The Spin Sucks Podcast with Gini Dietrich

The last piece of an integrated PESO Model program, before you get to measurement, is authority—or thought leadership. If you implement a full PESO Model program, complete with the full foundational work of paid, earned, shared, and owned media working together, it will be inevitable that you’ll build authority for your organization and its executives. But you also have to create some of it on you...

One hundred episodes ago, we launched the Spin Sucks podcast with trepidation, anxiety, and a sense of adding just one more thing to the weekly task list. Today, while not exactly the easiest task for me to complete each week, it’s one of the most effective. And that’s because of you, dear listener. You show up week after week after week. You listen while you walk the dog or clean the house or soa...

Before the world fell apart, we were talking about the different media types in the PESO Model—how they work individually AND together. When we stopped talking about the PESO Model (for obvious reasons), we were at paid media and, because social media ads in particular, are so cheap and still crazy effective, I thought we’d pick back up there. While we may never see the level of a consistent, reli...

There are a lot of memes and graphics floating around that talk about how, if you don’t come out of this global pandemic with a new skill, a new invention, a new body, a new something...that you will have wasted this time you’re sheltering in place. A couple of days ago, a graphic was floating around that listed all of the companies that didn’t exist before the Great Recession, including Venmo, Ub...

At the end of March, Gannett has announced they will furlough workers at more than 100 newspapers between April and the end of June. Every journalist making more than $38,000 a year will have to take one week unpaid sometime during the three months. This includes USA Today, The Arizona Republic, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and many other city newspapers. At the same time, journalists are on Tw...

The Spin Sucks team launched the PESO Model Certification with Syracuse University right before the world caught on fire. And, even though things have changed drastically since then, the online course and certification are still one of the best things you can do for your communications career. There are, of course, different nuances of how to implement the PESO Model in large, small, and one-perso...

These are unprecedented times we are in. While we’re all struggling to make ends meet, business does have to go on. How do you know what is appropriate and what is not? The good news is you can still market during a crisis. The bad news is someone will find it offensive and light you up. There are some guiding principles by which to live as you decide what and how to market. And that's what we tal...

They have said millennials are the first generation ever to experience two global economic crises that will put them on a path to end up financially worse than their parents. The Great Recession happened as they were graduating from college with the country’s highest unemployment rate in 80 years. Now, as they’ve finally gotten jobs and begun to create some stability, they should be buying homes a...

It’s a crazy, crazy time to be alive right now. Things change pretty much every hour. What’s happening our world feels eerily similar to 9/11. Of course, we didn’t have warning back then and I didn’t run a business nor have people’s livelihoods dependent on me. But the eerie feeling of everything stopping is very much the same. If you aren’t used to working at home, let alone with kids around, we’...

The PESO model is like a pyramid with four corners. Each corner must be built solidly, or the entire structure will collapse. In this week’s show, Gini Dietrich talks about the improvements made to the PESO model graphic and process, and the official certification that is now available:  The tactics listed under each media type were updated to focus more on strategy.  Lead generation, search engin...

A Star Wars superfan has written a thirty thousand word dissertation detailing the problems with the Star Wars franchise. He also created a plan to help Disney generate an extra $20 billion. To make that happen, however, he needs Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney to read his thesis. In this week’s show Gini Dietrich will talk about the challenges the superfan might encounter using some of the strategies...

It's still PESO model learning month, as designated by the team at Spin Sucks, which means you get to continue your professional development around this process. In this week’s show, we talk about who within an organization can use the PESO model, the different ways they can use it, and what happens when they don’t. Business leaders with a good grasp of the PESO model are able to better prioritize...

The latest algorithm update from Google, BERT, is out for revenge on irrelevant, spammy content—and you'd better beware if this has been your MO of late. BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, which means it uses deep learning to understand and respond to human language as humans use it. It also means Google now understands context, including word order, better th...

About eight years ago, we launched the PESO model. Today it’s everywhere. Although we’ve constantly refined and improved it over the years, it’s not always easy to implement. In this week’s show we’ll talk about the four reasons people can struggle with the PESO model, and how to overcome those obstacles.  Experience and wisdom: People with expertise and experience often know what works and stick...

Gini Dietrich discusses the innovations, changes, and new opportunities in the podcasting space in this week’s Spin Sucks show. She outlines the pros and cons of micro- versus long podcasts. While most podcasts today are 10 minutes or longer, Gini points out that the length of your podcast depends on your audience’s preference, the type of content you’re creating and the amount of time you have to...

In our trends piece from a few weeks ago, one of the most mentioned issues was what role PR is going to play in the upcoming election. One statistic from that article has really stuck in my mind: Of the top 20 most viewed news stories on Facebook about the 2016 election, the “fake news” stories received 8.7 million engagements, whereas the mainstream news only received 7.3.More people engaged with...

The Spin Sucks community predicted AI would be the biggest trend in 2020. In today’s show, we look at how big AI is predicted to be, what it could do for communicators, and what we may need to be concerned about.  AI can profitably scale activities that are proven to be effective for business, such as content personalization, market research, risk assessment, and customer communication. Forbes Ins...

Whether it’s business, a new job or a client, it’s important to be realistic and weigh the risks against the opportunities. Looking for red flags is the best way to do that. A red flag is a sign, signal, or symptom that a person does not fit your ideal profile. What might be a red flag in one situation is not in another.  The most common red flags in the communications industry are that executives...

Making a resolution may not be the best way to make changes in your life or business. A resolution is a decision to make a change that has no end in sight. A goal, on the other hand, has a finite start and end, and something specific you want to achieve in between. It’s much more effective to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based) goals.    Follow these techniques e...

One of the most frustrating aspects of a communicator’s job is how little control you have over the earned media that you do. Not every interview you give is published. However, if you maintain a good relationship with the interviewer, you can repurpose those unaired interviews into your own content. This episode of Spin Sucks features an interview Gini Dietrich did with Megan Dougherty of One Sto...

🎶On the 10th Day of PR Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you 10 PR Metrics to Track,  9 ways to be more productive, 8 communications podcasts, 7 PR pros to follow,  6 SEO tricks,  five breakable habits, four productivity tools, three AI experts, two PR trends, and one mindset shift in a pear tree.🎶 The right metrics are those that show you how well the campaigns and strategies in your PESO model com...

🎶On the sixth day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you…six SEO tricks, five breakable habits, four productivity tools, three AI experts, two PR trends, and one mindset shift in a pear tree.🎶 Search Engine Optimization, SEO, may seem like magic but it’s an easy skill set to master. Here are six SEO best practices you should incorporate into your communications planning: Use one priority keyword e...

🎶On the second day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you two PR trends and one mindset shift (in a pear tree).🎶   You can start the new decade on a strong footing by embracing these two trends: creative storytelling and the PESO model.   Creative storytelling allows your customers to imagine how miserable life would be without your product or service. Good stories build trust and generate engagem...

We should have multiple sources of income to protect our businesses and our personal lives. This means that we should have various revenue streams from several products or services making up our total income.  Types of Income Streams for Communications Professionals Consulting is an easy add-on if you provide done-for-you services. This is great for organizations that need someone to teach their i...

As a business owner, an economic downturn is a pretty scary thing and can be hard to predict. However, we’re seeing the same trends today that we saw in 2007 and 2008 and this may be an indication that another downturn is on the horizon.  It’s best to be prepared. Here are some things you can expect to see in a recession, and how you can mitigate them: Clients will begin to delay payments. If you...