the podcast recap episode with aj & rory vaden

Ep 319: How to Get Publicity with Selena Soo | Recap Episode

Listen to the episode below

Our conversation with publicity expert Selena Soo was filled with insights; not only in what she had to say but how she said it.

In this special recap edition of the Influential Personal Brand Podcast, we share our main takeaways from Selena’s professionalism as an interviewee to her most astute publicity tips.

Selena schooled us on the true value of mainstream media and when it’s actually a suitable pursuit, as well as how to get on TV when it is, indeed, the appropriate media outlet for your product.

Join us as we debrief after our inspiring conversation with Selena, covering everything from finding riches in the niches and finding a new way to think about your online audience, to identifying and running with your lead magnet.  

Key takeaways from this episode

  • The topic of our episode with Selena Soo: How to get publicity.
  • Selena’s professionalism as an interviewee.
  • When it is and isn’t appropriate to seek mainstream publicity.
  • The value of finding your niche audience.
  • Why we recommend you think of your online audience as an offline room.
  • Tools for researching suitable media outlets for your product.
  • Why clicks are better than views.
  • The true value of national media.
  • Three things you need to do to get on TV.
  • What a lead magnet is and why it’s so important to have one.

Tweetable Moments

“If you don’t have a mainstream product, you don’t really need mainstream media.” — Rory Vaden [0:05:01]

“The riches are in the niches.” — Rory Vaden [0:05:34]

“Think of your online audience as an offline room.” — Rory Vaden [0:06:42]

“You don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars.” — Rory Vaden [0:08:02]

“Clicks are better than views.” — Rory Vaden [0:09:29]

“The real value of national media is how you repurpose it.” — Rory Vaden [0:10:33]

“Building a business isn’t nearly as valuable as building a reputation.” — Rory Vaden [0:24:04]

About Selena Soo

Selena Soo is a publicity and marketing strategist for visionary entrepreneurs, experts, and authors who want to reach millions with their message.

She’s helped clients and students get featured in places like O, The Oprah Magazine, Forbes, and Inc., and land interviews on popular podcasts and national TV. Many of Selena’s clients have become industry leaders with 6 and 7-figure businesses, raving fan bases, and hundreds of thousands of followers.

Her signature approach comes down to building powerful and long-lasting relationships with influencers and the media in a thoughtful, authentic way.

Links Mentioned

Selena Soo

12 Moths of Story Ideas to Win Over the Media  

AJ Vaden on LinkedIn

AJ Vaden on Twitter

Rory Vaden

Rory Vaden on LinkedIn

Rory Vaden on Twitter

Take the Stairs

Brand Builders Group

Brand Builders Group Free Call

Brand Builders Group Resources

The Influential Personal Brand Podcast on Stitcher

The Influential Personal Brand Podcast on Apple

RV (00:02): How do you get publicity for your business, for your brand, for your book, for your mission, for the, for your nonprofit, for whatever it is that you’re trying to do or advance in the world. That was the subject of this week’s interview with Selena Soo. It was awesome. And I really enjoyed meeting her. I was the I, that was the first time I’d ever met her. I I’d heard about her for years just through friends and stuff. And I’m gonna share with you my some of my takeaways from Selena and also I’m gonna share with you some of my own philosophies here about how publicity works and things that we have learned. We’ve, we’ve done a pretty decent job of getting our share of, of publicity over the years. So it’s something that we definitely know about, and then also helping our clients regularly get national appearances for, for different things. RV (00:52): Which is, which is great. But one thing I wanna point out is even if you already listened to that interview with selena the first the first time you listen to it, you probably listen to it like as a student, which is like, sort of how, how I was like, what she was saying and trying to learn from her, but go back and listen to it again of not what she’s teaching and not what she’s saying, but how she’s doing it, of all the guests that, that I’ve ever interviewed on this show. And I won’t speak for all the guests that AJ’s interviewed, but of all the guests that I’ve interviewed on this show, I could tell that Selena was a true pro at being a guest because of the way that she sequenced the conversation. And she one thing led to the next and she had frameworks and all of these things, but by the way, if you’re a brand builder, like if you’re one of our messengers, one of our messenger messengers, one of our clients you’ll, you’ll hear her doing things like frameworks and pillar points and the things that we teach you to do and captivating content. RV (01:59): And so just like watch how she does it. She was a tremendous guest all the way down to her lead magnet and everything. So just two different ways to learn from her. One is what she was saying. And two was like how she was doing it all. And I recognize those things, cuz those are all things that I try to do and things that I do actually do that have made a huge difference for converting media appearances into leads for your business, right? Like you know, there’s, I, I, I am, I think of myself almost as a professional guest, I’m trying to be a guest and I have a limited window, a limited time, a limited opportunity to be in front of someone else’s audience to deliver so much value quickly in a way in a sequence that creates context for a, a conversation to continue and then to open the door and offer them a chance to find me and stay in relationship with me and us and our team at brand builders group. And then, you know, you know, RV (02:58): Turn that into revenue and impact and relationships and Selena did a, a magnificent job of, of it as well. You could go listen to me as a guest on someone’s show too, and you could also see some of those things. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about a little bit here. I was really, really impressed with her. So how do you get publicity? How do you get publicity? First thing that she brought up, which I really loved because I don’t think we hear about this enough is that if you don’t have a mainstream product, you don’t really need mainstream media. If you don’t have a mainstream product, you don’t really need mainstream media. Like, so what do I mean by that? I mean that many of us think, oh, I wrote a book and now I just, I wanna be on good morning America or the today show or Oprah or, you know, the school of greatness podcast or ed my letter, like we think, oh, this would be the secret. RV (03:53): Like this would be the key is I gotta get on mainstream media. But in reality you don’t because first of all, the riches are in the niches. The riches are in the niches. You you’ll you’ll often make more money, get more leads for your business by being in a, in front of a smaller number of people. But it’s the right people, this more like rifle approach versus the shotgun approach of like, I just wanna be in front of massive, you know, numbers of people, because if you don’t have a mainstream product, then that means it doesn’t apply to a lot of people. So if there’s a big mass general audience listening, then you’re going, you know, 99% of the audience may not care about what you have. And so it’s not serving that media outlet well, and it’s not serving you well, and it’s not, it’s not serving their, their listeners or their audience. RV (04:42): Well, and so you can sort of let go of that idea that in order to, in order for media to be successful, I have to be on the biggest podcast or I have to be on the biggest TV shows or, you know, I have to, I have to be interviewed by the most famous interviewers. You don’t, you don’t, the riches are in the niches. Like so I, I, I want you to, to think about that. Another thing, and I, I talked about this a little bit. I shared this in the interview with Selena, because this is something that we’ve started teaching our, our brand builders clients, which is think of your online audience as an offline room. Think of your online audience as an offline room. So what does that mean? It means for some reason, when we see, like, if you post a video online and you get 14 video views, like a lot of people would look at that and be like, oh, I can’t believe I got 14 video views. RV (05:38): Like, you know, I put all this work in for this 62nd video and only 14 people watch it yet. If you were gonna stand up in front of a real life, offline room of 14 people, you’d probably be excited about that. Right? Like your heart would get racing. Certainly if it were 50 people in a room or a hundred people in a room and it like, they are, it’s the same thing. Those are real humans, real people like it’s 14 or 50 people watching a video, just like it’s 14 or 50 people watching you in a room. So those are real human lives. And just, there’s something weird about when we think about it in the context of online. And it’s probably because we’re comparing it to everyone. Like, you know, we’re comparing it to people who have millions of views, like, or their video goes viral and we’re like, oh, why don’t my views? RV (06:23): My videos go viral, right? Like I’m only reaching 50 people, sweetheart. You only gotta reach 50 people. Like most of us don’t need thousands of customers to change our life. Most of us, our business would be radically transformed if we had like a dozen or two dozen of our perfect customers this year. Like you don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars as AJ says. So think of your online audience as an offline room. And that’ll give you a little more confidence and context of like, yeah, what you’re doing is making a difference. And it will also help you with your media strategy. Why? Because chasing mainstream media, it’s it’s, I don’t wanna tell you not to do it because it’s certainly not impossible. It, it is possible. And, and they, you know, the media needs you more than you need them. So that is true. RV (07:11): It’s just, you can expend a lot of energy chasing it and the odds aren’t in your versus you can go after things that you would think of as smaller or like not less important or less significant and actually get in front of a hundred people. And it’s like, that’s a hundred people. That’s a huge audience. You don’t need to be on a podcast that has millions of people. If, if you’re on a podcast that has a hundred downloads, a hundred, not a hundred million, a hundred, if those are the right a hundred people, that’s the same as speaking in front of a room of a hundred of your perfect prospects. So it’s like I would be more specific and target. And we talked about, listen, notes is a great, a great tool for that and spark Toro, where a couple great tools that you could look up that will help you research, you know, different podcasts and things on specific and different influencers on specific topics. RV (08:03): So you don’t need to have mainstream media if, if you don’t have a mainstream product. Also to this point, I, I was talking about how clicks are better than views clicks are better than views. So if we’re getting a media appearance, you know, like a, a five minute video clip on good morning, America is not gonna change your life. Like we, you think it will, but it’s not like it’s just not gonna drive that much website traffic. You’re not gonna get it that many opt-ins, you’re not gonna get that many. If any sales like take it from me, but on national TV a few times and had a lot of friends have done it now with a book launch, you get a national TV appearance. You might move a few hundred units with that, like, which is something, but it’s not gonna automatically make you an overnight bestseller just cuz you got on the today show one time, like it’s, it’s different, Speaker 3 (08:54): But what can help is when you get a write up and an online and somebody’s blog, like somebody who’s a huge blogger or you know, entrepreneur or ink or Forbes or fortune, if they have a link there to your site, that’s gonna move some people. So clicks are better than views. Although I, I think, you know, full length views, if it’s like an hour long video or an hour long, you know, listens like a podcast, those are super powerful cuz you, they, you have ’em for an hour. Other than that, the real value of national media is really how you repurpose it. It’s it’s, it’s making sure you put the logos on your website. You put the the video, you know, like the clips of you on TV, in your demo videos, in your sales videos and in your press kit, the clips of that, of course, all things we teach you specifically how to do and give you templates for if you’re one of our members which by the way, if you’re not a brand builder member, you should be. Speaker 3 (09:47): I mean, I, I mean our stuff is legit. I don’t, as humbly as I can say, we’re changing lives and we have a system that works like, and it’s not only working for us. It’s working for the biggest personal brands in the world. It’s working for people, just brand new intermediate people. Like we got people doing viral, Ted talks, book launches doing seven figures, eight figures in their business, growing their email list, growing their social followers, hundreds of thousands, people going viral with their Ted talks, like our stuff is working cuz it’s system, you know that we spend a lot of time. And, and if you ever wanna talk to someone on our team, you go to free brand call.com/podcast, free brand call.com/podcast and request a free call with our team it’s free. And then we’ve got different levels, right? We’ve got like stuff for beginners and you know, people in between and then, you know, private, like high end one-on-one coaching for like big time businesses and personal brands. Speaker 3 (10:41): So anyways, free brand call.com/podcast. Check that out every once in a while, if you haven’t yet. Alright. Second takeaway from Selena. If you wanna get on TV, there’s three things you need to do. Okay. So this is like divided into three subparts. So let’s, if you wanna get on TV and we have the actual TV conversation first of all, start local start with local TV, your local news channel. Why? Because there’s less competition. Two is because they need to feature local news, which is local people. So if you live there, you are a local. So it automatically skews it in your favor. There’s less people asking. They have the same amount of demands for putting out content every single, you know, day 24 hours a day. And and the other thing is because you get to practice, you get to practice, it’s a sandbox, right? Speaker 3 (11:37): Like you get to play there in the minor leagues a little bit. Before you go to the big leagues, big leagues, you don’t want your, I, I promise you, you might think you do, but I promise you, you don’t, you don’t want your first TV appearance to be the today show. You don’t want your first podcast appearance to be Louis Houser. Ed Mylet you might think you do, but I’m telling you, you don’t, you want to have practiced and you wanna be confident and tight and sharp and pithy and pointy and punchy and clear. And so that when you’re on there and you’re, you’re delivering your pillar points, it’s like bang, bang, bang. And you know, if again, I’m sound probably like an arrogant jerk here, but if you haven’t yet go listen to ed. My let’s show the ed, my let show podcast and listen to the interview of me on his show. Speaker 3 (12:25): What you will hear. There sounds like a spontaneous conversation. And, and in many ways it was and it was very honest and heartfelt and that’s part of the magic. But the baseline of it was that it was the greatest hits of what we teach at brand builders group delivered all in an hour. And so we have, I mean, we have dozens of comments there, there were thousands and thousands of comments, but dozens of comments saying, this is the greatest podcast episode I’ve ever heard on any podcast. Why? Because it’s four years of our life buttoned up and, and, and, and polished and put into this one, you know, 45 minute conversation plus Ed’s magic. And he’s amazing, right? And his audience and all that stuff. Like they love him. They trust him and, and we have great rapport and all that, you know, there’s a lot of things that come together, but we have hundreds of leads that came from that interview because it’s the right combination of all of these, all of these things, not the least of which is that, you know, ed is, is very trusted and he’s got a huge audience, but it’s, it’s a, it’s a great audience, right? Speaker 3 (13:26): And it’s like, I would rather have that appearance than the today show because it’s a, it’s, A’s an audience of entrepreneurs, which is our target audience, right. Experts and entrepreneurs. So start local learn to speak in sound bites, catch phrases. For those of you that are listening, that are brand builders internally and captivating content, we call these what pillar points and we teach you the six pillar point formulas. These are six different forms of sentence structure that make it sound smart. And what the way you say it is as important as what you say, the cadence of how we hear things makes it sound smart and even sink and sound smarter than the integrity of the idea itself. And you need to understand how to, to write, speak in soundbites. So like some of my more popular soundbites, success is never owned. Its rented in the rent is due every day. Speaker 3 (14:16): When you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. You’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, you make a life from the problem or you make a, you, you make a, a living from the problem you solve, but you make a life from the passion that you chase. All of these kinds of one liners that automation is to your time. What compounding interest is to your money. These are all one liners that I’ve spent years crafting, right? And then you hear ’em on a, on a TV show and you go, whoa, and it’s, it’s tight. It’s, it’s not three minutes to explain a concept. It’s RV (14:50): Like, like the most concentrated core essence of a, of an idea packaged beautifully delivered eloquently in a way that hits the ear and people just go ding. And that’s what you need. You know, when I’m saying we’re going bang, bang it’s it’s soundbite, soundbite, sound bite sound, bite, pillar, point pillar, point pillar, point catchphrase, catchphrase, they’re all, all the same thing, more or less. And then the other thing that she said, which I always forget about, I always forget about this was probably my greatest personal reminder from Selena was think about how to make it visual TVs are visual medium. So if you’re trying to get on TV, think about how to make it visual, right? Don’t just go. Here’s why I’m awesome. And why you should have me think from their perspective, they’re trying to go, how can we put together compelling visual content that holds people’s attention? RV (15:48): So just the fact that you’re smart isn’t necessarily make you a great guest for TV. Even if you’re eloquent, cuz it’s like, they need visual elements. So how can I make this more visual? And that was great. And, and again, just to shout out to Selena, like her framework that, that she taught and ran, ran through, which I just loved and you know, it was super simple. The publicity pyramid, you know, she’s a pro she’s a pro like was really, really good. And then the third thing, this is the last one. This is quick one, have one call to action and make sure it’s a lead magnet. RV (16:24): Don’t, don’t send people to a thousand places when they’re at the end of the interview and they say, so Rory, you know, this has been great. Where should people go to find out more about you? Be like, well, you can get my book on Amazon. You can follow me on Instagram at this handle. I got a podcast over here. I did a webinar one time on this, you know, I’ll probably go live next week on Facebook over here. No, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. Send them to one place, one URL, one call to action, say one thing over and over and over. And again, go listen to me on the ed mallet show. Part of why we got hundreds of leads is not because I’m saying, check out my book over here and I do this and that. And you want info about me on a keynote speaker, duh da no. RV (17:10): Yeah. You wanna learn about me? Go to one place free brand call.com and then I give, you know, his affiliate, right? And so everyone there’s and it’s like, well, where else should they go? I would just start there, go to free brand call.com. You know, and his is ed Mylet. You know, the one we use for this podcast free brand call.com/podcast, right? That’s what I’m talking about here. So one call to action, be very specific, clear one URL and send them to a property you control, right? Don’t send them to Amazon. Don’t send to Instagram, right? Like you finally got a captive audience. You finally have an opportunity to build your list and, and, and to start a relationship. And then you send ’em to a website. You have no control over where there’s a million other things going on, send them to a URL, dear goodness, like, and, and learn to create a lead magnet, a lead capture. RV (18:01): What, what is that? Right. Okay. All stuff we teach you inside a brand builders group, formal formal training, but a lead capture is a form. A lead magnet is something of value to them, right? And you go, here’s a free training or here’s a free download. Again. Selena did a brilliant job on our show. She had this amazing 12 month media calendar. And I was like, she’s such a pro. She gives one lead magnet, her little calendar, which I, I went and she got me. She got me I opted into her list. I wasn’t on her list. And she got me with her lead magnet. So give, when you have a chance to be in front of an audience, give them one lead magnet, something valuable. We’re gonna teach you how to build funnels and, and you know, webinars and things like that. But your first day, just make it a PDF. RV (18:46): Download open up PowerPoint, design a seven step checklist to blanky blank, save it and export it as a PDF, and then tell people how to go get it, where to email you and, and how to get it. Or, you know, as you get more sophisticated, you build it as web forms and all that stuff. But that’s the lead magnet is the thing you give them. The lead capture is the place you send them to actually get their information where you capture their info. So when you get these media appearances, oh my goodness, or a speaking opportunity, or you’re on TV or a podcast, like, please don’t send someone to go, go follow me on Instagram so that you can see 1% of my posts. Maybe if you even manage to find my profile and you don’t get distracted by cute puppy dogs or, you know, pictures of Teddy bears rolling around, like, and then if I’m lucky, you’ll see one out of every hundred posts I make no send them to a lead capture with a lead magnet where you can have them in your database and you can own their relationship. RV (19:45): I’m not saying don’t use social media. We use social media, but like, this is your opportunity. You just delivered value bombs on a media interview that you spent years practicing and sharpening and getting your pillar points down, make sure you harvest it properly, send them to a place. And don’t just send them to your website. If your website doesn’t have a lead capture on it, which it should be like, you know, lesson number one, lead capture, lead magnet on your website. Yeah. Make sure you have those things straight. So all, all things we’re gonna step you through. If you’re one of our brand builders and do time in, in the right order, but some great takeaways from Selena brilliant job she had, she had all the things we’re talking about, right? It’s not a mainstream media. Our, our podcast is not mainstream media, it’s niche, but it’s right in her niche. She knows that we trust people, our people, you know, we, we, we try to cultivate trust with y’all. We try to give you value. She’s speaking in soundbites. She has frameworks, her little publicity pyramid, one lead magnet, her little 12 media things. She gives you one URL, one place to go download it, pop, Speaker 4 (20:47): Pop, pop, pop, pop. That’s a publicity pro. So you know, anyways, we’re gonna get some affiliate links to, to promote some more of Salinas stuff. Hope you check it out. Thank you as always for tuning in. I love you. And thanks for listening to me rant here. I’m just trying to add value. I want to encourage you make sure you go you know, send Salina some love on, on social, like go follow her, leave her a comment. Tell her that you heard her on the influential personal brand podcast. Keep coming back, share this episode. Who do you know in your life that needs publicity? Who do you know, that’s an entrepreneur who do you know, that’s in a book launch? Who, who do you know in your life? Who’s like in this moment going, I’m trying to reach more people send ’em this episode, it’s free. All of our episodes are free. It’s unbelievable. The podcast. I hope you feel that way. I know from your reviews on iTunes, many of you do and you leave us great reviews, which help tremendously. So thank you for that. Thanks for your attention, your reviews, your sharing, your, your loving on our guests. And just for being here, we wanna see you succeed. We wanna see you exploit your uniqueness in the service of others. Have a great one. We’ll catch you next time. Bye-Bye.

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25 of the World's Most Recognizable Influencers Share Their Tips on How to Build and Monetize a Personal Brand

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