Rusty Shelton, Founder/Chairman of Zilker Media, and Barbara Henricks, Founder, President & CEO of Cave Henricks Communications, tag-team a fascinating talk on the "micromedia mindset", the 3 types of media, the power of perception, why you should prescribe, not sell, and the trick to being discoverable.

I'm proud to introduce you to two people who made a big

impact on my life. Barbara Henricks is the president of

Cave Henricks Communications, which is a firm that has

spearheaded campaigns for Jack Welch, Marcus Buckingham, Tom

Rath, and then one of her business partners, Rusty Shelton

has worked on more than 25 New York Times and Wall Street

Journal's best sellers, and they have lifted roles. And they have

a book called Mastering the new media landscape. And so thanks

for being here.

Thanks for having us.

Well, let's dive in. You use this phrase micro media. So

can you just introduce what is micro media? And how how has the

media landscape changed in the last, you know, 5 or 10 years?

Sure. So what Barbara and I talk a lot about

in the book is this idea of embracing the micro media

mindset. And the way that we think of that is, we've really

entered the age of micro media, where every individual and brand

is a media outlet, whether they know it or not. So everybody

listening to this podcast, right now, companies, nonprofits, etc,

or all media outlet today, again, whether they recognize

that or not. And so what they had the power to do now is to go

around gatekeepers that used to guard access to, to ink in

newspapers, or the airwaves on a on a radio program or a TV show.

And now they can go right around those traditional gatekeepers in

and get directly to their audience. And the way that we

think about that is some people that are that are listening,

this podcast may just influence a few 100 people via a Facebook

profile, or a Twitter account, other people like you, through

the podcast are influencing 10s of 1000s of people each month.

And so it's this idea that individuals and brands have an

opportunity that they've never had before, to build out a

subscriber base and an audience that they own the connection to.

And those micro media outlets matter tremendously to anyone

looking to get the word out and today's media landscape.

What are the real implications of this to business

owners, to customers?

Oh, what's happened is, you know, the

media, the traditional media, the Oprah, the CNN, the Fox, and

friends, you know, all of those have been challenged. This was

largely caused by the internet. So that real estate, those

national media hits in traditional urban space are

probably more valuable than ever, if you believe in the

economic principles, things that are scarce being more valuable.

The big change here is there are no gatekeepers. So the upside of

that is you can build this personal connection to your

audience. The downside of this is that it's made the world go

from noisy to what I call deafening, it also makes the

news cycle itself very odd. So this is what's changed. The

gatekeepers aren't there. And things now have this opportunity

to become news. It's not just going viral, it's just that the

gatekeepers gone. And everybody has a direct, you know, access.

Practically speaking, this means there's an opportunity before

you to use this democratic access to this space to engage

to offer valuable information to engage in dialogue. The

challenge is that not everyone has the skills to do this

tremendously well. So we have layman journalists, you know,

something very insignificant, or minor or trivial can push real

news out of the spotlight or out of the headline. The upside of

that is think about some of the good uses. Do you know, the ALS

Ice Bucket Challenge millions of people Sure $20 million was

generated by that campaign for people. You know, it was

outrageous, it was silly, it was a visual, it also raised a lot

of awareness and a lot of money. So the environment is really you

know, it is a two edged sword. There are also new creations

like Reddit AMA asked me anything, we now have access to

people like Bill Gates, President Obama, who will take

advantage of this and we have more direct access. So it's

definitely an up and downside to this new environment. But the

fact of the matter is, the environment is different. And we

all need to change.

So you guys in the book, you talk about the

three different categories of media. Can you touch on those?

Most people that we talked to, when they're thinking about a

marketing plan, or a launch strategy for a book or a

product, it typically is grouped into one of two areas. It's

either social, or its traditional. And Barbara and I

feel like that's a really dated way to look at the media

environment. It really doesn't apply anymore. In this media

environment. We think what is most important for your

listeners and others to think about is this idea of whether or

not they I own the media. So in other words, whether or not they

own the real estate online. And so in the book, we separate

media into three categories, owned, earned and rented media.

So owned media is every piece of real estate, online in every

media that you own. So your website, if it's hosted on, on

your name, your blog, because it lives on that same website, your

email list, because you own the connection to your audience

through that email list. If you have a physical mailing list, as

many companies do, that's owned media, the idea around owned

media in as Barbara and I really look at the overall media

landscape owned media equals leverage in this media

landscape, it's an audience that you can get to anytime you want

to. And so you don't have to hope that NPR says yes to an

interview request, you don't have to hope that that company

agrees to run your article, you own the connection with a large

audience, you can reach them anytime you want. Second

category is rented media. So a lot of people that we hear talk

about, you know, their audience, they say, Okay, well, my

Facebook page, my Twitter account, my LinkedIn profile it

and in some ways, that's true, of course, you've got a lot of

control over what your LinkedIn profile looks like, you've got a

lot of control over what goes out on your Twitter feed. But in

actuality, you actually own that real estate, you're in many ways

renting that real estate. And so a lot of brands found this out

the hard way in 2013, when Facebook, tweaked their

algorithm and limited access to the audience that brands had

spent years building on brand pages, and once in one fell

swoop limited access to that audience to about 10% of what

brands had previously. And so what Barbara and I talk a lot

about in the book is this idea that yes, we absolutely will

absolutely think that individuals and brands should

have a smart rented media strategy. But you always have to

keep in the back of your mind that the audience that you leave

on Facebook or the audience that you leave on LinkedIn, as

opposed to consistently focusing on trying to convert them to

your email list, or owned media is an audience that's always at

risk. The last category for us is earned media. In earned media

includes what we might think of as traditional media. So it's

getting an opportunity to be featured in The New York Times,

or Fox Business, or NPR or others earned media for us also

includes this podcast, because this podcast is not something

that you're letting just anybody on TV, we've got to earn our way

on to this podcast. So it's this idea that there's a lot of

perceived credibility that goes along with earned media. And

there's a good reason for that, because it's not easy to get on.

And so the way that we think about earns media and you've

done this so well, with your podcast is this idea that when

you get out in front of an audience, what you're trying to

do is not just provide extreme value and give them entertaining

and informative content. But we always want to have that call to

action, whether it's a free quiz or a download on a website, or a

reason for those people to hit on their smartphone in the

audience and head over the website and grab a free ebook or

whatever it may be. And so those are the three categories that we

think are important for people to be thinking about. And this

idea that you always want to have a bit of a magnet,

directing people towards owned media.

You mentioned idea early on that everybody is a

journalist now because of really because of social at least. And

so at the salesperson level, if we go all the way down there,

the why should we care about micro media? Or should we care?

And if we care, how much should we care? Like, how much time

should we be spending on it?

I'm going to make the argument, the audacious

argument that you should care more than any other sector of

business, because your job is not just to be transactional,

right? The best sales people are what their relationship base,

they're trying to do more than close the sale, they're trying

to create a relationship. So what media does at the own

level, is it gives you direct access to your customer base. So

all your clients now you can be servicing them basically all the

time, not just when you go in for the sales call. But you can

be providing valuable content all the time. So these tools

should really be looked at as okay, I'm not going to just grow

a subscriber base, as Rusty said that sits on Facebook, or

LinkedIn or wherever I keep it. I'm going to challenge myself to

create my own customer base on some piece of real estate that I

own so that I can constantly be giving them something that's

valuable. We need to be pushing the media we reach out to them

with pitches we follow up. We're trying to build a relationship

so that the next time a book crosses their desk, what goes

through their mind not to my interested in this book, but do

those guys bring me good stuff? Or do they crawl my desk with 58

books every day that I don't have anything to do with what I

write about or what I do on my show? So if We build the right

kind of relationship with our contacts. And we use media to do

it. So, you know, what are your customers needs? Besides your

product? What can you provide them that a distinguishes

yourself and be delivered something that makes you

memorable and different in their minds? And I think micro media

is a good way to do that. What do they need? What are they

looking for? answer those questions kind of, well, you

know, it's what we try to do on our blog. You know, I might

interview a literary agent, what does anybody need a literary

agent today? Who reads my blog author, authors who are trying

to get attention, I'm trying to serve my audience, between the

times that they need my service. And I think that salespeople

have the potential to do that. It's what you're doing right now

you're doing a podcast, you know, you're making touchpoints.

Beyond just, you know, one initial impression, Macromedia

really allows you to make constant impressions, or to

manage the relationships so that you are there was something

valuable when you crossed their, you know, their desk in this

very noisy, distracted world in which we lead?

What's the right amount of time to spend doing this?

Yeah. So you know, it's a good question, as

you think it varies by person, but we see as a pretty

consistent time commitment. You know, people can do this well,

with 15 to 30 minutes a day, focused on it. And what we

recommend a lot of times is breaking that up into a couple

of times a day where where you hop on to Twitter or LinkedIn, I

think are the two platforms that are most appropriate, at least

in the rented media space for for salespeople. And, you know,

you had asked earlier, why should we care as a as a sales

industry about micro media. And just to expand on on something

that Barbara talked about there, the power of perception is is

hugely important for salespeople, salespeople should

be seen as the authority in their industry. And it's very

hard to be an authority unless you have a personal brand in

place. And we believe in today's media landscape, the best route

to a personal brand. That positions you as an authority

where you can prescribe and not sell is to become a micro media

outlet yourself and associate yourself through good content

through interviews through you know, influencer connections

with the current tastemakers in your industry.

One last little question. And I'd love to hear from both

of you on this. The world is changing so ridiculously fast.

How can companies and also individuals sort of future proof

themselves to survive the changing media landscape, if you

will.

So there are a couple of things I would throw

out first before I toss it over rusty, so one is just being what

we call discoverable. So before you open up anything new or

decide you have to engage in you know, 20 new activities, start

with where you are, look at yourself, Google search, you

know, do a search engine shot on yourself, and see how easy you

are to find, you should be on page one of Google. So the first

thing you do is find out how discoverable you are. So that

when people want you need you, they can't find you to do that.

Rusty, I know would give the advice go out right now today,

stop everything and buy the URL that's associated with your

name. So www dot Barbara henrichs.com. If you can do that

locked down that real estate, it will get more valuable over

time. The second thing I would do is just make sure that all

the bios that people can see actually reflect what you do

today. Over and again, authors come to us with bios that don't

talk about their latest book, you know, they say or they just

mentioned the book, they don't embed certain keywords that the

media might be looking for. So you know, we worked with a woman

who had written a book about terrorism essentially. And one

little tweak of her social media by bio when ISIS erupted, drove

all sorts of traffic to her door, she was an expert on ISIS,

she was so all we needed to do was embed that's a look at your

own the existing bios that you have, make sure they're up to

date, make sure they're accurate so that you're discoverable and

by your URL. Second is a really easy one in a softer principle,

which is never sacrifice credibility. When you start

representing yourself online. Always be accurate, always be

authentic. I just don't think that there's any replacements

don't start creating an image that you are not comfortable

with that is false. Just be who you are perhaps be a little

larger or dramatic so that you know it is seen maybe not

dramatic, so better but be more of who you are in larger doses,

but always be authentic and always be accurate.

Yeah, what I would add to that I think you

know, Barbara hit the nail on the head there around clarity

and I think in this noisy media environment, the the individuals

and brands that provide real clarity for what their brand is,

have a huge advantage. You see a lot of people that are that are

building out a micro media outlet where there's it's not

real clear kind of what value they're providing. You know,

there are people that own, you know, certain certain phrases or

certain certain areas of focus. And I think branding and clarity

around branding is hugely important. The other thing I

would say in terms of future proofing is, again, not to put

all of your eggs in any one basket, I see a lot of people

that are incredibly heavy on their Facebook page or the

entirety of their platform is wrapped up with the fact that

they have a Forbes column. And in a moment's notice, if you

don't own the real estate, you've got to be really clear

that that can be taken away from you or Facebook can make a

change and limit access to your audience. So future proofing, we

believe the more of the connection to the audience that

you own, through an email list through subscribers on your

site, etc, the more leverage you have over the long term, so I

would say owning a connection with your audience is another

thing I would say is a really important future proofing

strategy.

Yeah, where do you want people to go to connect with you

and get the book?

Sure. So the best place to go is

masteringthenewmedialandscape.com there's lots of good information

about the book there. They can also go to cavehenricks.com To

learn more about cave henricks communications, Rustyshelton.com

to learn a little bit more about what we're up to, but we're

really excited about the book and you know, sure appreciate

you having us on.

Thank you guys so much. We wish you the very best.