March 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Join us as we delve into the evolving world of public relations and discover how integrating traditional strategies with modern digital tools can lead to powerful PR outcomes. In our latest episode, Mike Falkow, the CEO of Meritus Media, shares his expertise with host Peter Woolfolk on how to find this balance in the fast-paced digital landscape.
This conversation highlights the enduring relevance of old-school PR while embracing the vast possibilities presented by technology. We explore the importance of branding and how organizations can build trust with audiences in a crowded market. Mike emphasizes the need to understand audience sentiment using analytics tools to tailor messaging effectively.
As we navigate through shifting landscapes, we also dive into the modern PR playbook that includes creating thought leadership content and utilizing platforms like LinkedIn and WordPress to maximize reach. Listen in for practical examples of how organizations can leverage digital platforms to establish their identity while maintaining genuine relationships with their audience.
Furthermore, we discuss the critical role of crisis management and the necessity of having built relationships with media professionals to ensure accurate representation during tough times. This episode will equip you with the insights you need to modernize your PR approach effectively, combining the best of both worlds.
Don’t miss out! Tune in, subscribe, and join the conversation to stay updated on the latest PR strategies. Your feedback matters—share your thoughts with us by leaving a review!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:04):
Welcome.
This is the Public RelationsReview Podcast, a program to
discuss the many facets ofpublic relations with seasoned
professionals, educators,authors and others.
Now here is your host, peterWoolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:25):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, Apple has ranked thispodcast among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide and recentlyFeedspot listed this podcast as
number 13 on its top 70 bestpublic relations podcasts in the
United States.
So thank you to all of ourguests and listeners for your
(00:48):
continued support and if youenjoy the podcast, please leave
a review.
Now question for the audienceCan old school public relations
strategies achieve successfuloutcomes by adopting modern
digital approaches?
Well, my guest today saysabsolutely, yes.
His journey from South Africato Los Angeles was fueled by his
(01:10):
passion for creativestorytelling.
He is a former creativeexecutive at Amazing Workplace.
Now currently he is the CEO andcreative director of Meritus
Media, with offices both in LosAngeles, California, and Tampa,
Florida.
Meritus Media provides a rangeof services that include search
engine optimization, digitalmarketing, web design and much
(01:32):
more.
So joining me today from LosAngeles, California, is Mike
Falkow, CEO of Meritus Media.
So, Mike, welcome to theprogram.
Mike Falkow (01:43):
Thank you, peter, thanks for having me with media.
Peter Woolfolk (01:45):
So, Mike, welcome to the program.
Thank you, peter.
Thanks for having me.
So we have been talking earlierthat we wanted to talk about.
What are some of these oldschool strategies that need to
be, you know, updated if youwill, and bring in digital
platforms.
So let's begin.
I think you decided thatbranding, perhaps is one of the
more important things that weneed to do.
How are we going to go aboutdoing that?
Tell us the next steps there.
Mike Falkow (02:06):
Yeah, well, one of the things that often gets
conflated, and so I think it'simportant to define these terms
up front where marketing,advertising and public relations
has become conflated and it hasbecome confused, certainly in
more recent times, but if youjust think of it in terms of
very simple statements, wherepublic relations is essentially
(02:30):
your relationship with yourpublic or your audience, as in
managing your reputation withinthat group of people, and then
marketing could be seen as a wayto attract your customers, and
then advertising, being that youare sort of promoting in a paid
sense through ads and so on uh,so, like the billboard in the
(02:50):
town square would be advertising, a person handing out flyers
and talking to you would bemarketing and, uh, you know, you
sitting down and chatting withsomeone one-on-one would be more
a public relations typeactivity.
And then you mentioned branding,where that's essentially
creating your business identityand how you're recognized and
(03:14):
known, and it matters because itgives your audience something
that sticks in their mind as whoyou are and how you're
represented, and from there itbuilds trust and loyalty and
helps you stand out.
And the combining of the oldschool techniques.
The reason why I feel that'simportant is because, really,
(03:35):
where the definitions of theseterms have become confused, the
activities as a result have beenconfused and sort of mushed
together, and, I think, byunderstanding that old school
approaches of public relationswere essentially always aimed at
making your good works wellknown to the public.
(03:57):
And so, if you keep that inmind, while using more modern
tools and the digital tools thatyou have at your disposal
nowadays, the approach iseverything, and so that can
really sort of govern andmonitor how you create strategy.
Peter Woolfolk (04:15):
So let's define, then, how that approach, as you
say, how should that approachbe initiated?
What should be included in thatapproach, particularly if we're
going to be using digitalplatforms?
Mike Falkow (04:29):
Well, I'll give you a silly example, right?
So if you take a, you have abrand and they're interested in
doing some online reputation oronline public relations, and
then you have someone whodoesn't have this mindset.
They go, okay, well, let's dosome facebook ads.
Well, you're doing the wrongthing, you're now in the realm
(04:52):
of advertising.
And or, let's do some googleads or something that that again
, those are, those areadvertising it.
But if you were to create athought leadership article
series you know, let's say it'sa skincare brand on the
technology that goes into thecreation of these products and
the certain skin conditions andwhy they're important to a
person and what medicalramifications that might have
(05:16):
for a person, and do like thisseries of thought leadership
articles that are helpful anduseful to the reader as a
positioning, then that becomesthat creates goodwill in the
reader and they then associateyou as a brand with that helpful
and useful information indeveloping, let's say just those
(05:36):
thought leader.
Peter Woolfolk (05:37):
Let's talk about some of the platforms that are
used to help or accomplish thesethings.
So, if we're going to talkagain about branding, what's,
what are some of the platformsthat can we can begin to use, or
basically, I should say thatare actually already being used
to accomplish these achievements?
Mike Falkow (05:54):
in terms of branding or online PR well,
let's look at both all right.
Well, take PR, for example.
I mean mean there's so manytools nowadays that you can
create your online real estatevery easily, where you know.
Even 10, 15 years ago, buildinga website, even just a small
(06:16):
informational website, wouldhave been quite costly,
depending on who you go to.
But nowadays you know you cancreate a blog through wordpress
or or wix or or shopify or anynumber of these platforms that
have made it very easy forsomeone to go on and and create
an online platform forthemselves.
(06:38):
There's other places, likemedium, where you can create a
profile and start publishingarticles.
Linkedin is another great onewhere you can start going on
there and sharing informationand publishing articles and
newsletters and so on and soforth, where you can build this
sort of thought leadershiparound your brand and the
(07:02):
information that you'reproviding to your audience.
Branding, on the other hand,from what I can tell, the
technology hasn't quite caughtup, although AI is getting there
, but AI is still, in my mind, auseful tool for efficiency
(07:22):
rather than a creative tool.
It can have some creative uses,but it still requires a human,
creative mind to give you theprompts to interpret the prompts
, to interpret the results thatthe language models spit out at
you, and so a designer and acreative director and a branding
(07:44):
expert are still indisposablein terms of creating a brand and
building a brand book andcreating an architecture of your
messaging and all of thosethings that go along with the
building of a brand.
Peter Woolfolk (08:01):
You know, as I listen to that, and you talk
about building up a brand.
There are so many digitalplatforms.
One of the things that I seethat I like that, as a matter of
fact, I even use to helppromote this podcast are some of
the videos that use avatars.
I like to.
(08:22):
Just before it's launched, Iwill put up one of these video
avatars on places like LinkedIn,public relations and
communications and PRSA and soforth, to let people know that
it is coming, and there's anavatar saying in a few words
here's what's coming, here'swhat it's going to be about, and
you can get it on March the10th or whenever that happens to
(08:43):
be, and I think that certainlyhelps to boost people's
attention to at least listeningto this particular episode.
Mike Falkow (08:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a lot of useful tools,like you say, that can help to
boost your visibility, to helpto attract customers.
But again, that sort of fallsunder the headline of marketing
right so when it, when it comesto branding itself, you have to
understand who you are and howyou want to present yourself to
(09:16):
your public and what message youwant to communicate through
your channels of marketing andthrough your channels of public
relations and advertising.
But ultimately, you're thecreative mind behind it, you,
you're the sort of the man inthe chair, so to speak.
Well, any other guidelines youhave in terms of, let's say, the
(09:53):
branding, how, groups andsurveys and like man on the
street type things, wererequired to really get a sense
of the mindset of the peoplethat you wish to speak to.
Whereas nowadays, informationis readily available, all you
need is the tools to be able tocapture that information and
then analyze it.
So, analytics tools, soanalytics tools.
(10:14):
Rand Fishkin is a PRprofessional and he's got a
company called SparkToro andMetricool, and these online
tools and analytics tools areexceptionally useful and can
sort of scrape the internet forsentiment, so that you can
(10:34):
understand your audience, sothat you can then better
communicate to that audience andaudience listening tools like
that are exceptionally valuable,especially in the realm of PR,
especially in the realm ofmarketing and advertising as
well, branding as well.
If you're doing your researchbefore constructing your brand
look and everything else.
(10:55):
Helping to understand what itis that will resonate with your
audience is something that we'vejust never in history had as a
tool, and so you can have all ofthis data and all of this
analytics that you can look at.
I'll give you a silly example.
There was a client that we hadthat their primary product was
(11:17):
creating accessories for, likehunting rifle, and, and they
built scopes and and things likethat.
So we did a an audiencelistening campaign, and
something that we discovered inthe course of doing that was
that there was an entire segmentof their market that they had
no idea about, and that was birdwatches, and there was this
(11:39):
sort of subculture of birdwatches who gravitated towards
this one particular scope thatthey made, and because it gave
good quality of vision and rangeof vision and it was handy you
could put it in your pocket andyou could just pull it up to one
eye and so there were all ofthese uses for this rifle scope
(12:00):
that that the bird watchers hadfound, but the company itself
had no idea it was thisinvisible group of of customers
that they knew nothing of right,and so, after this audience
listening uh campaign.
We presented this information tothem and we're like well,
there's thousands of potentialsales in this area that you
(12:21):
haven't been taking advantage of, and so it can really write the
course of your marketing andadvertising and it can sort of
guide you in a way that youwouldn't have known about
previously.
And these tools give you thatinformation, to give you that
guidance.
Peter Woolfolk (12:43):
Well, you mentioned sentiment.
You're absolutely right.
I do, because I don't thinkI've had a chance to use those
yet, but it does let you knowhow people feel about or think
about your services and orproducts, which is something you
need to know so that you canmake the necessary adjustments
to keep it in.
So there'll still be a favoritething that people would like to
(13:03):
use, and also there aremessaging tools.
Mike Falkow (13:07):
You're exactly right, and the other really
useful area of these kinds oftools is reputation management
and crisis management right.
So previously you know an eventwould happen, there would be
some articles in a newspaper orsomething, and then you know a
PR agency would go into crisismanagement mode and a lot of the
(13:27):
research and a lot of thedigging and listening would have
to be done manually, whereasnow you can take advantage of
these tools and go well, who'ssaying what?
How do they feel about thesubject we're investigating, and
where are they saying it?
That's the other thing.
It gives you areas.
So if YouTube is one particulararea where people are posting a
(13:50):
lot of videos about a certainthing, or perhaps they're
sticking only to Reddit orSubstack or Discord or any one
of these other forum-typeplatforms, these tools will give
you not only the sentiment butalso the location.
Peter Woolfolk (14:08):
And then from there, that's when your group
has to get together, put theirheads together and decide on
some sort of a program or effortto correct those mistakes or
address those issues that aregetting some negative responses
from the client.
Mike Falkow (14:23):
Right, exactly, and that's where old school sort of
traditional PR technology comesinto play, where you apply the
rules of is what they're sayingtrue?
Are they missing information?
Do we need to fill the vacuumwith true information, and so on
and so forth.
You can just go down the list.
I mean it's an old playbook,but if you're not familiar with
that playbook you can sort of begrasping at straws and being
(14:48):
more reactive rather thanproactive.
Peter Woolfolk (14:51):
You know one of the other areas that you had
mentioned, such as mediarelations.
You know, one time you justsent out press releases and
hoped that they got open, soforth and so on.
Well, now there are programsthat send it out to let you know
that they've been opened andwho looks at them, maybe how
long they've got them.
I think Cision and severalothers are some that actually do
(15:13):
that for you.
Mike Falkow (15:14):
Right, exactly.
And again, there's an old sortof PR approach which is it's in
the name, it's media relations.
In other words, you should havea relationship with these
journalists and help them dotheir job better.
So if you have a client who islaunching a new company, for
example, and there's a businessguy at the New York Times who
(15:37):
you have a long-standingrelationship with, then that's
an easy pitch, whereas if you'rejust sort of looking online and
scraping for mediaopportunities and then cold
emailing these guys going here'smy client and sending out a
press release or something, youryour response rate is is going
to be exponentially lower thanif you've actually taken the
(15:59):
time to develop theserelationships and become
colleagues with these people.
Essentially because they'rejust like anyone.
They're trying to do their jobas best they can, and if you can
assist them in doing a betterjob, they're going to look
better to their superiors,they're going to deliver better
work for their readers, and soon and so forth.
So it's a win all around toreally take the time and play
(16:23):
the long game.
It's a marathon, it's not asprint, right.
Peter Woolfolk (16:27):
Well, you know, on that particular case, it's
interesting that I have PRpeople.
Obviously, I get, at leastmaybe once a week minimum, an
email that says some folks wouldlike to be on the show.
Two things happen.
One, some of those emails thatI get, I look like they're
shotgun blasts.
They just say hello, they don'tmention you or your show's name
(16:50):
.
Hello, how would you like totalk about ABC and D?
The second part of it, some ofit had nothing to do with public
relations.
I just got, I think, one theother day about some guy selling
a book that had something to dowith veterans and I couldn't
quite, so I don't even bother torespond to those you know as PR
people.
Yes, you need to take some timebecause you know how do you
(17:13):
ingratiate yourself sometimes,you know, because maybe you're
on a new beat or this is a newproduct for you.
So you've got to find out whocovers these products, and I
think that they've got thoseplatforms out there that can
tell you who covers whatorganization, and those are some
of the things that you need toincrease your chances of landing
some placements.
Mike Falkow (17:33):
Right, exactly.
And again the same appliesapplies, like with what I was
talking about before, with yourrelationship with a media outlet
, right?
The same applies to a situationlike this or, for that matter,
any person who you're trying totalk to in a professional sense,
the rules of communicationapply.
Whether you're sending an emailfor the first time or whether
(17:57):
you're reaching out for somekind of business benefit or
anything else, you're stillcommunicating, you're in the
realm of communication andtherefore the rules of
communication apply.
If you were to walk up tosomeone on the street and go,
hey, do this thing, yourresponse is likely to not be
good.
But if you walk up to theperson, say hi, how are you?
(18:19):
My name is Mike, what was yourname?
Very nice to meet.
You tell me a little bit aboutyourself and establish some
rapport.
It gets another person, havesome sense of understanding and
let them know that you see themand you hear them, and and they,
they are duplicated in some way, shape or form by you, so that
they then feel understood andand then all all other manner of
(18:40):
things apply, and just just inthe same sense as if you're
making a new friend, right, so?
And we can sometimes lose sightof that because of these tools,
that they're so immediate andthey're so, uh, easy to use,
blast out 500 emails to 500people without doing the work.
But the work still has to bedone.
The communication is still acommunication and if we lose
(19:03):
sight of that, we're not goingto get as good a result.
Peter Woolfolk (19:07):
While we're thinking about it, could you
identify a few more of thoseplatforms that people can
actually use?
Because I know for sentimentthere's a certain platform.
If you're going to send outmass emails, there are certain
ones that can tell you send themto the right reporter at the
right magazine for the righttopics.
I forget a lot of them there,but if you can give us the names
(19:30):
of some of those platforms andwhat they're used for, I think
will help the listeners a lot tosort of know what direction
they need to go in to get thejob done.
Mike Falkow (19:41):
Right?
Well, there's a number ofapproaches that you could use.
I mean specifically forreporters.
There is some manual work thatmight need to be done, but there
are other tools that you coulduse.
I mean, almost as a sillyexample, you could put in a
prompt to chat GPT and say I'mlooking for the top 20
(20:02):
publications that cover theautomobile industry, and so you
know, scrape the internet, findme their websites.
If they have a personal blog,please include that.
And if there's an email address, please include that.
And if there's an email address, please include that and give
me a short description of whatit is that they write about.
(20:24):
So you can utilize AI toolslike ChatGPT or Cloud or any
number of other options that areavailable to do that work for
you.
As far as whether or not theemails have been opened, that's
another story.
That's something that you know.
If you have a, if you're usinga platform like Apollo or
(20:49):
Constant Contact that kind ofthing, that'll give you those
kinds of analytics from an emailstandpoint.
But there's one tool that I'vebeen using I'm not sure if
there's an email version of it,for reporters necessarily but
there are tools that areavailable that will source
(21:12):
podcasts, for example.
That's how I found you.
Podcasts, for example.
That's how I found you, was it?
It kicks out a bunch of uh,very specifically targeted
subjects that you put in.
You go well, I'd like to knowmore about these people and you
know these specific subjects,and it'll kick out.
You know four or five hundredpodcasts with a description of
(21:34):
of what they are about, andthere's a link to the podcast so
you can listen to it foryourself, and so on and so forth
right now.
Peter Woolfolk (21:42):
What's the name of that platform?
Do you recall the name of thatone?
Mike Falkow (21:48):
oh, that's called pod pitch pod pitch.
Peter Woolfolk (21:50):
Okay, well, I think that's a good idea.
You know, a lot of people lookfor those things.
You know, even though, as Isaid, I do get those shotgun
sort of things that say, hello,how are you today?
Without mentioning your name oryour podcast, just throw it at
you.
Mike Falkow (22:03):
So those are, I think if someone's going to say-
, right, but even with a toollike that, even with a tool like
that, you still need to do thework yourself.
Because when you and I firstconnected on the phone, I was
like I found you through thisplatform.
But then, when I got a responsefrom you, I realized, well, if
we're going to have an actualconversation person to person,
(22:25):
it would be very poor form forme to pick up the phone and not
know who you are, not havinglistened to at least one episode
of your podcast and know alittle bit about you.
Because you know, if you'rewalking into a business meeting,
you should know a little bitabout the person who you're
going to be speaking to.
It's just common sense, right?
So again, this goes back to mypoint about communication is
(22:49):
communication, no matter whatthe form, and so the rules of
communication then apply.
If you hypothetically take oursituation, if we'd gotten on the
phone, I'm like well, tell meabout yourself, peter.
I think your response wouldhave been less friendly than if
we picked up the phone.
I was like I listened to anepisode of your podcast, I
(23:10):
really enjoyed it, we have a lotof commonality on these
subjects and so on and and so.
But it gives you, uh, anopportunity to develop a
relationship where one didn'texist before.
But you also need to put in thework.
Peter Woolfolk (23:25):
Well, you know, I certainly agree with that.
And just let me comment again,because they're awesome PR
people.
The last one I got was from aPR agency it must have been an
intern that had just a shotgunapproach Hello, how are you
today?
I think you'd love to interviewmy boss so and so and so and so
about A, b, c and D.
So I looked at it and one ofthe things I think you need to
(23:51):
be careful about is that theycan talk about subjects such as
this, this and this.
Well, one of them I take a verysharp look at is when people
talk about crisis communications.
That is a huge topic.
You know, it's one thing.
If you have a fire drill inyour building, you can tell
everybody what to do.
But if you know, I used to workon Capitol Hill in Washington
DC and when a reporter calls youat 5 o'clock on a Friday
(24:14):
afternoon and says that yourcongressman is on a list of
people who floated checks,you've got a problem because
they're all gone.
It's Friday afternoon, nothingyou can do, that's right.
So what do you do?
The first thing that worked forme is that I did have a
relationship with the reporterand I did tell him.
(24:34):
I said I can't answer you thatquestion right now, but when we
get back Monday morning I willnot only talk to the congressman
but the people who handle thesethings for him, and once we get
all that worked out, we'regoing to invite you over and
show you the paperwork that sayshe should not have been on that
, and so that worked out realwell, I mean, and he appreciated
(24:57):
that.
And because he should not havebeen on that, I also called the
people from Associated Press,the New York Times and the
Washington Post and had themcome as well, and they all
agreed that it should not havehappened.
It was a mistake that happenedsomewhere in the Capitol Hill
the bank on Capitol Hill, youknow for senators and
congressmen and they did put aretraction in the paper.
(25:18):
But the problem for me was thatwhen they announced it on
Saturday morning it was on thefront page.
The retraction was buried inthe back there somewhere.
Mike Falkow (25:31):
Right, it usually is.
Peter Woolfolk (25:32):
Right, so at least they, you know.
Mike Falkow (25:37):
A retraction doesn't get quite the readership
as a sensational headlinethat's exactly right.
Peter Woolfolk (25:44):
But you learn.
But at least we were able tomanage the thing so that we
never had that happen before.
And I've seen other people who,in particular crisis
communications, have neverreally had any serious training
about that and they can probablycause more problems than they
can solve because they have nothad it.
It is not something that youknow and I tell people.
(26:06):
You just can't go into maybe aseminar and sit for a few hours
and think now you're preparedfor crisis communications.
It is not that easy becausesomething is going to come down
the pike that you still can'thandle.
So you know, sometimes you justhave to, you know, be in the
firing line on these things andtake some punches on the first
few to learn how to reallyhandle that sort of thing.
Mike Falkow (26:28):
Right, right and again I mean your relationship
with those journalists.
It counts for something.
Peter Woolfolk (26:35):
It does.
Mike Falkow (26:35):
Because you know, even if the person who's
employing you has gottenthemselves into some hot water,
they have a pre-existingrelationship with you and so
therefore there's trust and andso on and so forth, that if
something goes on, you can stillhave a cordial conversation
with them and go listen, here'swhat's happening.
(26:57):
You know, uh, can you coverthis?
This is the information we'dlike to provide to you, and then
you can also have a future, uh,longevity of relationship with
that same journalist and go look.
Okay, so there was thisexplosion here and here's how it
was handled, and I appreciatethe retraction.
Thank you very much.
Here's a story you might beinterested in and then you.
(27:19):
Then you can have a goodrelationship moving forward from
there as well.
Peter Woolfolk (27:25):
Well, you know, I think that's always important,
and particularly also when somereporters move on to maybe
larger, more prestigiouspublications.
At least you can call them upand maybe congratulate them on
their job and hey look, if I'vegot something that you might be
interested in, I'd like to beable to give you a call about it
, and they would appreciate thattoo.
Mike Falkow (27:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's an old sort of idea inHollywood of like if you get
represented by an agent, makesure you make friends with the
assistant.
Peter Woolfolk (27:59):
Oh, absolutely.
Mike Falkow (28:01):
Because in 10 years from now they're going to be
the agents, right, but that'salmost like a personal PR
approach of like.
I value my relationships, Ivalue the colleagues that I work
with, and so if I'm going tomake a contact with someone,
whether we can benefit oneanother now or not is irrelevant
(28:21):
.
The fact of the matter is, wehave a new relationship that,
for one or both of us, is goingto become useful either today,
tomorrow or down the road.
Peter Woolfolk (28:32):
Well, michael, let me ask you now if you have
any sort of closing remarksyou'd like to make about
engaging the modern digitalapproaches to.
You know old school ways ofdoing things.
Mike Falkow (28:44):
Well, I think it's a holistic approach.
I think if you're young andyou're an expert at you know
digital technology, that's great, but take the time to learn the
subject that you're in.
Know the subject and learn theold school, traditional ways of
doing things and understandcommunication as a subject.
(29:07):
And then if you're an oldschool, traditional person who
barely uses email, you mightwant to touch up on some of the
new tools that are aroundbecause they are going to be
helpful.
Touch up on some of the newtools that are around because
they are going to be helpful.
I had a chat with a guy namedShel Holtz we're both senior
(29:29):
fellows over at the conferenceboard and I interviewed him on
our podcast and he saidsomething really interesting.
He said there's a lot of talkabout AI and people being afraid
that AI is going to take yourjob.
The truth of the matter is AIis not going to take your job,
but the kid who knows how to useAI will take your job.
So it's you know, for those ofus in the sort of over 40 range
(29:53):
and above, it's really importantfor us to keep up, because it
is a digital world.
We do need to understand thesetools and if we can bring those
two disciplines together, Ithink that's a winning
combination.
Peter Woolfolk (30:07):
Well, I can certainly agree with you on that
.
I have gone to artificialintelligence built around this
podcast.
You know built around thispodcast and I use it.
You know like once the podcastis done it will produce a
transcript for me.
You know it'll identify likespeaker one and two.
(30:28):
I just go in and fill in thenames.
It also comes up with.
You know pieces for Facebookand the others that I can.
You know I can look at them andyou know a few amount of words
and just send them right off ifI want to make changes.
Produces, blogs for me.
All of that sort of stuff isdone probably within an hour.
(30:50):
Now I just don't take and runwith it.
I always read it and makechanges if I want to, and so
forth.
But it's such a time-savingtool to have to be able to use
these new tools.
Mike Falkow (31:03):
Yeah, that's exactly right and that's how I
view it as well.
I view it through the lens ofan efficiency tool.
If you look at the IndustrialRevolution, right and compare it
to that, and you go, okay, well, people were tilling fields by
hand and it took X amount ofhours to get a wheat field done
and all of a sudden there was anew machine that came along that
could do that for you in thespace of 30 minutes.
(31:26):
That's an efficiency tool.
And so, in a similar vein, youlook at AI technology and you go
well, it can do all this gruntwork for me.
That would have taken me anentire day to put together and
you know my fingers would havebeen tired from typing and all
the rest.
But it becomes this assistantfor all of the heavy lifting,
(31:49):
all of the grunt work, and thenit frees you up to do the more
strategic, more creative, moresort of high level type
activities that you wouldn'thave had the time to do
otherwise.
Peter Woolfolk (32:03):
Well, mike, let me say thank you so very much
for being on the PublicRelations Review Podcast.
We certainly have appreciatedyou sharing your wisdom with us,
and I can certainly sign on toit, because I have used a lot of
the new stuff and look forwardto even more of it coming down
the pike.
So I'd like to say thank youfor bringing this to our
attention and sharing thisinformation with our listeners.
Mike Falkow (32:25):
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for having me on.
I really did enjoy chattingwith you.
Peter Woolfolk (32:29):
Well, thank you and for our listeners, if you've
enjoyed the show, we certainlywould appreciate getting a
review from you and also sharingthis information with your
colleagues and also don't forgetto listen to the next edition
of the Public Relations ReviewPodcast.
Announcer (32:50):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us.
Welcome.
This is the Public RelationsReview Podcast, a program to
discuss the many facets ofpublic relations with seasoned
professionals, educators,authors and others.
Now here is your host, peterWoolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:25):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, Apple has ranked thispodcast among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide and recentlyFeedspot listed this podcast as
number 13 on its top 70 bestpublic relations podcasts in the
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So thank you to all of ourguests and listeners for your
(00:48):
continued support and if youenjoy the podcast, please leave
a review.
Now question for the audienceCan old school public relations
strategies achieve successfuloutcomes by adopting modern
digital approaches?
Well, my guest today saysabsolutely, yes.
His journey from South Africato Los Angeles was fueled by his
(01:10):
passion for creativestorytelling.
He is a former creativeexecutive at Amazing Workplace.
Now currently he is the CEO andcreative director of Meritus
Media, with offices both in LosAngeles, California, and Tampa,
Florida.
Meritus Media provides a rangeof services that include search
engine optimization, digitalmarketing, web design and much
(01:32):
more.
So joining me today from LosAngeles, California, is Mike
Falkow, CEO of Meritus Media.
So, Mike, welcome to theprogram.
Mike Falkow (01:43):
Thank you, peter, thanks for having me with media.
Peter Woolfolk (01:45):
So, Mike, welcome to the program.
Thank you, peter.
Thanks for having me.
So we have been talking earlierthat we wanted to talk about.
What are some of these oldschool strategies that need to
be, you know, updated if youwill, and bring in digital
platforms.
So let's begin.
I think you decided thatbranding, perhaps is one of the
more important things that weneed to do.
How are we going to go aboutdoing that?
Tell us the next steps there.
Mike Falkow (02:06):
Yeah, well, one of the things that often gets
conflated, and so I think it'simportant to define these terms
up front where marketing,advertising and public relations
has become conflated and it hasbecome confused, certainly in
more recent times, but if youjust think of it in terms of
very simple statements, wherepublic relations is essentially
(02:30):
your relationship with yourpublic or your audience, as in
managing your reputation withinthat group of people, and then
marketing could be seen as a wayto attract your customers, and
then advertising, being that youare sort of promoting in a paid
sense through ads and so on uh,so, like the billboard in the
(02:50):
town square would be advertising, a person handing out flyers
and talking to you would bemarketing and, uh, you know, you
sitting down and chatting withsomeone one-on-one would be more
a public relations typeactivity.
And then you mentioned branding,where that's essentially
creating your business identityand how you're recognized and
(03:14):
known, and it matters because itgives your audience something
that sticks in their mind as whoyou are and how you're
represented, and from there itbuilds trust and loyalty and
helps you stand out.
And the combining of the oldschool techniques.
The reason why I feel that'simportant is because, really,
(03:35):
where the definitions of theseterms have become confused, the
activities as a result have beenconfused and sort of mushed
together, and, I think, byunderstanding that old school
approaches of public relationswere essentially always aimed at
making your good works wellknown to the public.
(03:57):
And so, if you keep that inmind, while using more modern
tools and the digital tools thatyou have at your disposal
nowadays, the approach iseverything, and so that can
really sort of govern andmonitor how you create strategy.
Peter Woolfolk (04:15):
So let's define, then, how that approach, as you
say, how should that approachbe initiated?
What should be included in thatapproach, particularly if we're
going to be using digitalplatforms?
Mike Falkow (04:29):
Well, I'll give you a silly example, right?
So if you take a, you have abrand and they're interested in
doing some online reputation oronline public relations, and
then you have someone whodoesn't have this mindset.
They go, okay, well, let's dosome facebook ads.
Well, you're doing the wrongthing, you're now in the realm
(04:52):
of advertising.
And or, let's do some googleads or something that that again
, those are, those areadvertising it.
But if you were to create athought leadership article
series you know, let's say it'sa skincare brand on the
technology that goes into thecreation of these products and
the certain skin conditions andwhy they're important to a
person and what medicalramifications that might have
(05:16):
for a person, and do like thisseries of thought leadership
articles that are helpful anduseful to the reader as a
positioning, then that becomesthat creates goodwill in the
reader and they then associateyou as a brand with that helpful
and useful information indeveloping, let's say just those
(05:36):
thought leader.
Peter Woolfolk (05:37):
Let's talk about some of the platforms that are
used to help or accomplish thesethings.
So, if we're going to talkagain about branding, what's,
what are some of the platformsthat can we can begin to use, or
basically, I should say thatare actually already being used
to accomplish these achievements?
Mike Falkow (05:54):
in terms of branding or online PR well,
let's look at both all right.
Well, take PR, for example.
I mean mean there's so manytools nowadays that you can
create your online real estatevery easily, where you know.
Even 10, 15 years ago, buildinga website, even just a small
(06:16):
informational website, wouldhave been quite costly,
depending on who you go to.
But nowadays you know you cancreate a blog through wordpress
or or wix or or shopify or anynumber of these platforms that
have made it very easy forsomeone to go on and and create
an online platform forthemselves.
(06:38):
There's other places, likemedium, where you can create a
profile and start publishingarticles.
Linkedin is another great onewhere you can start going on
there and sharing informationand publishing articles and
newsletters and so on and soforth, where you can build this
sort of thought leadershiparound your brand and the
(07:02):
information that you'reproviding to your audience.
Branding, on the other hand,from what I can tell, the
technology hasn't quite caughtup, although AI is getting there
, but AI is still, in my mind, auseful tool for efficiency
(07:22):
rather than a creative tool.
It can have some creative uses,but it still requires a human,
creative mind to give you theprompts to interpret the prompts
, to interpret the results thatthe language models spit out at
you, and so a designer and acreative director and a branding
(07:44):
expert are still indisposablein terms of creating a brand and
building a brand book andcreating an architecture of your
messaging and all of thosethings that go along with the
building of a brand.
Peter Woolfolk (08:01):
You know, as I listen to that, and you talk
about building up a brand.
There are so many digitalplatforms.
One of the things that I seethat I like that, as a matter of
fact, I even use to helppromote this podcast are some of
the videos that use avatars.
I like to.
(08:22):
Just before it's launched, Iwill put up one of these video
avatars on places like LinkedIn,public relations and
communications and PRSA and soforth, to let people know that
it is coming, and there's anavatar saying in a few words
here's what's coming, here'swhat it's going to be about, and
you can get it on March the10th or whenever that happens to
(08:43):
be, and I think that certainlyhelps to boost people's
attention to at least listeningto this particular episode.
Mike Falkow (08:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a lot of useful tools,like you say, that can help to
boost your visibility, to helpto attract customers.
But again, that sort of fallsunder the headline of marketing
right so when it, when it comesto branding itself, you have to
understand who you are and howyou want to present yourself to
(09:16):
your public and what message youwant to communicate through
your channels of marketing andthrough your channels of public
relations and advertising.
But ultimately, you're thecreative mind behind it, you,
you're the sort of the man inthe chair, so to speak.
Well, any other guidelines youhave in terms of, let's say, the
(09:53):
branding, how, groups andsurveys and like man on the
street type things, wererequired to really get a sense
of the mindset of the peoplethat you wish to speak to.
Whereas nowadays, informationis readily available, all you
need is the tools to be able tocapture that information and
then analyze it.
So, analytics tools, soanalytics tools.
(10:14):
Rand Fishkin is a PRprofessional and he's got a
company called SparkToro andMetricool, and these online
tools and analytics tools areexceptionally useful and can
sort of scrape the internet forsentiment, so that you can
(10:34):
understand your audience, sothat you can then better
communicate to that audience andaudience listening tools like
that are exceptionally valuable,especially in the realm of PR,
especially in the realm ofmarketing and advertising as
well, branding as well.
If you're doing your researchbefore constructing your brand
look and everything else.
(10:55):
Helping to understand what itis that will resonate with your
audience is something that we'vejust never in history had as a
tool, and so you can have all ofthis data and all of this
analytics that you can look at.
I'll give you a silly example.
There was a client that we hadthat their primary product was
(11:17):
creating accessories for, likehunting rifle, and, and they
built scopes and and things likethat.
So we did a an audiencelistening campaign, and
something that we discovered inthe course of doing that was
that there was an entire segmentof their market that they had
no idea about, and that was birdwatches, and there was this
(11:39):
sort of subculture of birdwatches who gravitated towards
this one particular scope thatthey made, and because it gave
good quality of vision and rangeof vision and it was handy you
could put it in your pocket andyou could just pull it up to one
eye and so there were all ofthese uses for this rifle scope
(12:00):
that that the bird watchers hadfound, but the company itself
had no idea it was thisinvisible group of of customers
that they knew nothing of right,and so, after this audience
listening uh campaign.
We presented this information tothem and we're like well,
there's thousands of potentialsales in this area that you
(12:21):
haven't been taking advantage of, and so it can really write the
course of your marketing andadvertising and it can sort of
guide you in a way that youwouldn't have known about
previously.
And these tools give you thatinformation, to give you that
guidance.
Peter Woolfolk (12:43):
Well, you mentioned sentiment.
You're absolutely right.
I do, because I don't thinkI've had a chance to use those
yet, but it does let you knowhow people feel about or think
about your services and orproducts, which is something you
need to know so that you canmake the necessary adjustments
to keep it in.
So there'll still be a favoritething that people would like to
(13:03):
use, and also there aremessaging tools.
Mike Falkow (13:07):
You're exactly right, and the other really
useful area of these kinds oftools is reputation management
and crisis management right.
So previously you know an eventwould happen, there would be
some articles in a newspaper orsomething, and then you know a
PR agency would go into crisismanagement mode and a lot of the
(13:27):
research and a lot of thedigging and listening would have
to be done manually, whereasnow you can take advantage of
these tools and go well, who'ssaying what?
How do they feel about thesubject we're investigating, and
where are they saying it?
That's the other thing.
It gives you areas.
So if YouTube is one particulararea where people are posting a
(13:50):
lot of videos about a certainthing, or perhaps they're
sticking only to Reddit orSubstack or Discord or any one
of these other forum-typeplatforms, these tools will give
you not only the sentiment butalso the location.
Peter Woolfolk (14:08):
And then from there, that's when your group
has to get together, put theirheads together and decide on
some sort of a program or effortto correct those mistakes or
address those issues that aregetting some negative responses
from the client.
Mike Falkow (14:23):
Right, exactly, and that's where old school sort of
traditional PR technology comesinto play, where you apply the
rules of is what they're sayingtrue?
Are they missing information?
Do we need to fill the vacuumwith true information, and so on
and so forth.
You can just go down the list.
I mean it's an old playbook,but if you're not familiar with
that playbook you can sort of begrasping at straws and being
(14:48):
more reactive rather thanproactive.
Peter Woolfolk (14:51):
You know one of the other areas that you had
mentioned, such as mediarelations.
You know, one time you justsent out press releases and
hoped that they got open, soforth and so on.
Well, now there are programsthat send it out to let you know
that they've been opened andwho looks at them, maybe how
long they've got them.
I think Cision and severalothers are some that actually do
(15:13):
that for you.
Mike Falkow (15:14):
Right, exactly.
And again, there's an old sortof PR approach which is it's in
the name, it's media relations.
In other words, you should havea relationship with these
journalists and help them dotheir job better.
So if you have a client who islaunching a new company, for
example, and there's a businessguy at the New York Times who
(15:37):
you have a long-standingrelationship with, then that's
an easy pitch, whereas if you'rejust sort of looking online and
scraping for mediaopportunities and then cold
emailing these guys going here'smy client and sending out a
press release or something, youryour response rate is is going
to be exponentially lower thanif you've actually taken the
(15:59):
time to develop theserelationships and become
colleagues with these people.
Essentially because they'rejust like anyone.
They're trying to do their jobas best they can, and if you can
assist them in doing a betterjob, they're going to look
better to their superiors,they're going to deliver better
work for their readers, and soon and so forth.
So it's a win all around toreally take the time and play
(16:23):
the long game.
It's a marathon, it's not asprint, right.
Peter Woolfolk (16:27):
Well, you know, on that particular case, it's
interesting that I have PRpeople.
Obviously, I get, at leastmaybe once a week minimum, an
email that says some folks wouldlike to be on the show.
Two things happen.
One, some of those emails thatI get, I look like they're
shotgun blasts.
They just say hello, they don'tmention you or your show's name
(16:50):
.
Hello, how would you like totalk about ABC and D?
The second part of it, some ofit had nothing to do with public
relations.
I just got, I think, one theother day about some guy selling
a book that had something to dowith veterans and I couldn't
quite, so I don't even bother torespond to those you know as PR
people.
Yes, you need to take some timebecause you know how do you
(17:13):
ingratiate yourself sometimes,you know, because maybe you're
on a new beat or this is a newproduct for you.
So you've got to find out whocovers these products, and I
think that they've got thoseplatforms out there that can
tell you who covers whatorganization, and those are some
of the things that you need toincrease your chances of landing
some placements.
Mike Falkow (17:33):
Right, exactly.
And again the same appliesapplies, like with what I was
talking about before, with yourrelationship with a media outlet
, right?
The same applies to a situationlike this or, for that matter,
any person who you're trying totalk to in a professional sense,
the rules of communicationapply.
Whether you're sending an emailfor the first time or whether
(17:57):
you're reaching out for somekind of business benefit or
anything else, you're stillcommunicating, you're in the
realm of communication andtherefore the rules of
communication apply.
If you were to walk up tosomeone on the street and go,
hey, do this thing, yourresponse is likely to not be
good.
But if you walk up to theperson, say hi, how are you?
(18:19):
My name is Mike, what was yourname?
Very nice to meet.
You tell me a little bit aboutyourself and establish some
rapport.
It gets another person, havesome sense of understanding and
let them know that you see themand you hear them, and and they,
they are duplicated in some way, shape or form by you, so that
they then feel understood andand then all all other manner of
(18:40):
things apply, and just just inthe same sense as if you're
making a new friend, right, so?
And we can sometimes lose sightof that because of these tools,
that they're so immediate andthey're so, uh, easy to use,
blast out 500 emails to 500people without doing the work.
But the work still has to bedone.
The communication is still acommunication and if we lose
(19:03):
sight of that, we're not goingto get as good a result.
Peter Woolfolk (19:07):
While we're thinking about it, could you
identify a few more of thoseplatforms that people can
actually use?
Because I know for sentimentthere's a certain platform.
If you're going to send outmass emails, there are certain
ones that can tell you send themto the right reporter at the
right magazine for the righttopics.
I forget a lot of them there,but if you can give us the names
(19:30):
of some of those platforms andwhat they're used for, I think
will help the listeners a lot tosort of know what direction
they need to go in to get thejob done.
Mike Falkow (19:41):
Right?
Well, there's a number ofapproaches that you could use.
I mean specifically forreporters.
There is some manual work thatmight need to be done, but there
are other tools that you coulduse.
I mean, almost as a sillyexample, you could put in a
prompt to chat GPT and say I'mlooking for the top 20
(20:02):
publications that cover theautomobile industry, and so you
know, scrape the internet, findme their websites.
If they have a personal blog,please include that.
And if there's an email address, please include that.
And if there's an email address, please include that and give
me a short description of whatit is that they write about.
(20:24):
So you can utilize AI toolslike ChatGPT or Cloud or any
number of other options that areavailable to do that work for
you.
As far as whether or not theemails have been opened, that's
another story.
That's something that you know.
If you have a, if you're usinga platform like Apollo or
(20:49):
Constant Contact that kind ofthing, that'll give you those
kinds of analytics from an emailstandpoint.
But there's one tool that I'vebeen using I'm not sure if
there's an email version of it,for reporters necessarily but
there are tools that areavailable that will source
(21:12):
podcasts, for example.
That's how I found you.
Podcasts, for example.
That's how I found you, was it?
It kicks out a bunch of uh,very specifically targeted
subjects that you put in.
You go well, I'd like to knowmore about these people and you
know these specific subjects,and it'll kick out.
You know four or five hundredpodcasts with a description of
(21:34):
of what they are about, andthere's a link to the podcast so
you can listen to it foryourself, and so on and so forth
right now.
Peter Woolfolk (21:42):
What's the name of that platform?
Do you recall the name of thatone?
Mike Falkow (21:48):
oh, that's called pod pitch pod pitch.
Peter Woolfolk (21:50):
Okay, well, I think that's a good idea.
You know, a lot of people lookfor those things.
You know, even though, as Isaid, I do get those shotgun
sort of things that say, hello,how are you today?
Without mentioning your name oryour podcast, just throw it at
you.
Mike Falkow (22:03):
So those are, I think if someone's going to say-
, right, but even with a toollike that, even with a tool like
that, you still need to do thework yourself.
Because when you and I firstconnected on the phone, I was
like I found you through thisplatform.
But then, when I got a responsefrom you, I realized, well, if
we're going to have an actualconversation person to person,
(22:25):
it would be very poor form forme to pick up the phone and not
know who you are, not havinglistened to at least one episode
of your podcast and know alittle bit about you.
Because you know, if you'rewalking into a business meeting,
you should know a little bitabout the person who you're
going to be speaking to.
It's just common sense, right?
So again, this goes back to mypoint about communication is
(22:49):
communication, no matter whatthe form, and so the rules of
communication then apply.
If you hypothetically take oursituation, if we'd gotten on the
phone, I'm like well, tell meabout yourself, peter.
I think your response wouldhave been less friendly than if
we picked up the phone.
I was like I listened to anepisode of your podcast, I
(23:10):
really enjoyed it, we have a lotof commonality on these
subjects and so on and and so.
But it gives you, uh, anopportunity to develop a
relationship where one didn'texist before.
But you also need to put in thework.
Peter Woolfolk (23:25):
Well, you know, I certainly agree with that.
And just let me comment again,because they're awesome PR
people.
The last one I got was from aPR agency it must have been an
intern that had just a shotgunapproach Hello, how are you
today?
I think you'd love to interviewmy boss so and so and so and so
about A, b, c and D.
So I looked at it and one ofthe things I think you need to
(23:51):
be careful about is that theycan talk about subjects such as
this, this and this.
Well, one of them I take a verysharp look at is when people
talk about crisis communications.
That is a huge topic.
You know, it's one thing.
If you have a fire drill inyour building, you can tell
everybody what to do.
But if you know, I used to workon Capitol Hill in Washington
DC and when a reporter calls youat 5 o'clock on a Friday
(24:14):
afternoon and says that yourcongressman is on a list of
people who floated checks,you've got a problem because
they're all gone.
It's Friday afternoon, nothingyou can do, that's right.
So what do you do?
The first thing that worked forme is that I did have a
relationship with the reporterand I did tell him.
(24:34):
I said I can't answer you thatquestion right now, but when we
get back Monday morning I willnot only talk to the congressman
but the people who handle thesethings for him, and once we get
all that worked out, we'regoing to invite you over and
show you the paperwork that sayshe should not have been on that
, and so that worked out realwell, I mean, and he appreciated
(24:57):
that.
And because he should not havebeen on that, I also called the
people from Associated Press,the New York Times and the
Washington Post and had themcome as well, and they all
agreed that it should not havehappened.
It was a mistake that happenedsomewhere in the Capitol Hill
the bank on Capitol Hill, youknow for senators and
congressmen and they did put aretraction in the paper.
(25:18):
But the problem for me was thatwhen they announced it on
Saturday morning it was on thefront page.
The retraction was buried inthe back there somewhere.
Mike Falkow (25:31):
Right, it usually is.
Peter Woolfolk (25:32):
Right, so at least they, you know.
Mike Falkow (25:37):
A retraction doesn't get quite the readership
as a sensational headlinethat's exactly right.
Peter Woolfolk (25:44):
But you learn.
But at least we were able tomanage the thing so that we
never had that happen before.
And I've seen other people who,in particular crisis
communications, have neverreally had any serious training
about that and they can probablycause more problems than they
can solve because they have nothad it.
It is not something that youknow and I tell people.
(26:06):
You just can't go into maybe aseminar and sit for a few hours
and think now you're preparedfor crisis communications.
It is not that easy becausesomething is going to come down
the pike that you still can'thandle.
So you know, sometimes you justhave to, you know, be in the
firing line on these things andtake some punches on the first
few to learn how to reallyhandle that sort of thing.
Mike Falkow (26:28):
Right, right and again I mean your relationship
with those journalists.
It counts for something.
Peter Woolfolk (26:35):
It does.
Mike Falkow (26:35):
Because you know, even if the person who's
employing you has gottenthemselves into some hot water,
they have a pre-existingrelationship with you and so
therefore there's trust and andso on and so forth, that if
something goes on, you can stillhave a cordial conversation
with them and go listen, here'swhat's happening.
(26:57):
You know, uh, can you coverthis?
This is the information we'dlike to provide to you, and then
you can also have a future, uh,longevity of relationship with
that same journalist and go look.
Okay, so there was thisexplosion here and here's how it
was handled, and I appreciatethe retraction.
Thank you very much.
Here's a story you might beinterested in and then you.
(27:19):
Then you can have a goodrelationship moving forward from
there as well.
Peter Woolfolk (27:25):
Well, you know, I think that's always important,
and particularly also when somereporters move on to maybe
larger, more prestigiouspublications.
At least you can call them upand maybe congratulate them on
their job and hey look, if I'vegot something that you might be
interested in, I'd like to beable to give you a call about it
, and they would appreciate thattoo.
Mike Falkow (27:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's an old sort of idea inHollywood of like if you get
represented by an agent, makesure you make friends with the
assistant.
Peter Woolfolk (27:59):
Oh, absolutely.
Mike Falkow (28:01):
Because in 10 years from now they're going to be
the agents, right, but that'salmost like a personal PR
approach of like.
I value my relationships, Ivalue the colleagues that I work
with, and so if I'm going tomake a contact with someone,
whether we can benefit oneanother now or not is irrelevant
(28:21):
.
The fact of the matter is, wehave a new relationship that,
for one or both of us, is goingto become useful either today,
tomorrow or down the road.
Peter Woolfolk (28:32):
Well, michael, let me ask you now if you have
any sort of closing remarksyou'd like to make about
engaging the modern digitalapproaches to.
You know old school ways ofdoing things.
Mike Falkow (28:44):
Well, I think it's a holistic approach.
I think if you're young andyou're an expert at you know
digital technology, that's great, but take the time to learn the
subject that you're in.
Know the subject and learn theold school, traditional ways of
doing things and understandcommunication as a subject.
(29:07):
And then if you're an oldschool, traditional person who
barely uses email, you mightwant to touch up on some of the
new tools that are aroundbecause they are going to be
helpful.
Touch up on some of the newtools that are around because
they are going to be helpful.
I had a chat with a guy namedShel Holtz we're both senior
(29:29):
fellows over at the conferenceboard and I interviewed him on
our podcast and he saidsomething really interesting.
He said there's a lot of talkabout AI and people being afraid
that AI is going to take yourjob.
The truth of the matter is AIis not going to take your job,
but the kid who knows how to useAI will take your job.
So it's you know, for those ofus in the sort of over 40 range
(29:53):
and above, it's really importantfor us to keep up, because it
is a digital world.
We do need to understand thesetools and if we can bring those
two disciplines together, Ithink that's a winning
combination.
Peter Woolfolk (30:07):
Well, I can certainly agree with you on that
.
I have gone to artificialintelligence built around this
podcast.
You know built around thispodcast and I use it.
You know like once the podcastis done it will produce a
transcript for me.
You know it'll identify likespeaker one and two.
(30:28):
I just go in and fill in thenames.
It also comes up with.
You know pieces for Facebookand the others that I can.
You know I can look at them andyou know a few amount of words
and just send them right off ifI want to make changes.
Produces, blogs for me.
All of that sort of stuff isdone probably within an hour.
(30:50):
Now I just don't take and runwith it.
I always read it and makechanges if I want to, and so
forth.
But it's such a time-savingtool to have to be able to use
these new tools.
Mike Falkow (31:03):
Yeah, that's exactly right and that's how I
view it as well.
I view it through the lens ofan efficiency tool.
If you look at the IndustrialRevolution, right and compare it
to that, and you go, okay, well, people were tilling fields by
hand and it took X amount ofhours to get a wheat field done
and all of a sudden there was anew machine that came along that
could do that for you in thespace of 30 minutes.
(31:26):
That's an efficiency tool.
And so, in a similar vein, youlook at AI technology and you go
well, it can do all this gruntwork for me.
That would have taken me anentire day to put together and
you know my fingers would havebeen tired from typing and all
the rest.
But it becomes this assistantfor all of the heavy lifting,
(31:49):
all of the grunt work, and thenit frees you up to do the more
strategic, more creative, moresort of high level type
activities that you wouldn'thave had the time to do
otherwise.
Peter Woolfolk (32:03):
Well, mike, let me say thank you so very much
for being on the PublicRelations Review Podcast.
We certainly have appreciatedyou sharing your wisdom with us,
and I can certainly sign on toit, because I have used a lot of
the new stuff and look forwardto even more of it coming down
the pike.
So I'd like to say thank youfor bringing this to our
attention and sharing thisinformation with our listeners.
Mike Falkow (32:25):
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for having me on.
I really did enjoy chattingwith you.
Peter Woolfolk (32:29):
Well, thank you and for our listeners, if you've
enjoyed the show, we certainlywould appreciate getting a
review from you and also sharingthis information with your
colleagues and also don't forgetto listen to the next edition
of the Public Relations ReviewPodcast.
Announcer (32:50):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us.
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