April 21, 2025 • 41 mins
Are you ready for the technological revolution reshaping public relations in 2025? The landscape is transforming at breakneck speed, and those who adapt will thrive while others struggle to remain relevant.
Sally Falkow, a social media strategist with over 30 years of experience, talks with host Peter Woolfolk as she pulls back the curtain on five critical trends every PR professional must master. With her deep expertise in digital PR and technology, Sally provides actionable insights that cut through the noise and highlight what truly matters.
Gone are the days of broad-stroke messaging. Today's successful PR demands precision audience research using sophisticated tools that identify micro-segments within your target demographics. Sally reveals how platforms like SparkToro enable unprecedented depth of audience understanding, allowing for hyper-targeted communication strategies that genuinely resonate.
The conversation explores how authentic storytelling continues to be the backbone of effective PR, but with crucial modern twists. "If a brand tells me they're the best thing since sliced bread, well of course they would," Sally notes, explaining why personal narratives and multimedia approaches have become essential for building trust in an increasingly skeptical world.
Perhaps most provocatively, Sally challenges common fears about AI replacing PR jobs with a powerful insight: "AI won't take your job - but the PR person who really knows how to use AI will." She breaks down practical applications for artificial intelligence in PR work, from content creation to sentiment analysis, while emphasizing the continued importance of human expertise.
The discussion also tackles the evolution of online visibility strategies as Google transforms from a search engine to an "answer engine," and why measurement analytics can no longer be optional for PR professionals seeking C-suite respect.
Whether you're a seasoned PR veteran or just starting your career, this episode provides the strategic framework needed to navigate the rapidly changing technological landscape of public relations. Listen now to ensure your PR approach remains cutting-edge in 2025 and beyond.
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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 recently,feedspot 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 to the audience.
With 2025 now underway andquickly transforming due to
technological advancements, whatare some of the more important
predictions public relationspractitioners must pay attention
to?
Well, my guest today has thatinformation for you.
(01:11):
She has been in public relationsfor more than 30 years and
holds her APR from theaccreditation from the Public
Relations Society of America.
Now, over the last 15 years,she has specialized in new
technology and digital publicrelations.
Most of her work today is as asocial media strategist.
In addition, she has trainedand coached public relations and
(01:34):
marketing teams at companiesboth large and small, including
Fortune 100 executives, publicrelations agencies and new
public relations graduates.
Along the way, she has wonnumerous awards.
So my guest today is SallyFalco.
She's a social media strategistwith Veritiv Media and she
joins me today from warm andtoasty Clearwater Florida.
(01:57):
Sally, welcome to the podcast.
Sally Falkow (02:00):
Thank you.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
Peter Woolfolk (02:03):
Well, you've made some very, very poignant
predictions for technology andpublic relations for 2025.
Let's go over those and then,so our public can understand
exactly what there are and theimplications therein, so to
speak.
And the first one you say isprecision audience research.
You say that gone are the daysof broad-struck messaging.
(02:25):
Talk a bit more in detail aboutwhat we need to learn from and
what we need to do in thisparticular arena.
Sally Falkow (02:33):
Well, peter, you know audience research has
always been a core factor ofpublic relations.
If you read any of the varyingdefinitions of what is PR, most
of them mention that it's to dowith communication with the
different publics of the company.
(02:54):
So those are your audiences.
If you're not really figuringout who your audience is, life
is going to get very difficultfor you.
And it was hard, like 30 yearsago, to do this.
It was all done by hand and itwas all done by research and
(03:16):
surveys and observations.
But now we have technology thatcan help us to do this and can
really drill down and get intowho are these people.
Where do they hang out, what dothey listen to, what are they
looking for, what do they like,what do they not like.
It makes life a lot, lot easier.
(03:39):
You're looking for developingreally hyper-targeted
communication strategies.
If you have, let's say, you'rein the wellness space and you
want to communicate tochiropractors Well, not all
chiropractors are the same.
Some chiropractors don't usethis particular technique and
(04:00):
some focus on that problem withtheir patients you can really
really drill right down and findout what are the exact audience
personas.
You can get unprecedented depthand understanding of these,
what we call micro segments.
So within a bigger audience,maybe you have women over 50 who
(04:25):
need to lose weight.
Well, there's a lot of littlemicro-segments in there.
How many of them have alreadytried something?
Have some of them been on theketo diet?
That didn't work?
How many of them want to loseweight quickly?
There's so many little segmentsthat you can drill down into if
you have the right tools, andthen you can predict your
(04:48):
audience behavior and you canfigure out their communication
preferences and then you canactually create and craft a
really meaningful andpersonalized communication that
will resonate with that audiencepersonalized communication that
will resonate with thataudience and, needless to say,
(05:10):
that you also have to identifythose particular programs that
can do this for you.
Peter Woolfolk (05:13):
You said you know hyper-targeting certain
areas or listeners, and so I'msure that there are platforms
that can dig down, as you said,be they surgeons or whoever,
whatever group it happens to bethat can penetrate and do that.
Sally Falkow (05:31):
There definitely are.
There are a lot of really goodtools around.
Am I allowed to mention any?
Peter Woolfolk (05:37):
Oh, absolutely.
Sally Falkow (05:39):
Okay, my favorite one is SparkToro
S-P-A-R-K-T-O-R-O.
It's run by a fellow calledRand Fishkin.
I think Rand is an absolutelybrilliant fellow.
He does a five-minutewhiteboard every Friday on the
(05:59):
SparkToro blog.
Five-minute whiteboard everyFriday on the SparkToro blog.
And if you just watch that andyou read their newsletter, your
mind might completely be bentthe first time you do it.
But if you just keep digging inand listening to how they work
and what kind of things they cando and looking at their case
(06:23):
studies, I'm telling you yourmind will go into overdrive.
You'll go oh my goodness, howdid I not know this existed?
Mm-hmm.
Peter Woolfolk (06:33):
Well, you know, I mean, that certainly sounds
like an excellent idea because,as you said, if you really want
to know who your audience is,you need the tools to help you
get to that point.
Because, as we've discussedprobably many times on here,
that giving the rightinformation to the right
audience is a very, verystrategic and important way of
being successful in what you doin public relations.
Sally Falkow (06:56):
Exactly so.
Peter Woolfolk (06:58):
Okay.
Sally Falkow (06:58):
That's exactly what we're trying to do, and if
you have a tool that can helpyou and improve what you're
doing, wow.
Peter Woolfolk (07:05):
Why not use it Absolutely Well?
Next, you talk about authenticstorytelling, and we certainly
all know exactly how importantthat is, but go into a bit more
detail about that.
Sally Falkow (07:18):
Well, if you've been following the Global Trust
barometer at all Every year,you'll see things change and who
they trust and who they don'ttrust, and why and why not.
And so with our messaging, wehave to make sure that we are
being authentic and that peoplewill look at it and think this
(07:41):
is real.
I can communicate with thiscompany.
I trust them.
It sounds like they havetransparency and I'm making an
emotional connection with them.
If you have successful PRnarratives now going into the
future, you have to reveal whatyour genuine brand value is.
What kind of human experienceis this person going to have
(08:04):
with you as a brand?
We now have multimediapossibilities for storytelling.
There are techniques for writingreally good stories, but once
you start showing them at thesame time, it really expands and
extends that story.
I'm sure that makes sense toyou.
If I write about a fire thathappened, I can even if I'm a
(08:30):
really fantastic writer, I canprobably give you a really good
idea.
But when you see the pictures,for many years in PR we didn't
worry that much about the images.
If we needed images, it wasfine.
Give that to those people overthere.
They're the graphic artists.
It's not my job.
(08:54):
Well, I hate to tell you, but itactually is your job now and
you have to start thinking abouthow can I really extend their
experience with this story.
Another way you can do it is togive them personal narratives,
give them examples of peoplewho've done what you're talking
(09:15):
about, or people that your brandhas actually helped, so that
they can see.
One of the things that came upin this global trust barometer
was we trust people just likeourselves much more than we
trust the brand.
And that makes total sense tome, because if a brand tells me
they're the best thing sincelast bread, well of course they
(09:37):
would.
Why would they not?
What are they going to say?
We're not that bad, we'reactually sort of okay.
No company's going to do that,but you expect that, so you know
that when it's coming from thebrand, they have an agenda.
But if I see that, you say thisis what we do, and then you
(10:00):
show me four or five people justlike me who have the same
problems that I have and they'veused your service or products
or whatever, and they've reallyhad a very good result of it.
that's great storytelling now ifyou can do that with multimedia
across diverse platforms,you're going to get a much
(10:21):
better connection mm-hmm.
Peter Woolfolk (10:24):
Let me say this Several months ago, I did an
episode strictly on storytellingand that was.
They said the very, very samethings how authentic you have to
be if people really want torelate to you.
You know, whatever yourparticular group is, so you need
to have the right persondelivering that message.
So that is, it is effective.
So, I mean, storytelling ishuge and I think this that you
(10:49):
continue to validate that thatis a major, major issue for all
PR people to take into account.
Sally Falkow (10:55):
You know what's interesting to me, peter, is
very often, even in biggercompanies, but certainly in
smaller companies.
They tell me, even in biggercompanies, but certainly in
smaller companies.
They tell me oh, we don't haveany stories, we're just whatever
.
I just do this.
No story here and I helped acompany in Silicon Valley a
(11:16):
little while ago.
They actually are a concretecutting company and when I spoke
to him about finding storiesabout the company.
He was a very down-to-earth guy.
There are no stories here.
I cut holes in concrete.
What kind of a story is that?
Well, when I started digging alittle bit further, what was the
(11:37):
most interesting thing you'veever done, or what was an
unusual thing you've ever done?
I come across the fact thatthey were chosen to do the
seismic retrofitting for thequad at Stanford University.
Now, this is a very historicbuilding.
He had to actually invent a newdrill to do this.
They had to make a way to sortof unpack some of the material
(12:02):
off the columns, drill a holedown, put all the rebar and the
concrete and the seismicretrofitting in and then put all
the stuff back and walk away asthough nothing had ever touched
that quad.
If you walk in there now, youwould not know that anything had
ever been done other than theoriginal building.
(12:23):
I said to him how can you tellme?
That's not a story, that'sastonishing.
Peter Woolfolk (12:31):
Well, you know, some people don't think that way
and you know, along those samelines, when I started my PR firm
I didn't really want to startone.
I was encouraged by it when Imoved down here as a former vice
mayor because of my background.
So I said, okay, I'll do that.
But then I realized that way ofjust having business cards and
meeting people and shaking handsreally wasn't getting what I
(12:53):
needed to get.
So I decided that I need to.
Uh, what would be great for meis to come up with a major
client that when people saw thatname that they would say, oh my
goodness, if he has them as aclient, then he must know what
he's doing right so, to make along story short, I have called
people that I knew that sat oncertain boards and, um, uh, call
(13:16):
them see if they could connectme with the uh, the executive
director, whoever.
To make a long story short, Ihad a meeting with this guy.
He said, well, all the money isgone, it's already tied up up,
but we do need some help withsome community outreach.
I said, well, I can help youwith that.
He said, well, fine, so I hadthat agreement.
So what I did was I wrote apress release Peter Wolf Company
(13:39):
secures the Nashville Ballet,so wow, and it hit the front
page of the business journalhere and made no mention of the
fact that there was no moneyinvolved.
Because there wasn't, becauseit was more important for me to
get that visibility andvalidation by having that and,
as a result, that wound upgenerating some calls for me and
(14:02):
one of the people that calledme I wound up doing work for
them for seven years.
So telling stories is hugelyimportant and I had a number of
them to tell.
Sally Falkow (14:12):
Exactly.
Peter Woolfolk (14:14):
So you also mentioned.
Another thing that's hugelyimportant now is obviously
artificial intelligence and thestrategic integration of that
into our daily work.
Sally Falkow (14:25):
Right?
Well, you know, we've heard itsaid so many times that this is
the big boogeyman that's comingand AI is going to take our jobs
.
Well, no, it's not actually,but I'll tell you who will take
your job the PR person whoreally knows how to use AI.
(14:46):
That's what's going to happen,Because AI is like any other
thing to do with computers.
I'm sure you've heard thegarbage in, garbage out
statement.
It's exactly the same.
If you just use one of thesetools and you ask them to write
something for you and you say,write me an article about blah,
(15:09):
you probably are going to getgarbage.
There's a whole technology onhow to write these prompts and
how to get these insights out ofthese tools.
They will give you everythingand the kitchen sink, but you
have to know how to ask for it.
So you've got to be able tounderstand how to use AI and
(15:33):
then figure out how to use itstrategically.
What do you need it for?
Figure out how to use itstrategically.
What do you need it for?
Some other companies might beusing AI for something
completely different, but as aPR person, it can help you to
discover insights about youraudience, which we talked about
their preferences and mediaconsumption.
(15:53):
It can conduct really rapidaudience sentiment analysis.
I was doing sentiment analysisand business analysis using
social media 10 years ago.
Peter Woolfolk (16:07):
Oh, my goodness.
Sally Falkow (16:08):
Yeah, once you know that, you can then generate
really good content drafts.
But you have to know what totell it.
You must write like this.
You must write at this readinglevel.
You must do it.
You must write like this youmust write at this reading level
.
You must do this.
You must not do that.
Don't use these phrases,whatever.
My prompts are long because Ihave a long thing to.
(16:32):
I'm teaching this AI.
It's called an LLM, a largelanguage model, but they learn.
They actually learn as you goalong.
If you keep giving them gooddata and good input, they go oh,
this is what she wants.
Okay, fine.
Peter Woolfolk (16:50):
Yeah, well, you know we just did a complete
segment on LLMs, probably aboutthree weeks ago and you know it
really got a lot of attentionRight and it really got a lot of
attention Right.
Sally Falkow (17:01):
Also.
The other thing is that oftenwe tend to get lazy and we make
one message and we put it outeverywhere.
It's on our blog, it's on ourwebsite, it's in our newsletters
, it's on social media platforms.
All the same, every socialmedia platform has a completely
different personality.
The same person who's onFacebook and LinkedIn is there
(17:23):
for different reasons.
It's not the mummy that's onFacebook who's looking for
friends and pictures of cats.
It's not the same businesswomanwho's on LinkedIn.
If you put the same messageeverywhere, you're going to miss
half the people, and AI canhelp you with all of this,
(17:47):
instead of like slogging it outby yourself.
Ask, chat GPT, they will tellyou.
And the biggest thing is tomaster that prompt engineering
and don't ever publish a draft.
Well, you know, the biggestthing is to master that prompt
engineering and don't everpublish a draft that comes
(18:08):
straight out of an AI.
Peter Woolfolk (18:08):
Mm, hmm, Well, you know, I certainly agree with
you, because I use AI when Iproduce this in various points
of my producing this, thispodcast.
One of the first things it doesfor me that's actually easy is
that it does the transcripts.
I mean, that part is fine.
But when I want to have adescription of it, it does that
too.
But then I read thatdescription and see how accurate
(18:31):
is it and make changes as I seefit, you know, so that it
sounds more like me.
But for me it's a time saver,absolutely, and the blurbs that
come out come out.
You know, I look at those and Ican put in Facebook and blue
sky and other places.
I'll read everything before Ilet it go, but very seldom do I
let it go as it comes out,simply because I just said, it
(18:54):
doesn't sound like me or itmight be a little bit often what
it's giving me because it's notcompletely accurate.
Sally Falkow (19:05):
Well, the other side of this is there's a thing
that Google has that they use interms of ranking content and
it's expertise.
I have to think about this nowE-E-A-T Authority and trust
Experience, Experience,expertise, authority and trust,
expertise, authority and trustthat's what they're looking for.
So what you're getting back outof AI probably doesn't have
(19:30):
much of that, so you have to putyour personalized stuff into it
.
This is where you come back toyour storytelling.
The expertise and theexperience is going to come out
in the stories that you tell,which you need to put into this.
Ai is not going to know whoyour clients are.
They can't say, oh yeah, let'suse this thing.
That happened with Joe and hiscompany.
(19:50):
They don't know that and youhave to constantly put those
factors back in to show thatyou're sharing the brand
authority and transparency andthat you really have all the
good data that you use.
Peter Woolfolk (20:09):
Well, let me say I certainly agree with you on
that.
We all agree that AI is hugelyimportant, and I think the other
thing that we mostly agree onis the fact that you know use it
as how it best fits you, oradapt it to the way that it best
fits you and what it is youneed it for.
Sally Falkow (20:29):
Yeah, definitely.
So I was lucky that I wasintroduced to the idea of
digital communication andmultimedia very, very early on,
and I've taken that opportunityand just made sure that the
interesting thing with online,of course, is that the
technology changes every fiveminutes.
Peter Woolfolk (20:51):
You were just about right about that.
Sally Falkow (20:56):
So you can't say, well, oh good, I learned about
Facebook, isn't that nice?
And now all the young peoplehave gone from Facebook and
they're over here.
Oh, they're not there anymore,they're over there.
You know, 30 years ago we usedto talk about constantly having
(21:17):
your finger on the pulse of whatwas happening around your
clients or your company and that, just as you felt you had your
total headed nail down here inthis one area.
You looked away to the left andyou looked back to the right.
Oh my God, they moved.
Now, with technology, it's like10,000 times faster than that,
(21:43):
but you still have to.
You've got to keep constantlyupdating yourself and staying on
top of what the technology is.
If you don't really know how todo that, then you need to find
somebody who is doing it and iswriting about it all the time or
making videos about it, who canhelp you and maybe cut your
(22:04):
learning time in half.
Peter Woolfolk (22:06):
Well, you know, I agree with you on that,
because when I did the, as amatter of fact, I was reading
something about LLMs and I thinkI just mentioned to you I
called a fellow up and asked himto be on the podcast to talk
more about it, and I think youknow, when he brought that up,
the fact that Google, for thefirst time, had actually lost
(22:27):
some audiences because of it.
Sally Falkow (22:29):
Absolutely.
That is really fascinating tome Because, as you've been
watching it over the years, it'slike oh yeah, google's number
one, whatever.
What's next?
Suddenly, it's not that much.
You go oh, google's number one,whatever, what's next?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Suddenly, it's not that much you go, oh, Google's
losing traffic.
Peter Woolfolk (22:45):
Well, one of the other things you mentioned here
and is hugely important is thedynamic online visibility.
So talk a bit about that aswell.
Sally Falkow (22:54):
Well, you know, if you ask anybody and it really
is now 100% do you ever useGoogle?
Yes, they do, Of course they do.
Where do you go to findsomething?
I go online, so people aresearching all the time.
But this landscape is alsoundergoing a radical
(23:16):
transformation because it'sfunny that Google many years ago
, said they don't regardthemselves as a search
transformation, because it'sfunny that Google, many years
ago, said they don't regardthemselves as a search engine.
They regard themselves as ananswer engine.
So you put the question in andthey're giving you back what
used to be 10 blue links of whatthey considered to be the best
(23:39):
possibility to get the answer toyour question.
They really have to be ananswer engine now because AI is
doing that.
Many people instead.
If I want to find out how tobake a cake, people are just
going to AI.
How to bake a cake, people arejust going to AI.
(24:04):
How do I bake a?
Whatever I'm?
Peter Woolfolk (24:07):
not a baker, but how do I make?
Sally Falkow (24:08):
cream scones.
They don't want to look attendings and click somewhere
else.
They just want you to tell themhow to do the damn thing.
So this is what's happening andso there's a big disruption
happening in the traditional seo.
So I know that many prprofessionals still don't think
(24:30):
of themselves as that they haveto think about seo, but in the
same way about you didn't thinkyou had to think about images.
You actually do have to thinkabout seo.
And here's one of the things Ialways think kind of this is
what, if you tell PR people this, the light goes on when you
search and you get that littlelink on Google.
(24:53):
It's like a little blur.
It tells you the headline andthen there's a description.
If you leave that to theprogrammers, who knows what
you're going to get?
I've seen ones where it comesup home this page is not
available, or something likethat.
(25:16):
That's very damaging to yourbrand.
That's very damaging to yourbrand.
Those three or four lines isthe first thing sometimes that
anyone sees about your brand.
It's vitally important.
That piece of content needs tobe written by PR people and that
means you have to understandwhat is SEO.
(25:37):
What is a tag?
What is a title tag?
What is a description tag?
How do they work, how long dothey have to be, and so on,
because you want them when theyread it you want them to click.
It's a vitally important pieceof this space of communication.
But now we also have theintroduction of AI, and that's
(26:01):
been shown at the top of all thesearches Before you even get to
the blue links.
Now here's your answer,provided to you by AI.
Well, why aren't you in it?
Many years ago, I had a clientwho said to me you know, I've
been in business for 20 yearsand all my competitors show up
(26:24):
in Google for this particularkeyword, but I don't.
So I went and had a look at hiswebsite and I said well, I'll
tell you why that particularkeyword's not anywhere on your
website.
What do you think Google musthave?
Exprasensory perception?
And the same is going to happennow with AI.
Why should AI mention you whenthere's a question about how do
(26:47):
I wash socks?
Well, if you're the best sockcompany, why are you not
mentioned in there?
So you have to start to learnand understand how AI finds
their content.
What are they using to formthose answers?
You have to really start tounderstand their search
algorithms and what are theylooking for, and you have to
(27:11):
develop your own contentstrategy across all platforms so
that you can get this really.
I'll give you that againshareable digital narratives,
but they have to be.
It has to fit in with what AIis looking for.
(27:32):
Right.
That's the first thing.
You can't just decide over hereall by yourself.
Well, this is what it should be.
Well, no, because AI actuallyhas a format and you need to
understand that and then say, oh, they want this and they want
that.
Well, let me go and do somecontent about that, yeah.
Peter Woolfolk (27:54):
Well, you know, even when I do each one of these
episodes and, you know, do asmall write-up that goes with it
I will produce that, I'll lookat it and read it, but then I
also have to post it on mywebsite as well, because the
website says hey, google islooking for A, b, c and D.
You know those sort of things.
I need to make sure that youknow, as people are searching,
(28:15):
that what I put down willperhaps be caught up in their
search or be provided to them intheir searches, rather than
just being a podcaster, becauseI use data.
I might not get as much detailas I want, but I do know my age
group primarily, 70% of myaudience are women and that's
(28:40):
the Gen Zers I believe it is.
I think we'll go back and saythey even double-check on people
to find out that you know, yousay who you are and doing what
you say you do in terms of theauthenticity of it all.
So these things are hugelyimportant.
Sally Falkow (28:56):
Absolutely sir.
Yeah, things are hugelyimportant.
Absolutely, sir.
Peter Woolfolk (29:01):
Yeah, well, one of the other things that you
mentioned a little bit that wecan sort of you know as we get
to the tail end of this, is youtalk about measurement and
analytics-driven publicrelations.
Now I know that's huge becauseI just mentioned I'm certainly
involved in that as well.
Sally Falkow (29:17):
I really believe that this is vitally important
for PR people, and I have comeacross a resistance in PR
professionals.
It's another one of those.
Oh no, that's not my job, Idon't do that.
Statistics and analytics butyes, 30 years ago there wasn't
(29:38):
really very many ways to trackeverything, and so I think we
got into this.
We're a soft technique.
You can't really measure PR.
I've heard that so many times.
Well, those days are gone.
You can measure everything, andbecause you can, you should,
(30:04):
and one of the things we'vecomplained about over the years
is that the C-suite doesn'toften take us seriously, but if
you started giving them data,they would Just as they demanded
from other parts of theorganization, if you can show
(30:24):
them definitively.
I did this and then thathappened, and then so many
people came to the website andso many people clicked on the
link and so many peopledownloaded your e-book or
whatever I did a.
Actually it's April again, isn'tit?
Yes, april is FinancialLiteracy Month, and some years
(30:47):
ago I did a program for a clientwho is a financial services
company in the New York area andwe did a guide to financial
literacy for women.
So I I created that content andthen we did a social media
advertising campaign.
(31:08):
We actually did some audienceresearch and figured out that in
the areas where they operatethere were x many women who
would be of the income bracketthat would be the correct
audience for them and that,funnily enough, in that audience
financial literacy was actuallyquite low.
So we handled all of that inthe content and we advertised it
(31:32):
through social media to thataudience, advertised it through
social media to that audience.
And they had set parameterssaying we would like to get this
many people to come to look atthe guide, this many people to
download it and this many peopleto reach out and actually
become a viable lead.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
And it actually really overproduced by about 30%
more than they expected.
Sally Falkow (32:00):
It was very successful.
I used that as a case study ata big PR convention in
Washington and I really thoughtthat, well, this is so
step-by-step you do this, you dothat, then you do this, then
you check that, then you do thisand then you get that result.
Then you can see whether thiswas what I had said my goal was
(32:21):
and that was my result and youcan track it all the way across.
And at the end of it all, Ikind of looked at the audience
and I said do you have anyquestions?
There was nothing, absolutelynothing just silence in the room
and I was like this is weird.
And a couple of the people thatI spoke to afterwards it was
(32:45):
just like my eyes glaze over amoment.
They just didn't get it Becausethey just don't see measurement
and analytics as part of theirjob.
But it is such a vital part andit can make such a huge
difference when you can show theC-suite real-time performance
(33:11):
metrics, demonstrate yourprecise ROI, you can track
engagement across multiplechannels.
Where did these people comefrom?
What did they do?
And also, if things are notworking, you can see along the
line well, look, it worked thereand it worked there and then it
got here and then everybodyfell off the bandwagon.
Well, that's where we need tofix the problem.
(33:34):
So for me it's just an absoluteno-brainer.
Peter Woolfolk (33:43):
Well, let me say this I certainly agree with you
because, having obviously beingin this business, people want
to see results for the moneythey pay you, and being able to
provide that data is hugelyimportant because it's
validation, as we did what wewere going to say to do, and
here's the data to support it.
I think the other thing, too,is that people in the C-suite
(34:07):
need to be better educated as tohow important it is and why
it's important, and so forth andso on.
You know, sometimes maybe theyjust look at maybe how many
people attended or how many newclients who have that sort of
thing, but you can dig deeper.
As you said, people arecategorized in numerous
(34:28):
different ways and you havesentiments that you can get
about, that can be detectedabout your company or your
program or those other kinds ofthings.
So, depending on who you'reworking with and working for and
the information you need, youcannot afford not to have this
data.
Sally Falkow (34:47):
Absolutely, sir, you're correct.
Peter Woolfolk (34:51):
Well, sally, look, this has been very, very
engaging, and I am certainlyglad that you took the time to
come on to talk to us about this, because this kind of
information and detail isimportant to practically all
public relations practitioners.
So let me say thank you so very, very much for joining us today
.
Sally Falkow (35:09):
It's my great pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me.
I'm glad that you found myarticle and that you thought it
was interesting enough to spreadthe news.
Peter Woolfolk (35:19):
Well, you know, my job here really is to provide
my listeners with informationthat they can use in their daily
activities and, believe me,this hits the nail right on the
head.
So I'm sure I'm going to have alot of because, also, I promote
these individual episodes.
You'll get something from methat shows you.
(35:40):
I do put up flyers, blue Sky,the LinkedIn sites and several
other places where you have PRpeople so that they know that
it's coming, and I include theQR code in that so that they can
get to it right fast.
Sally Falkow (35:56):
Right.
The other audience that I thinkit's important for is PR
students, because I genuinelybelieve that the universities
and the schools are way behindon teaching digital PR.
Peter Woolfolk (36:11):
Well, you know, and you might be accurate about
that I do know that I do havebecause I've spoken to college
PR SSA students, because I knowthat.
I do know that I do havebecause I've spoken to college
PRSSA students, because I knowthat I do have college listeners
, both students and instructors,that listen to me, because some
of them have called me up andasked me to talk to their
students about public relations.
(36:31):
So perhaps there's a way Ishould go directly to PRSSA and
do something with them as well.
Sally Falkow (36:39):
Yeah for sure.
Some years ago I spoke at acollege in California and at the
end of the hour they all lookedvery engaged and interested.
At the end of the hour I saiddo you have any questions?
And the one guy said whyhaven't we heard anything about
this?
He was in his fourth year,about to graduate, and I'm like,
(37:05):
oh my goodness, and when youget out into the real world
they're going to ask you you'vegot A, b and C and they're going
to ask you for D.
Peter Woolfolk (37:14):
Well, and you know there's obviously a
difference in caliber at some ofthese classes, so it depends
upon who is doing the teachingand who do they bring in to
speak to students.
So students really need to havereal world experience.
You know, because youinterviewed some students on the
class or you appeared on acollege radio station.
It really doesn't amount to ahill of beans.
(37:35):
It really doesn't amount to ahill of beans.
You know, I got most of myexperience back when I was
coming up.
You know, I actually worked ina radio station and had, you
know, not only on the announcingside but also on the production
side.
I also had another job where Ihad to learn how to download
satellite connections.
You know the uplink anddownlink satellites, but you
(37:56):
know we're in the Zoom era now,but I learned those things.
So I tell everybody, the moreyou learn and actually know, the
better off you are wherever yougo.
Once again, let me say my guesttoday has been Sally Falco.
She is a social mediastrategist with Meredith Media
(38:18):
and I want to thank her so very,very much for joining us today.
And, by the way, sally'snewsletter, proactive, is
available on LinkedIn and wewill have a link available to
that episode in our show notes.
And I want to say to myaudience if you've enjoyed the
(38:39):
podcast, we certainly would liketo get a review from you and
also share this information withyour colleagues and join us for
the next edition of the PublicRelations.
Announcer (38:44):
Review Podcast.
This podcast is produced byCommunication Strategies, an
award-winning public relationsand public affairs firm
headquartered in Nashville,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 recently,feedspot 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 to the audience.
With 2025 now underway andquickly transforming due to
technological advancements, whatare some of the more important
predictions public relationspractitioners must pay attention
to?
Well, my guest today has thatinformation for you.
(01:11):
She has been in public relationsfor more than 30 years and
holds her APR from theaccreditation from the Public
Relations Society of America.
Now, over the last 15 years,she has specialized in new
technology and digital publicrelations.
Most of her work today is as asocial media strategist.
In addition, she has trainedand coached public relations and
(01:34):
marketing teams at companiesboth large and small, including
Fortune 100 executives, publicrelations agencies and new
public relations graduates.
Along the way, she has wonnumerous awards.
So my guest today is SallyFalco.
She's a social media strategistwith Veritiv Media and she
joins me today from warm andtoasty Clearwater Florida.
(01:57):
Sally, welcome to the podcast.
Sally Falkow (02:00):
Thank you.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
Peter Woolfolk (02:03):
Well, you've made some very, very poignant
predictions for technology andpublic relations for 2025.
Let's go over those and then,so our public can understand
exactly what there are and theimplications therein, so to
speak.
And the first one you say isprecision audience research.
You say that gone are the daysof broad-struck messaging.
(02:25):
Talk a bit more in detail aboutwhat we need to learn from and
what we need to do in thisparticular arena.
Sally Falkow (02:33):
Well, peter, you know audience research has
always been a core factor ofpublic relations.
If you read any of the varyingdefinitions of what is PR, most
of them mention that it's to dowith communication with the
different publics of the company.
(02:54):
So those are your audiences.
If you're not really figuringout who your audience is, life
is going to get very difficultfor you.
And it was hard, like 30 yearsago, to do this.
It was all done by hand and itwas all done by research and
(03:16):
surveys and observations.
But now we have technology thatcan help us to do this and can
really drill down and get intowho are these people.
Where do they hang out, what dothey listen to, what are they
looking for, what do they like,what do they not like.
It makes life a lot, lot easier.
(03:39):
You're looking for developingreally hyper-targeted
communication strategies.
If you have, let's say, you'rein the wellness space and you
want to communicate tochiropractors Well, not all
chiropractors are the same.
Some chiropractors don't usethis particular technique and
(04:00):
some focus on that problem withtheir patients you can really
really drill right down and findout what are the exact audience
personas.
You can get unprecedented depthand understanding of these,
what we call micro segments.
So within a bigger audience,maybe you have women over 50 who
(04:25):
need to lose weight.
Well, there's a lot of littlemicro-segments in there.
How many of them have alreadytried something?
Have some of them been on theketo diet?
That didn't work?
How many of them want to loseweight quickly?
There's so many little segmentsthat you can drill down into if
you have the right tools, andthen you can predict your
(04:48):
audience behavior and you canfigure out their communication
preferences and then you canactually create and craft a
really meaningful andpersonalized communication that
will resonate with that audiencepersonalized communication that
will resonate with thataudience and, needless to say,
(05:10):
that you also have to identifythose particular programs that
can do this for you.
Peter Woolfolk (05:13):
You said you know hyper-targeting certain
areas or listeners, and so I'msure that there are platforms
that can dig down, as you said,be they surgeons or whoever,
whatever group it happens to bethat can penetrate and do that.
Sally Falkow (05:31):
There definitely are.
There are a lot of really goodtools around.
Am I allowed to mention any?
Peter Woolfolk (05:37):
Oh, absolutely.
Sally Falkow (05:39):
Okay, my favorite one is SparkToro
S-P-A-R-K-T-O-R-O.
It's run by a fellow calledRand Fishkin.
I think Rand is an absolutelybrilliant fellow.
He does a five-minutewhiteboard every Friday on the
(05:59):
SparkToro blog.
Five-minute whiteboard everyFriday on the SparkToro blog.
And if you just watch that andyou read their newsletter, your
mind might completely be bentthe first time you do it.
But if you just keep digging inand listening to how they work
and what kind of things they cando and looking at their case
(06:23):
studies, I'm telling you yourmind will go into overdrive.
You'll go oh my goodness, howdid I not know this existed?
Mm-hmm.
Peter Woolfolk (06:33):
Well, you know, I mean, that certainly sounds
like an excellent idea because,as you said, if you really want
to know who your audience is,you need the tools to help you
get to that point.
Because, as we've discussedprobably many times on here,
that giving the rightinformation to the right
audience is a very, verystrategic and important way of
being successful in what you doin public relations.
Sally Falkow (06:56):
Exactly so.
Peter Woolfolk (06:58):
Okay.
Sally Falkow (06:58):
That's exactly what we're trying to do, and if
you have a tool that can helpyou and improve what you're
doing, wow.
Peter Woolfolk (07:05):
Why not use it Absolutely Well?
Next, you talk about authenticstorytelling, and we certainly
all know exactly how importantthat is, but go into a bit more
detail about that.
Sally Falkow (07:18):
Well, if you've been following the Global Trust
barometer at all Every year,you'll see things change and who
they trust and who they don'ttrust, and why and why not.
And so with our messaging, wehave to make sure that we are
being authentic and that peoplewill look at it and think this
(07:41):
is real.
I can communicate with thiscompany.
I trust them.
It sounds like they havetransparency and I'm making an
emotional connection with them.
If you have successful PRnarratives now going into the
future, you have to reveal whatyour genuine brand value is.
What kind of human experienceis this person going to have
(08:04):
with you as a brand?
We now have multimediapossibilities for storytelling.
There are techniques for writingreally good stories, but once
you start showing them at thesame time, it really expands and
extends that story.
I'm sure that makes sense toyou.
If I write about a fire thathappened, I can even if I'm a
(08:30):
really fantastic writer, I canprobably give you a really good
idea.
But when you see the pictures,for many years in PR we didn't
worry that much about the images.
If we needed images, it wasfine.
Give that to those people overthere.
They're the graphic artists.
It's not my job.
(08:54):
Well, I hate to tell you, but itactually is your job now and
you have to start thinking abouthow can I really extend their
experience with this story.
Another way you can do it is togive them personal narratives,
give them examples of peoplewho've done what you're talking
(09:15):
about, or people that your brandhas actually helped, so that
they can see.
One of the things that came upin this global trust barometer
was we trust people just likeourselves much more than we
trust the brand.
And that makes total sense tome, because if a brand tells me
they're the best thing sincelast bread, well of course they
(09:37):
would.
Why would they not?
What are they going to say?
We're not that bad, we'reactually sort of okay.
No company's going to do that,but you expect that, so you know
that when it's coming from thebrand, they have an agenda.
But if I see that, you say thisis what we do, and then you
(10:00):
show me four or five people justlike me who have the same
problems that I have and they'veused your service or products
or whatever, and they've reallyhad a very good result of it.
that's great storytelling now ifyou can do that with multimedia
across diverse platforms,you're going to get a much
(10:21):
better connection mm-hmm.
Peter Woolfolk (10:24):
Let me say this Several months ago, I did an
episode strictly on storytellingand that was.
They said the very, very samethings how authentic you have to
be if people really want torelate to you.
You know, whatever yourparticular group is, so you need
to have the right persondelivering that message.
So that is, it is effective.
So, I mean, storytelling ishuge and I think this that you
(10:49):
continue to validate that thatis a major, major issue for all
PR people to take into account.
Sally Falkow (10:55):
You know what's interesting to me, peter, is
very often, even in biggercompanies, but certainly in
smaller companies.
They tell me, even in biggercompanies, but certainly in
smaller companies.
They tell me oh, we don't haveany stories, we're just whatever
.
I just do this.
No story here and I helped acompany in Silicon Valley a
(11:16):
little while ago.
They actually are a concretecutting company and when I spoke
to him about finding storiesabout the company.
He was a very down-to-earth guy.
There are no stories here.
I cut holes in concrete.
What kind of a story is that?
Well, when I started digging alittle bit further, what was the
(11:37):
most interesting thing you'veever done, or what was an
unusual thing you've ever done?
I come across the fact thatthey were chosen to do the
seismic retrofitting for thequad at Stanford University.
Now, this is a very historicbuilding.
He had to actually invent a newdrill to do this.
They had to make a way to sortof unpack some of the material
(12:02):
off the columns, drill a holedown, put all the rebar and the
concrete and the seismicretrofitting in and then put all
the stuff back and walk away asthough nothing had ever touched
that quad.
If you walk in there now, youwould not know that anything had
ever been done other than theoriginal building.
(12:23):
I said to him how can you tellme?
That's not a story, that'sastonishing.
Peter Woolfolk (12:31):
Well, you know, some people don't think that way
and you know, along those samelines, when I started my PR firm
I didn't really want to startone.
I was encouraged by it when Imoved down here as a former vice
mayor because of my background.
So I said, okay, I'll do that.
But then I realized that way ofjust having business cards and
meeting people and shaking handsreally wasn't getting what I
(12:53):
needed to get.
So I decided that I need to.
Uh, what would be great for meis to come up with a major
client that when people saw thatname that they would say, oh my
goodness, if he has them as aclient, then he must know what
he's doing right so, to make along story short, I have called
people that I knew that sat oncertain boards and, um, uh, call
(13:16):
them see if they could connectme with the uh, the executive
director, whoever.
To make a long story short, Ihad a meeting with this guy.
He said, well, all the money isgone, it's already tied up up,
but we do need some help withsome community outreach.
I said, well, I can help youwith that.
He said, well, fine, so I hadthat agreement.
So what I did was I wrote apress release Peter Wolf Company
(13:39):
secures the Nashville Ballet,so wow, and it hit the front
page of the business journalhere and made no mention of the
fact that there was no moneyinvolved.
Because there wasn't, becauseit was more important for me to
get that visibility andvalidation by having that and,
as a result, that wound upgenerating some calls for me and
(14:02):
one of the people that calledme I wound up doing work for
them for seven years.
So telling stories is hugelyimportant and I had a number of
them to tell.
Sally Falkow (14:12):
Exactly.
Peter Woolfolk (14:14):
So you also mentioned.
Another thing that's hugelyimportant now is obviously
artificial intelligence and thestrategic integration of that
into our daily work.
Sally Falkow (14:25):
Right?
Well, you know, we've heard itsaid so many times that this is
the big boogeyman that's comingand AI is going to take our jobs
.
Well, no, it's not actually,but I'll tell you who will take
your job the PR person whoreally knows how to use AI.
(14:46):
That's what's going to happen,Because AI is like any other
thing to do with computers.
I'm sure you've heard thegarbage in, garbage out
statement.
It's exactly the same.
If you just use one of thesetools and you ask them to write
something for you and you say,write me an article about blah,
(15:09):
you probably are going to getgarbage.
There's a whole technology onhow to write these prompts and
how to get these insights out ofthese tools.
They will give you everythingand the kitchen sink, but you
have to know how to ask for it.
So you've got to be able tounderstand how to use AI and
(15:33):
then figure out how to use itstrategically.
What do you need it for?
Figure out how to use itstrategically.
What do you need it for?
Some other companies might beusing AI for something
completely different, but as aPR person, it can help you to
discover insights about youraudience, which we talked about
their preferences and mediaconsumption.
(15:53):
It can conduct really rapidaudience sentiment analysis.
I was doing sentiment analysisand business analysis using
social media 10 years ago.
Peter Woolfolk (16:07):
Oh, my goodness.
Sally Falkow (16:08):
Yeah, once you know that, you can then generate
really good content drafts.
But you have to know what totell it.
You must write like this.
You must write at this readinglevel.
You must do it.
You must write like this youmust write at this reading level
.
You must do this.
You must not do that.
Don't use these phrases,whatever.
My prompts are long because Ihave a long thing to.
(16:32):
I'm teaching this AI.
It's called an LLM, a largelanguage model, but they learn.
They actually learn as you goalong.
If you keep giving them gooddata and good input, they go oh,
this is what she wants.
Okay, fine.
Peter Woolfolk (16:50):
Yeah, well, you know we just did a complete
segment on LLMs, probably aboutthree weeks ago and you know it
really got a lot of attentionRight and it really got a lot of
attention Right.
Sally Falkow (17:01):
Also.
The other thing is that oftenwe tend to get lazy and we make
one message and we put it outeverywhere.
It's on our blog, it's on ourwebsite, it's in our newsletters
, it's on social media platforms.
All the same, every socialmedia platform has a completely
different personality.
The same person who's onFacebook and LinkedIn is there
(17:23):
for different reasons.
It's not the mummy that's onFacebook who's looking for
friends and pictures of cats.
It's not the same businesswomanwho's on LinkedIn.
If you put the same messageeverywhere, you're going to miss
half the people, and AI canhelp you with all of this,
(17:47):
instead of like slogging it outby yourself.
Ask, chat GPT, they will tellyou.
And the biggest thing is tomaster that prompt engineering
and don't ever publish a draft.
Well, you know, the biggestthing is to master that prompt
engineering and don't everpublish a draft that comes
(18:08):
straight out of an AI.
Peter Woolfolk (18:08):
Mm, hmm, Well, you know, I certainly agree with
you, because I use AI when Iproduce this in various points
of my producing this, thispodcast.
One of the first things it doesfor me that's actually easy is
that it does the transcripts.
I mean, that part is fine.
But when I want to have adescription of it, it does that
too.
But then I read thatdescription and see how accurate
(18:31):
is it and make changes as I seefit, you know, so that it
sounds more like me.
But for me it's a time saver,absolutely, and the blurbs that
come out come out.
You know, I look at those and Ican put in Facebook and blue
sky and other places.
I'll read everything before Ilet it go, but very seldom do I
let it go as it comes out,simply because I just said, it
(18:54):
doesn't sound like me or itmight be a little bit often what
it's giving me because it's notcompletely accurate.
Sally Falkow (19:05):
Well, the other side of this is there's a thing
that Google has that they use interms of ranking content and
it's expertise.
I have to think about this nowE-E-A-T Authority and trust
Experience, Experience,expertise, authority and trust,
expertise, authority and trustthat's what they're looking for.
So what you're getting back outof AI probably doesn't have
(19:30):
much of that, so you have to putyour personalized stuff into it
.
This is where you come back toyour storytelling.
The expertise and theexperience is going to come out
in the stories that you tell,which you need to put into this.
Ai is not going to know whoyour clients are.
They can't say, oh yeah, let'suse this thing.
That happened with Joe and hiscompany.
(19:50):
They don't know that and youhave to constantly put those
factors back in to show thatyou're sharing the brand
authority and transparency andthat you really have all the
good data that you use.
Peter Woolfolk (20:09):
Well, let me say I certainly agree with you on
that.
We all agree that AI is hugelyimportant, and I think the other
thing that we mostly agree onis the fact that you know use it
as how it best fits you, oradapt it to the way that it best
fits you and what it is youneed it for.
Sally Falkow (20:29):
Yeah, definitely.
So I was lucky that I wasintroduced to the idea of
digital communication andmultimedia very, very early on,
and I've taken that opportunityand just made sure that the
interesting thing with online,of course, is that the
technology changes every fiveminutes.
Peter Woolfolk (20:51):
You were just about right about that.
Sally Falkow (20:56):
So you can't say, well, oh good, I learned about
Facebook, isn't that nice?
And now all the young peoplehave gone from Facebook and
they're over here.
Oh, they're not there anymore,they're over there.
You know, 30 years ago we usedto talk about constantly having
(21:17):
your finger on the pulse of whatwas happening around your
clients or your company and that, just as you felt you had your
total headed nail down here inthis one area.
You looked away to the left andyou looked back to the right.
Oh my God, they moved.
Now, with technology, it's like10,000 times faster than that,
(21:43):
but you still have to.
You've got to keep constantlyupdating yourself and staying on
top of what the technology is.
If you don't really know how todo that, then you need to find
somebody who is doing it and iswriting about it all the time or
making videos about it, who canhelp you and maybe cut your
(22:04):
learning time in half.
Peter Woolfolk (22:06):
Well, you know, I agree with you on that,
because when I did the, as amatter of fact, I was reading
something about LLMs and I thinkI just mentioned to you I
called a fellow up and asked himto be on the podcast to talk
more about it, and I think youknow, when he brought that up,
the fact that Google, for thefirst time, had actually lost
(22:27):
some audiences because of it.
Sally Falkow (22:29):
Absolutely.
That is really fascinating tome Because, as you've been
watching it over the years, it'slike oh yeah, google's number
one, whatever.
What's next?
Suddenly, it's not that much.
You go oh, google's number one,whatever, what's next?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Suddenly, it's not that much you go, oh, Google's
losing traffic.
Peter Woolfolk (22:45):
Well, one of the other things you mentioned here
and is hugely important is thedynamic online visibility.
So talk a bit about that aswell.
Sally Falkow (22:54):
Well, you know, if you ask anybody and it really
is now 100% do you ever useGoogle?
Yes, they do, Of course they do.
Where do you go to findsomething?
I go online, so people aresearching all the time.
But this landscape is alsoundergoing a radical
(23:16):
transformation because it'sfunny that Google many years ago
, said they don't regardthemselves as a search
transformation, because it'sfunny that Google, many years
ago, said they don't regardthemselves as a search engine.
They regard themselves as ananswer engine.
So you put the question in andthey're giving you back what
used to be 10 blue links of whatthey considered to be the best
(23:39):
possibility to get the answer toyour question.
They really have to be ananswer engine now because AI is
doing that.
Many people instead.
If I want to find out how tobake a cake, people are just
going to AI.
How to bake a cake, people arejust going to AI.
(24:04):
How do I bake a?
Whatever I'm?
Peter Woolfolk (24:07):
not a baker, but how do I make?
Sally Falkow (24:08):
cream scones.
They don't want to look attendings and click somewhere
else.
They just want you to tell themhow to do the damn thing.
So this is what's happening andso there's a big disruption
happening in the traditional seo.
So I know that many prprofessionals still don't think
(24:30):
of themselves as that they haveto think about seo, but in the
same way about you didn't thinkyou had to think about images.
You actually do have to thinkabout seo.
And here's one of the things Ialways think kind of this is
what, if you tell PR people this, the light goes on when you
search and you get that littlelink on Google.
(24:53):
It's like a little blur.
It tells you the headline andthen there's a description.
If you leave that to theprogrammers, who knows what
you're going to get?
I've seen ones where it comesup home this page is not
available, or something likethat.
(25:16):
That's very damaging to yourbrand.
That's very damaging to yourbrand.
Those three or four lines isthe first thing sometimes that
anyone sees about your brand.
It's vitally important.
That piece of content needs tobe written by PR people and that
means you have to understandwhat is SEO.
(25:37):
What is a tag?
What is a title tag?
What is a description tag?
How do they work, how long dothey have to be, and so on,
because you want them when theyread it you want them to click.
It's a vitally important pieceof this space of communication.
But now we also have theintroduction of AI, and that's
(26:01):
been shown at the top of all thesearches Before you even get to
the blue links.
Now here's your answer,provided to you by AI.
Well, why aren't you in it?
Many years ago, I had a clientwho said to me you know, I've
been in business for 20 yearsand all my competitors show up
(26:24):
in Google for this particularkeyword, but I don't.
So I went and had a look at hiswebsite and I said well, I'll
tell you why that particularkeyword's not anywhere on your
website.
What do you think Google musthave?
Exprasensory perception?
And the same is going to happennow with AI.
Why should AI mention you whenthere's a question about how do
(26:47):
I wash socks?
Well, if you're the best sockcompany, why are you not
mentioned in there?
So you have to start to learnand understand how AI finds
their content.
What are they using to formthose answers?
You have to really start tounderstand their search
algorithms and what are theylooking for, and you have to
(27:11):
develop your own contentstrategy across all platforms so
that you can get this really.
I'll give you that againshareable digital narratives,
but they have to be.
It has to fit in with what AIis looking for.
(27:32):
Right.
That's the first thing.
You can't just decide over hereall by yourself.
Well, this is what it should be.
Well, no, because AI actuallyhas a format and you need to
understand that and then say, oh, they want this and they want
that.
Well, let me go and do somecontent about that, yeah.
Peter Woolfolk (27:54):
Well, you know, even when I do each one of these
episodes and, you know, do asmall write-up that goes with it
I will produce that, I'll lookat it and read it, but then I
also have to post it on mywebsite as well, because the
website says hey, google islooking for A, b, c and D.
You know those sort of things.
I need to make sure that youknow, as people are searching,
(28:15):
that what I put down willperhaps be caught up in their
search or be provided to them intheir searches, rather than
just being a podcaster, becauseI use data.
I might not get as much detailas I want, but I do know my age
group primarily, 70% of myaudience are women and that's
(28:40):
the Gen Zers I believe it is.
I think we'll go back and saythey even double-check on people
to find out that you know, yousay who you are and doing what
you say you do in terms of theauthenticity of it all.
So these things are hugelyimportant.
Sally Falkow (28:56):
Absolutely sir.
Yeah, things are hugelyimportant.
Absolutely, sir.
Peter Woolfolk (29:01):
Yeah, well, one of the other things that you
mentioned a little bit that wecan sort of you know as we get
to the tail end of this, is youtalk about measurement and
analytics-driven publicrelations.
Now I know that's huge becauseI just mentioned I'm certainly
involved in that as well.
Sally Falkow (29:17):
I really believe that this is vitally important
for PR people, and I have comeacross a resistance in PR
professionals.
It's another one of those.
Oh no, that's not my job, Idon't do that.
Statistics and analytics butyes, 30 years ago there wasn't
(29:38):
really very many ways to trackeverything, and so I think we
got into this.
We're a soft technique.
You can't really measure PR.
I've heard that so many times.
Well, those days are gone.
You can measure everything, andbecause you can, you should,
(30:04):
and one of the things we'vecomplained about over the years
is that the C-suite doesn'toften take us seriously, but if
you started giving them data,they would Just as they demanded
from other parts of theorganization, if you can show
(30:24):
them definitively.
I did this and then thathappened, and then so many
people came to the website andso many people clicked on the
link and so many peopledownloaded your e-book or
whatever I did a.
Actually it's April again, isn'tit?
Yes, april is FinancialLiteracy Month, and some years
(30:47):
ago I did a program for a clientwho is a financial services
company in the New York area andwe did a guide to financial
literacy for women.
So I I created that content andthen we did a social media
advertising campaign.
(31:08):
We actually did some audienceresearch and figured out that in
the areas where they operatethere were x many women who
would be of the income bracketthat would be the correct
audience for them and that,funnily enough, in that audience
financial literacy was actuallyquite low.
So we handled all of that inthe content and we advertised it
(31:32):
through social media to thataudience, advertised it through
social media to that audience.
And they had set parameterssaying we would like to get this
many people to come to look atthe guide, this many people to
download it and this many peopleto reach out and actually
become a viable lead.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
And it actually really overproduced by about 30%
more than they expected.
Sally Falkow (32:00):
It was very successful.
I used that as a case study ata big PR convention in
Washington and I really thoughtthat, well, this is so
step-by-step you do this, you dothat, then you do this, then
you check that, then you do thisand then you get that result.
Then you can see whether thiswas what I had said my goal was
(32:21):
and that was my result and youcan track it all the way across.
And at the end of it all, Ikind of looked at the audience
and I said do you have anyquestions?
There was nothing, absolutelynothing just silence in the room
and I was like this is weird.
And a couple of the people thatI spoke to afterwards it was
(32:45):
just like my eyes glaze over amoment.
They just didn't get it Becausethey just don't see measurement
and analytics as part of theirjob.
But it is such a vital part andit can make such a huge
difference when you can show theC-suite real-time performance
(33:11):
metrics, demonstrate yourprecise ROI, you can track
engagement across multiplechannels.
Where did these people comefrom?
What did they do?
And also, if things are notworking, you can see along the
line well, look, it worked thereand it worked there and then it
got here and then everybodyfell off the bandwagon.
Well, that's where we need tofix the problem.
(33:34):
So for me it's just an absoluteno-brainer.
Peter Woolfolk (33:43):
Well, let me say this I certainly agree with you
because, having obviously beingin this business, people want
to see results for the moneythey pay you, and being able to
provide that data is hugelyimportant because it's
validation, as we did what wewere going to say to do, and
here's the data to support it.
I think the other thing, too,is that people in the C-suite
(34:07):
need to be better educated as tohow important it is and why
it's important, and so forth andso on.
You know, sometimes maybe theyjust look at maybe how many
people attended or how many newclients who have that sort of
thing, but you can dig deeper.
As you said, people arecategorized in numerous
(34:28):
different ways and you havesentiments that you can get
about, that can be detectedabout your company or your
program or those other kinds ofthings.
So, depending on who you'reworking with and working for and
the information you need, youcannot afford not to have this
data.
Sally Falkow (34:47):
Absolutely, sir, you're correct.
Peter Woolfolk (34:51):
Well, sally, look, this has been very, very
engaging, and I am certainlyglad that you took the time to
come on to talk to us about this, because this kind of
information and detail isimportant to practically all
public relations practitioners.
So let me say thank you so very, very much for joining us today
.
Sally Falkow (35:09):
It's my great pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me.
I'm glad that you found myarticle and that you thought it
was interesting enough to spreadthe news.
Peter Woolfolk (35:19):
Well, you know, my job here really is to provide
my listeners with informationthat they can use in their daily
activities and, believe me,this hits the nail right on the
head.
So I'm sure I'm going to have alot of because, also, I promote
these individual episodes.
You'll get something from methat shows you.
(35:40):
I do put up flyers, blue Sky,the LinkedIn sites and several
other places where you have PRpeople so that they know that
it's coming, and I include theQR code in that so that they can
get to it right fast.
Sally Falkow (35:56):
Right.
The other audience that I thinkit's important for is PR
students, because I genuinelybelieve that the universities
and the schools are way behindon teaching digital PR.
Peter Woolfolk (36:11):
Well, you know, and you might be accurate about
that I do know that I do havebecause I've spoken to college
PR SSA students, because I knowthat.
I do know that I do havebecause I've spoken to college
PRSSA students, because I knowthat I do have college listeners
, both students and instructors,that listen to me, because some
of them have called me up andasked me to talk to their
students about public relations.
(36:31):
So perhaps there's a way Ishould go directly to PRSSA and
do something with them as well.
Sally Falkow (36:39):
Yeah for sure.
Some years ago I spoke at acollege in California and at the
end of the hour they all lookedvery engaged and interested.
At the end of the hour I saiddo you have any questions?
And the one guy said whyhaven't we heard anything about
this?
He was in his fourth year,about to graduate, and I'm like,
(37:05):
oh my goodness, and when youget out into the real world
they're going to ask you you'vegot A, b and C and they're going
to ask you for D.
Peter Woolfolk (37:14):
Well, and you know there's obviously a
difference in caliber at some ofthese classes, so it depends
upon who is doing the teachingand who do they bring in to
speak to students.
So students really need to havereal world experience.
You know, because youinterviewed some students on the
class or you appeared on acollege radio station.
It really doesn't amount to ahill of beans.
(37:35):
It really doesn't amount to ahill of beans.
You know, I got most of myexperience back when I was
coming up.
You know, I actually worked ina radio station and had, you
know, not only on the announcingside but also on the production
side.
I also had another job where Ihad to learn how to download
satellite connections.
You know the uplink anddownlink satellites, but you
(37:56):
know we're in the Zoom era now,but I learned those things.
So I tell everybody, the moreyou learn and actually know, the
better off you are wherever yougo.
Once again, let me say my guesttoday has been Sally Falco.
She is a social mediastrategist with Meredith Media
(38:18):
and I want to thank her so very,very much for joining us today.
And, by the way, sally'snewsletter, proactive, is
available on LinkedIn and wewill have a link available to
that episode in our show notes.
And I want to say to myaudience if you've enjoyed the
(38:39):
podcast, we certainly would liketo get a review from you and
also share this information withyour colleagues and join us for
the next edition of the PublicRelations.
Announcer (38:44):
Review Podcast.
This podcast is produced byCommunication Strategies, an
award-winning public relationsand public affairs firm
headquartered in Nashville,Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us.
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