Why Thought Leadership is the New PR

John Jantsch ( 00: 01.496 )

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. John Jantsch is who I am. My guest today is Amy Rosenberg. She has a wealth of knowledge in enhancing visibility and credibility for organizations of all sizes. She is a seasoned PR strategist, agency founder, and author. We are going to talk about her latest book, A Practical Guide to Public Relations for Businesses, Nonprofits and PR Leaders. So Amy, welcome to the show.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 00: 28.578 )

Hi, thanks for having me.

John Jantsch ( 00: 30. 912 )

So you cover a lot of ground on the book. mean, it’s something that’s called a practical guide is usually pretty broad. Traditional media relations, of course, with SEOs and AIs in there. What are the most common misconceptions basically when it comes to PR that you see businesses still having in 2025?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) 00: 55.96

Well, I’m gonna laugh. If people still think that we need to do press releases, that’s like an old misconception that like people should actually be over that by now. But this is going to be funny in general. You don’t always need PR. That’s kind of the problem. So here’s the thing. And that’s the whole book title, practical. We must approach things with care. We don’t need to do everything. Additionally, we occasionally have PR. Sometimes we can do a press release, but.

We need to kind of like think about it first and get things organized first. And in fact, we must first have a good online presence. And then we can go and do some PR. And at this time, PR is actually assisting with AI search. So showing up in AI. So the old story used to be, PR helps with SEO, which is showing up in Google.

John Jantsch ( 01: 43.47 )

Mm-hmm.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 01: 51.544 )

But as of right now, we still want to appear high on Google. And we can do that through digital PR. And I can talk about how. However, it seems that PR is very important for AI search right now. But of course, I’m going to have to dig into that because nobody is using that AI.

John Jantsch ( 02: 08.066 )

Well, I think there’s no question that the AI crawlers, if we’re going to call them that, are really looking at trusted media sources to get a lot of their information. there’s no mystery, I think, in why that’s become more important.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 02: 26.284 )

Yeah, and so it’s always been a mystery to talk about PR because it, well, it’s PR people actually like to make it very mysterious. So what I tried to do with my first book and now my second one is to de-mystify it. So the first book is for PR people because I started to see a lot of them actually weren’t trained and there’s kind of a right way and a wrong way to do things. And oftentimes when we have rules,

that kind of gives us some guidelines to adhere to in a challenging field. But as I finished that book, I was thinking, well, this book is really possibly not helpful for business owners because, well, I’m giving a little bit too many examples that the PR people need. And so this book is much more organized, stripped down on the media relations tactics, and like five years later, six years later.

really actually leads with thought leadership and how thought leadership, it’s always been a part of PR, but now thought leadership is really the key to getting up higher on Google and AI.

John Jantsch ( 03: 40.366 )

Okay, I’ll return to that. But I think part of the confusion is, you know, in the old days, before we had all these digital platforms, it was really more of a, it was very much a relationship game. was, knew, who you knew at the publications because they were very tightly held. You know, how you could spin a story in a way that was meaningful to a journalist. You those were the real skills. But suddenly, you know, you know, all of a sudden, you know,

We’ve got Facebook, or we’ve got blogs, and we’ve got Reddit, and we’ve got all these other things that essentially can be lumped into PR. How do you sort of clarify what PR actually is?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 04: 19.138 )

Well, good question. And I adore that because I believe in it. Honestly, I kind of do want a little bit of silo or separation. We can turn a PR campaign into content any way we like. Right. But PR typically is like you’re saying the media relations aspect. However, there is also a lot more strategy and occasionally some.

some crisis comms, some crisis prep. So we’ll occasionally be aware that we can pick out our negative aspects and arrange them in accordance with those and then choose not to spin them instead instead of focusing on the positive aspects of our negative aspects and center the narrative around them.

John Jantsch ( 05: 09.422 )

So you already mentioned SEO and I’m seeing a lot of SEO folks, know, it used to just be, we could get keyword rankings by doing X, Y, and Z all day long. That is how it operated. And I’ve seen certainly a lot of them say that’s not working so well anymore. And I hear a lot of SEO professionals talking more about PR now, not as a siloed practice, but as a component of SEO. And then you make that case certainly in the book.

Do you have an example of where integrating SEO or really thinking like PR as a core component of SEO made a measurable difference?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 5: 46.788 )

Well, I feel like right now I’m the worst salesperson ever and I’m the one that will never tout my profession too much because it’s a little salesy. However, many SEO professionals have claimed that PR is the real source of trustworthy links. So here’s the thing, Google knows when you’re buying links, sometimes. So you can kind of like forget,

John Jantsch ( 06: 06.222 )

Yeah, totally.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 06: 167. 92 )

sponsored articles sometimes, depending. And then we just need to get our clients, if we can, ourselves on high domain authority websites. Additionally, the media has a higher domain authority than other websites. So not only are they more credible, well, some media, more credible in the public’s eye.

In Google’s eyes, they are more trustworthy. So if you’re showing up in Google, then ideally you would show up in an AI chat box as well. But I mean, that to me is a little nebulous. More research is needed, in my opinion. you don’t get, anyway, you don’t get all of those links that you don’t get to review in AI. Therefore, it will only become significantly more strategic and thoughtful. And that is…

really what PR people are good at.

John Jantsch ( 07 :28 )

So talk a little bit more about the, the idea of thought leadership. put, know, there are, there are, there are, there are, there are, there are, there are, there are, there are, there are, certain types of industries. makes a ton of sense, know, nonprofits. certainly makes a ton of sense. Do you believe that should be a strategic component of almost every company? mean, not just that person that’s like, I’m, know, I’m this well-known CEO with a book and blah, blah, but just like every business almost has to have like.

their interpretation of a media influencer that is, you know, seen in the media.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 07: 51.788 )

Yeah, it would be great if they could. Please just back up a little bit. So thought leadership, so B2B media or thought leadership type of media, that’s an easier way to do PR. That yields more accurate results. So often we are not looking at relationships. We are looking at streamlining. want because we can’t form relationships with everyone. So we need to have good ways to scale our PR campaigns.

John Jantsch ( 08:02.926 )

Mm-hmm.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 08: 18.07 )

And so when we’re doing thought leadership, that’s positioning a person, whether it’s an article or on the stage, we are streamlining everything because you’re getting a lot more value actually in Google’s eyes because it all ties back to, I don’t know if you know the acronym EAT, I’m gonna mess about, but that’s what thought leadership is, is EAT, which is the

John Jantsch ( 08: 41. )

Sure, of course.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 08:47.46 )

what Google looks for. have human reviewers and they’re looking for anyone that’s writing on a topic to have experience, authority, trust, and there was another one. don’t recall. Two T’s.

John Jantsch ( 09: 00.406 )

It’s the other E, the other E they add is expertise. So it’s experience, expertise, authority, and trust. And that’s where the media, as well as being able to say,” I did this thing,” as opposed to instructing someone how to do it, is crucial. Case studies, things of that nature have become really.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 09: 04. 06 )

thank you.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 09: 20.374 )

Yes, and I just want to add that we don’t, we need to sort of start somewhere, don’t I? We don’t need to start. Many people become extremely irritable about thought leadership because, first of all, I mentioned this stage. Well, a lot of my clients are shy and they are running companies, they’re CEOs and they’re busy. know, who really has time to go out and do a lot of speaking engagements, right? So we occasionally will do that, but frequently we start, so you have to start somewhere new. So we start with

content, and this is where the CEO writes excellent blogs, which are then translated into press articles, which are ideal for high domain authority websites, and where our CEO doesn’t have to travel as much as we do. So and I feel like my clients they don’t Maybe they don’t have time to to get on a stage or

or they don’t want to. This is where this kind of practical approach to public relations comes in.

John Jantsch ( 10: 29.518 )

How do you relate PR to a couple of categories or platforms, or channels, perhaps the better word? You know, I, I, you know, we’re on a podcast today, recording this. I happen to think podcasts is amazing channel for thought leadership, for exposure, for backlinks, for content creation that really is not a huge lift for a lot of people, you know, to come and do those. How do you balance being a guest on podcasts?

more specifically on a podcast into your overall PR world.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 11: 03.46 )

Good question. So first of all, they are huge for building domain authority or for getting SEO because, know, so often what we will do is podcasts are part of the whole thing. We do outline DA, but we really get into that detail with our media lists, which is where we all go. So to tell you the truth, before I decided to do, well, thank you for having me on the podcast.

John Jantsch ( 11: 30.294 )

Yeah.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 11: 31.34 )

I looked and you have a good DA, you have a really good like 54, which for my agency, I’m at like 20 something and I’m a small agency. So you are fantastic. And then the media, they’re around 80 to 100. so we look at that and then for some clients, again, they don’t wanna be too, they’re busy, we don’t wanna bug them. And so we’ll check.

John Jantsch ( 11: 45.582 )

in 70s, 80s, yeah.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 12: 00.258 )

where we replace them, and then we will also think about it as a way to practice our talking points. This is where you should start off. So if we do wanna go and do a speaking engagement, we do need a little visibility first to get our client accepted. So we start with podcasts, actually. And then there are times when podcasts are more effective than just continuing to do those.

John Jantsch ( 12: 07.597 )

Yeah.

John Jantsch ( 12: 23.052 )

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch ( 12: 30.168 )

Yes. Yes. So, so let’s jump to another one. social media platforms. think for a lot of PR people, it’s kind of a double-edged sword from a reputation standpoint. how do you view or how do you advise clients to, work social media into their overall marketing slash PR type of plans?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 12: 49.496 )

Well, again, I don’t want to say again because I’ve never said this before, but I noticed that you do a lot of systems work. so that busy people, especially myself, can’t be busy. We can’t do anything without systems. So and so it might not be quote unquote strategic, but we need to get things done. And we do need some visibility on some of the platforms, not all of them. So we’ll look at a client will think, OK, on what platforms do you want to

should they be on, and then we’ll develop some guidelines for how frequently we post about something, such as three posts per blog post, and then a different writing rule that requires at least one post per media hit, if not two, and that’s what we’re going to do.

we have to thank the media and tag them. So anyway, so we have those systems and oftentimes we were a PR firm. So many PR professionals will say,” Well, you do social, that’s your job.” You shouldn’t silo it. Okay, so well, but here’s the deal. Sometimes people just hire us for PR and then we notice they’re not doing social and we might need them to because we’re looking at a crisis down the road. So we need some positive social now.

John Jantsch ( 14: 16.077 )

Mm.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 14: 18.252 )

And so we will just kind of say, OK, here’s our system. This is what we’re doing around this social and kind of get it done.

John Jantsch ( 14: 29.74 )

So PR, I’m sure you’ll have a response to this, but I have to set it up in this manner. know, PR is often looked at as, you know, as a nice to have, you know, you can’t measure it. does not, because it doesn’t necessarily drive sales. How do you get a client over that or how do you actually prove to them that the PR is valuable?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 14: 50.308 )

I just love your questions, once more. Well, like I said, I’m the worst salesperson ever. So I don’t, too. I don’t fight people. don’t have. No one has the time to do that either. And then also, in a way, they might be right. We must examine the budget. It’s all about your budget and your bandwidth. So some clients we can’t we can’t work with everybody. That’s the reason we wrote. I wrote the book. However, we also want to collaborate with.

And it doesn’t matter what we want. It’s who is ready for a PR and who’s not. And it has to be someone who, in this day and age, needs to get your stuff together first, which is your base, which is content, in my opinion. We’ve gotta have like a nice kind of streamlined thing going so that you’re in the groove. We must provide for the beast. Then we can layer in some PR. And then we can put PR again on a program.

John Jantsch ( 15: 31.821 )

You

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 15: 46.69 )

where we can interpret it as having goals. They could be almost like sales quota goals, but for PR or content where we say, okay, we’re gonna just, we’re gonna do one campaign per quarter and that might just be enough. And we just have it all scheduled out so that we’re not feeling like we’re missing something. But really, we’re attempting to measure our results, don’t we?

So we do have a great database called Muckrack that is our software that connects with our clients ‘ Google Analytics. And so we can track, well, we have this online school. So we can track where our coverage landed in terms of the location. And we can track the enrollment for the school by location. So you can be very specific with that.

John Jantsch ( 16: 19.681 )

Mm-hmm.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 16: 45.326 )

But at the end of the day, we’re all working together as a marketing team in-house, you know, marketing team. And we’re not going to say it was from the PR.

John Jantsch ( 16: 54.958 )

Yeah, right. So, that’s fine. People listening today, we’ve been kind of all over the place talking about PR, SEO, a little bit about AI, content, social. If somebody’s out there and they’re thinking, you know, I need to do more in this, I mean, is there a single most important thing they can focus on, say, the next six months in your view? If someone said, “hey, I want to get the most out of it,” And again, I’m not saying, I mean, maybe the best thing they can do is hire you.

However, you know, in the short of that, are there things you’re telling people that you need to stop doing this and start doing this, you know, over the next six months, that you believe would have the biggest impact?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 17: 39.204 )

So if you’re really just not doing anything, I would just say try and get yourself on a monthly blogging program for SEO. So you might not want to think about that PR. But once you kind of get that going, then you can look at like the marketing calendar and kind of think about how when you can do some PR, when you can do some proactive PR. And if you look, I have a…

calendar on my website that is free. need to make sure that you can access the link, but it has, you could fill out your marketing calendar and I call it marketing, but a lot of it is PR. To be clear, PR may look a little different these days. It’s not a press release per se. It’s an article or two, one for each of these and one for the other. So if you’re interested in learning more, there’s a lot of great resources.

John Jantsch ( 18: 28.354 )

Yes. Yes.

John Jantsch ( 18: 38.296 )

Well, so where would you invite people to kind of find? I know we’re going to have links. We have a link to your PR resources. I see. So, if there were, where would you invite people to connect with you and learn more about the book itself?

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 18: 52.196 )

Well, I’d love if they would like to connect on Linked In. And I’m publishing a lot of posts there about PR. And then, yeah, if they want to go to the resources section, and it might actually be under Marketplace on my website, you can buy books there. However, there are also some free resources available, such as a number of videos that can help you through the process.

John Jantsch ( 19: 21.196 )

Awesome. I’m glad you stopped by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast once more and hope to see you soon out on the side of the road.

Amy Rosenberg ( She/Her ) ( 19: 29.336 )

Yay, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.