1392: Veracity Agency: Get Media Attention Without Hiring a Massive PR Team with Public Relations Expert Amy Rosenberg

Robert Plank 0:01 Amy, what if PR wasn't just about press, but it was about powering your entire marketing engine? Well, Amy Rosenberg is here to help us with that, especially with her new book called A Practical Guide to public relations for businesses, nonprofits and PR leaders, including SEO, AI, content marketing, social media and thought leadership. It bridges old school PR with modern marketing, and she's here and she's back on the marketure of the day podcast with Robert Plank. I'm your host. We're brought to you by D, F, y, podcast.com where we remove the tech barriers so you can focus on real conversations and the real conversation that we are here to talk about today is all about SEO, content, PR, AI, and how to make that practical and how to make it work for you. If you're a nonprofit or you're a small business, those mindset shifts you need to make those myths that may be holding you back today, and how to get those things dismantled that way we can enjoy the fruits, the benefits of PR, like it seems like some people do it so effortlessly, and how we can stop working so dang hard to attract the traffic, the awareness, the customers, the clients. Amy is here to help us out. Amy, great seeing you again. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always fun. Yeah, we always have fun, don't we? We have the witty banter, and we never know where it's gonna go in the conversation. We laugh, we cry, we help some people out. And so what did I leave out of that introduction there? What are you all about? What's your current focus and passion?

Amy Rosenberg 1:33 Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that you left anything out. We I do have a PR firm, but, um, basically the book journey. Writing the books was really about empowerment, to empower people. So the first book I wrote a modern guide to PR that was for PR professionals to teach them how to do the trade, because I noticed a lot of PR people, or just freelancers that we hired, were just kind of doing their own thing and hadn't been trained. And my whole point, and this is what the next book is about, this is a practical guide to public relations, is that this doesn't have to be so hard. And I feel like, well, I mean, it is hard. Let's just get real. I mean, I don't want to say that PR is the solution to marketing and the solution to all your problems. But I feel like when we think things are too hard or we over complicate things, we just don't do them. And so I really, so the first book, I just really wanted to simplify for small businesses nonprofits, and then I wanted to simplify it, right? But then, as I was simplifying it, I kind of realized, well, this, this, like, isn't that simple? This, this discipline. Unfortunately, I tried my best. So that's why I stuck PR leaders in the title, because I have a few new things in there that they might want to know about, especially AI, and we can talk about that. And then SEO. I mean, that's always been kind of what we've done as paired SEO with PR. And so with this book, there's a little bit more information about that.

Robert Plank 3:11 Okay, well, I'm excited to jump in and talk about it, how it's maybe, see doesn't have to be so hard. But then you go and you say, well, maybe there are some intricacies to it, and but it could be perhaps more straightforward than people are making it, especially as far as just making it a crazy complicated spider web of a plan to get attention on that company or on their book. And it's also I find myself kind of needing just some more explanations on what it all means, because PR, and especially things like guesting on podcasts, it's for some reason, to me, it seems silly, right? And it's something that, like, I always held myself back from doing it. I'm doing it more diligently these days, this year, but it's kind of slow going just this idea that, okay, I've got a book out there, and I want to sell some copies, and if it just sits there, I know it'll be like so many other authors, right? It'll be on the bottom of the rankings. And I could think about, well, running some Facebook ads, running some YouTube ads, waiting around for SEO, but why not go out and get it right, right? Why not get the best of both worlds. And then you figure, well, there are all these podcasts out there, and it's not like you're you show up on one and you get millions of views, you kind of perform all these base hits, right? And it's all these podcasts that are accessible for you to get on. You can kind of work that list you can get on there and talk about these things that that you know and you love and that relate to your business. And then, as a result, you get all this little traffic coming in. And then you go back and you look at where it showed up on Apple, podcasts, on YouTube. And then now, when someone searches your name, or these other rankings, like, hey, now I'm getting, kind of getting these search engine listings. And then now. Okay, it kind of makes a lot more sense why I'm kind of doing this press circuit, doing the rounds, but that's just my own understanding. So if someone says PR, I'm not really sure, like, why I should be doing it, or why is it important? Like, how on track is my little guesstimation there? What should people know about PR and why they should even consider it in the first place?

Amy Rosenberg 5:21 Oh, good question. And part of this is like, maybe don't do it right? Like, we don't need to oversell PR. And so that's kind of what I'm saying in this book. A little bit. It's like, okay, we don't need to do a press release every month, maybe once a quarter, if that okay? And so the reason to do these podcasts is SEO. I mean, yes, it also helps with and that's what PR is, is booking things. So I'm going to book you on a podcast, or I'm going to get you a ghost written article place that will that somebody else will write and and you will have it placed in a website. And I so I'm kind of tripping over my words here, because I'm talking to the first person, like, I'm gonna go book that for you as I was gonna do that, possibly for the audience. And that is negating everything. I just said that you can do this on your own, and really why it's hard to do this on your own. And I'm not suggesting reaching out to us, because we're pretty small. We don't have a lot of bandwidth. But why it's hard is because it's hard to promote yourself. It's really simple. And honestly, I hired a PR person to promote this book. I thought, oh, I can do it. Of course, I can do it. Well. A, I don't have a lot of time, and then b I don't it's it kind of, you're it's very vulnerable to try and put yourself out there like that, and it's like, oh, look at me. And a lot of people, especially our clients, don't like that. And so sometimes people need a cheerleader behind them to do that. So if you're not interested in hiring an agency, it might it's better to have somebody on your team do that for you. And so you want to, kind of, you need someone to kind of remove themselves from the situation so they can look at it externally, and then, and then push it out there. And so that's why it's kind of hard. But why it's important to do is really just, I think SEO number one, and I can talk about that. And then number two is practicing your talking points, right? So oftentimes we'll get a client who's like, Well, why should I do this? I'm so busy. It's like, I don't know you actually have a speaking engagement coming up next week. So this could be a good way to, like, wrap it all together and get ready for that. And then also everything works together. It does provide social content because you want to get, not only get your thoughts out there, but you want to kind of give a pat on the back to the person who also took the time to interview on the podcast interview you. So my tip though for SEO for um, podcast interviews. So actually, I'll pause before I get into SEO, because it could be a long discussion. Okay, all right, to see if you have any questions. Oh, just rambling.

Robert Plank 8:13 Well, you're giving me a flashback to when we spoke last like you mentioned like, the the E, A T Concept, right? That with SEO, like, there's there's searching keywords, and there's ranking for that, but there's also, like the company that you keep, right? And so there's this like relationship aspect of you get on these podcasts, and you get in the within the circles of these other people that are already authoritative. And so if someone says, Well, can't I just fire up my my phone and record some YouTube videos and target some keywords, and I'm getting this flashback of, like, yes, you could do that, but there's also you need to go out there and have the outreach to the people. And so I just wanted to kind of have a little bit of a flashback that way, we don't necessarily retread on that sort of stuff, because, like, SEO and AI and the internet, it changes so much, right? And so if someone out there says, okay, a lot of what you said makes sense, I need more attention on me and my company, and I need a cheerleader to make it happen. And then the benefit is SEO. If someone maybe is not an expert in SEO, or maybe they've only heard about SEO here and there, and they say, all right, Amy, what do we need to know about SEO in simple terms, especially how it benefits me and my business. What should the average person know about this mystical concept called SEO?

Amy Rosenberg 9:29 Oh, good question. Maybe they don't need SEO. I mean, I'm sorry, that's always my response, because it does depend. But if you, let's say, let's pretend you know, you need SEO right now. We really need to think about it because of AI, so AI, so PR is always kind of, I don't mean PR, but I mean getting External links, which essentially is PR. Even Link building is PR because you're asking somebody externally to do something for you. That's always. Kind of been the backbone to organic SEO, but now it's more important than ever because of AI. And I don't really know, I haven't I'm not a technical person, and I can, I can say I know about SEO, and I do, whoops, but I don't know enough to not hire an SEO consultant for my firm, right? Like all of our clients were using SEO consultants. So all that to say, this is just kind of a broad base of some knowledge, but with AI, it's just becoming more important than ever, and people aren't now, now, with people not even clicking on websites and just getting the information they need through AI, um, so this is where the Eat concept. I call it eat. Other people call it E, E, A, T, T, whatever that is. I can explain what that is, but basically that is thought leadership, if you can think about that. So we're just doing as PR, people were just doing thought leadership. And E, what that is, is that is kind of what Google tells human reviewers to look for. And E stands for an acronym that means experience, authoritativeness, trust and something else I don't remember, but all of that points back to thought leadership. And so you can, you can talk about what you know on your own platforms, and you should, but now having that external party that, like you said, validate you, points back and helps with eat as well, because I can just go around and say, I'm the best at whatever. But if somebody else doesn't say that, they don't need to say that, but they highlight your knowledge, it's showing that you're kind of know what you're talking about. And then actually, all that relates back to Google. And so we feel that Google's and or any search engine is important for right now, because it's kind of like the new validator in a well, in a way, especially with they're going to show you first, if you have a lot of external links coming back to your website, so that's validating you.

Robert Plank 12:18 Oh, yeah. And so you mentioned AI, and I think you pointed out something that's really helpful to the audience. And to me, is that people wonder, okay, like, you know, what is AI, and what's it useful for? And and it just changes so much. And you look at like, the the Young kids these days, right? The Gen Zs, the Gen alphas, when the if they see a math problem, if they see, you know what is seven plus 10. Us old school people, we would go to that calculator, we'd go to our phone, we open up the Calendar app, we type it in. And the kids these days, they're asking Gemini, they're asking chat, GPT, right? They're just going right to that source. And so you figure AI is, is kind of putting Google out of business, or it's working on it, where you ask a question, and you don't even have to go to a Google search result. But then Google is also putting themselves out of business, right? Because it used to be you do that search, and you go and you find a link, but then they're putting the AI results right there on top, so that way you don't even have to click so all the more reason to do the PR, to do the thought leadership and to get that external validation, because they'll, they'll put all that together and say, and there's that limited little bit of space, right? And if so, if you ask in chat, GPT or Google search, like, who has a practical guide to public relations, then if you have a book about it, if you talk about it, then hopefully, ideally, you appear in that top block, and you shortcut all that stuff, which is what the it'll just become more like that, right? The young kids and the older kids, they'll be doing more of that searches. And that's how that someone will find out about you and find out about your expertise. Author of nativeness and trustworthiness. So I can say those keywords, and so as far as you can, Sam, yeah, there you go. But as far as us trying to ride that AI wave, like my brain explodes with the possibilities so much like I don't get enough done, I think to myself, like, Okay, if I appear on a podcast, I can use AI to like, extract the best part and make social posts. I could use AI to like, strategize, like, where to appear, or if I see where I might appear, I can look at, like, other people's podcasts and kind of look at the questions and answers and, like, fill in the gaps, right? And say, like, how can I answer those questions better? Or, how can I talk about what's not spoken about enough? But that's just my brain going well with AI, if someone calls you and says, Okay, PR plus SEO plus AI, how do we apply it? What am I missing? What's the strategy there?

Amy Rosenberg 14:45 Okay, good question. Well, so it's a I O is the new SEO? So I think it's working on your working on your marketing. I mean, it all comes back down to market. Marketing, and that's internal and external marketing. And so when you meaning I'm going to get external placements, but I'm also going to do internal content, to push out my information. But when you're talking about having too much to do, this is where I feel like we can get a little overwhelmed and thinking about things too much. And so what we really want to do is try and kind of like, take a take a step back, not really worry about AI or SEO right now, and then we just do the basics right now. And that's kind of what I'm trying to do with this book. And actually, in the back, I have this kind of grids where you can put an I can email these people too, but where you can put what you're going to work on in here. And that's the whole point about that. Is the first step in this is planning. So we can't do anything if we don't have a plan, and also you don't need to follow your plan. Okay, just FYI, but we write it down, and what we look at is we look at things in monthly chunks, and then we take a theme for each month, and we do this for clients, but also for ourselves. We take a theme for each month, and then we create little campaigns out of that, or big campaigns, rather where we're doing an internal blog on it, so meaning for my website, then we're going to pitch it out as well, the same campaign. Because why would we? We don't use duplicate content, right? We don't use the same words internally and externally. We change the words for the placements we're going to get because that's better for us. Yeah, but we want to pitch it out as well, then maybe that's a theme to actually. So like, when I say I'm going to pitch it out, I mean, I'm going to get some guest articles or blogs written about this theme under my client's name or under my name. But also maybe I will shorten that so that I can also get podcast interviews, and that's kind of the same external PR, then we and that's it. That's the basic I just want people to get used to. And I, I know, I mean, this is marketer of the day. I'm sure people are used to this. But if they're talking to clients, maybe, you know, a blog post per month, and then the just taking that and tweaking it for external and, you know, there's some ways to make sure that you're you can't have it be self serving, even internally. So try and think about how you're going to make it interesting to other people. So whether that you know to your audience, whether that's advice or tying into trends, talking about trends, or using statistics, external statistics, to talk about things like, not your own research, but others, and compiling that into a blog post. And then, of course, always citing people that your research, you're using their research, and then pitch that out. And actually, you can even pitch out that blog post as a press release, so you're trying to get links back to the blog post. So it all works together, because, well, I got a blog post out of it at least. Then maybe you've got some social posts out of it to promote your blog posts. Then of course, you'll get, ideally, you would get some hits if you can create your media list. So then that's where we want to think about how we're going to create that list. And well, you could just look at podcasts. And kind of with the SEO point to podcasts is we just, I mean seriously, in our media list, we just live by da domain authority. So I'm sure, like, one pot, one place, will look really fancy and cool, but like, No, I'm looking at the domain authority of that website where it's hosted. I'm not looking at the domain authority of like Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever, because, yeah, they're going to put me on there, but I'm not. I don't know that. I This might be wrong. I might not get SEO from that, especially if I don't get a link. But if I'm on your podcast, I Yeah, to be honest, I looked at your domain authority, it was good, and I look to see, does Robert give links? And I saw that, so I said, Yes. I mean, I Yes, this is a self fulfilling world or a selfish world, right? But to your point about not having a lot of time, you know, we do need to be selective, too. Hey, we're gonna do this work. And yeah, we will. We'll pitch 25 podcasts. Maybe we'll get even just eight, you know, we'll just get eight interviews. Well, that still takes time to prep for those, and then you still have to push those out, you know, to be a nice person, to kind of share them socially. So anyway, that's a whole thing. But you're basically, you're trying to take it into chunks, month by month, and just doing. More with less. Essentially,

Robert Plank 20:03 I like it, and it boils it down a lot more simply than a lot of people make it right by saying, like, here's my monthly chunks. And that way it's it seems like there's a lot built into that, right, because it ensures that you think, rethink through your messaging, which, like some you see you and I see people like they'll decide five years ago what their niche is, what their messaging is, and they're still talking about that old stuff. They're not incorporating the cutting edge like AI, like you are, and it's really dated. So it forces you to, like, update things, and to focus on the timeliness the news, and then by having that kind of one monthly blog post be the center of it, all of like the social media and the podcast pitches and the press releases. It's, it's, it makes it so it all like, connects, right? Because something else that I've, I've come across, is people saying, like, Oh, I did, I don't know. Didn't know you did that, right? I didn't know you talked about this, or you talk about these four different topics, and I didn't know how it all interconnected. I'm like, oh, I need to get more dialed in with the PR. And so that's it. But it's doable, right? To say, like, Okay, here's my, my monthly blog post, and then it all kind of branches up from that, and it makes it and it kind of forces you to have an urgency, right? And it forces you to, like, keep doing something every month. And so that way you don't sit around for three months, six months, and say, Well, I forgot to promote my business all quarter, and now I need to play catch up. It forces you to continue with this habit. And so there's so much that we could get into as far as what people need to do, as far as how to implement this, as far as the podcast pitching. The Press releases are so much, but we're limited on time, right? Because with a podcast, you just want that taste, that tease, and if someone says, All right, Amy has a lot going on now, I'll go and I'll click through and I'll see more what she has going on. So in the spirit of keeping it tight, right, compressing it, there must be a super great question I could ask you Miss Amy, right? And so in this conversation that we're having, is there a missing, hidden, visible question that I should be asking you? I just don't know what to ask you.

Amy Rosenberg 22:07 Well, no, I would just say that we're not perfect, right? So when you're saying that, Oh, I haven't promoted myself for three months. Oh, hey, guess what? Guys, I took a year off to write this book, granted, but, you know, we're not perfect, and there is a lot to do. And I do simplify this, but once you get into it, you start to see it's hard. And so I understand that, and we just kind of have to, like, take it month by month and and actually looking at content, almost like a sales quota, where I'm looking at it, I mean, I'm just doing this for myself, where it's like, okay, you need to get just one blog post out, one newsletter or two, maybe two email newsletters and so forth. And maybe the times can change right in terms of when you do it, but it's like a sales quota, just get it done. And that's all I have for that

Robert Plank 23:03 . Okay, yeah, so you kind of give yourself a little bit of a break, right? You say, like I could turn on the fire hose and fire off all this stuff, but at least I'm being consistent somewhat. And if I know I have this new book out and I know that I need to do something, and at least if I meet that minimum, that baseline, then anything else is extra. And so speaking of putting out books, and your very excellent book that is already out, and it's brand new at the time we're recording this, it's called a practical guide to public relations for businesses, nonprofits and PR leaders, including SEO, AI, content marketing, social media and thought leadership. That's all these things we need all in one place. What's the book? I mean, we have talked about what the book's about, but what do you think makes the book stand out? What could we say today to make someone say all right, I'm shutting off this podcast. I'm buying 10 copies of the book right now, probably just like as

Amy Rosenberg 23:59 a PR person, and I have PR in the title, and sometimes I might kind of say, Don't do PR. What this means is, what I mean by that is there's so much more to it that it's just like, yeah, there's SEO and all that. So I think what this does is talks to you in a way that really customizes things for you and tries to streamline and simplify for you.

Robert Plank 24:27 Okay, so if you're one of those people that you're tired of the vagueness that most PR playbooks are written for billion dollar brands with massive teams and corporate budgets, and you say, I feel left out, and I need something that's more doable, practical, scalable, easier to execute than this book by Amy Rosenberg. It delivers by ingraining SEO, content marketing and thought leadership into the very fiber of PR. We're talking about earned media coverage, search engine optimization on blog posts. Ai power. Marketing teams and content marketing, crisis communications and thought leadership. That book is called A Practical Guide to public relations for businesses, nonprofits and PR leaders. And there also is this very excellent PR firm, isn't there? There's veracity agency.com, so how does somebody know which category they fall into. How do they know if that we already said that they're great if, if they they need the book, because the usual PR leaves them out. But if someone says, All right, veracity, agency, I'm intimidated even looking at the website, how do I know if I should contact them for my PR needs?

Amy Rosenberg 25:36 Oh, you can always just contact us and find out. And we're just honestly, very honest, obviously, when we're saying you don't need PR, and it could just be that we match you up with somebody else where it is a fit. And, you know, I do like to say I'm a Yenta, which is a matchmaker also in PR. I did set up my father in law with his wife. So there's that. But I really want to keep my PR friends and connections really close, so that because everybody does something different, so definitely connect with me, and I'll let you know, and you know. But just to really simplify the answers, we're we work with more mid sized companies that do a lot of things in the community, either their local community, or the communities that they serve, which would be their industry, so their trade industry or vertical industries, is where we're really

Robert Plank 26:31 shining right now. Well, great. So if that sounds like you, if you're a mid sized business and you do amazing things in the community, and you're just frustrated with getting the word out, and you say, you know, I need something that connects the content and the social and the SEO and the PR, then veracity, agency.com, is someone that you should be speaking to. You go to that website, you click the Contact button, and then you start that conversation. You talk about your needs, you schedule a meeting. You say, Hey, here's what I need. Can you help? And then as far as this very excellent, amazing PR expert we've been speaking to, it's Amy Rosenberg, R, O, S, E N, B, E R, G. You can find her at linkedin.com/in/amy, Rosenberg, so if you're more of a social media LinkedIn person, you can go there, and you can click on that message button, that connect button, and start the conversation on there. And she has a monthly newsletter on LinkedIn called Modern mothership. You can just click on that, click, subscribe. And sometimes I like to do that. I just like to go and see what's the newsletter they put out? What are those regular LinkedIn posts? What are they all about? So that's linkedin.com/in/amy, Rosenberg, that's veracity agency.com but the real reason we're here, the real backlink opportunity we're looking for, is to get you to get that book called A Practical Guide to public relations for businesses, nonprofits and PR leaders, including SEO, AI, content marketing, social media and thought leadership. So does that sound logical as far as a next step? Call to Action? Amy, is there any other place someone should go?

Amy Rosenberg 28:08 Yeah. I mean, just to point out that you can buy the book wherever you want to buy books. So there's a there's a digital version and a print version, and you could buy it directly from me, if you felt like it, if you felt like supporting an indie author, and that link is on the website, or if you just want to order from Amazon, you can just go straight there.

Robert Plank 28:32 Okay, and so that that website that you mentioned that's at veracity agency.com where they can get the book directly, yep. Well, super fantastic. And so this whole thing of PR, like Amy says sometimes, well, maybe you don't need it, but it is something to pay attention to and see if it works for you, and see if it can integrate with what you have going on, as far as the thought leadership, the personal branding, the raising your profile of your company. So check out veracity, agency.com, and a practical guide to public relations for businesses, nonprofits and PR leaders. Before I let you go there, Miss Amy, it's time for the scary part of the show. It's time to put you on the spot and ask about a fun or interesting quote or lesson that has served you in life or in business. So what do you have for us as far as a fun quote or lesson?

Amy Rosenberg 29:21 Um, well, what I said before to the PR group when I was featured on, I think it was, I was a PR Woman of the Year, or something like that. I said that you already are where you need to be. And so if we think about things like that way, instead of always thinking about the future and just kind of focus into the now and realizing that what we're doing today will help us in the future, is kind of empowering, especially for our younger professionals.

Robert Plank 29:57 Yes, I love it. Great message. Focus. On the now do what you can today. You already are where you need to be to get yourself to where you want to go, and let's think about that as we check out Amy Rosenberg's wonderful book, A Practical Guide to public relations. I'm not going to read the whole title every time, because it's even though it is fun, it is fun to say the whole thing, but it's a practical guide to public relations. And then a bunch of other stuff by Amy Rosenberg, and the website is veracity agency.com, we'll put those links in the show notes, because that's why we're here, right? We want that domain authority and those backlinks to go right over there. That way, if someone is looking for these PR solutions, they have a path. But because we're basically serving the AI these days, then when someone does a search in the chat GBT or the AI or those Google search results, and this being on this podcast for Amy, will also give her a boost in and those that relevancy as well. And you should consider that as well for your ongoing PR efforts, veracity, agency.com, and a practical guide to public relations. Miss Amy Rosenberg, as usual, just like last time, it's been a blast speaking with you. So thanks for coming.

Amy Rosenberg 31:05 Yeah, thanks for having me always fun.