Michelle Songy is a serial tech entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Press Hook, a media relations platform that connects brands, media, publicists, and journalists. Recognized as a changemaker in the PR industry, Michelle recently earned her spot on PRWeek’s Dashboard 25, a list of the most influential people in communications technology, representing the enterprises that are shaping your tech stack. She has more than a decade of experience developing, managing, and marketing businesses from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
In this episode, Lexie and Michelle Michelle dive into Press Hook’s inception and growth over the years. They explore its evolution in the ever-changing landscape of journalism and media, particularly in relation to AI and media strategy. Michelle highlights how leveraging AI can enhance your media strategy.
Here’s What You’ll Learn:
Discount Code for Press Hook: pitchin50
Listener Links:
Michelle Songy is a serial tech entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Press Hook, a media relations platform that connects brands, media, publicists, and journalists. Recognized as a changemaker in the PR industry, Michelle recently earned her spot on PRWeek’s Dashboard 25, a list of the most influential people in communications technology, representing the enterprises that are shaping your tech stack. She has more than a decade of experience developing, managing, and marketing businesses from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
In this episode, Lexie and Michelle Michelle dive into Press Hook’s inception and growth over the years. They explore its evolution in the ever-changing landscape of journalism and media, particularly in relation to AI and media strategy. Michelle highlights how leveraging AI can enhance your media strategy.
Here’s What You’ll Learn:
Discount Code for Press Hook: pitchin50
Listener Links:
Lexie Smith
Hey guys, I'm Lexie Smith, a mom, multi hyphenate entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of the PR bar Inc, coaching platform and agency. In my career I've had the privilege of guiding countless brands, genius, publicists, eager students and ambitious entrepreneurs on their PR journeys. I've danced with the Giants and nurtured startups, directed in house PR departments lend my expertise to boards and spread knowledge across universities nationwide. Throughout all of this, I've seen our industry change and evolve while simultaneously proving that some timeless fundamentals remain unshaken. This show takes you behind the scenes of the world of media, marketing and PR, aiming to teach you all the new tips, tricks and how the best and brightest are achieving success overseas. Now it's time to grow. Welcome to the show. Michelle Sanji is a serial tech entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of press hook, a media relations platform that connects brands, media publicists and journalists. As a PR industry change maker she was recently named on PR week's dashboard 25 list of the most influential people in communications technology representing the enterprises that are shaping your tech stack. She has more than a decade of experience developing managing and marketing businesses from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Michele, welcome so much to the show. I know we just did a WHERE ARE YOU IN THE WORLD pre recording. But I do like to let our listeners know first type of show. Where are you zooming in from? And what do you like to do outside of work for
Michelle Songy
fun? First of all, yeah, thank you so much for having me on really excited and following you guys for a while. I actually just transplanted about a year ago from New York where I had been for a while to Atlanta, Georgia, my hometown. So getting to see some family more definitely doing a little bit more like babysitting of the nieces. But in my free time I love I love yoga, I love playing tennis recently a bit more. I love traveling and recently gotten into some like kite surfing and other things like that. So
Lexie Smith
this is very long shot. But one of my I just went to a wedding two weekends ago and reconnected with one of my really good friends from college, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia who just joined a tennis club. Is tennis really big in Atlanta, or is that just a coincidence? Morgan Smith is her name. I mean, it would be a long shot.
Michelle Songy
But really I'm sure I can connect her somehow in the south. We all really closely connected. I played growing up so I played really competitively since I was I started playing when I was three or four years old. So I played up to high school really competitively then obviously took a break. Then lived around the world. And then I came back here. Yeah, and I started playing again. But yeah, I would say tennis and pickleball are pretty much like rivaling each other. So
Lexie Smith
I'm doing right now everywhere it's mopping up, but that next time you're at your tennis situation, keep up. Keep an ear out for Morgan Smith.
Michelle Songy
I will look out for our
Lexie Smith
I'm amazing. Okay, so in your from there. So you also have lived around the world real quick. Wherever you left.
Michelle Songy
Yes. So right after college actually went to UGA worked for Coca Cola. And they sent me about a year after college to London, where I live, I had never been there before. But I just picked up and moved there by myself. And that's actually where I started my first startup company living over there abroad, but traveled a ton all over the world in that time, which was super exciting and fun. And then later on moved to New York.
Lexie Smith
Okay, so you kind of segwayed perfectly up to what I am in season six, just calling it what it is career Cliff Notes, because I end up asking the same question. So now we're just we're just titling this section this season. So I want to go into our career cliff notes. So you had a prior startup, but do you want to kind of rewind time and give us some some bullet points of what came before today?
Michelle Songy
Sure. So while I was living abroad, a friend and I had a great idea to start our own tech company. We at the time, didn't even know what it was. We just knew we were going to start one. Neither of us had any experience. We were living abroad. We had no contacts. We hadn't raise money over there. We didn't have visas to work over there. We had nothing going for us. But you know, we were young. We were in our 20s and decided to go for it. So we started a mobile payment app that you could use, like pay your friends and pay at restaurants over there. We thought that the service and hospitality in London was super slow. So we started a company and that was my first startup. It was very difficult. It was a quite a roller coaster, although very different times So we're in now, but that was really my first experience of being a startup founder and navigating Yeah, the landscape and growing a company.
Lexie Smith
So did you go straight from that startup to what you're doing today? Or was there any interim jobs things in the middle?
Michelle Songy
So my idea, like I started wearing every hats, and it was the idea was definitely like planted my second startup was planted in my first, we were actually getting acquired. So in 2017, we got acquired by American Express, but it was during that period, and then I continued to work with them for two years. But it was during that period that I was trying to get us some media exposure and get us some press. And we didn't have the resources to hire a big agency. So I had to just figure out how to do it on my own and self teach and found out how difficult that was to do. Like didn't find any resources. I couldn't really find any, like good tech or anything that was like helping me. So this started the wheels turning of what I built as my second startup, which was Pressbook.
Lexie Smith
Okay, let's get into presto, tell us all the things the how the what, everything, dump it all on us.
Michelle Songy
Sure. So the biggest thing I couldn't find, and I was just searching everywhere, as I thought I could find a two sided platform, I thought that all the tools out there are really good for helping maybe publicists like pitch, and send a press release and tools in a database of journalists. And journalists didn't really have any tools on their end. But there was nothing that connected both sides. So you have brands and publicists are constantly looking for press opportunities and pitching journalists one way in journalists are getting stories assigned, they're going another way looking for content. And there was nothing that held them both together and let them work collaboratively, literally. And you know, this is a world of media relations and all that relations or relationships. And we thought it was crazy to me that there is nothing that existed for them to work on together in one place. Okay, so
Lexie Smith
what did you build?
Michelle Songy
So we built a two sided platform. On one side, you as a brand or publicist, you sign up and create a brand profile, which really acts as your digital media kit. And then on the other side, so we got enough media kits, like built on one side that we went to the journalists and said, Hey, come search this uses to discover brands and products for your stories. And also, you could search it. So when you get a story aside, you could quickly search it, find what you're looking for, reach out to the brand request a sample, and they can basically facilitate the whole story with all their needs in one place.
Lexie Smith
And if I, my research serves me correctly, and it does, because it's literally on your front page, there's an AI component to it.
Michelle Songy
Yes, yes. Although not the beginning at the beginning was very manual.
Lexie Smith
Okay. We Oh,
Michelle Songy
yeah, at the beginning, it was very manual. And that it was you know, as a, as a brand, you could reach out to the journalist, the journalist could reach out to the brands. But we had all this, like tech debt and tech ideas that we wanted to build in the future. But we realized that, okay, we're gonna have to raise a lot of money, or this is going to take us years to build, but they're all of our ideas we had out there. And then literally, when the AI explosion happened, late, you know, 2022 or late 2023, we started delving into it and testing with it and realized that we could build all these features that would normally take us months or years, within days. And we could speed up the time and the automation it took to build some nice features for our customers. So that that definitely just like fast tracked us in terms of product development and features we were able to quickly release.
Lexie Smith
So this is such an interesting, I mean, AI is is everywhere since I had a Google when did chat GBT because in my mind, Chet GPT was like the first thing that went viral, I could be completely wrong, but that was in November of 2022. And since then, which we're coming up on a year, which is crazy. It has shook the world, but it really shook our industry, in good ways. And in debatably, maybe some not great ways. This past year, we've actually seen a ton of industry layoff, largely due to AI replacing human content production and journalists. But I also think there's a pro here as well. And to your point on the small business side, on the journalist side, on the tech side, it really is this incredible technology. So I'm sitting at this personal conflict, and I just want to bring us into the larger conversation of how you've been seen AI impacting the industry at large, especially since you are a company that is using the pro side of it, right, the benefits of it on your platform.
Michelle Songy
Sure, and I think Since the beginning to like, we've always taken a cautious and a step back to what we're doing. You know, it has a mind of its own, it's not always accurate, actually sometimes getting less accurate. So I think there's always like, you know, proceed with caution with it. And with that said, though, I think there are many ways it can help you do some, like mundane, like tasks, and especially when you work in PR, you know, you're constantly having to think and generate, like new ideas and new ideas and new ideas and Right, right, right all the time, and like, sometimes you can just get stuck. So I think, starting off, I think it's been really exciting to see just, you know, what it can do, and just helping you do some, like research, like, you're gonna have a new client you just signed, you need to do some research on their market, their industry, it's like a little research assistant, you have, you know, you can still do your own, but it's gonna give you like another layer, however, you definitely should check it for accuracy, I would definitely say just don't take it for what it is, it could be updated, it could be completely incorrect. But use it as like a baseline, you know, use it to inspire you use it as your assistant. So I think that's step one of like that, being able to use it for research in all the work we do and coming up with, like creative campaigns and ideas. You know, it can help you come up with some like angles around seasonality, the editorial calendar, come up with the biggest thing my team tells me is just coming up with pitch variations. So, you know, just giving me some inspiration for a new pitch that I'm working on. Maybe some subject lines, again, because you're writing so many at a time. So it just kind of gives you it kind of for me, it expands my vocabulary. I'm not a great writer. So I love it for that piece. But I do have to really check and make sure double check what you're sending, especially to a journalist is accurate, and you've double checked it.
Lexie Smith
Lately as in like, even this week, what I've been using it for, and let me back up for a second. For me, it has still been chat GPT and barred before I even go to what I was saying, is this functionality available in press hook that you're talking about? Are we using external AI for these and you're just using AI internally with presto,
Michelle Songy
yeah, sorry. So I was saying just general. We use it for pitch copy. So you can come up visit we have a pitch generator, you can use we have a press release generator, you can use again as a draft to check and then revise before you send out. But again, it's helping, you know, speed up some of those like admin mundane tasks you have to do. And it kind of puts it in best practices. And we've prompted it in really good ways. And it's read so many before that, or, you know, that have the best like practices built in it. So there's always especially helping small businesses like that might not know how to write a press release. But also agencies like it just the same, because they have to write so many. Yeah. Another thing it does is helps you match. So it takes your clients profile, and it helps like automatically create a media list for you. So based on your client, and it goes and finds relevant journalists, and it tells you why they're relevant to that brand and why you should pitch them. So creating those media lists, again, super time consuming. So that's something we do that helps like speed up and gives you more like ideas and recommendations of who you can pitch.
Lexie Smith
Okay, so so many my brains go in so many directions. So So first. Okay, so in press hook, there is a feature that can help you generate press releases and pitches, yes, iterations. So what I've been doing lately is I'll have I'll use a client bio for an example. Maybe I'm writing a new client bio, and it's very draft one version, and I'm feeling stuck. I've been turning to it sounds like I could maybe even do this in your platform. But I've been using AI to help me come up with like fresh sentence ideas, or like, here's what I have, make it better. And then I'll read their iteration. I usually don't like it all, but maybe there's like one phrase. And so it's become kind of like a teammate for me to help me get past writer's block. And so when you were talking about that, that's something that has really resonated with me. I'm also taking transcriptions maybe of like a client meeting or a concept you have and telling or asking the AI to, like put it into something a little bit more coherent has been a way my team has been using it. Tell me how yours inside the platform works with pitch creation and press release. Is it like the GBT where you just give it a simple command? Or do you have to input more information? How does that work?
Michelle Songy
We send you actually actually send you the questions and prompts. So like you normally touching Tuesday, pretend that you're an experienced publicists and write a pitch around and paste the pitch. We just prompt you with the questions that we need in order to create ate that first draft
Lexie Smith
got it helpful too.
Michelle Songy
And it's just that we, you, we've taught it and use so many previous like taught it like the types of like press releases, like we look for it to generate in a certain tone and a certain like, you know, third person. So we've just kind of like taught it the rules of creating a press release,
Lexie Smith
using Okay, so now media lists and by far and away, this can be one of the most timely tasks that a publicist has, right in terms of generating it and keeping it up to date. And so talk me through how is it literally on press hook? I tell you, maybe I fill out a client profile, and then just gives me suggested contacts? Or how does that work?
Michelle Songy
Yep. So it reads your press kit. So when you when you create, when you join, press, OK, you create a press kit for your, for your clients. And that creates, you know about section, your founding story, it's tagged as images and what products you sell in there. So it takes all that information, and then goes to our media database and finds relevant matches, so sees, oh, this person, this is a children's wear clothing ran, it'll go find writers that have written about baby and children's clothes. And it will pull up, you know, this writer writes about these kinds of articles, she has these interests, she's written for these publications. This is in they write about sustainable fashion. So like, you know, it kind of matches your interest of the brand, the interests of the media.
Lexie Smith
Guys, my head, I feel like I'm not even that old yet. And it's only gonna get more and more mind blowing, I don't even know there's Gen Z. And then I don't even know what's below that. But I have a daughter, she's one of a two alpha. I mean, is that what's below Gen Z?
Michelle Songy
Because we've really gone through the alphabet.
Lexie Smith
Are we back at a so I don't even know what my daughter is. But I'm just I'm scared to think of the day when she's at a point of her career and what where we're going to be I mean, it's exciting. It's really, really exciting, especially for Lean teams to I think having that to your point, like the smaller brands, who don't have the capital or the means to employ a a huge firm to do all this work on this behalf. And then for the huge firms who are managing all the things, it's really becoming such a time saver, are there any other ways that you have seen AI either generally or within your platform be able to be leveraged to save time when developing a strategy?
Michelle Songy
Yeah, let me just think I'm, again, coming back to like the pitch, copy the subject lines, creating a media list. We do have media monitoring, too. So it can identify your brand and client in certain mention, identify the the actual press article and like the sentiment and making sure it's in there and sending it right to you. And putting that into report. So we're kind of building out like the reporting side a bit more of automating that, because everyone knows, like finding press clips, putting them in putting all the stats together, creating your, your, you know, client coverage book is time consuming. So we're kind of looking at ways to speed that process up, because we've gotten a lot of feedback there. But yeah, I think the main thing is around. The copywriting seems to be the biggest use case for it. Now, the media, this is something new. And it's also really something we see more agencies love to use, because then we as you know, the media is just moving so fast. People are moving from publications, they're going freelance, it's so hard to keep up with who's aware that this is a good place for them to like, stay updated on media and media moves and building new relationships with journalists they hadn't known previously, and the Gen a or Gen Z. journalists that are now coming in the workforce.
Lexie Smith
You know that I send out a community newsletter Roundup, every Tuesday chock full of resources, free media kit, downloads, event invites, journalists, contacts, visibility opportunities. Basically, if you're not on the list, hit pause and sign up. It's super simple. Go to the PR bar inc.com/newsworthy. That link is in the show notes. Okay, back to the show. I'd love to know, I know this is a million dollar question. But I'm curious if you have any predictions. This is something that sometimes keeps me up at night when I think of the industry overall on the journalist side and what AI has been doing to newsrooms, because you are operating in a platform where you have so many members of the media to I don't know maybe you have some sort of insider taker I'm just your personal opinion on how AI yes, there's so many things that Due to save us time, but how do you see it impacting members of the media in the next Tech, let's even go one year because I feel like five years from now is way too far out, do you even predict?
Michelle Songy
I think again, I mean, it still comes down in the end to like creativity in your knowledge and knowledge of a market knowledge of an industry being able to fact check. So things like that, I think they're just new tools in the market like these, we used to always say, there's an out there's an app for that there's always a new app for that this is like there's a new prop for that, you know, like, there's just, it's just a new set of tools, basically, that we have access to, and you know, those tools, we we see doings every year. So I think it really just comes down to how they use it in saving again, like them time, helping them discover content that's relevant to them, helping them again, maybe do some like market research. But again, I think there's something said about the tone of voice, like you see, when it comes through the tone of voice that a journalist has or a publication has their own branding style. And their ability than media to like pick out products and brands that they want to cover that are a good fit for their readers. So they still are always going to have to like sample a product. I don't think AI is gonna, like generate that feature. But you know, they still need to, like test out an experience or a demo or a product you have in real life in order to that. So I think there's parts of it that helped with like, again, like the admin tasks. And then but the creativity, the knowledge, like the understanding of the readers and what's going to you know,
Lexie Smith
the humaneness right, I think human. Yeah, let's do Ben, who's a freelance journalist on this show, what she said in relations to AI, she was the first person I invited to talk about this back when it was all, like, breaking, she said, the one thing, it will never be as human. And that's kind of what I'm hearing, the through line of when you're speaking is yes, there's some great time saving tasks that they can systemize that can really be a wonderful tool. But at the end of the day, journalists aren't going away, just maybe how they operate day to day, and maybe some of their tasks, if they should embrace it and actually become more efficient. So I do think it can be really, really positive thing. It's just, you know, we're like any generation, I'm sure this is what happened when social media I kind of grew up well, that's not true social media Mark came around in high school for me. So there was a minute where we didn't have it. But anytime there's a new influx of technology that's really impacting our world, I think everyone's a little like, oh, some people love it. Some people need it. Some people don't know what to do with it. And that's how I'm feeling about AI right now.
Michelle Songy
I think there's a responsible way to use it, you know, and obviously, there's not but you're right, I think some of my team will write something with it. I'm like, oh, go back. I like how you wrote it at first, like it seems more real, more, you more us like how we speak? Yeah, a little less robotic. So I think you can kind of tell the difference there.
Lexie Smith
For sure. So before we kind of get get to where everyone can learn about press hook, I have a completely different non AI related question. And you kind of started answering it earlier. But part of press hook, as you mentioned, is there's the two sides. So there's the brand and the publicist. And then there's the members of the media. And you were talking earlier about how you started on the side of getting enough brands and publicists the platform to maybe then make it attractive to members of the media. My question just from a media relations standpoint, is how you guys are maybe some strategies that you've used to attract members of the media to your site and maintain relationships on that side of it.
Michelle Songy
Yep. And I think this goes back to like, Good Old Vic, PR. 101 is just like we had to create a hook. We had to serve the brands and content and innovative brands that they hadn't seen anywhere else yet. We had to come up still with those angles to like hook them in and say like, come check out these brands, because you know, their woman or minority owned these are small businesses are doing something innovative in their space and branding and packaging. They're changing this. So there was still always the pitch and angle that we had to target the right people with the right kind of content. And still to this day, that is our strongest acquisition, you know, is doing that like personal like one to one, signing up a journalist knowing what they're interested in and sending that relative content to get them to come on to press hook and check out more of what we have to offer.
Lexie Smith
Is it free for the journalists and paid for the brands or how has that shuffled out at this?
Michelle Songy
Yes, we've always been free for media, in businesses and agencies pay monthly subscription got any of different tiers? They're very affordable, so low to high price points, whatever you're looking for.
Lexie Smith
Amazing. And do you do any pitching in the platform? Or is it matchmaking, I guess I just want to make sure I'm not missing a feature that we have.
Michelle Songy
So we went once you like come create a profile on a press up, you can view the media we have and pitch them in the platform, media can also pitch you. So a big thing you'll see is like media requesting a sample of a product or messaging you about a story or an opportunity that they have. So it goes both ways. You see them pitching, it's like a LinkedIn, you can pitch them, they can pitch you. We also have like a source Request tab. So like the media, if they're looking for something very specific, they can type that in, and it will go out to relative brands and agencies on the platform that are a good fit for that story.
Lexie Smith
What do you think makes press hook different than similar or adjacent? Maybe not exactly the same competitors. But what makes you unique on the marketplace? What's your super special sauce?
Michelle Songy
Yeah, I think the first part was just creating the two sided platform. So not just having a go one way. So how brands can reach out to the media, and media can reach out to you that didn't exist. We also just have more interactive features. So like creating a brand profile, you have like products, they can be sampled, it says like, approve and ship, you can track all your sample requests in one place that didn't exist in the market, we have, you can create press releases, we have the source request. So it really is like an all in one solution. When we looked at what's out there on the market. It medium monitors for you, you know, so it really has everything that you could need in one place. And that's what we're hoping for is just to consolidate all the different places we are going to to get contacted get content and media opportunities, and just make it more efficient and seamless for both sides.
Lexie Smith
Has getting press been a part of your strategy or significant in any way and growing press hook.
Michelle Songy
Yes, I'm more so lately, I think the first year or two you're just hustling as a startup. And our goal is to get our brands press and connect the journalists the brands so that was our first priority is like product market fit. And we need to you know, show this success and show this can work. So it was a little less about us more about like finding the right customers because you don't want to just go too big and have a big market. So we had to find the right customers on both sides. Start small start lean, and connect them so it was a little bit less about us. And then finally like okay, we need to, you know, show the successes show who we are. Get out there. So I do think it's just that we can we need to practice what we preach. And it has been so beneficial for us since we started doing our own and getting more press exposure brought so many opportunities lately.
Lexie Smith
I mean, I always you know when you have your own podcast guys and you make the rolls yet I kick myself season after season them I have a 30 minute show because I always want to ask so many more questions. But I do want to before we wrap up, ask you one very important signature question of the show, which is you know, we've talked AI we've talked Pichon Michelle, what can we find you sipping What is your favorite beverage? alcoholic or non alcoholic? Of course. Oh, um
Michelle Songy
I would definitely say a margarita but probably like a Mezcal. Lita, if I can have one. Yeah, I love all sorts of margaritas spicy margaritas, all that good stuff. That's definitely my go to spicy Marco. And non alcoholic would be like culture pop. I like those like fizzy.
Lexie Smith
What is it? I don't know what culture pop is. This is just a pop. It's
Michelle Songy
a drink. It's like a probiotic drink. That's like fizzy. Good for you and it comes in really good flavors.
Lexie Smith
Pop and men's Kalidas I love that. So when people go to learn all about press hook, of course guys. We'll put this in the show notes. But for those of you driving, I want to make sure we get a shout out to
Michelle Songy
you can go to our website it is press help.com p r e s s hok.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, you name it. And we'd love to have you and we actually do have a code. It's Pichon 50. And that gives you a 50% off your first three months. Oh,
Lexie Smith
fun. Pichon 50 is all lowercase. Does that matter? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Pitching 50 guys jump on it. Thank you so much. That's so generous. I'm really excited. for everyone listening in for us to check that out. Michelle, this has been great. I'm really, really fascinated about the world of AI and the fact that you're leading the charge in our industry is something I have to take my hat off to and give you a huge congrats and just thank you for taking the time to come on the show today.
Michelle Songy
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been fun. Love to chat anytime again, on or offline.
Lexie Smith
Until the next time on the pitching and sipping podcast. Cheers. Hey guys, if you are enjoying the pitching and sipping podcast, please do me a huge favor and leave a review wherever you are listening. If you want to connect with me to learn more about the PR Inc. You can do so on Instagram Act, the PR bar underscore inc or you can check out my website at the PR bar inc.com Cheers