246: Breaking the Paywall: A Free Membership Offering in the Cancel Culture Era

I don't want to have any episode without providing some indestructible PR tip . The episode is a little short this week because I was traveling last week and I have some travel this upcoming week and we're getting into summer and I want to take it easy this summer . This is the first summer where I can sit back just a little .

I graduated my last two kids a week ago and I am heading into the new Molly phase of my life . But before I get to that full phase I have to rest up a bit . But I wanted to let you all know about a new offering that I have for the listeners and also for my followers . Many of you know that I have been on the Patreon website .

It's a membership that a lot of people have podcasts or any type of social media following . Patreon offered places where a place where I could , you know , post information , send videos just connect with a membership on a deeper level . And I had three tiers and my first tier was really more or less like a TikTok plus .

I called it off the record and it was where I started to , where I would start the conversation , maybe on TikTok or social media , but I would finish it under the protection of Patreon , with people within my community , because you can imagine speaking about topics on social media Some may come across as opinion or not , but people are going to give you theirs

regardless . So Patreon offered a safer space for me but also a place where community can engage . And then I had a middle tier for people who wanted to find out more about the industry , so once a week I would put a lesson out there .

And then the final tier I tied into my Indestructible online membership , my Indestructible PR membership , where I was doing monthly webinars , and you know the nature of communication in this industry . I have certainly followed the changes over the past decade plus that I've been doing this business .

The needs and wants of people change , new social media networks come out And also people tend to get their information just slightly differently . So on Patreon , which I really enjoyed and I loved , loved the membership .

It occurred to me one day , ding , that I had two memberships going at once And even though I was trying to merge them , it made it a little complicated sometimes And not to mention a lot of work for me , because I have a full client base plus , you know , my kids .

I'm busy and I travel And my travel is going to be , you know , picking up , and I wanted to put everyone in the same place . It didn't make sense to me to have these , you know , like this bifurcation of my membership of you know , i had my , i guess , professional client base and then a Patreon was more of my social media persona .

I wanted to merge the two together but I did not know how to do it . Enter five . Now , five is a platform that they're calling . It's like the ultimate conversation platform And it's a way to get even closer to subject matter experts out there . And the timing of this was perfect because I was really trying to figure out like , where is the best place ?

Do I just ditch one membership and put it just everything on my kajabi , or do I put everything on Patreon ? It was driving me nutty But thankfully , you know , five reached out to me . They launched in January . It's an amazing startup . It's backed by . You know names . You may have heard of Mark Zuckerberg , bill Gates . You know what's his face ?

Oh my goodness , you can tell . I'm not reading from notes . I just saw a photo of him with his fiance , lauren Sanchez . Oh my goodness , i don't know whether Washington imposed an Amazon . Why Jeff Bezos ? Oh my goodness , my brain . I think I was so caught up in what Lauren Sanchez looked like nowadays The fiance . But you know .

But it's backed by you know big people . They got some . They got some people behind it . But why ? I really like the platform outside of them reaching out to me . It flips the platform upside down , in a way . So instead of me constantly pushing out content and having people pay for that , i didn't like that .

That didn't feel good , because my podcast is free , social media is free , so much of what I do my emails are free , is free , and I didn't like the feeling of all of a sudden charging for a part of my content And I , and with that pressure , i felt like I needed to give people more and it was just becoming a lot . So what five does is it removes .

It removes the , the paywall , if you will . It has a free membership , so you can sign on to five right now and you can do it for free .

And what it does is this app is more designed to help connect yes , directly with the audience and share my expertise on a whole new level , and it it's driven by the one thing that I get more than anything else in my business , and that's questions .

Because when I open up my social media apps Instagram , twitter I'm not a fan of Twitter right now , but TikTok , oh my goodness , the the amount of direct messages I get are like literally overwhelming . I cannot answer them all And in a couple of that , with all of the replies that I get , we're talking thousands , like I get thousands of .

I can't get to all of them and I want to . It bothers me when I can't . And in a lot of these replies there'll be requests and questions and I don't see them unless I sit and really drill down and start answering questions . And there's two huge problems with answering questions . On TikTok One , i have to navigate a minefield of assault .

You know people are just going to tell you in any way possible that you're an idiot , or that you're stupid , or you're a racist , or you're a liberal , or you're a conservative . They'll tell you everything and they're wrong , wrong , but there's that piece of it . And then also but I found a way like I can scan .

Now I've learned how to scan texts to look for incendiary texts and friendly texts , and then there's a friendly fire too . You know , people will say I love you , but those sometimes are the worst . But what people bring to me , though , are questions , and I want to answer these questions , and that's what five is .

It is a platform that's built around questions , so you can bring your burning questions to me , and I will offer in return Advice and discussions all within you know my area of public relations crisis management . Yeah , popular culture , news , breaking news , current event , career , public relations , crisis management , all of it .

So if you join the community , the five community and I'll tell you it's five dot me backslash , molly McPherson . That's where you'll be able to find me . It's also searchable on SEO , so you can just put in five and put my name , and it will hopefully come up . But it is a place , and this is the reason why I like it .

It's it's giving people access to a community like an exclusive community , but it's creating these engaging discussions , And that's what I was looking for what I found . You know what ? you can hear my jacket in the background . I just got in and I never even took my coat off here . Hold on a moment , will I get comfortable ? But what five is ? it's just .

It's part expert , part creators , and we all have subscriptions and every creator that's on there is wickedly different .

I'm the only communication person you know on on the platform right now , but this was the answer to my problem , because I can provide value , but I can do it on different levels , and the value that I'm providing is answering questions , because that is my favorite source of content . That is my favorite content to put out there .

Just ask my question and I'll answer it . The struggle with Patreon is coming up with the content , like in , and trying to guess what people want . So I look at this platform as a win win . It's a way to connect with you , my audience and also , you know , a way for you all to get valuable insights , not only for me but also from you as well .

And five does have , if you look at the different topics on there the different subject matter experts . There's a lot of interesting ones there in personal development , photography , cooking , finance . There's a lot of different areas out there , so you can usually find an expert creator and they're and they're growing every day .

So there is a variety of topics , but naturally I want you to come to my topic of the topic of Molly public relations , crisis management , communication , breaking news , all of it , like I said . So head on over to five And if you're on my email list , you're going to get an email , or you've already received an email about this as well .

So five , dot me backslash , molly McPherson . That will bring you up to my page PR confidential the insiders guide to PR and crisis communication . So I I'm going to share information about how you can master crisis communication .

We're doing it by following the latest PR crisis in the news , and I will do it from breaking news , from the news you might see on a front page or in your local news , but also news that you will see . Yes , but the perspective that I give , i feel , is somewhat unique .

I'm always going to offer actionable advice , going to try and be as entertaining as possible , but I want to give that type of insight . Now , in every podcast , i always want to leave one indestructible PR tip And it's about the definition of a crisis . I know boring , but stay with me for a moment .

What I'm noticing nowadays is that everything literally is a crisis For brands , organizations , celebrities , movie stars , recording artists , athletes , connor McGregor , which is so funny . Connor McGregor is caught up in a I don't want to call it sex sandal , but he's being accused of sexual assault . Of course there's footage .

There's always footage claiming that the woman was with him after the alleged assault . So we don't know .

but what's funny about it is , as I love tying into news my son had to deliver a commencement address last week for the high school graduation and he needed to write a speech and he wanted to bring in people who he likes , or you know , some cultural person or icon that he likes .

Well , the first one he wanted to quote was Kanye West , and that wasn't going to work because he knows a lot of people do not like Kanye West anymore . They are offended by his rhetoric , his hate speech , his anti-Semitic speech . He is not in favor or in favor with people anymore . He's not the flavor of the month .

That's what I wanted to say , by any means . But a lot of people still like his work And , as a matter of fact , there was a review on my podcast . Someone gave me a one star review because on a podcast I said I listened to Kanye West , i got to take the hit on that one . I'll take your one star review . I'll take that .

I mean , i deserve that And that's what makes the whole idea of a crisis sticky right , and that's what , and that's my cancel ratio that I talk about as well What makes a person like truly , truly canceled and when can they come back ?

You know , on TikTok recently when I was out , i was speaking out in Arizona on a hike I , just before I started my hike , i just happened to look on Instagram and I had noticed that someone who was most definitely canceled all of a sudden wasn't canceled And I did a TikTok about that and it was about Jessica Mulroney .

And Jessica Mulroney is Megan Merkel's BFF former . Allegedly She's also politically connected in Canada . Her father-in-law was Trudeau . No , not Trudeau , mulroney , that's dumb . Justin Trudeau is the current prime minister , but Jessica Mulroney is , you know , she's PR . She's also had programs on the air in Canada . I mean , she's known in Toronto .

So she's married to the son of Brian Mulroney , so he was the former prime minister of Canada . But what she's really known for is being tied in with Megan Merkel and she was there during her suits years . She was there for the TIG years .

She was also prominent in Megan Merkel's wedding to Prince Harry , and her kids were as well , and I mentioned that I had seen on Instagram and I saw it nowhere else , just on Instagram that Jessica Mulroney is coming back to GMA Good morning America , which I found utterly fascinating And this is why I love the job that I do .

Good morning America , gma , owned by ABC , owned by Disney I should say it's part of ABC News And they have determined that Jessica Mulroney can come back Now . I think she's very pretty . I love her style , i love her fashion , her voice . On GMA , she talks about weddings , so it's a little hypey for me . Are you gonna say yes or no ?

Yes , i don't know if we want that in the morning , but she must have been popular because they're having her back . She's coming back , apparently . She's coming with Michael Strahan , and whether it's gonna be fashion or weddings , she's coming back .

And I find that interesting in the cancel culture , who determined that it's time for someone to come back after being canceled over a racial dialogue ?

You know , it was during 2020 , i probably the summer of 2020 when she had words with a black female influencer who was questioning her white entitlement And instead of just taking it and explaining it , she pushed back and people pushed back hard on her . She lost all endorsements , including GMA , but now she is back .

So , determining what a crisis is I guess how I got here is they happen every day , they happen all the time . You know it's just essentially when something happens within your business or your brand or whoever you are , and what are those some things . I mean it could be that's just a surprise .

You know , some unexpected surprise could happen that's going to impact your business . It could be something that's somewhat predictable . You know this is gonna happen , but you don't know to the extent or how big it's gonna happen . It could be something that you weren't expecting . It could be like a sudden death .

It could be a sudden arrest of someone you know , who you know , or someone affiliated by you . There's also a crisis can happen when there's insufficient information out there . I was talking to a friend of mine today .

He has , you know , he's on a board and he's dealing with a massive misinformation problem And I was telling him because he was telling me all the information He was backing up . He said A , b , c , d , e , f , and I said it doesn't matter . It doesn't matter if that information is turned up , because it's insufficient to the people who matter the public .

The public doesn't know this information . You have insufficient information That could cause a crisis .

When you have , like events that happen one after one and I can say this with my friend too when they're escalating in nature , one thing happens , and that's , you know , my friend , when we were talking about this issue , he said , well , we cleared it , it's done . And I said , well , maybe that part's done , but these things have a way of escalating .

Another issue that he's dealing with is he has a reporter that's really really hitting the scrutiny button on them And I said that's what escalates , and it escalates quickly . So maybe you might move from this issue and people may move on from it , but this reporter dog without a bone reporter , i guarantee you , this reporter is digging around for other stories .

They're looking for past decisions , They're looking for any type of gosh , malfeasance , mistakes , anything that could make it a bigger deal , cause eventually , what they want is they want someone gone . So that's intense scrutiny , and it could be from the press , it could be from your community , it could be like your membership , your constituents , whatever it is .

It could be intense scrutiny from the outside . It could just be people online , people you don't even know . They decide that they want to go in and they're going to hit you hard And once that happens , you lose control .

Like you lose control of your narrative , you lose control of the plot , like you've lost the plot , and when that happens , panic usually sets in And that's a crisis Like . So you don't like . If you think back to the 90s and the 80s , when people talk about a crisis and Tylenol , it was always like a big deal .

But now any type of interruption to your business creates this crisis where you need a crisis response . And , as I say often , as I said it three times last week in three key notes , your next crisis will be a social media crisis . May not originate there , but it sure as heck is going to land there . So that's all this week for the Indestructible Podcast .

So that's all this week for the Indestructible PR Podcast . Remember , you can join me , my new community on the platform five . It's fiveme backslash , molly McPherson . That's all for now . Bye for now .