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

‘Who’s holding those strings’: Molly McPherson goes viral on TikTok for decoding celebrity PR strategy. - Boston Globe, Dec. 25, 2023

Seeing my name next to the words 'viral' and 'TikTok' is nothing short of terrifying.

In this final episode, the tables are turned when I sit down for an interview with the Boston Globe's Dana Gerber for a feature story highlighting my work as a creator on TikTok. Judging by the comments that appeared alongside the story, I was a hit!

GoodBob

12/25/23 - 8:51PM

Congratulations to Molly on capitalizing on the ‘who could care less ‘ market - good for you!

Okay, maybe not.

This episode reveals the intricate balance of managing one's own public relations in the digital era, especially when personal and professional realms intersect.

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Transcript

Molly McPherson (00:00.43)
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.

Molly McPherson (00:32.75)
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. 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 endpoint 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.

Molly McPherson (02:57.138)
understanding what a reporter needs, what a publication needs, news hooks, quotes, quotable quotes. This is what I do. This is my life. 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 timeframe 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 the sentiment of it was off. But 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.

So I rescheduled a time 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 step 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 it didn't feel right anymore. I'm starting to listen to that more, so I share that little nugget with you as well.

Molly McPherson (05:18.834)
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 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's unexpected. See, I'm reacting right now, I'm crying. But I had no 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, November.

and even early December hack got even late December. So this was a rough time to do it. But back then I was more the accommodating Molly. If it were me now, I actually would have said no, I would have turned it down. But such as 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 levels in New York Times, owned by the same company, but

The Boston Globe, that's substantial in terms of 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.

Molly McPherson (07:40.29)
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, whatever it is. More clicks, more views, more likes, more ad dollars. Eventually, they might come to you as a client, whatever it is. So you need to be relatable, but I navigate it constantly with my kids. In this interview, I had to talk about my…

journey to Boston, around Boston, how I lived here, how my kids were raised around here, while not focusing too much on why I became a single parent. 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 and bolden 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 Commonwealth Avenue near Boston University.

always feels like home to me. Com 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 mood changes immediately. I just feel right. I feel centered. I feel very Molly circa 1994, whatever. So, we met at a coffee shop.

Molly McPherson (09:59.366)
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 of 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 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 brain is fog. I didn't have any breakfast in me. I only had coffee in me. Ugh. 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. 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 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. Even me being a content creator, it's risky. I mean, I get it. 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.

Molly McPherson (12:22.286)
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. When we get into the whole social media realm, what I know and what people really close to me know, like the people who are really deep into my life, what they understand, and these are my kids and my 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. 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 the 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, 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 phenomenal. 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. There was no nourishment in my head. There was no clarity in my head. It was just exhaustion and I was still so deep in grief.

Molly McPherson (14:38.658)
that I wasn't in the right place to give myself good representation. But it came time after, geez, a couple hours. I had to keep filming 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. That's a great look, walking around. But doesn't photograph well. Even though I had hair, makeup, all of it.

Anyway, the photographer walks in. Dana was not familiar with him because in newsrooms, sometimes you don't 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, does he look like he's a really good photographer? Yeah, he's a guy my age, almost exactly my age, I think. 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

good photograph, scratch, an exceptional photograph. And he's like, oh 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 where one looks good and where they don't. I was sitting on the couch.

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 going to see me do that at a coffee house. 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 going to 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.

Molly McPherson (17:00.594)
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 from 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. In fact, during this interview, when I was finished, it took a lot longer than I wanted it to take. When I got out there, I was just white. I was absolutely white. 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. I love just looking at things that can help me stay organized.

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, I don't hear much of anything. Dana will ask me here and there on text some questions and I'll give her information. So the story is moving along.

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 and when they are light and when they are dark. It seemed very dark at that moment. 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. I quick, pant of mine, like, go right there.

Molly McPherson (19:23.126)
go into that Starbucks parking lot and just sit. I'm mouthing, like, 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. Agitated is a combination of fidgety and agitated. I could just tell in her voice that she wanted to approach an area that I didn't want to talk about. 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 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 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 it as an opportunity, me, I acquiesced. I mean, that's not on the reporter, that's 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. I'm going to go heavy on this. 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. 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 part was going to be included in the story. I did one more plea and mentioned the consequence to it, that it would come with a cost to me. It was really bothering me that I put myself in this situation by saying yes. It really bothered me. But-

Molly McPherson (21:50.158)
here we are. I said 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 going to promote it. I can't. I thought I'd have fun promoting it but now I can't. I just don't want to bring attention to the article then. And she said she understood, came back again with some other angles.

for me to rethink it, but I didn't at all. Left it at that. Then the publication came out. This is the funny part of it. 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 because I get taken on a lot. I talk about the Friday news dump. 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 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.

Molly McPherson (24:15.166)
When it came out, when I found out Dana forwarded 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 when she was dealing with me. And I don't 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. 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 were 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. He read it. He did the first, the quick scam because that's what he can do. He's very good at that. Then pulled out, I said, what about my family? What about this? What about that? He could spot it right away. He's like, good, good. 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, but not bad. I was like, ugh. 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 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.

Molly McPherson (26:27.15)
journalist route, I suppose, which is truth at a brutal cost. Yeah, these are not good photos. These do not look good. Oh, great. If he's saying that, then they're not good. I was able to bring up the article because Dana sent it to me. I looked at the photos and I went, I – 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 like 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 25th, 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.

I was on the front page. I'm not going to poo that. As was last week and 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.

is posted on their website, they may or may not have this, but if it's in a newspaper, they likely do. That would be the comments. If there is anything that will cut you to smithereens, destroy anything, any ego, any sense of good feeling about yourself, any confidence you may have, will dissolve and evaporate in a moment if you read the comments.

Molly McPherson (28:48.198)

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 gonna 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 underscore 4528976. You know, this one's gonna be good. Molly is evidence of the slow decline of civilization with a banger. And this is FrontPage News, five question marks, pathetic.

Molly McPherson (31:18.53)
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 gonna be good.

This is not news. It is a feature. Educate yourself to know the difference. Right on high and inside, I call that one. All right, let's do just a couple more. This is a reader, S-T-E-3-P. Okay, here we go. Middle East and 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. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Thank God for Molly and TikTok. Well, S-T-E-3-P-O, R2-D2. Absolutely. 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.

Oh, I have a defender. Auto man. So we're not allowed a little diversion from all the miseries you list. S T E three P. I don't care about this stuff. Oh, well, that's okay. I don't man. But someone might find it entertaining or anyone is free to ignore it. Like I do. Oh, that was backhanded. Auto, you are so nice. And then you 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.

Molly McPherson (33:45.078)
But her followers on TikTok, a blight on our society, are even worse. That was from bceagle91. Well you know what bceagle91? I bet you're a guy, and I bet you're a guy who graduated from BC in 1991. And you want to know what? It was super easy to get into BC back in 1991. And if you tried to get into Boston College today, they wouldn't even let you in the front.

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.

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 Meghan on Spotify, how that was a multiple million dollar loss having their archetypes on

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 and the New York Times. Almost everyone, they said, 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…

Molly McPherson (36:06.818)
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 Kelsey, and I needed to look where his podcast with his brother in the heights where it ranked, because I always thought it was...

ranked number one because in my original draft it was number one. But I thought, I should check that and I'm glad I did because Call Our Daddy is 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 Gen Z podcast where it's gossipy or they're breaking down TV shows, 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. That was the genesis of my book, actually. So much has changed then because people have bought into it, for one. I've done so much work on it with a lot of my clients. They know my bag. That audience was not, oh, 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.

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 going to 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 make and hear me talk about it in three minutes? Why do they now want to hear me talk about it for 40? There was that content issue. Then there was the issue of my team. I was paying people and I just brought

Molly McPherson (38:26.798)
someone to do reels and social around it at a huge expense. I was going all in on it, so I was looking at the bottom line too. I looked at the ROI, the return on investment. Yes, I was talking to agencies about advertising deals and spinning it off so I can make direct money from it. 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 from Patreon. I can see the fruits of my labors immediately. That helps a lot. But the podcast is where I was putting the most energy. Since I've added writingforforbes.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.

I was on a call with a client and they were telling me how they edit video content now, how they were using AI. 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? Then I thought, well, wait a minute, why am I even doing a podcast? Why am I doing it? 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...

I 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 how to survive a crisis, but how to use AI, 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.

Molly McPherson (40:53.566)
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 Your Podcast Boot Camp with Pat Flynn. I met wonderful people out there, people who I'm still connected with to this day. I put that thing together in a matter of weeks and then I was off and running. I've been doing it every single week for five years.

every single week for five years, with the exception of Christmas week. That 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 added to the frustration of the podcast. 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. You are listening to the final episode of the Indestructible PR podcast.

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, 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 it. It 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.

Molly McPherson (43:15.946)
If there's 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 gonna be a video interaction. We're gonna do a video interview. I'm gonna 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 wanna bring these interviews in there. I have Dr. Abby coming. I have Olivia and Jenny coming from Fresh Start.

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. The person who I was talking to in the post is the person who was 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.

Molly McPherson (45:38.574)
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. 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. People talk back and forth. Like a lot of the people now know each other.

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 podcasts, 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 guests in. These are gonna be even better. Then I have a next level, a 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 wanna work into it. Maybe you work in just general comms, you wanna 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 my 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 wanna 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,

Molly McPherson (47:58.802)
I have a new website. You can go to my new website. I don't know if it will be launched yet, but it's going to be launched this week, the week that this is coming out. You can book time with me by the hour. That's the easiest way to do it and the cheapest way to do it. I put it in Patreon just so people knew that you could have access to me. 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. It will just be an open chat and it will 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 going to 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 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&A, and the flexibility to adapt content to what you, 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 wanna 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.

Molly McPherson (50:23.438)
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 Billet came up and they—

huge fans and they listen and that was kind of nice. So I want to send them something. There were 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, it's 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

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 weeped for my dog, Finbarr. I 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 meant 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.

Molly McPherson (52:46.966)
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 Piera 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 VR Podcast, this is Molly McPherson signing off. That's all for this week.