How to Pivot Your Blockbuster to Smaller Screens - Episode 191

The Oscar season that just wrapped had us thinking about blockbusters and how the entertainment industry has had to adapt to find their audiences.

PR pros are faced with this challenge, too. From the effectiveness of big, in-person events to finding out where our target audiences are spending their time these days, we also have to be ready to pivot and try new tactics. It can be frustrating but also exciting. We talk about all of it in today’s episode of That Solo Life.

 

Transcript:

Michelle Kane (00:17):

Thank you for joining us for another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane of VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:33):

I am doing really great, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:36):

Very good, very good. Well, and I think today's episode is going to be fun, especially having recently come off Oscar season thinking about big screen blockbusters. So we won't, we won't get too deep into predictions or anything like that cause that's not what we're going to talk about. But we're going to talk about, you know, how to pivot things from blockbuster to the small screen. I think over the course of the past few years, we've had to pivot a lot with the things that we do with clients or even as pros. And so we're going to chat on that a little bit today.

Karen Swim, APR (01:10):

Yeah, I love the theme. I mean, so when we were talking about this, this topic today, it made me think of pre-pandemic there was always the big blockbuster movie season where the studios released their signature movie and everybody flocked to see it and they lined up and it was an event, it was a thing, it was the signature thing and it was big and it was bold and they took risk and big stars and all of the things. And then the pandemic hit and our habits all shifted and audiences split and splintered and they're everywhere. And some people wait for things to come to streaming and studios have to figure out how to deliver the entertainment experience in a whole new way. And now we've lost a lot of people to in-person movies, people don't go to the movie theater anymore.

And so the strategies have had to evolve. And it really made me think of PR people who had these big bold blockbuster plans that they relied on. And not just in terms of in-person events, but just in our whole way that we approach targeting our audiences and everything has shifted. We've lost a lot of in-person engagement. We have a lot of fatigue with even things like webinars and digital events. Social media has splintered like crazy. There's not one platform for any one audience and good luck trying to find Gen Z and where they are because who knows? I mean, . So there's all of these differences in communication. So yeah. How do we take our big blockbuster plans and pivot them to today's audiences, which are everywhere sometimes in secret places. I feel like they're sometimes in secret places. .

Michelle Kane (03:15):

Well, and it's, yeah. It's like someone shook the snow globe. And I think also it's that people at least appear to be more segmented with where they're spending time, but also with what they're giving their attention. And I can't even make an equivalence of value of if your program or event or initiative is so valuable that people will flock to it. No, it could be the greatest, most valuable thing in the world. And the person who is not going to show up, it could change their lives. That still is not a guarantee that they will show up. And it's not, sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's a judgment call of, okay, well I only have this many hours in a month to give to this segment in my life. And then even if you plan to attend something or, you know, engage with something, life happens and, and you just can't, you know, how many, how many times have any of our days just spun off beyond what we thought it was going to be? And, and it just changes. And you know, speaking to even in-person events, I had two conversations just this morning with two separate segments. One is a trade organization, one is a representative from a local little league. Both of us are trying to put on in-person events if it's a fundraiser or just something educational and signups are dismal. And on both fronts we're considering okay, do we pivot to a different way or or are we going to pull the plug on on this event because people just are telling us what they want by their non-response.

Karen Swim, APR (04:59):

Yeah. And I think even beyond me in person, I think now we really have to think about the, so you know, if you use the movie analogy, it's no longer just about the movie in theaters, it's about the longer tail. So it's about streaming and other things that you're going to pull through from that. And I think that we need to adopt our approaches to fit that mentality. So it's really thinking more long tail. There are events that are going to be for things that are fixed in time. Like a funding, a funding announcement may not have a long tail with just the funding itself. And so that is something time-based that you have to have a plan around. And that plan is really for that period of time when that funding is going to be relevant. But there's lots of other things that we can do with our strategies to think about the longer tail opportunities, even when it's something that's fixed in time.

So, you know, like with fundraisers, I know that we've had one of our Solo PR Pros that helped us put together a member deliverable on how she pivoted the fundraising during the pandemic and had a success story. So, you have to think about, okay, beyond this event, beyond this thing that really has a timeframe, what else can we do with this? How can we repurpose this? How can we make this accessible beyond this day, this time, this period to people? So does that mean offering something that is on demand later? Does that mean taking the assets and recreating them and using them for something different? But we really do, we have to have our eyes on the horizon. It's one of the reasons that our team loves data campaigns because they really do have a long tail and you get a lot of value from that data for months and months and months and months and months.

I mean, we have clients where we get coverage every single month for an entire year, and by the time that year is up, we're still getting coverage, but now we have new data. So, I do think we have to think differently. We can no longer think about the short sprint campaign and just the short sprint campaign. I mean, we should work in shorter sprints because things are moving too quickly. I know we all used to plan a year out or six months out and now we all pretty much run in quarterly sprints because it doesn't make sense to plan longer than that. So while you're planning in shorter sprints, you still have to be thinking about how that is going to go beyond that. And let's face it, if you do media relations, be prepared for the long haul.

Michelle Kane (07:55):

Right. Right. Because, even though, yes, it may be, unless it's incredibly timely, attached to a date, it may be current, but you don't know what's in the reporter's pipeline. You don't know what else they have going on. And it may just not be, you know, we all know this, it may not be the right time and you might get a surprise in six months. Oh, hey, I want to cover this now. Okay, that's great.

Karen Swim, APR (08:24):

I mean, I’ve had radio silence and we are thoughtfully reaching out, we're thoughtfully following up and then seven months later they finally cover something and you're like, this is why you have to be persistent. Respectful but persistent and nobody said anything. And it's like, thank you reporter, so love you right now. And I mean, it's so Yeah. The long view, I think, is the way that we all have to think and that is different for a lot of us and a lot of people that haven't had to do that. And it doesn't mean that you haven't always been strategic, it's just that there's this evolution and I mean, capturing audiences, that's another area that's so segmented, you know? I even think about how we had our social media strategies baked into our overall communications plan and we thought we knew our platforms and now people were bouncing and they're bouncing all over the place. They are. It's, you know, Twitter is, oh, who knows what Twitter's doing.

Michelle Kane (09:42):

Right.

Karen Swim, APR (09:42):

I don't have Twitter as part of my communication strategy, but you know, even LinkedIn it's changing and LinkedIn has gotten so noisy and so crowded that now LinkedIn is even trying to clean up their algorithm and what gets served up in your feed. So you may have been seeing these messages popping up asking you “was the content that you just saw useful,” you know, they have a little poll. It's not a personal attack people, it really is LinkedIn working on their algorithm from week to week. People may go to Instagram and then they're like sick of that and then they bounce over to TikTok and it's like sick of that. And some people are over on BeReal because they're tired of all of it. I mean it's so, it's hard.

Michelle Kane (10:24):

There's no tried and true.

Karen Swim, APR (10:26):

No, there isn't. I mean yeah. Newspapers, you know, local news, like all of the stuff that back in the day were anchor points. It's just not true anymore.

Michelle Kane (10:37):

Right. It's rare to find the town square that encompasses everyone. We've lost that and that's a whole other topic for another day because it's not healthy, it's not healthy for a society to not have at least one town square. You know, we see those experiences come up from time to time. But it does all come back to really needing to focus on all of the touch points.

Karen Swim, APR (11:04):

I agree.

Michelle Kane (11:05):

Because even on the content side, on the integrated marketing side, you talk to clients who are are all in for say Facebook, still, in 2023, and you think not everyone's there. So no, we have to do other things and be consistent and you're going to feel so repetitive, you're going to be so annoyed with yourself because all you're seeing is your own messaging. Well, let it go.

Karen Swim, APR (11:27):

. It's true. And here's where we have to be really careful. Sometimes that means that in addition to pivoting and thinking differently and being innovative and being prepared for the new complexities that we're faced with, you have to be sure that you're still delivering ROI and that you're properly setting expectations. And while you may not be raising your client's prices in the short term, some of this can be more costly. Because it means that you need a different set of tools. It means that it's taking longer to get the results that you used to get. So that adds to your cost. So you have to remain profitable, but you know, as you're bringing new clients in the door, you want to consider that because you can't get the same PR services for the same amount of money. It's a really interesting time in our profession, although I do think that there are opportunities

Michelle Kane (12:32):

Oh, 100%.

Karen Swim, APR (12:33):

Yeah. And the opportunities are here for those of us that are willing to be creative, that are willing to look at things a little bit differently that are willing to continue to learn because companies still need that. I read an article, I think it was in the PRNews newsletter and it was talking about how in-housing is rising again. And this wasn't specifically directed towards PR agencies, but it's a good thing to keep in mind that big, big companies are looking at bringing all of this in-house and controlling it and they feel like there are things that they can do better. They feel like sometimes they have the company narrative down and that they understand the nuances and can tell the story better, but they still need agencies or outside help to bring in the things that they don't do well. And so as we have this push and pull again of do we do everything in house? Do we hire outside people? One of the ways that you can differentiate yourself is making sure that you're continuing to grow, continuing to be creative, continuing to learn and be willing to learn, and learning to, again, think beyond the short term value and really think longer term. Like how can I stretch this out? How can I ring every single drop of ROI out of my efforts?

Michelle Kane (14:03):

Right, right. And keeping in mind too, this is all part of our job for our clients of being a guide. Whether that's specifically in your scope of work or not, you are the subject matter expert. We all are. And it's on us to know what's out there, to know what the opportunities are and to identify what would be a good fit that would work or that's worth trying because how many times have we started something and you have to adapt along the way because you think, oh wait, here's an opportunity, let's try this this way.

Karen Swim, APR (14:40):

Yeah. And I mean if you think about the entertainment industry, think about it in this way, even though we have so many ways to access content, there are still hits, there are still shows that break out from a smaller screen. There are recording artists who have a hit record that everybody's singing and knows the lyrics to. So it's not a hopeless time at all. And entertainment is a fun way to look at and make some analogies to our job, but there's still opportunity to not only win that award but make some money off the popcorn too.

Michelle Kane (15:25):

Yeah. I mean it's funny, I was just reading an interview with Jenna Ortega who plays Wednesday in the Netflix hit Wednesday and just her speaking about her input about the character and how that made some changes and especially her fun little dance at the one formal that just took off and went viral. That came out of, because she felt it was necessary for her to choreograph that herself and be quirky as opposed to have someone choreograph it for her. And I think it was initially supposed to be a flash mob and I'm so glad she stood her ground because that would've been the most non-Wednesday thing to happen to have a sun-shiny flash mob . But you know, I'm sure on paper or when they shot that they weren't thinking, oh this is going to go viral.

Karen Swim, APR (16:08):

Exactly. Yeah. No one, I mean, clients think that, yeah. Clients are like, we want this to and we cannot always predict that. But I think, and I haven't seen that show by the way, it's a hit. I haven't seen it, but it didn't affect its effectiveness and I loved the Addams family growing up, but I think it just, again, it's inspiring to know that trusting your gut and developing things that maybe don't follow the same old script. That don't follow the playbook. It really is okay. Yesterday there was this great podcast on AI and automation and it was geared towards podcasters. But the woman who was the speaker was Molly Ruland and she has a podcast media company and she said something that I think was really interesting. She said that they call pilot episodes, pilot episodes, but when she used AI to seek the questions that people were asking, no one calls it a pilot. They all call it an intro.

Michelle Kane (17:20):

Interesting.

Karen Swim, APR (17:21):

That little tidbit was really interesting to really think about. And as a communicator, those are the threads that we want to pull. We want to make sure that we're tapping into the pulse of our audience and that we're serving up the things that they actually want. Because sometimes we can put on our blinders too and think, ah, this is amazing, but it's not what other people want to hear, read, see. Yeah. And it's not in the language that they're speaking. So even though we have our language, and we might call it this, you may need to call it someone else, something else. Because that's what people relate to. I know for us, we have a client that deals in the independent workforce and has for years, and they do not use the word freelance, but we use the word freelance in our pitching because as much as people like Solo PR Pros hate that word, this is how people talk about us.

So you could fight against it and you know, you could say, but freelance is accepted. People know what that means and it's freelance. So and that works for us. I mean, yeah, we'll insert both terms sometimes, but yes. So being willing to change up how you talk about things and trusting your gut on things like yes, be Wednesday and take control of your character development, take control of your campaign development and play your quirks in there. Put your unique spin in there. And I think that that makes work fun. You know, I do that quite often. Like I'll totally know I'll veer away from what everybody else is doing and be like, eh,

Michelle Kane (18:59):

. It's, it's so true. And you know, even with the way we do use language, I know, you know, sometimes clients, they're so wrapped up in what their things are called and and sometimes we have to push back and say, well that's not communicating. I know. You know what that is. But the consumer doesn't care. They just need to know if I want the thing and I want something good, I should just click here.

Karen Swim, APR (19:26):

Yeah.

Michelle Kane (19:27):

You know, just tell me what to do. Or even the way businesses can present themselves and say, oh well my model is really this. And I'm like, they don't care. They just want what you have. They don't, they don't care what it's called necessarily.

Karen Swim, APR (19:40):

Totally agree. Because at the end of the day, popcorn is popcorn. You have your own brand of popcorn. You don't need to come up with a whole new name for popcorn, just call it popcorn. Because that's what people know and you sell the differentiation. Why is your popcorn better? So, right. I agree

Michelle Kane (19:59):

. So pop your popcorn. Binge binge Wednesday or Abbott Elementary if you have not done so.

Karen Swim, APR (20:08):

Oh, good show.

Michelle Kane (20:10):

And hey binge us!

Karen Swim, APR (20:13):

I have a bunch of episodes banked. Because I'm that girl. Sometimes I have them banked for my leisure time. So lovely. Don't forget that about your audiences too. Just because they didn’t respond to content immediately does not mean that they're not interested. Have a way for them to be able to store stuff away. Or access it when they're ready for it.

Michelle Kane (20:37):

Yeah, that's very true. Well, we hope you binge on That Solo Life. On occasion. We try to keep these episodes as short as a commute or a daily walk. So please do subscribe, share it around to your friends and colleagues. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.