, uh, SEO, paid ads,etc.
Um, until the next time, my nameis Matt Bertram.
(59:21):
Bye bye for now.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com