156 - Does Your Business Have Social Proof? With Meghan Ely
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Christi Johnson: Hello, friends. Welcome back to the dream biz podcast, the business podcast that helps you launch streamline and grow your business. So you can work less, make more money and flourish beyond what you thought possible. I'm your host, Christi Johnson. I'm a business coach dedicated to helping you build your most aligned and joyful business.

And every week on the podcast, I bring you actionable tips to help you build a business that you love. And I love bringing in experts to expand our collective knowledge. And I'm super. I'm super duper excited today to have award winning publicist Meghan Ely here on the show. Meghan. Thank you so much for being here.

Meghan Ely: Oh, it's such a joy to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Christi Johnson: Yes, and Meghan was on the podcast a couple years ago when it was under a different name and I'm just so thrilled that she's back. So Meghan, before we dive in, why don't you give us a little bit of an introduction and a brief part of your journey and how you got to where you are today?

Meghan Ely: Absolutely. So yeah, I am Meghan Ely. I'm the owner of OFD Consulting. So we are a small but mighty publicity firm based out of Richmond, Virginia, serving just about everywhere though. And you know, my start, I mean, how far do we go back? Right. But my start was a career test in high school that told me I'd be good at this.

And I just, I'm a rule follower. So I'm like, why don't I, why don't I just do that? But no, over the years I learned to have a real deep love of not just the media, but the, the art of public relations and after years. seven years in the event industry working in the venue space. I made the decision to go out on my own to combine my background, my training, my love of PR with serving the wedding and event industry, which, you know, brings me to all sorts of wonderful, I work with so many great small businesses, creatives, and so forth.

And, you know, it keeps me busy between we have a wedding PR membership that keeps us. busy working with editors and writers to get our folks published and get them set with great resources. But I'm also an educator. So I'm also somebody who goes out on the road. I travel and I love to, to share on how to get published and really leverage that social proof as well.

Christi Johnson: Awesome. Thank you for sharing. So we're going to talk about how to know, does your business have social proof? And we're going to talk about media presence as well and looking for those opportunities that will fit with you. So why don't we go ahead by and start by just defining social proof. What does that mean and why is it valuable to business owners?

Meghan Ely: Yeah, absolutely. Social proof in the most like just easiest way to put it is just when everybody else says you're great. So that it's one thing for us to sit there and have these amazing, you know, ads that we've paid for and all that. And those are all great things to do. But then when you've got the gravitas of somebody coming in and saying you're great, whether it's through testimonials, whether it's through awards, whether it's through press mention.

So it's the idea of all the people around you really singing your praises and that's what we're looking for, for any small business. 

Christi Johnson: Okay. I love that. And it is. I think a lot of people think of social proof as those testimonials that they get on their website, like you mentioned. But I know that being a publicist, you like to go a step deeper and, and help people get featured in different articles, magazines, speaking opportunities, all that type of thing.

So, can you talk to us about how that media presence is really valuable for business owners? 

Meghan Ely: A thousand percent. You are correct. I want people to know that testimonials is a great place to start, right? Reviews, all that. So, yes, shout out to those who are focusing on that because that's invaluable. So, press is another way to have other people say you're great.

It may not be New York Times editor says Christy is great, right? But instead it is, right? Utilizing you as a source. Maybe they're doing a full article about you. Maybe they're quoting you as an expert in your field. It could be, and this is a meta moment here. So Chrissy, I hope you'll forgive me, but being interviewed by podcasts, right?

A podcast of saying, yeah, this person's worth a 20, 30 minute, 40 minute conversation about X, Y, and Z. And it's also the awards and speaking as well. But I would say with the media presence, what it does is it's an automatic, automatic kudos to someone saying, yeah, this person is an expert enough so that we're going to bring them in.

We're going to quote them or maybe their story is compelling enough or something that they've done is compelling enough as well. And so that leads to the idea of social proof. When you have testimonials, someone who's worked with you says they're amazing. When you're using media, you've got members of the media saying, yeah, these guys are a noted expert. And we went to them when we had this question. 

Christi Johnson: Yeah, so how can someone who is just getting started in looking for aligned opportunities, how can they go about finding people to connect with? And let's start with just a basic, you know, a basic overview. Because 

Meghan Ely: PR as a whole can be an overwhelming sort of idea.

And so I love the idea of starting out small with folks. And there's a few ways you can go. First, I'll give you two different ways people can go. First and foremost, if you are someone who currently advertises you know, it doesn't hurt to reach out to your advertorial sales contact and just be like, Hey, is there anything on the editorial side in terms of opportunities I should be aware of?

Now, I am the first to say, typically in the media space, advertorial and editorial are separated. And that's good. Like you want those to be separated, but there is this push for a value add on for people who advertise that they might have an opportunity. Oh yeah, we've got a few things coming up or I can introduce you or so and so forth.

So let's Let's be mindful. That's one way to go, but that doesn't work for everybody, right? If someone's not currently advertising. So they're also free and low cost programs. I used to talk a lot about something called Haro. May it rest in peace because it is now shut down, unfortunately, but it's something called quoted Q W O T E D.

And it's a free resource. And what it does is it's from the Haro model is essentially says everybody is a resource and anybody can be a resource and people are experts all over, right? Like, I guess I know wedding PR. I also know, I know small business ownership, but I know cats. Right. I know Grey's Anatomy.

There's a few things I could talk about on the call. We all got something we could talk about, but in, in seriousness though, you know, whether it's what we do for a living or a lived experience, being a small business owner, create a business. And so what it does is you sign up and you get these free emails that say, Hey, these writers are looking for experts in these areas.

And if you're fit, you can go ahead and pitch them. And it's a great free low cost way to get started is signing up for something like that. 

Christi Johnson: I love that you are sharing resources that we can go to and really get some value from. Now, let's go a little bit deeper. Maybe someone already has a few pieces of press that they're proud about.

Yeah. But they kind of want to start diving deeper into more aligned sources and maybe like have something that is going to be even more. Valuable. How can they, what would be like a second step for them to kind of go through and find opportunities that are like, Oh my gosh, this is exactly where I want to be featured.

Like how can we build those relationships? Is it like relationship building? Is it reaching out to advertisers, like you said, or, or following the breadcrumbs? Sure. What would be a good way to just go a little bit deeper? 

Meghan Ely: So I would say the, the top level would be the advertising. So I would get that out of the way right away.

And that's low hanging fruit. So if we're going to the next level, so a few different ways we can go, I'll give you a couple to get started first and foremost, especially if you serve in, in a local area. And I know this is going to vary because I'm in a smaller area, shout out Richmond, Virginia, but larger cities, this is harder to penetrate.

But I would say having a full feature about your company, something that you're doing. different and interesting. The important thing is what you have to be doing is different and interesting. There has to be a hook there. But a lot of people ask me, well, tell me about something that, you know, tell me about a way I can be featured, you know, in that manner locally.

And so what you're going to do is you go to the local publications, you go right in your own backyard and you look to whether it's magazines, some places, newspapers are still, you know, it just. really depends on where you are, right? We have richmond. com, for example, and that's a big place here. So what you're going to do is you're going to find reporters in particular, who their beat, which means their area of expertise, what they focus on would be small business ownerships, entrepreneurship.

They highlight small business in town doing cool things. So if you're someone who qualifies, cause you're doing something cool currently, then what you can do is New in, believe it or not, it's going to be as easy as starting a conversation. It takes a little bit of research narrowed down to publications that make sense in your area.

From there, what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to seek out the features, the areas, the business section where there's going to be an obvious pattern to writers who's. beat will be writing about small businesses. We have, we have sections of our local areas where they, they write about small businesses all the time.

We have another you know, also called rich and biz sense where it does write all the time about entrepreneurs. So then, you know, it gets to the point where these guys write about small businesses and creative and these about restaurants, but you gotta find the person most likely to benefit from knowing you.

And so what you'll do is you'll do the research of. Finding who those writers are, seeing if there's any sort of submission process. Because sometimes when it's like a column, there is, you know, there's something like, Oh, if you want to be considered do X, Y, and Z, and you follow the rules. It's not a sexy process, but it's a lot of following the rules of that.

But if there's no clear way to submit yourself for consideration to a column, such as this is finding the writers and their email addresses. So we do need to be little Google stalkers here and reaching out to them. And in simply saying, Hey, you know, I want to take a moment to reach out. I see that you cover.

Your beat is, or you cover small businesses in our region for this publication. I want to take a moment to reach out and see what are, what are the parameters to be considered to be a feature in, in introducing yourself. My name is this, I'm the owner of this. These are some cool things we're doing right now.

Happy to provide anything else you need. Thanks for your consideration. It's that open conversation. Just, You find them, you get to kind of read their, their articles a little bit, get a feel for what they like to cover. Maybe even follow them on social media ahead of time, get to get a better feel and then put the pitch out there to see.

So that's, that's one way to get started. It really is PR as a whole is about paying attention. It's about, you know, mapping out a strategy and saying, well, I want this kind of press. Well, who's. writing about that kind of press, what kind of places are featuring that kind of press, and then how can you warm up a conversation reading their articles, maybe commenting, following them on social, LinkedIn you know, it could be Instagram.

It just depends on where they are, TikTok, so and so forth. And then from there, you just starting that conversation with them. That's a great start to get going. 

Christi Johnson: Yeah, and a lot of my audience, they're very used to doing this type of thing on Instagram with someone that they want to connect with and maybe have as a referral partner or someone that they want to appear on their podcast.

And it sounds like you can use those similar types of skills to just transfer that over even if PR is a new world for you and and you haven't. You don't know what, what to do. You can just transfer some of those skills over and find the people that are writing that you want to connect with and, and do a little bit of internet stalking.

Meghan Ely: Yeah. And it comes in, may I add, it comes to the mindset too, that, you know, writers as a whole, they're always looking for great stories and they're always on a deadline. And personally, I find like, I don't want to be like, oh, I don't want to bother them. Well, you're not bothering them if you're giving them a great story exclusively, right?

So you want to be able to give great content. 

Christi Johnson: I love that. So, some people might think, okay, well, I don't know if this is really gonna be worth it for me. How do I know if I am spending all this time on getting more press opportunities that it's really going to help? So, have you seen seen like an increase in business when people follow these opportunities? That sounds like an easy yes. 

Meghan Ely: That's a loaded question. Sometimes, let's say sometimes people probably say, but let me tell you why. When you start with PR, when you start with, you know, wanting that, you have to ask yourself, what has to happen for this to be a success? Because Christi, none of us have unlimited funds, unlimited time to focus on all this.

So we have to say what. What has to happen here? And so everybody has different reasons for it. For some, it is that coveted social proof that when it's you versus somebody else in most other things considered are very similar, they're going to look at it and they'll see that as seen in that authority.

And that's going to push them over the edge. That could be part of it. You see, sometimes people want more traffic to their site, which you can use something like a Google analytics to track that more followers. You can track that all on your, you know, on Instagram and all this. But it's also an SEO strategy.

I'll be perfectly honest. Like there are times where people are gunning for those. backlinks. They want link backs from different sites to move them up on Google. And we see a lot of that. So yes, I have seen increased brand awareness. I've seen people get more business out of that. I've seen people with the SEO strategy too, but I think the biggest thing is we have to define our own success for each other.

Like what, what for ourselves and then knowing it's not the same for each other. Can we pause for a second? Can I take a step back and say that part again? Okay. Sure. Okay. At the end of the day, we have to realize that we have to define our own level of success, right? Because what PR success looks to me, looks like something different for somebody else.

I've got clients who are really aiming for the New York times and they feel that's going to be life changing for them. And it's amazing. It took 11 years before I think 11 before I got actually quoted in it and it, and it's done different things for me from an SEO standpoint that I'm grateful for, but it means something different to somebody else.

Right? And so that's the biggest thing you have to do is what has to happen for that to be a success. 

Christi Johnson: Yeah. So going into it with a strategy is really important. Define your goals and figure out what exactly you're wanting to get out of it. Because if you're just saying, Oh, I'm going to get these features and I don't really have any way to measure the results, then that's not really going to work out for you.

But it's important to make, it sounds like you're saying it's important to know, are you looking for SEO help? Are you looking to boost your SEO? Are you looking to get some more traffic to your site or are you looking to build more relationships? in the industry. It just kind of depends on what it is that you're looking for.

Meghan Ely: Absolutely. That coveted as seen in is, is really fantastic for a lot of people, but for some that's just not going to be a priority. It just really depends what you're looking to do. 

Christi Johnson: Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about some transformations. Do you have any like examples of any transformations you've seen from any of the people that you're working with when they started to implement, use, utilizing more social proof in their business or, or if you want to give an example of yourself, like how can this really turn someone's business into like, just a really sought after person to work with?

Meghan Ely: Sure, I can do a couple of them. I'll keep the, I'll keep, I'm going to keep the client somewhat anonymous here, but I I'll start with myself. First and foremost, when I first got started, what I did was very unique. I mean, wedding PR, there's still only like five or six people who do what I do. Right. So it's, it's, it's a little bit harder to explain versus I am a dentist in Omaha, Nebraska.

Like I understand that more than I understand what a wedding publicist was. And it really wasn't a place for me to advertise. Like I was willing to do it, but there just wasn't a spot for me to do it at the time. And so what I did was I became my own publicist. I went out and I hit the podcast hard early and continue to, I go ahead and write regularly for some publications and then get quoted on occasion when it's appropriate, New York times, so, and so forth.

And so what it did for me was at the beginning, I was known as I was in wedding videos. And people knew me as that wedding venue person, it was hard to change that conversation and turn it around to, yeah, she did that, but she's a public, like a publicity expert. She's an industry expert. And so over the years, I mean, we've had hundreds, I'm grateful and humble to say we've had hundreds of press opportunities that have come through the door.

Some major national ones, some amazing like local niche ones, industry ones. And as a result, the conversation completely changed over. It has sent a great deal of business to me over the years. I am one of the top on Google as a result of that. And it's been transformative for my business as I move towards more national press that allowed me to attract national clients.

I mean, once they could see that we were working with like good morning America or insert. Whatever, you know, and I hate to say it, but during the pandemic, which was an awful time for people, but that was so incredibly busy for us. We did a hundred features in the first first 30 days, I believe I have to go back and double check, but it was a billion.

We were doing so many articles. And so because of that, like that really opened the door to show people that national side, you know, even though what we really were doing was just representing, you know, our wonderful people. Now I will say on the client side, again, I don't want to name names. I want to be careful with why I explain this because everybody comes in with different.

You know, things that they're looking for and, and so forth. But one of the biggest benefits I've seen is we have a handful of people who've really been gunning for the, on the SEO side. Now, I'm not an SEO expert, so I'm not going to sit here and say I know anything about it. I have great people I can recommend, but, but I am not one of them.

But we've had people who've been multiple pages into Google and the fact is what we do for a living, Google is one of the top ways that couples find, you know, find their service. Providers. And so what happened was that we've had people come in. I have this one person in particular who vacillates between two regions.

They are a wedding pro and they were several pages deep into Google, which is not where you want to be. Most people are not looking there. And so this year alone, so at the time of this recording, it's been 11 months in change a little bit, almost 12 months, but this person has had well over 50 Press features this year alone.

They got a dorky little trophy from us for being a super user. And as a result, they, for many of the keywords they were chasing down, they are now first page of Google already, which makes a tremendous impact when it comes to referrals, not referrals. I'm sorry. Tremendous impact when it comes to searchable people, finding you inquiries and so on and so forth as well.

So it's been really transformative for them as well. 

Christi Johnson: I love that and something that you mentioned that I kind of want to talk a little bit more about is you said that you were known as the venue person. So if someone has a something that they want to kind of get into and establish them a reputation for themselves.

Maybe whether they're changing from one reputation that they have already to they want to change to something else or if they want to kind of establish. as, okay, I'm this person. So for example, last year in my business, I was focused mostly on launching and helping people launch. I was doing integration type work and back in stuff, but then I ended up having a mental health crisis and burned out and it was a lot and I decided I wanted to focus more on something that was.

A little bit slower paced and I'm transitioning into coaching. And so if someone is wanting to kind of establish themselves as like the coach for neurodivergent entrepreneurs or, you know, the wedding expert on this certain type of topic, how can they start to build that type of reputation for themselves?

Meghan Ely: Number one thing you do is you got to show it that that's the thing is you have to show it because when you invite you, I mean, the Royal you out there, cause I'm like pointing my finger, but I don't mean you, Christi, you, the Royal you, when you want to be known as the expert you are, you, it has to be very apparent on your digital presence.

It's going to be your website. It's going to be your social. Like I, I can't stress enough when I'm talking with reporters and I'm pitching somebody, it needs to be abundantly clear if they're Googling that person, that they are an expert. I need the number one person in. main for us. And it needs to be clear.

They know what they're trying. I need someone to talk to you about luxury, like whatever that is. It's going to be absolutely essential that they go ahead and, and see that. So you've got to put it out there. You've got to come up with a content plan that doesn't overwhelm the other things you're doing, but really gets into it.

That you are seeking education and you're seeking the ability to educate other people. That is number one thing people are doing. And if anyone ever comes to a point where like, well, I just don't have a lot to say in the top topic. Well, guess what? Then that's not your topic. Let's, let's move on, you know?

Christi Johnson: Yeah, exactly. So it's, it's important to show people what it is that you are doing and find places where you can talk about that and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. So I want to also talk a little bit about what your company does for people. Can you tell everyone just a little bit about how you help people build their PR presence?

Meghan Ely: Absolutely. So, you know, we primarily work with wedding and event pros, and 80 percent of my work is actually going to be done through OFD Collective. So it's a wedding PR membership where we provide education. We can do submissions for people that's optional, but it's one of the things on behalf for, for events.

And then we also provide what's called press leads. And so essentially 20, 25 times a month, I'm working with all sorts of great writers. Sometimes we're doing the writing and it's. editorial opportunities where it's, you know, the Pantone of the color, color of the year just came out. And so like we did a ton of articles with people on what are your thoughts, how to incorporate it for better, for worse, all of those things.

And so that's really what we provide. I will tell you, we have a couple of courses teaching people how to be wedding industry speakers, submitting their own events. And of course we offer some customized training as well. 

Christi Johnson: Awesome. And is there anything else that you want to share about the whole topic of social media or media presence or some last tips that you want to share with the audience?

Meghan Ely: Absolutely. I need you to remember, and by you I mean the listeners out there, press only lives as long as you allow it to. So it's important to make sure that you have a plan for promotion, have a bit of a checklist, so when something comes across your desk, you are ready. I would say anybody who has It's four to five minimally great press features they're excited about.

You should be looking to having some sort of as seen in with logos on your homepage as long as you're following all the licensing rules and or a press page that will go ahead and link to all these features so people can see that everyone else is saying you're great. 

Christi Johnson: I love that. Thanks so much. So tell people where they can follow you online and learn more about you.

Meghan Ely: Absolutely. Best place to find me is OFDconsulting. com. That also is for Instagram, OFDconsulting. I always tell people don't find me at TikTok because I am just watching cat videos. So OFDconsulting. com. And that's a great place to connect with me. Don't hesitate to, to reach out and ask questions.

Christi Johnson: Awesome. Thank you so much. Meghan. It was so great to have you. 

Meghan Ely: Thank you. 

Christi Johnson: All right. Well, please join me next week for another episode of the dream biz podcast. I'm excited to see y'all then bye.