277: The Inside Scoop: The Day I Became a Boston Globe Headline

To her half a million TikTok followers. New England crisis communications expert Molly McPherson analyzes the PR strategies of celebrities. From the Taylor Swift Travis Kelce romance to the Joe Jonas Sophie Turner split. Molly provides insights into the world of high profile. A listers reporter Dana Gerber sat down with Molly and she joined us to share the details. The details. Oh, I got details. Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast. I'm Molly McPherson, your crisis communication strategist and your guide through the world of breaking news and popular culture. Join me as we analyze the juiciest moments and extract valuable public relations lessons to help you build an indestructible reputation. Join me as we go behind the headlines the topic this week Me let's rewind to a piece of news that put me in an unexpected spotlight A few months ago, the Boston Globe, a publication I've long admired, decided to feature yours truly in a profile. The reporter Dana Gerber reached out to me with the pitch that my TikTok was unique, my social media presence was unique, and she wanted to write a story highlighting my work on the app for the tech section of the Globe, particularly focusing on my presence and how I decipher celebrity strategies. So yes, it was an intriguing situation for me, albeit an ironic one because I am someone who spends my days guiding others through their PR challenges and journeys, if you will. But now I found myself on the other side of the equation, not a place I typically like to put myself. And I mention the ironic portion is because I work in pr. I work in the business of putting information out there. Yet the one topic I don't want to do any PR about, and I'm quite inept at it, is me. I don't like promoting myself, promoting my product, which ultimately helps people. I'm fine with, well, even that. I'm not great at that. But if I know that the end point is promoting something that helps someone, I can get behind that. Promoting me. Just me, Just Molly. Eh? I'm not good at that. So the interview experience, what made it even more unique is that I help people with media relations. I've been doing that for many, many years. Understanding what a reporter needs, what a publication needs, news, hooks, quotes, quotable quotes. This is what I do. This is my life. But to be on the other end of it was unique. Through the emails, back and forth, we scheduled a time to meet, decided to meet down in Boston near Boston University. It's my alma mater. Also where I could meet my daughter, who is a first year student in the comm program there. She's in the journalism program. I thought this would make for a perfect tie in for me to be able to see her and probably bring down clothes or something that she forgot. And we scheduled the interview. Then I found out the week that it was scheduled. It was scheduled for a Friday was the day or the time frame that my father suddenly became ill and died. The day the interview was scheduled was the day he died. So that got pushed off. And part of me thought maybe that's a sign that I'm not supposed to be talking about me. Not that my father was struck down naturally, but it's just that the timing and, and the sentiment of it was off. But you know, Dana was so accommodating and so nice. This is where I get into my danger territory as a human being where I feel I need to accommodate people. But I'm working on this. I'm working on this, believe me. So I rescheduled a time, you know, to meet with her. I'm going to say this right now as a media relations warning slash tip, as someone who does this for other people. Do not conduct any type of media interview if you are not in it. It's a very important thing to do because the interview will not go well. The same applies for any type of public presentation. Recently I stepped back from a huge, huge opportunity to speak on stage without saying what it is. I'll tell you, it was a 18 minute talk that probably everyone is familiar with. Great opportunity. But I walked away from it and very much at the last minute as they were deciding on the final lineup. But I just, it didn't feel right anymore. I'm starting to listen to that more. So I share that little nugget with you as well. I was not in a place to be doing interviews and to step aside for just a moment here. I talked about this in a previous episode about dealing with grief. And one of the unexpected parts of the grieving process was just the physical toll that it takes on the body. You know, grief is going to exact a emotional one. You know, you're going to have to work your way through it. You know, you're going to be dealing with emotions that you've never dealt with before, like extreme loss, particularly when it's apparent, particularly when it, when it's unexpected. See, I'm reacting right now. I'm crying, but I had no idea, idea the physical toll that it takes on you. Just the exhaustion on top of someone who runs really hard day to day to day. Anyone in my inner circle in My life knows that I run hard in my life. So to throw that in there, I should not have done anything in the month of October and November and even early December, heck, got even late December. So this was a rough time to do it. But back then I was more of the accommodating Molly. If it were me now, I actually would have said no, I would have turned it down. But such is, I didn't. So now the interview experience, just to give you insight to what it's like to sit down, maybe you've never done a media interview before, maybe you've never worked with a top tier or mid tier publication. Even though the Boston Globe is not probably on the same level as the New York Times, owned by the same company, but the Boston Globe, that's substantial in terms of a publication, particularly since I live in the area and from the area and people I know are going to be reading it. The day of the interview was a blend of sure anticipation. I knew I was being photographed, so I chose what to wear, how I looked, I made sure I looked okay. And some introspection as I was driving to Boston. I wish I would have outlined what I was going to talk about. I wish I would have worked on quotes ahead of time. I wish I would have created the guardrails for myself, because that was a major concern of mine. So here I was, the person who trains others on managing their public image. And now, potentially, I need to apply my own indestructible PR framework to myself in case I'm cornered on something. But I knew I needed to balance between being relatable, which is gold in media, social media, digital media for connections, but also protecting privacy. So that was the tightrope walk I needed to do for today's digital age and for my family. That's one of the challenges for being a face on social media, for being a content creator. You are more relatable if you let people into your life. And if you let people into your life and you become more relatable, people will connect with you more, they'll trust you more, which leads to just improved business, you know, whatever it is, more clicks, more views, more likes, more ad dollars. You know, eventually they might come to you as a client, you know, whatever it is. So you need to be relatable. But I navigate it constantly with my kids. And in this interview, I had to talk about my journey to Boston, around Boston, how I lived here, you know, how my kids were raised around here, while not focusing too much on why I became a single parent. And I say single parent intentionally. They have another parent. But I consider myself a single parent. They are under my care, my home. Even though they're in college now, there's a huge financial aspect to it, one I wasn't expecting, that has been heaped on me. I put a lot of energy and a lot of care into these kids to make sure that they live their lives. And I'm not the one to interfere. I'm the one to make it better, embolden their lives, prep them for the real world. But it's not for me to humiliate them in that world. So nonetheless, we met at a coffee shop off of Comm Ave. Commonwealth Avenue near Boston University. Always feels like home to me. Comm Ave is like a second home to me. I live there. Just really important years of my life, really fun years of my life. It's right around the corner from Fenway Park. So it just put me in Kenmore Square and my mother. Mood changes immediately. I just feel right. I feel centered. I feel very Molly, circa 1994, you know, whatever. So we met at a coffee shop. We had a great conversation, got to know each other immediately. Liked Dana right off the bat. She's smart, she's bright. She's like a lot of these reporters who I'm interacting with weekly, whether they're at a newspaper or digital publication. They're all young, they're all just a couple years out of college. They're all bright, and they're good writers. They're good reporters. So Dana was not only well researched, but also explorative. I mean, she was asking very insightful questions that allowed me to reflect, you know, on my work and its impact. I wish I was thinking about those things prior to the interview instead of just sitting there and trying to grasp for them while I'm working through the fog of grief, constructing a narrative about myself when my. My brain is fog and I didn't have any breakfast in me, I only had coffee in me. Wasn't the best circumstances, but the interaction was fair. It was enlightening. It was fun. It was like having a fun conversation with someone who gets it. And I love people who get what I do. I don't love it when people judge me, what I do. I don't love it when people paint me with a TikTok brush that I'm online for personal gain. Or my bigger nerve is that I just live in the world of celebrity gossip. Nothing, and I mean nothing, bothers me more than that I am sensitive to it. Sometimes too sensitive. To it, particularly when the circle is a lot closer, when it's not outer ring, but inner ring, when it's peers, when it's fellow communicators or friends or a parent, or when someone, you know is aware of what I do online and I'll hear, I don't really use TikTok, I don't see the point of it, or I'm not caught up on celebrity gossip or I suppose this is the point when you're going to talk to me about, I don't know, Charlie Sheen winning or something like that. It's so annoying. I cannot stress to you how annoying it is. But I understand where they're coming from. I mean, I get it on the surface, yeah, they're not content creators. A lot of people aren't content creators. And even me being a content creator, it's risky. I mean, I get it. I believe me, I kind of wish I had a different Persona where it wasn't on TikTok, because for everything I love about it, I also hate about it at the same time. And it's risky for someone like me who works in crisis pr because I can be canceled at any time. As a matter of fact, I'm a prime target for being canceled. I'm coming to that part later. But when we get into the whole social media realm, what I know and what people really close to me now like, the people who are really deep into my life, what they understand, and these are my kids and I, plus one in my life, they understand why TikTok helps me. It's not me putting myself out there. That's not what it is. It's what I get from everyone else. Putting myself on TikTok, that is the cost of getting the information that I get. The reason why my visibility has increased, it's not just because of TikTok. It's because I have insight into the minds of how people look at culture, how they interact in this culture and environment, and the risks and the consequence that goes with it. I have insight that big PR firms don't have, that you can have all the dashboards and programs and AI platforms. You want to get into the minds of people. But a data point can only tell you so much. It just tells you a data point. It doesn't tell you how they think. I know how they think. I'm getting their messages. I'm getting their direct messages, their private messages. I'm on that app. I see how they react to me. I see how they react to others. It is gold. So when people Dismiss what I do, particularly communicators. And they tell me they don't want to be on the app. There's always a side eye, like, really? Why wouldn't you. Why wouldn't you want to learn about this? I mean, my goodness. But hey, you know, that's fine. I don't judge anyone who doesn't want to be a content creator because that's dicey business. But just using it for research alone is. Is phenomenal. So that is my golden nugget that I'm going to give to you right now at this part of the podcast. But in terms of the experience itself, the interview was great. I was probably grasping for things more than I would have liked. I was less articulate about certain areas. Dana had to fill in the blanks for me because I was struggling with my head. It was. There was no nourishment in. There was no clarity in my head. It was just exhaustion. And I was still so deep in grief that I wasn't in the right place to give myself good representation. But it came time after, geez, couple hours, you know, I had to keep filming, you know, my parking meter. The photographer comes now. I knew there'd be photographs, so I was dressed for it. Upon seeing the results, I wish I wore something different. It just didn't photograph well, though. It's a great look, you know, walking around, but doesn't photograph well. Even though I had hair, hair, makeup, all of it. Anyway, the photographer walks in. Dana was not familiar with him because in newsroom, sometimes you don't know. You know, when you're a reporter covering something, you may have never worked with a photographer before, or they might come at a different time, but he came in, they met, and then we met. First thing I noticed off the bat, like, does he look like he's a really good photographer? Yeah, it was a guy my age, almost exactly my age, I think, and he knew exactly what I was going to say. Like, okay, you know, the task here, it's not to take a photograph. It's to take a good photograph, scratch an exceptional photograph. He's like, oh, no, no, no, I got it. So then we started talking about Gen X and being older parents and so on and so forth. Great guy. I felt very confident, sort of also because it was a guy. Guys don't know what women, particularly women of my age, need to do in terms of staging oneself and what. Where one looks good and where they don't. I was sitting on the couch and I was facing out the window, and he's Taking this photograph, he's like, just look out the window already. We're off to a bad start. Because Molly McPherson is never just sitting at a coffee shop looking out the window. That's not what I do. Looking at my phone, looking at my schedule, looking at all the things I have to do. Looking at a laptop. Yeah, that's me. But just gazing out the window, no, no, you're not gonna see me do that at a coffee house. And he's taking that photo. And I knew because where I was sitting, I was kind of hunched over, and my hands were kind of steepled in front of me. Like, this isn't even a good angle. Like, a good position. I'm slouchy. I'm looking at the window. The light's coming on my face. This light is gonna highlight every bad thing about my face. Everything. It's like, I knew it. But he kept telling me, like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Oh, my God, this is amazing. But now I know the amazing was he was thinking, oh, my gosh, I have light. I have natural light. It was not amazing for me or my skin tone. The photos are horrible, which is the reason why you're hearing this podcast in February, so I could distance myself for when the article appeared, because I don't want people to read it. I mean, you can give the Globe the click, give Dana the click, but it's behind a paywall, too. So unless you're a subscriber, you're not gonna be able to see it. But you might be able to see the horrible photo. He did a good job, but it just looks really, really bad. It's just a bad photo. The photos really are just horrible of me. And, in fact, during this interview, when, you know, I was finished, it took a lot longer than I wanted it to take, you know, so when I got out there, I was just white. I was absolutely wiped. I ended up going to the Container Store, Chestnut Hill. If anyone's in Boston, they've been there. That's where it's kind of a Zen place to me. Like, I love just looking at things that can help me stay organized. It's the way, I guess if I'm thinking from a psychological point of view, my mind is cluttered. My mind is messy. My mind has no organization. So walking into a Container Store probably repairs itself and puts me back in place. It was rough. So, anyway, as we go on, gosh, six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks, go on, you know, I don't hear much of anything. Dana will ask me here, and there on text, you know, some questions, and I'll give her information. So the story's moving along. And then it was in November that she reached out to me and told me she wanted to ask some final questions. I sensed the doom coming. It wasn't in anything. She said, I think this is the universe. The universe. Since last fall, I've had more of a connection with the universe, if you will. Maybe the Roman Catholic in me will say, maybe this is God speaking to me, but I'm feeling more of presence and energy in my life when they are light and when they are dark. And it seemed very dark at that moment. So I was a passenger in a car. I was driving with someone in my life. And if you follow me on Instagram, you could probably put two and two together who he is, but it's someone who works as a journalist. This was the perfect person to have seated next to me for this phone call. So I quick pantomime, like, go right there, go into that parking lot, Starbucks parking lot, and just sit. And I'm mouthing like, we good? Can you just sit here? I put the phone on speakerphone and start talking because I wanted him to hear this conversation because I was already stressing. I was getting very agitated. Agity is a combination of fidgety and agitated. So I could just tell in her voice that she wanted to approach an area that I didn't want to talk about. And by the end of the conversation, for lack of a better term, I was pleading with her not to bring it up in the story. Now, I know in my role as someone who works, you know, as a media relations counselor with a reporter, I really don't have a right to control what goes into a story. I don't. I know that those are the rules of engagement. That's for me when I've worked in the area of media relations for an organization I've worked for, but also for my clients, I know this. I know that you can't. All you can do is ask and see what they do. However, I wanted some dispensation because this was a different story. This wasn't about a client. This wasn't even about a crisis that I was dealing with. And a reporter reached out to me for comment. This was an ask by a reporter to do a story about me. Some would look at as an opportunity. Me, I acquiesced. I mean, that's not on the reporter. That's, you know, on me. But I felt since it felt like I was doing you a favor by giving you a Story about someone on TikTok. And it's pretty inherent here that I'm going to talk about this story on TikTok and I'm going to bring a lot of views to the article. You're going to get a lot of clicks. The Boston Globe is going to get a lot of clicks. Like, I'm going to go heavy on this. And at the end I said, no, not in this point of the text. This point of the text or the phone call was, please just don't. I will give you anything else that you want. Just stay away from this part of it, please. And I thought that we came to an agreement on that call. I found out a week or two later that wasn't the case. I got a text saying that it was all ready to go for publication. I didn't have an exact date and that that part was going to be included in the story. I did one more plea and mentioned the consequence to it, you know, that it would come with a cost to me. And it was really bothering me that I put myself in this situation by saying, yes, it really bothered me, but here we are. And I said, you know, at the end of my plea, this is part media relations too. And this is also talking about it with this poor journalist who had to listen to me rant on. This is. I gave not an ultimatum, but I said, listen, if it's included, I'm not gonna promote it. I can't. I thought I'd have fun promoting it, but now I can't. I just don't wanna bring attention, you know, to the article then. And she said she understood, came back again with, you know, some other angles for me to rethink it. But I didn't. I didn't at all. And left it at that. And then the publication came out. This is the funny part of it. So you all know, if you follow me on social media, I don't really talk about it on the podcast that much, but definitely do on social media. Cause I get tagged on a lot. But I talk about the Friday news dump. And I'm someone who's somewhat known for it now because I've highlighted it so often in the biggest case that I've done it is with the Joe Jonas Sophie Turner divorce. How the Jonas family, particularly team Joe Jonas, how they were trying to manipulate the press cycle and the social media cycle to bury the story of the divorce one and also to point the narrative unfairly towards Sophie Turner. I mean, blame her for it. A lot of really negative manipulation, machinations behind the Scenes. That's how I'm somewhat known for this. But a profile about me comes up. Not on a Friday afternoon news dump. No, it comes out on likely the lowest day for readership for a newspaper. I mean, if you pick one day of the entire calendar year, that is the lowest day of readership in 365 days. It is the day that this article came out. Which is funny now, come to think of it. Now, that could have been the Boston Globe's way of saying, f you. You don't want to promote it, then fine, we won't promote you. We'll bury you then. But you know what? Since I knew these photos weren't going to look good and I didn't want the article to come out anyway, I was fine with it. I was totally fine. But it was funny. And this was something that. This is something that the journalists in my life pointed out they ran on the worst news day. Now, interesting note about this article. I've never read the article. I have never read this article from start to finish. When it came out, when I found out it was, Dana afforded it to me. She was nice enough to tell me when it was going to come out. She was great. I mean, other than that one thing, she was phenomenal. Great reporter, great writer. If there's anything that I could ever pitch to her down the road or the Globe, I would go to her. Fantastic. Really smart. I can't say enough about her. And also, she was just doing her job. She was just doing her job, you know, when she was dealing with me. And I don't know the, you know, if she has an editor, someone telling her what she needs to do. I mean, that certainly could have been a part of it as well. There's no harm, no foul with the Globe or with Dana at all. But I just have principles with me. If I feel a certain way about something, I feel a certain way about something. Like, if I don't want to do it, I'm not going to do it. So anyway, when the article came out, one of the first things I cared about were the photos, because I knew they're going to be horrible. So I was asking the previously mentioned journalist to read the article, which meant he had to get a subscription to the Boston Globe to read it since it was behind the paywall, which he did. And he read it. He did the first, the quick skim, because that's what he can do. He's very good at that. And then pulled out. I said, what about my family? What about this? What about that. What about that? And he could spot it right away. And he's like, good, good, good. And he knew. I'm like, where's this part? And he read it, knew where to go. And he's like, not bad. It's not bad. It's there. It's in there. You know, but not bad. I was like, you know, because I really did want to. I really wanted to promote it. I'm such a pro press person. I'm a pro media person. And also newspaper. I mean, this dying industry, I want to help newspaper. I want to help any. Any publication with any type of clicks or views. But just by principle, I just. I didn't want to do it. I didn't have it in me. I just wasn't out of spite. It wasn't out of ego, wasn't pouting. I just. I didn't have it. So we got through that. But I said, more important, how. And I even said it like this. How bad are the photos? And instead of choosing the PR route, which would have been, oh, they're fine. You look great. You look like you always do, beautiful. He chose the journalist route, I suppose, which is truth at a brutal cost. Yeah, these are not good photos. These do not look good. I thought, oh, great. If he's saying that, then they're not good. So I was able to bring up the article because Dana sent it to me and I looked at the photos and I went, I, yeah, they're awful. Just awful photos. Not composition wise. I don't want to ding the photographer. He's a phenomenal photographer. Great news photographer. But let's just say they're not there as glamour shots. Unfortunately, we don't have any Photoshop happening. Not that I need Photoshop, but I just light a little different lighting. A little different posture would have done me good, if you know what I mean. Okay, now, wrapping up the article, wrapping up the experience. When it came out, I went to the store. I brought my daughter with me. I said, let's go find the article. So at least I have a copy of it so I can keep it. I don't even know to wrap dead fish in it, I guess. But I found the copy and it was whatever. Now, what was great about it? It wasn't in the tech section. It was on the front page of the Boston Globe, albeit December 25, but still it was on the front page of the Globe. And it was below the fold, which is fine. I don't think I'd want to be above the fold. That means there would be news about me. And it's not like I wanted to draw attention to it, but at the same time, you know, I was on the front page. I'm not going to poo poo that. As was last weekend, my daughter Rory was on the front page of the Boston Globe. I tweeted about that, put that on Instagram as well. So that was nice for her to make it all about her. That was wonderful. All right, so as an aside, so transitioning on what comes with a newspaper article, this is another media relations tip for you. If you're ever involved in a media, if you're ever involved in press, if it's a video, if it's a broadcast interview and it's posted on their website, they may or may not have this. But if it's in a newspaper, they likely do. And that would be the comments. I read some of these reviews in the days after this article came out. Again, I didn't read the article. I read the reviews of the article. And now when I'm looking for protection of my feelings and my ego, you should always flip read the article about you. Don't read the comments. The comments is what is going to eviscerate any last remnants of ego that you have. If you have any good feelings about yourself, go to a comment section. That will change fast. And with no exception would be this Boston Globe article. Now, this article is behind the paywall. So that's the reason why I'm talking about it, because many of you are never going to read this article. Okay, so let's jump into some of the reviews from my article in the Boston Globe. The first one from Good Bob, and I'll tell you, I have quite, I have quite the super spidey sense to ascertain the tone of the comments based on the username. Good Bob we know is going to be Bad Bob. Congratulations to Molly on capitalizing on the who could care less market. Good for you. Well, thank you. Good Bob. It's been a wild ride finding all three people in the who could care less market. About me. No, there's probably more than three. Next user 4528976. You know this one's going to be good. Mali is evidence of the slow decline of civilization with a banger. And this is front page news. Five question marks. Pathetic. BG that would be the Boston Globe. Well, thanks user. I'm the evidence of the slow decline of civilization. I'm the benchmark for civilization's downfall. My goodness, that is a heavy, heavy burden. But someone's got to do it, I suppose. But then high and inside a baseball person. So I know this is going to be good. This is not news. It is a feature. Educate yourself to know the difference. Right on high and inside. I called that one. All right, let's do just a couple more. This is reader ste3p. Okay, here we go. Middle east in shambles. Ukraine's endless war. Illegal migrants on the way to amnesty. China threatening Taiwan while our anemic president contemplates a reelection. Here we go. Etcetera, etc, etcetera. Thank God for Molly and TikTok. Well, S T E3P O R2D2. Absolutely. How? I couldn't agree with you more, because when facing a global crisis, I mean, the first logical step is to check on what Molly on TikTok has to say. World leaders take note. Ooh, I have a defender Ottoman. So we're not allowed a little diversion from all the miseries. You list s t e3p. I don't care about this stuff. Oh, well, it's okay, Ottoman, but someone might find it entertaining. Or anyone is free to ignore it like I do. Oh, that was backhanded, Otto. You were so nice. And then he just slapped me in the ass on that one. Okay, let's do one more. Lawrence Red. I think I already know I'm not going to like this one. Good golly, Miss Molly, you are so vapid. Who gives a crap about meaningless gossip? Any idiot can hook onto fellow idiots. Yes, idiot. You hooked onto ste3p and user 4528976. Well said. Oh, I have to do one more because this one's a follow up to Vapid. If you think she's vapid, you're right. But her followers on TikTok a blight on our society are even worse. That was from BC Eagle 91. Well, you know what? BC Eagle 91. I bet you're a guy. And I bet you're a guy who graduated from B.C. in 1991. And you want to know what? It was super easy to get into B.C. back in 1991. And if you tried to get into Boston College today, they wouldn't even let you in the front gate. But do you see what I mean? This is why I did not want to do any type of profile in the Boston Globe. And now, dear listeners, we arrive at that pivotal moment for this podcast, this indestructible PR podcast. After five enriching, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating seasons, it's time to bring this particular journey to a close. That's right. You are listening to the last episode of the indestructible PR podcast. You're thinking, what? There's an internal record scratch going on in your head. But Molly, didn't you just say you're changing formats? Didn't you just say you are moving the podcast in a new direction? Yes, all true. Upon reflection, these past few weeks, I recognize the landscape has changed for podcasts. I just wasn't looking at it at my podcast. I noticed how much it's changed. I mean, if we even go back to Harry and Megan on Spotify, how that was a multiple million dollar loss having their archetypes on Spotify, they cut a lot of their budget on Spotify. Cut a lot of podcasts. There's a lot of podcasts that have been canceled. A lot of very, very good podcasts. I was reading articles about the top podcasts of the year, like in Wall Street Journal, in the New York Times, and almost everyone, they said canceled, canceled, canceled this year. This is your last time to hear them. Because media companies are recognizing people aren't listening to podcasts like they used to. It doesn't mean that podcasts are going away. So if you're listening to me and you have a podcast, it doesn't mean you should shut it down by any means. It just means the market is changing, the audience is changing. There are certain formats that do. My goodness. Phenomenal on podcasts. I looked yesterday because I wrote an article for Forbes.com about Travis Kelce and I needed to look where his podcast with his brother and the heights where it ranked. Cause I always thought it was ranked number one. Cause in my original draft it was number one. But I thought I should check that. And I'm gl glad I did because Call her daddy's number one. And now they went down to number two. So there's a lot of really popular podcasts out there, depending on genre, true crime, big. I even think that, you know, Gen Z podcast, where it's gossipy or they're breaking down TV shows, You know, popular culture does well. I have podcasts that have done very, very well. My top podcasts are the ones that mirror what I talk about on TikTok. That was the audience that was going to give my podcast growth, like a future. I started this podcast really examining how to use social media in corporate executive situations. It was just to enlighten people on social media. Kind of a propagandist for social media, if you will, for pr. I wanted them to get comfortable with them. And that was the genesis of My book, actually. But so much has changed then, because people have bought into it. For one, I've done so much work on it, you know, with a lot of my clients. They know my bag. But that audience was not, ooh, this is a bad word. But it was stale. Not the listener per se, but the topic was stale. Because what I was originally discussing, all the people who I was discussing it to, they're already doing it. So I needed to shift to TikTok and moving to that. I'll call it TikTok crowd, even though it's Gen Z, Millennial, Elder Millennial, and I'm talking about popular culture. So the people. Why people follow me on TikTok, they're gonna follow the podcast. It came to the point when I was coming up with episodes, like, I just did this on TikTok. Why would someone who can. They can hear me talk about in three minutes. Why do they now want to hear me talk about for 40? And there was that content issue. Then there was the issue of my team. You know, I was paying people, and I just brought someone on, like a new producer and someone to do reels and social around it at a huge expense. Like, I was going all in on it. So I was looking at the bottom line, too. And I looked at the roi. I return on investment. Yes. I was talking to agencies about advertising deals and spinning it off so I can make direct money from it, like, indirectly. It did well for me. My numbers were going up a lot, but I didn't see an immediate roi. It's not like I got money in hand where I get it from other things. I get money in hand from TikTok. I get money in hand for Patreon. I can see the fruits of my labors immediately. You know, that helps a lot. But the podcast is where I was putting the most energy. And since I've added writingforphorbes.com onto the list and my clients and life and everything, it was a lot. I was overextended. Something had to give. It never occurred to me it would be the podcast until the day it was a podcast. And I was on a call with a client, and they were telling me how they edit video content now, how they were using AI. And I thought, well, wait a minute. Why am I not doing that? Why am I paying all this money when I could just do that? And then I thought, well, wait a minute. Why am I even doing a podcast? Why am I doing it? So that's the reason why. It's not that I don't Believe in you, the listener. I love you guys. I know who you are in many, many cases. If I don't know you personally, if I haven't seen an email from you or talked to you on my patreon at PR Confidential, or if you know me very well in my life, I know who you are as an avatar. I know the people who've been with me for years, and I cannot share enough how much this labor, yes, has been a labor of love. It was a way to connect with people, to educate people, to share the ever evolving world of pr, but also the ever evolving world of me. Where I saw this podcast and where I saw the communication industry, it really started in a time like communicating with confidence. That was really kind of my bag. Just putting yourself out there. I guess it was foreshadowing. I guess I was talking to myself. So I did a lot of episodes around speaking in public or how to apologize or, you know, how to survive a crisis, but how to use AI, you know, how to write a press release. I was just how to Spot a Liar, which, by the way, I think is my number still to this day. Like, my number two most downloaded episode is how to Spot a Liar. Because so much of crisis comms is really about life. I mean, really, if you know me, you know me. But it's been a wonderful journey from beginning it when I went to a boot camp out in San Diego, how to Start yout Podcast Bootcamp with Pat Flynn. And I met wonderful people out there, people who I'm still connected with to this day, and I put that thing together in a matter of weeks, and then I was off and running. And I've been doing it every single week for five years. Every single week for five years, with the exception of Christmas week. And that kind of added to the frustration because the editor shut down, and I didn't know they shut down, and it was deep in their email. So that kind of added to the frustration of the podcast. And I didn't do it last week because I didn't want to. I was too busy, and I knew I wanted to do this episode the following week. So you are listening to the final episode of the indestructible PR podcast. So with the media consumption shifts, I am also shifting this podcast, so it doesn't mean that it's gone for good. I mean, there could be a resurrection of the podcast down the road if podcasts come back, or I feel that this is something I want to do again. I want to connect with my audience that way. I'm bringing it under my PR Confidential on Patreon. I'm still going to have a podcast. I'm still going to do a lot of the same things that I do now that you're listening to on Apple or Spotify or Google, whatever Alexa, whoever. You're listening to me, whatever platform, you're listening to me now as you walk or clean your house or cook or drive or whatever it is you're doing as I'm sitting in your ears right now, maybe in an earbud, but it's now going to be under Patreon. What that does is it shifts me away from a weekly deadline. The weekly grind of also shifts me away from public information. I'm keeping it more off the record in my private community. I'm not going to be relying on scripts and heavy editing. I don't need other people to get their hands in it to have this perfect product for you. It's not about perfection. But there will be audio on Patreon, on my PR Confidential, if there is an event that's happening and I don't want to go on camera, or I will go on camera and I'll extract the audio. So you'll be able to listen to it on Spotify or the Patreon app, if you will. But Spotify is going to be the easiest way to do it. I'm still doing interviews. In fact, I'm doing the same interviews that I was introducing on the podcast. At the end, you heard me speak to Dr. Abby. We did the series on celebrities relationships. She's coming back and we're going to be talking about more celebrities, but we're going to be doing it on PR Confidential. It's going to be a video interaction. We're going to do a video interview. I'm going to film it. You can watch it again via the Patreon account and Crowdcast. But you can join us live on the podcast and you can be a part of the interview. You can be a part of the chat. So I'll bring in your questions. I will take questions there. We will bring you to the front of the room. Maybe you can do it on Voice, or maybe I'll just read what your question is. We'll have that interaction, which will be fun. And I know this is because this is what I do in PR Confidential. I've been having these live chats now for a couple months, and I love them. I absolutely love them. They're so much fun. I get the same people coming in. I'm getting my crew. I'm understanding who they are from chats. It's fantastic. I love it. So that's why I want to bring these interviews there. I have Dr. Abby coming, I have Olivia and Jenny coming from Fresh Start, the divorce registry. We're going to talk about celebrity divorce, the top ones, the ones, the celebrities who did well in their divorce and the ones who didn't do so well. I'm going to speak more off the record. For instance, I just did an interview. If you saw on my TikTok or Instagram I talked about doing a national interview and the person who I was talking to in the post is the person who is guiding me through the trauma of this Boston Globe piece. So you'll have an introduction to who that person is as well. But I will talk about that interview but I can't talk about it on the record, if you will in a public space because it's embargoed. But I can talk about it off the record and that's what I do in PR Confidential. It's about keeping my opinions confidential within the membership. Yeah, call that indestructible pr. So I don't get canceled in my own membership. Now could it still happen? Sure, it could happen. But we're like minded people there. So that's my way of saying join me there if you can. Now on Patreon, yes. There are different tiers that have a cost to them. The first tier, it's $5 a month. The tier is a simple PR insider. That's where I do live chat. So I break down these. If you're looking for my popular culture content from TikTok, that's where you're going to find it in that tier. It's $5 a month. It's nothing. I schedule them in advance so you can sign up for them in advance. I usually start on TikTok live. I get going there and then I transition to the live chat. I use an app called or platform called Crowdcast. So you see me in the live stream and you see all the conversations. So you can ask questions or you can just participate in the chat and people talk back and forth. Like a lot of the people now know each other and, and we always have new people in the chat too. And they are so welcomed in by this community. I love it. It's another reason, like with the podcast, I don't have that interaction. It's just me uploading something this. I get to see the people in real time. So I hope that you can join me on one of these live chats. Particularly when I do one of these podcasts where we bring the guest in. These are going to be even better. Then I have a next level and next tier and that's really for my pr. I call it PR Fixers. Those are for the people who work in PR comms. Doesn't mean you have to, but if you just have an interest in it, you could be a student, a college student, a graduate student. Maybe you're mid career transition and you want to work into it. Maybe you work in just general comms. You want to learn a little bit more about crisis comms, strategic comms. That's where I'm doing my live chats around strategic communication. So I will do lessons, I will do trainings. If there's something happening in the news, I will do a breakdown on it there. That's where you'll get some of podcasts about topics, PR topics in that section. And you can participate in the live where you can ask me questions. It will be recorded if you want to watch it later. Or you can listen to the audio on Spotify, but only if you're a member of that PR fixer because Patreon does have those tiers. And then my last tier is PR Pro, PR professional. And that tier is for access to me one on one. Now I have a new website, you can go to my new website. I don't know if it'll be launched yet, but it's gonna be launched this week, the week that this is coming out. And you can book time with me by the hour. That's the easiest way to do it and the cheapest way to do it. But I put it in Patreon just so people knew that you could have access to me. So if you have a crisis, you're in a panic, you need to bounce stuff off of someone. Maybe you work for an organization. You're the only comps person. You don't have anyone to bounce things off of. Let me be that person. You can join that tier. I have office hours there where anybody can join a group. Like it will just be an open. It will be an open chat and it'll just be me chit chatting. You want to come in? We could talk about anything. If you're the only one in the chat, then it's just gonna be you and me. Or there could be other people there. If it's something that you want to remain confidential, private, then you can book me from there too. It's just like booking my time by the hour, but. But again it's more cost Efficient to you if you go through my website directly. But if you want to go through Patreon, Patreon gets a cut of it. You can definitely do it that way as well. All right, everyone. So that's where the energy is going. My work in a Patreon under PR confidential. So it's going to be this new avenue to continue our conversations if you'd like to join me there. But with more direct interaction, live Q and A and the flexibility to adapt content to what you want. My valued community seek. I love taking recommendations. I want to talk about what everyone else is talking about, not what I think you want to hear. I want to talk about what you do want to hear. So in the end, this move isn't the end, but a transformation. It's just a way to keep our dialogue vibrant, but also relevant. All right, everyone, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for tuning in every week to listen to me on this podcast. Thank you for your emails, thank you for your comments. Thank you for your reviews, though not all of them are good, but most of them are. But that's okay. That's okay. If you want to leave a cutting review about something you didn't like, you don't politically agree with me, even though I'm non political, that's fine, that's okay. Even though it hits the ratings, it's okay. But so many people have left amazing reviews and know that I read them. They mean a lot to me and it means a lot to me when people reach out and say that they listen to me every single week. I find some of the most unexpected interactions come from someone telling me that they listen. In fact, I just received an email. I won't give too much away because it was a secret. I haven't even told them yet, but they listen to this podcast every week. They're overseas serving. Someone's transitioning new villa came up and they huge fans and they listen and that was kind of nice. So I want to send them something. There are also people who tell me they listen to it in their office. There's some professors who tell me that they have their students listen to it and they'll make assignments around my podcast. I've also had even my alma mater, which is so funny, my undergrad, the daughter of someone who works at my undergrad, their office in New York City that works for a PR firm and they were listening to something and then went back and said to her mom who works at the school, did you know this person went to the school and now we're talking. And now I'm doing something with my alma mater, which is so nice. So this podcast has just brought so much, just been a bounty, if you will, a bounty of just everything for me. So this podcast has been a journey that we've shared together through highs, through just amazing career opportunities for me. Visibility, publicity. Just the craziness of TikTok that's given me the opportunity to do so much press and have so many people talk about me. So many, I don't know, new platforms, new adventures. It's just been great. And I've loved sharing all my highs with you, but also my lows. I've weeped on this podcast. I've weeped. I weeped for my dog Finbar. I've weeped for my father. I've weeped during really difficult times, you know, and you've all been there. So for all of you who've listened every week, thank you so much. I know who you are, including Julie, who wrote to me as I was driving to my daughter's hockey game, who said she was traveling. I'm listening to your voice right now, so I assume that meant a podcast. So for those people like that, my friends, thank you. Really, you've met everything to me. So let's transition to a new platform. Come with me if you'd like, or these will remain. If you want to check in with old episodes, there's five years worth. Most of them, I think, are pretty relevant. So you can definitely continue. You can continue to listen if you want. Head over to my website. You'll find all of the episodes there. But with this end, I carry with me the lessons, the laughter. Yes, laughing to myself and with my guests and the connections that we've all forged here. So for one last time on the Indestructible PR podcast, remember, the key to being indestructible is avoiding the storm, avoid conflict, avoid the cancellation, learn to enjoy the rain dance in it, if you will. But the key to being indestructible, as you know, own it, explain it, and promise it. So for the Indestructible PR podcast, this is Molly McPherson signing off. That's all for this week. Bye for now.