Muck Rack & The Future of Comms with Linda Zebian – Podcast Transcript

Episode 74: Muck Rack & The Future of Comms with Linda Zebian

Speakers:

Lexie Smith, Linda Zebian

Lexie Smith

Lexie Smith

Linda, I am so excited to have someone as accomplished as you on the show today. Welcome, officially, let’s kick it off with where is home base and what do you like to do outside of work for fun?

Linda Zebian

Thanks, Lexie for having me. I’m totally thrilled to be here. homebase is in Western Massachusetts. And for fun, I’m a pretty avid gardener. So if I’m not at work or with the family, I’m usually outside taking care of my vegetable babies. I also am pretty into fitness. So if I when I have time, I like to hit the gym, yoga studio, Vikram, particularly, or out for a nice walk.

Lexie Smith

So I have a quick funny story about gardening that became my husband’s first COVID Project circa 2020. Right. And I fully understand the vegetable babies. He was so protective there. I remember there was a part when he was growing tomatoes from seeds where according to whatever guide he was reading, you had to like kill off half of the tomatoes so that the strongest ones survived. And it was legitimately emotional. time partying, that’s a real thing. But again,

Linda Zebian

no, it’s a it’s a it’s a real thing. I had something by the tops of my broccolis this weekend, and I was really sad about it. So it’s definitely a loss every time but hopefully will be fruitful by the end of the season here and in western rap.

Lexie Smith

Pun intended right for you today. Okay, so, let’s go into career. So take me way back, walk me through high level what came before today?

Linda Zebian

Okay, so starting really early at the beginning. I studied English in school and got some I don’t know if it was good advice or not. Some advice from a professor who said don’t go into teaching because I always wanted to teach it at the college level. And I got an internship at a very small boutique agency PR agency doing like fashion and lifestyle PR and they offered me a job after college. So I dove right in. And I departed PR for a brief period when I became a journalist for trade magazine. And then I started doing events for that company that was putting on Have that published the magazines, they had a lot of b2b events. And then I went back up back into PR, I got back into consumer PR, I joined Consumer Reports, and worked on their comms team, and then left there to join the New York Times, I was there for 10 years, mostly handling, business, business, side communications, and corporate communications, and left the times formally at the end of 2021, and joined Muckrock as their first ever Head of Communications in January of this year. So been there about six months.

Lexie Smith

huge congratulations. I read that in your bio, the first ever Director of Communications. And I will have to say I was a little surprised that muck rack hadn’t had that position two before, which maybe you can enlighten us as to why but but before we get into that, can you first tell everyone, what is muck rack.

Linda Zebian

So muck rack in the simplest of terms, helps organizations find the right journalists to pitch report on media coverage and prove the value of their work. We’re basically a software platform that transforms how organizations engage with the media and puts relationships at the heart of PR. So we’re a tech company,

Lexie Smith

your tech company, okay. So what makes in your opinion book rack different from other products like scission meltwater proudly on the market, what makes muck rack different.

Linda Zebian

Um, so I think there are a few things that make Muck rack stand out. First of all, we are a very fast moving young startup, which gives us the ability to be agile in the market, really identify needs in the market. And and build products to serve PR people in a way. And I think that that a lot of sometimes the legacy companies aren’t able to move as quickly. They, you know, some of them are really large companies that are products of multiple companies having merged and come together in that way. We built our product from the ground up, which I think just makes it really unique. And it me first started as a journalist, database, a way for journalists to find each other on Twitter. So we put journalists at the heart of everything we do, we offer journalists, free tools, free portfolios, so they can maintain, and they don’t even have to do much really just kind of all of their work feeds into their macragge Poke profile. And they’re able to share and celebrate their work. So we really want to equip PR folks to be really thoughtful in pitching journalists, we want journalists and PR folks to create community. And, and we want there to be harmony, and you want it to be a beneficial relationship on both sides. And I think that my crack also, we are self funded. So we have no investors, and we’re growing really rapidly, we’re growing sustainably. And that gives us an edge to because we can focus on the work that we want to focus on that our customers are asking of us, as opposed to kind of answering to any kind of outside of investor. And we really focus on on customer devotion and and the care of our customers. And if you are in the industry, you may hear a lot about kind of how phenomenal our customer support team is, and how easy it is to get ahold of somebody and and solve problems together. And that’s really, really what we want to do it my gratitude. I think that comes down to empathy, we understand the struggles of what it is to work in PR. And part of my job or part of what how I see my job is to really get that message across. When we when when we talked to the world about what Mark rack is and what we want to be and how we serve this community. It’s really getting folks like me, and people who’ve worked for me over the years recognition, that power, that proof of the work to get that seat at the table to get that bigger budget to to get more credibility in, you know, within their own company in the C suite. But also, you know, with journalists,

Lexie Smith

yeah, and I have to say and this is kind of a case study or a Client Testimonial, whatever you may call it literally yesterday, I’m on muck rack.com kind of poking around deciding what I wanted to talk about for today. And I discovered your guys’s Podcast Directory, and I was poking through it and it was like where’s pitching and sipping? I was like, oh no pitching and sipping sun on there, but it was very clear He said, If you want, if you don’t see yourself, contact us. So I clicked the button, I sent an email like, Hey, I’m actually going to be like interviewing someone on your team. So probably be good if I got added to the directory this morning. So this I emailed yesterday, which was a Sunday, we’re recording on a Monday morning, they already have my full profile live and have responded to me. And it blew me away. Like, the fact that on top of it, they were I was like, Oh, my gosh, thank you. That’s so

Linda Zebian

I’m so glad to hear that. I mean, they just take the editorial team, who would have handled that inquiry, inquiry, and it works really closely with customer team. And, and that’s the thing, it’s like everybody at McGregor really, truly cares about customer success. And we’re all kind of I think that’s like the the great thing about working for a startup like this. And also it’s a reflection on on leadership. And, you know, the guidance from leadership and the end, the mission of the company is we really do care, we want it to be a great experience. Yeah,

Lexie Smith

I’ve experienced that firsthand, literally, in the last 24 hours. So great timing for that. So let’s get back a little bit more to your role. Again, you are MK racks first ever Director of Communications. Why are you the first and what what do you do? What is part of your job at muck rack?

Linda Zebian

Yeah, I think I’m the first because Muck rack is relatively at a relatively young company. I mean, we started in 2009. But the past few years, we’ve seen serious momentum in terms of growth in terms of our customer base and our share of market and also employees. So I was brought in, I think at the appropriate time, you know, we’re approaching about 200 employees, and we leadership realized, you know, now’s the time to bring someone in to represent the brand externally but also handle internal communications, which is a big part of my job as well. So we are becoming, you know, a really strong brand in the market and the need was there. So I’m honored, it’s the most meta job. I think there is in comms, right doing PR for a PR software company. So I’m honored to to be able to like craft the foundation of of what of what comms means that my crack.

Lexie Smith

Yeah, that’s awesome. I that’s and that’s why I was maybe surprised just to put light on that. And like, if pure software, I would think they’d have their own PR person, but to hear kind of the age of the company, and the fact that it’s, you know, fast growing to that point. And glad they decided it was time, and they’re very, very lucky to have you. Everyone listening heard, you know, a very high level overview of your background. Based on your background, you know, you’ve seen things from the communicators and PR side, you’ve also seen it from the journalism side, I’d love to dive a little bit into media relations. So first off, kind of, generally speaking, do you have any top tips for media relations in 2022,

Linda Zebian

um, my top tip for media relations in 2022. And frankly, it’s an evergreen tip is to be transparent. This, you know, the whole idea of spin sucks, it’s been really does suck. And I think it’s really hard if you are doing PR for a company that maybe isn’t necessarily going out there with like the most honest or transparent business practices, and it can be really hard to have to cover things up or, or spin them or even admit that you’re wrong. I think, you know, from my experience, taking ownership of a mistake, as soon as you recognize it early and often. Right? Don’t try to you know, bury it. Because I think in this day and age, nothing is buried. I mean, it will that you’re going to extend the period of your crisis. If you try to cover it up in the beginning, it’s just going to make it last longer. And you know, the beauty of the fast paced news industry essentially, is that crises are a dime a dozen. They’re happening every day, and you won’t be the headline, if you handle it correctly, you handle it incorrectly and try to cover up you’re going to be the headline for longer. So take care of it clean up the mess as best you can. And try to, you know, encourage leadership to do that, too. It’s hard for leaders to do go there. But as comms professionals, it’s our job to say, you need to trust me and my experience. I understand how journalism works. I understand how the media covers crises such as this. These are my recommendations, and I promise you it will be the shortest path to success in handling the circumstance. Yeah,

Lexie Smith

I think that’s wonderful advice. I all So I think you know, broadly speaking across social media and content, marketing, authenticity and transparency, it’s become very, very clear that that’s what is wanted not just from media, but from consumers. So it only makes sense that that is the way in which we would operate with the media as well as a public relations professional. Before, you know, maybe you’re at a point where you can interact with the media more on an inbound sense, meaning they’re coming to you. There’s a whole topic of how do you begin to build that Rolodex? How do you begin to establish relationships with media, if you’re a small PR firm, or you’re an entrepreneur or a brand wanting to do their own PR? Do you have any do’s or don’ts or tips in that arena?

Linda Zebian

Yeah, I think it’s start small and start targeted. So if you’re a smallish brand, and you don’t have like a big budget, or you know, news is valuable, and it’s free. So if you have news, journalists will be interested in that news. So try to think like a journalist try to understand what it is that they’re looking for, and be very targeted and who you’re talking to. So everybody ever client wants the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, you know, CBS This Morning, whatever it is, or CBS Sunday mornings, 60 minutes, whatever, all the big guys, right. But you know, that’s not a realistic thing, in most cases, unless you unless whatever brand you’re pitching, and the story you’re telling, is connected to a major news story. So if you are just pitching a product, or you have an evergreen topic, or somebody who’s an expert on an evergreen topic, try to figure you know, try to start smalls start with that journalist who really cares about your industry? And whose audience cares about what’s going on in your industry? And how do you insert yourself into that story? It may not be the number of eyeballs you’re looking forward to, like drive up those coverage reports. But the value is higher when you’re targeting like, you know, really niche audiences and really journalists who cover really niche beats.

Lexie Smith

Absolutely. I was speaking in a mastermind last week, it was a Small Business Mastermind. So these are all female entrepreneurs. And they were asking me questions about PR, and I got a submission form of all their questions ahead of time. Very first question, which made me laugh but of course it shouldn’t be surprised to hear was how do I get on Good Morning America? I’m just like, Oh, if I had $1 for every single time I heard that question. But it’s such a such a interesting one to answer but roundabout way we ended up talking through kind of why do you want to be on Good Morning America and, and it basically long story long, came back to she should start local and she should start with trade publications. Let’s start there. Let’s build a story. Let’s build up your business and kind of see what we can cultivate in those markets before necessarily. We only aim after the Good morning, America’s of the world. So okay.

Linda Zebian

100% I mean, how do you think that Good Morning America covers these localized stories, their local TV station or the local newspaper, runs it first. And GMA will take that because they’re bringing it to a national audience it doesn’t conflict with you know, if the story hasn’t gone viral yet they will take it on right and put it on air and then the and then nationally, it’s it’s a recognized story so but I feel like nine times out of 10 those local stories are already have already been covered locally. Yeah, so you know like the you know, the happy feel good stories the you know, the turnaround champion stories all that stuff is usually run on local news before it hits Do you have a and other national outlets?

Lexie Smith

 Yeah, great, great point. Would you say to that the best way if you know you’re going after that small Your first step is to just cold email or is there another tactic you suggest in making content fact that first contact? Yeah.

Linda Zebian

So I, whenever I always say like when you’re starting a new gig and like you’re going to be, you know, doing comms in a new industry, I think it’s always really nice to reach out to the journalists that are like the friendlies and cover the industry and say, Hey, I just want to let you know, I’m here for you like, and these are the topics, you know that if you’re ever looking for someone, here I am. Another way to do it, I find is when you actually have news to share, to introduce yourself alongside the news. The journalists don’t, I mean, this is gonna sound kind of harsh, and it’s not meant to be but the journalists don’t really care about you your career where you came from what you did, but I mean, they just really want news. And they really don’t have the capacity at this point to kind of small talk over email, that relationship will come later, you do them a favor, you know, you work closely with them on an embargo on an exclusive or breaking news story. And they will and then that relationship builds just naturally over, you know, based on trust. Journalists, we just found in a mock survey earlier this year, our covering four beats, on average compared to three just a year ago, we know that the news industry is is contracting. We know journalists are bogged down. And we know there’s like the ratio of journalists to PR, from PR people to journalists is increasing. It’s like six to one, every PR every six PR person, there’s only one journalist, so imagine how many pitches they’re getting. So give them what they need, provide them with what they need, and the relationship will go from there.

Lexie Smith

cosign absolutely every single thing you just said, not only from personal experience, but also this. You’ve literally teed me up so perfectly, because I like to go into data and research to have backings. So here’s my experience. But also here’s the report and Muckrock has and continues to do such a phenomenal job at producing research data webinars and content for the PR and communications industry at large. In fact, some of your guys annual reports I’ve covered in minisodes on this very podcast, I look forward to them every single year. So you have been in the industry for more than 12 years, a time period in which media platforms have evolved and transformed drastically. I’d love to hear any predictions you have personally for PR and journalism industries as a whole. Over and I know this isn’t broad question. But over the next year, maybe five years, basically, where do you think we’re headed? Just general trends? It can be broad, it can be specific, what is coming in the pipeline? That would be helpful you think for people to to hear about?

Linda Zebian

Yeah, I think that the line between what a journalist and a content creator are is going to continue to blur. I would love to see that actually take a reverse route. I think it’s a dangerous line in a lot of ways. And I think that there needs to be a firm line and public understanding the difference between an influencer or content creator who’s creating opinion pieces, or, you know, just sharing their own personal points of view on things versus a journalist to it has boots on the ground and is reporting from, you know, firsthand account of what’s of what they’re seeing. I think that that, you know, that is concerning to me the line, the misunderstanding of between what is opinion and what is fact, globally is is challenging, and I think because of tech nuts because of technology, and obviously social media and the fact that everyone is a content creator. Now you take a photo, or you know, you witness something happen. You are citizen journalists, essentially. So what does that mean? And how do we help the public understand what the difference is between a content creator or an influencer, and a journalist who is trained and fact checked and has a specific mandate and goal in mind in terms of delivering truth to the public? And it concerns me as well because it’s people and I’m not saying I don’t, you know, consume influencer content? Of course I do. And I think it’s valuable in its own right, but I think it’s concerning when more people are getting their information social. And in terms of like, where the dollars get funded in media, and entertainment and etc, etc. Are we going to have the resources to support on the ground journalism, particularly at the local level, so that we do have a broad range of journalists getting paid to do important work in order to hold power to account and keep, you know, this country in check. That’s why the First Amendment exists. And if you don’t have a free press, and you don’t have a well funded free press, because you need money to do these things, it’s concerning.

Lexie Smith

Yeah, I fully agree. And, you know, I share that concern, both from a professional standpoint, but also on the consumer side. And just a little example, for everyone listening is very specific. But I’m traveling for the first time with my, my baby this upcoming week, which, you know, had me googling all sorts of things with what kind of travel products do I bring in? You know, how do I do this, how to do that. And it was really, really frustrating because I kept coming across content and articles, or I’m like, is this sponsored? Or is this really what you suggest? And this demonstrated the blurred lines between paid content creation and authentic journalism and reviews? And it’s hard, I do understand how much the media industry has been impacted by influencer culture and social media. And I guess they need to have their own revenue streams. But it’s hard. It’s hard to trust things as a consumer and to know, what is unbiased. What is true journalism, and what’s, you know, just, you know, another affiliate link ground up, for example, in my case? Yeah, um, I don’t I don’t really know, I don’t know the answer. That’s a big question, again, is it just to just sign up and subscribe and pay to more of your local outlets? I don’t know what the call to action there is. Do you have any thing that we can maybe do to help delineate that?

Linda Zebian

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that a lot of people are all about, you know, accessing journalism that’s free. And they don’t want to have to pay for journalism. But journalism was paid for, you know, 100, hundreds of years prior to, you know, modern technology. So you wanted the news, you would have to go out to your local stand and pick up a newspaper, and pay for that newspaper. So I think, you know, the idea that journalism should be free, is wrong, I think that we should pay for high quality journalism and pay for the information that we’re consuming. And that I think starts with a local level for sure. I mean, it’s the local outlets that are having the hardest time, I think generating digital subscriptions, and then the ad dollars are funneling to the large social platforms of the world. And those ad dollars, you know, there’s a finite amount of ad dollars, and they’re just not going to those local sites. And obviously, we know print is, you know, not in a good place. So, you know, pay the 12 bucks a year to get access to your favorite content. Because, you know, we used to do that we used to pay for magazine subscriptions, all those things. Yeah. So just go back to that, you know, put some of your money aside. We pay for music, the paper entertainment movies, television, why can’t Why shouldn’t we pay for high quality news?

Lexie Smith

Yeah, that’s a great remember, I’ve had to personally check myself on that because I do get in a habit when I run into a paywall, which basically is protected content behind, you know, it’s a New York Times article, you have to pay to be a subscriber to read it, I go, like, get all huffy puffy. And then I have to check myself and remind myself, No, this isn’t, you know, European, how much for Hulu and Netflix and all these other things. This isn’t, you know, there’s people behind these putting in a lot of work boots on the ground work to bring this information. So little call to action for everyone listening. Now, before we start to wrap up, I do want to turn back to Muckrock. Again, and just for anyone listening, who would this be a great technology or platform to check out? Who would be your kind of target customer?

Linda Zebian

I think anyone who works in marketing, marketing, communications, public relations, so at a brand or at an agency, anyone who’s trying to build better contact lists, have more comprehensive information about journalists, or outlets with easy access to like really intuitive technology and just wants to build a list easily. Anyone who’s trying to reach you know, journalists that new media like a podcast, we have like, as you mentioned, like say like a really robust podcast database and we are enhancing that every day. newsletters, you know, folks who are up and coming And then and then anybody who really wants to have like a full service PRM public relations management platform. So, you know, you find the journalists, you want to pitch, you put your list together, you send the pitch. And you know, we have systems in place that help our users and customers like keep themselves in check, like, Hey, your pitch is pretty long compared to what we have found in our research is a quality pitch, do you want to shorten it? Or, Hey, your list is really long. And there’s a lot of people on this list, we suggest you may want to send this to fewer and more targeted people. Can you put checks in place to to remind people like what a quality pitches, and then it’s about, and then you can see, you know, it’s for anybody who wants to track the success of their pitch and also measure the value and create alerts for when they’re when they are their client is mentioned, it’s great for agencies who are working on multiple accounts. It’s great for big brands who have multiple people working across the brand, because it’ll show you to you had the relationship on Earth with a journalist or when that journalist was last pitched or reached out to what they’re, you know, and the history there, so that you can work in conjunction with one another not step on each other’s toes. And it’s great, you know, for anybody who really wants like strong customer support, and a lot of guidance on how to use, use the tool to the best of their ability. And I would say, if you are not a Muckrock customer or you, you know, you’re a one person agency, you’re not, it’s not in the budget for the year. You know, check out our free resources, our webinars are all free. We have our great blog, which is all free. We have Mark rack Academy, which has a couple of great kind of foundational courses with industry leaders, on social media and pitching so check those out, you know, you can hone your skills, and Bernie journalists use Microsoft for your portfolio, follow trends. It’s a great platform, and there’s lots that you can do with it. So yeah, check it out.

Lexie Smith

Beautiful. Where do people go to check it out?

Linda Zebian

Muckrack.com So it’s on Twitter. Yeah. Twitter at Muckrack. Follow us on LinkedIn on Instagram at muckrack. And connect with us join our little community of our powerful community of, of community communicators who are trying to really like level up what PR is all about.

Lexie Smith

Beautiful, and you guys per usual, we will include that in the show notes. Last question before I let you get back to life is we’ve talked a lot about pitching but you’re on this podcast. So I have to ask what we can find you sipping so what is your favorite beverage? alcoholic or non alcoholic? Of course.

Linda Zebian

Oh, I live for like a delicious glass of iced tea. It’s fully sweetened, like sweating glass of iced tea and I don’t drink it a lot but yeah, that’s what I would go for on a hot summer day.

Lexie Smith

Hot summer day. I see. Love it. Haven’t heard the nice tea one in a while do you like herbal Arnold Palmer’s or just just the tea?

Linda Zebian

Um, you know, I don’t like to like mix alcohol with my favorite like non alcoholic beverage. I’m gonna have alcohol I’m just gonna drink like a nice martini with that’s like extra dirty with some blue cheese olives. You know, I’m not like all about mixing my favorite drinks with alcohol because sometimes when you drink too much alcohol you’re associated with like your fate. You know your favorite drink. And that’s not what I want. Those are two separate sides of me.

Linda Zebian

The devil in the angel, right? Love it.

Lexie Smith

It’s a line between a client called me from a my business partner and I have a separate business that called us mullet. Ethridge LLC. What like business in the front party in the back? Reminds me of what you’re talking about are two separate worlds. So yes,

Linda Zebian

I could be a walking mullet and I’m okay with that.

Lexie Smith

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Guys. Again, go and check out MK rack height. Their resources are incredible. It’s something I consume, I share with my clients. Obviously if you are a longtime listener, you’ve heard me cover some of their material and reach out to them and request a demo if PR software is something you’re interested in. It’s really a phenomenal platform. So thank you for coming on the show today. Linda.

Linda Zebian

Thank you so much, Lexie it was so fun chatting.