Episode #13: Walk Through Fear With Shonali Burke
“On a professional level, what is it that's really scaring you right now? What is really making you say, “Oh my God, I hope my client doesn’t ask me to do that, because I have no clue.” That is what you need to address. That is how you will stay relevant. That is how you will live your purpose.”
- Shonali Burke on walking through fear as a PR professional
Stepping outside of what you know in any career can be scary. Many of us (including Britt + Jackie!), had our start in media relations through the SEO-world. But, there’s more to PR than placements and backlinks. And, where do PR’s who may have been pigeonholed into one single specialty go from here? Our guest today, Shonali Burke, is a Public Relations scholar and renowned consultant. She is here to guide us outside of what we know and into the unknown. From it, we’ll all come out with a better understanding of what Public Relations actually is, and how we can be the best practitioners we can be.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
How to build and measure a PR strategy beyond just, “earning a lot of placements”
How earned media is just one piece of a larger picture of the Public Relations landscape
How PR’s can expand their skill set beyond what’s comfortable to their day-to-days
Our guest is:
Shonali Burke, President and CEO of Shonali Burke Consulting, Inc., a firm that creates growth strategies to help purpose-driven brands bring big ideas to life. She is also the creator of the #measurePR hashtag and Twitter chat.
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Timestamps
:00 -- Jackie introduces the “problems” when a digital PR’s main focus is on SEO and how our guest can help combat this.
2:14 -- Jackie asks what other ways PR’s may measure the effectiveness of their media relations efforts beyond counting the number of placements earned.
5:27 -- Jackie asks how you measure “thought leadership.”
9:30 -- Britt opens up about how clients focus on Instagram influencers and tend to fail to think outside of that. She asks Shonali to explain where to find influencers outside of Instagram.
14:30 -- Britt goes back to SEO and asks Shonali how she measures the value of a backlink or placement. (Spoiler: she doesn’t really “do that.”)
20:50 -- Jackie asks how to get different marketing channels to work together into one unified voice.
24:30-- Jackie opens up about her own work-life to Shonali. She talks about being pigeonholed into earned media. She asks how PR practitioners can expand their skill set and stay up-to-date without going back to school?
30:05 -- Jackie asks if Shonali thinks PR should be in-house or outsourced.
32:17 -- Britt asks if she’s ever worked with a client who already had an internal comms team. She asked how Shonali has approached collaborating with them.
35:05 -- Britt states how inspired she is. Shonali gives her final thoughts and encourages listeners to “walk through fear.”
Things we mention
Connect with Shonali
Connect with Jackie & Britt
