Podcast appearances and mentions of martin waxman

Send a textIn this episode, Martin Waxman joins host Jason Mudd to discuss AI's impact on communications and marketing, why training matters, and how to avoid “AI slop” by pairing AI with real expertise.Meet Our Guest:Our episode guest is Martin Waxman, LinkedIn Learning instructor, adjunct professor at the York Schulich School of Business, and associate director of the Future of Marketing Institute. He writes an AI and digital marketing trends newsletter, delivers hands-on generative AI training workshops, and conducts AI research.Five things you'll learn from this episode:1. Why using AI only to offload tasks can lower quality and why thinking first matters2. What Martin predicted correctly about AI and what surprised him about its rapid adoption3. How to move beyond basic content generation to strategy and analytics4. Why subject-matter expertise is critical when using AI for insights and data5. How leaders can manage hype, train teams, and stay ethical as AI evolvesQuotables“Use their brains first so they can start to push themselves and then get AI tools to push them even farther.” — Martin Waxman“We have to prompt AI, but we also have to get AI to prompt us to think about things from a different perspective.” — Martin Waxman“You don't have to go at the pace of AI development, which is really fast, but you need to go at a much faster pace than we as communicators have been used to using.” — Martin Waxman“There's a new term called FOMO, fear of becoming obsolete, which is really real. Because we don't know what we need to learn to do our job successfully. So managing The hype is job number one, figuring out what's new, when it's going to start affecting us, and what can we do to prepare along the way.” — Martin Waxman“AI will take your job if you're the master and commander of it.” — Jason MuddIf you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.More About Martin WaxmanMartin Waxman writes a popular AI and digital marketing trends newsletter, delivers hands-on generative AI training workshops, and conducts AI research. He's a LinkedIn Learning instructor, adjunct professor at the York Schulich School of Business, and associate director of the Future of Marketing Institute.Guest's contact info and resources:@martinwaxman on X@martinwaxman on InstagramMartin Waxman on FacebookMartin Waxman on LinkedInFuture of Marketing InstituteThe Neuron newsletterAxios AI newsletterLinkedIn Learning course: Using Generative Support the show On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America's Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands. On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the latest quarterly SAGA owner survey, which provides a mixed bag of results for agencies. They explore key findings, including the cautious optimism displayed by respondents, concerns about economic conditions, and the impact of government policies. Despite the varied performance of agencies, many are still managing to move forward. The discussion also delves into the benefits of project work, the size of client bases, and the lack of mergers and acquisitions activity. Chip and Gini encourage agency owners to stay informed about macroeconomic trends but also to focus on positive strategies to navigate uncertainties. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “It is certainly helpful to be looking at the big picture, but at the same time, it is important to recognize that the circumstances for every agency are very different, because their clients are different.” Gini Dietrich: “Don’t stick your head in the sand, but also don’t let current affairs completely overwhelm you so that you can’t get anything done.” Chip Griffin: “Despite the struggles, a lot of folks are doing well, which means you can too.” Gini Dietrich: “If revenue is down and you’re kind of struggling, this is a good time to start to market your agency. Start to do your own thought leadership. Start to do the things that you would do for clients to help your business stay afloat and build awareness and stay top of mind.” Resources Small PR and marketing agencies face economic uncertainty with cautious optimism Related What the Q4 SAGA Survey tells us about agency talent SAGA's Q4 Small Agency Owner Survey finds continued optimism, reveals talent trends Q3 agency owner survey shows overall optimism, but dissatisfaction with state of business development View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you’re a little under the weather today. Yeah. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna try to plow through this, but. I appreciate you. Gini Dietrich: This has been a rough, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. Whew. Chip Griffin: I’m glad that you have enough of a voice to actually, you know, participate in this. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I had to cancel LinkedIn live with Martin Waxman and Deidre Breckenridge last week ’cause I got on and they were like, yep, nope, it was not happening. Chip Griffin: Well, that, that is commitment and I, I do appreciate it. And today we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about the latest quarterly SAGA owner survey, that we had out in the field, in March. And so we’ve now got the opportunity to take a look and, and see what the results are. And so this particular survey had the usual quarterly outlet questions, where do people think, see things headed? How satisfied are they with their agency? But then we also took a deep dive this quarter on looking at last year’s performance. And I think the, the headline really was that it was sort of a mixed bag mm-hmm. For agencies last year. Mm-hmm. There was no clear trend as far as up or down. It was roughly evenly split amongst the respondents as far as who had good years and who had bad years. But there’s a, there’s a lot of other nuggets in there that I think we can dig into as well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I, I, I always think it’s interesting to see the, the quarterly report just because it’s, it’s good to get a sort of pulse on, you know, what we see as well and what we’re hearing and, and I think it, it validated much of what we’re hearing and what we’re seeing. I do find it interesting that there was such a mixed bag, of responses this, this quarter, which doesn’t typically happen. So it’s, it’s curious if it’s industry related or if it’s service related. But it was, it was a pretty good mixed bag, which was, which was interesting in and of itself. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think that, you know, overall, if we look at sort of the outlook piece of the puzzle, it’s, it’s fairly consistent with where it’s been for the last year, which is Yep. Sort of cautious optimism, mediocre satisfaction, but, you know, no, no great angst at the moment. You know, it’s just, it’s a little bit of a, you know, kind of a cautious optimism. Mm-hmm. I guess really is. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Is, is the way that I kind of keep describing it. And, and so we’ve been in a very tight range for the last year from that standpoint as far as outlook on things. I, we did have some questions in there about, some specific concerns that folks might have, particularly around the economy and government policy and some of the international trade issues that, that have cropped up. Mm-hmm. And I, I think the, the headline for me out of, out of that is that there is significant concern, particularly over the economic conditions and whether that may impact their agency this year, much less so on the international side, which is probably indicative of the fact that many of the agencies that responded were not involved in any kind of international business of a significant kind, and so therefore they’re less concerned about that impact on their business, at least at the moment. And, and obviously we know that international policy can certainly bleed over and affect domestic politics as well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And there was some stuff in there about the tariffs too and, and how that’s affecting some, I think there was a number of, like, one, one business owner spec specifically said it had affected their business by 40%, which is significant. So I think, again, it’s, you know, industry related, it’s services related. We have to kind of, this is why diversification is so important. Chip Griffin: Right. Well, and, and I think that, that some of those things are a really good reminder that. It, it, it is certainly helpful to be looking at, you know, the big picture and, and it’s something that I always want to do, but at the same time, it is, important to realize and recognize that the circumstances for every agency are very different, because their clients are different. That where they are is different. And so, you know, we’re gonna look here at the big trends, but you know, you may or may not see some of these same things in your own agency business because your situation is entirely different from everyone else. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s, I think that there were a couple other things that were really interesting to me. No mergers and acquisitions. Which I think is interesting. Nobody’s thinking about selling or buying, another agency or merging with another agency. I thought that was pretty interesting. The… Chip Griffin: I mean, I, I think there were people who were curious, but, but very few took any steps at all in that direction. I, I was comforted though that, that very few agency owners said that they were relying on a sale of their agency as an outcome for their own personal financial situation. And, and so that, to me, that was heartening because I have so many conversations with agency owners where I have to explain to them that they just don’t have a business that is likely to be sellable for any significant amount of money. Right. And that is true. The vast majority of agency owners are never going to sell for something that is really gonna make a major difference to their personal financial outlook, their retirement plans, that kind of stuff. And so the fact that people weren’t saying, yes, I have to do this in order to survive, made me feel better. Right? And, and so it, it, the vast majority of people who are thinking about potentially selling look at it as gravy and, and not, to put food on the table. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it, that was super interesting. I also thought the number of clients, I can’t put my fingers on it right at this exact moment, but, oh, here it is. The client base for agencies is generally small, with half having 10 or fewer clients, and the majority serving 30 or fewer, even 30 clients. I, I think it’s a lot of clients. Chip Griffin: Well, but, but keep in mind that that’s also total over the course of the year, so it’s not necessarily at one time. Okay. Right. And so for agencies that are doing project work, and we can see in this that that project work is a substantial percentage of the revenue for many of these agencies. If you’re doing a lot of project work, then it, you can certainly see those numbers creep up, right? So if you’re doing a lot of one or two month projects, then you could easily only have a half dozen clients at any given time, but still get to, you know, 25 clients over the course of the year just because of the way it, it’s all structured. But I, but I think it was, it was a good confirmation that the vast majority of agencies are, are not having, you know, dozens of clients and, and so it’s a, it, it, it gives us more ammunition when we talk on this show and elsewhere with agency owners or about agency owners. We say, look, you don’t, you don’t need 50, 60, a hundred clients. You, you really need a relatively small number at any given time in order to be successful. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. That’s why I always love the emails that I get. They’re like, we can get you 60 sales calls a month. I’m like, geez, I would die. Right, right. I don’t, I don’t want 60 sales calls a month. Chip Griffin: No. No, and, and it’s, I, I mean, and, and, and if you’re having that many and still only having, you know, 20 or 30 clients over the course of the year, then, then something would be wildly wrong. You shouldn’t be doing 30 new business calls a month. Right. And only having 30 clients over the course of the year. So, you know, just further ammunition to hit delete every time you see one of those. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Just, just absolutely stupid emails. Chip Griffin: But, you know, but I, I touched on it briefly, but, you know, project revenue is a significant piece of, of the puzzle for most agencies. And I know in my conversations with agency owners, a lot of them sort of turn their nose down at project work. Yeah. And, and you know, we really need to focus on retainer revenue, recurring revenue, that sort of thing. And by the way, I really wish that agency owners would not use the term monthly recurring revenue, because that’s, that’s a software term. I saw this, there was a discussion on LinkedIn about this, which I think was spot on. Don’t, don’t go grabbing terms from other industries and misusing them, because it is, it is something that is very different and it, it’s not nearly as magical as it sounds or as magical it is if you are in software as a service, for example, where MRR is absolutely the lifeblood, of those businesses and, and useful to them. It’s, it’s not quite the same for agencies and, and I think particularly in the environment we’re in. In fact, I just got a note from an agency owner, last night who said, you know. They’re actually looking at, at doing more project work, because that’s what works in the current environment, which is something we have been harping on for a long time. Particularly, any period of uncertainty. Yes, yes. It project work, but project work I, in my view, is it’s essential to the success of any agency. You should never be completely dependent upon retainer work because there are so many benefits to doing project work, whether that’s experimenting in new industries, doing different kinds of work, diversifying some of your income stream, testing new pricing models. There are a lot of benefits to project work, not just in uncertain times, but particularly now we’re seeing that, that it is a, a good chunk of the, the pie for a number of agencies. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s, yes. I mean, we’ve talked about that ad nauseum and it’s, it’s true. And we’ve talked about diversification too, and that helps with your diversification, so don’t turn your nose down to project work at all. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and when it comes to, to winning that, that new work, the vast majority of these agencies aren’t adding a whole lot of, whole lot of new clients on an annual basis. Last year, half of the, the agencies found five or fewer new clients. I mean, which makes sense. And that’s what we consistently say, that somewhere in that handful of new clients every year is probably what most of you should be shooting for. And so it isn’t a volume game and when you’re thinking about what you’re doing from an outreach perspective and from a marketing perspective for your agency, it’s really about the quality, not the quantity. And so, you know, I think that the survey just reinforces that point yet again. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s kinda like I say to friends all the time, I’m like, would you rather have 10 $2,500 a month clients or two. Like it’s, you know, it’s much easier to manage larger clients and less of them than a whole bunch of tiny ones. Chip Griffin: Yeah, absolutely. The other thing is we, we did ask for, freeform comments from folks, and so there were a lot of little nuggets. Gini Dietrich: They were great. Chip Griffin: In there. I think, I think some of them, you know, highlight some, some bigger picture things where, you know, one of the, the comments, said that the first half of last year was great and the second half sucked. And I think that that’s, you know, one of the things we need to remember is this survey looked at the entirety of the year, but that, that doesn’t, I mean, plenty of agencies may have made their year in the first quarter and then it went downhill from there. Others may have had a rebound mm-hmm. Towards the end of the year. Mm-hmm hmm. And particularly where we’re seeing this, this real balance between agencies who had growth and those who, who shrunk, you know that it is gonna be different for different firms. But I think that if we had to, if I had to summarize based on what I’m hearing outside of the survey, I would say in general, the, the second half was not softer, but, but I think there were more flags that popped up, particularly towards the end of the year. And, and obviously I think as we start the, this year, many of the agencies I’m talking with are having concerns just generally about where things are headed. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Well, it’s. I’ve said this before, but I think one of the biggest mistakes that I personally made during the great recession is I ignored all the signs ’cause I was so naive and I didn’t, I didn’t really understand how it would affect my business. And so paying attention to what’s happening, certainly inside the country, paying attention to what’s happening globally, paying attention to all of the executive orders that are happening, like these things are going to affect the business. And it’s going to affect some of you more than others, depending on what kind of work that you do, but you have to pay attention to what’s happening at a macroeconomic level so that you understand what’s gonna happen to your business. Chip Griffin: Well, I, I think it has a psychological impact as well, not just on, on the individual owners, but but also on clients, right? Sure. And so when you are in a situation where you, you put on the news and every day it’s just piles and piles of, of, of bad news or chaos or concern or those kinds of things that, that bleeds over. And it, it does impact how people make decisions and. You know, I, I would say that it’s important to, to recognize all those things and be aware of all those things at the same time, you can’t let it consume you. And, and so, you know, while there are concerns that, that are raised by this survey, it also shows that a lot of agencies are, are being able to move through them or feel like they will be able to move through them. And, and you have to have that mindset. If you have the mindset that, you know, it’s just, it, everything’s going to hell in a hand basket. And, and there’s nothing you can do about it, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so, you know, I’m not suggesting you stick your head in the sand and ignore all these things, but at the same time, you’ve gotta focus on, okay, all of these things are happening. I have all of these challenges. How do I keep moving forward? How do I work with my team to keep moving forward? How do I help my clients to move forward? Because that’s, that’s necessary if you want to succeed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I absolutely, and yes, do not, don’t stick your head in the sand, but also don’t let it completely overwhelm you so that you can’t get anything done. That’s a good takeaway there. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s also important to understand that, that despite the struggles, a lot of folks are doing well, which means you can too. And, and so you should take hope from that. I mean, some of the comments that, that we got in the survey from folks who, you know, had good years last year, you know, they, they talk about going in the right direction. Their profitability is improving. They managed to work through even losing a big client because there were other things that, that made up for it. And so when you see those things, that’s heartening and, and I would encourage you if you had a rough year, if you’re concerned about this year, look at the survey results and, and see that there is hope there and that I, I’m particularly heartened by the ones who say we had this speed bump, but we got through. It and, and it’s, it’s an absolute reminder that you can do that and should try to do that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think it’s a also a good time that if, if, if revenue is down and you’re kind of struggling, this is a good time to start to market your agency. Start to do your own thought leadership. Start to do the things that you would do for clients to help your business stay afloat and build awareness and stay top of mind because this, this is a good time to do that kind of stuff too. It doesn’t pay the bills necessarily right in this exact moment, but it does have the long tail effect. Chip Griffin: Yep. One other thing I would note is that, that in asking folks to describe their outlook for the year, so you know, obviously we do a lot of numerical assessments of these, in the surveys, but, but in this case we asked for sort of open-ended responses. How do you see the year shaping up? And, and I would say that in there is, is where we saw a number of folks expressing the concerns about the, the broader economy, expressing concerns about the impact of government policy, as you say, some indicating that they’ve already lost revenue either because of some of the, the tariff policies or other government policies. And, and, and frankly, you know, when, when this survey went out into the field in late February, early March, a lot of those, those cuts were still not in effect here in the US and so there’s, there is more to come for more agencies in that regard as, the, the NGOs, or even private businesses that they’re doing work with feel the impact of these either directly or because they’re rumored. And so businesses are, I, I mean, I’ve talked with a number of business leaders outside of the agency world who are like, you know, we, we just don’t know what’s going to happen. We know that, that there’s talk of these things happening. So we have to be really careful. We have to, to husband our cash in order to be able to be in a position to deal with some of these things if they happen. And, and so agencies will undoubtedly feel that even more than they already have. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s just smart to pay attention and it’ll definitely be interesting to see what the quarter two survey brings. But you, you do have to be prepared. You have to not stick your head in the sand. You have to understand, but you also have to continue to move forward. So do the best that you can do. That’s all that we can do. Chip Griffin: That is, that is absolutely all that we can do. But there, there are all sorts of these nuggets in there. And so I would certainly encourage you if you are interested in, in learning more about, , you know, how your, your peers have been performing, what insights they have to share with you, you can go to the SAGA website and get a free copy of this so that you can dig into all of that data yourself. And, we certainly appreciate all of the, the agency owners who have taken the time to participate in these surveys, will continue to participate in these surveys because, you know, I, I, I know that, that we love to see hard data in addition to all of the anecdotal things that we share with you week in and week out. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And particularly, particularly when that anecdotal data is backed up by the hard data. So that, that we don’t look quite as crazy as, as we might otherwise. So, any other parting words on, on this quarter’s survey before we give your voice a rest. Gini Dietrich: No, I just thought that the owner or the comments, the freeform comments were my favorite part. So download it. Just so you can see some of them because it’s, it’s an entertaining read. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I, and I do try to include as many of the, the freeform comments as I can, as long as they are, you know, not giving away too much or Right, right. Or those sorts of things. ’cause a lot of folks are very candid, which I appreciate and it’s, it’s great intel, but at the same time, I wanna be cautious about how much we we share of that publicly. Yes. But there is certainly a lot of stuff in there that I think will resonate with a lot of you and, and may also spur you to do some additional thinking. There are comments in there around AI, for example, in addition to, to economic stuff. So there’s, there’s all sorts of things in there that I think you might find of value. Gini Dietrich: Cool. Well, yep. Download it. Take a look. Chip Griffin: So with that, we will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

Is AI the superglue that can repair our fractured media universe? Or is it just another tool that could further splinter our audiences? In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with digital marketing expert, leading AI researcher, and prolific LinkedIn Learning course creator Martin Waxman. A professor at McMaster University, associate director of the Future of Marketing Institute, and member of the Institute for Public Relations Digital Media Center, Martin has been leading the AI charge for the Communications profession through his Digital Marketing Trends newsletter and the LinkedIn Live DM Show (with recent TTC guest, Deirdre Breakenridge).  In other words, he's just the guy Dan needs to speak with to unpack the complexities of generative AI in the world of marketing and PR. This episode tackles the pressing questions facing communicators in 2025: How can we effectively use AI to reach fragmented audiences? What are the risks of over-relying on AI for content creation? And how can we maintain our creativity and critical thinking skills in an AI-driven world? Dan and Martin discuss the parallels between the early days of social media adoption and the current AI revolution, highlighting the importance of developing AI policies and guidelines within organizations. They also address the fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO) that many professionals are experiencing in the face of rapid technological change. The conversation takes a practical turn as Martin shares his favorite AI tools for various tasks, from content generation to image creation. Listeners will gain insights into how to integrate these tools into their workflow without sacrificing creativity or quality. Whether you're an AI enthusiast or a skeptic, this episode offers a balanced perspective on the role of generative AI in shaping the future of communications. Martin's call to action for professionals to be proactive, entrepreneurial, and initiative-taking with AI tools serves as a rallying cry for the industry. Don't miss this thought-provoking discussion that will challenge you to rethink your approach to AI in communications and marketing. Tune in to discover how you can harness the power of AI while maintaining the human touch that sets great communicators apart. Listen in and hear about... Navigating the fractured landscape of modern communications AI's potential to revolutionize content creation and distribution Balancing efficiency gains with maintaining creative integrity Strategies for avoiding "AI slop" and enhancing originality Essential AI tools for marketers and communicators in 2025 Cultivating critical thinking skills in the age of generative AI Future trends in AI-driven marketing and public relations Notable Quotes On the Fractured Landscape: "Sometimes I think the word of the year for 2024 should be fractured. As in the fractured. Fill in the blank landscape, the fractured media landscape, the social media landscape, the fractured political landscape, the fractured audience landscape." - Dan Nestle [00:00 - 00:17] AI's Role in Communication: "Instead of writing 15 versions of an article for 15 channels, we can write and easily use AI to repurpose it 15 ways." - Dan Nestle [00:45 - 00:52] On AI Adoption: "It feels like to me, with all the announcements that were packed into the last two weeks of December, plus all the hype we've heard for the entire year, it just. It reminds me of a Jenga game that the tech companies. Or Jenga game. How about that? The tech companies are playing with each, and they keep going higher and higher and higher as it gets a little bit shakier." - Martin Waxman [08:24 - 08:46] Fear of Becoming Obsolete: "There's actually a term for this. It's called FOBO, the fear of becoming obsolete. And it's really real. There's been studies around this." - Martin Waxman [09:18 - 09:25] On AI Slop: "I just want next year to be the year where we get rid of AI slop. And there's certain words I never want to see again. I never want to see the word leverage anymore. Unless you're talking about actually, you know, using something or moving something with a lever." - Martin Waxman [44:36 - 44:50] The Learning Curve with AI: "We have to factor in and. And you touched on this. The learning curve that we have, learning how to talk to machines. Yeah, we can talk to people, but we need to learn how to talk to machines better." - Martin Waxman [43:54 - 44:05] On Being Proactive with AI: "We are all newbies, we're all neophytes in this. I mean, it may feel like it's been around forever. It hasn't. So we all have an opportunity to figure out how the tools work, how we can use them more effectively. But we need to be proactive, we need to be entrepreneurial, and we need to take some initiative with them" - Martin Waxman [1:03:57 - 1:04:18] Resources and Links Dan Nestle Inquisitive Communications | Website The Trending Communicator | Website Communications Trends from Trending Communicators | Dan Nestle's Substack Dan Nestle | LinkedIn Dan Nestle | Twitter/X Martin Waxman Martin Waxman Communications | Website Martin Waxman | LinkedIn Digital Marketing Trends | LinkedIn Newsletter Generative AI for Digital Marketers | LinkedIn Learning Course Timestamped key moments from this episode (as generated by Fireflies.ai)

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the pros and cons of using LinkedIn for agency growth and professional engagement. They touch upon the challenges of spam and overautomation, and emphasize the importance of personalized, thoughtful interactions. They also share strategies for repurposing content, such as tailoring blog posts to different audiences when posting on LinkedIn. They address the increased use of LinkedIn direct messages for networking and provide insights on effective commenting. Additionally, they briefly discuss the appropriateness of political posts on LinkedIn and recommend focusing on values rather than partisan views. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “Writing LinkedIn comments that are thoughtful and interesting are going to be so much more effective than having AI summarize the content for you and write the comment. Please don’t do that.” Chip Griffin: “LinkedIn works best like most social platforms when you’re being genuine and and authentic.” Gini Dietrich: “If you’re going to produce new content on LinkedIn, I love the idea of testing out a topic or an idea. Or repurpose other content, and you really only have to do something once a week.” Chip Griffin: “LinkedIn direct messages should be from one human to another human. Period. Stop.” Related How agencies can get the most out of LinkedIn (featuring Chuck Hester) How agencies can use LinkedIn ads to grow their businesses (featuring Anthony Blatner) The future of events and other agency biz dev tactics View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, I think maybe I’ll just start sending you direct messages on LinkedIn from now on. That’s the only way I’ll communicate with you. Gini Dietrich: Awesome. Well, that’s one way. Chip Griffin: It’s one way. Gini Dietrich: I might not get back to you immediately. Chip Griffin: The problem is, I was going to say, if you respond to me, I probably will not see, cause I get so much spam in my LinkedIn direct messages that I very rarely actually look at them. And usually as soon as I do, I will tell whoever legitimate is reaching out to me that I do want to talk to. Here’s my email address. Send me an email. We can, we can pick it up over there. Cause you’ll get a much more timely response. Gini Dietrich: Do you accept all LinkedIn connection requests? Chip Griffin: I do not. Gini Dietrich: Okay. Chip Griffin: I used years ago I used to do that, but then I got flooded with just a bunch of junk and, and nowadays so many spammers are, I mean, just obvious spammers are many are trying to connect many. So at this point, I, I’m looser than I used to be in that I don’t only connect with people who I actually know. I will also connect with agency owners, for example, if they’re, they appear to be, you know, operating a legitimate agency and not one who’s trying to spam me. Sometimes I guess wrong. And then all of a sudden I’ve opened up my inbox to nonsensical pitches, but most of the time I’m pretty good at guessing. So yeah, it’s tough. LinkedIn is a great platform, and these days it’s one of the few where you can actually communicate professionally because X/Twitter has sort of, well, not sort of, it has deteriorated. It’s become sort of a little bit of business and lots of cesspool. Gini Dietrich: Definitely a dumpster fire. Chip Griffin: So, you know, as useful as it used to be, it is not useful today. So I thought it’d be helpful if we talked about LinkedIn and, and thought about how are agencies using it? How can agencies use it? Not so much on behalf of their clients, but on behalf of themselves, growing their business, learning, all that kind of thing. And, and I think there are some do’s and don’ts. I think we can share some things from our experience that we’ve seen work and that we have seen not work so much and things that frankly irritate us. We’ll, we’ll certainly mix those things in. Gini Dietrich: Of course, because we’re not us without it. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, if we didn’t complain about something, people, people would think that they were listening to a different podcast. So plenty of plenty of whine with this episode. Gini Dietrich: Plenty of whine. We love to whine. You know, there was actually a Spin Sucks community discussion about this. And somebody had posted, are you using LinkedIn in a way that’s different from your content on the blog or is it the same? And I think it started a really nice conversation because I think, you know, to our tagline, it depends, right? You know, for me, I do use the same content, but what I do is I, I write first for PR firm or PR professionals, communicators, because that’s our target audience on the Spin Sucks side. And so that’s, that’s who I write for first. But then when I repost usually about two months later to LinkedIn. I rejigger the content to be focused on the business leader. So while I might talk about with a PR professional, I might talk about the things that you should do to prepare your CEO to speak out on politics or to take a stance on their values. I’ll rejigger that content so that it’s to the business leader to talk about here are the things that you should be thinking about. So it’s, I don’t have to do a complete rewrite, but I do have to switch it up a little bit to be more focused on the audience there. I have seen some like Martin Waxman and Andy Crestodina. They both create content for their blogs and then just do a complete repurpose on LinkedIn. Same day that it’s published to the blog, it’s publishes to LinkedIn and it’s the same content. Different audiences, maybe not the same subscribers. There might be some overlap, but I think that they’re just doing a complete, complete, like just copy and paste essentially. So I think there are pros and cons and it depends on your audiences, right? If your audience for the blog is the same as the audience in LinkedIn, then that probably makes sense. But if it’s not, then you should think about who your audience is for both places. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think sometimes it can make sense to split them even if it is a similar audience because then you can have an opportunity to have another bite at the apple, right? So if you post to your blog and someone is busy that week or on vacation or something like that, And then you post in on LinkedIn, you know, three, four weeks later or a month or two later. Well, now, now they’ve, they’ve got another opportunity to see it. So I, I think personally that there is some value in splitting out content. The place where I don’t do that is with my newsletter. So with, with my email newsletter, I do match that with LinkedIn. Usually LinkedIn is a little bit delayed by half a day or so, from the, the email. Honestly, that’s more because I post manually to LinkedIn and we’ve, scheduled with email so so that timing really depends on what my day looks like on Fridays when I when I post it and occasionally I don’t get to it doesn’t go up till Saturday because it’s a manual post. But you know, I do think that repurposing content in some fashion is beneficial. The other thing that I do is I will test things on LinkedIn. So I will, I will write a shorter version or something that I’m thinking about writing a longer piece on and just kind of throw it out there, see if it gets any reaction. If it doesn’t get any, that doesn’t, doesn’t mean necessarily I won’t pursue it, but if it gets a strong reaction lots of feedback, then it makes it much more likely I, I bubble it up higher in my queue to do a full article on. Gini Dietrich: That’s a really good idea. That’s, that’s a good best practice. I think for agencies. There are some people who are doing a really nice job there. I think, you know, there it, There are some that I started out thinking they were doing a nice job, but then it got to be overwhelming because it was multiple times a day or at least daily, which I think is too much because the algorithm isn’t like the other places where it’s showing you people you don’t know. The algorithm on LinkedIn is still showing you people, you know, which is great. Or people that you follow, which is great. That’s, that’s what it should do. But it also gives you content from those same people. Quite a lot. And you’re just the, every time you, every time I open LinkedIn, there’s one person there all the time. Like you’re smart, but I don’t need to see you 25 times a day. Chip Griffin: I think I know who that is, but I will, I will let that, I’ve, I’ve actually got a couple of those who are multiple times a day posters. And so my feed tends to be fairly inundated with them all, not necessarily always in a timely fashion. I think, you know, right now, the, as we record this, the, the LinkedIn algorithm seems to prefer not more than one post a day, as far as actually getting, broad distribution. And I can tell you from looking at my own numbers, that it seems to be anecdotally backed up that that on days where I do more than one, they both suffer or all of them. Interesting. If I do more than than two. You know, that said, LinkedIn will keep posts around for a fairly long period of time. Gini Dietrich: It does. Yep. Chip Griffin: So, you know, I don’t necessarily think you even need to be certainly I don’t think you need to post multiple times a day. I think if you’ve got the urge to be creating that much content on LinkedIn, that’s fine. But but do the other things as comments, because those will also bubble up in feeds. Gini Dietrich: They do bubble up. Chip Griffin: Which which you have the added benefit that you’re engaging with someone else who’s got a different audience than you do. So your folks will still see it because it will say Chip Griffin commented on. And so they’re still seeing your thoughts. They’re still seeing you being active. And so to me, my advice would be if you want to be that active on LinkedIn, that’s great. Just use it in the comment field as opposed to creating fresh posts, you know, every two hours. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I will say, though, on the comments that I have noticed this on my own content that there are a certain number of agencies, a handful of agencies who have maybe said to their team, somebody on their team, you’re in charge of LinkedIn and I got advice to be commenting on content. So I’d like you to read these people and then comment on their content as the agency. Nothing wrong with that. However, there are some that are having AI analyze the content, provide a synopsis, and then write the comment. And as the person who is receiving the comment, I can tell that that’s what’s happening. I know every single time if that’s what’s happened. And quite honestly, it makes your agency look dumb. Like it doesn’t, it doesn’t provide any value. It doesn’t provide any thought leadership. It doesn’t provide any value. And there’s no ability for us, for us to engage because it’s literally a robot who is, who has created it. So I will say that if you take the extra time to write a thoughtful comment that allows for engagement, especially on content where, you know, it’s, it’s an influencer that’s going to do business with you. It’s a journalist. It’s, a prospect, somebody who you’d love to do work with. Writing comments that are thoughtful and interesting are going to be so much more effective than having the AI summarize the content for you and write the comment. Please don’t do that. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean, look, LinkedIn works best like most of most social platforms when you’re being genuine and and authentic to overuse that that term that’s been around for as long as social media has been. And so you need to be directly engaging with people in a way that you’re able to demonstrate what you actually think and who you actually are. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: I mean, it’s okay to, to show a bit of your personality. So if you see my comments on LinkedIn, there’s probably going to be a little bit of snark, sarcasm, and humor in there because that’s generally what I do. And so if I don’t have that, you know, then I’m probably too tired that day to put that effort in who knows. But, but it, it shouldn’t read like AI. It shouldn’t be something you have an intern do. It should be something that you ae doing personally. Even if that means you do a lot less of it, because it really is about the quality of it not the quantity of it. And speaking of quantity, these, these folks who like to spam tag people in their posts, right? Where they, they put together a post and they, and there are two ways. There’s the really awful way, which is at the end, they, they post like three paragraphs and at the end, they just have a long list of people that they’re tagging. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: That I find to be utterly obnoxious. Yes. And, and it, and 100% agree, and, and I, 99.9% of the time will not take the bait. If I get tagged, I will not comment. I will, I will ignore you. Just stop it. Other people will do it where they, they tag a bunch of people, but it’s in the, they do it in the text like, well, you know, Chip said this and Gini said that, and Yep, yep. Okay. If it, if it actually fits. Okay. But, but don’t, I don’t see the need to just chalk it full of it. I mean, sometimes I will, I will share as I did actually over the weekend. I, I shared an article that Sharon Torek wrote on classification of independent contractors and I tagged her in that because that’s the right thing to do. She had a great resource. I was pointing the resource out and directing people to it. That makes sense. Now, if I had done that and then tagged every other lawyer in the agency field or every other HR person in the agency field, I mean, to me, that would be silly and not productive. So be thoughtful about it. Absolutely tag people when it’s relevant, but don’t just tag people so that you, you know, hope to trick the algorithm or bait people into commenting or whatever. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I’m, I’m the same way where I’m just like, Oh, come on, really? And then you read the comment or the content and you’re like, I don’t know why you tagged me in this. Right. Ah! Yes. Right. Yeah, it’s playing on their audience, which I think is shady. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, and occasionally if you’re trying to be provocative, you know, you know that, I don’t know, you know that I’m opposed to RFPs, you post something, you know, pro RFP, and then you tag me, you know, so what do you think? I don’t love that either, but at least it makes, it kind of makes sense in that context. And, and sometimes I will take the bait on that because I, you know, I can’t help that. Gini Dietrich: Can’t help yourself? Chip Griffin: No, I can’t help myself. Gini Dietrich: Now everyone knows the secret. Just post that RFPs are great. Chip Griffin: Yeah, there you go. Anyway, please don’t do that. Gini Dietrich: I’ll give you a list of things you could post about and tag him. Chip Griffin: It’s probably better to give them a list of things that won’t get me riled up because I am, I am easily provoked. In any case, so, so speaking of being provoked and, and, you know, not necessarily being thoughtful in what you post, let’s talk about politics. And I don’t mean, let’s actually talk about politics, but should people be talking about politics on LinkedIn? Cause I, I mean, I have seen a lot more political posts in my LinkedIn feed in the past few months than probably my entire history of being on LinkedIn. I mean, political stuff used to be relegated to primarily to Twitter, maybe a little bit on Facebook, but LinkedIn was pretty much a, a politics and religion free zone. And it, it seems like it is perhaps because Twitter has its issues, people have decided that, well, might as well share it here. Or maybe it’s the people are buying into this whole concept that people want to know what companies think, which I think is rubbish, by the way. I don’t think people want to know what companies think on issues. Gini Dietrich: I think, I think that this is probably a topic for a different day. I think that people want to understand i if I am pro choice. I want to understand if you are donating money to anti abortion organizations. I think that people do want to know that. And I see this with the kids a lot where they’re like, I’m not gonna, they won’t go to Chick-fil-A. They will not go to Chick-fil-A because they understand that it does not support their values. Doesn’t matter how good their french fries are. These kids will not go to Chick-fil-A. That’s neither here nor there. What I think the challenge is, is you can talk about things that are happening in the world without making it political. So instead of like, Sticker Mule, who a couple of weeks ago sent an email saying, Oh, everybody’s mad because Trump’s a bad guy and I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I think that we should be able to support him and go Trump and here, buy a t shirt. That’s not the right way to do it. If you want to talk about the fact that there was an assassination attempt on him and that we should call for unity, and this is the way that our country is divided as ridiculous, that’s a different message, but saying that I support Trump and I’m scared to say that because I think people are going to come after me is not the right message. So when you think about, and this is, this goes for your clients too. Like when you think about how you’re going to position it, think about it less from a political standpoint and more from a, it’s a value or it’s a stance or it’s like the, the issue. Like I’m against climate change. And I think we should do X, Y and Z. I’m against guns and I think that we should have gun control because of X, Y and Z. So it’s less about the politics and more about the issues. I think that some people do it well, and some people don’t. Sticker Mule’s a great example of not doing it well at all. Chip Griffin: So, so I, I, I think we should add this to our list of topics for a future conversation, talking more about politics generally and, and what agencies should do, how they should advise clients, that kind of stuff. Because I, even though our own politics here are somewhat meshed, I, I think that, my views of how you can talk about politics and whether you should talk about politics may be a bit different than most people. So I, I think that’s probably a worthwhile conversation and out of the corner of my eye I can see you already typing it into our, our shared Google Doc where we have topics. So, but, but I think when it comes to LinkedIn, I, I think you do need to be careful about talking about politics, period, because it’s, it is not the conventional thing to discuss on politics or, to discuss on LinkedIn. So if you are going to do it, you need to be really thoughtful about it, because it is, it, it jumps out at you a lot more when you see it there. Sure. And, and so the reactions are likely to be stronger as a result. If you see someone commenting on politics on Twitter, you’re like, of course, that’s that’s what they do. And maybe you kind of move on. You see it on LinkedIn. And if you disagree with it, in particular, you are likely to have an even stronger reaction, I think, than if you saw the exact same thing posted by the exact same person on another platform. So just be mindful of that, if you’re going to talk about politics on LinkedIn. So in general, I would encourage you not to. I don’t, I don’t think unless it is core to your business, like if you’re running an advocacy firm or something, advocacy agency, of course, sure. Talk about politics, right? I mean, that’s, that’s your key audience, but really think about whether your audience wants to be hearing you chatting about politics on, on LinkedIn. So that would be my general advice there, but… Gini Dietrich: I think generally I would agree with that. Chip Griffin: But we can look at the topic more broadly as well in a future episode, because I think, particularly as we get deeper into political season here in the U. S., how we’re acting as agencies and leaders and how we’re advising our clients, you know, we need to be thoughtful about that, too, because there are a lot of things to take into consideration. But back to LinkedIn. So, you know, the other area that we haven’t, we started the conversation here was on direct messaging on LinkedIn. And so, you know, how do you, how do you go about using direct messages properly on LinkedIn? Gini Dietrich: So I’ve actually noticed a big increase in DMing with journalists on LinkedIn, which has never happened. And probably in the last 30 or 45 days, I’ve gotten more requests there via DM from journalists than anywhere else. So I would say number one, pay attention to that, especially for PR firms, because that seems to be where people are going. I also read a Columbia Journal, Journalism Institute article that said they’re going to Reddit as well. So that’s another thing, but that’s not the topic of today. But I’ve seen a big increase in that. I’ve seen, seen a big increase in, inviting like guests for podcasting and things like that., And I’ve seen a gigantic increase in, we can, and we’ve talked about this before, we can get you 10 to 12 new clients a month. Can we set that up for you? Like, no, I don’t want 10 to 12 new clients a month. No, stop it. I mean, I probably get 10 of those a day. A day, which is crap. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, and my favorite is I haven’t heard back from you on this. And you get that more in email because LinkedIn, at least if it’s in mail, you can’t hit someone repeatedly. Email, I get it all the time where people will follow up a few days later. I haven’t heard back from you on this yet. You’re not gonna, cause it’s a dumb ass request and I’m not paying any attention to it. You know, the same thing people want to be guests on this podcast on something that’s not even related to agencies. A, we have never had a guest we’ve been doing this for six years now. We have never had a single guest. So don’t pitch me on get, and by the way, if you’re going to make it relevant to agencies, at least. Gini Dietrich: I got one yes this morning that was, I, I stopped by your facility over the weekend and noticed you could use a cleaning crew. Oh, did you now? Chip Griffin: Cleaning services are all, it’s unbelievable. Who is out there that’s running these janitorial service campaigns that spam people? Because I get it on every email account for all of my businesses right now. I mean, do you need janitors? No, I don’t have an office For any of the businesses I don’t care what and the funny thing is I will get like three of them in a row because I have multiple websites for the different businesses and they all get spammed at the same time Come on guys, this is just stupid Please stop it, knock it off. But if you’re going to do direct messaging, then make sure that you are also making it clear that it is actually a personalized message. So by the way, make sure it’s personalized message. Please, dear God, do not hire these agencies that do it for you. And I’m sorry to any of you agencies out there who may be listening. Please do not run direct messaging campaigns on LinkedIn. LinkedIn direct messages should be from one human to another human. Period. Stop. Just knock it off. It is, LinkedIn is a very inconvenient platform for doing direct messaging on. In fact, if someone messaged me on LinkedIn, I always just say, email me. Here you go. Here’s my email address. I’m happy. I’m like, publish my email address online. It’s not hard to find me. Let’s move it over there because I will be able to respond to you in a more timely fashion. I will not miss messages. If you send it on LinkedIn, I miss them because there’s so much spam in there. I don’t look at them very often. Yeah. It’s hard to mark something for follow up. You know, if it comes into my inbox, I just flag it and say, okay, I can’t respond right now, but I’ll respond at the end of the day or tomorrow morning. Whenever I’m doing my next batch of responses. You can’t do that on LinkedIn. The same reason I don’t accept text messages from anybody. I don’t even give anybody a real text number. Okay, you have the real text number. Fine. I, I, as soon as I started saying it, I could see the gears churning in your head. You were going to, you were going to brag about the fact that you were one of like five people who has my actual real text number. Gini Dietrich: In fairness though, it did take six years to get it. Chip Griffin: Would you like to share with listeners why you got it? We’ll tell that story another day. Gini Dietrich: I would like, I would, I will definitely tell that story another day. Yes. Chip Griffin: In any case, so do we have other advice on LinkedIn while we’re at it or should we just? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s don’t be, don’t be gross. Don’t use AI to write your comments. If you’re going to produce new content there, I love the idea of testing out, you know, a topic or an idea. Just as a short post that you discussed in doing that. Repurpose other content, and you really only have to do something once a week. It doesn’t have to be every day. Chip Griffin: Right. For fresh content. I mean, I think youshould be on there every day, commenting, liking, doing things like that. And from a networking perspective, a business development perspective, it’s fantastic because when you hit like on a post, what happens? That person gets a notification. When you comment, what happens? That person gets a notification. When you tag them, they get a notification. You can write recommendations. They get a notification. They get a warm, fuzzy feeling. There are so many things that you can do with LinkedIn to just stay on someone’s radar. And it doesn’t require a lot of, I mean, literally just hitting like. If you’ve got people who you would like to work with, just periodically hit like on one of their posts. I mean, it’s so simple and yet it will keep your name out there. So that they’re like, Oh, right. Gini Dietrich: It’s a great idea. Chip Griffin: Keep it simple. Keep it simple. You don’t, it doesn’t need to be really complicated. Gini Dietrich: Yep. I like it. Chip Griffin: All right. Well, we’ll keep it really simple and draw this episode to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

You trust your team, right? In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of agency owners letting go of micromanaging, trusting their team, and focusing on building a scalable business. They emphasize the need for owners to delegate tasks and avoid being bottlenecks. They also touch on the challenges and benefits of transitioning from being deeply involved in all aspects of the business to taking on a more strategic role. The conversation underscores the significance of balancing involvement while ensuring clients feel supported and valued. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “As agency owners, we think that clients expect us, expect our process, and we don’t want to admit that the people that we’ve hired can be better at our job than we are. And so we should let them do their jobs.” Chip Griffin: “It’s not logically consistent to be growing a scalable business where you are still in the weeds with every client.” Gini Dietrich: “Put yourself in their shoes. If you were a senior level person at an agency and your boss, the agency owner, wanted to review everything that you produced, at your level of experience, how frustrating would that be?” Chip Griffin: “You can’t say, well, yes, of course I trust my team, and then demonstrate that you don’t by doing things like insisting on reading every piece of content that goes out to a client or sitting in on every conversation with a client.” Related Letting go as an agency owner Micromanage your way to agency failure Managing Gen Z agency employees (and anyone else with less experience than you) Managing employees in a small agency (webinar) View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, sometimes I feel like we’re not really successful in communicating essential messages to listeners and one topic seems to be something that we cover annually, right around this time, as we discovered just before we started recording this as we were discussing our topics and we said, have we talked about that before? And, and it turns out we did. We’ve discussed this in May of 2023 in May in 2022, and probably other times as well, but… May have 21. Yeah, probably. So this is, this is an annual reminder to agency owners today. Gini Dietrich: So actually I had breakfast with Martin Waxman, a couple of days ago and he was in town for the Reagan conference. And he said to me, I’ve been thinking a lot about running an agency. He owned, he ran an agency for a while and then he sold to another agency where he was partners with somebody. And then he ended up leaving that agency. So it’s been a couple of, a few years since he’s been running his own business. But he said to me, I’ve been thinking about it. And I’m curious what some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned as an agency owner are. And through the conversation, it was things like, you have to give up control. Not every, don’t let perfect get in the way of being finished. Let your employees do their job and don’t micromanage. It was all of those things that I think And he agreed, you know, as agency owners, we tend to do, because whether we realize it or not, our name’s on the door, we think that clients expect us, they think, we think that they expect our process, and we don’t want to admit, right or wrong, that the people that we’ve hired can be better at our job than we are. And so we should let them do it. Let them do their jobs. Chip Griffin: Let them do their jobs. And I mean, honestly, it comes back to, we all need to think about as agency owners, what do we want? Right. Do we want to effectively be solos who are in the weeds doing everything? And that’s where we get our satisfaction from, or are we trying to build a scalable business, a true agency in the fullest sense of the word? And the problem is when, when your stated objective is to become a full fledged business that perhaps you can sell one day or that runs itself or something like that, when you say that, but you act as if you are still a solo. You are still a freelancer. You are still in the weeds doing everything day to day. And you really need to pick one of those two paths. I always talk about, you can make your business anything you want. You can, but within reason, right? It has to be logically consistent, and it’s not logically consistent to be growing a scalable business where you are still in the weeds with every client. Gini Dietrich: Right. You know, when I started my business, I, and I’m sure I’ve, I’ve said this before on this podcast, but I had a business coach who said to me, you need to decide if you want to be a really good business owner or a business grower or a really good communicator. And at the time I thought, well, I really want to be a really good business grower. I want to grow the agency. I want to do all the things. And I started down that path and we got to almost 40 employees and you know, all the things that came with it and I realized that’s not really what I wanted to do. I was miserable. I don’t think I was mature enough yet in age or in agents business owning life to admit that. So I kind of faltered for a few years as I tried to figure that out. But as, as soon as I discovered that that’s not what was, gave me satisfaction, that’s not what I was passionate about. I was able to transition myself into more of a chief communications officer role. And I hired somebody to, to be the business growth person. So I relay that so that you understand that. You can, you can say we’re going to grow an agency, but you don’t have to be the one to do it. And if you’re going to grow an agency, you certainly can’t be the one that’s servicing all of the clients and doing all of the things. You have to decide what it is that’s, to your point, what you’re passionate about, what gives you the best, the most satisfaction, and focus on that. And then hire people around you to do all the other stuff. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And it comes down to trust. You have to trust the team that you’re building. And you can’t say, well, yes, of course I trust them. And then demonstrate that you don’t by doing things like insisting on reading every piece of content that goes out to a client or sitting in on every conversation with a client. These are all signals to your team, to your clients, and frankly, to yourself that you don’t trust the team that you’ve built. And if you don’t trust them, you will never, ever get to the point where you can step out of that day to day and focus on whatever it is that you want, whether that’s providing that that high level advice to clients when it’s absolutely necessary or growing the business or sitting back and enjoying mai tais somewhere half of the month because all of the engines are firing properly and you don’t need to do a lot of servicing. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I say to friends who are agency owners and to clients who are agency owners as well is put yourself in their shoes. So if you were a senior level person at an agency and your boss, the agency owner, wanted to review everything that you produced, everything you wrote, everything that you created, everything, every email that you sent to clients they wanted to be copied on, they wanted to be, they wanted to have a say in it. From your, at your level of experience, how frustrating would that be? Like I would be beside myself. I’d be like, you’re not freaking reading my emails. Let me do my job. That’s why you hired me. I would like, it would not, I would not laugh. And I know that for a fact. So I always think about that from my perspective. If I’m saying to a colleague, an employee, I want to see that, what message am I delivering to them? Go, go forth and prosper. Like, unless it’s something really strategic or we’re in a crisis, Do your thing. That’s why I’ve hired you. I don’t want to see all of it. I don’t have time to see all of it. I don’t want to be a bottleneck. You don’t want me to be a bottleneck, so go do your job. Chip Griffin: Well, and the irony is that many of these same owners will complain about clients who micromanage the agency, yet think nothing of micromanaging their own teams. Gini Dietrich: Right. Fair. Chip Griffin: And so I think it’s, it’s helpful to reflect on all of your behavior to understand First of all, is it absolutely necessary? And secondly, what signal does it send? Because if you have a team that you truly do need to be hands on with all of the content, you have the wrong team. You ought to have people who can send client ready material. Now, maybe not on day one when they’re, you know, first starting to work for you. I mean, certainly people need time to adjust and they need to learn your agency’s way of doing things, your style, your standards. Fine. I get that. But at some point, sooner rather than later, you need to let go and allow them to do their jobs. And you need to remember. Is there risk in that? Of course, there’s risk in that, but there’s risk in everything and most of those risks are really not that large. I mean, 99. 9 percent of the time, if you send a press release draft to a client or a blog post or whatever, and they don’t like it, it’s not going to cause them to call up and say, we’re done. We’re out of here. Are there 0. 01 percent of the time where you might screw up that badly on something simple? Yeah, there’s risk in everything. I mean, I was watching an episode of FBI recently, the Dick Wolf show, and, there’s a married couple on there and they were talking about how, you know, geez, they were going on vacation and, and should they fly on separate planes because they have a kid that is carrying risk mitigation to an extreme. Gini Dietrich: Now I’m going to have to worry about that. Thanks. Chip Griffin: I mean, it’s, it, it is, it is one of those things where can you try to guard against every risk? You can try, you will fail, you cannot guard every risk. You can’t do that in your business either. And so you need to focus on where are you providing the best value? Where are the risks the greatest. And maybe that’s where you say, yes, on, on this, you know, 2 percent of the kind of work that you’re doing, I do want to see that before it goes out. Maybe that’s proposals. Maybe it’s, I don’t know, maybe it’s a CEO speech draft, if that’s a rare thing that you do. There may be things that are significant enough to the relationship that it’s worth putting your hands on, but it shouldn’t be everything, every day. Gini Dietrich: You know, we. I have, I have, I will say this, I, on my team I have one of the very best writers I’ve ever worked with. She’s so good. She’s young! She’s not, you know, she’s got like 5 or 6 years of experience, but a signficantly better writer than pretty much everybody I’ve worked with. Anybody else I’ve worked with in my entire career. And so when I went, you know, after we got her going and understanding the client and all that stuff, I said, I don’t need to see this content. You’re like, she’s writing blog posts for a couple of clients. She’s doing white paper. She’s doing like short and long term written content. And about a week ago, one of the clients emailed me and said, The content that is coming out of your team is so good that we look at it and think, dang, how come we can’t do that internally? And that’s what you want. Like for me, I was like, we just hit the Mecca to have a client say that because, and I’m not reviewing it. Her boss isn’t reviewing it. Like we’ve given her carte blanche to do what she thinks is best. Have there been times where the client has said, well, we can’t really say this or this is, yeah, for sure through the education process, but it, at no point has the client said, Oh, I really wish you’d have a better editing process or that, you know, it wouldn’t come to me like this. At no point. Have they ever said that on anything. So you have to be able to say, I’m okay with the fact that this person is not me. I’m okay with the fact that this person named may not write or produce the same way I do, but good enough is good enough. And if the client is happy, who cares? Chip Griffin: Well, and also, I mean, how arrogant is it to believe that you as the owner, never make a mistake either. I mean, I probably shouldn’t admit this in a recording because it will come back to haunt me when Jen comes and says, remember you said this on the podcast? I’ve made mistakes occasionally. It happens. I mean, sometimes. Gini Dietrich: This is going to haunt you. You’re right. Chip Griffin: I’m sure it is. I’m sure it is. I mean, occasionally I’ve had typos in content that I put out or I used a turn of phrase that I shouldn’t use. The client, you know, isn’t going to be happy with. It happens. And just because I’m looking at something that my employee put together, it doesn’t eliminate that risk. Does it reduce it? Sure. But it still might get past even my process. So, you know, you really have to think these things through. And I, I think a lot of it comes down to sitting down and looking at how you’re spending your week as an agency owner, you know, really do that time tracking that we’ve talked about, sit down and make that list of all the tasks and figure out, is this really adding value that is at my level, the level of owner? Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Because if it’s not, it probably ought to go away, because it will help you with your profit margin, it helps you price better and more competitively, it improves your team’s morale because you’re not getting up in their business on things that you have no business doing. And frankly, it probably improves the turnaround time for clients as well. Because if it doesn’t have to go through that step, unless you’re sitting around with nothing else to do as an agency owner, and I know I don’t ever talk to an agency owner who says, I have tons of free time. Gini Dietrich: I have so much time. What should I do? Chip Griffin: So, so inevitably you are slowing things down in addition to everything else. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: So clear that stuff off of your list. Let it go. Stop worrying, show trust, and if you avoid micromanagement, good things will happen. Gini Dietrich: Good things will happen. I think that’s the hardest thing for people to understand is it’s going to be okay and good things will happen. And you will be so much happier because you’re not having to sit up at 9, 10, 11, 12 o’clock at night trying to get through stuff so that you’re not the bottleneck or you’re about to miss a deadline. Stop doing that. Let your team do their jobs. Chip Griffin: And more often than not, if a client has an issue, they will let you know. Absolutely. There are times where they will just suffer in silence and cancel. But, but my experience has been that more often than not, they will say something. If they’re, if they’re working with someone on their account who they’re not comfortable with, and not happy with, Because you are not disappearing completely. I’m not advocating that you never talk to a client. You should still have a relationship. Every small agency owner should have some degree of relationship with every single client. I saw a small agency owner posted somewhere recently that they had some clients that they, that they’ve never even met. They didn’t even know they had as clients. Gini Dietrich: Oh my gosh. Chip Griffin: You know, I mean, if you, if you’re an agency with hundreds of clients, okay, maybe, but if you are a typical small agency with 10 to 20 clients, that doesn’t make any sense to me. So Gini Dietrich: that’s not, yeah. Chip Griffin: And I don’t know this individual’s business well enough to know how they’re structured, how many clients they have. I’m hopeful that it’s, you know, a larger high volume agency. In any case, you need to have those relationships still even as you’re letting go, but you don’t need to talk to them daily or weekly. You don’t need to be copied on every email. You can check in with them quarterly. You can check in with them semi annually, whatever it takes just to sort of, to make sure that they still know that you’re there, that they know that you are accessible. You always want to make sure that they, you tell them, look, if you, if you ever need me, you come, you just let me know. And I have yet to see any client who abuses that. When I owned Custom Scoop and we had hundreds of clients, I was happy to give them all my direct contact information. Do you know how many ever contacted me? Zero. Gini Dietrich: Zero? Zero. Chip Griffin: Never had anybody reach out to me directly before, you know, without going to someone else on the team, you know, proper channels and all that. Gini Dietrich: Right. Right. Chip Griffin: But they had it, and, and that oftentimes makes people feel good, that they just know, if I need to reach out to the CEO, if I need to reach out to the agency owner, I can do it. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And that’s great. And to your point, like, you don’t have to be in contact every day, or every week, or even every month. But do stay in contact and do stay at the point. So one of the things we do is we do a quarterly review with our clients and I’m in, I’m in all of those meetings. Cause usually what we require on the client side is the CEO or the president, whoever’s running the business is in it as well. So if, if the leader of the business is in a meeting, then I’m there too. If the, if it’s the chief marketing officer, the chief communications officer, their director of marketing or something like that, I’m not there. That’s a pretty good rule of thumb. Chip Griffin: Seems very reasonable. Gini Dietrich: Yes. It’s not hard. Chip Griffin: Unfortunately, unfortunately, no one does that practice. And that’s why we have to do this episode, apparently, every single year. Gini Dietrich: Every year. Chip Griffin: Without even realizing it, we now realize, so I guess maybe next year, we probably don’t even need to put it on the counter. Cause we’ll just, you know, it’s springtime. We’re starting to see the buds on the trees and that kind of stuff. We’ll say, you know what? I think we need to talk about this. I think we need to revisit this. Gini Dietrich: Cause you keep having conversations with clients about it. And. Then you say, okay, this, this continues to come up. Let’s have this conversation. Chip Griffin: I mean, we, we are clearly failing at our jobs because I know that the agency owners that I talk with by and large, listen to this podcast, maybe not every episode, maybe they, maybe every year they skip over this one, but I sort of feel like we’re just, we are not doing a good job of convincing people that micromanagement is bad, trust is good, and you need to let go. Gini Dietrich: It’s hard though. I. Maybe we’re not. Your name’s on the door. Right, but it is hard. It’s hard to, yes. It’s your sweat, it’s your blood, it’s your tears, it’s your baby, it’s all of those things. And you’re, at the end of the day, you’re the only one who is going to be concerned with whether it’s successful or fails. Like, that’s just the truth of it. So it is hard to do. But if you want to grow a business, you cannot do it by having your fingers in everything. Chip Griffin: It is a massive limiter of the business if you don’t let go. Gini Dietrich: Let it go. Let it go. Chip Griffin: Thank God I’m not the one singing here, so. I think, since we’ve started singing, it’s probably time to end this show. Gini Dietrich: I also want to know more about this FBI show. I love Law and Order. I did not know this existed. Chip Griffin: You don’t know, but there’s a whole, Dick Wolf has a whole series of three, FBI, FBI most wanted and FBI international. I think something like that. Gini Dietrich: I know what I’m doing tonight. Chip Griffin: The Dick Wolf model of TV now is basically you just take over a whole night for a network. And so this is, I think, CBS. Oh, I, I watch streaming, so I can’t swear to that, but it’s, so they just take the whole block, just like Law and Order is, you know, all three episodes of Thursday night. And the Chicago’s are, I don’t know what network has the Chicago’s. I think that’s NBC also. But yeah, Dick Wolf has what, like nine primetime TV shows right now? Gini Dietrich: He’s gotta be a hundred years old too. I mean, I, I have no idea. I know the name because it shows up on the title card. Right, right. Every episode by… I will check it out. I did not know this. Chip Griffin: It is a good show. I recommend it. Gini Dietrich: Okay. Chip Griffin: But I don’t think Dick Wolf really makes bad shows, to be honest with you. I’m sure he has at some point. I, I can’t speak to all of them. Gini Dietrich: But not anymore. He definitely has the formula figured out. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, it’s not, you know, it doesn’t like drive you to think carefully or anything like that, but I like it because you can put it on, you know, you know, there are some common threads through it, you know, keeps you interested, but you don’t have to pay 100 percent attention because usually I get the TV on in the background while I’m doing something else. Gini Dietrich: Doing something else. Yep. Me too. All right. Chip Griffin: I’m sure listeners are real. This is probably why the message hasn’t gotten through because we go off on these tangents and so now people are all out there Googling FBI so they can watch a Dick Wolf show instead of, Gini Dietrich: It was at the end. Chip Griffin: You know, focusing on the core message here, which is stop micromanaging, trust. Gini Dietrich: Stop it. Chip Griffin: Let it go. Gini Dietrich: Stop it. Chip Griffin: We’re going to let this episode go. Thanks for listening. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Zach interviews Martin Waxman, a LinkedIn Learning Instructor, Author, and Communications Expert with a specific interest in Generative AI. Martin began his career as a television writer and producer before diving more into the PR side of things after life threw him a curveball. Now, after decades in the professional space as both a professor and consultant, Martin teaches companies and individuals how to harness the power of AI from a marketing standpoint. Today, Martin and Zach talk about how GenAI can be harnessed and used for rapid growth, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows! They'll also dive into what should give us pause about this incredible tool. Join us for a great conversation about AI. Like, Subscribe, and Follow: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAIUNkXmnAPgLWnqUDpUGAQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keyhole-software Twitter: @KeyholeSoftware Find even more Keyhole content on our website (https://keyholesoftware.com/). About Martin: Martin is a "digital/social media/communications guy" with roots in PR and the creative arts. He conducts AI research on the relationships between humans and machines, leads digital, social media and Generative AI training, and writes a popular newsletter, Digital Marketing Trends. Martin is also a LinkedIn Learning instructor, adjunct professor at the Schulich School of Business, and associate director of the Future of Marketing Institute. He teaches digital strategy at McMaster University and speaks on AI and digital media at conferences and events across North America. Martin possess a BA, General Honours Fine Arts, from York University, and a Master of Communications Management (MCM) from McMaster-Syracuse Universities. Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinwaxman/ Digital Marketing Trends (newsletter): https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-ai-make-good-enough-your-default-state-mind-waxman-mcm-apr-lx4wc/ 

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the recent wave of layoffs in the media industry and its implications for PR agencies. They explore the challenges of securing earned media in a landscape with fewer journalists and offer insights on evolving strategies to effectively reach target audiences through alternative channels. Emphasizing the importance of setting realistic client expectations and embracing creativity, they highlight the need for agencies to adapt and innovate amidst industry changes. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You need to understand where your client’s audience exists.” Gini Dietrich: “How are you going to pivot the work that you’re doing so that you can still get the earned media in different ways?” Chip Griffin: “The hard part is educating the clients.” Gini Dietrich: “Prospects are saying PR doesn’t work. So it is our job to change that perception and set expectations correctly.” View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a lot of members of the media who are getting laid off. Gini Dietrich: I have noticed. It’s not good. Chip Griffin: It is not good. We’ll talk more about that right after this. That was kind of a boring intro. I didn’t, I didn’t even, I feel like I didn’t put any effort into it at all. Gini Dietrich: I always wait, I held my breath to see what you come up with. It’s great. Chip Griffin: You held your breath hoping that, well, I mean, the good news is this isn’t live. So, you know, it won’t be career ending for either of us, even if I go crazy, cause we just won’t publish it. So, right. So there’s really no need to hold your breath. If it was live, then I’d be holding my breath because since I make it up on the fly, you just never know what might come out of my mouth. Gini Dietrich: You never know. Chip Griffin: You never know. It’s true. But it, it does seem like, you know, just, you know, reading the media coverage these days, there’s a lot of members of the media who are finding themselves out of work, whether it’s the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch, you know, so it’s not just old school media Sports Illustrated. Yeah. I mean, just, almost across the board, real problems for traditional quote unquote mainstream media. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, I did the math the other day just because I was curious and it’s close to a thousand people who have been laid off, who were laid off. Journalists were laid off in January, which is not insignificant. And when you have an agency that focuses on media relations, it’s gonna be a little challenging coming this year. A little bit, you know, you don’t, we’re already having challenges with getting responses from journalists and now there’s significantly less. I mean, it’s probably 20 to 25 percent less journalists than there were at the beginning of 2024. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and, you know, a lot of listeners are running PR agencies. Many of them have a particular focus on media relations. And so as, as you’re looking at this as a business owner, you have to say to yourself, you know, what, what, what does this mean for me? How is this, I mean, yes, obviously, you know, we feel bad for all of our friends in the media who may have lost their jobs or worried about their jobs, but really, we also have to focus on our own businesses and say, yeah, what does this portend for us? How do we need to evolve to adjust to this reality? What does the future look like? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, there’s some, there’s a few things I think that are happening. one is that we have to think about earned media from a different perspective. And for so long. You know, we’ve treated PR is just media relations, or in some cases, maybe it’s the backbone of what we do. But we’ve, we’ve always bucketed it into, you know, trade and consumer and business publications. And typically, we don’t look outside of that. Now, in some cases we’ve added some influencer marketing in, right? So, we’ve got some of that in there, which is both paid and earned. but that’s as far as I think most communicators and most agency owners have stretched the earned media piece of what we do. And what I like to challenge everyone to think about is there are other pieces to it, right? I mean, we were talking about before we, we started the show, but you, there’s YouTubers there and maybe you, maybe they’re not somebody that you’re super excited about, but they have a large following and have people who listen to them. There are bloggers, there are people who have really popular sub stack newsletters, there are review sites. Like there’s a, an opportunity here for us to think about our media in different ways. Not just I got to get in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Chip Griffin: I’m disappointed. You left out TikTokkers in that. I mean, I spend half my day on TikTok. No, I don’t. Gini Dietrich: No you do not. Do you even have TikTok? Chip Griffin: I created an account at some point. I can’t say that I ever log into it. Occasionally someone will share a, a TikTok somewhere off of the platform. And then I click on it and it tries to get me to log in. And I’m like, I can’t figure this out. It doesn’t matter. Gini Dietrich: Continue as guest, continue as guest. Chip Griffin: Move on with my life. Yep. But if, but I mean, the reality is that you need to understand where your audience, where your client’s audience exists. And if they’re not reading the Wall Street Journal because the Wall Street Journal isn’t putting out as much content because they don’t have as many journals and all that, those people are still getting information from somewhere. Gini Dietrich: Correct. That’s correct. Chip Griffin: And so it’s your job as an agency to help your clients figure out where they are getting their information from, their news from, their reviews from. And you need to go there. And it may well not be where you as an agency owner are used to going yourself or enjoy going, right? I mean, if I’m advising a client and TikTok is the place to be, I’m going to have to suck it up and actually log into TikTok on a regular basis and, and, and get to know it more. Fortunately, in my current role of advising agency owners, most agency owners are not getting information on how to run their business on TikTok. So. Gini Dietrich: Yet. Chip Griffin: Yet. Every so often someone comes along and tells me that, that that’s where people should go. But then I ask my clients and prospects and they’re like, no, we don’t, we might be on TikTok for amusement or to see, you know, what our kids are up to, but not not to find out, you know, how do you maximize the profitability of your agency? Gini Dietrich: No, that’s not where they’re going to TikTok? Chip Griffin: It turns out most agency owners are not going there for that. But as you point out, that’s today. A year, two years, five years from now, that may not be the case. And so, you know, we do have to reset our expectations and, and remember that a lot of our clients do have audiences that exist in other places. And as you point out, it’s still earned media. As long as you’re not, as long as cash isn’t changing hands, if I’m just trying to convince a TikToker to take a look at my product or talk about my issue, then that’s still learned media. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. it’s funny because of an industry friend of mine who actually retired a couple of years ago to ride his bike full time, which is really not fair, but he sent me over the weekend, he sent me an article and his, his email said, you’re going to love this article until the halfway point when I predict you’ll hate it. And so I open it and I’m reading this and it’s a sub stack newsletter and I, and you have to pay to participate. Right. And I’m reading it and it’s talking about bike racing and, you know, how things have, have changed. And there used to be live coverage and now there’s no longer live coverage. And, and you get to that point where he’s like, and now there’s no longer live coverage. And so there’s no more live racing and we don’t know what to do about it, which makes the PESO model obsolete. And I was like, what? Literally. Chip Griffin: Okay. Gini Dietrich: And so I, I kept reading it and, and his point was that when you have a large piece of earned media, live racing, live coverage that goes away, that a quarter of the PESO model no longer works. And so as you can imagine, I am creating my response for that, but the point is that it doesn’t have anything to do with something going away. It has everything to do with how you’re going to use it to pivot and to evolve and to tweak what you’re doing. So yes, we’ve had hundreds of journalists who have been laid off in the last five weeks. How are you going to pivot the work that you’re doing so that you can still get the earned media? But in different ways. And like, to your point, you know, it might be on LinkedIn. It might be a LinkedIn newsletter that somebody has a really, maybe it’s Martin Waxman who has a hundred thousand subscribers on LinkedIn, or maybe, you know, it’s people like that who you’re still earning the, the credibility. And that’s what it is. It’s, it’s earning the credibility from somebody who has a large following. Or maybe not, maybe not even a large following, but has a following of people who… Chip Griffin: you want to reach. That you want to reach. Gini Dietrich: Right? And they, and they have that following and it’s, you know, an engaged following. So it’s about earning the credibility with those kinds of people. And it doesn’t always have to be Tech Crunch and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated and whatever happens to be. Chip Griffin: Right. And it’s increasingly less likely that you will be able to, because if there’s fewer journalists for a period of time, those journalists who remain will continue to be just bombarded by more pitches. Because so many communicators agencies and otherwise, some, for some reason, think that the just the best way to get there is by, you know, using some of these list services and just blasting away. And I, I really, I just simply do not understand that mindset. I mean, I, I have to think that many agency owners end up seeing the same kind of stupid. You know, sales pitches and other things in their inbox. That’s what journalists are getting just times 10. As a podcaster I get a ton of this stuff. It’s rubbish, rubbish. It’s clear that someone’s just using a list that they bought from somewhere that they haven’t curated in any way. Correct. Don’t personalize the pitch at all. If you are doing that, you should have stopped a long time ago. But now read about these layoffs and say, you know what, maybe I’m not just going to you know, blast away with as many of these emails as I can, and I’m going to start building actual relationships with people who I think might actually write about me. And I’m not just deluding myself into that. I, I, I believe it because. You can, you can make a case for why, based on looking at what they’ve done, that they’re likely to do it again. Not just because they should. Or because they ought to care or whatever. None of that stuff matters. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and it’s not hard to do this, right? Like, one of the things that I teach in the PESO Model Certification course is how to build your media list that’s really specific to what you’re trying to do. So, in the first module, we talk about owned media and how to create content that’s valuable to your clients or your executives. It’s available to all communicators, not just agencies. So whatever you, whatever you’re doing, it’s applicable to the work that you’re doing. So let’s take media relations as an example. If I go to Google and I type in media relations, I have pages and pages and pages of stuff that comes up, right? And it’s everything from YouTube and other social media. It’s Reddit, it’s LinkedIn, it’s blogs, it’s, trade publications and it’s business publications. So now I have a really nice, big grasp of who’s covering media relations at this moment in time. And I can start to target based on that. So it’s really about how do you target what’s best for the client and the client work that you’re doing versus, Oh, my gosh, I’m trying to get, I have to get five stories in business publications this month. And so I’m just gonna to your point go in and slam it out, out there to as many as I can. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I think you’re right that it’s, it’s not, it’s not difficult or not hard for agencies to actually pivot and do this work in this different way. I think the hard part is, or the perceived hard part is explaining it to clients and educating the clients, right? Gini Dietrich: Yes, I would agree with that. Chip Griffin: Because you have the clients come to you and they want to be in the Wall Street Journal and Tech Crunch. And most agencies do a very poor job resetting their client’s expectations and doing the education that’s necessary to say, Hey, look, there’s just not as many opportunities there. And that’s not where your audience really is right now anyway. Right. And so, so those are, you know, those are good for you know, burnishing your ego or making the organization feel good because the logo is out there or something like that, but it doesn’t move the needle with the actual business objectives that you have anymore. And you will move it more if you’re focused on these other things. And the other piece of the education is that a lot of this non traditional media functions very differently. They don’t have established editorial calendars, so you don’t get to, it’s, it is tougher because you can’t go to the client and say, you know, this is, you know, they’re targeting this for their Sunday publication or their Sunday edition, or, you know, their, you know, whatever industry focus they have in March or something like that. Because most of these non traditional folks are producing as and when they can, you know, maybe they’ve got a loose schedule for publishing their written or video content, but, but you have to be willing to go with the flow a little bit more. And it’s a lot less, one of these things where you can just, you know, put it down and say, you know, I know that this is the kind of thing that the journal will cover in their Friday tech column or whatever. You’re going to have to just, but you need to educate your clients on that. And if you, if you don’t educate your clients on it, they’re just going to be disappointed because you’re not going to be able to do what they want. And so you’re better off telling them at the prospect stage or when they’re a client and you’re putting together a plan. Hey, this is what is possible today. And this is why it will make a difference for you. If instead you just say, yes, I’ll just do whatever you want or absolutely we’ll, you know, we’ll keep pitching the Wall Street Journal and LA Times and all these people who have fewer journalists, you’re not getting anywhere. Gini Dietrich: No, you’re not. No, you’re not. And, and you’re also doing your clients a big disservice. And I think to your point, one of the challenges, biggest challenges we have is we’re not so great at communicating that kind of stuff. You know, we’re communicators, but we’re not super great at that. And it’s really about, I think part of it is because we’re people pleasers, generally. And so we don’t want to say, well, well, hang on a second. But part of the reason you have been hired is because you have an expertise and you are in this every single day. Like your clients really believe that what you do every day is you just pick up the phone and you go, Hey, Chip. So we have this client and they’re really good at this. And I was wondering if you’d cover it. And Chip goes, yeah, sounds great. That’s what they believe we do all day. It’s not what we do all day. But we’re really bad at delivering that kind of information. And we don’t set expectations correctly. So, they have to understand that if they want to reach certain goals, and I understand, I have clients this way too, that some of them are ego driven and they want to, you know, be in the Wall Street Journal because their buddy next door was, or the guy that they golf with is, whatever happens to be, some of it is. Your job is to set expectations and say, if our goal is to do this, we have to do this, this, and this to get there. And it may or may not include the Wall Street Journal. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I’m not saying that nobody should ever target being in the Wall Street Journal because the Wall Street Journal is going to be around for a long time, no matter how many layoffs they may have. They’re not, I don’t have any, any notion that the Wall Street Journal is going to just up and disappear, but they’re going to be covering fewer things. That’s right. They’re going to be doing less original reporting, and so therefore you need to figure out, am I crossing that new threshold that I’m going to have to, that bar I’m going to have to clear in order to get coverage? If so, fine, continue to pursue it. But if the reality is you’re not, you’re better off investing that time and your client’s money into something else. And the sooner you recognize that, and the sooner you can help your client understand that, The better off you will be. And I think part of the problem is that, that agencies are people pleasers, as you say, most of the workers inside of, but, but it’s also fear, right? As, as an employee of an agency, I don’t want to lose my job. And so I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna upset the apple cart and I’m going to tell the client what they want to hear. As an owner, I want to win that new piece of business. I want to keep that business. And so. You know, the least friction I can create is in my mind the way that I am able to accomplish that. The problem is it’s very short sighted because if you can’t actually do what the client wants you to do, yes, you may take some money in the short term, but you are going to take a hit at some point when they realize, you know, you still haven’t gotten me in the Wall Street Journal . And then they’re going to pull the contract and they’re going to go badmouth you to all their friends. Gini Dietrich: And not only that, but how many, I’ve had so many conversations like this, and I bet that listeners have too, where a prospect, you’re talking to a prospect and they say, well, we’ve hired PR in the past, but they haven’t gotten us, they didn’t get us any results. Or we spent, you know, $5,000 a month and we got like two blog posts or we spent $25,000 a month and didn’t get anything. Like I hear that all of the time, all the time. And across the board, prospects are saying PR doesn’t work. I know I need it. I’ve been told I need it. So I’m talking to you, but I don’t believe it works. And so we’re already up against this perception. And then we don’t do anything to change it. So it is our job to change that perception and set expectations correctly. Chip Griffin: Right. And look, I mean, the reality is you’re going to lose contracts over this, right? You, you will fail to win business because you will have a prospect who just absolutely believes they’re going to be in the Wall Street Journal . Okay. Well, you know, go find another agency that’s willing to do that. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that. I will tell you that, you know, we will keep it on our list. And if we find an opportunity where we can do it, absolutely. Yep. But the reality is a lot of clients come in with expectations that are not reasonable. And frankly aren’t even good for their business. And so if you can help them to understand, well, first of all, you need to understand what their actual business objective is. Because most of us don’t do that. We just listen to the client. You know, I want to get in the Wall Street Journal . I want to get in Fortune. I want to do these things. Okay, cool. Tick, tick, tick. Yep. Those, that’s what we’re gonna put in the proposal. We’ll send it right back to you. I mean, some of the worst advice that, that sales trainings will give you is repeat back to the client, the prospect, what they asked for to show you understood. Okay. But only if that’s a good idea, right? If it’s not a good idea, tell them what is a good idea. Because we are not salespeople. We don’t want to be salespeople. We shouldn’t be salespeople. Our goal is not to close at all costs. If you are a sales rep and you’re selling Ferraris, your goal is to sell as many damn Ferraris as you can. And it doesn’t really matter whether the buyer knows how to use a stick shift or, you know, is in a winter climate and never going to be able to drive the Ferrari or whatever, right? It doesn’t matter to you. Gini Dietrich: Love it. Chip Griffin: Because you’ve sold it and you’re done. Right. In an agency, you’re building a relationship. You’re going to be continuing on with these folks. So you don’t want to just tell them whatever they want to hear so that they buy. You want to tell them this is the approach that makes sense. This is what we can do. This is how it will help you. This is what it’s going to cost. If you do those things, you will have successful relationships. But these days it requires a lot more creative thinking. It is not just, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got all the journalist connections in this sector. And so therefore we’re the people to hire . It takes a lot more work than that to be successful as an agency in 2024. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think it has been challenging for the last several years. Probably since the pandemic, because newsrooms were already lean. And now it’s going to become even more challenging because they’re more than lean. Right. I mean, you’re going to have journalists who are supposed to be writing six or seven beats and they just don’t have time. They don’t have time to answer email. They don’t even have time to look at their email. So the fact that you’re sending an email and like you, I get tons of pitches where I’m just like. This is crap. And then you get the, the follow up, and the follow up, and the follow up, and then they get aggressive after the like fourth or fifth time you haven’t responded to them, and they’re like, why aren’t you responding to me? Are you stuck? Are you trapped under something? Like, just respond and tell me no. No, because if I respond to every single person who emails me, that’s all I will do is respond to emails. I’m not a journalist. I’m not at the New York Times or the LA Times. So imagine that on steroids. They don’t have time. So you have to find new and creative ways to get earned media. It’s still out there. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and this is not, we’ve talked a lot about the Wall Street Journal . This is, I mean, this is much more widespread than that. These are the ones that get the attention. Yeah, but every trade publication, every local newspaper. I mean, I, I think some listeners know I do some photography for the local newspaper. It’s free, by the way, because they don’t pay freelancers and haven’t in many years. But, but the entire, this is the newspaper for the state capital here in New Hampshire. They have a single photographer for the entire newspaper, for everything. Sports, features, news, everything. They have one sports reporter. They have one news reporter. This, I mean, this is, this is not unusual. You will see this in a lot of places where the staffs have been cut way back. Gini Dietrich: It’s going to get more challenging. So put on your creative hat, creative hats, and find ways to get earned media. You can do it. It’s out there. There are lots of different ways to do it, but the traditional method that we know is, is gone. And I don’t want to say dead because you’ll still get some of it, but not, it won’t be nearly as easy as it has been in years past. Chip Griffin: Well, you know, the other thing that’s gone… this episode. We are, we are, we’ve concluded this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

The truth is no one is an “expert” when it comes to AI. At least not yet. But some people, like Martin Waxman, have dove head first into the deep end of Artificial Intelligence and they're learning as fast as they can so we can copy their homework. In this discussion Martin shared with us the steps he takes to implement new tools in digital marketing, what big mistakes to avoid and we got creative about what we think the future of AI might look like. (it has something to do with cookbooks and magic!) He shared TONS of resources that we'll link here. If you have any questions you want to pop into the chat head over to YouTube or LinkedIn and ask away! Notes:10:41 How to pick good AI tools 16:46 Applying AI to large corporations 17:45 Steps to implement AI in marketing 18:10 Biggest mistake to avoid 30:20 The future of AI 40:33 Resources for learning AIIf you loved this episode you should check out this episode ChatGPT 101 With Dave BirssLinks:Connect With Martin On LinkedIn HereMartin's Course, Generative AI For Digital MarketersAI Tools:HyperWrite for marketing or communicationsBing Create for creating images from textPI appNewsletters:Ethan Mollick's newsletter - One Useful ThingMartin's Digital Marketing Trends NewsletterAxios HQEliezer YudkowskyFuture Of Marketing InstitutePodcast:Lex Fridman's PodcastBooks:Life 3.0 by Max TegmarkIf you enjoyed today's episode, please:1.) Sign up for notes at copymyhomework.com for a full list of resources, links and recommendations listed on today's episode.2.) Post a screenshot of the episode & tag me on LinkedIn or Instagram @kimkaupe so we can talk about your favorite parts!3.) Leave a positive review (shameless, but someone's gotta say it right?!)4.) Subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday on your favorite podcast app. Connect with Kim over on the socials!Instagram + TikTok: @kimkaupeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimkaupe

Can you believe it's mid-December and another year is almost done? That can only mean one thing … it's time for our annual episode where we gaze into the proverbial communications crystal ball … OK, …

In this episode arc, we're going to focus on some specific trends and learnings that you can take with you going into 2022 in your marketing. This is a significant inflexion point in the evolution of the way we communicate, market, and sell. Things have changed a lot during the pandemic with a whole new virtual world open.  The things we thought to be the vehicles or tools of marketing distribution have changed.  What's getting attention? What is really cutting the scroll?  We break down 2 key things to focus on.  The categories of distribution of content marketing New examples to be inspired by that you won't find traditional marketing books because things are moving so fast. Take a listen. We are joined by 6 guest judges. Andrea Henry, founder of Henry business law. We have Darien Kovacs, founder of jelly marketing. We have Megan O'Neill, performance coach. We've got Martin Waxman, instructor at University of Toronto and PR expert. Mohit Rajhans, media commentator and founder of thinkstartAnd Rohini Mukherji, Vice President at narrative PR  If you're a return listener, please leave us a 5-star review? Thanks

On this episode of Inside PR, Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and Gini Dietrich discuss the importance of protecting your intellectual property, even for new business decks and website verbiage.

On episode 551 of Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, and Joe Thornley do a special recording for the Earned Media Mastery Summit with Agility PR Solutions.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 551: The Future of the PR Industry appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this episode 553 of Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, and Joe Thornley do a special recording for the Earned Media Mastery Summit with Agility PR Solutions.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 553: The Future of the PR Industry appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this podcast, I wanted to focus on how Martin Waxman identifies trends, keeps on top of trends and why he's decided to delve deeply into artificial intelligence (AI). I also wanted to get his take on what PR students and young practitioners needed to know and do to not only stay on top of AI-related issues, but to stay relevant in our ever-changing industry. Martin is a digital communications strategist who has shared his insights on AI in PR on a number of industry podcasts including Inside PR, at industry conferences for CPRS and PRSA, and in a TEDx Talk for Trinity Bellwoods. Martin is the president of a PR consultancy, teaches social media at a number of institutions, developed a LinkedIn Learning series and newsletter, leads social media workshops, conducts AI research and sits on the #AIinPR panel. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andrea-tavchar/message

On this episode 553 of Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, and Joe Thornley do a special recording for the Earned Media Mastery Summit with Agility PR Solutions. They discuss the future of the PR industry—exciting things to come, as well as the challenges young professionals will face.

On episode 551 of Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, and Joe Thornley do a special recording for the Earned Media Mastery Summit with Agility PR Solutions. They discuss the future of the PR industry—exciting …

The one where Ted interviews digital marketing strategist and professor, Martin Waxman.Sign up for the Marketing News Canada e-newsletter at www.marketingnewscanada.com.Thanks to our sponsor Jelly Academy. Jelly Academy has been helping professionals, students and teams across Canada acquire the skills, knowledge and micro certifications they need to jump into a new digital marketing role, get that promotion, and amplify their current marketing roles. Learn more about Jelly Academy's 6 Week online bootcamp here: https://jellyacademy.ca/digital-marketing-6-week-programFollow Marketing News Canada:Twitter - twitter.com/MarketingNewsC2Facebook - facebook.com/MarketingNewsCanadaLinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/marketing-news-canadaYouTube - youtube.com/channel/UCM8sS33Jyj0xwbnBtRqJdNwWebsite - marketingnewscanada.com Follow Ted Lau: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ballisticarts/Website - https://www.ballisticarts.com/ Follow Martin Waxman:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinwaxman/LinkedIn Newsletter - https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/digital-marketing-trends-6642894648903…Twitter - https://twitter.com/martinwaxmanAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this bi-weekly episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and Gini Dietrich discuss the plumbing of the internet, from Feedburner and its replacements to how marketing automation works in the deep dark areas of the web and how video continues to evolve as we adapt.Continue Reading → The post IPR 550: The Plumbing of the Internet appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this bi-weekly episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and Gini Dietrich discuss the plumbing of the internet, from Feedburner and its replacements to how marketing automation works in the deep dark areas of the web and how video continues to evolve as we adapt.Continue Reading → The post IPR 550: The Plumbing of the Internet appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this bi-weekly episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and Gini Dietrich discuss the plumbing of the internet, from Feedburner and its replacements to how marketing automation works in the deep dark areas of the web and how video continues to evolve as we adapt

On this bi-weekly episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and Gini Dietrich discuss the plumbing of the internet, from Feedburner and its replacements to how marketing automation works in the deep dark areas of the web and how video continues to evolve as we adapt.

On this week’s episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and I discuss our favorite tools and what has changed—and what has stayed the same—since COVID hit. Before you get into the tools, though, we have an important reminder: it’s not about the tools. It’s about whether or not you’ll actually use them. It’s... Continue Reading → The post IPR 547: Favorite Tools for Comms Experts appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this week's episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and I discuss our favorite tools and what has changed—and what has stayed the same—since COVID hit. Before you get into the tools, though, we have an important reminder: it's not about the tools. It's about whether or not you'll actually use them. It's... Continue Reading → The post IPR 547: Favorite Tools for Comms Experts appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this week's episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and I discuss our favorite tools and what has changed—and what has stayed the same—since COVID hit. Before you get into the tools, though, …

On this week's episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and Gini Dietrich discuss our favorite tools and what has changed—and what has stayed the same—since COVID hit.

Welcome back to the

TikTok and Snapchat, Google’s antitrust lawsuit, AOC versus Zuckerberg, it seems like every day there’s a new factor that could change digital marketing, making it a moving target for brand marketers. With so much to stay up to date on, it can be hard to know where to focus your efforts. Luckily, our guest today lives and breathes the world of digital marketing.Martin Waxman is a digital and social media strategist who also teaches at the Schulich School of Business, Seneca College and McMaster University. And we’re going to talk about the shifting landscape of digital marketing. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“When you think of it the AI is just another intermediary that a marketer at their disposable…” Martin Waxman is a LinkedIn Learning Instructor and he is a social media and digital strategy adjunct prof. Although his roots are in PR and the creative arts, Martin also conducts AI research. He is also the co-host of the Inside PR podcast, a past-chair of PRSA Counselors Academy, and a past-president of CPRS Toronto. Lastly, Martin is a published novelist and storyteller, the founder of three agencies, and an ex-journalist and ad copywriter. In this episode, we talk about Martin's professional background, how marketing has changed throughout the decades, how his AI research helps his marketing, what he recommends marketers should be learning to prepare for the future, and more. LinkedIn Learning free Digital Marketing Certificate/Learning Path: https://opportunity.linkedin.com/skills-for-in-demand-jobs Martin's Master's Thesis (at the top of the blog post summarizing it, you'll find a link to a PDF of the paper). Subscribe to his Digital Marketing Trends newsletter. Book on AI that Martin mentioned: You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane Connect with Martin on Twitter, LinkedIn, and at www.MartinWaxman.com. Connect with me at: KennySoto.com Send requests for specific topics to be covered to my Instagram! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kennysoto/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kennysoto/support

Hey friends, it's time for another episode of the 4 AM Report – where we explore what's keeping marketers and business owners up at night!

In This Episode…This week on PR 360 is all about Artificial Intelligence. I am joined by Martin Waxman, an expert in the field to discuss how we should not be afraid of AI, and how it can be used to help PR pros craft better messages and more!Time Stamps● [01:10] Are you a coffee or tea drinker? ● [01:58] Can you give us a brief description of the different types of AI? ● [06:51] Was machine learning before AI? ● [10:09] What do you think is more beneficial for PR pros? ● [14:42] What are some ways AI can help PR pros?● [16:33] Were chatbots the beginning of PR pros understanding how to implement them?● [18:54] How do you see AI being implemented in PR and marketing?● [20:36] How can AI help with influencer marketing? ● [22:32] What is data bias?● [24:58] Do you think the next generation of PR pros will need to be data scientists, too?● [27:00] Should universities add AI to their curriculums?● [29:18] If you could create a personality for an AI what would it be?● [30:25] Final thoughts? People and Companies, We Mentioned in the Show● Learn more about Martin Waxman Communications ● Martin Waxman was our guest today.Episode Length: 31:44Thanks so much for tuning in. Join us again next week for another episode!Download Options● Listen and subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, or your favorite podcast player for free!● If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review!Contact Us! ● If you want to get involved, leave us a comment!● Visit us and give us a ‘like’ on our Facebook page!● Follow us on Twitter.Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We chat with social media experts, Martin Waxman and Mary Pretotto, about how social media has shaped our world during this Covid-19 pandemic. We realize that irrespective of what happens going forward, no one can discount social media as a fad. 

Lumen 5, Persado, Yoast and the #AI in PR tool stack from the Chartered Institute for Public Relations are just some one digital marketing tools I discussed with Linkedin Learning instructor Martin Waxman (@martinwaxman) on today’s PR Tech Wednesdays video chat. We started with a passage from Arundahti Roy’s essay which appeared in the Financial… The post Best Digital Marketing Tools for 2020 with Linkedin Learning’s Martin Waxman appeared first on Eric Schwartzman.

It's another edition of the 4 AM Report, but instead of asking fellow marketers what keeps them up at night – we want to ask this:  Have you been having some hard chats with yourselves during this bizarrely uncertain (and frankly scary!) time?

In the world of communications and marketing, we have no option but to learn, adapt and apply new techniques and technologies. In PR, we've evolved into integrated communication practitioners, to better understand and integrate social and digital plays into our storytelling. Marketers needed to master new digital platforms to amplify campaigns and access greater metrics and data. Now, we face artificial intelligence. It will change, upend, and influence like nothing before it. Tune in as Martin Waxman, artificial intelligence researcher and McMaster MCM instructor delves into the world of AI and how marketing and communications practitioners must understand the basics of artificial intelligence in order to develop strategies on how to approach it.

Martin Waxman, CMO of Spin Sucks, Discusses the Human/AI agent relationship and why PR should care Apparently we are on a Spin Sucks “jag!” This week we are rounding out the theme by talking with Martin Waxman, CMO of Spin Sucks. Our last interview was with Spin Sucks founder Gini Dietrich. However, Martin and I didn’t necessarily talk about Spin Sucks. Since it is a professional development hub for PR and marketing professionals, you can imagine that the CMO of the organization would have something to say about the industry. Read the entire write-up at  https://www.veracityagency.com/podcast/martin-waxman/

On the pod this week: We're interviewing PR pro Martin Waxman to discuss the artificial intelligence and the future of the PR industry.

This week on Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about this first phase of what by late February was unmistakably a concerted effort by Facebook to reframe the issues swirling around it.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 535 – Facebook’s PR Push appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

This week on Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about this first phase of what by late February was unmistakably a concerted effort by Facebook to reframe the issues swirling around it.

About Today's Show Martin Waxman is professor at the Seneca Public Relations and Corporate Communications program at the Seneca School of Media.  Martin teaches PR, Social Media and Journalism. In this episode we discuss... 1.  The specifics of the Public Relations and Corporate Communications Program at Seneca College. 2. How social media is evolving and changing, and potentially re-tracing the origins of PR back to the 1920's. 3. The curious relationship between PR and Sigmund Freud. About Today's Guest, Professor Martin Waxman In addition to his role as professor at the Public Relations and Corporate Communications program at the Seneca School of Media, Martin teaches PR, Social Media and Journalism,  Martin also has online courses on Linda.com and LInkedin Learning.  He also runs his own Media firm, Martin Waxman Communications, and he’s got his own podcast, Inside PR.   You can reach Martin Waxman on Twitter @MartinWaxman   Seneca Campaign for Students Click the link for the Campaign for Students HERE. Available on iTunes #SenecaProud Podcast is now available on iTunes, which means it's available pretty much wherever you get your podcasts.  Here's the link.  https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/senecaproud/id1448933774.  While you're there, please subscribe, give us a rating, and leave a comment.  It really helps get our podcast found. Thanks for listening!   Pat Perdue

we focus on a more professional side of social media, with Professor Martin Waxman, who teaches on the social media at Seneca College. He also owns his own PR firm and has several Lynda.com seminars on the subject as well. With so much experience, especially on the corporate or agency side, he is the perfect guest to advise students on how to navigate the world of social media in the professional landscape.

Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman talk about Gillette's The Best Men Can Be campaign, Facebook's support for local journalism, and Gini's advice for Alexa Flash Briefings.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 533: Be The Best You Can Be appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman talk about Gillette's The Best Men Can Be campaign, Facebook's support for local journalism, and Gini's advice for Alexa Flash Briefings.

In this week's Ethical Voices interview, Martin Waxman, co-host of the Inside PR podcast discusses: How he and P&G responded to a campaign that happened during 9/11 What agencies should consider when writing off expenses during a crisis Third-party influencers and disclosure The best ethics advice he ever received

Martin Waxman is in California recording his next course for Lynda.com/LinkedIn. And we took the opportunity to invite Martin’s producer, Hilary White, to give us insight into these and many more questions we have about online courses.  Continue Reading → The post Backstage at Lynda.com appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley discuss the Privacy Paradox highlighted by Mary Meeker in her Internet Trends 2018 presentation. And we look at WeMo, just one mo' social network.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 510: People over data appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley and Martin Waxman talk about the dominance of Facebook and Google, their centrality as media platforms and the importance of maintaining the threat of legislative and regulatory action to ensure that they operate in the interest of the public as well as their shareholders.Continue Reading → The post That may not be remarkable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about transparency and disclosure. Wayne and Schuster anyone?Continue Reading → The post Forget the datum. We’ve got pizzum appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Tyler Brown, long-time communications exec at the Republican National Committee, shares his experiences and insights with Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph ThornleyContinue Reading → The post Inside PR 482: Political communications in the era of Donald Trump appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich, and Joseph Thornley are joined by Alex Sevigny, the Executive Director of the McMaster-Syracuse Master of Communications Management Program. Alex talks about the importance of data science to the skillset of the well-rounded PR professional.Continue Reading → The post IPR 478: Public Relations and Data Science appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Mary Meeker tells us about the Internet Trends that are shaping our world. Pinterest acquires Delicious and will preserve it as an archive. Martin Waxman provides a primer on social listening for business.Continue Reading → The post IPR477: The State of the Internet appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The NY Times is on Snapchat Discover. You’re probably not on Mastodon. But is that really important? Consolidation on the Internet. Facebook and augmented reality. Let’s go Inside PR. It’s just Martin Waxman and Joe Thornley this week. But we cover a lot of ground.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 472: When good media go to the wrong place appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this week’s Inside PR, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about: Note to Self's Privacy Paradox series We recommend that you click over to Privacy Paradox, a project of WNYC's excellent Note to Selfpodcast. Register to participate and each day for five days you will receive and email with links to a special podcast episode, personal challenges... Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 467: No time for sleep appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

On this week’s Inside PR, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about: Note to Self’s Privacy Paradox series We recommend that you click over to Privacy Paradox, a project of WNYC’s excellent Note to Selfpodcast. Register to participate and each day for five days you will receive and email with links to a special podcast episode, personal challenges... Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 467: No time for sleep appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Net neutrality. Fake news. Email etiquette. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joe Thornley tackle these topics and more.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 466: Email after dark appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Net neutrality. Fake news. Email etiquette. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joe Thornley tackle these topics and more.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 466: Email after dark appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Michael Smart joins Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman at the PRSA International Conference for a discussion about media relations and promoting your podcast.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 458: We go to the PRSA International Conference appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Michael Smart joins Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman at the PRSA International Conference for a discussion about media relations and promoting your podcast.Continue Reading → The post Inside PR 458: We go to the PRSA International Conference appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about Gini's approach to promoting content on Spin Sucks. Plus we discuss Blab's demise and Instagram stories.Continue Reading → The post Gini Dietrich knows how to promote content appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Social Geek Radio hosts Deb Evans, Founder Deb Evans Consulting, LLC and Jack Monson Director of Digital Strategy at Qiigo invited a long time social media friend, Martin Waxman to join them. Martin is a blogger, speaker, and a fellow podcaster on Inside PR. Deb and Jack open Social Geek Radio with a GeekItOut tip on LinkedIn Profinder which is a new professional service on LinkedIn. If you are a LinkedIn user and searching for professional services, visit www.linkedin.com/profinder to learn more.  Deb and Jack discuss live video, traditional PR and how to use Facebook Groups and the hot social platform today, Pokemon Go! 

Martin Waxman, of Martin Waxman Communications in Toronto, enjoys talking about the Social Media Barometer. It is his perspective on some of the trends and pressure points facing the PR/marketing profession. It also provides a forecast on how to put things into a context that makes sense for communicators. In this interview, Martin provides three (ok, it is really four) ways for organizations to effectively engage their communities. For more information about Martin visit www.martinwaxman.com

In this Best Of 2015 Edition featuring our Think Like A Journalist Scenario: Eric Enge, Peg Fitzpatrick, Brian Honigman, Cara Jones, Martin Waxman, Andy Crestodina, and Diane Crompton share their strategies to help a financially troubled company.     See the show notes.  

Martin Waxman shares public relations tips and how to build brand newsrooms. Plus, what's Zen got to do with it? And, why your development must start with the small screen. Learn the 3 Ps for Success. ThinkLikeAJournalist.com See the show notes.

Ever wonder why your company news fails to generate buzz? Martin Waxman, social media, content marketing and communications strategist at Martin Waxman Communications, points out you can achieve more if you adopt the model of a ‘newsroom’ to publish, produce and share dazzling brand stories. The post Why Marketers Need To Think More Like Newsrooms appeared first on Mobile Presence

Martin Waxman of Martin Waxman Communications talks to Peggy Anne Salz and Shahab Zargari about how to publish, produce and share dazzling stories in and for the mobile space.

Welcome to episode #039 of The Crisis Intelligence Podcast, with Melissa Agnes and Martin Waxman. The digital landscape continues to evolve, but it has also been mainstream long enough that it has begun to settle as well. For example, the way in which we navigate online has become customary enough that we can begin to understand behavioral trends. And understand these trends we must, if we want to communicate efficiently and effectively both in and out of a crisis. In this episode of The Crisis Intelligence Podcast, Martin Waxman and I discuss 5 new digital trends that impact your organization’s reputation and that need to be incorporated into your communications strategies, including your crisis communications. These five trends include: Online search: Martin and I get down and dirty about online search. Why? Because 93% of online activity begins within a search engine. So what does this mean for your reputation and how can you use this to your advantage, especially when Google keeps changing their algorithms? You’ll discover key takeaways and insights within this episode. Mobile technology: We discuss the impact that mobile has on your reputation, as well as the risks that mobile technology leaves your organization vulnerable to – many of which you may not even be aware of… yet. The new generational gap: Studies show that different generations use the digital landscape differently. Understanding who your stakeholders are and how they use technology (from the search engines to mobile to social media) will help you better communicate to and with them in a crisis. The face of new media: We look at the different social media channels as different types of media outlets and discuss how to use these differences to build your communications strategy. The fact is that every organization has the opportunity to position themselves as a new media company / channel – which, as you can imagine, offers a ton of crisis management opportunities. Entertainment: Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, the digital noise gets louder and louder. This means that you need to continue to find new and engaging ways to captivate your audiences if you want to position yourself and remain at the forefront. It’s a fun listen that touches on so many important areas of your digital communications and reputation management. Enjoy! Get connected! Subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes and/or StitcherSubscribe via email Learn more about Melissa AgnesFollow Melissa on Twitter: @melissa_agnesConnect with Melissa on LinkedInEmail Melissa directly: melissa@melissaagnes.com Learn more about Agnes + Day, Melissa’s crisis management firm.   Learn more about Martin WaxmanVisit Martin’s websiteFollow Martin on Twitter: @MartinWaxmanConnect with Martin on FacebookCheck out Martin’s podcast: Inside PR This post, TCIP #039 - 5 Digital Trends That Impact Your Online Reputation with Martin Waxman, originally appeared on melissaagnes.com.

Ideas are not cheap On todays episode we have the wonderfully talented Michelle Tripp on to talk about how to market your product. Michelle's number one rule? Have a plan! A great line from the movie One Crazy Summer — "Without plan there is no attack, without attack there's no victory!"Michelle comes on today to talk about having a plan and the three tiers of them: • Objectives • Strategies • TacticsMichelle goes on to talk about how to tailor your message for the appropriate platform, and to not be cheap on social media. You need to share high value content. It's not about just spewing garbage (where have we heard that before? Oh right! Martin Waxman from episode 22 said the exact same thing. Two professionals are now telling the audience the same thing. It can't be a coincidence. It's true - share good, quality content. Michelle brings a lot of knowledge to the game, and I'm very excited to see her presentation at the SXSW V2V event this coming summer.Links Mentioned During the Show: Michelle's Twitter PageMichelle's LinkedIn PageReyes GlobalFor more information check out Appitalize On Your Idea.

Martin Waxman is a social media, content marketing and communications strategist and teaches digital strategy at University of Toronto SCS. He's also the co-founder of three PR agencies and president of Martin Waxman Communications.  Today on Digital Marketing Radio we discuss the following: What is New PR? How has content marketing changed over the past few years? What is the ‘zen’ of content marketing? Is there a difference between content marketing and new PR? How do you communicate effectively in a crisis? The United Breaks Guitars case study The importance of adopting the publishing mindset Why "do a news release" is the easy answer Why your posts have to really engage people on Facebook Why you need to start thinking of Facebook as a paid channel Why some PR agencies haven't changed Why PRs need to become better visual story tellers Why community management is a fantastic model for PR You need to do 'scripted improv' Why bloggers are their own form of media Why 'beige' companies may not have a future Why one or two ill-timed tweets can cause a crisis As discussed - the "United Breaks Guitars" video Software I couldn't live without What software do you currently use in your business that if someone took away from you, it would significantly impact your marketing success? Evernote [Note taking app] What software don't you use, but you've heard good things about, and you've intended to try at some point in the near future? Travel apps [Replacing guide books] My number 1 takeaway What's the single most important step from our discussion that our listeners need to take away and implement in their businesses? Never be complacent. We've learned in the past 5/8 years how much the world has changed, and how much it continues to change. Think of ourselves as scientists. Test things out and try to see what works then be prepared to adapt. Embrace the next great thing that comes along that helps us achieve our goals.

Content is King!In today's episode I have on Martin Waxman, digital communications and strategist.  Martin and I discuss one of the biggest parts of Appitalize, marketing.  More specifically, content.  Martin explains how content is such a big thing when it comes to any company.  Content isn't just blog posts, it's also pictures, videos, white papers, etc.  Martin gives some great examples of how and where to post your information.  Using tools like Slide Share, writing an ebook, and making videos are all things that don't take a lot of time but allow you to reuse content to get yourself the marketing boost you may be looking for.  Worried about how to create content? Listen to Martin's interviewListen to the whole thing the jump.Links Mentioned During the Show:Martin's Home PageMartin's Twitter accountFor more information check out Appitalize On Your Idea.

This week, Young PR Pros welcomes new listeners from the FIR podcast network. For our regular listeners you don't need to change anything, you will still continue to receive new weekly episodes through iTunes or Stitcher. For those who don't know, the FIR podcast network, run by internationally acclaimed communicators Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, is a collection of business podcasts on niche topics that appeal to communicators in different countries around the world. The anchor show, For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report, is the longest running communications podcast, broadcasting business and communications advice for more than a decade. In 2013, Hobson and Holtz expanded their podcast and created a network of a dozen shows, including the popular Canadian social media podcast Inside PR, hosted by Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley. For our first episode on the podcast network, we discuss the definition of the word spin. Some people see this as a four-letter bad word and want it eliminated from our vocabulary. Others see it as a flexible word with the opportunity to bend and change - or spin if you will - the definition. Hosts, Kristine D'Arbelles and Julia Kent bring in two experts to weigh in on this debate. The first is Elizabeth Gray-Smith, Social Columnist at iPolitics. We caught up with her earlier this year at the uOPRA Let's Grow Together conference and asked her how she felt about the word spin - spoiler, she doesn't think spin needs to be a four-letter bad word. The second expert is Gini Dietrich, CEO of Arment Dietrich and who is no stranger to the podcast, offers her view on the word spin. If you know Gini at all, you can guess what her opinion was. Here is a hint, she runs a blog called Spin Sucks. As our hosts easily discover, there is no easy right answer. The good news is that having this conversation is important to making our industry a better place. We have come far from the days of Mad Men, but there is still more work to do. So what can young professionals do today? Be curious and ask questions. Don't be afraid to stand up to your boss if you are uncomfortable with the task they have given you. Remember, no one gets fired for asking a question. Sometimes that is all it takes, one curious person asking the right question. What do you think? Do you think we can change the definition? Or should we get rid of the word? Or do you have another solution? We want to hear from you. Share your opinions by writing a comment below, or on our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or send us an email at youngprpros@gmail.com, or send us a message on Twitter @youngprpros, @kristinedarbell, or @kentjulia.

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO ofArment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communications firm. She is the lead blogger at the PR and marketing blog, Spin Sucks, is co-host of the Marketing in the Round podcast andInside PR podcast. She's also the co-author of Marketing in the Round: How to Develop an Integrated Marketing Campaign in the Digital Era (Que Biz-Tech) and author of Spin Sucks: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age (Que Biz-Tech). Talking about networking, public relations, blogging, and much more. NBN22 Show Notes Join the NBN Club today. Listen to episode 22 in iTunes or Stitcher. Get your free audio book by visiting Audible.com! Do it now and support this show please. Thanks to Clark Buckner for his audio comment. Leave your own networking tip, comment or question. Record one now. Please pick up a copy of my book, New Business Networking: How to Effectively Grow Your Business Network Using Online and Offline Methods. On forgetting to hit the record button in podcasting. SpinSucks is about unleashing our secret weapon of restoring trust. Meme on Facebook. It's about presenting ourselves in an open and honest way. NBN6 with Mark Schaefer. Listen to this. Should businesses use their logo for Twitter? People buy from people, they don't buy from organizations, logos, or brands. You can't build a relationship with a logo. It's not about what we say the brand is, it's about what our customers say it is. How to use press releases. How it's easier today to build relationships with journalists. Add the author's Twitter handle when you share their articles. Gini kept a spreadsheet of people she would promote on #followfriday. It's all about the Google juice! It's less about the optimization and the SEO, and more about the content you're creating for the human beings who consume it. Should you have comments on on your blog? The Lies PR Firms Tell (see the comments) Mitch Joel, “You don't have community, until the people who are commenting are talking to one another.” How do I help (my readers) have conversations with one another? Key lessons about blogging since Sept 2006. Google+ is Not Dead, Long Live Google+  StumbleUpon Write a letter to your future self. Inside PR Podcast with Gini, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman. On podcasting over radio. LinkedIn training from Dave. App Recommendation: Kindle. Book Recommendation: Once We Were Brothers. Contact Gini: spinsucks.com. Please leave a review in iTunes or Stitcher Radio. Every review is sincerely appreciated. You can subscribe to the show by RSS, email, or in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You will never miss an episode! Affiliate links used. Theme music, Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) byspinningmerkaba. Thanks for listening. You rock!

From my live BTR discussion with Martin Waxman of Palette PR and the "Inside PR" podcast.  We focused on how PR techniques can be useful for Regular Folks, not just big companies, major celebrities, politicians and religious leaders; some are, for example, useful in job hunting (which I'm trying to do), and promoting podcasts (which you may have noticed I'm also trying to accomplish).Bottom line it's about (1) building relationships with the media, and (2) your story -- determining what it is, how best to explain it to reporters et. al., and why it's news.  Martin seemed to think my show having listeners in 80 countries or so (assuming I'm understanding Google Analytics) is news.  He gave me some pointers for dealing with local newspaper reporters, and possibly radio.  And I made some excellent points about web page SEO, newspaper writing, and press releases, doncha think?We also talked about: Social Media Releases; Shel Holtz' recent helpful blogpost on that topic; Todd Defren's design of the format; Canada Newswire and PR Newswire, that distribute them; being patient with reporters, especially about deadlines; and the importance of research, followups and thinking long-term.Takeaways: Building relationships, and knowing why your story is a story.  And I really oughta work harder at promoting my podcasts.Thanks, Martin, for devoting a half-hour of your Sunday to this important topic.And I have listeners in 88 cities, in 19 countries.  Oops.Theme: "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod.

From my live BTR discussion with Martin Waxman of Palette PR and the "Inside PR" podcast.  We focused on how PR techniques can be useful for Regular Folks, not just big companies, major celebrities, politicians and religious leaders; some are, for example, useful in job hunting (which I'm trying to do), and promoting podcasts (which you may have noticed I'm also trying to accomplish).Bottom line it's about (1) building relationships with the media, and (2) your story -- determining what it is, how best to explain it to reporters et. al., and why it's news.  Martin seemed to think my show having listeners in 80 countries or so (assuming I'm understanding Google Analytics) is news.  He gave me some pointers for dealing with local newspaper reporters, and possibly radio.  And I made some excellent points about web page SEO, newspaper writing, and press releases, doncha think?We also talked about: Social Media Releases; Shel Holtz' recent helpful blogpost on that topic; Todd Defren's design of the format; Canada Newswire and PR Newswire, that distribute them; being patient with reporters, especially about deadlines; and the importance of research, followups and thinking long-term.Takeaways: Building relationships, and knowing why your story is a story.  And I really oughta work harder at promoting my podcasts.Thanks, Martin, for devoting a half-hour of your Sunday to this important topic.And I have listeners in 88 cities, in 19 countries.  Oops.Theme: "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod.

A round table of PR and non-PR podcasters, discussing how podcasters in general can benefit from PR; both techniques and knowledge, and participation in projects to benefit PR clients. Including:Terry Fallis, David Jones and Martin Waxman from "Inside PR," andShel Holtz and Neville Hobson from "For Immediate Release: the Hobson & Holtz Report"Forgot I'd mentioned Shel's Webinar thingie, "Tactical Transparency," related to the book, I see.Thanks to everyone for participating.  It's not that bad for my first effort at a live show!Theme "Hot Swing" and incidental music from Kevin MacLeod.End music from Natalie Brown, "Around the World."

A round table of PR and non-PR podcasters, discussing how podcasters in general can benefit from PR; both techniques and knowledge, and participation in projects to benefit PR clients. Including:Terry Fallis, David Jones and Martin Waxman from "Inside PR," andShel Holtz and Neville Hobson from "For Immediate Release: the Hobson & Holtz Report"Forgot I'd mentioned Shel's Webinar thingie, "Tactical Transparency," related to the book, I see.Thanks to everyone for participating.  It's not that bad for my first effort at a live show!Theme "Hot Swing" and incidental music from Kevin MacLeod.End music from Natalie Brown, "Around the World."