S6 E4: Writing for Impact in 2025 with Ann Smith

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:01

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I'm Adrian McIntyre.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:07

And I'm Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN.

With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:28

Our guests on this bi-weekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:47

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now let's meet our guest for this episode.

Ann Smith: 00:00:59

Hi, I'm Ann Smith, president and founder of A.wordsmith. We are a boutique communications firm based in Portland, Oregon. We really specialize in writing services, traditional PR, as well as branding and communication strategy work. And we have been around since spring of 20 09 and I've been really looking forward to this conversation.

Abbie Fink: 00:01:22

You and I have been pals for a while and interacted in other industry organizations and so I've known that your agency focuses on content and thought leadership is certainly something that all of us talk a lot about with our clients and using their knowledge and expertise to position them as an industry leader, as a thought leader. But there's really a real strategy around that as a concept and it's more than just 500 words and off we go. I mean you've really got to put some thought into what that's going to look like. So thinking about your journey to that as your area of expertise. But you know, what role is thought leadership or thought where as you're referring to it really playing now in our communication strategies?

Ann Smith: 00:02:25

Yeah, I mean even just today I saw a social media post just around the power of owned content right now and how important it is becoming even in today's media landscape which is shifting so much. But we really started focusing on thought leadership as a core niche very early on in the agency's, you know, lifespan.

Sort of happened by accident based on clients that we had who wanted to have their people very much involved in being published and being out speaking and winning awards.

And then by nature of that we started doing a lot of bylined article writing which then, you know, kind of parlayed into this whole writing services area that our firm really specializes in. And you know, for us it goes hand in hand with the earned media side.

You know, if you're securing byline Placements, then obviously you need to have those things written. But there's a lot more content that we put under that thoughtware content umbrella.

You know, white papers, ebooks, blogs, long form perspective pieces. There's, you know, things that maybe are a little more traditional marketing, but whether it's impact stories or you know, even social media posts.

So, you know, we really are coming to clients all the time and having very strategic conversations with how they can be building a real campaign around thought leadership. You know, but that encompasses a variety of different types of materials we've all.

Abbie Fink: 00:04:09

Been talking about and believe strongly in. You know, content is king. We have to have a good story to tell, you know, we have to have a good place to tell it.

That's, you know, sort of the bottom line for most professional communicators is we get that and we understand that this concept of, you know, thought leadership or, you know, being industry recognized, industry expert, I think with at least my view on it, is there because as you say, there are so many things that can fall under that umbrella. There are so many places for that content to live and to have, you know, a shelf life beyond the original intent or the original placement.

It really is a strategy, it's not a tactic any longer. It really has to be developed in such a way that gives it a long term approach and that all the things that we expect from a campaign, measurable results and is it hitting the mark and are we reaching the target audience is still in play here, right?

Ann Smith: 00:05:22

Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, coming at it from a strategic standpoint is how it's going to really be most effective versus just one off, you know, writing a blog or you know, even securing an article placement. Those things are great.

But without having a real reason behind why you're doing those things, they're not going to have the same impact that you're wanting, you know, and so it's, it's really best if we're working with an organization that is looking to do some foundational research.

Maybe they're coming in with specific, you know, survey findings or they've gone through a kind of a sophisticated research process on a particular industry or a particular topic, then they have those findings which then their team in conjunction with, you know, if it's, if it's our team, we're able to mine through those and see what are key things that are rising to the top, that are unique or that have, you know, legs that we can dig in on more and from there kind of thinking about, well, what is the, you Know, what are the different possibilities we can be looking at when it comes to content? And then to your point about not just recreating the wheel, but like leveraging.

When you write a white paper and you go through all the work that a white paper requires, which is going to be, you know, actual research, it needs to be based, in fact, you're having conversation with subject matter experts, you're doing a lot of steps to create a really high quality piece, but then not just leaving it at that, being like, okay, great, now we can actually build a blog series out of this white paper content. We can also be having social media strategy and posts that are coming from some of this content.

We can be going back to those subject matter experts and diving deeper into their specific opinions and areas of expertise so that we can craft abstracts that we can then pitch to editors and hopefully secure byline placements.

So it creates much more of a robust, you know, campaign around a particular theme that, you know, started with some, started with some research and some findings, but that, you know, takes it a lot further and also has like real lifespan even as far as the time. It's not just like a one and done.

Abbie Fink: 00:07:46

So I feel like we have to not ignore AI when it comes to this. You know, we've, I think there's not a, a PR practitioner today that hasn't been approached by a client or a prospect that says, why can't we just let AI do this? And we have our answers about nuance and personality and other things. But in a lot of ways there is a role for AI in content generation. And I'm wondering your thoughts about...

It's here, it's not going away and it's going to be and we have an opportunity, I think with AI that maybe we didn't pay as much attention to with social and the technology that, that gave us to be smarter about how we use it or not use it, depending on the approach. But what's your view on AI and these kind of technology tools that are there to do some of this work and what does that mean and how do we use it or not when it comes to really creating valid and, and personalized content?

Ann Smith: 00:09:04

Yes. So yes, it's something I get asked about a lot. Interestingly enough, I feel like I get asked about it most from more like colleagues like, you know, you coming and asking me versus honestly, clients or prospects asking me. I will say about, you know, a year and a half ago, things seemed to kind of be reaching.

It was like, okay, all of a sudden, like this is here, this isn't going away. Everyone was experimenting with ChatGPT. Everyone was getting freaked out. You know, what jobs are being eliminated. You know, there will be no more journalists, there'll be no more whatever.

And we did have a client, a large tech client. We were in the middle of a campaign, a pretty large content campaign with them. And she was like, "hey, we just ran this paper through ChatGPT and asked it to spit out some blogs. And it did. And we think they look pretty good."

And of course my heart was like, oh my God. You know, and our team came together because we'd obviously been having conversations about it, but we hadn't really gotten specific on even what are our policies and also just what are our talking points around it. So certainly that prompted that conversation. And to your point, like there is value in it in certain ways. You know, gathering... Like we've had content coming through. We had a client who was gathering submissions from their user base and so all these things were coming in and they wanted us to be helping to create pieces that summarize that content.

Well, that's a great way of like pulling out key trends and feedback without having to like individually mine through it, you know, as, you know, human beings. But when it comes to the actual writing of things, obviously we have all heard about the things we have to be careful of... I mean, there's plagiarism issues, there's tone of voice issues, there's, you know, how, how it's even positioning just certain people in communities that can be taken out of context. So there's a lot of things that are worrisome.

And I think too, even that client of ours that had kind of shoved stuff through, like on first pass, you read it and you think, okay, that, that reads okay, that reads pretty good. But then if you really read it, you're sort of like, wait, like something's sort of off.

Now what I will say is obviously it's only going to get better, you know, and so those things that might be like, oh, that seems a little off, kind of like if you run something through a transcription service, you know, seems fine on the first pass and then you look closer, you're like, wait, no one would ever say it like that. So I know that those, those elements will get smarter and better.

But you know, when you're talking about thought leadership and you're truly talking about human beings expertise and opinions, I'm pretty, I guess I just feel pretty bullish on, like we still need to be having real conversations with real people and you know, writing on behalf of them accordingly. Because the AI tools are obviously mining from what's currently out there. So it's less of like truly creating a unique standpoint if you're not going to the expert themselves.

Abbie Fink: 00:12:34

Well, and as you said, it is going to get better because those of us that create the content are getting smarter. And how were you, you know, and feeding it and all the things that, that happen and, and you know, I, I was, had a conversation with, with the library director at a, in a, at a high school district and he was talking about AI. And you know, I said, well, how do you, you know, how are you bringing it into the schools and what are you doing? How are you keeping kids from, you know, using it for term papers and all these types of things?

And we were of the same age. So he could say, well, you do remember going to a library, right, and looking things up and the encyclopedia and you, you know, you found information and then if you were going to get an A on your paper, you had to put your own ideas together, right? You, this is what's out there, but that's not what you could turn in. And he would, and he was likening AI.

The much the same way was let's teach how to use it, teach what it can give you, but it is not the end all. With that, you know, you still have to put your, as you said, the voice, the idea, the emotion into, into the content.

And I thought it really stuck with me because I, you know, I, I just saw it at that particular point as, you know, not taking my job. I knew that was never gonna be the case. But it certainly had a place for, you know, certain organizations that could be okay with it, you know, giving it back to them what they, what they want. So I do see it as a tool, but not as an end all.

Ann Smith: 00:14:10

Yeah, and it does do some amazing things. I mean, if you're looking to create like a theme, you know, a conference theme or an event theme, and you can brainstorm all day and you can come up with a list of things you're like, I feel pretty good about these. And then you could run something through ChatGPT and it's probably going to come up with things that you're like, well, those are way better. And that did that in like a minute. So, you know, those things I'm like, yeah, that's smart.

We also are using it, as I'm sure a lot of PR practitioners are, you can even be identifying sources out there, you know, media sources and influencers and things like that, which is kind of interesting. That's different than on the writing side. But yeah, obviously there's a. There's a time and place for it.

Some people are big on the idea of it creating like a first draft of things. And I don't love that because I don't know for me personally, like, if I'm starting with something that's already written down, for me, it's very hard to like separate my brain from what's already on the paper to like bring my own thoughts in, you know, same thing. If like a client sends you something, they're like, just massage this. You know, for me, that's almost harder than just starting from scratch. So, you know, I think it sounds great, like to use it as a starting point, but who knows?

Adrian McIntyre: 00:15:28

And I'm curious about something and maybe this is a devil's advocate sort of a position. I'm not really sure. But my practice focuses on verbal communication. We're a spoken word agency. And that's in large part because, as I sometimes joke, I'm a copy talker, not a copywriter. And I actually really struggle with writing and two master's degrees and a PhD. And even having worked as a journalist, I struggled...

Abbie Fink: 00:15:57

Well, let me introduce you to Ann, who's great writer.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:15:59

Exactly. And so this is kind of where I'm going with this. It seems to me--but again, this is a very biased point of view. It seems to me that there's just so much many words now and the Internet has been flooded with low quality written pieces, not just because of AI, although this isn't helping, but because of, you know, SEO strategies from 10 years ago that people are still using.

And I just wonder at what point does it just become too much and we aren't cutting through because there is so much noise and you know, you can do great work, but to get that work seen in the. Through the sludge, you know, is just really, really hard. So I guess the question is this.

How do you make the case for more and better writing in an environment where there's so much that people don't really care about the quality of and it's just meh. And it's out there everywhere, right?

Ann Smith: 00:17:01

Oh, it's such a good point. I hate SEO. Sorry for everyone who's out there. I mean, I love SEO if it brings people to our website. I hate the idea of writing for SEO.

It creates the worst writing, in my opinion. You're literally putting words down for the sake of putting words down, you're going in circles, you're just adding in keywords.

It's to me so not impactful. So I hear you that there, there is like this proliferation of words out there on the Internet.

And to me sometimes it is amazing how corporations are still putting such an investment in long form pieces like a white paper, like an ebook, things that are very substantial and oftentimes quite technical. You know, and so you're counting on a sophisticated and specialized reader to, you know, embrace that sort of piece.

I think it just does come down to that, to impact and to being smart and to having it be very targeted on who the audience is for.

So if you're a tech company and you're needing to really connect with, you know, a buyer within a healthcare industry or, you know, a very targeted, specialized audience, creating content that is geared straight to them, whether it's informing them and educating them, or if it's more of a sales piece, you know, needs to feel like it's really worth their time.

And I also think on the the media side, why I know so many firms see success with contributed content like bylines is because publications are hungry for good writing and for good content. And so, you know, for us, we get excited when we're working with a client that is really just wanting to have, you know, their opinion out there.

And maybe they have a wealth of subject matter experts who have varying opinions. And so we can target different types of publications and write different types of content on their behalf.

Or maybe it's, you know, one leader who again is just like really wanting to be out there. But I think that results in interest from again, whoever in that case the target is a media publication and ultimately their reader.

So, yeah, I don't know, I think it's just about, I think it's about the impact and being smart and not just feeling like you're spewing things and trying to write something for everyone.

Abbie Fink: 00:19:28

So as we're, you know, the idea around, you know, campaigns and thinking about all the, you know, the different opportunities that exist and as Adrian said, you know, cutting through the clutter and you know, coming, you know, really with what's relevant, you know, content still is going to remain, you know, top of mind. The strategy behind it certainly is top of mind. So, you know, how do we plan for building a content strategy? What are some of the key things for us to consider if this is going to be a strategy that we want to undertake? And then what are some of the expectations when you go through this effort?

Ann Smith: 00:20:15

Yeah, So I think first kind of getting, getting clear on what your, your goal is. So if your goal is, you know, that you're wanting to do like I was saying before, like the research piece and come in with like substantial kind of ground based information that you're building from, you know, to, to get ready to commit to that sort of effort. And from that you can gain a wealth of opportunities as far as far as the types of content you can create.

If you're wanting to be showcasing thought leaders and maybe you're wanting, you know, to have more of like a traditional PR program but built on thought leaders, then that's great too. You don't have to be worrying about writing white papers necessarily for them.

You could have just a very strategic earned media campaign that's based on contributed media placements. Earned media, but it could also involve speaking programs, award programs, LinkedIn.

So I think, you know, starting with like, well, obviously, what are your goals? You know, what, what type of organization are you? What are the goals?

And then getting clear from there on what types of outputs are going to really be most beneficial and then maximizing like once you have those things like we talked about before, not recreating the wheel, but even with like earned media placements, you know, if you're getting published, making sure that those things are showing up on LinkedIn, that you're grabbing sound but you know, grabbing even pull quotes, that you're putting things out, that you're having it on your newsroom, that the individual subject matter experts who are, you know, the authors are sharing things in their own way or if it's geared very specifically to a target client industry to be sending things through to them.

So just the whole idea of amplifying so, you know, amplification assets are something that we create for clients if they're, you know, developing different types of materials. And then it's like, okay, great, we developed this, but now what? So like little things that you can hopefully use to. Okay, now we got to take it to the masses.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:22:37

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

Abbie Fink: 00:22:44

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