What to do in a PR Crisis with Molly McPherson

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 229. Today I'm sitting down with PR specialist Molly McPherson and we are talking all about what to do in a PR crisis. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and move, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if today's the first day you are pushing play, welcome. I'm super excited that you're here and I am so pumped to share with you. There's a very special episode. I had the opportunity to sit down with Molly McPherson, who is a nationally recognized expert in crisis public relations in the age of social media. She's the author of the book Reclaim Control and Respond with Confidence in a Media Crisis and is a well known pop culture and PR expert on TikTok. Molly helps organizations manage issues from merging crisis to combining her knowledge of current communication practices with years of media and crisis management experience. In addition to hosting the podcast the Indestructible PR Podcast with Molly McPherson, she frequently speaks to executives and organizations about communication trends, crisis communications and public relations through her experience in FEMA's Office of External affairs during the post Hurricane Katrina efforts. Director of communications for the Cruise Line International association in Arlington, Virginia, Molly created a proven public relations framework for responding to a public backlash both online and in the press. So if you for any reason feel hesitant or nervous or worried about saying the wrong thing, drawing a line in the sand, showing up and feeling concerned about potential backlash, she's going to help walk you through how to be resilient and powerful in the online space. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. Molly, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you. It is a pleasure and a privilege. How are you doing?

I have so much energy. I can't wait to speak with you today.

Oh, I can't wait. It's going to be amazing. You're going to blow people's minds. So for those of you who are tuning in and you have met or have heard of your work, Molly, can you please share with us a little bit about who you are who you serve and how you got there.

Yes, I will. My name is Molly McPherson, and I think a lot of people might know me just from popping up on TikTok because so many people use TikTok nowadays. I like to break down and analyze the latest celebrity PR crises that happen. But I do that when I'm off the clock. When I'm working. In my day job, I work as a crisis communicator, public relations expert to clients protect and defend their reputations when a public relations crisis is upon them.

Oh, my gosh. I am one of those people who found you on TikTok. And your work has just been so mind blowing, especially since I'm going to go ahead and talk about the pressure cooker of the year 2020 and 2021, where we were really just as a nation, in my opinion, really just thrust upon us all these crisis and cancellation culture just right after that pandemic and being isolated for so long, it just felt like a huge pressure cooker. And so for us and for people like that listen and tune into the show, it was really hard to see some of their biggest influencers that weren't necessarily celebrities, but like Rachel Hollis or other influencers and coaches that they had invested in were just getting torn apart on the Internet. And it can be really scary for new people to show up for themselves and draw a line in the sand when they are faced with the potential of being canceled. So I'm curious, in your opinion, for the people who want to show up, what are some of the things that they can do to get in front of what I'm calling the cancel culture?

Yeah, I think that's a. It's an excellent question. The way to approach it is understanding what the loose definition of the cancel culture is. Most people assume that it's any form of negativity whatsoever, and if they face any type of rejection or trollish behavior, it's deemed the cancel culture. The cancel culture was definitely a movement, if you will. I mean, certainly that came out of pandemic times around the MeToo era. But what it stemmed from is when someone in the public eye was accused of usually a significant wrongdoing, they either broke the law or there was some serious allegations against them. I like to call them third rail allegations. It's really hard to recover from them. Like a Harvey Weinstein who's still in prison to this day. That's probably closer to what the cancel culture is. But where a lot of people like to use it is as a trope, where if there's any form of negativity whatsoever. They're going to call it the cancel culture and mix it in with the Internet and people who are out to get them and bring them down. I find in my work, the people who often raise the flag and accuse others of of throwing the cancel culture on them are usually deserved of their downfall because they've done something wrong to bring them down and they're refusing to take accountability for it. So they just blame the cancel culture.

That's interesting. Okay, so I'm curious, in your opinion, Right. You had mentioned that they were. That they're deserving of it. That there are things that they're doing. What, how someone show up in a way that might offend, and I don't want to say offend, but that might ruffle feathers. But do it in a kind way and avoid the idea of being torn down and stand for something.

Yeah. In this idea of someone deserving to be brought down, I mean, no one really deserves it because when something does happen online or when someone says something about someone else, you cannot help but take it personally. So for the big people in the spotlight who were brought down, or even people on social media, I mean, I get hit by negativity all the time and I can choose to take it or not. The real sticky problem comes in when you show up for who you are. First of all, it's why are you there? Are you there for self service? Are you there to do something just to serve your needs? Are you there for a money grab? Are you there just to be well known? Are you there to look pretty? Do you just want to be an influencer for the sake of making money and links? Right. Or are you there to serve others? And people nowadays can discriminate between the two fairly easily. And if you head on over to Reddit culture, you will find the subreddits there that will call out the people who the public deem as being selfish and greedy in their need for money. They put everything else aside to be able to sell programs or links or affiliated links, you know, whatever it is. And that is a different space than someone committing a crime or exploiting children or something else. Those are two very distinctive buckets. But the area where I think you're focused in, and where I spend a lot of time too, is that person who's done something, but they refuse to take accountability for it.

And so good. And you're also talking about what I heard you say was the power of choice. And you said I can choose to receive it or choose to not in the same way as I'm choosing this life, this I'm choosing to be in the public eye. And so there is a level of responsibility that you own when you say yes to that and when you choose that. So I love that you're saying that. So what are some of the things that you tend to see people as they're beginning to gain traction, especially now in the TikTok world where it has that sense of you could be viral tomorrow, so you better be prepared. So I'm curious, what are some of the things that we can do to be prepared to potentially step into a more public eye, whether it's on accident and or by choice and effort.

Yeah, I'm someone very mindful of every post on TikTok that I do or to a lesser degree in Twitter, Instagram. But there's something about TikTok. It's so dicey on TikTok. And there's a lot of people in my generation who, who appear on the app, like subject matter experts, like we've lived, we've had careers and now we want to share what we've learned with other people. And that's what I think the where the distinction lies. And if you are a person who is a brand that is selling a product, selling an idea, this is your livelihood. It's often more well received when you are sharing knowledge, sharing wisdom, sharing advice, sharing some life hack or it's some type of post that helps a person understand something better. That's what I seek to do. But there are. But the posts that tend to get more engagement are the ones that have keywords and interactions that create a prickly environment. So the pricklier the commentary, the pricklier the discussion, the engagement increases significantly. So you need to decide which area do you want to focus in and when you get into that dicer area because I'll talk about topics that are incredibly polarizing and when I do, it's like walking on glass. It is very difficult to do and I and when I enter those, I try to come in with the most neutral sentiment possible. Rarely are you going to see me fall hard on one side or another unless it's someone who exhibited some misconduct or some misbehavior that I feel deserve is deserving of the call out that they get. But it can be dicey. Oh for sure.

So now let's say someone gets into a crisis and they're starting to pick up some momentum in the negativity. It's more than just someone commenting I hate your haircut on the on the post, what is the first step? What do you do? Because I'm sure you're in pr, you've heard, everyone's heard that cliche, there's no such thing as bad press press, the more attention the better. So I'm curious, you know, what's your take on that and what do we do?

It's understanding that there is an actual cost to a reputation. If you've lost your reputation, you lost your business. There are a lot of actors and actresses and brands out there who they can no longer either sell product or appear in movies because their name and their reputation has been tarnished. Name that you brought up, which is such an Internet name from a lot of female influencers is Rachel Hollis. And I think she's a great example mainstream. A lot of people out there don't necessarily know who she is, but there's a lot of women in online space who have watched what happened to her. And why I find her in particular so fascinating is because she was someone who scaled the heights of this self help Internet space. What she's exposing, her downfall has exposed what is happening really behind the algorithm of Rachel Hollis. She was brought up not necessarily because she sparked this new idea of, of, of her chic design and party planning and everything that she was doing. She had a bit of a machine behind her. I mean one, she had a husband who worked for Disney who was bankrolling her, also giving her contacts to do that. But it was also the timing. So a lot of these self help influencers out there, they were able to accumulate all these followers because the algorithm was in their favor. They were creating communities, they were building communities and part of their brand was helping other people, mostly many women stay at home moms, people that women who are very community centric, you know, how they can build their following but without having a husband bankroller who works at Disney, without you work at Disney. So I'm going to get you a spot on gma, I'm going to get you on the Disney Channel. We don't know, no one knows about that. They just think that somehow she magically ascended to these heights. But then when her and her husband Dave just fell from it, from Grace parted in the past pandemic and also the divorce, it exposed a moment of vulnerability for her where she went on TikTok, an app she was not that familiar with, she was new to it and we got a glimpse of the real Rachel Hollins. That is usually where that is the wedge that it creates, this wedge where people are exposed to the real personality behind it. And when she talked about not being relatable, and who do you think you are? All of these women who buoyed her and spent money and created really who she was, saw who she really was. And so the important thing about that downfall that still continues to this day, she has yet to take full accountability for it, which is the reason why she can't come back. She cannot come back until she takes full accountability. So without that accountability, you cannot move from one space to another. And that's why I find her to be particularly interesting. Yeah.

And also I think that people look to her, at least in my space, because for fitness professionals, we're looking at all these. We would consider her in the personal development world as an influencer, someone who was like, teaching how to be relatable. Which is why it was ironic that her whole downfall was like, I'm not relatable, but you just built a whole brand on being relatable. So that was kind of interesting. But I think that we watch that and we think, oh, my gosh, one mistake. Or it looks like it's one mistake and then the Internet's going to crush you. But to your point, we're not seeing the full picture. If she had literally said, I'm sorry, I'm a human being, it's a different conversation. I think people can come back from mistakes because we're all human beings living a human experience. But I felt like she wasn't seeing that. It was a huge pull of kickback. And it wasn't just a few upset people. This was like her whole community was upset.

Yeah, exactly. But I don't know. I mean, just being in your space, you probably see this. It's the people who are genuine in their mission, where you can see them as a living embodiment of their mission. They're the ones who tend to now are the ones who are able to manage social media successfully. They can still create and cultivate their community. I'm someone too. I mean, I'm not in the fitness or personal development. I'm in the professional development space. And so I give that TikTok is me giving my knowledge to help other people. I do that on Patreon. I do that with my clients because I want to do that. That's what drives me. It's not about people knowing who I am or buying this product or that product. I'm really. I get excited about the idea of helping people. And the most rewarding part of the work that I do is when someone tells me something that I've said or shared with them has helped them. And I think people are more discerning now of who they follow. And that's one of the good things that did come out of this whole cancel culture. Now, that's true. I agree.

I agree with that. I'm also curious. You had talked about. I'm trying to think when I had heard it, but when I had heard it, you had talked about when things start to spiral, some of one of the first things that you can do is to acknowledge it and to take responsibility. And I've also seen people go through something similar and then say nothing. So is there ever an appropriate time to pretend it's not happening or should we always address it?

It's changing. I will tell you. I will put this. If I had to timestamp it well, I'm just going to call this a January 2023, maybe even a couple months before that, where a public relations strategy, definitely from bigger names, celebrity people who have handlers behind them, is to say nothing and to leverage the speed of the Internet and the speed of social media. That's that there's a crisis that happens every single day. Honestly, if I wanted to spend my whole day just analyzing a PR crisis, I could fill 24 hours a day doing that. And there is a strategy behind that, and there is some. You can get lost in the news cycle, definitely. But now people are trying to get lost in the social media news cycle. I don't necessarily advise it because it could pass you by the news cycle. You could miss the news cycle, but people have longer memories than one news cycle. You might get away with it this one time, but if something comes back, everyone is going to remember what happened that first time. Like those first mistakes tend to be indelible. They're not going anywhere. But if you acknowledge it and say something to it and just own it. That's what I say. You have to own it, explain it, and then promise it. Then what's the next thing to get you through that? If you go through that process, you're going to get through it. I mean, I call that framework my indestructible PR framework for a reason. It keeps you indestructible. It's like you're cancel proof. Yeah, you might lose some people, but you're not going to be that news cycle anymore. You're not going to be that news cycle anymore. You're not going to be an interesting news story. No one's going to really want to follow it as much because you owned up to it. And that's not exciting. That's not headline news. Someone kind of owns up to it. It might be for a day, then it goes away.

That's so good. So I love that. Only explain it. Promise it. So good.

I.

It brings me. It reminds me of my husband, who always will start every conversation with, listen, I'm sorry. And I'm like, no, I'm not ready to accept the apology. Okay. Because we need to conversate first.

Yeah. And that's what's the language of the apology as well, too. I mean, because there's definitely strategy in how people ap. Apologize. And owning it is not just saying, I'm sorry or I'm sorry for the people who I offended or I'm sorry that you're hurt. Because we can very quickly get into gaslight world. Yes.

I was like, that's not. I'm sorry.

Yes. And the owner piece is, I apologize for what? Insert the mad libs. What did you do? And be very explicit about what you did and who you hurt and the damage it caused. That's what owning it is. It's accountability. It's atonement. It's acknowledging admission, apologies, all the A words. And then that moves you into the explaining it. And this is where you get your chance to explain why it happened. I made a mistake. I wasn't thinking. I was angry about something else. And then I spouted out on social media about this. I was fired up about this happening. And then I came online and I said something, and I never should have done that. You know, I completely forget the power of TikTok. And then the next step is you promise it. But moving forward, I promise to be more mindful when. When I'm talking about people coming at me online and telling me that I'm unrelatable, I have to be mindful that I have. I created a community to share with me, and I should be thankful that I have a community who will share their information with their feedback. Positive or negative, I don't know. I'm doing that completely off the cuff. But that is. That's the flow of it. And when you do that, it just deflates the balloon. It's not exciting anymore. There's nothing left there to pop and to make it. To make the big boom. It's gone. It's. It just kind of fizzles away. And that's what I aim to do with people.

That's so good. Now I'm curious, what about the PR crisis that will show up in terms of allegations, meaning the person that is having the crisis, potentially, what if they didn't do it or they're not responsible or they don't have something to own it. Does that happen and then what do you do?

Yeah, that happens. I do a lot of one on one consulting now because of Tick Tock. That's definitely a new part of my business that I've opened up is doing more of this one on one consulting. Really enjoy doing. But so often in these, in the initial, like the first call when we're discussing it, they'll tell me all the reasons why they should not have. They should be dealing with all this negativity. I'll hear the excuse, I'll hear why they don't want to say anything or they don't want to do anything. And it's because they're taking the attacks personally. Okay. So they've lost track of where the pain point is. They're worried. They're so focused on their own pain point and what hurt them that they lose focus on the people they hurt by what they did. Now the what they did depends. That's a spectrum. Sometimes they could have just said something that's flippant, that might have offended some people. Okay. Or you go all the other way to the other direction, which I call these third rail types of grievances. You've broken a law, you've exploited something, you've done something awful. But most people in the realm that I deal with, they're in that squishy area where they don't think they did anything wrong. And they use the trope that people are out to get me on the Internet. And what we usually uncover, and it takes that session is, let's admit, like, what did you do wrong? Let's talk about the victim on the other side of it, because you may not see that they're there, but they're actually a victim. And if you look at the other person as a victim, then I can walk them to the response that what they need to say and how they need to say it. So it's a little bit of alchemy there. It's like I have to create a mixture, this little concoction of take a little bit of their ego. We gotta just, we have to keep that in there because we know that we don't want to completely obliterate them, but we need to mix it with just some awareness of how they're perceived and who was hurt. And we can usually walk them to that place of accountability.

It's so good. I feel like it's such a nuanced, important conversation because I know there is a level of responsibility and accountability that we get to own. Even though we do get to choose our responses, there's still the outcomes. You know, it's the difference between intention and impact. And we are still responsible for the impacts and the fallout of what's going to happen. Happen from the impacts. And we can own that and still be okay with the response. I think that's part of what diffuses that emotion, in my opinion. This is my opinion. But once, you know, I think of my children, when my children lose their mind and they're like, I hate you. You're the worst mom. I'm like, that's okay because I love myself enough for the both of us. Okay, so. So I think that'll also diffuse that sense of fear around showing up when you, as the creator, are okay with the fallout. I know that this could have an impact, and I'm okay with what's going to happen.

Yeah. And you bring up parenting. It's another exercise in it. Right. It's your kids. I mean, they are the ultimate trolls in our lives, telling us why we're losers and why we're not cool and why we're wrong. Really, they're like walking embodiments of trolls. In many cases. We gave birth to. We adopted them, whatever. We brought them into our lives. Lives. And they torment us every single day. But think of as a parent. Yes. How do you react to it? Do you flex it back on them and say, well, you did this and you did this. A lot of us grew up with parents like that that just blamed us our whole lives. But are you a parent who can take part of what they're saying? Like, oh, they do have a point there. They're immature, they're young, and they don't know this whole part of it. But you know what? They're right. They're right. I did say that or I did do that. If you can start cultivating that type of thinking, that critical thinking in your mind, just in your home, you can do that online, too. It's. You're using the same muscles and the same emotions.

That is so good and so true. And oftentimes, so I do practice conscious parenting in this way. And then hearing they don't have the emotional maturity to necessarily deliver what they're feeling in the same way as we do. But also, there's a lot of freedom in that because at least they tend to tell me what they're thinking. And I appreciate that more than like, wait, what do you really mean? What are you saying behind what you're really saying?

Yes.

Yeah.

And you have to work on it. My kids, I have teenagers, so we talk about Internet culture all the time, but we also bring it home and we talk about sports and how a player may act or how a coach may act. And because I'm in the teenage stage and first year is a college stage of my kids, and it's all about character. And it's really interesting because my kids will just insert other points of view and I think, oh, I never thought about that way. So knowing that you're not, you don't know everything either. And be open to learning from other people and their perspectives.

So good. Okay, so what are some of the signs now, speaking of character?

Right.

Because I also think that you know when to know you're in a PR crisis will also speak to people's character. Because some people are like, I'm in a PR crisis. And you're like, no, you just got a few negative comments. It's not. So how do you know when, oh, I might need some support. I might need some help here.

Yeah. I would say for the person who is showing up online, they're a brand. Their name is the brand. They are personal development, professional development, physical, whatever it is, healthcare, fitness, industry, whatever it is, it's when the commentary takes on a life of its own and you have no control over it anymore. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong either, because I've had this experience myself where I'll post something and the first person or two will comment and they'll take my post or my intention completely wrong, like way wrong. And then that starts almost like a whole new line of algorithm where and creates a bias, almost like a confirmation bias where one person wants a comment, but then they read that comment like, oh, no, wait a minute, she was saying this is negative. And then they'll reply to that one. And I've seen that happen in real time with me. And so I'm so intrigued by that too, that bias that happens on there. But ultimately what I do is think, okay, they got it wrong, but I didn't communicate myself effectively. So that's on me. Even though this was a two minute post, maybe they spent only five seconds on it. So maybe the first two lines that I said came out wrong and that's on me. Okay? And then that's how we teach ourselves how to do that as well. But when the commentary goes off course and you don't have control of it anymore. You really have to listen to it and react to what they're saying. Because when the masses are involved, they may not be 100% right, but they could be 50% right. And sometimes that's enough for a post to come down or to react to it or create a response. Most crises that happen don't happen in a vaccine vacuum. There's a reason why people are triggered by what you've said or what you. Yeah.

And it. And the Internet can be scary because it can build momentum and then it snowballs and people can hurt people.

Right.

And so sometimes people, when they're really upset, can say things that they probably. They might not necessarily say to someone face to face.

Right. For better, for worse.

Right. It's not about is this right or is this wrong. It's more about how that's just the truth of what we deal with now. So how would you recommend, like, for example, if someone does start to take it personally because you were mentioning it, can get easy to take it personally when people are being mean to you. Regardless of whether or not you have something to own, it never feels good for someone to be mean to you, make fun of you, all those things. So I can definitely acknowledge that. So how. Because I've had friends that have literally, like, cried for, for 72 hours because of negative, horrible things that get said to them. Now what do you do?

Yeah, it's. We really need to decide what it is that is creating all this negativity. I think, like, I can pretty much figure out from my social media who's trollish, who I could look at. I could look like, who's a bot, what is a bot, who's being a troll, how many numbers of followers they have. Like, you can pretty much suss out who these people are, but you can also suss out when these are legit people, meaningful people. They tend to look for the people who are closer to truth tellers, like the one. The people who say to me, I normally like your stuff, but. Or I normally agree with everything you say, but okay, now I'm paying attention. What is it that I said that you disagree with? What is it? I'll pay. I'll pay attention to it. And sometimes I'll think, oh, no, you didn't get it. You got it wrong. I'll think, oh, all right, I didn't communicate that effectively as at all. But the one step is, be very measured in your response. Don't go crazy. Immediately fire back and start attacking people. You never want to do that. Yes, you will get the engagement without a doubt, and then you'll get that boon. But it's almost like eating a bunch of sugar. It's like that one rush that you get, but then you leave. You're left with all that damage. It's not nutrition, what you're doing. And then you really want to look at what that criticism is and be mindful to it and you can learn from it because what another effective piece of crisis communication, pr. Crisis PR is the redemption. Like show us what you've learned. That's that promise piece. Come back with a response. I understand some people were triggered by me saying X, Y and Z. And you could either say I didn't mean it that way or I understand why people feel that way and I could have been more eloquent in this. Or it is use it as an opportunity to embolden what your original message was or who you are. Always look for those learning opportunities where you can make it into something else and that's another way to get through it.

So that's so good. So in your experience, and I know that this answer is going to depend, but in your experience, what is the time frame that you typically see for a situation to get, get diffused and then to live through, say a redemption arc?

Yeah, that's an excellent question. It typically depends on the level. Fame, celebrity, just the clout of the person. Are they verified? Are they someone that most people know or are they just famous in their own part of the Internet? It all comes down to the algorithm. If it's a, if you're a hashtag worthy person, it's going to be a little bit longer because people know who you are. But for a lot of people in our space who we're just maybe known in our area and in our channel, these things really are. Can be like just a 24 hour dust up. They can just, they can flame out, they end as quickly as they start. But don't ignore it. Learn from it if necessary. There's always learning. Even if you're 100% right and a bunch of people took it the wrong way. Learn how could I have done that differently next time? And just learn how you can better navigate it. Never go into social media thinking you're always right, right. Or you always know what you're doing, people can always help you and guide you to be there.

You just think that's so powerful because I start to notice this from the people that start to gain a little traction. There's like, there's almost this like expert hubris that comes up with like, oh, my. People just believe whatever I say because I said it. And it's an accidental thing, I think. I don't think that people, especially in the fitness space. No one becomes a personal trainer because they don't want to help people. It's just. We start to get a little clout from maybe our colleagues, and we start to think that, like, oh, that's okay. I can handle it. And we lose that sense of beginner's luck, that sense of, like, every person matters, and it starts to change. And I think that that's. I mean, I've noticed that in myself that I have to constantly remind myself, this is not a numbers game. There's people on the other side of that profile.

And I like how you use the word hubris, because that is that distinctive word, isn't it? That. Where people can smell what is driving this person. And there are people in the fitness industry who I follow. They're there to help. They're there to inspire. And there are people in the industry who are there to. They are there to sell their app. They're there to sell affiliate codes. They're. They have their bodies on display. But you're looking. Sometimes you're looking at eating disorders, you're looking at disordered eating. You're looking at someone who isn't healthy. And that these people continue to thrive in this space is so disheartening. And you see it. But I think nowadays people, like I said, are more discerning, and they can tell who they're following, like, who's influenced them for good and who is influencing them for bad. So true.

I can't. There was that one fitness influencer, and I really felt for her because I think she just got. She just. Just was not prepared for the fame that she ended up getting.

That.

It was. Her name was Brittany, and she was like, yeah, she was selling all those programs. But then she. I always look for the best in people. Right. And then she had, like a million programs that she sold that I think she really did have the best of intention to fulfill. She just couldn't. And she's a kid.

Yeah. And she was a kid. And you. And again, like you. Because so many of these people become famous, become wealthy, become influencers, and they have clout and influence simply because they look a certain way and they have the followers and they. They caught lightning in a bottle, but they didn't know how to manage it. And so many of these influencers are young, they don't have business degrees, and they don't know. They don't have the experience to know how to do it. So you can understand it. But it's when you're chasing a dollar instead of chasing service and chasing for better ways to serve your community, that's where people get caught.

I also think, too, that like attracts like, and that we live in bubbles where we think that everyone thinks the way that we do, and that's just plain and simple, not the case.

I agree.

And that there are people out there that are like, no, I am. I am gonna smoke in mirrors. And we think no one would do that. Yes, they do.

Yes.

Yes, they do. I've had clients that have come to me and said, I invested 10k and then got ghosted. And I was like, they ghosted you? Like, just. That's it. Disappear.

Yeah. It's understandable because a lot of people, they'll put in the whole Internet space, they'll put all their energy into creating but not maintaining. And they don't know how to do that. I mean, I have a membership and I have to show up in that membership on Patreon. I feel like I need to show up daily in my indestructible PR online membership. I have monthly webinars and these workshops to. To help people. And you have to show up, and if you don't, you're going to get people on the other end of it saying, why am I spending money on you? So you're absolutely right.

And I love that you're bringing it up and also bringing up the membership, because I'm curious. We've talked a lot about what to do when things start to happen. Right. We tend to, as human beings, tend to be reactive. And the truth is there are things that we could do to be proactive, to bulletproof ourselves in terms of, you know, getting in front of it before we.

Even.

Before it even happens. And you mentioned some of it in terms of, like, the content and getting clear about, you know, are you going to be educational, are you going to be polarizing? And it can be a combination of both. So what are some of the other ways that we can start to get in front of crisis before it even happens?

Yeah, that's an excellent question. I think if really, truly, if you are someone who represents online and you're representing a mission, you're representing a value system, you're representing what your business is all about, and you live it and breathe it, and people relate to you and you're building a community, then you're on to something. Like you. No one can be brought down for doing the right thing. If you're helping people, it's very difficult to decide, okay, we're going to attack this person.

Why?

Well, because she's helping people feel about themselves and nobody, how dare the nerve of that woman to do that. But so they think you should. It's trying to maintain and control fear because it's scary. Like the Internet is an incredibly scary place. Social media is incredibly scary place. But if you're getting into the world of profit is understanding the distinction between serving someone and selling to someone. And if you're going to sell to someone, that selling needs to be of value. No one should be ashamed of selling something online. I mean, people need to make a living. No one has to be embarrassed that they're charging a fee for something, but there has to be something that comes with that. And if you are going to be an influencer, if you're going to work with affiliates and links and there needs to be truth in advertising. People do not like being taken advantage of and if they feel that way, they will want to retaliate. And how do they do that? They do that online. Yes.

I think the whole world could do a better job at their effective communication skills. Most of us are, many of us, I won't say most, I'll say many people tend to be passive aggressive and the Internet can be a passive aggressive space instead of effectively like, hey, this happened and this is how I felt.

Right.

I think we're moving towards it with the personal development movement. But there are still many people, people that just don't know how to effectively communicate yet and shows up online. So I'm curious from your perspective as someone who consumes, or maybe not consumes a lot of content, but you also are watching how people show up online, what are some of the things that you see that you could go, oh, that might potentially be a problem. That hasn't been a PR crisis yet.

I think in the space that we're talking about, it's anything that's polarized. Obviously if you are going to be very open about being anti vax, if you're going to be open about a certain falling on one side of an issue, whether it's religious or political, you know, you're going to create a division and you're going to segment your audience right there. Part of your audience is going to love you, but you're already going to ostracize another part of your audience and you are going to be open for any time type of attack. If that's the type of influencer you want to be and that's how you want to show up, that's fine. But just expect that there's going to be a cost, a consequence for being a polarizing influencer. But if you want to be someone that just wants to skid above the surface, you just, you don't want to get into the muck at any point. It's taking the time with your posts, with your interactions. Every time you show up publicly in a public space online, that can be shared, that can be duetted, that can be liked and shared or downloaded. Only post what you can stand by, only post what you can speak to. Someone comes back and asks you about this, do you have an answer to it? Can you stand by that also? Just do be mindful of this, that sharing capability that people can take clips of what you're doing. I hear a lot people will comment about being taken out of context like, oh, they only took this part of a clip. And yeah, that can happen. But when there is some type of mobilization against a brand or a person, there's usually something there. It's not just from one clip. People are pretty savvy to that. So just the safety mechanism is just post to your mission, post to your value system, post to your community where you're helping people, sharing with people and just giving of yourself and chances are you'll always be able to.

That's so good. And I do have a question about the era of. During the time of the George Floyd era, there was a very, very. It was a huge movement to this idea of silence is violence. Right. And so my. I'm curious your opinion. When we start to see that a lot inside of our communities, when we are deciding that we want to be one of those, those people who don't take stances on polarizing topics that are controversial but we're getting called. So like, oh well, I feel like I have to say something, something. How do we navigate those kinds of situations?

It's a really good question because it's not easy to do cultural. There's cultural appreciation, cultural appropriation, there's using race and gender and any type of discrimination, equity and inclusion to your benefit. That's where it gets, I think, a little tricky for that. So you do have to be nimble. Any type of those communications involving like George Floyd, for instance. Yes, it was true. I don't think like for people who are just these smaller brands, influencers, do you have to say something? Not necessarily. You don't have to. Like I feel in my work like organizations, companies, big associations with big. With a lot of stakeholders, a lot of audiences. Should they say something? Yes, I think they should. When it comes to not George Floyd, like you have to get on the stand the side of one or the other. But let's just talk about black lives mattering or all lives. Let's talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, vision. But the more introspective. I worked with clients and we were rolling out information that said, you know what, I never talked about this before personally, but this is what I see about it right now. And like for me, I started doing podcasts about DEI issues because I realized like, oh my goodness, I haven't done a lot. So I think if you're very, if you show some vulnerability explaining how it, it affected you and not in a selfish way you don't want. There's a term called in communication called grief tourism where people will latch on to something negative that's happened, some tragedy that's happened. We don't want to do that. But if you can, if you can show growth and how you're coming to think a certain way, then I think it can be very safe. But you don't want to use any type of cultural appropriation where it make, where it's. So you're just using culture to your advantage and, and people really look down on that. It's selfish. It's selfish branding, it's self aggrandizing. I think the more human centric and the more human focused you are in your communication, the safer you'll be and the more effective you'll be, which is more important.

I also think for me too, what I had noticed is that during that time for me, I didn't really say anything, I did not say anything specific, but I demonstrated in my actions, like diversity is a core value of mine. And you can see it just in, in who I bring to the stage, who I'm connecting with, whose voices I'm amplifying and then going in introspectively and going to the community, my community. And if I had questions, asking questions, how am I being perceived so that I can address that? Because ultimately I think that's what we're doing at the end of the day is how can we connect human beings, serve them so that everyone feels heard and appreciated and loved. Because at the end of the day that's what I feel like we're talking about.

Right?

But it was scary and it was a scary time even as a smaller person of influence, right? Because you still want to support your community even if It's a community of one. And if you're on social media with a hundred followers, you have a community.

You do, yeah. So good.

Okay. Molly, you're amazing and I want to be very mindful of your time. So can you share with us a little bit more about your influencer membership that you started to talk about? What are some of the things that you do inside of there that help people really bulletproof their PR world in life?

Yeah, since I started being more mindful in my showing up on social media because I do just found in TikTok in particular, the growth was immense. And it was, and it happened. It felt literally like overnight you're just aware of how many people you can help, which has been a tremendous benefit to being on social media. I love that. So I have found I can help people where they are. So I've changed a lot of the structure of my business. I have my day to day clients that I work with them. I write crisis communication plans for them, I do workshops, I do training. But as I mentioned, I do more hourly consulting now. So on my website you can just sign up for hourly consulting and it's usually someone who's experienced some type of mini micro or big blowup. Typically on social media we can, I can help them recover. So I have different packages for that. I also have a Patreon that you can find under my name, Molly McPherson with, you know, different tiers. One is like a, it's called off the record. It's just TikTok. Plus whenever I'm, I do a TikTok post and I go a little bit deeper in Patreon where I'll explain probably more of my opinion. That's my opinion on TikTok, more of my opinion there. But I also have a tier because I get questions about PR and communications all the time. So I show up there giving lessons from the classroom. I teach. I'm an adjunct professor also in my day to day work. So it's another way that I serve. And then I have this membership where I have these monthly workshops to help people they can check in. It is community. We do it live. Sometimes it's just me, sometimes I'll bring in a guest speaker and it's like it's just another classroom and I try to find these kind of forward leaning topics that people don't really know about. It could be how to write a press release for social media, how to get in front of a news director, but it also like next month it's how to write your own crisis communication plan. Most companies have to hire a firm and spend tens of thousands of dollars. But now one person influencers on social media their business, they are business and if something happens, you need a plan to follow. So I'm just sharing with people my blueprint for how I write a crisis plan for my clients and I'm putting it in a workshop. So that's the area of focus that I have right now. So if any of your viewers or listeners or interested interested in that, they can go to my website molynickpherson.com crisistemplate it's going to be held in late February. It's just a one hour workshop but you'll walk this template for how you can respond during crisis.

It's so cool. And I also think that having the community is so powerful because I think that at least for me when I was first navigating all these crisis that started to just come up. I think it's so important to have a space where you can ask questions without worrying about. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I really need to ask this question or not but. And I really need to ask this question. I think sometimes we get frozen paralysis by analysis because we're like I don't want to hurt anyone so I'll just do nothing. Which sometimes is not the right way to go about it either. And I'll be sure to link all of those up all of those places. We'll link those in the show notes. So Molly, thank you so much. Where else can we send people if they want to connect with you and talk to.

Well, definitely on TikTok, at Molly B. McPherson and on Instagram Molly McPherson and I'm also on Twitter which used to be my most effective social media. Now it's the least effective social media or my website, mollymcpherson.com but always love chatting with people. And I'm so in your industry too that you're in, I mean I'm in it all the time on social media and I really applaud people. You're like me, you are serving a community to help people. So whether it's professional, it's personal, it's health related, we're all doing, we all have the same goals and value system. So I'm happy to share mine with you as I learn about yours as well.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

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