PR in the Digital Age

On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Lauren Bernaldo, APR, CPRC, current President of the Southwest Florida Chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association.

Together, they delve into the evolving landscape of public relations in the digital age. They discuss the critical role of media relations, the ethics of utilizing AI in PR, the growing influence of micro and nano influencers, and the strategic importance of storytelling.

Have a question or feedback to share? Visit www.getpushing.com or one of our many social media channels. We look forward to hearing from you.

#marketing #business #communication #strategy

Transcript

0:05

Hi, welcome to another edition of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, a podcast brought to you by Pushing the Envelope. I am Samantha Scott, APR, and today I am joined by Lauren. So excited. We're talking about PR in the digital age. Absolutely and it's so nice to be here. Thank you so much. I'm Lauren Bernaldo, APR, CPRC, and I'm the proud president of the FPRA Southwest Florida chapter. But I also work as the Chief Communications Officer for the Lee County Tax Collector. And prior to that I was at the school district, and prior to that I was in journalism for more than two decades, and on the other side of the camera. So this is new to me and I appreciate you putting your trust in me and inviting me here today. This is fun. Absolutely. As a past FPRA President, I appreciate what you're doing and giving back to our professionals in this community, but I think who better to talk about this as we're talking about going into the next generation of public relations, the digital age. I mean, I think we can kick things off by just saying now it's totally different than it was. I've been around for a while too. And when we started doing this 19 years ago you had to work with your media so closely because social didn't exist, and now there's a whole other way of reaching people, but I think media relations is still really, really critical. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that, on how PR has changed and kind of where that's going. Absolutely, and I think you are absolutely right. Media relations is critical and really developing those relationships with the reporters and not just the reporters, but even the managers in the newsroom. Because they tend to stay longer than the reporters do. A lot of times the reporters will move on. But when I first started in the media, it was all about phone calls and meeting in person. And now of course it's emails and social media and all of those kinds of things. So we have the ability to get our messages out on our own. But you're limited to the audience that you may have on social. So really developing those relationships with the media makes a huge difference because they can amplify what that message is. But they're not going to do that for you if they don't trust you and they don't know you. And you don't want to be making those relationships when you're in the middle of a crisis situation or in the middle of something big that's happening. You want to grow them and you want to make them way before then so that you know who they are and they know who you are and they trust you and they know the information that you're giving is accurate and transparent. Yeah, absolutely. Great point is start those relationships early before you need them. And I always like to counsel people, especially young people coming into this field is that make it about them, it's not about you. Right. And make sure that you're not just coming to them like, hey, I need this, I need this. Because ultimately nobody wants to work with somebody like that. Make sure that it's very clear, like, hey, I want to help you, you cover this, I might have a resource for you, et cetera. Just the way that you would like to be collaborated with kind of the golden rule, I guess, of media relations and PR. But you mentioned social media and even connecting with those journalists on social as well, because your business might have your own owned social media channels, and that's a great way to get the word out. But connecting with these journalists on their channels as well is also a great way because now they have to wear multiple hats. They're doing the broadcast, they're doing social posts. So another great way to connect with them. Yeah. And they're writing their own headlines and they're shooting their own stories. I mean, a lot of the videographers are the reporters, so their deadlines are super early. And so them knowing that they can text you or get through to you on social, through messenger or whatever is really great because they know that you're going to hopefully give them a pretty quick response so that they can hit their deadlines and all that. And I think that your point is mutually beneficial relationships. So it is about talking to them on the off hours, letting them know too, like when you see a story that you think is really good. I have a person that I work with at one of the local channels and a lot of times she'll call me and it won't necessarily be something that is affecting our office or that we oversee, but to be able to be that resource for her to say, hey, here's who you're going to want to call. Here's how you do this. Those are those kinds of things that you're talking about that I think are very important. And again, build those relationships so that when you need them, the stories are not always going to be positive, but at least you're going to know they'll be fair. Yes. And so that's what's the most important. Absolutely. So making sure you have factual information, you're being a good resource. I couldn't agree more. So now let's move into the next thing that's making waves. Yes. AI, artificial intelligence. Yes. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. I talk a lot about that on this podcast. We also talk a lot about it on our TrendTalks Marketing videos. AI is definitely something that's not going away. There's a lot of talk, putting back on our FPRA hat, about the ethics around AI and public relations. So share your thoughts on that. We just did actually a couple weeks ago Public Relations University and the whole thing was focused on AI and it was fascinating because it was the first time that I feel like I walked into the room where everybody was like, you need to embrace it and you need to use it. And we give you permission to do that. And so most of the time it's, don't upload this and don't do this, and don't tell it this and don't. So it was very refreshing to hear from some of these experts who are like, it's not here to take your job, first of all, it's here to help with tasks that are maybe things that you could free up to do the strategic thinking and some of those other kinds of things. So it's not something that is ever going to take away from the authenticity, I don't think, of personal communication. It's also not going to take away from strategic thinking. But it is something that is a tool that we need to be very honest, in my mind, about the fact that we're using. So I think a lot of the conversation is, how are you that way? How are we being transparent? And one of the things that was fascinating and I asked the question was, okay, so if I use AI but then I rewrite the whole article does it then become mine and I don't really need to say that it's AI? And the discussion was really rich and robust and where everybody landed, at least half of them were you need to tell people that you're using AI right from the beginning. Even if you change everything, the bottom line is you're getting the basis of it because of an AI generated prompt or however you're doing that. So I did find that really interesting and I think that transparency and kind of being honest out there, whether you're putting it as guidance on your social media policy that, hey, AI might assist in writing some of these things. Or the same thing if you're writing an article that this may have been AI assisted. I think that those are conversations that agencies need to have, that associations need to have, and companies need to have is to how you're really sharing that information out there. And I think that's important, again, back to the ethics of FPRA and just making sure that people know how those things are coming about. Yeah. Ethics is absolutely critical. I think in life personally, I have very strong morals around that. Yeah. But also in business and we consulted our attorney about that. And we are not attorneys. We can't give you that kind of advice. But these are some good things to be thinking about and ask your legal counsel. How can I best go about this? We have an AI statement on our website, for example. We have something in our contracts with clients too. So we want to be very transparent about that. But I also can see AI working in helping with some of the research. Yes. We used to have to do this the manual way of trying to find things. Perplexity AI is fantastic for that. But also coming up with aids for pitches or different concepts like, how could I go about this? Or what's a good idea for how we should approach this particular issue or campaign? But I think to your point, right, is it can't replace the individual. It can't replace the authenticity of humanity and making sure there's accuracy in that because it is fallible. And making sure that you're using it the right way and ethically is so important. Yeah, I agree. And I think we go through all of our processes, right? We learn as APRs that we do RPIE. So you're doing your research. Yes. Your planning, your implementation and evaluation. And it can be super helpful and very predictive. And okay, now that I've done my research, how might this play with this certain audience? And I think that those things are very helpful. But again it doesn't take the place of talking out with people and other people who are in your industry, gathering that data. Being able to talk with clients and things like that in your case about what is it that we really want? What are their goals? What are their objectives? And using it again as a tool and as a support, but not kind of as the end all be all. Yeah. So that is a perfect segue to the next thing I want to talk about. It's like you had this all planned. It's beautiful. Thank you. So talking about people, importance of people. Yeah. Influencers are people, although sometimes they may not seem like it, but they are. So the way that we communicate with influencers has changed over the years. And I think some of you listening might think, oh, this is like, oh, getting Kim Kardashian or somebody like that, that's mega to endorse your brand. That's not what we're talking about. Those still exist, but that's kind of a, I think a smaller segment than the other kind of influencers. Those are people that are the bloggers, the podcast hosts, those kinds of people who have a really dedicated audience and I'd love to get your take on how influencers are changing the game as it relates to PR. I know with the tax collector you're not doing a whole lot with influencers. No. But I think we can still have a conversation about where this is going. Yeah, for sure. I think it's fascinating and again, in the PR that I've done, the companies that I worked for, we're the only ones that offer the services and the goods. So it's fascinating to me to learn about something that we haven't used before, but then in my mind to play out how could we, and so I really think that the idea and the trend of moving towards these micro and nano influencers where it's a much smaller following, they're much more engaged with their followers, their followers trust them, that's a big thing right now, right? I think trust is huge right now throughout anybody that wants to buy a product, they want to believe in what it is that they're getting. And I think that these micro and nano influencers are really being able to build those relationships. And I think it's a complete opportunity that we should look at at the tax collector's office and government entities should, but also corporations and clients should also look at those things and they don't have to have hundreds of thousands of followers. They could be very small, but if they believe in you, and their people believe in them, that's a pretty strong way to get a message across. It's just a new form of word of mouth really when you break it down, because now I'm trusting someone's advice. I can ask Lauren like, hey where should we go to dinner? And she could tell me, or it could be an influencer that I follow, that I trust. Yeah. Who says you should go to this place. And we've used that to that point for some of our clients. Angelina's Ristorante is a great one. We work with some influencers there because they're people that are dining influencers and they're local to this area. So somebody's following somebody that's in this region, we want them talking about that restaurant. Exactly. And you can apply that, like you said, in a lot of different ways and when you're looking at that, it doesn't have to be a huge expense either. No. Right. So when we're talking about public relations we do a lot of stuff that's earned and we work really, really hard. Yes, we do. It's different than advertising where we just pay and get a placement. Yeah. And so working with influencers is really similar. There's a lot of ways that you can do that in trade, whether it's for a meal or something like that, and you can kind of create those parameters. So it's really budget friendly and can be highly impactful. And if you've listened to my podcast before you know it's all measurable because that's super, super important too, is you can see what kind of return you got from that engagement and that connection. Absolutely. And I think to your point, when you have micro and nano, you can have multiple. So I mean, you really can amplify your message but in a way that you can do it that's budget friendly and again, more trustworthy. So people really believe the information that's being shared with them. Yeah. And that's a great point to kind of elaborate on a little bit more. I think trust has always been super important. But especially now in this day and age with the state of media, the state of just everything that's going on in this world, people are looking for alternative means of getting information. Yeah. And they want it to be from someone they feel like they can trust that's genuine. Not"the man," so to speak. And I think that this influencer way of reaching out to folks and even connecting with really genuine reporters and people that have that personal connection and people feel like, oh, that's the reporter that I watch every day. Like, I know this person. Right. Even though they really don't. Yeah. But they have that connection. But they come into my home. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, I think it's just really important to keep that in mind as part of your PR strategy, how you're doing that. Which leads to my last and final thing that I want to go over with you, we're there already. Wow. Is storytelling. Yes. And how you go about doing that. How we do that in the digital age. There's so many more tools in our toolkit now. Yeah. You've been in the business for a while. I've been around for a while. I like to tell people and freak them out, especially when they're in college that I was around before social media. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. It has changed so drastically. Yeah. I mean, even just now, the ability of I can produce a video in three minutes and publish it. The way that we can communicate has changed so, so much. So tell me your thoughts on storytelling in the digital age. Well, I think storytelling probably is the key, right? It's emotion. I mean, in my opinion. People want that connection and they want that feeling, and so the way to do that is through storytelling. And I remember when I started back in the early nineties in TV and you had the three quarter inch tapes and you had the camera that weighed about a hundred pounds, and you would carry these tripods that weighed about another fifty pounds and you would go out but the way that you got your story was really through the media, and now to your point, you pick up the phone and you do all that. But really it is the emotion. It's the way to build your brand. It's the way to connect with people. And it's not difficult to do especially with all the apps and everything like that, that you can download on your phone and do. But it really is making sure that you're living the mission, vision, and values of your company, executing what those are, and then letting people know that we're all human. Right? Because I think one of the things for us, again, in the government sector, and before that when I worked at the school district, it's easy for people to not understand. It's a lot of information. So trying to delve into what it is, what do I need to bring, what do I need to do? It's very difficult. And so to be able to know of a place that you can go to be able to connect with people and that they know there's a human being behind it. Like that's, people don't expect the tax collector to call you back. When they're connecting with me on social media, I'll pick up the phone and we'll call them. I never expected you to call me. But that's part of your brand. It's part of your story. It's that delivering, for us, that five star service. And so I think that you can really do that through a lot of stories and customer testimonials and things like that. And it doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be highly produced. You definitely don't want it to, to not look great. But I do think that there's some forgiveness in there for people and they just, again, really want to connect and they want to trust. And I think storytelling is really the way to go to get that. Yeah, I love that you point out it has to be in line with your brand. And I kind of translated a bit of what you said of going into it with intention. What are you trying to get out of this? Yeah. We talk a lot about that and Kinfay is one of my friends and colleagues and he's on this podcast this season. He is awesome. And he talks about storytelling and branding and that you want to elicit emotion. Yeah. And what are you trying to accomplish and that's far more important than what you're trying to sell or the service you're providing. That's paramount. And I think you have to be very intentional about your storytelling. What are we trying to get across? What do we want our audience to do as a result of this? Yes. Call to action. How do we best align this, to your point, with our mission and vision, the culture, and set us apart? Because everybody's going to say, we have the best X, we do X better than anybody else. So how do you do that effectively? And then who's the best person to tell that story as well? Absolutely. Because it's not always the leader of that organization. A lot of times it's the other people, the people on the ground. Yeah. That are doing the work and getting them to tell their story and celebrating them as well is important. So you're kind of wrapping in that company culture as well and HR elements too. But yeah, storytelling I think has changed so much to your point. It could be video, it could be photos. Yeah. How you do it. And just making sure that it's strategic I think is really, really important. And not just blasting everybody all the time. Correct. Yeah. There has to be a balance. And we talk a lot on here about testing and measurement, but I would say as you start building your storytelling, look at what's resonating with your audience and try to balance that so that it's the right amount for their appetite and then also matches what you're trying to accomplish. Right. Well, and to your point, the strategy, it used to be, I think that people just took everything and they put it, if you had LinkedIn, it was going on LinkedIn, it was going on Facebook, it was going on TikTok, it was going on. And to really have that conscious who are our audiences on these platforms? Who are the audiences that we want to reach with our stories? And then really focusing in on that and kind of doing that micro influencing on your own, not necessarily hiring somebody to do it, but you could. But again, really making that strategic and thinking about it with intention because if you're just kind of throwing it out there to see what sticks, you're probably not going to get that return on investment that it is that you're looking for. Absolutely not. I call it the spray and pray. Yeah. Yeah. And then it doesn't work. Not at all. But to your other point. It's kind of like hope is a strategy. No, not so much. Not exactly. No. Yeah, but to your other point about the influencers and storytelling, I think that also translates to media too. Because there are certain writers and reporters who cover certain things. Yes. And being able to effectively communicate your story, it can't always just be a news release or a copy and paste pitch. You've got to make it really custom to them. Hey, Lauren, I saw you wrote about X, Y, and Z and I've got a great story that I think would have a good connection and yeah, of course it's much better if it's a warm email versus a cold email because you've never reached that person before. But I think you could take that tack too of storytelling in a different way working with media. Yeah. Well, and if you set up a lot of that stuff, I mean, I think that COVID changed a little bit of all of that too with the media is that now they're coming to us because they know we're the experts, they know that what we do in our field, hopefully many of them trust us, so for us to be able to craft that story and say, hey, I've got these resources for you. Yes. Obviously they might not want to use all of them. They may want to have their own, but at least if you can set some of that stuff up so that they know that you're kind of thinking about them again, that mutually beneficial relationship. Right. Especially when they only have those few hours every day to be able to actually turn a story. Yeah, make it easy for them. Yeah. Have some B roll, have some high quality images, have somebody lined up. So don't pitch something and then they bite and you're like, oh, I have to scramble now and find somebody to get on camera. Yeah. Make sure you've got all your ducks in a row before you go doing that. And yeah, to your point, make it easy. They may not always use it, right? No. But sometimes they're like, oh yeah, I'll take that, because that'll make my life easier. Right. Yeah, it's a good way to do it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insights. Yeah, this was fun. Absolutely. I appreciate it. If you guys have any other questions or thoughts or ideas about PR in the digital age, please feel free to leave a comment below. We would love to hear it. And thanks for tuning to another episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business.