178: Why Zelensky’s ‘Selfie Game’ is Helping Ukraine Win the PR War Against Russia

I didn't know if it would ever happen again. But I am certain that I am in love. Premier Minister Shmuel Tut. Padalyak Tut. President Tut, welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help you manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Case in point, the sound you heard was from a video shot on February 25. It was late on a Friday night in Kiev. A man standing in front of a dim street light speaking directly into a camera. A selfie from his video phone. No teleprompters, no selfie stick. No fear. You likely did not understand the language, but you more than certainly understood the meaning that Ukrainian President of Volodymyr Zelensky is here in this episode. A few reasons out of the many, many, many, many why Zelensky's selfie game is helping Ukraine win the the PR war against Putin and Russia. At the time of this recording late last week, the news was grim. Russian forces were encircling cities in Ukraine. Diplomacy is faltering. The top diplomats of Russia and Ukraine failed to make any progress in their first face to face meeting since the beginning of the Russian invasion. The bombardments are still happening and this two week old war has already cost an estimated $100 billion in damage. But the damage to one of the leaders reputation is a lifetime. You can't even calculate it. But to the other side, President Zelensky, he is representing a country that is suffering. We are all seeing it across the Internet, across newscasts. It's everywhere. It's heartbreaking. If you're like me, I have trouble fixating on it because it's so sad as a female, as a mother. Those are the stories that resonate me with me and they, they also put me into a tailspin. The stories of women giving birth in bomb shelters, a maternity ward that was being bombed, I can't even imagine. There was one photograph that I looked at last night that really put me into a tailspin. It was a woman walking out of Ukraine into Poland and she had a bag in one hand and her dog in the other. And I thought that's me if I was in Ukraine. So if you have even an ounce of empathy, you cannot watch any of this footage without feeling sad. However, if you even have an empath ounce of heart, you cannot watch President Zelensky on his selfie video without feeling something. Last week, the video that he posted, reactions from everywhere on the Internet. I actually had to post it on Twitter, because I had to ask people, what is your reaction to seeing it, to hearing it, looking at the optics of what this man was doing? As I mentioned, the scene is grim in these selfie videos, but the message and the optics are so powerful. These dispatches from the streets, from the war zone. And what's interesting about it is the why behind it. It's not for show. Well, we don't know what's in his mind, but let's look at the impact and the effect. It's not just for show. It's not to bolster the man's reputation. Certainly it's proof of life. It's to let the people of Ukraine, the people who have been displaced from Ukraine and people all around the world, and also Putin, that this man still walks the earth. And it is a social media sign of solidarity, not just with the people of Ukraine, but everyone. And the support is outstanding. It is, I would call it me in my line of business, an indestructible reputation, because right now, he has an indestructible character. The heroism, the strength, the lack of fear in this man. It's outstanding. So on this podcast, on this episode, what can we take away from these videos? What can the average person take from this? What can you, if you're listening, if you're a communicator, if you're a leader, if you work on behalf of leadership and you're trying to build a reputation, you're trying to figure out, what does it take to stand out, what makes. What makes PR click, a PR brand click? So, as a. Oh, my gosh, a shallow aside, last week I posted a video on TikTok at MollyBMCP, if you happen to be on it. And within a day, two days, it had 70,000 views. And the reason why, it wasn't me, it was the subject of the video behind me, which was President Zelensky. And it was the video again, what he said, we can read the translation, but it wasn't what he said and it wasn't necessarily how he looked. He was still wearing the same, you know, olive drab uniform. The. You could see the ruin behind him. But it was the sheer force of this man that caused people to react to this video. It was. It was the wink. So let me. Let me play what I said on TikTok. I think I have found my favorite clip ever that I will use in executive media training. Wait for it. Wait for it. Right? And. And hint, anyone who's going to be in my signature indestructible PR training Course which is coming up. I'm rolling it out just in a few weeks. I'm doing my first one in in late March. I'm using this video. This video is now going to be a part of all my collateral. But I posted it and not surprising, not surprising in one bit. The comments. So I have as of Now I have 135 comments. The very first comment is I love him in all caps. One person said he's just so plucky. I'm not even Ukrainian but now I want to be heart emoji. He's the daddy we needed in 2022. Next comment. Yep, felt that one in the womb lands. He knows how to work an audience, that's for sure. The wink felt round the world. Next. I think the wink is a secret message and this one which is important. May God bless and protect this exceptional leader. And so the comments go on and on and on. And it's no surprise that because it is posted on TikTok there are a lot of comments from women. Comments like that wink made my knees weak and my heart flutter a little next to my prayers for President Zelensky, my prayers for Ukraine and really isn't that it? We can all look like on a on Twitter replies and I can chuckle and laugh at the reaction because I thought am I the only one that feels this way watching this video? But we can take those comments, those you know, silly heart aflutter comments and we can match them right next to the comments know supporting all the people of Ukraine and supporting what he's doing. It, you know, it all, it all melds together. So for this podcast I just wanted to, I just wanted to share like three pieces of what Zelenskyy is doing that happens to coincide with some of the things that I talked about in my book. Reclaim control and respond with confidence in a media crisis. I have seven pillars of indestructibility and it's the idea of, it's these characteristics, these traits of people that seem to resonate with other people watching them either from the stage certainly. But what they do from a communication public relations point of view, video social media is certainly a big part of it. So out of the seven pillars of indestructibility I just wanted to take a handful of them. The first one in my book is about honesty. Honesty being a pillar is essentially saying if you try to cover, if you try to lie, if you're a dishonest person, you're not going to last long reputationally in the communication ecosystem. That is happening right now, but another pillar that I talk about in the book is genuineness. And these, these videos have that. And that genuineness is you're seeing who he is, you're seeing his character and you're seeing how he connects with his audience. These videos are so effective because they connect with people on social media. And as I've said before, social media amplifies everything. And if it is amplifying a message that people feel connected to, I mean, look at the collection of comments that I just read from my TikTok, from all of these women. I mean, they connected with them. And granted the words are all about people falling in love with him, but that's what is happening here. It's that connection. And it is a connection of these like minded people. Like minded people mobilize. They can mobilize on a social media platform. They can mobilize in my comments, they can mobilize externally. The press picks that up and they note that. So that's why now President Zelensky is trending and why he is on the positive side of public opinion. Next, transparency. The transparency pillar is all about telling everyone, showing everyone what you're made of, what your policies are, what your value system is. You're not hiding from anything. A video of the leader of Ukraine standing in front of demolished cities while there is likely money on this man's head, assassins looking everywhere for him. The transparency, to be able to put himself on video and let people know that not only is he alive, he is here and he is fighting, that resonates with people. And the last pillar that I'll pull out is that of responsiveness. It's the idea of being able to communicate on command when you need to do it, when news is breaking, when your stakeholders need to hear from you, it is the immediacy and the relevancy of the message. So Zelenskyy's appeal is that he is responding at a time when he wasn't expected to respond. Was he living? Was he in hiding? Shouldn't he be in hiding? Shouldn't he be somewhere else, standing with his cabinet as missiles and bombs are falling throughout his country? Not this guy. He is up front, in front of everyone. Millions of eyeballs are watching him and watching his video and he is telling everyone, I am here. Using that responsiveness, he is sending a message of pressure to Putin. He is saying, I will not let this Russian invasion make me crawl into a hole somewhere and hide. He's also messaging that he needs help, he needs support, and he is out front. What that does is put other countries, other diplomats on notice, because this is going to garner emotional support and financial support. And this is how it works. It's how it works. A lot of activists use this tactic and they use it effectively, and that's really what he's doing. He's being an activist for the country of Ukraine. So there's something to be said there. So to wrap up this podcast, I pray I think about Ukraine, the people of Ukraine, often, as I know many of you do as well. It's a heavy, heavy story, but it is a story of such resilience and the obsession that I have with this leader and the fact that it intersects so well with what I do for work. So I follow it, and that's why I wanted to share it this week. What can you do to show your character? How can you show your character? It is not likely that any of you are ever going to be standing in the middle of the streets with bombs raining down on you, thankfully. But how can you show your character to your consumers, to your public, to your stakeholders? How can they see the real you? There's power in that. If you can figure out how to do that, oh, my friend, then you will be indestructible. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.