REMASTERED: Mastering the New Media Landscape, with Rusty Shelton and Barbara Henricks (Marketing, Public Relations / PR, Social Media, Communications)

that or not. And so what they had the power to do now is to go around gatekeepers that used to guard access to, to ink in newspapers, or the airwaves on a on a radio program or a TV show. And now they can go right around those traditional gatekeepers in

and get directly to their audience. And the way that we think about that is some people that are that are listening, this podcast may just influence a few 100 people via a Facebook profile, or a Twitter account, other people like you, through the podcast are influencing 10s of 1000s of people each month. And so it's this idea that individuals and brands have an opportunity that they've never had before, to build out a subscriber base and an audience that they own the connection to.

And those micro media outlets matter tremendously to anyone looking to get the word out and today's media landscape.

The big change here is there are no gatekeepers. So the upside of that is you can build this personal connection to your audience. The downside of this is that it's made the world go from noisy to what I call deafening, it also makes the news cycle itself very odd. So this is what's changed. The gatekeepers aren't there. And things now have this opportunity to become news. It's not just going viral, it's just that the gatekeepers gone. And everybody has a direct, you know, access.

Practically speaking, this means there's an opportunity before you to use this democratic access to this space to engage to offer valuable information to engage in dialogue. The challenge is that not everyone has the skills to do this tremendously well. So we have layman journalists, you know, something very insignificant, or minor or trivial can push real news out of the spotlight or out of the headline. The upside of

that is think about some of the good uses. Do you know, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge millions of people Sure $20 million was generated by that campaign for people. You know, it was outrageous, it was silly, it was a visual, it also raised a lot of awareness and a lot of money. So the environment is really you know, it is a two edged sword. There are also new creations like Reddit AMA asked me anything, we now have access to people like Bill Gates, President Obama, who will take

advantage of this and we have more direct access. So it's definitely an up and downside to this new environment. But the fact of the matter is, the environment is different. And we all need to change.

environment. We think what is most important for your listeners and others to think about is this idea of whether or not they I own the media. So in other words, whether or not they own the real estate online. And so in the book, we separate media into three categories, owned, earned and rented media. So owned media is every piece of real estate, online in every

media that you own. So your website, if it's hosted on, on your name, your blog, because it lives on that same website, your email list, because you own the connection to your audience through that email list. If you have a physical mailing list, as many companies do, that's owned media, the idea around owned media in as Barbara and I really look at the overall media landscape owned media equals leverage in this media landscape, it's an audience that you can get to anytime you want

to. And so you don't have to hope that NPR says yes to an interview request, you don't have to hope that that company agrees to run your article, you own the connection with a large audience, you can reach them anytime you want. Second

category is rented media. So a lot of people that we hear talk about, you know, their audience, they say, Okay, well, my Facebook page, my Twitter account, my LinkedIn profile it and in some ways, that's true, of course, you've got a lot of control over what your LinkedIn profile looks like, you've got a lot of control over what goes out on your Twitter feed. But in actuality, you actually own that real estate, you're in many ways

renting that real estate. And so a lot of brands found this out the hard way in 2013, when Facebook, tweaked their algorithm and limited access to the audience that brands had spent years building on brand pages, and once in one fell swoop limited access to that audience to about 10% of what brands had previously. And so what Barbara and I talk a lot about in the book is this idea that yes, we absolutely will absolutely think that individuals and brands should

have a smart rented media strategy. But you always have to keep in the back of your mind that the audience that you leave on Facebook or the audience that you leave on LinkedIn, as opposed to consistently focusing on trying to convert them to your email list, or owned media is an audience that's always at risk. The last category for us is earned media. In earned media

includes what we might think of as traditional media. So it's getting an opportunity to be featured in The New York Times, or Fox Business, or NPR or others earned media for us also includes this podcast, because this podcast is not something that you're letting just anybody on TV, we've got to earn our way on to this podcast. So it's this idea that there's a lot of perceived credibility that goes along with earned media. And there's a good reason for that, because it's not easy to get on.

And so the way that we think about earns media and you've done this so well, with your podcast is this idea that when you get out in front of an audience, what you're trying to do is not just provide extreme value and give them entertaining and informative content. But we always want to have that call to action, whether it's a free quiz or a download on a website, or a reason for those people to hit on their smartphone in the audience and head over the website and grab a free ebook or

whatever it may be. And so those are the three categories that we think are important for people to be thinking about. And this idea that you always want to have a bit of a magnet, directing people towards owned media.

time, not just when you go in for the sales call. But you can be providing valuable content all the time. So these tools should really be looked at as okay, I'm not going to just grow a subscriber base, as Rusty said that sits on Facebook, or LinkedIn or wherever I keep it. I'm going to challenge myself to create my own customer base on some piece of real estate that I own so that I can constantly be giving them something that's valuable. We need to be pushing the media we reach out to them

with pitches we follow up. We're trying to build a relationship so that the next time a book crosses their desk, what goes through their mind not to my interested in this book, but do those guys bring me good stuff? Or do they crawl my desk with 58 books every day that I don't have anything to do with what I write about or what I do on my show? So if We build the right kind of relationship with our contacts. And we use media to do it. So, you know, what are your customers needs? Besides your

product? What can you provide them that a distinguishes yourself and be delivered something that makes you memorable and different in their minds? And I think micro media is a good way to do that. What do they need? What are they looking for? answer those questions kind of, well, you know, it's what we try to do on our blog. You know, I might interview a literary agent, what does anybody need a literary

agent today? Who reads my blog author, authors who are trying to get attention, I'm trying to serve my audience, between the times that they need my service. And I think that salespeople have the potential to do that. It's what you're doing right now you're doing a podcast, you know, you're making touchpoints.

Beyond just, you know, one initial impression, Macromedia really allows you to make constant impressions, or to manage the relationships so that you are there was something valuable when you crossed their, you know, their desk in this very noisy, distracted world in which we lead?

in the rented media space for for salespeople. And, you know, you had asked earlier, why should we care as a as a sales industry about micro media. And just to expand on on something that Barbara talked about there, the power of perception is is hugely important for salespeople, salespeople should be seen as the authority in their industry. And it's very hard to be an authority unless you have a personal brand in place. And we believe in today's media landscape, the best route

to a personal brand. That positions you as an authority where you can prescribe and not sell is to become a micro media outlet yourself and associate yourself through good content through interviews through you know, influencer connections with the current tastemakers in your industry.

thing you do is find out how discoverable you are. So that when people want you need you, they can't find you to do that. Rusty, I know would give the advice go out right now today, stop everything and buy the URL that's associated with your name. So www dot Barbara henrichs.com. If you can do that locked down that real estate, it will get more valuable over time. The second thing I would do is just make sure that all the bios that people can see actually reflect what you do

today. Over and again, authors come to us with bios that don't talk about their latest book, you know, they say or they just mentioned the book, they don't embed certain keywords that the media might be looking for. So you know, we worked with a woman

who had written a book about terrorism essentially. And one little tweak of her social media by bio when ISIS erupted, drove all sorts of traffic to her door, she was an expert on ISIS, she was so all we needed to do was embed that's a look at your own the existing bios that you have, make sure they're up to date, make sure they're accurate so that you're discoverable and by your URL. Second is a really easy one in a softer principle, which is never sacrifice credibility. When you start

representing yourself online. Always be accurate, always be authentic. I just don't think that there's any replacements don't start creating an image that you are not comfortable with that is false. Just be who you are perhaps be a little larger or dramatic so that you know it is seen maybe not dramatic, so better but be more of who you are in larger doses, but always be authentic and always be accurate.

certain certain areas of focus. And I think branding and clarity around branding is hugely important. The other thing I would say in terms of future proofing is, again, not to put all of your eggs in any one basket, I see a lot of people that are incredibly heavy on their Facebook page or the entirety of their platform is wrapped up with the fact that

they have a Forbes column. And in a moment's notice, if you don't own the real estate, you've got to be really clear that that can be taken away from you or Facebook can make a

change and limit access to your audience. So future proofing, we believe the more of the connection to the audience that you own, through an email list through subscribers on your site, etc, the more leverage you have over the long term, so I would say owning a connection with your audience is another thing I would say is a really important future proofing strategy.