Eric Schwartzman

In this episode of the B2B Lead Gen Podcast, Scott Brinker, vice president of platform ecosystem at HubSpot and editor at Chief MarTech talks about stack business value with marketing technology.

Brinker is also chair of the MarTech Conference and an MIT Sloan School of Management graduate.

He launched Chiefmartec.com 13 years ago to explore the intermingling of marketing and technology before B2B customer journeys were well understood and before the concept of B2B content marketing funnels or B2B lead generation evolved.

The site, whose name is an abbreviation of the “Chief Marketing Technologist” job title, covers the latest digital marketing news and produces its own trade show.

What are Martech Stacks?

https://youtu.be/7caLHsCnR3I

Though he’s still very invested in Chiefmartec, Scott spends most of his time at Hubspot, which became prominent a few years ago by investing in B2B content marketing.

“We found that pivot point where people were going more and more to the internet to make decisions about who they wanted to do business with, the whole shift from outbound sales and heavy advertising budgets to a model that would attract customers by publishing content that was useful to them, would show up in Google and social networks,” Brinker says.

Although they have enterprise clients, Hubspot is seeing the most growth in the midmarket, so they’re not just marketing to a CTO persona. They’re selling directly to founders and entrepreneurs as well.

Since then, Hubspot has become a full martech stack for marketing, sales, and customer service, with around 700 third-party app partners marketing SaaS applications to integrate with their platform. Scott celebrates the explosion of the Hubspot ecosystem, but he also sees it as a big challenge.

“Sure, I can buy all these specialized tools, but do I get them to work together? My mission at Hubspot is to help solve that problem by saying, ‘Ok, Hubspot is at the center of your stack, we’d like to work with all those companies that have out-of-the-box integration, so you just don’t have to think about that, you just plug them in and they work,” he says.

Integrated Marketing for Small Business

https://youtu.be/PGYkv9CMEcQ

One of the big changes brought about by Hubspot is giving many small businesses the chance to use advanced digital marketing tools. But how can a small start-up spec its stack, get a scope study going and minimize risk?

“A small business that is new to this should not read my blog, it will only distract them and freak them out”, Scott says with a smile. Not surprisingly, he suggests resorting to Hubspot instead. “It does so much out of the box and it provides such good educational materials. It’s just the way to go,” says Brinker.

He says that while much of the digital marketing tech is cool, when you’re optimizing the web experience with content marketing, search engine optimization, and email marketing, the real work is the actual content creation and lead qualification.

Brinker says Hubspot minimizes the risk of winding up with a Frankenstack. Still, like anything else in the software world, successful deployments rely on how well you gather data across different functions, fine-tune the customer experience, and customize your workflows.

But for the right customers, Hubspot’s integrated sales, service, and marketing applications are an off-the-shelf revenue operations stack worth looking into.

Listen to the full interview with Scott Brinker, and if you’d like to support this podcast, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts here.

Conversion Rate Optimization

https://youtu.be/AtWCCKLH58k

In this podcast which will be of interest to Ecommerce marketing agencies, I spoke with SoundCommerce CEO Eric Best, a 20-year commerce vet who's worked at Amazon and Liberty Interactive.

He was CSO at CommerceHub through its IPO, CEO and founder at Mercent, and cofounder at Impresys, Emercis, and MindCorps.

In this interview, he talks to us about why some website marketing companies outperform, how he approaches ecommerce marketing and how Google’s plans to eliminate cookies will change website marketing strategy.

How small business is adapting to direct to consumer ecommerce marketing

What small business marketers are doing right, and what they’re doing wrong

Optimizing for Customer Lifetime Value

2 common failure points when it comes to measuring and optimizing ecommerce marketing campaigns

Measuring omni channel customer journeys that take place on multiple websites and devices

Impact of consumer privacy laws like CCPA and GDPR on digital analytics

Google’s planned elimination of cookie support, after this. Stay with us.

How Google’s planned elimination of third-party cookie support will change digital marketing

Likelihood of Section 230 reform and holding social networks accountable for engagement-based amplification

Subscribe to the B2B Lead Gen Podcast.

If you want to know how to hire a virtual assistant to support your digital marketing, this episode is for you. I spoke with Mashon Thomas, who specializes in helping clients retain, onboard and manage outsourced virtual assistants. She has been doing it for over a decade, having started as a freelancer herself on upwork. She spoke to me about how she improves the success rate when it comes to hiring virtual assistants abroad.

For all her tips on how to hire a virtual assistant, listen to this episode of the earned media podcast. She shares many of her secrets on how she successfully finds, tries and decides which virtual assistants to hire and which ones to replace.

Instead focusing on find the dream person, focus on systems so it's easy to try people out and see who's going to work out and who isn't quickly. Rather than spend a lot of time on the interview process, the key to hiring VAs is to hire fast and fire fast. Focus on building systems that make the hiring and onboarding process easy.

Test Projects

Since you don't really know how someone works until you actually try working with them, she prefers to give new employees test projects to see how they do. She uses the online video briefing tool Loom to create short instructions so the briefing process is virtualized. That way, she can just give a new hire a link, and see how they do without having to invest on inordinate amount of time bring them up to speed.

On Boarding

She recommends preparing an on boarding document with the time zones of all the team members, the preferred Communications tools for various types of Communications email, slack, Zoom, a sauna, or some other means, whether or not Communications in an Outsourcing platform like upwork or Guru is acceptable, Mutual agreed working hours, and policy for time off.

For new hires, she prefers to commit to a set schedule when that person will be working so that they can be contacted during working hours by their manager. Everybody wants flexible hours. But flexible hours must be earned, she says. So start out with set hours and let the virtual assistant know that they can earn their independence overtime.

One way to improve remote Workforce collaboration if you are using a tool like Slack, is to make sure everyone uses their notifications and Away messages to let others know when they're at their desk or working. As long as everyone is diligent about when they're available and when they're not, slack can be a very effective tool for collaboration.

Compensation

Country compensations rates vary, but they are alway hourly. W2 companies have standard wages, but VAs working all over the world are compensated based on the averages in their resident country's economy.

Based on some preliminary research I did, these are current rates for virtual assistants working abroad. As you can see, the rates vary based on the resident country.

Phillipines $10

India $11

Malaysia $12

Colombia $13

Ukraine $14

The benefit of a tool like Upwork is the ability to compensate remote employees and comply with the necessary taxes and deductions without having to handle that manually. Upwork takes care of making sure you are compliant with tax laws. On the other hand, Upwork is not a great tool for day-to-day communications. Mashon ikes Slack and Asana for collaboration, with Google Drive integrated.

Task Hand Off Tracking System

Mashon has created a task hand off tracking system template that she uses to onboard new VA hires, that you can download here.

If you'd like to reach out to Mashon directly you can do that here.

Digital Marketing Reporting with Harvard Business Analytics Program Graduate Shonali Burke, an accomplished digital public relations, corporate communications, and PR measurement expert.

A former digital PR consultant, Shonali Burke completed the Harvard Business Analytics Program and in this episode of the Earned Media Podcast, she talks about why she decided to enroll, what exactly she learned, just how difficult the program was, and whether or not it's worth the $51,000 investment.

The Harvard Business Analytics Program is a three-shield program that combines faculty from Harvard Business School, the School of Engineering, and the School of Arts and Sciences to go well beyond just statistics.

To give students a thorough understanding of digital transformation, which digital analytics are used to justify, the program covers programming languages like SQL and Python and the building blocks of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

In this interview, Shonali talks about how the program teaches students how to take a more agile, modular approach to leveraging and harnessing data to drive business growth.

The Harvard Business Analytics Program – which can be completed in as little as nine months for full-time track students – is made up of six core courses (like Digital Strategy and Innovation and Foundations of Quantitative Analysis), which are eight weeks each, two two-week seminars, and two 3-day immersions which used to be on campus preCOVID but are not anymore.

Much of the work can be performed asynchronously, but you do also attend live peer group discussions. Shonali says the live classes are fun, but in true Harvard Business School fashion, you have to be ready to answer questions from Professor Lakhani, who fires them away from the podium without notice.

Listen to full episode and find out why effective business communication is so foundational to digital transformation, how data can improve content marketing funnels and more.

Mike Prasad is the founder of TinySponsor, an influencer marketing platform that connects marketers with influencers who can help brands scale their content marketing efforts, as well as Marketing Club on Clubhouse, a top 10 club globally and the biggest industry club on the platform with 270,000 members. Every Monday at 12pm PT Marketing Club hosts roundtable discussions on the latest marketing trends, case studies, and insights.

Mike also serves as a digital marketing consultant advising brands, startups, agencies, and creators. In this episode of the Earned Media Podcast we discuss online influencer marketing campaigns, sustainable digital business strategy, and the Clubhouse app.

In this episode:

05:13 What is influencer marketing?

06:25 How collaborating with an influencer works.

07:52 How does TinySponsor work?

09:42 How pricing works on TinySponsor.

11:04 Making a living as a content creator.

14:02 How brands can incorporate online influencer marketing in their growth marketing strategy.

16:28 The best formats for driving traffic.

18:01 How can small businesses create successful influencer marketing campaigns?

20:38 How the pandemic changed consumer behavior, and how small businesses should adapt.

21:59 Having a digital storefront versus a physical storefront.

23:40 Do people prefer touchless transactions?

25:16 How can small businesses that want customers to buy from them directly compete against tech giants?

29:01 How a brand can build a loyal audience beyond social media.

30:28 How do influencers generate income?

31:28 The consequences of burning your audience.

32:09 Which brands are spending heavily on online influencer advertising?

32:55 Is consistency important when working with online influencers?

33:41 What do successful small businesses that make use of online technology well do differently from small businesses that struggle to compete online?

36:11 How does Clubhouse work?

39:49 Is Clubhouse’s growth slowing down?

41:41 Is Mike Prasad earning revenue from Clubhouse?

43:24 Is Mike Prasad part of the Clubhouse creator program?

44:37 Will Twitter Spaces be a threat to Clubhouse?

46:33 How to get in touch with Mike Prasad. 

SUBSCRIBE TO THE EARNED MEDIA HOUR PODCAST: https://www.ericschwartzman.com/earned-media-hour-podcast-subscriber/

https://youtu.be/-c9ozK8grfs

Isaac Saul is a politics reporter who grew up in suburban Pennsylvania and has lived and reported all over the world. He has written for Daily Mail, HuffPost, New York Daily News, Vox, and many others. These days, though, he runs Tangle, an independent, ad-free, nonpartisan political newsletter distributed on Substack, a newsletter distribution platform with features that enable you to build an audience and generate income.

In this podcast interview, Isaac talks about the state of political journalism, finding an audience without a network backbone, the exploding Substack email newsletter platform technology, and more.

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Email Newsletters for Political Journalism

During much of the past five years, there was an almost steady stream of hard news for American journalists, with the volatile political scene constantly generating buzz and driving cable news network ratings skyward. And even though the change in leadership has resulted in a noticeably more predictable, behaved administration, the landscape for political journalism appears to have changed significantly.

Describing himself as a former “viral news writer trying to drive traffic,” Isaac shares his insights on political journalism in our interview. He noted two shifts in the way audiences consume news: a strong, growing distrust for the mainstream media on both sides of the political spectrum, and a spike in reader engagement leading up to the 2020 elections.

https://youtu.be/-0jtC_RrLOM

“I go where the conversation’s going, and I think, as a result, I have like a pretty broad view and perspective of what's happening in the country,” says Isaac. “I definitely feel more comfortable in certain places than others, but national politics, for sure, is my beat.”

Isaac saw the changing landscape as an opportune moment to launch his independent political journalism initiative. Tangle is a daily newspaper that subscribers receive for free Monday through Thursday — and so far, the response has been great. “The concept of the newsletter is really simple,” Isaac explains. “You're gonna get views from across the political spectrum on whatever the big story of the day is.” In addition, Isaac also answers a reader question in every newsletter, features an important or heavy story, and ends it with a “good news” story (“A little positive to wash it all down.”

Isaac reveals that Tangle does not get much traffic from Facebook, Twitter, or any similar platforms. For him, this aligns with his goal of helping people get out of their bubbles and break out of their echo chambers. “Most people I know log on to social media, and they get nothing but views and tweets and posts that reinforce their political beliefs. So I don't rely on Facebook for traffic. I don't rely on Twitter for traffic. I rely entirely on word of mouth.” And the numbers don’t lie: From 50 subscribers, Tangle has now grown to 21,000 daily readers in less than two years. “I am doing everything I can to not be incentivized by those algorithms, because I think they're a big part of the problem.”

A recent episode of the Earned Media Podcast with atmospheric scientist Michael Mann highlighted the behavior of paid online trolls on polarizing articles, often filling comment sections with falsehoods and vitriol. Isaac’s solution? You can only comment on Tangle newsletters if you’re a paying subscriber. “It's really the people who are invested in what the newsletter’s mission is, and invested in being exposed to views that they might not agree with, who are allowed to comment. And that is a really, really effective way to sort of filter out the trolls and the people who are just coming in there to, you know, be divisive.” While Isaac acknowledges that it is not a foolproof measure, he is proud of the fact that, to this day, he has never had to ban anyone or delete any comments for trolling. 

https://youtu.be/WPr1hAy6T6g

Finding an audience without a network backbone

Isaac learned a hard truth early on in his writing career: that people would take his reporting seriously based not on what he was writing, but where he was publishing it. Therefore, writing and publishing anything in a left-leaning newspaper makes it unlikely to be read by anyone with opposing political views. On top of that, applying for a job at a media organization is anything but a cakewalk.

“I got really tired and frustrated with being pegged to the institutions of the brands that I was writing for, because I didn't want to be represented by them,” Isaac expounds. “I wanted my writing and my arguments to stand on their own.” This is what prompted him to start Tangle on Substack; soon enough, what began as an experimental side project became a full-time commitment. “I chose Substack instead of freelancing, or anything else, because I wanted that independence. I wanted it to just be mine.”

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On the subject of media literacy and good media hygiene, Isaac acknowledges that it is a major problem in America, even with major mainstream media outlets seemingly blurring the line between news and opinion. “I, as a journalist, sometimes struggle to understand, you know, where mainstream news outlets are drawing that line,” Isaac admits. “And so I can't imagine just being a casual media consumer who's trying to do that. And my belief is that the only way to fix it is to sort of have that radical transparency, which is what I'm trying to do with Tangle.”

Daily Candy EIC Dany Levy eventually sold the email subscription newsletter to Comcast for $125 million. Meanwhile, Isaac has a different set of goals for Tangle. “My dream would be to have a small, really well-paid team with no red tape that's just working together every day to produce a really, really good, strong piece of content every morning that people are going to want to read and be excited to read.”

https://youtu.be/WZFDhxYakLg

To listen to my full interview with Isaac (in which we also talked about Tangle’s editorial production schedule, the character traits of Tangle if she were a person, publishing on Substack, and more), click the link at the top of the post.

If you’d like to support what we do, leave us a review here on Apple Podcasts.

Harry McCracken is an award-winning journalist and Technology Editor of Fast Company, a news media outlet dedicated to inspiring readers to think beyond traditional boundaries and create the future of business.

In this podcast interview, Harry talks about how he decides what to write about, regulating tech without ruining it, restoring trust in journalism, YouTube's product strategy, and how to get featured by Fast Company.

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Regulating Engagement Based Algorithms

Ever since the Cambridge Analytica psychographic profiling scandal, Congress has yet to hold Facebook, Twitter or Google accountable for the lies and deception their algorithms spread in order to increase session time with sensationalized content that is psychographically selected to align with and stoke each user’s fears, hopes and dreams. These social networks do the same thing Cambridge Analytica tried to do, but was shut down because the social networks want their user data all for themselves.

Despite the fact that social networks use algorithms to direct users to content most likely to provoke an emotional reaction, they are currently shielded from liability for what users say on their platforms under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which Justice Clarence Thomas took aim at. By saying social networks have really become more like “common carriers” -- which is the language used to describe phone companies -- Thomas is suggesting that social networks should be treated more like phone companies. 

https://youtu.be/MH2KULhivxY

Harry says that while What’s App is similar to a common carrier, social networks don’t like to admit it but they are much more comparable to traditional news media outlets. He also says there’s a bipartisan consensus in the federal government that section 230 is broken and needs to be fixed.

The fact that social networks are removing noncompliant content, makes them much more of a publisher than a common carrier. 

Restoring Truth in Journalism

Back in 2007, Harry was the editor in chief of PC World Magazine, which at that point was the largest tech magazine in terms of circulation. He briefly left his position at the publication after an editorial dispute with their CEO at the time, where he took a stand for a story titled “10 Things We Hate About Apple” that the CEO did not want to publish (in the interest of protecting a critical business relationship). The issue became public, and after some time, the CEO ultimately left his position. Harry returned to his duties as EIC and stayed for another year.

The Edelman Trust Barometer shows a decline in trust in the news media. “I'd say that, broadly speaking, the reputation of the media is in tatters,” Harry opines, though he adds that it’s still possible to build a media brand that people trust. “One of the reasons that Fast Company is weathering this era pretty well, is that we have this quorum of people who have really bonded with us on an emotional level in terms of what our mission is.”

https://youtu.be/opp2PDPkk5E

Harry describes Fast Company as a brand that has stayed optimistic in its 25 years of existence, and that it has done its best to tell uplifting, inspiring stories in the tech world. However, the publisher has also evolved over the last four or five years to be quite a bit more critical than it once was, calling out big tech and media companies whenever necessary. “I think that's probably the single most important thing you can do to continue to have credibility among your readers.”

What Makes Fast Company’s Editorial Unique?

While Fast Company covers tech news like other outlets, the brand leans more towards keeping stories short and skimmable, giving them more freedom to invest time and energy into stories that really matter. “We love behind-the-scenes stories; we love having the opportunity to follow an innovation in progress over days or weeks, or months, and tell the story that other outlets often don't have the luxury of telling, because they're much more news-driven.”

https://youtu.be/hZJ0WI-TlnU

In 2020, there was a period in which Fast Company devoted the entirety of its reporting resources to the pandemic. “And then, even when we started to weave other stuff back into our reporting, it tended to be either pandemic-adjacent, or it was about politics and the presidential campaign, and misinformation,” says Harry.

As far as news beats go, Fast Company covers tech in general, but tends to put focus on stories that involve interesting elements. “In some cases, my reporting involves walking into a company over a few weeks or a few months and following that tail in person, which has not been possible,” reminisces Harry. “But I'm looking forward to that becoming an option again. And that's often some of the most satisfying reporting we do.”

To listen to my full interview with Harry (in which we also talked about what would happen if Congress were to regulate social media, the blurring line between news and opinion, how technology will likely change after the COVID-19 pandemic, nostalgic tech stories, and more), click the link at the top of the post.

Subscribe to the Earned Media Podcast.

If you’d like to support what we do, leave us a review here on Apple Podcasts.

Joe Pulizzi is the best-selling author of Content Inc., Killing Marketing, and Epic Content Marketing, which Fortune Magazine named a “must-read business book.” He is the founder of digital content news site The Tilt and the Content Marketing Institute, which he sold in 2016, and the host of the Content Inc podcast and This Old Marketing with Robert Rose.

In this episode of the Earned Media Podcast, Joe talks about the difference between enterprise marketers and content entrepreneurs, B2B content marketing, running a content marketing agency, the sustainability of the online influencer business, NFTs in loyalty marketing, crypto creator coins, and making indispensable content.

https://youtu.be/4V9cg_j3RpA

Content Marketing Institute vs Tilt

The Content Marketing Institute is for enterprise marketers. But his latest endeavor, The Tilt, is an email newsletter for content creators who want to become content entrepreneurs. Enterprise marketers start with a product or service. Content entrepreneurs start by building an audience first. “It is a completely backwards model from what we're used to, which is, ‘Oh, I'm gonna start a company; oh, let's go out and actually create a product,’” says Joe. “Now, we're actually going out and saying, ‘Okay, let's build that audience. And then once we build that loyal audience, we can sell them whatever we want.’”

He identified two critical mistakes content creators make. For starters, they don’t have a content tilt, an area or field of true differentiation to set them apart from their competitors. “As a content creator, I have to say, to cut through all that clutter, I have to become the leading informational expert or entertainment provider for a particular niche,” Joe explains. “So you have to start small, you can always go larger, but you have to start really, really, really small. And most people don't do that.”

The second major issue is consistency. Delivering consistently to an audience over an extended period of time helps you become a leading expert in your area of focus. But if you’re not differentiated, consistency isn’t enough. “Let's really focus on different audience sectors, figure out what those audience desires are and their pain points, what keeps them up at night, what they're challenged with, and let's talk to those challenges over time. And then we'll have something that we can build on.”

B2B Content Marketing Rubric

Joe says taking B2B content marketing seriously means becoming an online influencer. One example is electronics distributor Arrow Electronics: With over 3 million opt-in subscribers across 53 different publications, they are also the largest B2B media company in their industry. “The most innovative companies in the world are actually thinking a little bit bigger and saying, ‘Wow, I might not have to just sell our customers one thing, I could monetize our customers in seven, eight different ways,’” shares Joe. “I don't think that a lot of marketers are thinking big enough.”

https://youtu.be/RjepINgRyRE

After years of talking to successful content marketers and content entrepreneurs, Joe figured out two key points about how they become successful.

The first involves disproving the notion that content marketers need to be on every platform and channel where their customers hang out. “What we found out with really successful content marketers and content entrepreneurs is that they focus on one platform, and they become great at it,” says Joe. “They're the best podcaster in their industry, the best blogger, the best writer, the best event producer, the best Facebook group, best YouTuber, best Twitch streamer — whatever that is, they become the best.”

The second is that successful content marketers don’t pour all of their time and energy into just content creation. Instead, most of that goes into content promotion. In fact, Joe recommends allocating 25% of a given budget into content creation, and putting the remaining 75% into promotion. “What's the use of you creating all of this content if nobody's going to engage in it?” This is where influencers come in; integrating the right influencers on specific social platforms is an effective way to boost your content promotion.

That said, Joe doesn’t think that creating content for a social network is a sustainable business opportunity. “Let's say you build a million subscribers on YouTube. Whose subscribers are those? They're not yours, they're YouTube's. YouTube's letting you borrow them,” Joe explains. “You're building your platform on rented land.”

https://youtu.be/R4wZ1qR7D_c

Content Marketing Tips: Getting the Content Creation Right

Joe has a few quick tips for getting your content marketing right. First, don’t be afraid to outsource. “If you have the [content marketing] expertise inside [your company], great. If you don't, go ahead and outsource it. If you don't like to do a certain task, absolutely outsource it.”

Joe also recommends keeping it simple, especially for businesses without a large marketing team. Whether it’s a weekly email update or daily Instagram posts, do whatever you feel can best help your customers with their needs. “You don't have to be on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Clubhouse, on Facebook… You can just pick one, and be great at it and just deliver value for a long period of time. That's how we're seeing small businesses succeed.”

To listen to my full interview with Joe about making your content indispensable, Bitcoin and NFTs, what to ask a content marketer to determine if they’re a good fit for your business, tools that small businesses should have in their content marketing stack, and more.

Click the link at the top of the post. Subscribe to the Earned Media Podcast for more on the latest development in earned media marketing.

Join us for Earned Media Live. And if you’d like to support this podcast, leave us a review here on Apple Podcasts.

David Ratner has been a book publicist for over two decades, with extensive experience managing book publicity firms, book marketing companies, and book publicity consulting.

The former president of a large book public relations agency, he has worked with leading publishers, as well as hundreds of best-selling authors across all genres. These days, the majority of his clients are in the business space; he helps them use their books as leverage to grow their revenue and client base. David has been a featured speaker at a number of publishing conferences, and is well-respected for his knowledge of the industry.

In this podcast interview, David talks about how to hire the right book publicist, how much book PR costs, hacking the NYT bestseller list, and more.

The Business of Public Relations for Books

https://youtu.be/TpaAshEE8hI

Throughout his illustrious career in book PR consulting, David has worked with prominent names like Rudy Giuliani, Michael Lewis, Larry King, and Stephanie Seymour. 

According to David, among the biggest challenges in handling PR for well-known authors or A-list personalities are the people around them and being able to get on their calendars, given their busy schedules. “It's kind of just designing the right schedule for them that fits what they're looking to do and what you have available to you,” he shares, adding that from a personality perspective, he’s had mostly positive experiences with prominent clients. 

A unique selling proposition aimed at the right target audience: that’s what David says is the best way for new nonfiction authors to get more press coverage and book review attention in the media. “Bring something to the table that is different from what you're hearing from everybody else — or if it's not different, at least, phrase it differently.”

David mentions personal finance as an example, a genre in which nonfiction authors such as David Bach, Robert Kiyosaki, and Suzy Orman all had to come up with ways to market and publicize their books “in a very unique, compelling, informative, and entertaining fashion that made it different than the next personal finance book, which theoretically might have been offering you almost the exact same advice.”

https://youtu.be/ZXvkU8elX0A

Tips and Strategies for Effective Book PR

For first-time authors in need of a publicist to promote their book to journalists and reporters, David recommends going to their personal network for recommendations first. Other authors who’ve successfully marketed their books to the mainstream media may already know the best book publicists to recommend.

Unsurprisingly, a Google search can also help. David stresses the need to look for people who are familiar with your space (like a publicist who has worked in the business genre, if your book is in that category). 

David’s simple piece of advice in picking the best book publicist? “Don't say yes to the first PR person, but you don't have to talk to fifteen, either. Because in the end, a lot of us do the same thing; there's a lot of us out there, and you can make the decision a lot more difficult than it needs to be.” Additionally, when interviewing book publicists who can potentially work with you, ask for realistic expectations. 

As for getting the highest level of service from a publicist juggling different accounts, David says that the key is a good relationship — while paying them more for their time, of course. “You want them to want to succeed on your behalf, and not just look at you as a paycheck.” It helps if you understand what PR firms do, what makes news, and how radio and TV bookers choose guests, so you have realistic expectations.

https://youtu.be/chFFDNwhdIM

Promoting Books for the New York Times Bestseller List

Ever wonder how you can get on the New York Times bestseller list? David reveals that for the longest time, such lists were (and likely still are) done on time-based algorithms: If you sell a certain number of books in a certain period of time, it will likely work in your favor.

Even though it’s difficult to achieve these days, getting a deal with a major publisher can work wonders for you in achieving this goal. David also mentioned working with so-called hybrid publishers, with whom you can make a significantly higher amount of money (and maintain far more creative control) on your books as opposed to what you’d earn by selling through a traditional publisher.

As David explains: “[Hybrid publishers] act like a traditional publisher. They provide all of the distribution services, the editorial services, the design services, and all those kinds of things. And they get you set up with Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Kobo, and all these other outlets, and they actually do some optimization with those sites.”

To listen to my full interview with David (in which we also talked about the process of publicizing a book, the challenges self-published authors face in terms of becoming a bestseller, the growing area of audiobooks, digital PR and more), use the audio plater at the top of the post to listen to the interview.

And be sure and subscribe to the Earned Media Podcast for more on the latest development in content marketing agency strategies.

If you’d like to support this podcast, leave us a review here on Apple Podcasts.

David Bloom is a writer at Forbes, TVRev, and Tubefilter, and is the host of the Bloom in Tech podcast. A long-time journalist for a range of daily newspapers in Memphis, Dallas and Los Angeles, he has also written for Red Herring, Variety and Deadline Hollywood.

He spent a decade as a public relations agency executive handling communications strategy for a range of clients, including MGM and the USC Marshall School of Business. 

In this podcast interview, David talks about journalism, working with PR firms, the future of video content, streaming media, digital public relations and more.

https://youtu.be/GykRgWCo148

Full Video Interview: https://youtu.be/xT20sB98JZ0

Journalism and Public Relations

From his early days as a local print journalist to working with outlets like the LA Daily News and Forbes, David has found himself adjusting and adapting to the evolving field over the decades. “[Journalists] had to redefine ourselves and on the new platforms and pick up new skills,” David says. “I had to learn about SEO, and learn about things like search and how to optimize my stuff across social media.”

David is interested in stories that show how new technologies change behavior. He believes in a growing need for less “Hollywood-centric” news coverage. He cited Netflix as an example, a service that is accessible in 192 countries with over 200 million subscribers. Netflix purchases, produces and showcases content in different languages from different countries. With their content, they are able to cater to the diverse tastes of a considerable chunk of the world’s 7-billion population instead of just focusing on the now-saturated United States market. “They’re all over the world, and everybody else is trying to catch up.”

Concerning how the global audience for long form content has changed and influenced it, David’s writing style incorporates background details into the stories he writes. He says there’s still an audience for this type of writing. We have to think about how to make content more accessible to anyone with even just a passing interest in the subject, regardless of their geographical location. 

David also observed that publications like The New Yorker, which puts out 10,000-word deep dives into specific topics, still find an audience from which they earn revenue. “There's a big wide audience out there; we have to evolve and do stuff.”

https://youtu.be/bkbrNSd_E20

Full Video Interview: https://youtu.be/xT20sB98JZ0

Cable, Broadcasting, and the Future of Video Content

There’s an expanding array of options for video content consumers worldwide, from standard TV stations to cable subscriptions to free streaming services across digital platforms. 

David notes, however, that due to increased accessibility and options, the traditional cable bundle is experiencing a decline in popularity. This phenomenon has caused cable providers to “recast” who they are: “[Cable providers are] getting away from thinking of themselves as a provider of TV and more a provider of high-speed data networks that include TV and other entertainment, news and stuff, but also security services and internet connections at high-speed for gaming, and on, and on, and on.”

The concept of media bundles has also changed, going from a general, blanket approach to a more surgical, targeted assembly of offerings for specific audience segments. Citing his colleague Alan Wolf, David opines: “We've been busy breaking up the bundle. And at some point, we're going to start putting it back together; it's going to have more value, but it's going to be a more targeted bundle that we have control over that we can get in and out of more easily.”

Social Media Platforms

On social media and digital platforms, David shared his thoughts on TikTok, a platform that has experienced a surge in popularity in the last couple of years. He mentioned that Tiktok has a very different kind of interface and delivers an engaging, if not hypnotizing, experience. 

Unlike Facebook, which is much more involved in a slower, “older generation” social media experience, TikTok delivers a more fast-paced, trend-setting experience well, though not without controversy (India, for instance, has banned TikTok and other Chinese apps).

“Each video you look at gives them a lot of signals about the things you like,” said David, adding that it’s different from how Instagram’s continuous scrolling, tap-tap-scroll, tap-tap-scroll experience works. “The fact that you watched this video and you skipped past that one is a signal; the fact that you liked it is another signal, the fact that you may copy that one—because you can create a new video based on the previous one—that's another signal about interest engagement.”

https://youtu.be/oa_X_jjVN3U

Full Video Interview: https://youtu.be/xT20sB98JZ0

To listen to my full interview with David (in which we also talked about the stories that interest David, the streaming race, Clubhouse, the antitrust fight between Facebook and Apple, and more), click the link at the top of the post. 

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