243: Unfiltered Inbox: Your Questions, My Replies

Do you want to know what topic generates the most critical feedback on my social media? Any topic that involves these two. Prince Harry Meghan Markle, near catastrophic car chase. Next day, Day two of the news cycle. Analysis from a media, press, public relations perspective. Disclaimer analysis only. This is not commentary. I am Prince Harry Meghan Markle agnostic. Let's go. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. In this episode, let's delve into the wonderful realm of social media feedback and I'm going to let you in on some of the messages, DMs and emails we're I receive from my incredible followers and listeners like you diving deep into the digital treasure trove that is my inbox. The questions, the thoughts, the stories from my amazing community From Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and email. Let's get into it. Oh, and also the rude ones. Hey there, everyone. Welcome to a new week of the Indestructible PR Podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. This week I wanted to make this episode a little more personal. Usually I am dispensing some nugget of, I'm not going to call it wisdom, but just some nugget from my work that I feel could help other communicators, PR people, leaders, or anyone who's interested in their work. And after all, my goal is to help people build indestructible reputations. The reputation that, that no one could bring down, the reputations that cannot be canceled. But lately it has been hot on social media. I tweeted a comment last week and I put a timestamp on it because I have been feeling so itchy all week because, you know, I'm working with clients who are dealing with so much stress. And one of the words that I put in a strategic plan we were writing about it was the word strained. A lot of online pushback can create, just like a strained environment can create a lot of stress for people, whether they're working at a company that's being just assaulted online or even if you're a brand or a person on social media, like, oh, I don't know, me, you know, after a while, you know, it just gets a little old and it makes you, you know, kind of taints the process for you. But I don't want to look at it personal. You know, I always say it and I've said it on this podcast a million times. You Know, it's just business. You can't take it personal. But in the vein of the Godfather, I feel different about people online who come after people. Brands, organizations. I mean, specifically organizations, leaders and organizations, or companies or companies representing a brand or just people. I'm growing weary of it, but also, I want to look at it from a more analytical point of view as well. It's all about feedback. And the feedback, particularly on social Media, there's certainly TikTok feedback, which happens in the greater realm for, you know, for brands and people, but also on Twitter and Facebook groups, which I didn't even mention Facebook groups in the intro. But, like, my clients are dealing with Facebook groups. But what it's coming down to is we're coming into this new space again. It's the next gen Cancel Culture. It's like Cancel Culture 2.0, but it feels like 3.0 because it's so vicious. Cancel culture was really based on an offense, like bad behavior, but now it's like people just want to attack people. If your views or values do not align or you just think differently, well, watch out. I opened this podcast with a TikTok I had made earlier. That was the second TikTok that I had made earlier last week about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. They were in New York. I don't even need to go through the whole story with you all. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. They were in New York, Women in Visionary Awards. Meghan Markle was receiving it. And then there was all this paparazzi. And a statement comes out from their spokesperson claiming it could have been catastrophic with all the paparazzi following them. Well, I posted two pieces of content to TikTok. The first one, you know, probably an hour or so after it went live, the news went live. A friend of mine, a colleague who's been on this podcast before, Jody Fisher, he used to work at WCBS Radio in New York, and now he works in public relations. He has a firm out on Long Island. But he and I always. We always kibits about these types of stories, and. And I saw the headline, and I just put the headline away. I'm like, molly, you have too much work to do today. You're just writing today, do not go to TikTok because you kind of just get involved in that. But he and I spoke, and I just could not help it because it really was a press story. It's really what I talk about. It felt as if, you know, Prince Harry and Meghan kind of. I Don't want to say manufactured, but they manufactured an environment where the paparazzi could go after them. I feel that. And no one is going to convince me otherwise. Though I did post two podcasts to give, you know, two sides of, you know, of this story there because on TikTok, oh my gosh, if I lean heavy against Prince Harry or Meghan Markle, I'm going to feel about it, I'm going to hear about it. So I want to. First we're going to kick off this mailbox episode from an email that I received after that about Harry and Megan. Now I will tell you the comments on my Harry and Megan posts which just kind of feeds into how I feel about social media right now. So my first post about Harry and Megan, which I posted maybe two hours after the story went live, that I saw it right now it has 498.8 thousand views. So I assume by the time this is posted it will be 500,000. That's a half a million views about on a three minute view on Harry and Meghan. Then I did a follow up one which was only a story which I thought was supposed to expire and it didn't yet maybe it hasn't or maybe it has. That one has 100,000 views where I told people, you know, no commentary on Harry or Meghan, if you like them or not, let's just talk about the news story. And then I did a follow up as of today has 63,000, which doesn't surprise me because in this post I'm giving credence to the idea that maybe Harry and Meghan didn't know that their spokesperson used the word catastrophic. But in the end, if you stay till the end, I quoted Edward Bernays, who's the father of public relations, about how, you know, when you kind of create these events or when you are trying to, you know, sway public opinion, it can get very, very complex and very, very messy. And just for context, that's what I think happened with Harry and Megan. I believe this and I said this in my post. I'm Harry and Megan agnostic. I do not feel strongly about them one way or the other. There's things that I do like, I admire about them. But also I believe Harry comes from an institution where they know how to use manipulate whatever the press, they're going to leverage the press for whatever their agenda is. That family has been doing it for years. Even his blessed mother Diana, who everybody loved and cherished, she did it as well. And honestly, we all do it. I Mean, I'm in the business of pr. We all have to leverage press in a certain way. Now it's up to the press to decide to fall for it. And in the case of Harry and Meghan, it appears that they didn't. You know, just a quick synopsis of it. You know, I just feel that there are some blinds out there saying that Harry and Megan, you know, called the, the paparazzi in and then there was this big, you know, congestion and turns into a big combustible moment where the paparazzi follow them and then they claimed it was a two hour, nearly catastrophic event. What I found interesting about it really, and I can say it more on the safety of a podcast as opposed to TikTok where I'll be eviscerated by all the, you know, the Megan stands out there and be called a racist up and down is that I do, I absolutely believe, I think it's reasonable. I'm not saying that they did it, but I think it's reasonable that they may have hyped up their exit because they easily could have, they could have left the building underneath, you know, through a garage or something like that. They didn't have to go out the door, they didn't have all the, all the paps there. So it seemed like they had manufactured that event because, you know, Harry is trying to get protection and he keeps getting denied protection from the royal family which he claims that he needs. So it's a sticky topic. And that story came out one day and then the press story, the paparazzi story comes out less than 24 hours later. So it's reasonable to seem that they cook something up there and even blind items out there are claiming this as well. But I always look at it from, you know, a press point of view. You know, what do we see here? And what I quoted from Edward Bernays from crystallizing public opinion. Every person who's in public relations should read this book. But he's talking about public relations counsel, how it must closely adhere to ethical standards. And this is the quote that I said in my TikTok. Manipulating mass perception is always a dodgy exercise, but without a backbone of ethics, even Bernays was aware that it could be used towards dangerous ends. And that quote is what I'm talking about with Harry and Meghan. They're trying to manipulate on a mass communication level. And it's very, very diffic difficult to do, particularly when you have the press, when you have savvy press, when you have New York City press, which is not just local New York City press. You have national press in New York City, you have cell phones, you have social media, you have cameras everywhere. And so far we really haven't seen a lot of footage from this two hour, you know, near catastrophic chase. So which I said in my post, I think in the end it comes right down in the middle. Was there a challenge for Harry and Meghan to leave that venue? I think it was the Ziegfeld Theater. Yes, there was absolutely a challenge for them to get out. Now, did they create that challenge by calling the challenge? Who knows? We don't know. We don't know. But it does seem like it was definitely a boosted event. That makes it difficult to do so that's why I'm going to start here. I'm going to give you a sense of what it is like to talk about Harry and Megan in the world of social media. Because on my post of 500, oh, I'm going to turn down. You can hear my voice. But you know, some of the feedback. A newsy of mine, a newsy friend on TikTok, so she used to work at CNN. Some person said John Miller's reporting is like no other. I trust few journalists, but he's one of them. Because I commented on John Miller who used to be with nypd, also reported national news, local news. And then my friend Jojo says, I'm in the biz, he's 100% the real deal. So we have. I call BS. Megan got all her attention. A two hour drive in Manhattan is about six blocks for me. They lied, exaggerated so much. And, and you know, how do you have car chases in New York? Harry's PTSD probably flaring, you know, poor dude, you know, fair basically with his mother. So most people here were replying against them, you know, that they're all saying that this seemed a little fishy. But then I certainly get a lot of people who tell me how they feel. For instance, this is an email that, that came to my inbox the next morning. Hi, Molly, how's your day going? I watched some videos you shared yesterday and thought to drop some thoughts here, respectfully. Spoiler. It's not respectful. You don't have to like people. This is where we know like oh boy, Buckle and Molly to emphasize with them or what just happened to them. And the way you have dehumanized Harry and Megan to the point of suggesting the chase in single quotes or hours long following from the media didn't happen was cruel. Do you see what it's like to get Emails like they're saying what I said was incorrect. I was reading the statement from Harry and Megan. I understand cynicism. No, you don't. And I understand looking at things from a neutral point. No, you don't. What I don't understand, however, is a woman, that would be me, who is a mum. Oh, so maybe this means that this is one of our UK friends who is a mum herself, dehumanizes another woman, gaslight others about her experiences and incite hate towards her and her children. I don't even know what she is talking about. And what the fact that I'm a woman and that I am gaslighting other people such. You know what I would say to this person in the uk? Bollocks. Not once did you imagine, just maybe, maybe they were trying to shake off the paparazzi so they can keep their residence in New York safe, where their children might be. Their children were not there. At least we don't know if their children were there or not. We did hear that they were trying to keep their location safe, but if they really wanted to keep their location safe, they would have left in privacy and no one would have known that they would have left. Oh, let me just keep reading. You didn't think maybe they released the statement because the Daily Mail Express had published pictures from the incident earlier? Or maybe they knew it wouldn't stay off the media and had to say something first? Well, if the Daily Mail, which they did publish pictures, but how would they know it took place in, like, a minute? Like they're going to be on their phones, like, looking at the Daily Mail. Nope. Your first reaction was to question if it happened or the severity of it. Yeah, me and like, a hundred thousand other people. My God. Capital G. Foking God into this email. How cruel, unfeeling and vile. I think that's the first time anyone has ever called me vile, at least to my face or an email. I know empathy is largely missing in our society. I would say it's missing. I don't know if I'd say largely, but maybe it's our responsibility to bring that back. Whose responsibility is it? My responsibility. It's no one's responsibility to bring back empathy. It might be a good thing to do, but it's not anyone's responsibility to behave in a way where others know that you don't have to like people. Maybe I should have done this in a British accent that you don't have to like people to emphasize and be kind towards them at the end of the day. Whatever your feelings are about Meghan and Harry might be, please remember they are both human beings, actual human beings. And the dehumanization of them by people like you and the Daily Mail because you're in the same chat group has to stop. Does that make sense? Thanks. A note from empathy. Well, empathy, bad English accent aside, maybe I should have done it in a Liverpoolian accent. At the end of the day, whatever your feelings are about Meghan and Harry might be, please remember they are both human beings, actual human beings. Oh, please. This is the kind of crap that I get. And I gotta tell you, I get this over and over and over again. And why? Because I did an analysis of a statement on social media. So if she wants to talk about the lack of empathy, don't even get me started. The lack of empathy is on social media and people like this who sit and hound people because they happen to do an analysis. So to that cover your ears, I say screw. Sorry. All right, now back to, back to some of my DMs. I want to go into my DM messages here and just give you a sense of, of some of the questions that I get. This is from TikTok, which, you know, here's the great thing about TikTok. The reason why I like it is, well, I love it and I hate it. Obviously you can see why I hate it because those are the type of messages that I get, you know, and I will just to go back to that email for a moment. I mean, yeah, we all have to be good. I believe in the golden rule. I live by the golden rule. Everything I do in my job and my life is all about, you know, at the heart of it. I'm an educator. I was interviewed by magazine this week. They're doing a long form story. So it was the first day of their reporting and they, and they follow my TikTok, my dehumanizing TikTok and you know, ask me, you know, what, you know, drives me to do it. And I said, you know, it's really to teach, but it's also to learn because I find out so much information from other people. So let's go into the inbox and I'll tell you what my mean. So here's a question. How about Mike Tyson? Jamie Foxx reveal. Mike Tyson. Let's slip that Jamie Foxx actually had a stroke, but he refuses to confirm. Ooh, now I gotta go to the goog and see what says that about Mike Tyson. Oh, here we go. Mike Tyson unclear if Fox will play boxer and biopic as planned amid health scare. Oh, I might have to do a TikTok about this. No, I don't want to do that. It is news. Like, I don't like doing behind the scenes stuff that isn't news. But hey, can I tell you something? I totally believe that like a stroke would make sense. So a lot of people have asked me about Jamie Foxx, a lot of people, and that his daughter came out and said, oh, he's fine, there's nothing to worry about. Which would make sense that a child would come out and do that. That absolutely makes sense that you would do that. You would say, no, no, no, everything's good. Because Jamie Foxx's livelihood is based on him being strong, you know, And I mean, that's Jamie Foxx. He's all energy and he is, you know, he was Ray and now if he was going to be a boxer, he was gonna be Mike Tyson, which man, you hope he didn't have a stroke because that would have been a stroke of amazing casting. So I love Jamie Foxx. As a matter of fact, I was running to Jamie Foxx this morning. Jamie Foxx and his canceled. A canceled singer. So that would be a question. Next one. Can you do a video about how consistency builds trust? There is a reason people like Kate Middleton and Taylor Swift. They just don't waver from who they are and at least how we all perceive them. Thanks for your videos. Absolutely wonderful. I love that question. That is a really good point. Kate Middleton is always Kate Middleton. Taylor Swift is always Taylor Swift. So this follower that's dead on. That's a really good post. I probably will do that, to be honest. And then I get a ton of these. Would love to hear your thoughts on how Taylor Swift could fix her PR nightmare of a relationship with Matty Healy. I've gotten so many DMs, so many questions on that, and I always answer the same thing. Talking about Taylor Swift is very much like talking about Meghan Markle. You do not want to strike the wrong balance with Swifties out there. If you get it wrong, they will come at you. And honestly, which I say back to them, like, other than. I mean, I like Taylor Swift. I like her music. I'm, I'm watching a lot of her concert, you know, on live on TikTok live. But I don't feel qualified enough to talk about her, about her relationships. And even I asked my daughter coin and she went, no, don't do it. All right, okay, so here would be another one. Can you address country singer Jimmy Allen. See, now this is what TikTok is like. I have no idea who Jimmy Allen is. Jimmy Allen, apologize. Oh. Oh. Jimmy Allen apologizes for humiliating a strange wife with affair amid accusations of sexual assault. I have never heard of Jimmy Allen. Jimmy Allen is a black country singer. That's fantastic. Can I tell you what my first reaction is? Isn't this awful? Now I want to listen to Jimmy Allen. I want to know. I want to publicly apologize to my wife, Alexis, for humiliating her with my affair. I'm embarrassed that my choices have brought shame on her. Period. Double space. That's something that she did not deserve at all. I also want to apologize to my children for being a poor example of a man and a father. I'm working on becoming a better person that my kids can be proud of. My goal is to be better than the generation before me. Oh. Oh, snap. I may have to do. I may have to do a TikTok on this one. This business takes so much from you. It's full of temptations that can cripple you and ruin everything you've built. I'm ashamed that I wasn't strong enough to withstand them. I will no longer be a victim of my weaknesses. I challenge everyone to seek help when they need it. Do not be afraid of your weakness. Surround yourself with people that will help you be blessed. Oh, you know what? This is a great statement. This is a great statement because it also has a zinger in there, too. My goal is to be better than the generation before me. There's some. There's some story there with Jimmy Allen's. I don't know, father. That is a great apology. Okay, next, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Oh, Taylor Swift. See again, can you weigh in on the escalating PRMs? Taylor Swift. Yep. Okay, that one shared a video. Tattoo Gate. So many people talk to me about Tattoo Gate. I put it on Instagram stories. I don't even know. It was a customer service thing where someone overcharged someone on tattoos. Like, again, I can't talk about it. Someone wanted to know if I would like to get a dope cartoon portrait of myself. I wonder what that would look like. Have you heard of the F factor fiberfudes issue happening between New York City dietitian Tanya Zuckerbrot and fashion blogger Emily Gellis? There is a podcast on wonder about it. And when it started three years ago, a story in the New York Times. Due to the allegations Tanya suing Emily, it destroyed Tanya's business called F Factor. Tanya is hoping to make Case law about what people can say about each other on social media. Oh, see, now supposedly there may be a Hulu documentary about it. Okay, that's interesting. I may have to find out about that one because that is now a topic that interests me is social media retribution. I got feelings on it. Okay, so this one asked about Meghan Trainor, which I already talked about. And any thoughts on Barbara Lynch? The Boston. Yeah, Barbara Lynch. That's a total Boston story. So I haven't done anything on that. But Meghan Trainor. I talked about Meghan Trainor. Meghan Trainor. Bud Light. Bud Light. Meghan Trainor. Ali Wong had a back grid paparazzi PDA with her boyfriend. They released a statement on Friday. Yep, I knew that. I saw that. Can you discuss Clarence Thomas? Oh, I could Clear link. CEO already talked about that. So these are some of the messages that I get. Now I'm just going to go to Instagram. This isn't going to be a long episode, but I just want to give you guys. Oh, I opened up Instagram and. Oh, one of my favorite. Oh, Jack. One of my favorite coasties who just graduated. That's so sweet. Okay, let's see here. Oh, everyone's talking to me. They have video of when Harry and Megan were in the cab. Check it out. Here we go. Molly, firstly, I hope Harry and Megan are okay. Is there a reason why this story about the car chase with every possible triggering word included would be broken by their spokesperson? Is that usually how an incident like this would be reported? I'm so curious. I saw red carpet photos from the event earlier in the morning, but didn't hear anything about the car chase until just now. We have plenty more to learn about this story, but I do think there's something here that may pique your interest. Specifically from a PR angle. Yes. And thank you very much. I hope I don't sound completely deranged, just curious about it all. Can I tell you those are my favorite messages? Okay. Like they're not like coming at me for it. This one. Oh, that's feedback. Someone who had tagged me and let me do one more. That would be my daughter. We don't want to do that. Let's see. That one is sending a TikTok. Let me go to my request here. They have video of Harry and Megan. This one wants me to do a 20 second reel about how I could. Could I give women a piece of advice about how to manage time, you want to know? My advice is don't follow me for advice on how to Manage time. I'm the last person. Okay, here's another one. A lot of us are totally fine with trans women. Okay, here we go. This is Bud Light. But not the lack of inclusion of women's voices when it comes to sports, prisons and languages. We have been silenced once again by biological men. Some traits can't be transitioned out of. Please don't see, confuse this with m. Hate towards trans people. I wonder what this means. See, I don't even know what this means. This is the kind of stuff that I get. Is this. Is she anti trans or pro trans? A lot of us are fine with trans women. Oh, never mind. This would be anti. This would be anti. All right, I gotta have to end on a positive note, right? Oh, here we go. I'm going to end on a positive note right here because I get a lot of these too. Hi. I'm expected to graduate a degree in comms and minor journalism. This may PR is the field I desire to pursue, but looking on the job board sites, the field seems scarce. I watch your tiktoks and was wondering if you had any advice for an entry level PR job searcher. I love that and I'm going to answer that question right here, right now. Pr. It's a great time to be in public relations. I love working in public relations because everything is about public relations right now. It doesn't matter if, like, go back to 2020, go back to Covid, go back to George Floyd, go back to politics and elections and everything that's happening out there. News is news, but news is generated many times from public relations. And public relations is all about, you know, a mutually beneficial relationship between a PR person, you know and a client, a PR person, you know, and the news. We're all about truth and transparency. And yes, there are PR fixers out there who are not. They're there for deception, as I said in my previous episode. But if you want to get into public relations right now, there are plenty of PR jobs out there. But what could be scarce is she's looking under public relations. In many, many cases, PR jobs are not labeled under PR or public relations. Look for jobs that say communication, communication specialists. Those are the starting jobs that usually always have a public relations element. If you want to creep into the more response field or what I do crisis communication work now. You want to go look for places where they're going to have either disaster communication or they could be more prone to having to manage an issue that is a hospital or local, state, you know, government, federal government. Get a government job, get a GS job, work in public affairs, you know, be a pio, a public information officer. You could also work for an airline, for school, school district, a college, a university. There's so many other places that you could work. So think about where all the crises happen and where all the stories happen. Who's in the news? Like, what are they reporting on? Like, just think even about reporting. They're going to re there's going to be, you know, local television news. They report stories on local events. Many times it's local government events, you know, local events around the area. Find, you know, a job within a local agency and start working with your local newscast. They, you know, journalists are working harder than ever before and before now. And they need stories, they need resources. So they're looking for stories and they're looking for stories that turn into news. They don't want to just be pitched stories for the PR sense of it. They want to be pitched news stories that their viewers will want to watch and for newspaper reporters that their readers will want to read or watch because a lot of newspapers have video. So I hope that answers that question. All right. I also said, and here's one more thing. This is kind of my grab bag, if you will. I had announced a couple weeks ago that I hit 100,000 podcast downloads on Buzzsprout. I tweeted it on May 5, so I'm a little late to the game at that. But I did say that I would announce some of the name who congratulated me on this milestone for my podcast. So first I want to thank everyone who liked that post or commented on it. And some of these are just like my close, close friends, digital friends. There's Tanya McKenzie, she's been on this podcast before. Chris Mills said, congratulations. Jody Fisher, who's a friend, he's been on this podcast. He was the one who I was talking to, as I said about Harry and Meghan. And Jody has tremendous content about Harry and Megan on all his social media platforms as well. Karen Swim, a PR Mohit Rohan said, that's huge. Thank you. And Shauna Bruce and there are a lot of other people on there. Some of my students, Sonya oh, I love her so much. Tam Amy Larry, PR pro Pam JBLH Comms Lori Quiller, Josh Watson, Christy Aylette, Kathy Van Duser, my boy, David Metheny, Toby, David McAlpine, he's going to be on a podcast in the future. Nora Fitzpatrick, Lisa Linfield, who I know she's a fellow author. Tressa Robbins, Dave Irwin he's been on this podcast as well. Dana Engelbert Warren Weeks, One of my favorites. I've been on his podcast. He's been on mine, Wagner's Groceries, a great Count, a parody account. I love this account. Lisa J G Lisa McCarty, Beth Wendy Tank Water, Pio Mike. He has been on this podcast as well. And Rachel McMillan all right, thank you to all of you who liked or commented on my post to congratulate me. And thanks to all of you, my listeners. I would not have made it to 100,000 podcast downloads without you. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.