Earned media coverage doesn’t work the way you think it does with Jason Mudd

In this episode, Jason Mudd, CEO of Axia Public Relations and host of On Top of PR, discusses the intricacies of earned media coverage and PR strategies.

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Jason Mudd, CEO of Axia Public Relations, is a trusted adviser to some of America's most admired brands.

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5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. Why media coverage needs to feature your company’s products or services
2. Why more prominent, bigger media isn’t always better
3. Why you should act like a billion dollar company for media coverage
4. How to act like a publicly traded company in the media
5. How to make journalists care about your company and pitches

About Jason Mudd

Jason Mudd is the CEO of Axia Public Relations, with a career spanning decades and collaborations with prominent organizations, including American Airlines, Hilton, and Verizon.

Quotables

• “You are more likely to get more readership, maybe less eyeballs, but more readership on that brief than you are a full feature story because people are busy and they just don't have time to read a full feature story.” - Jason Mudd
• “At the end of the day, shorter means more people are going to invest in it.” - Jason Mudd
• “In PR we tend to forget that it's about relationships and building relationships. So I'm a big advocate for putting relationships back into public relations.” - Jason Mudd
• “80% of the time they're covering prominent companies. Now, 20% of the time they're doing something else, and that's your opportunity, but it's only 20% of the time. So you've got to think more opportunistically about looking for ways to get woven into and tied into the organization.” - Jason Mudd
• “The more you act like a publicly traded company even when you're not public and you're willing to talk openly about your numbers, whether they're true financial dollars or percentages, then that makes you have more substance to the news that you're sharing and therefore automatically makes you more newsworthy.” - Jason Mudd
• “Have an audience focus, empathetic message about why they should care, how this is going to help them.” - Jason Mudd

Resources

Connect and learn more about Jason Mudd on LinkedIn.

Additional Episode Resources:

• How to measure and categorize the different tiers of news media outlet types
• 3 crucial differences between a news story and a feature story that will make you a better writer
• What is news? 10 elements of news and newsworthiness
• PR Hack of the Week
• 60 Second Impact  

Additional Resources from Axia Public Relations:

• Visit Axia Public Relations' website for more information.
• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR podcast.

Episode Highlights

[01:32] Media coverage needs to feature your company’s services or products.

• When news stories are focused on products, services, and expertise of the company instead of just the company, they receive new consumers.
• You get more interest in companies wanting to sell to you.
• You attract employees and make current customers glad to have done business with you.

[04:24] Bigger, more prominent media coverage doesn’t always mean better.

• There are tiers of media coverage, but there isn’t a clear definition of the tiers.
• Prominence #1: audience size
• Prominence #2: new story itself (ie. are you featured in the news story, are you the only company they’re writing about, are you just quoted, etc.)
• Clients have seen it’s easier for consumers to digest briefs they are mentioned in better than longer features.

Jason: “You are more likely to get more readership, maybe less eyeballs, but more readership on that brief than you are a full feature story because people are busy and they just don't have time to read a full feature story.”

Jason: “At the end of the day, shorter means more people are going to invest in it.”

Sharing expertise can generate as many leads as having a feature story.

Jason: “Once you become a trusted source for a journalist and you do a good job giving them good information, you provide to them what I call a provocative contrarian or unique point of view that's unlike what everyone else is saying, that journalist is probably going to come back to you time and time again because they'll like you and they'll trust you and they'll want a little bit more of what you have to say.”

Jason: “In PR we tend to forget that it's about relationships and building relationships. So I'm a big advocate for putting relationships back into public relations.”

Don’t ruin your relationship with a reporter by demanding a featured story. Instead, politely ask them if you can discuss opportunities for your company to be featured and give them three to four newsworthy pitches. 

[23:33] Billionaire dollar corporations are more likely to be a household name.

These companies need a unique, provocative, or contrarian point of view to stand out from everyone else.

Jason: “If you are listening to this and you are in the marketing department or you run a company and you're wondering, why aren't we featured regularly in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox, et cetera, it's because an element of those news outlet stories are focused on prominent companies. And so 80% of the time they're covering prominent companies. Now, 20% of the time they're doing something else, and that's your opportunity, but it's only 20% of the time. So you've got to think more opportunistically about looking for ways to get woven into and tied into the organization.”

[25:33] Act like a publicly traded company.

Act like a publicly traded company to get the media coverage you want.

Jason: “Talk about your headcount when you make announcements, talk about your revenue, talk about your profit, talk about your growth. Real numbers are preferred, or a percentage is also another way that you can substantiate your company. But what you want to do is impress upon them about your growth.”

Jason: “The more you act like a publicly traded company even when you're not public and you're willing to talk openly about your numbers, whether they're true financial dollars or percentages, then that makes you have more substance to the news that you're sharing and therefore automatically makes you more newsworthy.”

[27:19] Why should journalists care?

• You need an audience focused message to the get the media coverage you want.
• Speak in a second person voice.

Jason: “Have a audience focus, empathetic message about why they should care, how this is going to help them.”

[28:19] PR is not a one-time event.

Jason: “When it comes to visibility, you want to have frequent visibility. That's why you don't want to undervalue news briefs that have the frequency of having. You mentioned you also don't want to focus on one big splash twice a year because people will also forget about you, but it's an ongoing process.”

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Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd, presented by ReviewMaxer.

Jason Mudd:

Hello and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm Jason Mudd, your host from Axia Public Relations. Today we're talking about how earning media coverage doesn't typically work the way you think it does. And I think this is an important topic as I have a series of conversations on a regular basis with people who are trying to leverage the power of PR, which is very powerful for their organization and they just don't quite understand how it works. They are a passive consumer of news. Generally, not an active consumer of news. They desire to get media coverage, which is all a good thing to do, but then they will also in the process have a very biased or self-focused view of news and media coverage. And so I'm hoping in today's episode, which is a solo cast, meaning it's just me and you and I'm talking about an issue or topic, I think, would be very helpful to you.

And so there's no guests. It's just me doing a solo cast. As you may know, solo casts are typically every fifth episode and the other four episodes we work hard to bring you great guests who can share their insight. Today, the burden's on me, the challenge is on me to bring you some insight, and I think I've got a good episode for you today. So thank you for joining.

So I've been in the news business in some capacity or another for 30 years. I've been in public relations for about 25. So I spent the first five years of my career working in news and newsrooms and journalism, and then somebody asked me to help a nonprofit with some PR, and I reluctantly agreed. And next thing you know, I saw a bright future for the profession of corporate communications and public relations instead of being in journalism.

So the first thing I want to talk about is that according to our clients, media coverage featuring their company where their company is the feature of the story more often leads to them receiving solicitations or sales calls where people are trying to sell something to them instead of building their visibility.

And what I mean by that is if an article is focused on a company and its growth and culture and success and expansion plans and the unique services that they might offer or products that they offer, that's when salespeople are going to call the company and offer copy machine services, office space, rental cars and supplies and other types of services to them.

However, what our clients tell us is when the news stories are focused on the products and services they offer, not focused on the company and its growth and expansion, that's typically when they are attracting new consumers of their products and services. Or some companies call these customers and other companies call these clients, but they're telling us that the phone will actually ring with leads of people who want to do business with them when the media coverage is specifically about their product, services or expertise.

And so while there is a role for when you want your company to be the headline and to be the focus or the feature of a news story, you have to understand that when you do that, you are going to raise visibility for your brand. There's a lot of positives, there's a lot of ways this helps you, but one of the known side effects is you can expect your switchboard or receptionist or your website to start getting traffic from people who are wanting to sell to you.

Now, that's not the end of the day because a nice prominent story about your company is going to help you also attract employees. It's also going to reinforce your brand position. It's also going to help your current customers say, man, I'm glad I'm working with those guys, or I'm glad I started doing business with them before they became prominent and well-known. So it'll make your current customers feel a sense of loyalty to you, which of course is a really good thing.

What's also interesting, number two in my list here of why media coverage doesn't quite work the way that you think it does, is that clients also seem to think that the bigger, more prominent media coverage generates more attention and leads for their business. So let's talk about this for just a minute because there are two ways to think of prominence. So when you're thinking of prominence and media coverage, there's number one, the tier or the influencer reach of a news outlet.

So in the PR business and outside the PR business, people like to talk about tier one media coverage, but there's really no defined definition of what is tier one media coverage. In the episode notes, we'll put a link to a couple of articles on our website or content on our website where we've tried to really pin down how we define what tier one media coverage is because it's a term that's loosely used in and out of the industry but doesn't really have a clear definition. We've actually defined it down to four different tiers of media, and I think you'll find those interesting. So we'll be sure to put in the episode links, episode notes, we'll put some links to that.

But when you're thinking about prominence of media coverage, there's the tier of media coverage, tier of media. So what's the audience of the outlet that you're being mentioned in? What's their audiences share? How many people are, how many consumers, how big is their audience? Is it millions? Is it thousands? Is it hundreds of audience that you're capturing there? So that's prominence number one is audience size prominence.

Number two is the prominence of the news story itself, meaning how prominent is your company mentioned within that news story? Are you featured in that news story? Are you the only company that they're writing about or are you featured among other companies in the article? Or are you just simply quoted and you've got a one-liner in there or a one or two paragraphs or maybe a few sentences sprinkled throughout the article? Guess what? We're also going to provide some commentary on how we define the difference between being featured and being briefed and a news story. And we'll put that in the episode notes also because we've got some content to support that.

But the idea is to think about how prominent is this news coverage both reaching an audience as well as mentioning our organization. And so size does matter, but not necessarily in the way you think. So let's explore this for a minute. What our clients have told us over the years is that when they are featured in a news brief, which is a shorter news story, which could be three to five paragraphs less than or about 150 words when they're featured, whether that's online or in print or maybe in broadcast, and it's just a matter of 30 seconds to a minute, they report that people seem to consume and digest these briefs a lot easier and a lot more frequent than they do something longer. And I think it's just human nature. Human nature thinks in quick sound bites. Human nature consumes a small amount of focus or energy.

And so when I'm reading, for example, my local business journal, they have articles that are long, often a full page or half a page in length, maybe even more than a page with graphics and other thing, maybe it's two or three pages. And I'll typically look at the headline and if it's interesting, I'll draw my eyes in and I might consume the whole article or maybe the first couple of paragraphs. However, if there's a brief and it's only a paragraph or two or three or four or five, I might actually consume that entire brief. And research shows us that consumer behavior does the same thing, both anecdotal research and meaningful and more scientific research. So if you can get your company mentioned in a brief, there is nothing wrong with that. And people seem to think, oh, they only briefed it, they didn't do a full story. I've got to tell you, you are more likely to get more readership, maybe less eyeballs, but more readership on that brief than you are a full feature story because people are busy and they just don't have time to read a full feature story.

So in that regard, you need to think twice about size and how it matters. Don't be disappointed if you're in an industry brief or a wrap up brief or something like that because at the end of the day, shorter means more people are going to invest in it.

Now, the other thing that I want to mention as well is that our clients tell us when they're quoted in a story and they're able to share their expertise, their opinions and input with a journalist, they also say that that really can also attract leads to them or attract interested people to contact and connect with them. And what you have to remember though is that the consumer has this idea that the media spent a ton of time researching the different sources that they could use and perhaps screening these sources and interviewing several sources, maybe dozens of sources, and then they only picked a select few to include in their article.

Let's give that a quick reality check because the reality is they probably connected with one to three sources and whoever those three sources were, were the ones you saw quoted in the article or in the story that they did. Now, when I tell a story, I'm thinking about print, web, radio, podcast, videocast and television. Reporters are very busy, they're very deadline driven, they're storytellers, they've got to move on to their next story. They're looking for experts who can help them quickly put together a story. They may also just be looking for a man on the street or an average consumer to give their opinion as well, depending on the topic and the news story.

My point is this, if you think that journalists have done a deep dive of vetting their sources, you're giving them probably a little bit too much credit given the time constraint they're on and the need to move on to their next story quickly. However, once you become a trusted source for a journalist and you do a good job giving them good information, you provide to them what I call a provocative contrarian or unique point of view that's unlike what everyone else is saying, that journalist is probably going to come back to you time and time again because they'll like you and they'll trust you and they'll want a little bit more of what you have to say.

So it's so important that you start low or set your expectations low when you're interacting with a journalist because you don't want to set an expectation so high, you want to build the relationship slowly. It's kind of like being a deer whisperer. You don't want to scare them off and run up to them and try to give them food, but you want to slowly demonstrate that you've got food to give to them, and you give them a little bit at a time from a distance and then they build up trust with you and they start to come closer.

One of our best clients we've ever worked with, she was very good about giving her time away to the media to help them. She was with a publicly traded company, she had a very strong financial background, and through a series of just promotions and opportunities within the organization, she was overseeing corporate communications, investor relations and marketing. And so when we worked with her, she would often be willing to, which was fabulous. She would often be willing to help a cub reporter or somebody new to the beat of covering publicly traded companies understand the basics of reviewing financials and earnings reports and quarterly earnings calls and things like that.

You better believe these reporters appreciated that tutorial and that tutelage and that time that she spent mentoring and tutoring them on understanding how to report on publicly traded companies because she did it in a way that was very generous and she wasn't arrogant or humbling about it. She took on a role of being a teacher and an educator and helping them, which built their trust of this source and built a relationship so that when they had an opportunity to include her or her company in the story, you better believe that they would jump on that and be helpful to her.

And so I thought of this the other day when I was on a call with a guy who works for a consumer goods company and it's a national company and he's the chief strategy officer, and no one in the organization is really doing PR. They've got a chief marketing officer, they've got a marketing director, but none of those folks really know anything about PR. They haven't yet hired a PR agency, which is what caused them to reach out to us.

Now, what he said to me was very interesting. So again, very well qualified, competent individual, doesn't have a PR background, but said, "Hey, I'm willing to take this on. I'm willing to help the company with something that I think I could lend some support to and take ownership in." And he told me, "Hey, things were going pretty good." I was monitoring ProfNet and Harrow and Quoted and these other sources to look for opportunities to be included in the media when the media is raising their hand saying, Hey, I need an expert on X, Y, or Z, please contact me with your opinions and insights for a story I'm working on. So he was great about responding to those. He was good about connecting these reporters with people inside his organization or maybe people connected to his company or maybe just people in his own network. And what he was doing is building relationships.

And that's great because in PR we tend to forget that it's about relationships and building relationships. So I'm a big advocate for putting relationships back into public relations. And so he was doing exactly that, building relationships. But at some point, this chief strategy officer started getting really busy and he started getting frustrated. And here's why, because he felt like I'm helping all these reporters connect with sources and they're good enough or kind enough to give us a quote here or there or give us a quote perhaps in every story that we talk about or most of the stories that we talk about. But he said to me, all it is are quotes. All they're giving us are quotes, and I want to be featured and I want our products to be featured. I want to be more prominent in the news stories that they're producing.

Here's where things went bad. He's been helpful and he's been building trust and building these relationships, but he felt like he was giving all the effort and wasn't getting much back in return. So he decided to start asking and maybe even demanding for more visibility and more coverage and more opportunities. And in his own words, this backfired big time. So these reporters were coming back to him as a source both to quote or a source to get connected with other sources, and he started putting his foot down and saying, Hey, I'm getting a little tired of connecting you with sources and not having our company be featured by you for other stories. Can you write a story specifically about our company or our products or our services?

Reporters don't really like being told what to do, number one. Number two, they look at this as a two-way street. I'm in need of an expert or a quote or a source or background information and you're providing it to me, and this is a good relationship. What he did out of ambition is he rocked the boat here. Many of those reporters told him he said "to pound sand." Some of them said, "Hey, here's a rate card. You need to buy an advertisement." And maybe some were kinder and gentler and kind of gave him some guidance, but ultimately that's what caused him to reach out to our PR firm is he knew, one, he messed up, two, he didn't get the response he was looking for, and three, he's hoping someone can bail them out.

Now, the approach he should have taken was a lot more passive, a lot more out of an abundance of being helpful and just asking kindly, Hey, is there ever an opportunity where we could talk more deeply about our organization and some of the cool things that we're doing? And then say for example, and bring them topics that are newsworthy and angles that would be interesting not to you and your organization, but to them and the audience that they are writing for who are interested in the topics and the industry or the beat that they're covering.

Now, in the episode notes, we're going to provide to you a link to the 10 elements of news to help you more easily understand what is news, what is newsworthy, and what are some of the factors that newsrooms consider when they decide one, what stories they're going to produce. Number two, which stories get placed more prominently, whether that's on the homepage or on the front page or shared on their social media channels. So that's a really good place to start because you could use this list of 10 elements of news or 10 news factors to actually create a checklist of what elements of news that I'm pitching or that I'm asking them to cover. Which of those 10 elements are we genuinely part of?

Now, what I don't want you to do is I don't want you to news factor stuff and try to inauthentically push factors or elements of news into your pitch that aren't authentically there or aren't authentically genuine for this particular story. And so it's very important that when you come back to that reporter and you say, Hey, might there be an opportunity for us to connect for a feature story about our organization because, or for example, and then you throw out maybe two, maybe, I'm sorry, maybe three or four brief bullet point, one sentence, preferred, no more than three sentence pitches of different angles that you think that it might be interesting.

The best thing you could do is consult with your trusted public relations advisor on this. But if you don't have that available, consider looking at our list of 10 elements of news. Consider looking at the elements of new, or excuse me, the news stories that that person has written about before and try to emulate that type of content. Oftentimes, a company representative will say to me, Hey, I'd really like this to be in TechCrunch or MSN or Wall Street Journal or New York Times. What they don't think about is dissecting that type of news that they want to emulate. How often do you see a particular writer at one of those outlets or a reporter at one of those outlets covering the topic that you're pitching, covering the style of story that you're describing? How often is someone at this target outlet truly writing a story that's only about one company? If you can find examples of that within that outlet, then emulate that or mirror that back to them as a pitch. Turn your pitch into a very similar story that looks just like it.

But often I found that a company will say, we want story A placed in news earned media coverage placement in outlet B, and we might come back to them and say, Hey, that's great. I love the enthusiasm. We'd like to see you in that outlet too. Can you send me examples of when you've seen that outlet cover a story or a company and the way that you're describing that you want? Sometimes they can't do that. They've never seen that outlet cover a story in that way. That might be your first clue that what you're pitching is not a good fit to the outlet you're pitching it to. But if you can show me three to five recent articles that they've done that are similar to what you're looking to have done, then we're onto something and we've got an opportunity.

Big tier one media outlets like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, MSNBC, Forbes Magazine, Fortune Inc, whatever outlet is on your mind right now as you're thinking about this, they're in a competitive business just like you are in a competitive business. Their business model is to sell viewers, to get traffic to their website, to get eyeballs, to get market share, to create articles that are being shared on the internet. And if you don't have a newsworthy shareable story that's going to excite their audience, they're going to be looking for the next thing better on their list of opportunities. A lot of these top tier media outlets are also very focused on covering publicly traded companies.

So I'm leading into my next tip here, which is that publicly traded companies are typically billion dollar corporations, and typically billion dollar corporations are more likely to be a household name. If your brand is not a household name and is not well known in the marketplace, the odds are stacked against you even more. You've really got to have a unique, provocative and contrarian point of view to stand out from everyone else. But we all know Tesla, Nike, Ford, Disney, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Delta Airlines, Hilton Hotels, there are dedicated beat writers standing by waiting for that company or its leadership team to announce something or to sneeze or to have a bad hair day or to screw up in some way. There are people literally assigned to covering that company 24/7 no matter what they do or what they announce. Most of you represent an organization that is not like that. So you've got to work harder and smarter.

So my point is, if your leadership team, if you are listening to this and you are in the marketing department or you run a company and you're wondering, why aren't we featured regularly in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox, et cetera, it's because an element of those news outlet stories are focused on prominent companies. And so 80% of the time they're covering prominent companies. Now, 20% of the time they're doing something else, and that's your opportunity, but it's only 20% of the time. So you've got to think more opportunistically about looking for ways to get woven into and tied into the organization.

My next tip though, speaking of publicly traded companies, is to act like a publicly traded company. If you want to get media coverage. Talk about your headcount when you make announcements, talk about your revenue, talk about your profit, talk about your growth. Real numbers are preferred, or a percentage is also another way that you can substantiate your company. But what you want to do is impress upon them about your growth. You can't just say we're growing really fast and not have a number, whether it's a financial number or a percentage to tie that to. But the more you act like a publicly traded company even when you're not public and you're willing to talk openly about your numbers, whether they're true financial dollars or percentages, then that makes you have more substance to the news that you're sharing and therefore automatically makes you more newsworthy.

So for example, if your company is announcing it's opening a new office or expanding into a new retail or an additional retail location, this is your opportunity to think and act like a publicly traded company. Tell them how many stores or how many locations do you have today? What's the average square footage of those locations? How much larger or smaller will this new location be as far as square feet? How many people do you currently employ? How many people have you added to your company or your organization in the last quarter or year? How many people are you going to employ at this new location? What percentage, higher or lower is that than a typical location for you? What are the other unique features and benefits of this new location? But most importantly, why should they care and why does this matter to their audience?

So that's the next part you really have to think about, doesn't matter what you think, you need an audience focused message. You need to speak in the second person point of view or second person voice of why that matters to your audience. So have an audience focus, empathetic message about why they should care, how this is going to help them. How does this make their life better, their day more enjoyable, or help them save money or get more done in a given day because of what you are doing? Because guess what? Outside of your four walls of your organization, most people don't care. So what you've got to do is adjust or pivot or tie the news back into why they should care and what matters to them.

So the other things I want to highlight for you is that PR, when it's at its best is not a one-time event. Sure, you can do a PR blitz and a PR campaign and fireworks, just do a big splash, but guess what happens with fireworks? They look great for a moment and then they're gone. And as time goes on, it's kind of forgotten. In the real estate business, they talk about location, location, location. In the advertising business, they talk about frequency, frequency, frequency. PR is the same thing. When it comes to visibility, you want to have frequent visibility. That's why you don't want to undervalue or underappreciated news briefs that have the frequency of having. You mentioned you also don't want to focus on one big splash twice a year because people will also forget about you, but it's an ongoing process.

Warren Buffet said it takes 20 years to build a reputation and you need to think about like that similarly. And speaking of, in our 20 years of experience running an agency focused on mid-market and enterprise size companies, we have seen that the clients who are with us the longest get the greatest ROI from their PR investment. And that's because over time we continue to increase their visibility in the marketplace year over year, quarter over quarter. It just takes time to build those relationships and build those connections and contacts and trust in your organization.

I could be the best man in the wedding of your dream publications editor or publisher, and if we do not bring them newsworthy stories, they won't cover it. It doesn't matter how big of a favor they owe me or how well I know them. It matters how prominent the news is because they've got to keep their job. And the way they keep their job is honoring the integrity of the topics and content that they're sharing and make sure it has alignment with the audience that they're going after. And the bigger the story is, the more newsworthy the story is, the more prominent the story is, the more people that are going to read it, click it, view it, share it like it, et cetera. And so that's really important if you think about, yes, relationships are important. Yes, it helps stand out from the competition, but it's not the only thing.

The other thing is the element of news. And I will be able to pitch we, or your PR person, whomever, it might be, your PR advisor, your PR tactician, your PR specialist, will be able to pitch a newsworthy story to a complete stranger in the newsroom 10 times better than they will be able to pitch a mediocre story to someone that they know really well.

And so relationships are extremely important, but you've got to be newsworthy and you've also got to be thinking about, okay, we've got this big announcement, but what do we have coming behind it that's also going to be newsworthy. And by the way, since newsrooms have really shrunk since the great recession, the frequency of which the reporter will cover your company is not nearly as frequent as it used to be. Before the Great Recession, we had a financial institution client that we could get in the news two or three times a month, but very quickly newsrooms got smaller and they didn't have as many resources. They didn't have as many advertisers. They didn't have as much content that financial paid media or advertising to support a bigger newsroom, which then supports more writing, which then allows them to have more staff and that more staff allows for those ads, allow for more content they have to fill within, say, their newspaper or their website.

And so now you've got to reduce your expectations a little bit and realize that, hey, at best, I'm probably going to be in this particular outlet once a quarter. If I'm in there twice a quarter, hallelujah. That is awesome. So you've got to manage your expectations both with what the news outlet is going to cover and how frequently they're going to cover it.

And so those are really just some thoughts that I have. I was in a zone here, so I lost count of exactly the number of tips that I've shared with you today. But I know our podcast production team is going to do a great job of numbering these for you. So you'll be able to follow along in the episode notes. But I just wanted to talk today about how earned media coverage doesn't work the way you think it does.

I hope I've addressed some of the misperceptions that are out there. Hopefully one or two of these really hit home with you and you learn something from this episode. I would like to ask you to do a couple of things. Number one, if there was something you heard here that was valuable, please share this episode with a colleague or friend who you think would benefit from it. If you learn something here today, share about it on social media, tell us what you learned, we would love to hear from you. So the easiest way to do that is to post on social media and tag us so we see it.

The third thing I'm going to throw out there is if you have a question about public relations, news media coverage, social media, web content, any kind of PR question, ask us. We would be happy to do an episode about this, whether it's through our podcast and a solocast or it's through our weekly PR Hack of the Week. If you're not getting our PR Hack of the Week, do yourself a favor, sign up for it. Also, sign up for our 60 Second Impact newsletter. It's once a month. It's a newsletter talking about what's trending in the PR space. It takes literally 60 seconds to read it. We'll put a link to those resources in the episode notes for you as well.

At the end of the day, what we're here to do is be helpful experts that help you break through the clutter by getting news media coverage and other visibility through other platforms and other opportunities for your organization so that you can have a more successful career. Your employer can have a more profitable business and ultimately help you, I hope get rewarded for that. And so that's why we're here as helpful experts to help you understand the power of PR, help you stay On Top of PR. And the only way we can really do that is with your input and feedback and with you also sharing On Top of PR with those that you think would be interested.

So with that, I'm signing off. I'm Jason Mudd. I'm the CEO, founder of Axia Public Relations. We're fortunate to be one of Forbes top PR agencies. I was forced to be named one of the top PR leaders in North America. It really is a privilege to produce this podcast and give back to advancing the profession. But if there's ever anything I can do for you, I'm just honored to be here, and I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to help other people. So thank you for giving us the opportunity to help you stay on top of PR. And with that, I'm signing off. Be well.

Announcer:

This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd, presented by Review Maxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And check out past shows at ontopofpr.com.

Sponsored by:

• 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.

About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

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