1066: Stop Overcomplicating PR with Veracity Founder and Author Amy Rosenberg

[00:00:00] Robert Plank: Hey, and welcome back. This is the Marketer of the Day podcast. Amy Rosenberg is here. Amy is the founder and president of veracity agency.com, and they are a PR firm based in Portland, established in 2008. They specialize in B2B SEO, and e-commerce related PR plus corporate responsibility initiatives. Now, Amy has a podcast called PR Talk, which is sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America. [00:00:28] Robert Plank: She's hosted over 100 episodes so that PR people can better learn their craft, and to really get a deep dive, to really understand the fundamentals, and the advance, and so on. Amy also has an excellent book called A Modern Guide to Public Relations, and a video series. So, if you're the kind of person that is interested in PR, knows PR, wants to up your PR game, and so much more, then this is the exact. [00:00:52] Robert Plank: Podcast episode to whet your appetite to find out about Amy's website, services, podcast, book, and get the resources you need. So, Amy, glad to be speaking with you. [00:01:01] Amy Rosenberg: Hi, thanks for having me. Happy to be speaking with you too. [00:01:04] Robert Plank: Yeah, we're just a couple of podcasters speaking about all these different things you have going on. [00:01:08] Robert Plank: And so we gave an introduction about you, but what are you really all about? What makes you passionate, focused, excited? What just really drives you and gets you energized to complete the week and the month? [00:01:20] Amy Rosenberg: Yeah. Okay. Well, the main thing is I appreciate the introduction, but I have to say that, um, when you were introducing my firm and what we do, it sounded very serious, right? [00:01:31] Amy Rosenberg: And you know how PR people are. Let's, they want to be really serious and kind of make it sound really hard. And so for me, what I do is kind of do the opposite and try and make it cut. Not like I have to make it sound easy, but you know what we do, but I kind of think a lot of people can do PR. And there's a lot of different ways to bring PR into marketing. [00:01:52] Amy Rosenberg: And so what I want to do is make it more simple. And so, so sometimes, you know, you know, in marketing, we kind of use these big, broad terms that sound really fancy and you're kind of, and then it kind of excludes others. So like, Just an example. And I mean, I'm sure I told you. Oh, yeah, we do corporate responsibility. [00:02:11] Amy Rosenberg: Okay. Well, that sounds really serious. What does that mean? So for me, I'm trying to kind of like just bring it down a notch. And like, we were doing corporate responsibility like 20 years ago before it was like called that and it before it was ESG and all that. And, uh, it's just called PR. And kind of like being a good company, so that's all. [00:02:34] Amy Rosenberg: So that's kind of my, like, so what I do with the book, it's really, it is kind of PR 101. It's really kind of, like, I would say it's basic. It's kind of media relations y, but then it's There are a few parts in there that we kind of extrapolate how to do SEO PR or content PR and all that. Um, and I'm working on a second book right now that goes a little bit further into that and then also is a little bit more empowering for non PR people so that they can also do their PR. [00:03:05] Amy Rosenberg: Um, because I guess that's what I'm all about, like, from a work sense. [00:03:10] Robert Plank: And it's great to have that approach, right? The, the simple approach, because it, anyone can make something complicated and messy, but for you to say, well, hey, I, I've seen the simple and I've seen the advanced and we could do all these crazy things, but what a lot of people are missing are the fundamentals and the basics. [00:03:27] Robert Plank: And when you see someone, say, like, running for any kind of, like, public office, they're posting all the time, right? They're, they're posting on Instagram and videos, and they're in the media, and we all would love to tap into that sort of thing. And then with SEO, it's come such a long way in these decades, right? [00:03:46] Robert Plank: It used to be SEO was just, well, choose some keywords and get some backlinks, but then you hear all these little Blips on the radar from Google that say things like we want to connect it to the person, right? There's like the the E E A T where they say well You want to rank for phrases, that's great. And you want your company to be noticed, great. [00:04:06] Robert Plank: But who are the people in the company who are the experts? And what's being said by other people in these orbits out of your control? So to kind of make it like, harder to cheat the system, but then if you're really an authority in your space, and you're really doing amazing things and that should get noticed, then Google is trying to maybe And it just seems like with this whole PR thing, there's like many ingredients in the recipe, right? [00:04:32] Robert Plank: Many things that you have to be doing. So in the spirit of saying, well, back to basics, maybe people are even missing some of those initial steps. Like, what are the building blocks of PR? Where is even the starting point here? [00:04:44] Amy Rosenberg: Oh, well, good question. But, um, first, I just, I'll kind of clarify a few points that you made, just meaning you said them correctly, but I'm just going to explain them for people. [00:04:53] Amy Rosenberg: So when we get backlinks, like, that's partly a basic part of SEO. That's PR. So then we can kind of switch our thinking. Like for me, you know, traditionally PRs, you know, 20 years ago was me picking up the phone and calling like the actual media. But now PR is talking to you right now. I'm doing, I'm getting third party accreditation by talking to you on my, on this podcast. [00:05:19] Amy Rosenberg: And then I'll get a link. So then that's, that is PR because, um, a lot of our clients like work with us only for SEO, which is not always the best client, frankly. But it's like, for me in this day and age, I, it's all, a lot of the work we do is online and We're always thinking about SEO and getting links back to our clients websites. [00:05:43] Amy Rosenberg: And so how we do that, how we get high authority website links is through pitching the media online because the media has higher DAs, domain authorities. Um, and so I just use, I, we use the traditional means of doing that. But then we're just pitching online. And then sometimes we're asking for links if they don't give it to us and this and that. [00:06:07] Amy Rosenberg: But then what you were talking about with Google's Eat. So Google is always switching up how to rank, how to have people rank higher. And they're always switching up what they're looking for. And it's a secret. Right. They like to give us like little tidbits along the way, uh, on what they're doing. But, um, when they came out with EAT, that is an acronym for something. [00:06:32] Amy Rosenberg: And I forgot what it is, but oh, it's like experience, experience. Experience. authoritativeness, trust, and another T. Okay. So then if you look at what, and you can actually dig down, and I'm, I'm actually writing about this in my next book, you can dig down from Google what that means. And so they're looking for people with that show authoritarianship online. [00:06:56] Amy Rosenberg: Right? And so it's not like me saying I, like, or having an expertise. It all sounds the same, actually, all these things, but it doesn't. I think [00:07:05] Robert Plank: there's experience and there's expertise. And it took me a while to, like, wrap my head around both E's because one is length of time and one is, like, how well you knew it. [00:07:13] Robert Plank: And they seem, they sound so similar, right? [00:07:15] Amy Rosenberg: Yeah. Well, and they are, and so they're making it a little difficult, but there's a way to kind of dig in to see what that means. It's on Google. Um, and so we look at that, and then when I look at that, it's like, oh, that's what I do for a job. And I just do that online. [00:07:31] Amy Rosenberg: So the, that now that sounds kind of like not, I'm, I do have a sense, a tendency to oversimplify things. Let's just say that. Um, but so. When we do that, you do need to go back to the basics and we need to look at, like, what are we promoting? And so with that, we are promoting people within an organization. [00:07:53] Amy Rosenberg: It's not leadership. So, basically, Google has totally. made thought leadership super complicated. Um, but it's that leadership of an actual person or a company. And if you get thought leadership for a person, you're inherently getting thought leadership for that company. And because, especially if it's online, you're, you are getting links, but basically you want to think of it like from a Google standpoint. [00:08:19] Amy Rosenberg: You're, you are like setting a little trail. It's a trail you're doing a web trail across. Right. So for me, I'm doing this podcast with you. So that's a third party link. That means you having me on means that Google will think I know what I'm talking about. Because anyone can just say, Oh, you're a pure person. [00:08:40] Amy Rosenberg: Well, somehow they'll see that I'm on a podcast like yours. And then that'll be like, okay, that's the experience. And then authoritativeness could be like somebody else linking back to my site, like a school, like not just like some random link, but like, A university is linking back to my website, let's say the video series. [00:09:03] Amy Rosenberg: And then they'll say, and then, you know, Google is like, Oh, they are authoritative. So, so from a PR standpoint, it's like placing all of these little things all together. And how you really start that with the foundation is to create a plan. And, um, you want to chunk it into months because otherwise it's just too. [00:09:25] Amy Rosenberg: Uh, intimate, like too overwhelming. So we start with you lay out the next 12 months coming up all together. And then you put in, it just, you don't have to like work in order of months, but you put in what is happening each month. So for your company, like it might, you might be, let's say a B2B company. So then, you know, okay, one month we have this, let's say we sell a software. [00:09:51] Amy Rosenberg: To like HR and let's say, um, accounting. Okay. So we had 2 big conferences around different months. Thank God we put those in there and we know. Okay. So that we're going to those. Now we're, we know we're going to do some marketing around those. So at least we have that in the plan and then you think, Oh, and then this month I have like a little announcement for a new little software upgrade. [00:10:15] Amy Rosenberg: That's an easy press release. And then this month we have this and that. So you, you start with your plan and so it's actually very action oriented. It's an action oriented plan, not a BS plan that has a lot of words in it. It's a grid that says what you're doing. And then at least, you know, kind of what are the topics, right? [00:10:34] Amy Rosenberg: And then from there, you can kind of think, okay, this is where I'm going to build content, like I'm going to build content off of these plans. And then the content you can build is anything from the most pretty much dumb way to do PR basic way is a press release. So fine. We do do that, right? I'll do press releases for what I call easy news. [00:10:55] Amy Rosenberg: Which is like news that I know will run, um, which is like a kind of big deal news actually, but it's easy because I know it'll run like, Hey, I got some funding. Hey, I made a big donation, like big kind of announcements. Then, um, when we're going to maybe a, um, conference, we're going to think, Oh, maybe I could pitch a speaking engagement. [00:11:18] Amy Rosenberg: So then I think, Oh, I should probably pitch that three months ahead. So then I have that in my plan. I'm looking. So it's like, basically you're just kind of maximizing as you go, but I guess speaking engagement is not content. So back to content, let's say I don't get that speaking engagement yet. Well, maybe next year I will because I'm going to do some blogs around this, um, conference, whether it's before or after. [00:11:45] Amy Rosenberg: And so I'll do those blogs. Maybe they're just on my website, but then maybe I want to get real fancy and I like have some blogs that are relevant to other people. And so I actually might pitch those out. I might take my blog. Like one blog piece and pitch it out either to the press or your industry, whoever you're trying to sell to or whatever, to get them to link back to the blog. [00:12:11] Amy Rosenberg: And you kind of do that with another, you know, you'd write a good blog post that has lots of stats and like. Third party information. It's not all about you. It's about what you think about something and then you ask the press or whoever to like, oh, hey, are you already covering this? If so, I have all this research. [00:12:31] Amy Rosenberg: You could link back to it or you could use our research or interview me for more information. So, um, so anyway, but it all I know this is like a lot. So it all just starts with content. That's your content is the base. So content. Well, planning and then content. And then you're thinking, well, how am I going to maximize this content? [00:12:52] Amy Rosenberg: What am I going to do with it? Well, maybe I'll pitch it to the press. Maybe I will save a blog and turn it into an article for the press, and I won't even post it on my website. And so we write guest articles on behalf of our clients, like CEOs or whoever, on whatever topic, and then pitch that to the press. [00:13:14] Amy Rosenberg: And again, the press could not be the press. The press could be like, if you're an SEO, it could be a high domain authority website, which could be a charity or a school or, um, and the, or associations, right. And then like industry associations. And if I can build those relationships, maybe next year I will get that speaking engagement. [00:13:38] Robert Plank: Wonderful. And as you said, there's a lot to it, but it's good to have ideas. And, and it's like the, we're in the, the kind of way backstage of awareness here, where we're just the beginning of your trail, right? We're not here to get all the problems solved in, in just this podcast episode. We're here to whet someone's appetite and say, Hey, there's a few things I hadn't thought of, right? [00:13:59] Robert Plank: I could do. That press release, I could kind of figure out my 12 month schedule and what am I doing, what features am I adding to my product, what conferences am I attending, and then work it out from there. And someone saying, hey, well, I should be on. Uh, uh, a good amount of podcasts deliberately and consistently somewhat so that way I do get these backlinks and I should be working on the content and then making that decision of saying, okay, well, I have these blog posts and I should decide, well, which should I put on? [00:14:32] Robert Plank: My site and which ones are really good and maybe really detailed and which ones should I try to kind of mark it out and put them out as guest blog posts or put them out as articles to the press and how can someone maybe go wrong with this because there's a lot of ideas but it's easy to sometimes let things fall by the wayside and I feel like when I do like Legion when I'm looking for like like prospects on LinkedIn and things like that. [00:14:56] Robert Plank: There seems to be just like two, not even like three or four types. There's two types, right? There's either, do they have it dialed in? Is there always things posted about them? If I Google them, if I look on social media, is there just like a ton of content? It's all on brand versus someone where what I find is. [00:15:12] Robert Plank: Five months ago, three years ago, and it seems to be like a real divide. And so, like, why do you think that is? Do you think it's a matter of, like, not having a good team, not blocking out the time, not having a plan, all of the above? Like, like, if people say, these are all great ideas, I can't wait to just jump in and generate the content and do all the steps, but then six months from now, it's not done, where's the gap there? [00:15:36] Amy Rosenberg: Yeah, good point. I mean, so it's all hard and we're human beings and I'm, I'm, uh, guilty of doing that. Right. So, so part of it is I say, well, I mean, not for our clients, you know, how in an agency you put your clients first and then all of your own marketing goes by the wayside. Oh, yeah. Oh, my bad. But that I assume other. [00:15:57] Amy Rosenberg: Companies that are not client based are also the same. So they're thinking of like their products as a client or they're actually like calling customers. They're focused on that or they're focused on making money. And so then oftentimes this marketing kind of doesn't always, it's just, it's hard. Okay. So the hardest part about it is it's hard to execute. [00:16:17] Amy Rosenberg: So I think what we want to think about is less is more. So I, um, I hate the word ideas, even though I use the word ideas, but I don't, I don't have time for a lot of ideas, like, like, seriously, leave me alone with your ideas. Like, just give me a few, like, for instance, each month, if you're looking at it like that, I can't handle more than three ideas. [00:16:40] Amy Rosenberg: Okay. Um, and also I have on my website kind of a way to pick ideas. You can throw all your ideas down on a page on like a calendar, but then the best thing to really do is to, to cross things out. And I love that. Um, even like when we're pitching the press, if one press member is not interested and I can delete them from my press list, I actually love that because then I have a cleaner list that is real, meaning like these are real contacts. [00:17:10] Amy Rosenberg: It's not like a shot in the dark. So I guess less is more. And even if there are so, so when we do our plans, if I have a blank month, that's actually okay. Okay. So I will, we'll fill out our plan and then any idea, if it's actually good, we'll go at the bottom and then we can plug those into the blank months, or we can do something proactive, like work on our talking points and, and, or crisis management in the blank months. [00:17:38] Amy Rosenberg: But, um, so what I would do is I would pick just like 1 or 2 key topics, which is the idea and the topic could relate to what you're doing. So, like new product launch. New office, right? Then you want to think, okay, so these are the topics and then you're just creating systems and rules around each topic, which is, um, one, one blog post per month. [00:18:05] Amy Rosenberg: That's it. Or two. That's it. One per month. Every blog post gets actually three media, social media posts. That's it. Uh, you would think that that's a lot, but you change the copy each time. And then, so you're putting rules around that, if that makes sense. Like, so, you know It just makes it easier. And then when you're doing your social plan, you're kind of saying like, Oh, this is, this is where the three blog posts, uh, posts are going to go. [00:18:36] Amy Rosenberg: And so then it makes doing your social plan easier. And then I don't, we don't pitch out a lot of press right now. Like some of our clients, we do some, we don't, so just FYI. So it's like some clients, we never do press releases for, but we still do other media. types work, but we will kind of scale back on some press clients where sometimes it does, is not working. [00:19:02] Amy Rosenberg: Okay. Let me just tell you that the media is shrinking. And so, and in some markets, it's harder to get media. So then we're going to switch up what we do. I am not going to keep focusing on the media so that we're going to just do, not just, but we're going to do some blogs. And then maybe get those blocks pitched out sometimes, but not all the time, right? [00:19:24] Amy Rosenberg: So I think it's just creating, like, you, okay, this is it. You're creating deliverables for your own self. [00:19:33] Robert Plank: I love it. We're reading those deliverables and it seems like in sorting through the signal from the noise and figuring out, there's all these things I could be doing, but I need to focus on like my, my three ideas for the month. [00:19:46] Robert Plank: It seems that for you, it connects back to the calendar, the timeline, right? There's all these things you could do, but you say, well, here's what I'm doing on month one, month two. And then. Based on that, here's like the focus, the topic, the event for this month, and then that dictates what the content is, what the blog posts are, and then that itself then dictates what the marketing is back to that content, the social media posts and things like that. [00:20:12] Robert Plank: So that, that really helps as far as the decision making process, right? Because we need a little, like the right size of these rules and structure in place. If you say yes to everything, it's chaos, it's a mess, you get overwhelmed, there's no plan. And then if you say no to too much, then that's a problem too, but it's like by having the right size, you say, here's the timeline, here are the short term PR goals, and then there's the content, and then there's the marketing, and that really helps to kind of just make things a smooth running machine. [00:20:43] Robert Plank: And so that way you know what to say yes to and what to say no to. And so we, we hate the word ideas, but if there is a better word, we use it. And so since someone has gotten some of these time management, PR, content, marketing, talking to the press type of ideas, they've got some initial But they say, I know that if I just write a whole page of notes in this podcast and then go and try to do it myself, I'll run across other obstacles, right? [00:21:10] Robert Plank: I'll run across other problems and I need some extra help. I need the help of Amy Rosenberg and her company. We're asked to the agency. So how can someone reach out to you? How do they know if they're a good fit for you and your company? And if they are, then what's the next step? [00:21:25] Amy Rosenberg: Oh, good question. Um, so for us, we, we focus on companies that are really ingrained into their communities and that community does not have to be physical. [00:21:35] Amy Rosenberg: It can be their industry because, uh, now that's how we can get PR. It's a little because, like I said, it's competitive, so we will help companies maximize like their donation process and then we'll PR that out. So if you're interested, or you're already able to get involved in the community, that is good for us. [00:21:57] Amy Rosenberg: And then, um, we. We do require a lot of your time because we actually work like a lot. So what, what happens with that is it's more in the beginning. Ideally we would like leave you alone after a while, but in the beginning we're, you know, working and we create, you know, documents that you might have to approve. [00:22:16] Amy Rosenberg: Now, some clients, especially SEO clients, they're not used to the kind of hands on work that PR people do. And I'm not saying it's all us. I don't have a lot of room right now for new clients. We literally could probably only take one. That's how hard we work on them, if that makes sense. So, um, so and then for us, if you want to look into us, we're at veracityagency. [00:22:40] Amy Rosenberg: com and then my book is available wherever people buy books. Um, and that's. It's a modern guide to public relations, and that's if you're interested in actually handling your own PR or getting into the industry, because it talks about how to like manage press and clients. Um, and then you did mention the podcast and just a heads up. [00:23:02] Amy Rosenberg: So I did the podcast for six years, but it, and so it's still live, so everybody can check it out, but it's, you know, in that thought of like less is more, I kind of, it's a little bit. paused. Um, and we, just so that I can finish my second book. But, um, that is still available for people and that has different topics than just PR. [00:23:26] Amy Rosenberg: But always there's a little bit of a PR tie in. [00:23:29] Robert Plank: Wonderful. And that's what podcasting is all about, right? The, the randomness and the larger scope because sometimes you do make a Google search and you're looking to solve a specific problem. But when you're a podcast listener, you say, well, hey, I know that with this whole PR thing, there are so many things, there are questions I don't even know what to ask. [00:23:47] Robert Plank: And sometimes you say, I might be having a down day or a down week. We're like, do I really have to study more about PR? It's like school, it's never ending. And when you tune into a podcast. You hear some fun stories and you can sometimes just kind of let all the deep thinking come at you. And so many times I've listened to just like random podcasts and gotten an idea because maybe my, my guard was down. [00:24:08] Robert Plank: So there's that value in listening to a long form podcast. Even if it's on pause currently, the information is still good. It still applies. And there's still a lot to navigate to get our head wrapped around it. Because For some reason, the whole PR thing is just, it seems really silly at the outlook, right? [00:24:26] Robert Plank: Like, oh, there's someone that they have this platform of people and I want to get attention and tell a story to kind of impress them to impress others. There is a lot to navigate. It feels like being back in high school and trying to be one of the popular kids. But luckily, in high school, you're sometimes blocked or there's a limited amount of time. [00:24:44] Robert Plank: And now that we're an adult, we have all these tools available to us. And imagine if in high school you had 20, 30 years and you could read all kinds of books about how to be a popular kid. You'd get that figured out. And so now that we're in grown up world and it's time to get some of this attention and popularize your business and figure out Google's Eats and SEO and the media and press releases and all the things that go into that, you need to check out the PR Talk Podcast. [00:25:10] Robert Plank: You need to check out the book, A Modern Guide to Public Relations, and check out Amy Rosenberg's company, veracityagency. com. So, Amy, you're a podcaster, and more importantly, you're a marketer, too, and you know that it's important to end with a bang and not a whimper, and that's why it's time to put you on the spot a little bit, where I ask you for a quote or lesson that could really wrap things up and really, like, give us a strong ending to our podcast. [00:25:34] Robert Plank: So, does anything come to mind as far as Life, business, PR, time management, anything, quote or lesson, what comes to mind? [00:25:44] Amy Rosenberg: Just some, it's like, I don't know if it's an actual quote, but it's just a thought, is that you are exactly where you need to be right now. That's it. So like a lot of, especially newer people in the industry, or if you have a new company, you're always kind of striving or thinking about where can you be, but you're exactly where you need to be right now. [00:26:04] Amy Rosenberg: And That where you are right now will get you where you want to be in the future. [00:26:10] Robert Plank: I love it. And where you are right now is about to go to veracityagency. com. That's V E R A C I T Y A G E N C Y. com. veracityagency. com. Amy Rosenberg, speaking about PR, wonderful talking to you. [00:26:27] Amy Rosenberg: Thank you. Thanks for having me.