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Carrie Weston
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Nancy Marshall
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Carrie Weston
Hey. This week on the show we're talking AI and press releases and getting attention, right? Earning attention to your business, to your organization, to your cause. I've got a 35 year veteran that's going to share some tips on. Even though the game is changing, Google's changing, AI is changing. There are still some tried and true practices that can help you rise above the fray and bring attention to your cause, organization or business. If that sounds interesting to you, stay with me and I'll see you on the other side of the music. Foreign. Hey gang. Welcome to the Chat GPT Experiment. This is the podcast designed to help you better understand tools like Chat GPT and how to get a nugget of value for your personal or professional uses. My name is Kerry Weston. I'm your host. How you doing? How are you doing? Hey. First thing I want to share, this is the last week I'm gonna. I'm gonna do the drawing here in the coming week or so, but this is the last week to get entered into the giveaway to AI Business World, Michael Stelzner's AI Business World. Michael, of course, is the founder of Social Media Examiner. And AI business world is in Anaheim, California, April 29th and 30th. And the focus is practical AI workflows with real tools, discussions and strategies for business and marketing. Folks, this is an admission ticket. It's about $1,000 value. Michael's been generous enough to offer it to one of our listeners. So if you haven't signed up, if you haven't put your Name in yet, chatgpt experiment.com it's right there on the homepage. You'll find it. It's also in the show. Notes of this particular episode, you'll see the link. Get your name in, would you? Let's see, A lot of things are happening. I've got a lot of notes for upcoming episodes around work, thinking about work tools, what's happening in the workplace, what people are asking and talking about in the workplace. So got a couple episodes coming up on that. Today's episode is a good one. Talking about work and workplace. If you are someone that has a business, someone who has an organization or hobby or a cause or a story, then you know how important it is to get your name out there, to get your cause out there, to get your organization out there. And what I mean by out there is to have people see it, learn about it, find it, hear about it. Right. And press releases and communicating to media outlets, be it social media or traditional sources, is an effective way to do that. And today I'm joined by Nancy Marshall. Nancy runs a PR agency here in Maine where I am. She's in her 35th year. And I asked Nancy to come on because there's so much changing in the way that people use digital tools, even the search engines themselves and how we distribute and learn information is changing. But there's some, there's some blocking and tackling, as I call it, some human basics that come from experience and know how to keep up with what's going on as well as using experience from tried and true measures from the past. So Nancy Marshall is going to share with you. It's a good conversation, share with you some of the ways she's using AI. She's got some resources that you're going to hear that she sent my way. I put those in the show notes as well. And it's all about really building trust, building visibility, building awareness so that you can get your story, whether it be personal, professional, cause, organization or business, business out so people can see it and you can benefit from it. Okay? So good conversation, good story. Nancy's got a good resource here for you. So good. And I will get you to that interview right now. So, as always, the key for you in finding value in ChatGPT is staying curious. And Nancy's. You're going to hear Nancy's curious. She's staying curious and she'll tell you how she's staying on top of learning what's going on and how to use these things. So you stay curious. Okay? And until we talk again, be good. And here's my conversation with Nancy Marshall. Well, hey, Nancy, welcome to the show.
Nancy Marshall
Thanks, Gary. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here.
Carrie Weston
Oh, I appreciate you saying that. Listen, I want to make sure, like we always do, that folks kind of understand not only who you are, but the lens by which you're going to be talking about. So would you share with the folks listening who you are, what you do, and who you're doing it for these days?
Nancy Marshall
Sure. Well, I'm known as the PR maven. I've been doing well. I've had an agency now in Maine for 35 years. This is our 35th anniversary.
Carrie Weston
Congratulations.
Nancy Marshall
And so. And I used to work at Sugarloaf previously doing there. I was a communications director there. So I really had nailed the art of PR before the Internet, where I would type press releases on an electric typewriter. We used a mimeograph machine to make copies of them. We would stuff them in envelopes, put stamps on them. And I would drive from Sugarloaf down to Kingfield, usually going way over the speed limit because I was trying to get to Kingfield before the mail truck left town. And we would also make videos of ski races and duplicate the press. The videos that I would get in my vehicle. I had a Saab 99 with studded snow tires. I drive from Sugarloaf over to Bangor, go to all the TV stations, drop off the tapes, and drive down to Portland, drop off the tapes. I would chat it up a little bit with the TV personalities and then drive back to Sugarloaf and get home by midnight and do it all over again the next day. So I was very good at that, like, you know, offline pr. But when. When the Internet came into being, my then boss, who's a very wise man named Chip Carey, who was the vice president of marketing, said, you know, this Internet's really going to impact how we do our jobs, and you better stay on top of it. And it's so funny because I think that was probably around the year that was in the 90s, probably like mid-90s. And he said that. And I can still hear his voice. And that's why I still am driven to, like as much as I can stay on top of all of this.
Carrie Weston
And by all of this, things have certainly changed, but the more they. They change, the more they stay the same. Right? And so you and I have talked a little bit about a tool like ChatGPT in the past. And I know that you. You said you had. Your agency's 35 years old. Is that what you said? That's. That's awesome. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And the ability for you to adapt and change has Been one of the reasons that your agency is still along. Right? I mean, that's you. You have to do that. You have to do that. So when you see a tool like this come into play, you talked about your boss telling you you got to pay attention to the Internet. When did you understand that this was this next wave? Like, this AI wave is something that you've got to jump into too. How do you, how do you do that as a business owner?
Nancy Marshall
Well, I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts like yours, Carrie, and, you know, I'm on social media probably more than I should be. I mean, I do it, quote unquote, for work, but of course I'm looking at everything else and I'm, I'm avid, I'm an avid LinkedIn user. As a matter of fact, I wish all of your listeners would connect with me on LinkedIn. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's within the past 18 months that I've been following the changes and sometimes it can be intimidating with AI. But on the other hand, I have to remember back to, you know, when social media became a thing. Like nobody was an expert in all of it. You know, nobody's really an expert in AI yet because it's evolving so fast. So basically I have to kind of just say, look, just try it out in all of its different uses.
Carrie Weston
And you've got folks that work, you've got folks that work for you at the agency, obviously.
Nancy Marshall
And so people.
Carrie Weston
So not only do you have to stay on top of it, but they're curious too. Yeah. And you've got a responsibility to them as well as the clients that you serve. So can we go down that path just for a minute? From, from a, from a leader point of view, from a leadership point of view, how are you kind of investing and using your curiosity to know what to do next and how to guide not only the team, but the business in this kind of change?
Nancy Marshall
Well, I did take a course that was offered online through the Women's Presidents Organization in the fall, and it was by Jeff woods, and his name is G E O F F Woods, and he wrote a book called the AI Driven Leader. And he gave this six week online course for women leaders nationally on, you know, using AI. And his big premise is what he calls crit, C R I T Context, Role Interview Task.
Carrie Weston
So when you're, can you give me an example of that? What does that mean?
Nancy Marshall
Yes. So say you're asking, you're asking chat CBT to give you some help with a, with a Problem employee. Not that I have any, but. No, just, just hypothetically, you would give it the context. Like, I have an employee who's an account executive, is supposed to be managing accounts on my behalf, and sometimes he, you know, doesn't follow the rules. That's the context. And he's worked for me for five years and he's got a degree in business. And then I would give ChatGPT the role. I'm like, I want you to counsel me as if you're my HR director.
Carrie Weston
Mm.
Nancy Marshall
And then I want you, I want you to interview me. ChatGPT and ask me one question at a time. And I will answer those questions, but one at a time. So then ChatGPT might say, well, have you already spoken to this employee? And I'd say, yes, I have spoken to him, but nothing has changed. Then Chat would say, well, you know, what do you think what it would take for him to change his behavior? And do others in your agency have this behavior? So all these questions, but because you're doing the questions one at a time, chat is learning as it goes. And then finally the task, then I would say, give me a performance plan. I think they call it a pip, performance improvements plan for this employee. And that's the task that I'm asking ChatGPT for. So that's the kind of thing that we learned. And Jeff woods talked about how you should always ask yourself, how can AI help me do this? Whatever it is you're doing, how can AI make this easier, better, faster? And so that's the way I'm trying to think.
Carrie Weston
Oh, it's good advice. So one of the things that I learned, Nancy, when I have a conversation or a presentation or do a workshop, is what you just said, talking to it. Having a two way conversation is foreign. It's surprising. It is new to a lot of folks. Right? Were you talking to it? Were you having two way conversations and telling it to ask you questions before this, or was this kind of a revelation when you went through this course?
Nancy Marshall
It was kind of a revelation because I, I think I was using it a lot. Like Google, you know, like where you, you type something in, then you expect to see a bunch of links to websites. But that's the, you know, that's what I've learned is the big difference. It's not going to give you a bunch of links. You might not even end up going to a website. It's going to give you a paragraph or two of, of content. And I often, I often ask it to give me a word Document that I download and save. I do that a lot of times with, with my chat GPT.
Carrie Weston
Yeah, so that's good. That one, that two way conversation ask me questions and sometimes it'll ask clarifying questions. And it's a really surprising benefit. A tool that's terrifically capable but can be really flexible in the moment. I love the advice that you just shared, which is give it a role, give it a purpose, give it background and context and then it can become very flexible assistant.
Nancy Marshall
I'm also shocked though, Carrie. I want to say I'm also shocked by how many people are scared to death of it and think it's going to bring down humanity. I mean, I have a 33 year old son who's very smart, he's college educated, he went to Colby College where I went and he's very successful selling insurance. Oh, and he just says, oh mom, that it hallucinates all the time no matter what. So he's just so skeptical. And then I also was involved with a project in Lewiston, Maine where a new AI data center was going to go into the Bates Mill, which would have been a perfect location for it. And it would have provided jobs and taxes and everything. And boy, it got out on Facebook and all the people of Lewiston started picketing and protesting and it got shot down at the last minute. And it was just such a shame because it would have been so good not only for Lewiston but our whole state.
Carrie Weston
So that's an excellent transition because in Maine we have a statement, you know, damn a fact get in the way of an opinion. Right. So once you believe something, it's very, very difficult to overcome that. And education is expensive and that's the essence of pr. Yeah. And your ability to get story out for other people and to shape conversation and shape perceptions is something that you've said. You've been doing this for 35 years. So the ability for that, how has that changed through the years? Because I want to get to. You reference Google, you reference search engines and that's such a big part of what we do in business and life these days. So how does this merge? Like how do the overcoming opinions, telling stories, doing your job, getting out and then dealing with technology as a whole. The, the evolution of search and the evolution of how people are finding information. How are you, how are you adjusting and dealing with all that?
Nancy Marshall
Well, search is changing dramatically. You know, it used to be with Google search that you would try to get something into the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the biggest media outlet Possible because Google would go to the website that had the most traffic, whereas AI might go to a very small blog. But if it's a blog written by a certified expert, somebody who's verifiable as an expert, it might not have a huge amount of traffic, but AI might go to that blog because AI deems it to be trustworthy. And it's so interesting because in pr, I talk a lot about know like and trust. Like, for somebody to do business with you, they have to know you. Like I know you, Carrie. I like you and I trust you. So that's why I like doing business with you. And it's almost the same with AI. It's trying to find something, sources that it knows, likes, and trusts, too.
Carrie Weston
And how does that, Can I just ask there, because that's such a nebulous term. How does it determine who the expert is or what, what, what to like and trust?
Nancy Marshall
Well, first of all, your own website, keeping that updated and current, it's more important than ever because CHAT will or whoever will go and scan your website, and it has to be well maintained. It should have a blog that's kept up to date. It should have Q and A, should have an about page, should have case studies, white papers, and then maybe a media room that lists all the news articles about you. So that's, that's something all of us can do to really impact how we show up in AI Search. So AI will search your website, but then it will also go out and search, see if you've been covered by a real journalist validation kind of thing. Exactly, because journalists are professionals and they're supposed to, you know, they have an ethics. They're, they're, they're, they have integrity and ethics, and they're supposed to tell the truth, and they're also supposed to tell both sides of the story. Now, we know some don't, but that's
Carrie Weston
another, that's another podcast altogether.
Nancy Marshall
That's what they're supposed to do. So again, AI will trust a site that's written by a journalist. So if you can get something onto a big site like Washington Post or Wall Street Journal or New York Times, that's great. And another thing that's old but becoming new again is what we call newswires. There's something called PR Newswire, and you can go to PRNewswire.com and see it, but anybody can write a press release and post it on PR Newswire. You pay a fee, and then it gets sent out worldwide to journalists. And those newswires are more Important than ever, because AI trusts the releases that are on there, even though it's what I call pay to play. Like you have to pay to put a press release on there. But you need to have a quote from a, from an expert in that press release, and you should have the. The who, what, where, why, and how in that press release. And again, chat will. Will deem that as reliable information and incorporate that into its response when you search for something.
Carrie Weston
So that's old school meets new school, kind of manipulating what you're putting out. Okay. And so we have. I have. I've heard from people all over the world, so I'm sharing this. You know, we've got people in London and Australia and across the US and so when we talk about geographical terms to Maine, they may not be relevant, but I want to share with you a quick story because I can see you in the Saab. And when, when Nancy's talking about being at Sugarloaf, that's our one. Is it our largest ski mountain? Yes, there's a designation. Okay. It's the largest ski mountain in Maine, but it's in the mountains. Right, that makes sense. And the mountains have a very different weather. Right. It's a very different forecast and weather than, than when she talks about driving to Bangor, which is where I'm sitting, I'm guessing. How far is it from.
Nancy Marshall
From carabas and bang, two hours and 15 minutes.
Carrie Weston
Okay, so a little over.
Nancy Marshall
And the roads are icy generally in the.
Carrie Weston
Now, is that Nancy driving or is that legal?
Nancy Marshall
It might be, yeah.
Carrie Weston
Let's call it two and a half. Let's call it two and a half. And so you could, you could go from a blizzard to blinding snow when she starts in the Saab and get back to here. And I, I've lived in the mountains before where it's been snowy and blizzard home here in Bangor. And the grass is green. Right. So there's two different, like, environments all together here. So I want to share with you when you were telling your story of whipping around in your car. The first car accident I was ever in was coming back from Sugarloaf. Just because of that, there was a blinding snow. We ended up on top. We rolled a car. So we ended up upside down in a ditch somewhere outside of Sugarloaf. Because of that very reason, we weren't ready. Right. I think my friend had his license for three days, and that was how we started off as. But I share all that because you're, you are doing that. You're getting in the Saab and going Two and a half hours, or in your case, an hour 45 to get to Bangor to give them, to give the. So that's one of our immediate. There's two media markets in Maine and Bangor happens to be one of them. And Portland is a couple hours south. That's a bigger one. But to get that in their hands in the old days was literally putting it in their hands, you know, and then having a face to face conversation. But what I think I'm hearing you say is we've decentralized that so much now and there are ways in which the average business, the plumber, the electrician, the whatever company can take advantage of these tools, be it AI or otherwise. And some of the tips you just gave them was how they could keep up in the AI world. Right? Did I get that correct?
Nancy Marshall
Yes. And actually I'm going to give you a link to a case study off of one of these newswire websites that I just discovered today. And you can share it with all of your listeners.
Carrie Weston
I'll put it in the show notes. Sure.
Nancy Marshall
It gives an example of a battery company that manufactures batteries. But because they had a superior press release, they had form better properly and they had the who, what, where, why, how, and they had a quote from an expert. They had all the things that chat likes to see or claude or whoever. And so that battery website beat out a lot of, excuse me, that battery press release on PR Newswire beat out a lot of other press releases from competitors because they didn't do it correctly. And that's one thing I've really learned about AI is it likes formatting. For example, if you have a bulleted list on your website, it likes bulleted lists and it likes Q and A. And it also likes to have on a press release, it likes to have a headline and then a sub headline.
Carrie Weston
Can I pause just for a second because I have an idea and I have not asked you this. I have not asked you this. So I have no idea what you're about to say. With 35 years and having seen and done a lot of things a lot of different ways, you're giving some some good tips for businesses of all sizes here to kind of do the basics right, the blocking and tackling of the news release, seeing how there's an opportunity to utilize a tool like ChatGPT to interview me, to get information out of me, would you be willing to give me maybe a conversation to work with ChatGPT so that someone could take advantage of the who, what, where, when and why and have chat ask Them the question so we could pull out the. The meaningful information so they could put together one of these news releases. Sure, Yeah, I think that would be excellent. I'll put that in show notes if you want to send it my way. But I think if we could get chat to prompt somebody to pull it out of their head.
Nancy Marshall
Right.
Carrie Weston
From a structural point of view, that would benefit them.
Nancy Marshall
Yeah, yeah. We can do an example because my agency handles the State of Maine Office of Tourism, and actually there is a, what we call a media room website. And I'll. I'll say it now, but you can put this in the show notes. It's at VisitMain Media Room.com and that media room. It's a. It's a whole website designed specifically for the media and it is set up, I don't know if I'll say perfectly, but really well, not only for journalists, but also for AI to find information.
Carrie Weston
Yeah, I guess I was going backwards one more, which was if somebody locally, a small business, a hair salon or. It doesn't matter what it is. Right. Could be a big business, small business. If there's some tips that you could give me that I could put in the show notes that would help them work with a tool like ChatGPT to interview them and structure it properly so they could take advantage of this, that would be great. That'd be excellent.
Nancy Marshall
Yeah, I'd be happy to do that.
Carrie Weston
So let me ask you. I know a little bit about pr, having been in the, you know, dipping my toe in the world here over the last couple decades. And I know that some of it is telling stories, some of it is getting awareness. Right. Someone is going. Some of the work is going from no to like to trust. But some of it is also, what do we say? Thinking about things that could happen. You know, I mean, there could be, you know, protecting yourself or being ready against crisis. Right. There's crisis responses and whatnot. Have you used a tool like ChatGPT in that. In that way?
Nancy Marshall
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did it today, so.
Carrie Weston
Oh, you did? Okay.
Nancy Marshall
I'm going to be working with a trade industry organization here in the state of Maine, and they've hired me and Steve McCausland, who was the spokesman for the Maine State police for about 40 years. And the two of us are going to be doing crisis communications training with this organization because they might get. They might be at a town meeting, for example, and a journalist might happen to be there and just surprise them with a question that's very hard to answer. And what are the questions that a journalist would ask. Okay, journalist is going to be writing about this. And, and then what are the best answers?
Carrie Weston
And how did you do, what did you do with that when you got that output? Did you, what do you do with that?
Nancy Marshall
Well, I'm going to be doing this training in a few weeks. So this is preparation. This is. Yeah, this is preparation for the media training. So at that media training, Steve will pose as if he's a reporter. He will be asking the questions, I'll be videotaping the responses, and then we're going to literally play it back. So.
Carrie Weston
Okay.
Nancy Marshall
It's just, it helped me come up with possible crisis scenarios that I would never have been able to imagine.
Carrie Weston
So let me ask because Trust But Verify is running through my head right now and I'm listening to your song as you share with me that it's make things up. So as you go through these exercises, how do you validate that they're worth actually paying attention to?
Nancy Marshall
I actually, I had it save it save as a word document, which is one thing I tend to always do, and I forwarded it to the, the person, the client that I'm working with. And I said, are these scenarios that you can envision? So the person who is working in this industry, day in, day out, will review the list and, and say yes or no or maybe, you know, so.
Carrie Weston
Okay, so that's good. So you're not trusting what's coming out. You're using it as a brainstorming tool. You're having it feed you information, maybe even question you get to the point of having something. But you're always checking with somebod, make sure that this is relevant, not just accepting.
Nancy Marshall
Right, yes, absolutely. And you know that I, that's another point I want to make is humans are still important.
Carrie Weston
Yeah.
Nancy Marshall
And also, you know, I mentioned all these big media outlets like Wall Street Journal and New York Times. They will not accept an article written by a journalist if it's been written by AI. They have. They have ways. And Carrie, you probably know the ways better than I do.
Carrie Weston
Well, it's changing every day. Yep.
Nancy Marshall
Okay. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, one thing I know is EM dashes. EM dashes are kind of like a giveaway because, you know, AI is.
Carrie Weston
Or if you start within an ever changing world.
Nancy Marshall
Yes, exactly. Right.
Carrie Weston
Or put game changer. Yep. No, there's all kinds of clues in there, but yeah. I guess the point is though, is. And I think that's important for people to hear because I get this question a lot in workshops is how do I trust it? How do I know if it's real? And when we have, like you, you have a responsibility of being authentic and honest and real. That's the whole point of journalism. That's the whole point of pr. That's the whole point of what you do. And so it's super important that you run this by someone that can look at it and validate it. And so you're expediting perhaps a process, but you're not short changing the process at all. You're just, you're just. The busy work becomes easier. But certainly using the experience of those that you know to validate is very, very important. Yeah.
Nancy Marshall
Yes. And I must say that my agency team worked with you several months ago, and that's one thing that I learned is that, you know, you need to know how to give it the proper prompts. Like, not everybody knows how to give the proper prompts for any situation. So that, and that's something that you helped us come up with, you know,
Carrie Weston
and just talking to it. Right. I mean, just like you were talking to a human. That's the best part is you can certainly have a conversation with tool, just like you've said you do. And that surprises a lot of people too, right? Just the ability of talking. Yeah, yeah. Nancy, I know you're not always working, so, you know. Right. I might feel like that. Right. But let's. We've got. We've got an audience of curious folks that, you know, personal and professional uses for tools like ChatGPT. So is there, is there some way that you're using a tool outside of work? Are there things that you can share that might give some people some ideas on where they could take this?
Nancy Marshall
Well, I have a funny story. I've been going to this gym called EA Fitness in Portland, Maine. That's a weightlifting gym. And most of the members are slightly older like me, but people that really want to get healthy for the rest of their lives. And this young guy named Evan Amel owns it and he's been encouraged us, encouraging us to eat liver.
Carrie Weston
Eat liver. Okay.
Nancy Marshall
More liver. Because it's high in protein and iron and all kinds of vitamins that are good for longevity. So of course, you know, liver doesn't taste that amazing. So I, I asked you, being.
Carrie Weston
You're being very kind.
Nancy Marshall
I asked my chat GBT to give me some liver recipes and I actually printed them out and made copies and brought them to the gym and handed them out to everybody because there was one rec where you dredge the liver in milk and then flour. You fry it in butter and oil and then you put Marsala wine on
Carrie Weston
it
Nancy Marshall
to try to disguise the taste of the liver.
Carrie Weston
I'm no health expert, but I'm thinking that we may have defeated the protein intake by all the other things that you're putting on it. I'm not sure though, all the butter
Nancy Marshall
and the olive oil, does the wine
Carrie Weston
ever make it to the liver or does it just stain the glass?
Nancy Marshall
It makes it to my limerick.
Carrie Weston
That's the important part. That's the important. Okay, before I get you out of here, Nancy, I hope you don't mind me asking this public, but I do believe there's a snowshoe incident that you've shared with me about and I'm hoping you might share it with folks.
Nancy Marshall
So I do some work with Sugarloaf still that I used to do before I started my own agency, which is media relations. And again, Carrie, you know, my personality. I am a relationship builder and I was born to build relationships like real human relationships. So one of my good friends, but also professional friend, is the travel editor of Yankee magazine. And I was on a snowshoe tour at Sugarloaf with her last week and she had rental snowshoes, but I had my own. However, I had not used them for over five years, probably since before the pandemic. And so I, you know, get my boots all tied into the, you know, tightened up into the binding and we went on our hour long tour. Then we got back to the lodge and I hope this isn't defensive. I had to go to the bathroom. Really?
Carrie Weston
Yeah, it's a fine, it's a very human thing, especially after eating all that liver and wine. I can imagine.
Nancy Marshall
But I could not get my binding. I couldn't figure out, like the binding doesn't come off the same way because to put it on, you tighten it up by screwing the thing to the right. Turns out to get it off, you have to lift this thing up to release the binding. But I didn't know that. So I got out my phone and I asked ChatGPT. I specified these are LLB snowshoes and I specified the brand of the binding. And I said, how do I get this off? Because I have to go to the bathroom.
Carrie Weston
And it worked?
Nancy Marshall
Yes, it worked. And it said ha ha ha. It got the humor in it too. And so that was very useful. So you never know. And actually again, I'll wrap it up by one of the things that this Jeff Woods. I have this posted right on my computer. How can AI help me do this. So whatever situation you're in, always think about how can AI help me do this?
Carrie Weston
And whether it's cooking liver, avoiding crisis, preparing for a PR thing, or just simply going to the bathroom, it's there to help, isn't it?
Nancy Marshall
Yes.
Carrie Weston
Well, Nancy, thank you for spending some time with me. I know there's some things here that's gonna resonate. I appreciate your story. You are a relationship builder. And if people do wanna connect with you as you introduced at the beginning, how do they find you?
Nancy Marshall
Well, I have a site at prmaven.com P-R-M-A-V-E-N.com and I have a monthly newsletter that I put out. I actually put out one today, so I'd love it if people would go to that site and sign up for my newsletter. I'm also on LinkedIn as Nancy Marshall and I'm very active on LinkedIn. And oh, by the way, AI does look at LinkedIn as a trustworthy site as well. So it behooves all of us to be active on LinkedIn. Carrie.
Carrie Weston
Well, fantastic and thank you. Noted. And you've got a couple things to send my way. I'll put those in the show notes. And again, if you've got a prompt or some best practices that people can use chat GPT to follow your advice to create a well structured news release, that would be terrifically helpful. Nancy Marshall from the PR maven here in ME appreciate you spending some time with me and good luck in the gym. You're looking healthy. You're looking good. It must be the. It must be the liver and onions.
Nancy Marshall
Yeah. And a lot of deadlifts.
Carrie Weston
A lot of deadlifts. Well, there's plenty of snow. Fortunately, in the east coast where we are, there's plenty of snow to enjoy more skiing and snowshoeing. So I hope you practice those bindings before you go back out.
Nancy Marshall
I will. Thanks, Carrie. Have a good day.
Episode 100 – How AI Is Changing Public Relations with Nancy Marshall
Host: Cary Weston
Guest: Nancy Marshall, “The PR Maven”
Date: March 1, 2026
In this milestone 100th episode, host Cary Weston sits down with Nancy Marshall, a 35-year veteran of the PR world known as “The PR Maven.” Together, they explore how AI—and especially ChatGPT—are transforming the way professionals approach public relations, media visibility, and storytelling. The conversation delves into practical strategies for leveraging AI in PR, maintaining human authenticity, and integrating tried-and-true techniques with cutting-edge tools to succeed in today’s rapidly evolving digital information landscape.
[05:09] Nancy shares her early PR days, recalling physical press releases pre-internet, driving press materials across Maine, and forging direct relationships with media.
Adapting through change:
Learning and Leading
CRIT Framework for Prompting AI ([09:14])
What Makes ChatGPT Different?
Overcoming AI Skepticism
How Search Is Changing ([15:03])
“Know, Like, and Trust”—Human Principles Applied to AI
Optimizing Your Online Presence ([16:25])
Press Releases and Newswires Matter More Than Ever ([17:31])
PR Newswire and similar platforms are trusted sources for AI aggregators.
Press releases should be properly formatted, contain quotations from certified experts, and follow the classic “who, what, where, why, how” structure.
Formatting Tips for Maximum AI Visibility ([21:16])
Use bulleted lists, clear Q&As, headings, subheadings, and well-structured press releases.
AI as a Brainstorming and Interview Tool
Real-World Use: Brainstorming Crisis Scenarios ([24:33])
On Trust and Verification ([26:51])
Beyond Work: Liver Recipe Story ([29:10])
Snowshoe Binding Emergency ([30:51])
On AI’s role in PR visibility:
Foundational PR principles still apply:
On using ChatGPT as a true assistant:
AI skepticism and resistance:
AI as a problem-solving default:
Connect with Nancy Marshall:
Further Learning:
Memorable Sign-off:
“Whether it’s cooking liver, avoiding crisis, preparing for a PR thing, or just simply going to the bathroom, it’s there to help, isn’t it?” – Cary ([32:54])
Explore the links in the show notes for prompts, templates, and further reading recommended by Nancy and Cary!