018 SUCCESS STORY: How to build a national media profile as the go-to expert in your space (learn from someone who's doing it!)
Hello. Greetings. My name is Trevor Young. This is the Become Your Own PR Machine podcast, and this is the show where we dissect and unpack all things to do with PR content, digital communications. If you are an ambitious business owner, whether you're a solopreneur or you're running a a growing company and you wanna get a better handle on all of this sort of stuff around PR, not PR as you perhaps know it, but PR in the truest modern day version of PR and, of course, content and digital communications play a big role here, then you are in the right place.
TREVOR YOUNG:In the last episode, which was number 17, I was joined by media relations specialist, Liam Fitzpatrick. He was the founder of Commswork, and we discussed how businesses can earn legitimate editorial coverage in independent third party media outlets. So, if you wanna get a little bit deeper into that side of things and when I say legitimate editorial coverage, we're talking about, you know, coverage that's of substance, that's strategic, and it's going to help position you as as an expert, a thought leader in your space. But I just wanted to follow-up that one because, you know, there was some Liam gave us some great ideas and insights and tips and and what's working today in in the world of media relations. And media relations is building relationships with journalists and podcasters and whoever else is running a media outlet or or is publishing content for a media outlet, building relationships with them.
TREVOR YOUNG:That's what public relations is all about. Remember relationships. It's not just about the media, but the media is a certainly an important part. But I was thinking that one of the most popular episodes I had on I've ever had on my other podcast, which is called Reputation Revolution, That's the, professional personal branding show. Check it out.
TREVOR YOUNG:There's over 280 episodes. Was an interview with Jake Moore from a cyber security or he's a cyber security specialist with a, a company called ESET in the UK, and Jake has his star is completely off the charts even more so, since I interviewed him some time back, but his story is fantastic. How he's gone from basically 0 to hero in terms of media profile in, you know, what is a tough tough tough marketplace in the UK. He's now on all the tier 1 media, but it was never always that way. And so if you're really interested to see how someone has gone from, you know, known a little bit in their space in a small regional way to being known nationally and having strong credibility and so much so that the journalists and producers of TV shows, etcetera, are now calling him, then you will love this interview.
TREVOR YOUNG:And, of course, he's got some great tips and hints, etcetera. So since I've recorded this, you know, his star, if we can call it the star, Jake's profile has been raised immeasurably as well. So take this into account. Everything that he's he was doing was really working, and everything he's continued to do is worked even continues to work. So this is I love it when the rubber hits the road.
TREVOR YOUNG:I love seeing someone who does it with who's genuinely got substance and something to give and knows their stuff and he's creative, and that's Jake Moore. So I hope you enjoy this interview. I do urge you to check out Jake on LinkedIn. His LinkedIn stuff's really, really good as well, and you'll get a better feel for who he is and what he does, but I'll let, let Jake tell his own story in this interview.
JAKE MOORE:I'm always on my phone, and I have this rule with myself that when a journalist asks me a question, if it's over Twitter or via text, I'll give myself 10 minutes to reply. If I miss out in that 10 minutes, they've probably gone to someone else at the same time. And after 10 minutes, they might as well have got a a competitor or someone else talking about the same subject.
TREVOR YOUNG:Today, we've got a very special guest all the way from the county of Dorset in the UK. His name is Jake Moore. We're gonna get into his story, but he he's got I've got a couple of little things I'm gonna throw at him, and I'm not sure whether he knows this or not, but it'll be all good. And he's gonna take us from when no one knew him apart from his family and his good circle of friends to now where he's on the media internationally. Jake Moore, welcome to the show.
TREVOR YOUNG:Hello.
JAKE MOORE:Thank you for having me.
TREVOR YOUNG:Mate, been great to get you on. I've been following your journey for a while, and it's always good to show people and take people through the story, your story, or, you know, people like you, the story who have gone ahead and done all of this stuff and how it all knits together because, you know, we get thrown at us. We've gotta do content. We gotta do videos, and we gotta do bloody social and all of that. And then there's the earned media side, which you've done.
TREVOR YOUNG:I'm gonna throw this at you right from the get go. It's not that you don't know it, but you probably never counted. Did you know that in the last oh, where's my stats? I've just counted all this up actually. So in the last 2 years, so 2021 hasn't even finished yet, you've had more than 400 or about 400 bits of coverage.
TREVOR YOUNG:Do you know what?
JAKE MOORE:Do you know what? We do actually monitor it, and we do have a Google Sheet somewhere with it all there to see it. And I'm just as surprised as you, you know. In fact, my brother is the one that's the most surprised because he's an avid Financial Times reader. And he said to me, probably back last year, he said, I was reading the Financial Times in the day and your name cropped up.
JAKE MOORE:What the hell are you doing in my newspaper?
TREVOR YOUNG:Look. It's it's an interesting one. And I I was just going through your website, and you've got all the coverage you're in. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk because I know that you're getting good coverage in in really strong mastheads. And when I say a masthead, that's newspaper talk for a very well known newspaper, but also TV news and radio.
TREVOR YOUNG:But just looking back at my stats here, so you've, in 2021, you've been you've had coverage in a 165 bits of media coverage, that that you probably know about. Last year was 229, so you knocked it out of the park in in COVID times. Yeah. And then 2019 was 81, so it was a poor year by your standards in 2019. But when you look at that, you'll have got.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah.
JAKE MOORE:That was the 1st year we got to to really push out there and and meet the journalists because at the end of the day, they're people. And I I found a connection. The friendships that I've generated have really paid off.
TREVOR YOUNG:That's why we call it media relations biz because you're building relationships with people, and that's the most powerful way versus in, air quotes, getting publicity. Why don't you tell us a little before we get into that, though, because I'm gonna we're gonna talk social media content and YouTube videos and and media relations and how you've built this big profile, But can you let us in on the the Jake Moore story first and what you know, how you came to that about doing all this. Because I haven't even said you're a cyber security specialist. We better get people running. What does this guy do?
TREVOR YOUNG:So why don't you take us through this through the story?
JAKE MOORE:Okay. So I came out of university for like 20 years ago now, and I just didn't know what to do. And my mom said, you've gotta do something that you love. And I said, well, you know, that's quite a broad thing to say. And I, at the time, said, well, I love crime.
JAKE MOORE:And she said, well, you can't be a criminal. I said, yeah, but I I love crime. I was into robberies in films and books and TV shows. And she said, why don't you just join the police then and then learn how they investigate them, and then you won't be arrested. I thought, that's not actually a bad idea.
JAKE MOORE:So I bombarded the police station local to me with every job going and I I just desperately wanted to work with them. And after about 9 applications sent through to all sorts of different jobs, I got a phone call and said, hi Jay, look you you clearly wanna work with us and you're not suitable for any of the roles you've gone for. But as you're so determined and you're so up for working with us, would you take this filing job and it was worth nothing like a few pounds an hour? And I said, sure, I will take anything. I was out of university.
JAKE MOORE:I didn't have a job. So I was like, yeah, I'll just do anything you've got. So they put me in there. And then within 3 months, I got talking to the right people, right place, right time, the heads of the the station, the chiefs. And I told them my background was in maths and computing and they said, we've got an idea for you.
JAKE MOORE:There's this thing called digital crime that's taking off, high-tech crime. Now I loved that term. They've changed it now. They call it digital forensics, but high-tech crime unit. Yeah.
JAKE MOORE:I'm all in. Get me in there. And they just trained me up into this amazing department which was in such an infant phase. It was amazing to see it grow from nothing, from from people having old XP machines and old Nokias with 3 text messages on. I could get all those back right the way through to where we are pretty much now with the dark web and smartphones.
JAKE MOORE:I saw all that change. And after being in that department for 10 years, I then joined and helped start up the cybercrime team because cybercrime was growing as we know about it now. It's just huge and it's affecting nearly everyone. And so I I was part of that team for 2 years. That's when I wanted something more.
JAKE MOORE:I realized I couldn't go any further in the police force and I loved it at the police, but I wanted a bit more, maybe a bit more money. I've got 2 young kids and a wife and I thought, where's my next step? And I decided to set my sights on the private world. And similar to what I was doing, there was this international company called ESET, which just so happened to have the UK office just around the corner. In fact, next to Bournemouth Police Station.
JAKE MOORE:And so Oh, I see you guys. I went and targeted the MD. In fact, I tell him now that I groomed him because it took me about a year to to make him realize who I was. I was doing talks. I was giving out all this cybersecurity prevention advice that everyone was desperately in need of.
JAKE MOORE:And then I I targeted him and said, I've got an idea for a job. And I put this idea down and he said, I love it. I think this might just work. And I didn't expect that. I I thought, hey, just just keep me on your radar for another couple of years.
JAKE MOORE:And he said, what are you doing in 3 months? I'd like you to join us. And it was incredible. And I'm now genuinely in my dream job that I absolutely love. It's been over 3 years now in this role and it's just getting better and better.
TREVOR YOUNG:So you were never a police officer per se. So you didn't get to wear the uniform or not put me down there?
JAKE MOORE:No. I never wanted that. I I wanted to be in the background. I wanted to do the the the more fun, interesting stuff. And not only that, I wanted to do 9 to 5.
JAKE MOORE:I feel sorry for police officers. I have to work every weekend and every evening. That that just isn't me.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah. It's pretty pretty challenging and but you're the it's interesting how you've you've sort of ridden the wave of, you know, the whole cybercrime scams, all of that sort of stuff. And so let's let's go back to when you're at in the police force because I think it was about what was it about? 2017 you started doing videos. Was that about right?
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. So I joined the cybercrime team, and and my boss at the time said, look. We just need people to understand cybersecurity. And it's it's difficult to get this message out there. It's largely boring to some people or difficult to the rest of people.
JAKE MOORE:Yep. So he said, look, come up with any idea you can. I came up with some really crazy ideas, like, some animation. Well, it wasn't even animation it was more like a comic book style that was terrible. I came up with writing blogs but they just weren't getting read.
JAKE MOORE:So I thought why not go with like everyone else and take on this rich media. We had a Facebook page. We had a YouTube page already in the police force. I thought why not make some 3 minute videos of just maybe the top tips that if people can just take away those top, I don't know, 6 or 7 things and they might just be able to better protect themselves. Yep.
JAKE MOORE:And they said great, you go and do it. I had the kit. I've got the camera. I've got the microphone. All I needed was someone to help hold the camera.
JAKE MOORE:And so I I wrote these these pieces and they lasted, you know, 2 minute videos really. And they just went really well and people started to like them. But I didn't realize that I would get known for it. I was just doing it because I wanted people to hear what I had to say.
TREVOR YOUNG:So was that what made, you know, your your profile early? Obviously, locally, people would say, I saw you there or whatever because, you know, I'd be promoted through the Facebook group. So you'd you'd the police Facebook page. So you'd get a lot of local stuff early. But where what was there a tipping point when you started getting media coverage, or did it start locally?
TREVOR YOUNG:I mean, obviously, around Dorset and Bournemouth around Yeah.
JAKE MOORE:So got
TREVOR YOUNG:media. So is that where it started, and then did it grow? What was your first big, I guess, piece of national coverage, and how did that come about?
JAKE MOORE:So working in the police, there aren't many spokespeople, really. They don't really want to have a face attached to whatever they're talking about unless it's the chief and the chief was busy. And so suddenly the media saw me as someone they could go to. I was completely open with them and they could contact me. And it wasn't national.
JAKE MOORE:We did have local coverage. I think in my 1st week, I had the local ITV news come and interview me because I was taking on this new role. And I remember just staring at the camera completely blank and the interviewer just asking me these questions. I just went completely mind numb. I hated it.
JAKE MOORE:It was horrible and I couldn't wait for it all to end. And he kept asking different questions and it was horrible. But we didn't get international or national coverage from anything like this, of course. It wasn't until I joined ESET that I was able to get to the next level of media.
TREVOR YOUNG:So how did that work then? So you built your base at the police. You got the videos. You got known locally. I guess you, you learned the chops of standing in front of a camera and, you know, your first ones are always well, first few are always gonna be shaky.
TREVOR YOUNG:Oh, yes. You know? And it just it's one thing that it does get easier and better over time, and and, and, you know, looked at some of your recent ones and you're very polished now. So when you joined ESET, did they I mean, I guess it's be because you had profile and expertise, and is part of that role education you know, because you probably haven't got much time to do anything else. You're getting that much coverage at the moment.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. So as soon as I started with ESET, they introduced me to their PR agency that they had in London, and they quickly gave me proper training. I remember being, let's say, interviewed by the owner of the company, but in the I think it was 7 different ways of how people are interviewed. And it was fascinating to see the different approaches. I'd never really thought about it before.
JAKE MOORE:I'd never really thought how any journalist can change their approach and how it can make the interviewee feel uneasy and nervous. You know, you know, no one naturally wants to throw themselves in front of a camera without doing lots of having that experience behind them. And I suddenly started to relax when they helped me out. They basically broke me right down and said, look, you know your stuff, you know about security, you want to get the message across. So just go down that angle and people will see the truth from what you have to say.
JAKE MOORE:And it suddenly just just clicked. I got it and I understood what I was there to give. And suddenly, in the real world, I wasn't seeing all 7 different types of journalist. I was seeing maybe 2 or 3, and I started to enjoy it. In fact, I now can't wait to the next appearance.
JAKE MOORE:I've now done BBC, Al Jazeera, ITV, and it's getting fun. I even did BBC Panorama which is the big one for us in the UK in the summer. And that took 7 months of of planning with the team. It was an amazing experience to see how it all unfolded. And now I just love it.
JAKE MOORE:You know, if there's a cyber attack now, I get excited because I know that someone will ask me my opinion. My wife can't believe it that I'm asked to talk about something and just give my opinion on stuff, but I love it. And and if at the end of the day, I can then help people maybe reduce the next type of attack like that, then that's just an added bonus.
TREVOR YOUNG:So when you said that, you know, it started off those 7 types of interviews, and you really got it all types of journalists who are gonna interview you, and you've sort of got it down to about 2 to 3. What are the what what are those sort of 2 to 3 when you say types of journalists? What do you what do you mean there?
JAKE MOORE:So what I found is that most journalists are just they're interested in what I have to say, and they're not trying to to trick me up. I always felt that journalists might want to trick me up, might wanna catch me up because I'm used to seeing politicians being interviewed on TV and and they're the ones that get that journalist that goes Abbott, you said X number of weeks ago, the complete opposite. I realized that I'm there as a bit of an educator so they want to get it right. They're not there to trip me up. But I do find that I get interviewed by journalists that are much younger than me, maybe new into their career, who in fact are more nervous than me.
JAKE MOORE:And I never thought I'd find that. Now, I always see myself as quite young but then suddenly these journalists have now 20 years younger than me. I'm thinking, wow, who's not nervous here? And so that actually calms me down. And they aren't there to to catch me out.
JAKE MOORE:They're a very friendly bunch. And I've become very good friends, you know, WhatsApp, Instagram friends with these people. And it just pays dividends because then when something breaks, they know that they can come to me. And I get these funny messages saying, oh, Jake, Facebook's gone down. And I'm there thinking, has it?
JAKE MOORE:Yeah, it went down 7 minutes ago. What can you say about that? So I then go and do an interview with whoever. I think this was the independent last month. And from what I said, got thrown around syndicated around the world.
JAKE MOORE:212 times it was in the next 6 hours. I got quoted. I couldn't believe it. And that was because this one journalist said, you know what? I'm gonna call Jake and see what he has to say because I want to write what he says, quote it in the paper and when it gets syndicated, boy.
JAKE MOORE:And I got a message from our top boss saying, I don't know what you did there but keep it up.
TREVOR YOUNG:So with something like that, would did you always take a cybersecurity slant to it, or you're starting to broaden out on on on more, I guess, social media generally? You know, do you stick to your lane or sometimes you might go in with a certain thing and then they expand the topic Yeah. So your your area.
JAKE MOORE:That was one of the pieces that I had in my training was never go off topic unless you are completely the expert in that area or at least give some sort of caveat to say this is not your area. So the the immediate questions for Facebook going down was, is this a cyber attack? And if it is, what can people do about that? And are we gonna see more like this? Now, no one knew what it was at the time.
JAKE MOORE:We'd seen all sorts of outages occur in many different areas of the Internet recently, actually lots in the past couple of years. That's due to the infrastructure side of things. But keeping, like you say, in my lane about security, I can talk about how it is going to be an increased attack vector by these cyber criminals who are maybe looking at causing all this disruption. But can I talk about the the ins and outs of the infrastructure and the network and the outage itself and how it actually occurred? No.
JAKE MOORE:But they would go to someone else for that, you see.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah. So
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. They tend to like 2 or 3 experts talking in in each different article. And so if I can have that one hone down on what I like to talk about, then that keeps them happy. But the Yep. The interesting thing here is why I've become friends with so many of these journalists is it's speed.
JAKE MOORE:It's all about the speed in which I can reply to them. Now I'm always on my phone and I have this rule with myself that when a journalist asks me a question, if it's over Twitter or via text, I'll give myself 10 minutes to reply. If I miss out in that 10 minutes, they've probably gone to someone else at the same time. And after 10 minutes, they might as well have got a competitor or someone else talking about the same subject.
TREVOR YOUNG:So they do have their favorites often, journalists. We've well, I've been on the other side of PR, and that was part of you know, the the the role was to really, you know, get your client, you know, their expertise, make sure they give good quote, they are a good interview subject, they're responsive, they're friendly, all of those things. But the key, you've mentioned a couple there that are really on on on target too, and that is be responsive because they're on deadlines really quickly. And, you know, if you don't get back to them and it and I think sometimes, you know, you might take a phone call and you, you know, you're in the shop in the shopping center or you, you know, you're walking around the supermarket, and you can always say, listen. I'll call you back in 5 or 10 minutes, but always do call back in 5 or 10 minutes.
TREVOR YOUNG:And that's so you're what you're doing is building trust with them. But clearly, you know, from the earlier days where you were probably doing very educational things, now you're probably doing, you know, there's there's education wrapped up in it, but but it sounds like you're doing a lot more commentary, I suppose.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. Analysis and commentary, but they always want to know some sort of top tip at the end of it. So I have this weird structure about what I'm really talking about. It's maybe a a a top tier line to to gain interest. Maybe even a a a question that I'm about to answer, like, could it be this?
JAKE MOORE:If they haven't maybe structured it in that way? And then I can talk about what people can do to secure their businesses because, of course, we're speaking to lots of businesses here in the trade press particularly and then consumers as well. And and hopefully that builds trust on our company as well. Now I never go in and say what they should have done is buy our software. I'm never there to do that.
JAKE MOORE:I'd always say, of course, it's a good idea to have antivirus installed on your device, but I'll never say which one, of course. I don't want them to think that I'm there purely just to sell our product.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yep. Yep. Yep. Really good point there. I guess there there's there's a couple of key things too.
TREVOR YOUNG:But one, I'm very keen to know you've the the company has probably got it. You know, it sounds like they got a PR firm. Are they pitching you out all the time or a lot of it now is more inbound? Yeah. And good point.
TREVOR YOUNG:So last year, maybe actually 2019 as well, when you say
JAKE MOORE:it was only 81 pieces of coverage, That was Yeah. Damn it. That that was very much pitching me out as as Jake Moore from B Set has this to say, this is background to those known journalists out there. And some would pick those pieces up should they be writing that story at the right time. It's a bit of a hit and miss because if they aren't writing about it, they don't want to or they've already written about it, then you're just gonna be filling up their inbox and potentially annoying them as well.
JAKE MOORE:You know? I hear these journalists on on Twitter go, oh, I've got 10,000 unread emails. PRs, please stop messaging me.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah. But they if if without the PR industry, I gotta tell you, mate, they'd have to do a fair bit of work. So they might complain, but they without the PR industry, they are dead in the water.
JAKE MOORE:Well, that's I'll have said that to me. The boss said, don't worry about that. You'll you'll read that from time to time. Just continue it. But it was last year.
JAKE MOORE:It was the start of COVID that I really noticed these friendships building and I noticed that they were coming direct to me. And like I say, Twitter and and text message or direct email, they're the ones that I I didn't realize it would happen. I I was effectively looking around going, you want you want me? Oh, okay. Yeah, of course.
JAKE MOORE:Alright. Whatever you want. But, wow. There are lots of other people. I hate to think about the imposter syndrome, but it was that moment where I realized, wow, these guys that I'm looking up to are now asking me for my opinion.
JAKE MOORE:Woah. This is pretty cool.
TREVOR YOUNG:So let's break that down because a lot of the pitching, unless you're pitching, there's something broken and your PR representative or you, whoever is gonna be pitching out, is jumping on that right away and reaching out to the right person, which is really hard to do because you've gotta have all Yeah. All the you know, you have a lot of balls in the air. You gotta make sure everything's all your boxes are ticked on that score. But, look, often the pitching out is probably gonna be a bit more evergreen stuff. Oh, you can, you know, you can comment on, you know, this scam or this is something that's happening or whatever, but it it's not necessarily newsworthy for the day.
TREVOR YOUNG:Whereas and that sounds like that's probably what they were pitching you out for earlier, whereas now it sounds like it's more really timely stuff because the media are in the driver's seat on this one, and they when it's inbound, we want you now.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. So there's always a cybersecurity topic or scam
TREVOR YOUNG:Unfortunately.
JAKE MOORE:Attack to be talking about. And, yeah, there are so many specific cybersecurity journalists out there now, particularly in trade press that are reaching out for stories like this every day. And the person I work with closely, funny enough sometimes says how much he gets a thank you because it's down to him to sometimes find the story for some of their journalists who are thinking what should be right about today and the story comes in, oh, I've not seen this one on whatever and, oh, Jake's got a comment. It's half written. And so sometimes it can be really helpful for them.
JAKE MOORE:And so once a day, we'll send out a comment to journalists just to see if it picks up. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's just maybe reminding them that I'm I'm there. So we do that first thing in the morning and then I get on with my day job. So I suppose if people are wondering what the hell I actually do, so I'm constantly looking for the new threats in security as well.
JAKE MOORE:But I also do a lot of training and we do our own training in companies. Again, it's completely unbiased and that's going rather well too.
TREVOR YOUNG:I wanna back back back reverse back to that. Can you reverse forward? No. I wanna go back to that. So in the morning, you are looking at so this is the back end stuff that people don't see the work that goes in because if you're got you need to be on top of this stuff.
TREVOR YOUNG:So, clearly, you're up early reading stuff, trying to be across all the things. You'd have your sources of information coming Yeah. Through. But you actually when you say you put a quote or a thought out there, is that through Twitter? Is that through the Newswires?
TREVOR YOUNG:How are you doing that? So it's our PR firm.
JAKE MOORE:They'll they'll have their series of journalists. And together if we find a story and like you say, getting up early really helps. So I wake up about 5, 5:30 every morning and go straight to my phone and just read what's happened in the last 12, 24 hours if I've missed it and see what story is quite interesting. I'm starting to learn what the press are after as well. I've had stories before where I've thought were interesting and no one else does.
JAKE MOORE:And then vice versa, a really boring story, but, oh, I'm gonna have to write on this because I know the press will like it. So there's that that moment in the morning where I'll just pick out the one and sometimes there's nothing, you know, you don't wanna make absolutely nothing from no story at all. But one might come through later on in the day and if, you know, it pings up on Twitter and thinking, well, this is gonna go big like Facebook outage, then you know to get ready. But those ones are they're helpful because the reporter might come direct to me. But it's the first one in the morning.
JAKE MOORE:I pick out which it'll be and then the gen the PR agent that I've got will send out those those comments that I've had to the right journalists, not just to everyone. He'll pick out if it's a trade press or if it's to, I don't know, a local news or if it's the nationals, tabloids, you name it. They'll try and work out which journalists might get it. It's not always gonna be the cybersecurity journalist, it might be the business report reporter. Or these days I talk a lot about crypto currency issues, so that might go to the finance desk.
JAKE MOORE:So that part of it, I don't see, but I know a lot of work does go into it. Yeah. But that's all done by 9 o'clock in the morning.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah. So it's like the the duck busy under the water with the feet. Yeah. Swimming away and, paddling away and and looking very calm. You're the one who's calm on the top and the the PR agency underneath.
TREVOR YOUNG:But this is something that people you know, you don't need a PR agent to do, but, obviously, if you've got one and you're, you know, you're strategically planned and everything, and you you're just doing it on a bigger scale, but there's no reason why this can't be sort of shrunk down as well depending on your topic. You're in a in an area where there's a lot happening. Now you've mentioned when we said said earlier, you know, BBC Radio and ITV News and Sky News and Panorama and CNBC and Al Jazeera, the all of them. Are you sort of more press or radio, or what's the split do you reckon over the last sort of year or 2 that you're you're going to? Is it sort of radio or does print if you're in print, then that
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. So
TREVOR YOUNG:later? I mean, there's obviously more print publications out there.
JAKE MOORE:Do you know what? I could probably even find the stats because it's all completely logged.
TREVOR YOUNG:You are a mathematician, statistician, anyway. Perfect.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. I would say it's gonna be something like 60 to 70% national press. Yep. That includes, you know, in the UK, The Independent, Guardian, BBC News, Sky News. We call that a tier one publication.
JAKE MOORE:Correct. And then about maybe 20 to 30% would be the trade press. So you're real I like them because they're really geeky, but my wife would look at, I don't know, PC Magazine or Computing dotco.uk and look at it and go, oh my god. That's just the most boring thing ever. Whereas I love it, but that's going for the right people who who read things differently.
JAKE MOORE:So if I know who it's going to, of course, I've gotta change slightly what my commentary is But you don't wanna be teaching a chief information security officer how to use a good pass word? Of course not. But someone reading the national press might think I have no idea about passwords. So I've gotta tailor that. And then maybe the last 10% would be national broadcast coverage.
JAKE MOORE:And that includes radio, national radio. And do you know what? Out of all of them, I love radio the most. I do a lot of talking radio, like talk radio shows. And you can really get into conversation just like me and you having now.
JAKE MOORE:And it's funny Yeah. I've gone away and forgotten that I've just had a 20 minute conversation with someone who's relatively famous, maybe even a 1000000 listeners and I've not even thought about that. I've just been chatting just like I'm chatting to you now. And that's the the most I get out of it, that fun and that thrill. Whereas TV, I've done live, I've done prerecord.
JAKE MOORE:My heart still goes crazy, I'm still extremely nervous. I'm always trying to work out better ways to relax but I've got down the radio route far quicker because it's just, I don't know, maybe more natural.
TREVOR YOUNG:I can lull you into a false sense of security. False sense of cybersecurity, but as you say, they're not out to get you in that regard.
JAKE MOORE:It's a block table right there.
TREVOR YOUNG:And with TV, I guess, these days now, you know, they're they're doing a lot more online and not that we'd call them Zoom, but they don't use Zoom, most of them, but, the the bigger broadcasters. But that, you know, that technology where, you know, going back a few years, they'd they'd want to be in in your office and with a camera, but they sort of don't worry about that now because they're pretty lean operations, and you probably had a a fair whack of them now on instead of going to a studio for a a satellite link up, they're happy to do it on online.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. That really helps. So I did fortunately get to go to BBC Studios and speak live from the studio in February 2020. So a month before lockdown. I'm not sure I'll ever get that again, but I was so grateful, so fortunate that I was able to go and experience it.
JAKE MOORE:I look back and it was a horrible situation. I didn't like it. I had to go over my lines. I knew what I was gonna say. And even at the time I was thinking I'm gonna forget this.
JAKE MOORE:And it's odd because I'm sat there in this business room. The person I'm speaking to is in the room to the right of me looking forwards. I'm speaking to her. To the viewer it looks like I'm pretty much there. And behind me, these phones are going off and people are on the phone, the actual business reporters.
JAKE MOORE:It was horrible. I had earpiece in, it was people walking around in front of me as well. I didn't feel comfortable or confident. Yet with COVID, yeah, like you say they're really happy to to just zoom into your space and it go from there. And so I can be comfortable.
JAKE MOORE:I can wear my shorts although I could put a shirt and a tie or shirt and a jacket at least, but I can be comfortable in my home. Now I was fortunate enough to move house in COVID times and I bought this house with an external garage that I've turned into my office. So that's what this is now. I've made it into an office and a bar. I've set up with a nice DSLR camera.
JAKE MOORE:I've got my nice microphone and my lighting. I feel like it's good quality and I've had producers say, woah, I like the quality here. Can we come back and interview you again? It's weird that that's actually helped them remember who I was.
TREVOR YOUNG:So performing plus the production, so you're ticking all of those boxes. Now I'm gonna ask you a question because about personal brand versus business brand. A lot of listeners might be running their own business, but I know there are listeners who are working for a corporate or another company. And how do you manage that side of things? Because sometimes there's conflict within organizations, but, you know, clearly, you haven't got it because they're out pushing you out into the in front of the camera.
TREVOR YOUNG:So what but what's your view on that? Did is it something that you manage or it's just naturally happened? I guess you've done it from the police anyway, but how how was that journey? Because one's, you know, government and one's not government, one's an enterprise.
JAKE MOORE:I'd say it's been fortunately natural, but it was it was right place, right time with ESET wanting a human voice. Now ESET have struggled with their own brand awareness, particularly in the UK. In Europe, they're they're massive. In headquarters in Slovakia, wow, they are very, very well known. Huge.
JAKE MOORE:And they want that same scale of awareness in the UK as well. So they're building up the human voice and that's where I come in. They want me to just go and speak to everyone about security and hopefully it'll then put it back to the business brand. So I wouldn't say I'm structuring it so well that I can write it down in an equation but if I can be that human voice in a business world then hopefully, it ties the 2 together.
TREVOR YOUNG:And I guess the challenge is and and clearly, you know, people in the business understand that you being a spokesperson for the brand or like a brand ambassador, really, and you're out there educating and and and and I've I've always liked the idea of brand ambassadors from within. People who are going to do social media and create content, but can also talk on behalf of the company. And and it looks like he's ESET has, you know, really done that really well. But I guess you would have not you, particularly, but when I I I having worked with a number a lot of companies over the journey and founders and CEOs, you need to plug the product more, you need to plug the product, but clearly that's not an issue with you. And and because the brand gets its if you start pushing it, you won't get the coverage.
TREVOR YOUNG:You know? And if you start going on to TV with a with a baseball hat and logo and all that sort of stuff, it's just not gonna
JAKE MOORE:work. Yeah. You're absolutely right.
TREVOR YOUNG:I haven't had whether you've I didn't check before whether you you've done the baseball cap with the logo, which is
JAKE MOORE:Well, I have put this the logo behind me, Howie, in the office.
TREVOR YOUNG:And it's good. And it's I think what you've done with the background is is absolutely perfect. It's it's minimal branding. They they they position you. You're you're with the company, and that's you know, everyone wins.
TREVOR YOUNG:I think, you know, you add value, you get value back. I think it's a it's a win win for all for all Yeah.
JAKE MOORE:And and the best thing about it is I still enjoy what I'm doing. I just love educating people in cybersecurity. I don't wanna make it boring. I've done some really fun hacking exploits on friends, family and local businesses to prove to them how maybe vulnerable they might be, but all in the name of humor. And that's my favorite way of telling a story in my training sessions.
JAKE MOORE:I'll try and show them how I've hacked into a local business. And the funnier I can make it, the more it sticks in their mind.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah. And as you said earlier, different audiences, so mainstream broadcast,
JAKE MOORE:you
TREVOR YOUNG:know, not to put a too fine a point on it, but you gotta dumb it down enough because people, this is not their normal territory, whereas you can't you know, for for vertical titles and the, I guess, the trade press, you know, you it's it's a more intellectual conversation because, you know, they're 3 or 4 or 5 steps ahead. So is that that's clearly something that comes natural to you now as to how to balance that No.
JAKE MOORE:It's did that take time?
TREVOR YOUNG:That's actually it's quite difficult sometimes because
JAKE MOORE:especially speaking to TV and they ask you a question. Now, depending on who the audience is, there might be 3 or 4 answers and especially about what level of depth you go into. And I sometimes struggle with who my audience is. So when I'm doing conference talks, for example, the other day, I did 1, must be, I don't know, 300 people or so. I can kinda see who's in the audience and I can get an idea of their understanding.
JAKE MOORE:And so I know what level to pitch at because I can actually see them. Yeah. When I can't see them, I do think how in-depth do I go into this? I don't wanna be that person that's talking jargon, but I don't wanna be that person that's teaching them something that they've known for years. So it's a real difficult line.
JAKE MOORE:I think I'm getting it, but that comes with practice, and there's always something to learn however far you go.
TREVOR YOUNG:Of course. And is that I guess it's a willingness to understand the audience, you know, who we're pitching at or that sort of stuff because you're doing it for the audience because that's you know, the journalist has an audience. They know their audience better than most, and, you know, if you're on aligned with them, then that's gonna be a win win, and that's you're clearly doing it because that's why you keep getting called back.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. And that's that's the thing. I've I've asked journalists before when they've say cut down what I've said, and I've gone back to them and and said, would you have liked something more or less of whatever I've said that that worry that kind of panic of oh gosh did I say the wrong thing? And they've always come back and said, no, carry on with what you're doing. That might have been the editor or that might have been the fact that I didn't have enough space in the article.
JAKE MOORE:These are the things that I'd not really thought about before. And they said, no, carry on doing exactly what you're doing. And I think that's amazing advice. Just be natural because you can't fake it. I don't wanna be someone who's who's saying the wrong thing that might work for one article, but it won't last because I run out of energy for it.
JAKE MOORE:So I think I'm just gonna continue doing what I love, hopefully with a smile on my face, and then, see where it goes.
TREVOR YOUNG:So let's so we've looked at the media relations side of things, given people a heads up on sorta how that's come up about. And it's, you know, slowly, slowly, slowly, although last year, it really kicked off. But, of course, you know, you go back a couple of years and you're only starting to get a little bit and then started local and, of course, when you start getting pitched more broadly. And now, I mean, it's international, but it's very much national
JAKE MOORE:Yeah.
TREVOR YOUNG:For you now, and occasionally it goes international doing it in a global world after all. How important is Twitter then for you? You've mentioned it a few times. I call Twitter the influence channel. If you want to be talking to the media and bloggers and podcasters and all of that, then you kind of need to be on Twitter because that's where they are.
TREVOR YOUNG:Yeah. Are we gonna agree on that?
JAKE MOORE:So I I love Twitter. It's a difficult one to gain a huge following in my personal opinion, but it's a great platform to connect with the right people. So for me it's those journalists and also connect with the people that are maybe breaking stories who aren't journalists. So those ones that maybe find an exploit in a company and say, hey, everyone, I've just found an exploit in WhatsApp. Here's my blog.
JAKE MOORE:I'll read it. And maybe a day later I'm reading on BBC going, I read that yesterday on on Twitter. Oh, yeah, of course. Because that's where news is breaking. It's micro news.
JAKE MOORE:It's tailored to to me. I follow the people that I want to follow. Now people who follow me tend to be people in cyber security. So I can't go and really give them education like, hey guys, don't forget to use 2 factor authentication because they're all gonna come back and go, yeah, we know. Whereas I might have to say that nearly every time if I'm speaking to ITV News, for example.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. Because those people might not be so aware of that advice. So yeah, I love Twitter. It's a great platform. Will I ever be a genuine influencer on the channel?
JAKE MOORE:I don't think so.
TREVOR YOUNG:But it's an influence channel in terms of who you talk to, who talks to you, that side of things. And I'm glad you you raised this because I've I've I I wrote an article years ago saying, if you're on Twitter and you're following the right people in your industry and even beyond your industry, you're gonna be a hell of a lot smarter at the end of the year than you are at the start of the year because those people are out foraging, and they're going to conferences when they were going to conferences, hopefully going back to conferences. They're tweeting from conferences. They're subscribing to newsletters. They're almost your editors of information, which you're doing as well.
TREVOR YOUNG:And and it's that sort of ecosystem around topics and issues that you're just gonna get smarter, and you're gonna see new get get opinions too from people who have got different opinions on things.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. I like that. You're absolutely right. I definitely learn every day. It's probably the first app I open every morning when I say I go and look at the news.
JAKE MOORE:It'll be Twitter before the news sites because that's, of course, where stuff is breaking so much. I love it. It can sometimes be one of those areas that you just get far too into the comments. And before you know it, you've wasted an hour and think, oh, no. I actually have gotta do my job.
JAKE MOORE:What have I just done wasting all that time? But keeping it on top level stuff, yeah, absolutely brilliant. And the amount of things that I've read and gone, I've gotta make a note of that. And I I have thousands, endless notes in my phone of little bits of just phrases, words, whatever, just to remind me later, something I'll never look at again. But it's a great way just to jot down things that are happening.
TREVOR YOUNG:And what app do you use for that? Do you use Evernote or something like that?
JAKE MOORE:I used to use Evernote actually, so I could do it cross device, but now I've just I've just used my notes on my iPhone because I end up, if it's a lot that I've written, I'll just forward it to my my laptop and then carry on writing up in a blog for example. But yeah, that seems to work the best for me and that's where I write a lot of my comments. So if a journalist DMs me on Twitter and says, Jake, what do you think of this story, for example, that's just broken? I don't write it in the thread that I'm chatting to them in. I'll go to my notes and write it in there and then I can spend some time actually looking over it, making sure it makes sense, making those paragraphs spaced out because it's so annoying.
JAKE MOORE:You can't put spaces in Twitter messages. I hate that. So I like to break it up so it's got those maybe 2 or 3 paragraphs for them to then go and choose. So that that's really what I would do as soon as they Twitter DMs. Yep.
JAKE MOORE:Absolutely. Yeah.
TREVOR YOUNG:A great way to communicate with people and and and and also to to get to journalists to pitch them an idea. And you said before, they might have 10,000 unread emails, but they they actually you'd be surprised that they do check Twitter. And if you're a name that they know anyway, that you've built that trust over time, which you you clearly have, then then they, you know, they'll answer you. The other thing is LinkedIn. How important is LinkedIn do you think today?
TREVOR YOUNG:I I see you're pretty active on it.
JAKE MOORE:Yeah. I love LinkedIn. I feel LinkedIn's more more personal. And I'm not going down the route of personal like it's becoming like Facebook. I just feel like I I know more of those people on LinkedIn and it means more.
JAKE MOORE:So I tend to put my my latest accolades on LinkedIn to say, oh my god. I can't believe it. I've just done this or whatever. For example, I went on ITV news for the first time the other day and I was really proud of that. So I put it on LinkedIn and my friends were liking and congratulating me and it felt really good because I know those people.
JAKE MOORE:Whereas on Twitter, I haven't really met probably more than 5% of the people that I follow or follow me. Whereas LinkedIn, it's well, actually, it's it's increasing now. That percentage is dropping all the time. But I feel like I know those people, particularly the ones that do comment on there. I've met in real life, and I know and I I love them, and that's like my local community even though, of course, LinkedIn's far bigger than local community.
JAKE MOORE:And that's what I really appreciate with LinkedIn. I'm not trying to be an influencer. I'm not trying to be someone going viral, but it helps with the more followers you do get naturally, the more I see it. But I very much enjoy the fact that still got that local feel about it. And there are lots of local people that I follow equally doing well and keeping those communities close.
TREVOR YOUNG:That's right. And it's also it's it's that, you know, business ecosystem around you that, you know, everyone supports each other, which I think is very important. I'd I'd do you do you proactively connect with journalists on LinkedIn? And is that something that they you find that they use or not?
JAKE MOORE:No. I find journalists aren't too keen on LinkedIn as such. I did at the start, but it it didn't work for me. And so I'll look them up. Sometimes I'll get a a request from a journalist I've not heard before.
JAKE MOORE:So in my due diligence, I wanna know who they are. I wanna make sure I'm not being scammed. Of course, that would be embarrassing. So I I go and check them out, see if they exist on LinkedIn. Have they got connections with my connections?
JAKE MOORE:But I might not necessarily add them because it doesn't really add value to what's going on. Whereas Twitter, finding them on there, that tends to be a far quicker turnaround in in adding each other as connections and as followers and then using that channel from there. I'll always say, look, you can always contact me through Twitter. Although it's the same speed as writing an email, it's suggesting to them that I'll be more responsive to that initial direct message to me. So And it's really technology.
JAKE MOORE:You know?
TREVOR YOUNG:If you're not on Twitter, they'll probably say, why aren't you on Twitter? What's going on? Yeah. And I've I've heard that that similar sorts of things from other people who are very active with the media, but LinkedIn is, at this point, is still not not a massive thing, but Twitter Right. It definitely is.
TREVOR YOUNG:Alright. Well, let's in in in our mutual friend, Mark Masters, he would say, let's round up. Yeah. Thank you very much for your time. This covering a lot of things, but I wanna join these dots just before you go.
TREVOR YOUNG:So this this episode is really about, you know, someone, yourself, who, you know, you didn't have a profile, and now you've got a national profile and and a go to informational resource on all things cybersecurity, which is your your area, and and how it started with content and you put yourself out there and you hated doing your videos at the start, and now you're very, very good at it. You've been on Twitter. You're active on LinkedIn. Yeah. But, really, it's you've taken the media relations thing seriously.
TREVOR YOUNG:And, sure, you've had a PR firm pitching you and helping you, but you've had to do the homework. You're staying up to date with stuff. You've learned the different types of interview techniques. And if you're going to take it seriously, then that's what it takes, and, clearly, that's worked in your favor. So thank you very much for sharing all that, Jake, because it really just goes to show that, you know, if you put the work in and you, you know, you get bigger and bigger and you get you need help to do it, but even if you took it as a small microcosm and still did the same things you do, that's when you increase your chances of getting media coverage, because let's face it, mate, you're up against a lot.
TREVOR YOUNG:There's a lot of competition out there and but once you're on people's radar, journalists' radar, producers, researchers on their radar, They just wanna trust the source that they're going to. And if you can give them a good quote, be on time, be friendly, and give them up to date information, they're gonna come back to you again and again and again. And then, of course, the more coverage you've got, and I will say you've got your own website, which I think is fantastic. I I I always suggest people even if they, you know, if they're building a profile and they're working for someone, you can still have your own website because that's you know, you need to be found. I was going to I will say your website's jake moore, m, double o, r e dot u k.
TREVOR YOUNG:And I'm sitting here trying to go.co.uk, and I'm thinking, where the hell is it that was here the other day? You go on straight to u dotuk, so that's clearly you're in the know there to get to get the, the the new domain names. But all of those things, it's not one thing or the other, but it's all the effort that goes into building a, you know, quite a significant now profile and reputation using media and content and social. There's a lot. That's it.
TREVOR YOUNG:Thank you very much for sharing all of that stuff with us today.
JAKE MOORE:Thank you. It's been great chatting with you.