S2 E4 Digital PR Freelancing with Isa Lavahun

Louise Parker:
Hello and welcome to the Digital PR Podcast with me, Louise Parker, and my lovely co-host, Steve Baker. Due to intense popular demand, we are back for a second season and we will be again chatting to some of the digital PR greats, discussing the ins and outs of our industry. This season, we’ll be touching on topics like crisis comms, freelancing, the great office debate, digital PR in America, and we’ll also be getting the perspectives of in-house clients and journalists on what they really think about digital PRs. Excitingly, this season we also have a sponsor! All six episodes are sponsored by our friends at Coveragebook. We all use Coveragebook in the Propellernet team, and so do agencies and brands all over the world. It’s an amazing tool that creates PR reports in minutes, drastically reducing the time that would typically be spent on reporting. Steve, would you like to know a fun fact?

Stephen Baker:
Yes, please.

Louise Parker:
One agency team saved $2,000 of PR budget every month when they switched to using the tool. Pretty good. What we love about it is that it gives you realistic, industry-leading metrics that you don’t need to have a data science degree to understand. It does all the clippings for you, so no more boring copying and pasting. And it just looks super snazzy, so you don’t have to be a designer to showcase your coverage like a pro. You can visit coveragebook.com and sign up for a free trial to see why some of the best digital PR practitioners in the world depend on Coveragebook. All right, on to our episode.

Stephen Baker:
Today’s guest is Isa Lavahun, a freelance search strategist with 15 years of digital experience spanning digital PR, content, social media, and influencer marketing. Having spent some of the early part of her career at Propellernet, Isa left to pursue the life of a freelancer, where she’s worked for a range of brands, including Cosmetify and Ministry of Sound, as well as speaking at Brighton SEO and guest lecturing at several universities. In short, she knows her stuff and is perfectly placed to talk to us about what life is like as a digital freelancer. Isa, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s lovely to see you again, lovely to have you.

Isa Lavahun:
Oh, nice to be on and thanks for having me.

Stephen Baker:
No worries at all. Obviously, I’ve just given a brief intro into some of your career, but would you mind giving our listeners a bit more in-depth kind of overview of your career so far and like kind of how you ended up as a freelancer?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, no, absolutely. So, obviously, my SEO life started at the wonderful Propellernet, and I was actually employee number, either number 20 or number 21. So, it was kind of, yeah, quite a while ago. So, yeah, I kind of, you know, I think that’s where I learned everything. I like my craft, essentially, and kind of the world that I’m in now, and sort of content PR kind of aspect of it. and was there for four and a half years, and then, yeah, wanted to do something different. So I sort of freelanced at first for about six months, and that’s when I kind of, for the first time, tried my hand at traditional PR, because I’ve been trained, literally, in terms of PR for SEO purposes, so that’s kind of how I know what PR is all about. So I thought it’d be quite nice for me to work for a traditional PR setting, so I worked for a PR agency, and it was like, Thinking about long leads and print coverage and getting product placement in magazines and a little bit of crisis calm, a bit more branding and being involved with more brand positioning and all that kind of stuff. So that was super, super interesting. And then, yes, then I got, you know, quote, unquote, headhunted. And then I worked for Ministry of Sound. So I kind of did freelancing for a bit. And this is where the pattern goes for what I was. I’d freelance for a bit and then I’d get kind of convinced to kind of work for a company and you know there is you know I’ll come on to that later you know there’s loads of pros about being a freelancer but you know one of the cons is like that’s a financial security so every time I kind of got offered a role where that kind of fitted me I would then be like okay yeah I’m not going to do freelancing anymore I’m going to I’m going to do the I’m going to do the job so yeah After freelancing for a bit, I then kind of actually took different roles and I, because I’d had so much agency experience, I really wanted to kind of work client side. So I did that. So working for Ministry of Sound, working for Fashion Fair, which is like a beauty brand. I then kind of experienced what it was like working as the quote-unquote clients. So kind of seeing how the pace was, why things take time, what they look for when they’re looking for agencies, you know, what I’m like as a quote-unquote client. I’m very, very like more sympathetic because obviously working agency side, I know how certain clients can be. So I kind of did that for a few years. And then I think when I worked at Cosmetify, that was where I kind of really got the sort of startup So it’s working with the founder who literally just had a concept and was like, yeah, I want to create this kind of company. Came from a travel business and didn’t really know anything about beauty, but was very, very search savvy. So the whole business was built on search strategy. So in terms of building a website, getting the sort of the structure of the website right, hiring sort of the content writers to kind of do sort of the product descriptions and all that kind of stuff. And then as we kind of built the product, essentially, that took a good sort of eight, nine months in terms of figuring out which categories to write about, where to put things, what to write content over. We had a team of 10 kind of writers that we’ve worked with. And then when we were ready to kind of launch, then that was when we sort of, you know, hired SEO manager and social media manager and PR manager as well that would do all the outreach stuff. So that really kind of taught me how to literally, you know, start work with someone to start a business with search at the heart of it because you don’t really get that that much. Most of the time, search is sort of thought as an afterthought or kind of like an add-on or kind of like, yeah, I suppose we need to think about our SEO. But, you know, my old boss kind of literally came into it going, I want to be, you know, position one for all these terms and I want to build the business based on that. So that really taught me that. And then, yeah, I did a couple of other sort of jobs where I kind of got into working for a music business, again, well, sort of client side for a little bit. And then my last job was working for another PR agency. And I did that for a few months. And I think after that, I kind of got to the point where I was like, no, I really want to go out, go at it alone again. And I think one of the main reasons for that is as you kind of go up in terms of like promotionally going to more senior role and totally understandable, you know, obviously you get more responsibility, which I totally get, but I was moving further and further away from what I’m actually enjoying. and what I’m actually good at, which is the kind of search strategy, campaign planning, outreach, training, all the kind of stuff that where I really like to get my teeth stuck into. I think the more you get into a sort of senior role, especially within sort of an agency structure, rightly so, you know, money needs to be made. and you know you’re kind of more into the commercials, new business, upselling and logistics which was like moving me further away from like what I actually wanted to do. So I think yeah so last year I kind of thought nope because I freelanced back and forth for quite a bit over the years but last year I actually made the decision this is it. not going back. I’m literally going to be a freelancer and this has to work. And so I’ve been freelancing now just over a year, about 13-14 months fully, like absolutely fully and doing nothing else on the side.

Louise Parker:
It’s so cool that you’ve had the three roles, the freelancer, the in-house and the agency, like you really have like covered the main thing. Round. I’m guessing you kind of mentioned so it’s kind of freelancing from now on really. Yeah. So I’m guessing that is the one you would prefer or is it are there other reasons why you’re kind of decided to do freelancing but actually your heart is a little bit in being a client or in being in an agency?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah no I think again as I said there’s pros and cons to everything you know there’s you know to each their own with what path everyone chooses but I guess the reason why I really like freelancing and yes do you think it’s the path for me is that I can kind of do bits of everything that I like doing and that I’m good at. I think that’s sort of the key thing. So for instance, the clients I have at the moment, one, I’m doing complete outreach. So again, as you go up in more senior role, you don’t do outreach. So when your team’s telling you like, oh, I can’t sell this in because this store is not working or these journalists aren’t getting the hook, when you get to sort of level, you because you’re not doing it, you can’t really understand it. So I love the fact that I’m still on the phones for some clients, literally trying to get coverage. I still get a buzz out of it. I still get a buzz out of pitching and thinking about the story, thinking about an angle and sort of getting that courage and obviously, as we all know, getting that link. For another client, I’m doing training. So it’s sort of like a PR agency and they kind of get search and kind of know a little bit of SEO, but they kind of want to upskill their team. So I’m doing like a training kind of day for them, going to be doing a training session for them. And then for another client, which I just wrapped last week, they were pitching for new business and they needed sort of a search. They were doing kind of PR and they do bits of SEO. but they really needed someone with a search strategy, PR brain to kind of come in and hone it all in and pull it together and make sure everything makes sense. These are all three different things that I absolutely love doing, love getting my teeth stuck into and I don’t think I would have that. freedom to do that if I was either working as a sort of an SAD level or working client side where then I’d be spinning 10 different plates and not really being able to focus or concentrate on anything in particular. So yeah, I would say, I wouldn’t say like, I think freelance fits me better, you know, and my kind of mindset and my personality and like what I love doing.

Stephen Baker:
When I met you, you worked in the digital PR team at Propellernet, and a lot of it was obviously coming up with campaign ideas, pitching in campaigns, and I share your view that I still get a buzz from securing coverage. It’s wonderful. Could you give us an idea though of the split? Because you’ve kind of branched out and have experience across a range of different disciplines now. But what kind of split is it? How much of your freelance work is kind of digital PR or getting that coverage, getting those links based and how much of it you mentioned training there? Can you give us an idea of the split if you don’t mind?

Isa Lavahun:
Honestly, it really changes. So like last year when I was first freelancing, it was mainly outreach. It was literally like, I’d say what 70, 80% outreach. But then this year, and I think also because I’ve done a couple of like talks and stuff like that, and kind of when you’re a freelancer, you’re actually the product and you’ve got to sell yourself. So it’s kind of people kind of believing that you can do different things. So now I would say I’m doing still probably a bit more outreach, I’d say sort of 60% outreach, and then kind of sort of 30% strategy, and then the rest kind of sort of training and other bits and pieces that I do here and there. So yeah, and as I said, I love doing all of it. I’d say if I could, I’d probably do more training just because I enjoy it a lot. Passing the knowledge over. But I also love strategy. I love kind of coming in and going, oh, you guys, maybe you should think about doing it this way and this way and long tail keywords and creating a blog and actually you don’t need to drive links to this page. You need to be thinking about it. Like just things like that is like problem solving. I love doing that. So yeah, more strategy stuff works for me too.

Louise Parker:
Ah, good stuff. This is completely anecdotal, so I don’t know the figures, but from my perspective, when you look at LinkedIn and Twitter and stuff, there seems to be a lot more people becoming specifically digital PR freelancers. What are your thoughts on why this might be? And one, do you agree with that? Is that what you’re seeing as well? But I’m just curious as to, as you are a freelancer, do you have any ideas on why people might be going freelance more?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I definitely, I’d say I’m in a kind of free lords group and I think when I was in there sort of last year, there was like, I don’t know, maybe 15, 19 of us and now there’s like 40, 30, something like that. So it’s, it has gotten massive. I think it’s like a combination of a whole bunch of stuff. I think with COVID, you know, people kind of thinking about their life and, you know, what they want to do and how they want to change. I think people kind of saw the first wave of freelancers going out there and kind of doing all right and thought, oh, yeah, no, I’m going to do it too. I think there is maybe an element of burnout. I think agency life isn’t for everyone. If it does, it’s quite hectic and quite busy. So I think people kind of get to the point and they’re like, oh, no, I’m going to do freelance. So I think there’s loads of different reasons or it could just be that people haven’t met the right match for them because also there is that and it is like dating in a way you kind of got to find the right either the right business or the right agency because that kind of suits you and I think sometimes people haven’t done that and then for that reason they freelance but I think also I think The great thing is, I suppose, the flexibility of things that you’re able to do, I guess. I mean, from my perspective, I don’t know the reasons why different people have gone freelance, but I think people saw a market for it and thought, yep, I’m going to jump on it. I think it is, I’d say, I wouldn’t say saturated, but it’s becoming more busy at the moment. But I think the same thing, it goes in waves. So like, for instance, when you lose, let’s say you’re an agency and you’re going through a bit of a dip. and you, you know, have to do the unfortunate thing of having to cut costs and, you know, sort of make redundancies and stuff. The first people that go obviously are freelancers because it’s like, yeah, I mean, if we can’t even afford to keep staff then, you know, we’re definitely not going to keep freelancers on. but then what happens is if there’s a whole thing where either people leave or there’s like a resource shortage then actually freelancers are spot on for coming back in to hold the fort while you know recruitment and people are kind of on boarded and like training and all that kind of stuff is done. So it always goes in waves where you’ll have you know I had a really quiet few months at the beginning start of the year really like really quiet like worryingly quiet like oh my god what is happening And then all of a sudden everything just came back in. So I think it’s not for everybody.

Louise Parker:
Yeah, you have to have quite a lot of strength to get through those dips because money is what makes your life happen. You pay your bills and stuff. Yeah, I can imagine you need a lot of like pre-planning, but also kind of resilience.

Isa Lavahun:
Totally resilience. And you know, listen, I’m learning every day. As I said, to the level that I was at and what I was getting paid, you know, I’m still not quite there to what I’m getting paid as a freelancer, but I’m much happier and my mental health is better. I can’t really. Yeah, that’s worth a lot. Swap it. But, you know, the cons are, you know, you have to fight for, not fight, but you need to put yourself out there, kind of really be talking to people, networking all the time. But I think also you need to do a really good job because the best way that I’m getting, you know, quote unquote business is like word of mouth. you know, someone works with me and goes, yeah, you know, work with Issa, she’s, you know, she’s a good one to work with. And that’s the biggest way I get new business. So, yeah, I think also being good at what you do is very important.

Stephen Baker:
How do you go about, you said word of mouth’s really important, but I’m not asking you to reveal every single tip, you know, all your secrets, but like, how do you sell yourself? How do you go about securing new business, especially when there’s like a dip or more freelancers about how do you differentiate? Yeah, how do you go about it?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, no, I would say word of mouth is number one. You know, doing talks and like when I did Brighton SEO last year, I got a couple of bits of business from that. One was a couple of years ago, I interviewed for a role. They wanted me full time. And at that point, I said, I don’t want to do full time. I would just want to do freelance. And then they’d come back around like a couple of years later and said, Oh, actually, could you do some training for our team? And then I’ve done some training and now I’m doing outreach for them. So again, there is a lot of not what you know, who you know. So it’s literally getting yourself out there, you know, events, networking things, you know, putting content out there. You literally have to be doing different things.

Louise Parker:
Do you find social media useful, like Twitter and LinkedIn, or is that actually quite tricky?

Isa Lavahun:
I mean, I think you have to be out there for social media. I don’t really rely on social media for new business. I think it’s more like a brand building, you know, get yourself out there and join in a conversation so kind of people know that you know what you’re talking about. So if anything, it’s kind of like say I am being interviewed with a new client or I’m speaking to someone new, then they’re likely to kind of look me up online and sort of see what I’m about. And then if they see that I’ve done a, you know, a conference, done a talk, you know, done this, done that and the other, kind of got into a conversation, done some sort of post or blog post, then it kind of gives, because the thing is, it is quite scary. I’d say as being a client, it is quite scary hiring a freelancer. And I think a lot of people that hire freelancers are sort of smaller businesses that can’t really afford the weight of hiring an agency or getting a full-time headcount. So there’s kind of a lot of trust that they need to have in you to actually go, I’m parting with my money and I need to make sure that I’m getting my money’s worth. So if they don’t know any work that you’ve done before, they probably want to do a bit of due diligence and a bit of research about you and what you’ve done before. And it like, yeah, obviously they’d look at your LinkedIn and your CV and all that kind of stuff, but it’s good to also say, for them to be aware of any extra bits that you’ve been doing and any extra kind of conversations you’ve been joining for them to go, okay, right, mate, yeah, she probably does know what she’s talking about. I’d hope so.

Stephen Baker:
I’d like to hope so. Oh, definitely. But you’ve hit on something there that sort of intrigues me. It’s almost particularly true of now. So like pre-COVID, whenever we hired freelancers at Propellernet, we’d ask them to be in the office. They could be around the team like pitching and, you know, so we could see what they’re doing. Not to check on them, it’s just the done thing. So now I guess it’s even scarier as an agency or a brand when you’re hiring a freelancer, you might never ever meet them in person. It might just be over Zoom and then they kind of crack on and you don’t have full visibility of them like going about their day to day. Do you mind me asking, like, do you ever, for agencies or brands that you work with, do you ever kind of go into the office still to sort of sit and you do?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I would say though I probably lean into working from home more, I don’t like doing it fully. I do like that hybrid. So for the client I helped to do the new business pitch for, I went into the office the days that they hired me. And I sat next to the person I was working with and we were kind of like, you know, doing stuff together. So I do like that, you know, effect of going to the office. You know, for one client, I was there for eight months consulting to do three days a week. And I think two days a week I went, no, one day a week, sorry, I went into the office and the other day a week I was at home. So I think that hybrid effect is super important. Otherwise, especially if you’re kind of hired online and you’re working online, you don’t really get to integrate into that business that well. There is a sense of isolation. And, you know, there’s, I’ve got a couple of clients that aren’t in the country and then you have to do everything like online. And I’m happy to do that. But I think that some clients do kind of like that interaction and I’m totally happy to do that. I think if it’s super enforced, it’s a bit of a red flag for me because if it’s like you must come in on every single day we hire you, then it does feel a bit like there’s a kind of lack of trust. But at the same time, I think completely isolating yourself and not being involved with anything is more, it’s a hindrance in a way because you don’t really get to understand. I like going in and kind of finding out what people are doing, what they’re selling it. And it’s so much easier to just have a conversation with someone and problem solve together than try and do it like online. So I see benefits of both. Absolutely. And yeah, I do go in and work with clients. Absolutely. I like it.

Louise Parker:
Depending on how the order of our podcast episodes we either already have put out or will be putting out a episode which is about talking about the office and hybrid and working from home and getting different people to like discuss the pros and cons of it because yeah a lot of what you’ve described is just doesn’t matter that you’re a freelancer it’s the same experience that lots of people have like around like being next to someone can be so beneficial like even if it’s just growing your relationship with them and just learning about their life a bit. Definitely.

Isa Lavahun:
And I would say, and you know, not patronising to junior team members, I think it’s more important for them to do that, especially with PR. Yeah. You know, it’s like, there’s loads of different jobs that you can do where, you know, you can, if you’re coding or anything like that, there isn’t really a difference of whether you’re in the office, except for more like relationship building. But with PR, like, it’s super important to kind of have some sort of like, camaraderie, to kind of be in the same space at the same time, not necessarily every day, but if you’re just learning, if you’re learning, if I, you know, I’ve been doing it for a long time and I kind of, you know, the whole thing of talking to journalists, but if you’re just starting your career in PR, I think it’s super important to be around A, your team members and B, people that you want to learn from, essentially, because it is tough. It’s really tough, especially when you’re having days where your coverage isn’t landing and you’re not getting the feedback and you’re not getting responses. And if you’re sat on your own on your computer, it’s actually more demotivating. Because actually if you’re sitting with someone else across you going, oh God, I know, I’m going through this thing. Or maybe we could switch ideas to see how we could tweak the angles. It comes in so handy that I do think it’s super beneficial when you’re starting out in your career and you’re just starting to do it to kind of spend not all the time in the office, but definitely spend a chunk bit of time in the office to get the vibe, get in the zone.

Stephen Baker:
We’re really keen to ask you about this. Very keen indeed. But could you share your biggest gripes about working with clients’ agencies? Because neither of us have worked… Well, actually, Lou, am I right in thinking you’ve not worked client-side, have you? Or briefly?

Louise Parker:
Yes, but not relevant to this

Stephen Baker:
No, not relevant. So like we’re very much like agency bods, we’ve been doing that for our whole lives. You’ve had such like great experience across lots, but like, so we’re really interested to know, yeah, what are the kind of the worst bits about working with clients and agencies? Definitely don’t name names if you don’t want to.

Isa Lavahun:
I think for me, there’s three main gripes. One is this link volume Oh, interesting. In terms of, we want this amount of links for, you know, blah, blah, blah. We want this a month or we want that a month. And getting them to understand that it’s not always about, yes, quantity of links does matter. Of course it does. We wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case. But it isn’t the be all, especially if you’re coming to digital PR as a source, because there’s different forms of link building, right? Digital PR is like the creme de la creme. You come to it to kind of kill two birds with one stone, to kind of do the brand building, as well as kind of get that authority of your website. So if you’re coming to me saying, I want 25 links a month or whatever, I’m not going to guarantee that fee because that’s not what you’re paying for. You’re paying for the brand building. And I’ve actually had to do a case study to a client where they wanted to rank for certain keyword and I’ve actually done a backlink audit and said, you’re number five, you’ve actually got more links than number one, two, three, four. So that’s proving that it’s not the quality of links, it’s the relevancy, it’s the kind of content you’ve got on your website, it’s, you know, who’s talking about you, it’s all that credibility. That’s what’s super important, as important as the number of links you get. And kind of doing the education piece can be really frustrating because people are so set in their ways with the cost per link mindset that it’s really, really kind of frustrating to kind of explain that to them. So I’d say that’s one. Second, it kind of aligns with it, which is when people don’t actually understand what they’re buying, but then still sort of say to you what they want. It’s like, but you don’t, but you don’t get what this, like how you, you know, like literally it’s, you know, either when they kind of talk about, Brand mentions or talk about follow versus no follow or talk about again the link volume thing and just literally do not have oh yeah and they think oh I’ve got 20 links why and why am I not ranking or I’ve got 20 links why have I not got loads of traffic and loads of sales and it’s like wow you really don’t understand how SEO works but they’ve hired you Because they go, oh, I need SEO, and I need links, because people have told me that I need links, but they don’t actually understand what they’re buying. So then that’s super, super, super difficult, because then you’re kind of always, it’s always a fight and battle to kind of explain yourself. Which then leads on to my third reason, which is value. If people don’t understand the value of what you do, then they find it hard to part with money and pay you. So that’s the thing. If someone doesn’t value your work, every time you send an invoice, it’s always like, oh, well, you know, but then I didn’t get this and, you know, and or this link didn’t get me the money that I thought I was going to get from it. Oh, that happens. They try and Not to me, but I know it happened to some freelancers that I speak to, where we agree on a, this is what I’m going to do, this is the work I’m going to do for it. And then when the invoice comes, it’s like, well, I thought getting those links was going to get me more traffic and get me… you know, more money. And it’s like, it doesn’t quite like, SEO is a long game.

Louise Parker:
Yeah, like, you know, regardless, yeah, like, oh, sorry, that’s just really annoying.

Isa Lavahun:
That’s terrible. Oh, but again, it’s people not understand. Like, if someone comes in and totally gets SEO and kind of goes, well, SEO, it’s a long game. I know I need to build authority. And actually what I’m doing when I’m buying digital PR is I’m buying two things. I’m buying, you know, increasing the chances of me to get really relevant, high quality links. But at the same time, I’m doing lots and lots of brand building and changing brand perception online. I’m literally doing, you know, two, three things at once. And I’m creating like long tail content. Because with the campaigns that we create for digital PR, the aim is to then create that lovely bit of content that sits on the site that’s always going to be kind of getting traffic, not just getting links, but getting that traffic and getting that sort of answering queries to people, you know, that people are asking, you know. So I think when they don’t know the value of your work, that’s a bit of a red flag for me, and I would rather walk away from that situation than try and convince people to kind of go, well, you need, A, you need this, and B, you need to pay this for this, and then C, it’s valuable. If you don’t know it’s valuable, then I can’t help you. Then you don’t need it. Then you shouldn’t be buying it. Do you know what I mean? So I’d say those are the, there’s loads of different gripes, but I think those are my three main ones. I have to say, touch wood, I haven’t come across them too much. A lot of this is actually more when I’m working agency side. And I’m having to work with, you know, essentially my client having to deal with their client about, you know. KPIs, let’s say.

Stephen Baker:
It’s really, really interesting to hear that. Kind of like horrifying in some ways what you’ve said that some other freelancers experience where you’ve done the work and they’re sort of trying to like row back on like payment because it hasn’t done what they expected. And it’s like, that’s not cool. But also kind of almost coming back to like the ideas and the links themselves. I feel like throughout my career, PR seems to be a discipline where everyone thinks they know what it’s about and how to do it. And it’s just not true. It’s actually an incredibly difficult discipline to come up with the right creative ideas that are on brand, that are going to get coverage, so you’re understanding what a journalist talks about. And so often you get someone who’s not in PR, whether that be client side or at an agency who’s not in PR, and they just throw something in there and you’re like, No, I mean, that’s not, again, you have to constantly, that’s one of my biggest gripes from working in PR, full stop, to be honest. It’s really frustrating.

Isa Lavahun:
I mean, there’s the PR level and then there’s, it’s like, they don’t know about PR and they don’t know about SEOs, but then they’re buying digital PR and then you’re like, why are you buying it? I don’t understand. And literally, I’ll tell you a little antidote I learned about. There’s a guy who does, the dating shows that he’s like a dating coach. He does Married at First Sight and everything. He’s an American guy and I think he lives in the UK and he does celebs go dating. I don’t even know his name. Anyway, he was doing some job. He quit. Him and his wife decided this is what he’s going to do. He wants to be a coach. He’s going to do it. He’s going to do some videos and he’s going to put some videos out every day to give advice, all this kind of stuff. He did it, he did it for about six months, doing loads of videos, like interesting videos, barely getting any views, barely getting any traction, barely getting anything whatsoever. And him and his wife were like, oh my God, what’s going on? Have we made the right decision? But he was like, no, I’m going to keep on going, keep on going, keep on going. Turns out about six, eight months later after him creating all that content, the person that looks at his video and finds his video, Oprah. Oprah invites him to her show and the rest is history. And in a way, even though it’s content creation and it’s kind of doing YouTube, but in a way it’s PR. Because it is that brand building, it’s things that you’ve done all that way through and you just don’t know who it’s going to hit, when it’s going to hit, how it’s going to hit. As long as you’re doing it and it’s on brand, the messaging is right, the story’s right, the campaign is right. You’re saying everything you want to say about your business, your brand. That is the work. It will come into fruition at some point. And I think people don’t get that because digital PR is kind of aligned with e-comm and digital. People expect quick results. And it’s not to say that, you know, yes, you can do some digital PR, drive loads of links, three months later, your position can go up, you can drive. That can happen. But it’s like an exception to the rule. Especially when you’re in a competitive space, you know, it’s a waiting game. It’s a long waiting game. And I think people really make that mistake of thinking, I’m going to get some digital PR and then yeah, I’m going to spend this amount of money and then I’m going to get my return on investment like six months later. It’s like, if that’s what you’re thinking, if you don’t have the money and you don’t have the patience, then digital PR is probably not the right marketing thing. It’s better for you to do paid social. And I do that, I advise, I’d go, if you kind of want to do a quick win and maybe do a bit of paid social, maybe try some PPC, Maybe do some email and just try different sort of avenues because digital PR is not going to be it for you if you want a quick win.

Louise Parker:
Very wise. In terms of the work that you’re asked for at the moment, has there been any shifts in the last six months, a year? I know in general in digital PR there’s definitely been more of a shift to what we call press office, what some people call like reactive or newsjacking, those kind of quick smaller things which sometimes don’t even have any content on the brand site. Is that kind of true for you or is it more training? What’s the kind of shift?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah I think the shift is and I’d say yes as a freelancer but also because I work agency side and I’ve worked with clients as kind of full circle I would say even though some people still like to hold on to the sort of that let’s take four weeks to create a bit of content on the website and then let’s plan the whole thing and then let’s sell it in. So much of that is bombing. that you have to have a plan B. I also think COVID has sort of changed that news cycle in terms of like those kinds, I don’t know, maybe it’s not just COVID, maybe it’s just digital realm in general. But I think that kind of hoping that you’re going to do a couple of campaigns that’s going to get you the links is kind of, you have to have a plan B, that’s number one. Number two, you always have to have an always on strategy. And then number three, I think whatever campaign that you’re planning, you need to create it to sort of be the gift that keeps on giving. So if you do a campaign and it goes viral, great, amazing. And yes, if you’re kind of working with a client where you’re saying we’re going to do these four hero campaigns a year, and one of them is going to go viral, great. So with all of that, you’re just upping your chances of getting a viral campaign that’s going to get you the kind of links that you want. And it’s still a risk. It’s still a risk. There’s still a chance. There’s still quite a big chance that they’re going to bomb or they’re not going to do as well as you want it to do. So I think Having that always online is super important. And actually, I think strategically, people need to be thinking about that a lot more and thinking about how to proactively plan for reactive newsjacking. So, like, you need to really think about what your asset is as a brand and be like, right, OK, what’s on the news cycle at the moment? All right. So, you know, there’s lots of stuff about climate change. There’s cost of living crisis. There’s Now, how can we join into that conversation in an authentic, expert, credible way and literally think about how you’re going to create assets, whether it’s quotes, whether it’s a bit of customer’s data, whether it’s doing, you know, a quick survey, whether it’s providing a quote. It’s really important to strategically think about how you’re going to do that in a way where you give yourself as much opportunity as possible to get that. And I think the big campaigns still matter. If anything, they matter for brand building as well, as any PR campaign would. But I think only focusing on that. Some people are still kind of not going to listen to the, I’m going to do my little campaign and that’s it. I’m going to hope that it’s going to get the links. but I do think a lot of people are realising that actually we also need to have an always-on strategy because you know there is a chance that obviously this is gonna and we’re gonna do everything in our power and that’s the thing the more insight you have the more strategic you are the more you do your feasibility testing and make sure that there’s no no reasons why the campaign wouldn’t work and if you’re working with the right people there is the chance that it’s going to go viral but you can never guarantee that. So I think it’s always important to have an always-on strategy. I agree.

Louise Parker:
Love it. Yeah. The viral thing is so interesting because you’re so right, like, of course, you can think like, oh, you know, one in four might go viral, but yeah, just something might happen in the news or for whatever reason, someone else might have done it two weeks ago and then your one that you were really banking on going viral is just totally, so yeah, it makes a lot of sense to have that. plugging the gaps and actually one of our clients, we do campaigns, we do the reactive, we do the press office kind of things, one of our reactive pieces where we saw something on TikTok and kind of you know gave a comment on the back of it, that has got more links than like about four different campaigns combined and it’s just like yeah it’s just if you’re not looking for those opportunities Well, number one, it’s a shame for your clients to not get the links, but also as a freelancer, like you said, you want to have a good reputation. You want to make sure clients are happy. So you’re just making sure you’re covering all bases. Makes total sense to me. Yeah, definitely.

Isa Lavahun:
I mean, I’d say the only kind of bottleneck for reactive campaigns is if you’re with a client where that either There’s loads of sign-off process. So like, if you’re like with a finance client or client where there’s kind of logistics and everything, then the reactor stuff, you can’t do it. You have to get there’s so much sign-off process that you probably won’t be able to jump in it. But it’s, I think it’s still pushing through that and educating them to kind of go, I would never work with someone that didn’t want to buy and always on. Because I think leaning just into doing a campaign, you’re setting yourself up for failing because I think there is a percentage that the campaigns aren’t going to fly. And, you know, a lot of the time it’s no fault of your own. Like you said, there’s something in the news, something’s happened, this, that and the other. You just don’t know. I would also point out that since COVID, we’re not talking to journalists anymore. We’re not meeting up with them anymore. We’re not taking them out for lunch anymore. We’re not doing events where it’s got nothing to do with a client, where we’re literally just getting to know what they are, because that industry is massively changing. It’s getting smaller and smaller, people being made redundant left, right and centre in that world. We don’t know what’s going on with them. We don’t know what stories they are meant to write and how they work and what we’re totally out of the loop for that and I think no one really wants to invest in that because they go yeah yeah let’s just let’s do selling and it’s like no no yeah let’s take someone out and actually find out how they like to work and what stories interest them and what they want what they need from us and so we can help them so then they can be happy to hear from us and cover our stories

Stephen Baker:
So, yeah, I would say that would be another add-on. Just a follow-up question on that. I’m quite intrigued. So, like, we obviously as an agency come up with ideas, like, or have to come up with ideas all the time. I find it a very enjoyable process. As a freelancer, do you still get to come up with, like, creative ideas, whether that be for campaigns or reactive? Because having not worked as a freelancer, like, we have worked with freelancers, but we don’t ask them to come up with ideas. It’s often just to pitch out what we’ve already come up with. Obviously, we’ll ask them to come up with maybe like a new pitch or new angles, find new contacts, but like in your experience, are you still coming up with creative ideas, pitching those to your clients?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, I mean, probably less, now you’ve said that, when I think about it, probably less, I’d say with the strategy stuff, yes. So if I’m doing anything, kind of pitching or anything like that, I think with the last place that I was for sort of eight months, I think one of my jobs was to come in and provide fresh eyes, I guess. It’s like, obviously, if you’re working for a client for a long time, you kind of get lost in the kind of vibe of it. It’s nice to have someone come in and do that. So yeah, I did that a lot when I was in the last kind of agency while I was doing sort of joining loads and loads of brainstorms and stuff and being involved in it. And I actually facilitated a brainstorm like a few weeks ago. So I do do it. But then I also do a lot of we thought of this idea, sell it in, which I have pointed out, this isn’t going to work. Some people will ask, if I know that the story isn’t going to fly, I’m going to say, I’ll do it. Absolutely. No problem. I’ll tweak it. I’ll polish it as much as I can. I’ll try and get some stats to make it more interesting. But I will from the first get go say, can I just say, these are a couple of reasons why I think this might not fly as well as you think it’s going to do. because what I don’t want to do is just take it, sell it in and then if it doesn’t get pick up then it’s going to be… and there’s more reason to blame the freelancer, right? Because then you’re taking the responsibility, well we’ve got a freelancer in and we asked her to do some selling and she didn’t get any pick up. I’d rather be straight up and be like, absolutely, I’m happy to do this. I’m going to tweak it in this way and this way. But I will say the reason why I think this story probably won’t fly is because of this, this, this and this. And that’s the whole thing, because, you know, essentially, I am a strategist as well. And it would be silly for me not to do that. Yeah, I think I do do that.

Louise Parker:
from an agency that hires freelancers, that is really valuable, although it might sting initially. But you know, you want to know, you want to know at the start as well, because you might be able to change it completely. Maybe that’s a possibility.

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, and actually, if I go, yep, and then in the middle of it go, oh, actually, I don’t think then it’s not good feedback for me, then you’ve just wasted a whole day selling in and you didn’t think So now I’m kind of like, is it or are you actually just not getting pick up? So that’s why it’s much better to get your thoughts on it from the beginning.

Louise Parker:
Are there any kind of green flags that you have with clients? So I guess that’s in-house people or it’s agencies that you’re working for as a freelancer. Are there any things which people do and you’re like, yes, this is going to be a good one?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, I think one would be ones that kind of go, I don’t have a clue, I don’t know anything. Like, you need to tell me that, not you need to tell me, but you, I’m actually here telling you transparently that I don’t know anything about SEO. Because then at least it gives me a starting point to kind of go, okay, let’s, we’re going to walk you through it and this is what we’re going to, this is how I’m going to go in on it with everything. Another green flag I would say is just kind of understanding how different digital PR is to the different kind of marketing departments, be it PR, be it e-com, be it… just getting that understanding to kind of go, yep, okay, I get it, this is slightly different and I want to do it in a different way. And I would say The biggest thing really for me is just clients that are open. I think that’s just the biggest green flag to kind of go, yep, because that’s the thing. And it’s not even in an ego way kind of like, you need to listen to me. But at the same time, it’s like you’ve hired me as a quote unquote expert. So if you’ve hired me and then you’re going to then tell me, what you want me to do then why have you then there’s no point of you hiring me then and especially if me being you know you know I’ve been doing it for a long time then you might as well get someone sort of more exec level that just comes in and does it does what you want in terms of what your strategy is. If you don’t want to hear, if you’ve hired me to kind of hear what I think, then that’s the best way to do it. And if you kind of want someone just to come in and do something, then I’m probably not the best person. Do you know what I mean? Because yeah, you hired me to be, to do some strategy for you. So yeah.

Stephen Baker:
Yeah, totally agree. I love that when you just know from the get-go that that client or that person is just kind of trusting your expertise. That’s what I like, where they’re just like, you know what? The reason we hired you is because we know we’ve established we need something. You are the expert in that something. I’m going to listen to you and let you do that something. The worst is when they meddle in it and kind of like, oh, maybe do it this way. Or no, we don’t want that. And it’s like, well, hang on, hang on, hang on. Let’s row back because, yeah, I know what I’m talking about. And as you say, it’s not an ego thing. It’s just, the benefit of experience, going like, I know that I know what I’m talking about and not everything I do is going to work, but at least, you know, listen to what I’ve got to say before. Yeah, I get what you mean. I get what you mean.

Isa Lavahun:
Definitely. So that’s the thing. I just, I think the one key green flag would be being open. And also, I also, Yeah, I am quite spiritual and I do kind of get a vibe. I do kind of get a gut when I know I’m going to be working with someone good. And I’ve also walked away from, you know, conversations or potential clients where I’ve like, eh, not a good fit.

Stephen Baker:
It’s not going to work. Good to have that instinct for sure. It plays a big part. It’s not just about what’s written down or what money’s on the table. It is like a fit thing as well. Definitely. So we’re going to finish up with a question, a new question we’re asking all of our guests on this season of the podcast. So What do you think the future of digital PR is? So that can be in the next few months, year, decade, like however you want to interpret it. We’re just keen to kind of get your expertise and your insights on where you think it’s heading or yeah, a bit of future gazing from you, if you will.

Isa Lavahun:
Okay, so I think, I hope that digital PR will one day just be called PR because It’s very silly. If you think about it, like if you’re a PR, let’s say you’re a PR agency, right? You’re doing all the skill sets, you have all the contacts, you have all, literally everything in place, and with just a couple of different things that you do differently, you then will be also doing digital PR. why isn’t this happening? I don’t understand.

Louise Parker:
I don’t get it. I totally agree. We had someone on from Cow and we asked him, like, oh, are you getting, are you thinking about links when it comes to your PR briefs and things like that? He’s like, no. As in, like, no one’s asking us about them. And, you know, they’re aware of it. And I’m sure they do some things with good links. I don’t want to badmouth Cow. Cow are great. But yeah, I’m so surprised. So yeah,

Isa Lavahun:
I think it will because obviously everything’s more and more moving online so it’s moving online even more so I think at one point digital PR and PR are going to be as one. Do I dare say the word AI? It’s going to have to be said. I’m sure you’re going to get this a lot but I do think it’s going to play a part and I think we all need to learn how to use it. Instead of thinking, this is coming for my job, I think it’s how do I use it to make my job better and make what I do better. And I think there’s two different things that’s happening with AI. I think some people are just burying their heads in the sand and going, eh, whatever. It’s not happening for a while, so I’m not even going to think about it. And other people are kind of like, oh, this is happening. And actually, the sort of thing to be doing is go on all the courses, watch the videos, learn how to use it in your everyday, like really adapt yourself and work out how you’re going to use it to your advantage. Because if anything, if AI is going to take quote unquote jobs, there’s still going to be people that are going to be needed to inform AI. So at least be at the forefront of that. Because I think, I mean, in terms of in our world, I’d say the first The first sort of thing is content copywriting, but then we’re not going to be far behind in terms of what it can and will be able to do, so I think it’s being at the forefront of that and really keeping it in mind without being scared about it. And then I’d also say social. I’m actually going to be doing a talk in November about how TikTok is coming for Google’s crown. Because when I went travelling last year, the restaurants I wanted to go to, the beaches I wanted to go to, everything, I looked on TikTok. And I’m not the TikTok demographic, you know, and I’m using TikTok way more for search. That’s telling you something and I think if Google and us as marketers continue to ignore how important social is, I think we’re going to be missing a massive big trick because a lot of people are using social instead of search engines to kind of find their queries and I think at some point we need to be able to find a way to merge the two. Keep them separate but merge them in a way that it helps the user the best way it can.

Louise Parker:
Yeah, totally. I’m so intrigued about when Perspectives comes in, that kind of place where they’re going to start ranking the how-to videos and the Reddit posts and all that kind of stuff. I’m just so intrigued to see what it ranks. It could potentially change things quite a bit, but until I see it, I’m intrigued.

Isa Lavahun:
If something’s getting 75 million views on TikTok, Google needs to kind of go, Wow, okay. I need to take that into account when I’m ranking. They have to. I think they’ve kind of been burying their heads in the sand about it for a while. Or maybe, maybe it’s because there’s not an easy way to merge it. You know, maybe there is people in a room who’ve been scratching their heads for the last decade figuring out how to do it and there’s no easy way. So, you know, maybe, you know, I’m kind of being too harsh, but social needs to be not just, oh yeah, social signals. Everyone sort of goes, nubs their heads and kind of goes, yeah, social signals. No, how does social impact ranking and search positions? Because it should, because it’s part of the user journey now, especially the likes of TikTok. And I think in five years time, there’ll be more TikTok-esque platforms that will kind of take over. And as people grow up with it, you know, you’ve got, you know, Gen Zs and Alphas and they’re going to be, Google is going to be like Facebook is to most of us.

Stephen Baker:
I mean, I already feel a bit like that, Isa, because I don’t have TikTok, I’m aware of it. And similar to you for like… What? You don’t have TikTok? I kind of do, but I don’t use it as such, you know, it’s like, it’s a bit… Yeah. Where can people see that talk if they want to? It sounds really interesting. You said it’s in November time, right? Or do you not know yet? I’m going to Barbados.

Louise Parker:
Let’s get some tickets, Steve!

Isa Lavahun:
Barbados SEO. Oh, nice! Lovely stuff. Well, I’m sure afterwards the content will be shared and will be online at some point. Yeah, great.

Stephen Baker:
I mean, you’ve got our email addresses for the guest passes, VIP, access all areas.

Isa Lavahun:
Of course, yeah, come to Barbados.

Stephen Baker:
Well, yeah, definitely keep an eye out for that. We’ve come to the hardest part of the podcast, which is saying goodbye, which me and Lou traditionally aren’t very good at. We get the intros down, we prep the questions thoroughly. But firstly, thank you, Isa. It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and we really appreciate your time. So many fascinating insights and tips and things for people to consider if they’re either a freelancer already or thinking about becoming one and just knowledge of the industry. So you’ve been amazing and it’s been a pleasure. Where should people, if they want to get in touch with you, whether they’re looking for advice or to hire you, like where’s the best place? Is it on Twitter? Elon Musk’s brainchild?

Isa Lavahun:
Yeah, I mean I’ve got a website, my website digiprcomes.com I’m on Twitter, not as much as I should be, but I’m on Twitter. And then obviously LinkedIn. So those three are the main kind of key places you can find me if you have a question, want to email me, send me a message, anything like that.

Stephen Baker:
Lovely. Thank you so much, Ice. It’s been a pleasure. Speak soon.

Louise Parker:
Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye.