Liz Nable 0:00
Forget everything you've ever heard about AI until now and listen to this episode of the podcast very carefully. In fact, take notes, because this one is a game changer if you're using platforms like chatgpt, Velo Zapier and other chatbots to pitch the media or respond to call outs from services like source bottle, stop right now you're burning your bridges with the media before you've even built them, and on a one way street to getting blacklisted fast, despite what you may have been told when it comes to pitching the media and generating great free PR AI produced content is not a time saver at all. In fact, according to well respected journalists from all over Australia and the world, it's actually a waste of time, their time, and they've had enough. My guest today is BEC Derrington, the founder of journo and guest expert matchmaking service, source bottle and a PR guru with more than a decade of experience in the industry, and we're discussing the dangers of AI responses and why, just like your social media feed, more and more the media want to hear from you, the real you, not a robot, plus how a simple conversational pitch that gives you a unique point of view, conveys a strong opinion, and shows lived experience is far more likely to get picked up by the media than any generic chatgpt dupe. Let's dive in.
Hello and welcome to media magnet, the podcast for female founders and women owned businesses, startups and side hustlers who want to learn how to grow their business leveraging the media and free PR, I'm Liz nable, and I'm your host, personal publicist. PR, strategist and dedicated hype woman. My goal with this show is to give you a behind the scenes tour of how the media works to break down the barriers between your business and the big mastheads, so you can see how easy it is to get featured simply by giving journalists what they want at media magnet, you'll also get access to the top journos, editors, writers and PR people in your industry and beyond, sharing their secrets and expertise On the how, why, what and when of pitching and getting featured in the media consistently, I will share with you how to build your reputation as an industry expert so successfully, the media will be knocking down your door. When I first started in small business 12 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had spent 15 years as a television news reporter working at several major networks in Australia, and then as a freelancer in the US and around the world, I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and traveling the world, chasing stories it was unpredictable and exciting until It wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted a life where I was in charge of what happened next and where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's. There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business, but getting media and great free PR was not one of them. I already knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made news, and I knew how to leverage those media outlets to build my business, get more exposure and ultimately make more sales. I was featured in every major media outlet in the country, and I never spent a single cent on PR. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses, let them in on the secret, and they too could build their brands with organic media and PR, let me help you take your brand from Best Kept Secret to household name. This is media magnet, the podcast, and I'm pretty pumped to have you here.
Hi there, and welcome back to the media magnet podcast. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 4:13
thanks so much. Liz, lovely to be here.
Liz Nable 4:15
I know you're a very busy woman, and you were on the podcast last year, which we absolutely loved, because we love what you do at source bottle, so thanks for taking the time to come back. Tell us a little bit more. Just give us a little recap on on you and source bottle and essentially, what that, what that business is, because I know, obviously most of our audience are women led business owners, startups, founders, entrepreneurs, and perhaps our source bottle helps, you know, helps give them the opportunities to get their business featured in the media.
Bec Derrington 4:43
Yeah, sure. Look, it's a really simple premise. Really, it's, it's pretty much a email based service, so we email out publicity leads or media leads, media opportunities from. Journalists and bloggers and other and podcasters who are looking for experts and sources to quote and use in their stories. So we just pretty much unearth these to an audience who have sort of cherry picked the topics they're interested in, and we deliver them via email twice per weekday. So it's just so it's a matchmaking service, really. It's like sort of Tinder for business professionals or publicity hungry business professionals and the media who are looking for easy ways to to dig into a very expansive talent pool, to find fresh unearth fresh talent for their stories
Liz Nable 5:43
awesome, and it is something that a lot of my students inside my course use, and a lot of my clients use, because it is essentially a call out from journalists like you, say, or PR companies or those sorts of things. Just a really great way to kind of get those opportunities delivered to your inbox every day, and a great way to get started getting featured in the media, if that is what you're looking to sort of build your credibility and reputation for your business or your brand in the media. So if anyone would like to know more detail about how source bottle works, obviously, there is a podcast episode with you from last year, which I'll link in the show notes as well, which goes into the detail about, you know, responding to pictures, you know, how likely you are to get picked up and all those sorts of things. So we won't rehash that today. That is in an earlier episode from last year, which I will link in the notes. But today we're talking about so the reason, just to give everyone a bit of background about how this came about, I obviously subscribe to the source bottle service, and I saw that you'd written a really helpful and informative blog post on perhaps how business owners think they're being clever using AI to respond to pictures. But that is not landing well with journalists. Is that right? That's
Speaker 1 6:56
spot on. So and this is not, this is not the first time I've been approached by journalists saying, Hey, listen, it'd be great if you could just spread the word that AI generated responses, really, as you say, landing badly with us or with the media. And one particular like a journalist, I'm very fond, very fond of Ali reached out recently and just said, Listen, you need to send out sort of like, you know, like a PR notice. I think, what did she? She called it a PSA, so, like a public service announcement. Please don't do this. People don't do this because, and if you do, I will blacklist you. So that's quite sort of serious talk from someone. And as you say, I think people, everyone's time poor. Everyone's looking at how they can leverage this great sort of new innovation, AI, to get more done faster and perhaps sound really smart in terms of the way they respond. I just think there's, there's definitely, you know, I always think one of the best ways business can can set itself apart is actually by going against the grain. So if everyone's heading towards AI, perhaps, maybe what you need to do to set yourself apart is be more human. So, you know, make grammatical areas perhaps, or don't use American spelling, for example. So some of it, there are some definite flags that go up, but, but Ali has basically said in this, I'll actually just read this last Alexandra Kane is her her name, and she's really well respected journalist. She writes for multi multitude of publications, both Australian and internationally, and a lot of you know, business sort of broadsheets. So you know, she's not someone you want to get offside, and she is someone who has a lot of clout when she's sort of positioning you or holding yourself you up as an expert, hence why she's so dictatorial about she's not going to be she's not going to be fooled into thinking you're an expert when she can see that you've actually leaned into AI to spit out a response that's promoting your expertise. She said she can see that she it suggests to her that you're a if you're a PR and you're doing it on behalf of the client, that's like, like a deadly sin. And she said that just says that you're clearly incompetent and you're not doing your client any favors, but, but B, if you're like an expert, so I obviously, I say, I, I understand a bit about PR. So if I was positioning myself as a PR and I generated my response through chat GPT, or any other of the plethora of tools out there, she'd say, well. Really, you're not much of an expert, because you've had to lean into AI to generate that response and and so, you know, it raises really valid points. I think there's, there's a definite balance here, because I don't think we can ignore how helpful and useful AI can be in generating quick responses to call outs. And of course, with one of the things which we flag in that earlier episode you're talking about is speed in responses in very crowded, competitive space. Speed is really useful, and journalists want quick responses, but, but most, most people are using chat GPT in a very sort of primitive, basic way, even in the way they sort of word their their responses and and so perhaps it's just very, very obvious, but you know, it's a great starting point for people to maybe check that they've covered all their bases, but, but the way it's, it's, I mean, a lot of these, these tools, they're getting more and more sophisticated, and perhaps in time, we won't be able to tell the difference as obviously as we Can right now. But, I mean, as an exercise for this podcast, I ran a call out today through three different tools and one which was sort of the standard, what was it? Chat GPT for something I don't even know if that's Oh yeah, yeah. Chat GPT, yep, yep. One, when we came back, it was, it was GPT four. And it was a very sort of standardized response that, like, as soon as I would see it, I would go, Oh, my God, that's so, you know, that's so AI generated. That's not human. There's not a human person at the base of that, you know, sending that out. But then there was another one, and it was Claude 3.5 sonnet, which is another tool, and that sounded a little more human like, instead of starting, for example, it was about, I said that the script, I said, was write a response to this question as if I'm a retail expert, because they were looking for retail experts. And I said looking for a retail expert to provide some commentary on consumer reaction to supermarket trend of shrinkflation. Now the call out itself didn't actually disclose the consumer reaction. I just created it thinking maybe it was shrinkflation. So this one, of course, starts that chat. GPT four starts shrinkflation, where products are subtly reduced in size and quality, like it just even the way it starts. Yeah,
Liz Nable 12:41
it's not personal. It's not it's not
Speaker 1 12:45
um, whereas the the one through Claude 3.5 sonnet was definitely better. It said, as a retail expert, I can provide insights into how consumers are reacting, blah, blah, blah, which is actually how I would encourage people to respond. You know, certainly sort of state the fact that you You satisfied the brief being a retail expert. So that was quite good from that perspective, of sounding a little bit more human, less automated. And then there was another one that was oh, and then was four zero Mini. So chat GPT for Oh Mini. I don't even know what it's called, but that's and it said just basically was shrimp relation is when supermarkets keep prices the same but give you less product, and sort of goes on and it's very simplistic, yeah? And actually sounds human. So as I said, like they start getting, you know, they're going to get more sophisticated. Yeah, it's a great starting point. But as an expert, if you're using this to actually showcase your expertise, then you don't have the expertise.
Liz Nable 13:45
I guess the danger is, is as well, is that if you are going to use AI purely, use AI to try and generate responses or come up with story ideas, that you're going to get caught off guard. If that story does get picked up, and you get asked to comment on something that perhaps you don't really know a lot about, and you've just popped into chat. GPT, yeah,
Speaker 1 14:06
oh, spot on. Like, I'd be very nervous if I send it. I submitted something like that because I'm not a retail expert. Yeah, look, we'd love to interview you, and then, you know, my responses is going to be probably, you know, run for cover and hide somewhere, but, but, yeah, no, absolutely You're a total fraud. So you don't need it. I think the thing is, it's becoming a crutch, and people think, as you say, people think they sound much smarter if they rely on a tool like this, it certainly spits out a response faster, but it doesn't sound human and and I think I always say to set yourself apart, you know, in a response, add something creative, like, you know, add something that's a bit quirky, that helps set your part, that injects your personality. Now what this does is it strips your personality, and it automates your response to, sort of you sound like a bot.
Liz Nable 15:06
So what are some of the ways, I guess this journalist could obviously tell at a glance that there was, you know, a large amount of responses that she was getting that were AI generated. You mentioned something before about American spelling, or some of the like, top ways that you could tell, or that she could tell that the pitch responses were AI. Can you tell me a bit more about that? What are some of the red flags that, I guess, if you do continue using AI in some way that you could perhaps at least go through your response and eliminate those red flags? What would they be?
Speaker 1 15:36
Well, yeah, definitely. American spelling is one, I mean, but you can write in your, in your, you know, only use British spelling, for example. So there are ways to get around that, right for a, you know, 10 year old, like, you know, you can, you can start reducing it, simplifying it, whatever. But do you have to be so clever? Like, can't you just respond, yeah, I think things like, mean, very verbose responses, clearly, you know, generated really quickly. Would suggest to me that that's been AI generated so, you know, dot points bullets like getting straight to the point, talking and talking about your relevant experience that can't be generated through AI, and which is actually what I say in when you're responding anyway, you know, I use that. There's a couple of different acronyms, but Cora was one I started using, like, when you when you're looking at the elements of a good response to a call out. Cora was one sort of, that's talking about, God, I can't even remember. I think it's to do with so you've got to show that you're you've got the relevant experience. You've got to state your opinion, if possible, which obviously, that can't be sort of emulated through chat GPT, unless you put that in the script, you know. So for example, if you're saying tea is better than coffee in terms of health benefits, like all the journalist is asking, you know, as a nutritional expert with X years experience, which is better to your coffee? So you would say, I'm a nutritional, you know, expert with this many years experience, and I have this qualification in my 10 years experience, I can, I'm strongly of the opinion that tea is better than coffee for these particular reasons. You know, if your response doesn't even have to be long, if you can demonstrate like relevant experience, relevant expertise, that's chat GPT can't do. And give a few examples. Bullet points. Keep it succinct. Keep it tight. Then absolutely you'll get a call back from Ali or whomever, if you're the relevant expert, and you will set yourself apart immediately from
Liz Nable 18:01
a box. It sounds a bit like, you know, these days, the way that, you know, social media and that sort of thing is going that the the algorithms seem to favor, like raw behind the scenes kind of footage. It's not perfect. It's not made up. You know, back in the day, Instagram is all about what your feed looked like in the color coordination. And now all those behind the scenes kinds of stories or insights get much more traction, and it sounds like if you're really just genuine in your response, and maybe even conversational or you know, you're speaking, make it really clear that you're speaking as a human and that if there is, you know, seven out of 10 responses AI generated, you've got a much better chance of standing out if you are just sort of, I mean, I think in a lot of a lot of business owners that I coach, especially inside the course, doubt whether they're an expert in the beginning, like they don't trust that they know enough to be an expert. But it's really interesting when you start to respond to those calls, call outs, don't use AI and see how much you can get down on paper in response without using it. And perhaps maybe just using it to, sort of, you know, put the icing on the cake and make it sound a bit more professional, but using your words to start with, would you say that's,
Speaker 1 19:18
yeah, I think, I think probably I would use it more as a tool to check that I've, I've covered off everything, but definitely written in, in a conversational way. You're absolutely right. That is absolutely one of those things where you've got to be authentic. That's really, really important. And authenticity comes across by me saying, like, you know, I drink 10 cups of tea a day, or I'm a tea junkie, or I'm a whatever, like, you know, and relevant experience. Those sorts of things, they demonstrate immediately. This is a human response and and, like you said, raw footage behind the scenes. We've always like, gravitated towards seeing the true person, the reason we watch the bloopers, the reason we watch the interviews with the person behind the actor. You know, we're fascinated by that real we connect that way. So don't, don't lose sight of the fact that journalists are the same and they don't want to look foolish. So you know, they're not going to trust, and trust is everything. They're not. They're not going to trust a response that doesn't sound human, and they're not going to state their reputation by quoting someone like that. Yeah,
Liz Nable 20:37
and it's so true, isn't it? And so part of what you've written here is, and I teach a lot of this inside my course, which is interesting, the dangers of AI responses. So you've put they come across as inauthentic, which we've just talked about, resulting missed opportunities, but it also creates trust issues. Tell us a bit more about that. Well, this is, you know, exactly
Speaker 1 20:59
what Ali said in this, you know, which triggered this post, was she was basically saying, look, it's just me that you know you don't know what you're talking about, so I don't, I don't trust that you have the abilities, and I don't trust that you're being honest, because you've generated it through, through and a PR firm. What you know, for example, you know yourself, if you're representing the client, and you created this lack of trust, it reflects on you the agency. You appear incompetent, but it also reflects on the client. And if you're the like, I understand, you know, you know people potentially new to this industry using AI in as as a way, because they're a little bit insecure about perhaps positioning themselves and holding themselves out as an expert, for example, but, but they and they could be potentially make that mistake a PR agency that's next level, like and trust is everything like Trust is everything to a journalist. So if you're inauthentic, you know, if they do their searches, if they can, if they can hear, if they can see that this is not coming from you, um, they'll just treat it as spam. I mean, it's, it's no better than spam. Yeah, that's
Liz Nable 22:15
exactly right. And I mean, I am very much of the view that you really only get one crack with a new contact, like a journalist. So if you think you're saving money or saving money, but you think you're saving time by using AI, which, which, you know, there's a lot of contradictory opinions to ours of you know people coaching small business owners or, you know, anyone really to save time using AI. But if you're using that first opportunity to pitch a journalist, and you're using AI. You're not actually saving yourself time. You're actually burning bridges before they've been established. No,
Speaker 1 22:49
well, that's exactly right. So there's some some serious longevity issues in terms of relationships that will not last, but you're not you're not saving time. You're just wasting your time. And as Ali says, You've wasted her time, and and she says that she blacklists people so, you know, you don't get a second chance. Because by now it's, it's, it's lost its novelty. Journalists are kind of really tired of it. I mean, I have call outs that say, only pitch a topic if you can produce AI free generated human content, please, no chat, GPT generated responses, because a lot of them can, even if they, if they're starting to sort of question it, they may not get exactly the right, you know, into the same command as you do in terms of an AI to generate an AI response. But if they get put in something, and they get something close back at them. You know, there you go, like they're going to go, Okay, you're a fraud, and you don't, you just don't get a second chance. And clearly, a lot of people are doing it because I have had a lot of feedback from journalists saying it's really pissing them off.
Liz Nable 23:59
So don't piss them off. Yeah, don't piss off a time poor journalist, because they see your name in their inbox and they will just delete and I say this over and over again in my course, you've got this opportunity to capture their attention. Don't blow it by trying to cut corners and save yourself time, because those those relationships are really important and they take time to build. So better off just backing yourself and putting what you know and you know, evolving that over time, and also
Speaker 1 24:26
Liz like, you know, one of the key things with with responses to call outs, it might just be that you're saying, Look, I just want to make a connection with this journalist, and I want them. I want to get an interview. So the best way to do that is to say, you know, keep it, keep it short. So you know, if you want more, here's my phone number. I'm available anytime, or I'm available maybe I'm available between these times. Create that sense of urgency that you're there, ready to talk to them and happy to answer any questions that follow, and just give the skinniest if you haven't got time better giving a credible human led skinny. Response saying, I have the expertise. I've got strong opinions on why tea is better than coffee. Here's my research paper. Or you can look at my last blog, you know, contact me on this number. That's better than going into sort of waves of information that's been generated by something that's, you know, a computer.
Liz Nable 25:20
So are we saying here, essentially, that there's no place for this AI generated responses, not just for source bottle, but I guess, in pitching the media. Or would someone start with a skeleton of an idea or a pitch response and massage it with chat? GPT? What's your sort of take on that? How does it play a role at all in your opinion.
Speaker 1 25:41
Look, I think it absolutely can play a role. But I think I would do it the reverse, the way, reverse from the way you're sort of saying. I would, I would leave the finessing. I don't, I don't like that chat GPT style finessing, because it just starts to sound robotic. So I would say, you know, if you're nervous and you don't quite know how to start, I think it's probably a great tool to help you start. It might be a great sort of prompt to make sure in your response, if you do have to get into wade into some of the detail, that you include some of the most prominent things. But you use it like you don't. Then cut and paste. You would look at it over here, and you would write over here. And so you kind of keep it separate. So you're using your human language, and you're using it as as a prompt, a trigger, as a safety blanket, to sort of say, Oh, I didn't forget. I would have forgotten that, but, you know, thankfully I got that but, but putting in your words, just, just keep it away from the final product. Just use it as a prompt to help you start. So it doesn't seem so daunting. I can totally think it's a fantastic tool for that. Yeah, yeah, that's how I like
Liz Nable 26:58
having, like, I guess, prompt cards for a speech, if you were to get on stage instead of writing, of writing the speech out word for word, you're so tempted to read it word for word and use those cards like a like a crutch, rather than just having bullet points, which you know that you can speak freely from if you don't have it's almost so much more authentic when you just have those prompts that is so true to your own language. Yeah, and
Speaker 1 27:20
it's as irritating as it is to be in an audience when someone's reading a speech to you, that's probably how irritating it is for a journalist to read that sort of stuff that's been crafted expertly, much just too expertly and uniformly to be like human generated. I think that's a I think that's a really great metaphor. Actually. That's exactly right,
Liz Nable 27:43
yes. And I talk about this a lot inside the course, because I think a lot of business owners are under the misconception that the media are looking for these perfectly like. I'll often get people be like. So then what do I write in the next line of the pitch? I'm like, but there's no like magic formula here, you just have to keep it short and sweet. You know, find a story angle. Pop your contact details in there. Be available, be flexible. Be quick to respond. Be real. That's what journalists they want to speak to, humans they want to hear from, you know, people with on the ground experience, like small business owners, you know, industry experts, those sorts of things they don't want to hear from another. They could, they could jump into chat, GPT themselves, and do the same thing in 10 seconds or less. And that's
Speaker 1 28:32
exactly what they say. They say, I could have done that like, you know, but I think, I think you're right. Like, it's just really, really important to to just, just demonstrate your personality. What makes good talent? Good talent is someone who has some relevant experience which can't be emulated through chatgpt, so has relevant experience and has a strong opinion that's really good talent and is available to chat to you. So like you know, to make, to make someone I always say sexy talent is someone who's got a really strong opinion and backs themselves with expertise or relevant experience, etc. They're the people journalists want to continue to talk to because, yeah, well, it makes a journalist look good too. And, and good talent is, you know, people want to hear from good talent. People don't want to hit, read that sort of stuff. It's not interesting at all to anyone.
Liz Nable 29:31
No good talent. I guess, good talent just don't have vanilla opinions. The same way journalists don't want to see vanilla responses. Yeah, you have to stand out by standing for something that's
Speaker 1 29:41
right, that's right. Fence sitting doesn't work in the media. They're good tips for stereotypes, like people who fit a stereotype and people who break stereotypes they they love, that sort of you know, people who take a country like I have people that do really well on source bottle, that say disagree with the premise of a whole. Call out someone. There was one talking about, you know, the new Rise of activated almonds, or something like that. And someone's like, that is a ridiculous concept. It. There's nothing new about it. It's just dipping them in water or something, whatever it is, yeah, that. But, you know, sort of calling them out as being, well, that's a ridiculous thing. And immediately that's demonstrated that person is an expert, because they can see the flaws in that particular statement, you know.
Liz Nable 30:26
And you know, it's so interesting, because more now than ever, like, it's this 24/7 news cycle, so content is required all the time, as opposed to once or twice a day, like back in the day, when it was the six o'clock news and the 11 o'clock news. So if you can have those differing opinions and find a new take on the same story that's been rolled out every mother's day for the last 10 years, or bring it up to speed or into the now somehow, and have an opinion on that, that's also a really great way to go stand out from all those other, you know, vanilla responses that I'm sure you would get, yeah,
Speaker 1 31:03
well, that's right, I mean, and that's always the essence of that whole sort of newsjacking concept. It's like, you know, this happens, and then a journalist might the first story is, well, the impacts of this, but then the follow on questions like, well, what does that mean for this and for this and for this? And if you can predict where those questions are going to go next. That's a really good way of exerting your expertise into the conversation, if it's about privacy, but then you're also talking about maybe sort of impact on family or something like that. Some you know, three questions down the track that a journalist is going to be prompted probably to ask, maybe on day two, if you can inject yourself in preempt those questions. That's really that's just gold to the media. Get
Liz Nable 31:45
yourself featured multiple times instead of just once too. So would you say, could you estimate how many sort of AI generated source bottle responses you're getting at the moment? Like,
Speaker 1 31:56
yeah, look, I don't know, because that's always going to be anecdotal from that. Yeah, they go to the journalists, but I know, you know, when they start to arc up. And I also know, as I said, like in that, in that piece, journalists now and media bloggers, it's not even just journalists. It's like all media outlets. They're all kind of saying, you know, no chat, GPT responses, please. Like, it's so common now in sort of, in the sort of expanded call out that that's what they say. If you can't, if you can't answer this as a human, then don't bother. Don't answer it
Liz Nable 32:32
at all. I love this. Thank you so much. This has been such an in, you know, like a revelation for me too, because I'm obviously as a content creator myself. I've never really used chat GPT, because I think it's a slippery slope, because I've always loved creating the content myself. And you feel like once you sort of go down that little like black hole that you kind of then even rely even though you know that you have the ability to come up with the answers and the content yourself, it is. It's like a little clutch, a crutch that you can just quickly use to sort of, I guess, shortcut what you think. You know, you save yourself time. But, um, this has been really interesting because now I can sort of see from both sides, because I see a lot of content with, you know, chat GPT experts telling business owners to use chat, GPT and in some aspects of their business, obviously, that's relevant. But when it comes to source, bottle and those media call outs and I guess pitching in general, it's a hard No,
Speaker 1 33:30
yeah, well, that's right. I mean, it's a person who's placing the call out. They expect a person to respond,
Liz Nable 33:38
yeah. Thank you. BEC, it's been a pleasure having you again. We will have you back on again shortly, when you have your next little rant on your blog, I guess maybe in six to eight months from now.
Unknown Speaker 33:46
Great. Thanks so much for having me. Liz, this
Liz Nable 33:49
episode of media magnet was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, the media masters Academy. The media masters Academy is a live, online, six week course taught by me and designed to teach you how to become your own publicist and give you exclusive access to pitch the country's top journalists and editors. Doors open just three times a year. Check it out at Liz nable.com along with a ton of free resources to help you get started taking your business from Best Kept Secret to household name right now. If you love this episode of media magnet, please share it with your business buddies or on social media and tag me at at Liz underscore navel. And if there's a specific guest you want to hear from on the show, or a topic or question you want to know more about, please tell me so I can make sure the show stays dedicated, especially
Unknown Speaker 34:43
for you. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
